Paladin build questions

[LordMay]

Paladin build questions

I've never really liked pallys but I did want to try the undead hunter build and possibly one involving holy fire. Unfortunaly I dont know much about paladins so I have a few questions.

1. Which combat skills work/dont work with bows.
2. Does fanatacism work with bows?
3. Is one point into vengance and conviction enough to deal with physical immunes?
4. What is a good holy fire back up skill/aura?
5. Could an untwinked holy fire pally make guardian?
6. How big is 16 yards in d2?


I'll post my skill point placement ideas after I know what works and what doesn't regarding bows.

 

[Thirty-Thirty]

Minor point: you should find Holy Shock works well with a bow. In that case, you could use Holy Freeze as the backup skill, and not worry about Conviction or Vengeance. Not far from your original intent.

 

[LordMay]

Here is how I'm planning the builds.

Undead hunter(unwinked hc)
20 sanctuary
10 zeal
10 fanatacism
5 holy shield
1 conviction
1 vengance
1 salvation
11 pre-reqs

stats
str:100-120
dex: enough for 50-60% block
vit:everything else

mercenary
holy freeze

This gives me a bunch of extra skill points to work with. I was thinking boosting conviction and vengance to level 5 to help with PIs. My AR never keeps up with the monsters so fana could help a lot. Especially against non-undead boss packs. I don't want to commit a lot of points into holy shield. I've always found getting to max block untwinked absurd. I'm completely happy with 50%. I'm hoping that with holy freeze plus santuary I'll have enough crowd control to, if needed, switch to a more damaging two handed weapon if a really tough monser comes along.

Holy fire(sc, possibly untwinked)
20 holy fire
20 resist fire
20 zeal
10 sacrifice
1 salvation
1 pre-eqs

stats
str: 160+
dex: 80
vit: 160

Mercenary
might

I'm only putting 1 point into salvation because it only increases my damage by about 100. That doesn't seem enough for 20 points. I can insted use the points to max zeal and boost sacrifice. Since I'm sc I'm gonna go 2h to try and offset the low fire damage. Hopefully with my stat placement I'll have enough str to use some of the bigger weapons. I have no clue what my ar is gonna be so I feel I'll need the dex. After looking at skill calculaters HF gets some good damage around level 24+ with a level 20 RF synergy. At level 28 I can reach 1k damage. My crowd control is non existent and since I'm going 2h I'll probably get swarmed alot. I dont see a way to avoid this.

 

[essojay]

If you want to pwn undead (but only undead) you could try the cleric.

20 Holy Bolt
20 Fist of Heavens
20 Prayer
20 Blessed Hammer

You'll have to depend on your merc (or maybe your converted monsters, but don't count on them too much) to kill animals and demons.

 

[Gohanman]

Holy Fire damage is carried by the splash damage on exploding arrows, which is why it can be a good choice for a bow-sporting paladin.