Difference between revisions of "Paladin"

From DDwiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Line 8: Line 8:
;{{a|HOLY SHIELD}}: Starts with 25% {{t|Physical resist}}ance
|SuggestedRaces={{HuPa}}, {{ElPa}}, {{OrPa}}
{{CC|Paladin|Bronze|Path of Light}}
{{CC|Paladin|Silver|Honour and Glory}}
{{CC|Paladin|Gold|Holy Ground}}
|Unlock={{b|Church|Level 3|The Ministry}}
|Group=Tier 3
|Group=Tier 3

Revision as of 10:49, 25 July 2016

Tier 3 Class
Human Paladin Large.png
Class traits
Cannot switch religions. God boons are 20% cheaper. Gods do not punish.
Starts with the Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH glyph, regains +1 HP/level with it.
Starts with 25% Trait: Physical resist Physical resistance
Suggested Races
Class: Paladin Human Paladin, Class: Paladin Elf Paladin, Class: Paladin Orc Paladin
Class Challenges
Paladin Bronze ChallengePaladin Bronze Challenge Path of Light

Paladin Silver ChallengePaladin Silver Challenge Honour and Glory

Paladin Gold ChallengePaladin Gold Challenge Holy Ground

Building: Church Level 3 The Ministry

Paladins are state-sanctioned spiritual warriors who can smack foes across the head with either sword or scripture depending on what the situation demands. They tend to be unbearably smug about it.


Class trait: HOLY WORK HOLY WORK is the Paladin's defining double-edged class feature, which balances the inability to convert against lower piety costs and an immunity to punishment. Being unable to convert forces the Paladin to use deities monotheistically, which means that deities which normally rely on conversion need to be used differently. However, the Paladin's immunity to punishment compensates for this in two ways, firstly, you don't get punished for angering gods at 0 Piety, which means that a Paladin does not need to worry about getting locked out of piety gain (especially relevant with God: Binlor Ironshield Binlor Ironshield and God: The Earthmother The Earthmother) and can take actions most classes would need indulgences for. Secondly, any piety lost when a Paladin is at 0 Piety effectively isn't lost, which can radically increase your overall piety gain with some gods. Lastly, the lower piety cost of boons allows you to get more stat-boosting boons or to get major boons faster, as well as to store up more one-off boons for use against bosses. While the Paladin's other traits primarily encourage his use as a melee fighter, Class trait: HOLY WORK HOLY WORK makes him more or less as versatile as your proficiency with the gods and understanding of piety gain and loss will allow.

Class trait: HOLY HANDS HOLY HANDS both starts the Paladin with Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH and lets him restore 1 extra HP/level with it. This complements his physical resistance and encourages regen-fighting, as he gets more usefulness (against non-magical monsters) from each HP restored by it than a character without resistances would. It also lets the Paladin effectively regen-fight against Trait: Poisonous Poisonous monsters such as the Monster: Serpent Serpent without needing to level up to clear poison afterwards, as well as letting him return to full health without using as much black space as most classes would. Class trait: HOLY SHIELD HOLY SHIELD gives the Paladin 25% physical resistance, which makes the Paladin generally favour physical attackers (for instance, Monster: Gorgon Gorgon or Monster: Serpent Serpent) over magical ones (such as Monster: Warlock Warlock or Monster: Wraith Wraith), and also encourages the Paladin to be careful about racking up an unclearable number of layers of Curse.

While the most obvious locker item for a Paladin is the Item: Dragon Shield Dragon Shield, since it boosts his resistances substantially and complements the resistance building several deities offer him, specific god strategies reward a variety of preps. God: Binlor Ironshield Binlor Ironshield Paladins can get a lot of use out of the Item: Rock Heart Rock Heart (to effectively convert piety to health and mana), God: Dracul Dracul Paladins out of the Item: Vampiric Blade Vampiric Blade and God: Glowing Guardian Glowing Guardian Paladins out of the Item: Fire Heart Fire Heart. God: The Earthmother The Earthmother Paladins can get some mileage out of the Item: Platemail Platemail combined with God boon: Vine Form Vine Form. If focussing on Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH, the paladin benefits enormously from the Item: Soul Orb Soul Orb to grant immunity to Trait: Mana Burn Mana Burn. Non-human paladins will generally prefer the attack booster preparation to increase their attack damage. Paladins tend to favour more balanced builds than other melee characters, juggling resistances, mana, health and damage bonuses as well as piety gain and boon use.


