Griswold Paladin Build Guide - D2R 2.6

Griswold Paladin Introduction

The Griswold Paladin uses the Paladin specific set “Griswold’s Legacy” as the base for the item build, however there are a number of ways you can play the character with different skill distributions making it very versatile.

Within this guide we show 3 different ways to play the Griswold Paladin, using Hammerdin, Fist of Heavens (FoH) and Zeal builds.  With a few small tweaks it is possible to kill Ubers with any of the builds, given the strength of the Paladin’s Smite skill.  The set itself doesn’t have a large amount of value as the items are rarely used on their own, however 3 out of 4 of the items are particularly rare and it would take a long time to find these on your own.  So, if you intend to play this build I would recommend trading for the items.

The set is also very strong for PvP if you enjoy this side of the game, using the FoH build and maximising lightning damage through socketing every item with Lightning Rainbow Facets.

The Set

The set is made up from 4 pieces, with the item specific bonuses shown next to them:

Helmet: Griswold’s Valor Corona (+2 Offensive Auras)

Weapon: Griswold’s Redemption Caduceus (+10-20 Damage, +10-20 Damage, +2 Combat Skills)

Armor: Griswold’s Heart Ornate Plate

Shield: Griswold’s Honor Vortex Shield

The full set bonus is:

• +3 to Paladin Skill Levels
• 30% Faster Hit Recovery
• +200 Attack Rating
• +20 Strength
• +30 Dexterity
• +150 Life
• +50 All Resistances

An additional benefit from the set is that the items come with lots of open sockets, 12 in total (2 Helmet, 4 Weapon, 3 Armor and 3 Shield).  What we put into the sockets depends on our build, but again this provides a great deal of versatility with the set.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Cheap items to trade.
• Lots of versatility, allowing multiple builds
• Fun PvP build
• Viable for Ubers

Cons:

• Items are rare, difficult to find on your own
• Low damage for player counts above 3
• Low mobility
• Slow farmer

Hammerdin

For the past 20 years the Hammerdin has been considered an S-Tier PvM build.  Using the Griswold set is not the most efficient way to play the build, however given the base strength of the Blessed Hammer skill it still works well and you’re able to farm every zone in Hell without any real problems.  For a Hammerdin build you would normally achieve 125 Faster Cast Rate for maximum efficiency, however this is not possible with the Griswold Set so we target the 75 breakpoint instead.

Remaining Items:

Amulet: +2 Paladin Skills / 15+ Faster Cast Rate / Life / Mana / Resistances

Weapon Swap: "Call to Arms” Runeword (Amn Ral Mal Ist Ohm) and “Spirit” Shield

Gloves: Trang-Oul’s Claws

Rings: 2x Rare Rings with Faster Cast Rate and Utility Stats

Belt: Arachnid’s Mesh

Boots: War Traveler’s Battle Boots

Inventory: 8x Grand Charms with +1 Combat Skills (Paladin) and + Life (as much as possible)

9x + Life / + Resistance Small Charms.

Paladin Hellfire Torch Large Charm.

Annihilus Small Charm.

Mercenary: Act 2 Desert Mercenary with “Might” Aura and “Doom” Runeword (Hel Ohm Um Lo Cham), ethereal “Fortitude” (El Sol Dol Lo) and Andariel’s Visage with an Increased Attack Speed and Fire Resistance Jewel.

I like to use the “Doom” Runeword on my Mercenary so that he has the Holy Freeze aura as well as Might to boost his own damage.  On a conventional Hammerdin you would normally use “Insight”, however as we are not teleporting we can manage our mana by simply using the Redemption Aura from our own skill tree.

We cannot boost Hammers damage from the available sockets in our gear, so I would recommend gaining Utility points (Life / Resistances / Damage Reduction) from these instead.

Skill Tree:

Defensive Auras:

• Prayer (1)
• Defiance (1)
• Cleansing (1)
• Vigor (20)
• Redemption (1)
• Salvation (1)

Offensive Auras:

• Might (1)
• Blessed Aim (20)
• Concentration (20)
• Fanaticism (1)

Combat Skills:

• Smite (1)
• Holy Bolt (1)
• Charge (1)
• Blessed Hammer (20)
• Holy Shield (1)

The above point allocation will take you to level 80 and reaches maximum Hammer damage, and also the points required to take down Ubers with Smite.  Where you go from here is your choice, I like to place a few points into Resist Fire, Resist Cold and Resist Lightning to gain the additional resistances from the passive.  Alternatively you could increase your Smiter damage by adding points to Fanaticism or boost your defence by allocating to Holy Shield.

Fist of Heavens

A recent patch change to the Fist of Heavens making the Holy Bolt damage apply to both Undead and Demons has made this build extremely viable and popular, particularly when using budget gear.  The remaining items are similar to the Hammerdin build as we still want to hit 75 Faster Cast Rate for casting individual Holy Bolts, even though FoH has a cooldown.

Remaining Items:

Amulet: +2 Paladin Skills / 15+ Faster Cast Rate / Life / Mana / Resistances

Weapon Swap: “Call to Arms” Runeword (Amn Ral Mal Ist Ohm) and “Spirit” Shield

Gloves: Trang-Oul’s Claws

Rings: 2x Rare Rings with Faster Cast Rate and Utility Stats

Belt: Arachnid’s Mesh

Boots: War Traveler’s Battle Boots

Inventory: 8x Grand Charms with +1 Combat Skills (Paladin) and + Life (as much as possible)

9x + Life / + Resistance Small Charms.

Paladin Hellfire Torch Large Charm.

Annihilus Small Charm.

Mercenary: Act 2 Desert Mercenary with “Might” Aura and “Doom” Runeword (Hel Ohm Um Lo Cham), ethereal “Fortitude” (El Sol Dol Lo) and Andariel’s Visage with an Increased Attack Speed and Fire Resistance Jewel.

