Looking for feedback - Elemental Caster Paladin

With the upcoming patch, Celestial Presence will affect elemental resistances instead of just fire. This has inspired me to build a caster Paladin based around the Obliteration item skill.

The idea is that Obliteration is the main attack, with Horn of Gandarr sprinkled in for extra damage, debuffs, and healing. Do you think this would be viable (dungeon farming, SR 65, etc.)? I would appreciate any tips on how to make it better, other than drastic changes. I want to make a Paladin, not a Templar. Thanks!

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I propose the following changes:

More OA (significantly more), cast speed, percent damage and health, less phys resist.

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess my main concern with Spelldrinker is that you are neutering your only other attack skill (and the healing from it). Obliteration will certainly be stronger, but I worry it won’t be enough at end game.

*It should also be noted that some of the damage gains will be offset by losing 10% elemental RR

I assumed the following:

  1. RR from the scepter won’t be very effective for the beam-like skill. This is not a melee after all.
  2. Your main healing sources are dryad and chariot, that is why a bit less damage from HoG doesn’t noticeably influence on your survivability
  3. Spelldrinker better utilizes Attack Seru proc (by aether to elements conversion) and gives you cast speed, which you desperately need for obliteration. Given cast speed allows you to take Seal of Ancestry in amulet for more sustain.
  4. Your main problem is a lack of OA. Deadly aim won’t work without crit and you invested into it a lot. So, the change of boots and small cunning dump should fix this main issue. Seal of Ancestry replaces the defensive proc from the old boots, but you lose 5% cast speed from Seal of Annihilation and this is one more reason to change the scepter.

If you want more sustain, then you can change the belt to White Lotus with switching 1 or 2 of the hand augments to Ravager’s Eye (to compensate DA losses):

I don’t have a lot of experience with endgame, but is 3000 OA (before deadly aim) a low amount?

No, it is fine, but you have 3K with Ascension up. And its uptime in your build is around 10/17 - a bit less than 60%. Without the ascension you have around 2750 and it is relatively low. Not super low, but low, especially for build that relies on crits.

Fair enough. At the very least, I can go more offensive with the boots.

*I made a couple of smaller tweaks to bump up OA. I can also get 5% more casting speed if I’m willing to give up some cold damage.

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