Due to his inability to convert and other religion-focused class features, the Paladin plays very differently based on which deity he chooses to worship.

God: Glowing Guardian Glowing Guardian

The Glowing Guardian is one of the strongest deity choices for a Paladin for a plethora of reasons. Item conversion can fuel early-game absolutions, which benefit enormously from the favorable rounding of the reduced piety cost. A GG Paladin does not need to worry about his crippling punishment and can use health and mana potions after consuming all his piety, Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH allows you to deliberately poison yourself for extra piety gain and an early God boon: Enlightenment Enlightenment can really add to the Paladin's strength. He also avoids the usual problem worshipers of the Glowing Guardian face, overshooting the 100 Piety for God boon: Enlightenment Enlightenment and wasting much of their piety gain. With a cost of 80 Piety, this is unlikely to happen to the Paladin. God boon: Cleansing Cleansing is superb for physically-driven Paladins, allowing him to break through enemies with physical resistance or clear unwanted debuffs after fighting Trait: Corrosive Corrosive or Trait: Weakening Weakening foes. The use of poison effects, Trait: Life steal Life steal, or Glyph: BLUDTUPOWA BLUDTUPOWA hit your piety reserves much too hard, and you should avoid using them even with your protection from punishment.

God: Dracul Dracul

The Dracul Paladin has similar advantages to God: Glowing Guardian Glowing Guardian, in that he can combine God boon: Blood Swell Blood Swell, Bloodpools and even Trait: Life steal Life steal with healing potions and Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH that are normally despised by this deity. The Dracul Paladin has a harder early game, since his piety gain is scarcer and Trait: Sanguine Sanguine in particular can really hurt your max HP. His late game is comparably strong, with his +15/15 resistances complimenting the Paladin's natural physical resistance, over-heal to circumvent lower max health and the ton of extra health offered by Trait: Sanguine Sanguine and repeated use of God boon: Blood Swell Blood Swell. Taking out Trait: Undead Undead monsters (especially in the late game) in rounds after using up your piety is very helpful for avoiding piety loss. Bringing in a Item: Vampiric Blade Vampiric Blade can help with Dracul's low early piety gain.

God: Tikki Tooki Tikki Tooki

Tikki Tooki also offers very useful boons throughout the game and the Paladin benefits substantially from not having to risk his often unmanageable punishments through carelessness. The main issue with TT and particularly a prepped TT is that an incautious Paladin can hemorrhage piety in the mid-game, which will hurt their net piety gain, especially if the Paladin wants to leverage their physical resistances or save up for fairly high-cost second ranks of boons.

God: Taurog Taurog

Paladins of Taurog are unable to convert out, which makes Taurog's function as a piety farm irrelevant if not paired with God: the Pactmaker the Pactmaker, but compensate for this with a very strong early game on account of how quickly the -20% piety cost lets them rack up Taurog's gear, and the fact that with good timing they can combine spellcasting with high-damage attacks in the early game. The +15/15% resistances from Taurog complement the Paladin's own, and that of any gear he may find or prep, and the +20% damage bonus from Taurog's boons is very useful for a melee class without any built-in damage bonus. Taurog Paladins are not punished for converting Taurog's gear. While this should be avoided until you've definitely used every death protection you can, in an absolutely desperate case it can push you over a conversion threshold, which might clinch a very close game. The Paladin can get more death protections than any other Taurog user for a massive end game spike.