The use of the sockets can either be with Utility jewels, or if you want to maximise your lightning damage from FoH (for example, in a PvP setup) I would recommend using Lightning Rainbow Facets in all of your slots.

Skill Tree:

Defensive Auras:

• Prayer (1)
• Defiance (1)
• Cleansing (1)
• Vigor (1)
• Redemption (1)
• Salvation (1)

Offensive Auras:

• Might (1)
• Holy Fire (1)
• Thorns (1)
• Blessed Aim (1)
• Concentration (1)
• Holy Freeze (1)
• Holy Shock (20)
• Sanctuary (1)
• Fanaticism (1)
• Conviction (20)

Combat Skills:

• Sacrifice (1)
• Smite (1)
• Holy Bolt (20)
• Zeal (1)
• Charge (1)
• Vengeance (1)
• Blessed Hammer (1)
• Conversion (1)
• Holy Shield (1)
• Fist of Heavens (20)

With a FoH build you only need to maximise the FoH skill and Holy Bolt to reach the full damage, from this point onwards it is about personal preference.  I have recommended to max out Conviction Aura and Holy Shock to increase your single target damage, however when farming an area like Chaos Sanctuary the majority of your damage will come from the Holy Bolts so this isn’t necessary.  As an alternative you could allocate points to Utility skills to increase your survivability, or similar to the Hammer build you can add more points to your Smiter skills to make Ubers easier.

Zeal

Zeal is a melee build that relies on pure damage to take down enemies, this isn’t a conventional build with the Griswold Set and isn’t as efficient as Hammerdin or FoH but is a fun alternative.  And with all the free sockets we get from the set, there is lots of opportunity to increase our survivability and damage.

Remaining Items:

Amulet: Highlord’s Wrath

Weapon Swap: “Call to Arms” Runeword (Amn Ral Mal Ist Ohm) and “Spirit” Shield

Gloves: Dracul’s Grasp

Rings: Ravenfrost and Rare Ring with Life Leach, Mana Leach and Utility stats.

Belt: String of Ears

Boots: Gore Riders

Inventory: 33x Small Charms with Max Damage / Attack Rating / Life

Paladin Hellfire Torch Large Charm.

Annihilus Small Charm.

Mercenary: Act 2 Desert Mercenary with “Might” Aura and ethereal Reaper’s Toll, ethereal “Fortitude” (El Sol Dol Lo) and Andariel’s Visage with an Increased Attack Speed and Fire Resistance Jewel.

With this build we want to use our sockets with a mixture of Enhanced Damage and Resistance Jewels.  With a high level Fanaticism we only need 40 Increased Attack Speed to reach the highest rate of attacks with Zeal, which is achieved through weapon itself already having 40% Increase Attack Speed.  This means all the Jewels we need are very cheap to obtain.

The use of Reaper’s Toll on the mercenary will mean he casts the Decrepify curse on our enemies which significantly increases physical damage taken and also removes the Physical Immunity in most cases.

Skill Tree:

Defensive Auras:

• Prayer (1)
• Defiance (1)
• Cleansing (1)
• Vigor (1)
• Redemption (1)
• Salvation (1)

Offensive Auras:

• Might (1)
• Blessed Aim (1)
• Concentration (1)
• Fanaticism (20)

Combat Skills:

• Sacrifice (20)
• Smite (1)
• Holy Bolt (1)
• Zeal (20)
• Charge (1)
• Blessed Hammer (1)
• Holy Shield (20)

The above build is completed at level 82, beyond this I would recommend using your skills points in Resist Fire, Resist Cold and Resist Lightning to benefit from the passive on these skills to increase your maximum resistances.

Ubers

The beauty of the Paladin class is that you can kill Ubers very easily with very cheap gear.  The Griswold Set isn’t the most efficient for farming Ubers, however it is possible with the recommendations below.

The gear required is the same as the Zeal build, however the full inventory of Max Damage / Attack Rating / Life small charms is not necessary, and it is cheaper and better to simply fill your inventory with Life / Resistance charms.

I would always recommend pre-buffing the Fade skill by temporarily using the “Treachery” Runeword (Shael Thul Lem) and allowing yourself to take damage until it gets cast onto yourself.  The Runeword is very cheap, and the additional Resistances and Damage Reduction you receive from the Fade skill is simply too good to turn down.  Do not use your Mercenary when doing Ubers.  The Mercenary in Uber Tristram causes more trouble than they’re worth as they run around drawing attention from the bosses and putting you in a bad position, make sure he / she is dead before entering the portal.

Once you get into Uber Tristram, make sure you cast Battle Command, Battle Orders and Holy Shield on yourself.  Isolate the bosses one by one so that you do not get surrounded by summons, I always run straight to the top of the map and around anti-clockwise until I get to the bottom then edge up slowly until Mephisto starts running towards me.  Mephisto deals a huge amount of elemental damage and has Conviction aura which significantly reduces your Armor and Resistances, it is very important to fight him on his own.  Have Fanatacism aura on and begin smiting Mephisto.  Life Tap should be cast quickly, but keep rejuvenation potions in your belt and use them until it is and you can sustain yourself.  If you find it is taking too long for Life Tap to cast, you can buy a wand with charges of Life Tap from vendors – I tend to use Drognan in Act 2 as you can reset his items very quickly by running out of town and back in.  If you are still struggling, try using the Resist Lightning or Salvation aura when killing Mephisto to boost your resistances.

Your only source of Crushing Blow on this build are your boots, so the bosses won’t die as fast as a normal smiter but they will die eventually and you can say you’ve killed them using the Griswold Set!

If you'd rather skip farming you can quickly buy D2R Items from our D2R Store.