God: Mystera Annur Mystera Annur

Mystera Annur is one of the most disappointing choices for a Paladin, since she offers no obvious synergy with his class features, and her piety gain is generous enough that he'll rarely get to or need to leverage Class trait: HOLY WORK HOLY WORK. Getting God boon: Refreshment Refreshment early is nice, but since Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH already costs 5 mana he gets no particular value out of God boon: Mystic Balance Mystic Balance and God boon: Flames Flames works completely counter to his usual approach.

God: The Earthmother The Earthmother

God: The Earthmother The Earthmother is a tricky but rewarding deity for a Paladin to use, since his reduced piety cost interacts well with God boon: Vine Form Vine Form and God boon: Clearance Clearance, and she offers a lot of extra XP over the game. However, plant generation can create serious mobility problems, especially when Earthmother is prepped. Using the Paladin's immunity to punishment to completely clear out plants when your piety runs low is an excellent approach. As with Binlor and Taurog, other classes tend to favour using EM as part of a conversion strategy, but unlike Binlor and Taurog her synergies with the paladin are not so immediately obvious. Three things to note are that a prepped Item: Soul Orb Soul Orb allows a paladin to clear out almost all plants effortlessly, using early God boon: Vine Form Vine Form and God boon: Greenblood Greenblood will give you a major leg up and that an Earthmother Paladin can liberally use Glyph: IMAWAL IMAWAL followed by God boon: Entanglement Entanglement midfight as a reliable slow for the cost of 5 Piety and an extra wall in the dungeon when other classes would be more worried about blocking themselves in. The key to effective Earthmother Paladin use is well-timed gardening and generating piety a little at a time to fuel your boons.

God: Binlor Ironshield Binlor Ironshield

Paladins of Binlor Ironshield tend to work in more or less the opposite manner to most Binlor devotees, focusing on clearing out their piety reserves before a level-up to avoid the -10 Piety hit. A well-managed Binlor Paladin will thus have 80-90 more piety to spare over a game than other Binlor users. The Binlor Paladin can compliment their physical resists with magic resists, as well as getting good functionality out of the very powerful God boon: Stone Form Stone Form and God boon: Stone Fist Stone Fist boons. The God boon: Stone Skin Stone Skin boon, with its reduced cost, is particularly useful. Once he has knockback, a Paladin can regain piety almost as quickly as he spends it, letting him perpetually keep his physical resists maxed out while building up more magic resistance. While Binlor Paladins don't really want to be locked out of boons by using up all of a level's walls, they aren't in any danger of punishment if they do. Additionally, while most Binlor devotees tend to convert out to more attractive late-game deities before their piety gain is superseded by wall loss, Binlor's Paladins instead rely on the very useful late-game God boon: Stone Skin Stone Skin (65% phys res. and Trait: Might Might for 12 Piety) and rocketing Trait: Magic resist Magic resist. Binlor paladins can use Glyph: IMAWAL IMAWAL to build a wall without punishment, thus using spare piety at level end to provide extra walls for knockback, piety generation or boon fuel.

God: Jehora Jeheyu Jehora Jeheyu

Jehora Jeheyu is a strong monotheistic deity, but JJ Paladins lose all benefit from Class trait: HOLY WORK HOLY WORK. Jehora never actually deducts piety, and Class trait: HOLY WORK HOLY WORK does not protect you from his random fits of "boredom", so all you receive is the boon cost discount. This still isn't a bad deal, and getting God boon: Petition Petition earlier in particular is quite useful. Paladins of Jehora Jeheyu can more easily obtain multiple uses of his boosts and can have massive health and mana values.

God: The Pactmaker The Pactmaker

The Pactmaker still functions for the Paladin, and this is the only case where the Paladin can benefit from multiple deities in the same dungeon run, but he receives no discount on the cost of Pacts. Paladins can often push pact use a little more confidently than other classes, since they're unconcerned about punishment. The God boon: Body Pact Body Pact in particular is a powerful choice, building on the Paladin's natural resistances, and works particularly well with God: Taurog Taurog, who offers too much piety for the Paladin to actually use and other sources of resistances to stack with this Pact.