D2R 2.5 Best Holy Fire Paladin Build - Diablo 2 Resurrected Season 2 Dragondin Build Guide

D2R 2.5 Best Holy Fire Paladin Build - Diablo 2 Resurrected Season 2 Dragondin Build Guide

12/26/2022 11:59:20 AM

The Dragondin or basically the high-end variant of the Holy Fire Paladin is one of the builds that got a significant boost in Diablo 2 Resurrected 2.4. With the release of 2.5, it has become even stronger thanks to the introduction of Sunder Charms. Generally bringing it above even the more popular Tesladin thanks to immunity piercing combined with resist penetration. We get to talk about Holy Fire a bit more in-depth and how builds didn't use equipment stacking and some of the common rumors and Oddities surrounding the various skills like it. Stay tuned for our D2R Ladder season 2 Holy Fire Paladin or Dragondin build guide.

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D2R Ladder 2 Dragondin Build Guide - Skills, Gear, Mercenary & Tips Of Diablo 2 Resurrected Holy Fire Paladin

Now the main thing holding back the end-game version of this D2R Holy Fire Paladin build in all the versions of the game, especially offline is the Rune cost for all of the gear due to costing multiple high runes for all four sockable parts of equipment. While there are budget alternatives, they tend to pale in comparison due to the differences in how self-cast damage auras function especially as you reach Hell difficulty. That said the Holy Fire setup even with budget gear can get you through Nightmare with the buffs the skill received. With only Act 4 and Nightmare really giving you any amount of real struggle compared to a standard melee Paladin. Though when you get to Hell you will end up just being a slightly less effective Zealot, unfortunately, especially without endgame gear here and usually having all the self-cast Holy Fire whenever you finally get the gear together is useless.

D2R 2.5 Holy Fire Paladin Build Skills

Defensive Auras: 25 Resist Fire, 25 Salvation

Offensive Auras: 6 Might, 9 Holy Fire, 6 Holy Freeze, 6 Thorns, 6 Sanctuary, 25 Conviction

Combat Skills: 18 Sacrifice, 25 Zeal, 6 Holy Bolt, 6 Blessed Hammer, 6 Smite, 6 Charge, 6 Holy Shield

Starting out with a basic rundown of Holy Fire itself. It has two components a plus fire damage to weapon function and tick-based radial damage that affects the standard behavior since Lord Of Destruction is that the plus damage effect is exclusive. So you can only gain benefits from it once and the radial damage is possible to apply once per source. With a distinct oddity that it would apply to each piece of Diablo 2 class specific item as if it was a different source. So simply put, you get the highest level of Holy Fire added to your weapon damage. But for each piece of equipment, you deal separate radial damage. Every piece of equipment will be cast at the combined level of all equipment which in the case of today's build is level 44 on three pieces of equipment. So you get a level 44 boost of damage to your weapon and three level 44 tick auras.

D2R 2.5 Holy Fire Paladin Build Running Tips

Holy Fire Paladin is Actually an amazing starter charActer because it stacks free damage very very quickly and normally and can still keep up thanks to the 2.4 buffs and Nightmare only starting to really struggle in Hell as we mentioned earlier. But if you can get Sunder Charm and some minus percent fire resist, it can push its way into Hell a bit just not as much as a full-blown dragon.

Normal Difficulty

In normal, it's enough Zeal to get a few attacks and then focus hardcore on Holy Fire and resist fire to keep that damage scaling as quickly as possible while using a fast weapon like a malice flail or a steel Scimitar. Speed is King here though so if you can get faster, it's better. Since your Actual weapon damage in normal will be inconsequential. It's all about ramping up that fire fast and using any kind of support abilities on your weapon.

Nightmare Difficulty

As you get into Nightmare, your Actual damage is going to start being important. But you will want to start hunting down a good exceptional unique or rare or even making one of the good mid-budget swords like Crescent Moon lobbying or Urban King's Grace and a pinch.

Hell Difficulty

Finally in Hell difficulty, you'll hit a wall while fire is resisted about as much as cold and lightning in terms of frequency. More enemies have an above zero base fire resistance and this leads to more fire immune uniques if they're fire enchanted or magic resistant or both. So getting a better Rune word or unique for zeal effects will be super important here. Oath is a really good choice in ethereal scourge if you can find it and it's generally the crowd favorite. Since it's relatively easy to get at Shael, Polearm, Mal, and Lum though being a martial class going into Hell expect to struggle until you get that equipment farmed up unless you're an experienced player.

D2R 2.5 Holy Fire Paladin Build Equipment

Blade: Hand of Justice

Hand of Justice*

100% Chance To Cast Level 36 Blaze When You Level-Up
100% Chance To Cast Level 48 Meteor When You Die
Level 16 Holy Fire Aura When Equipped
+33% Increased Attack Speed
+280-330% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Ignore Target's Defense
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
-20% To Enemy Fire Resistance
20% Deadly Strike
Hit Blinds Target
Freezes Target +3

Helm: Flickering Flame

Flickering Flame

Level 4-8 Resist Fire Aura When Equipped (varies)
+3 To Fire Skills
-10-15% to Enemy Fire Resistance (varies)
+30% Enhanced Defense
+30 Defense Vs. Missile
+50-75 To Mana (varies)
Half Freeze Duration
+5% To Maximum Fire Resist
Poison Length Reduced by 50%

Armor: Dragon

Dragon

20% Chance to Cast Level 18 Venom When Struck
12% Chance To Cast Level 15 Hydra On Striking
Level 14 Holy Fire Aura When Equipped
+360 Defense
+230 Defense Vs. Missile
+3-5 To All Attributes (varies)
+0.375-37.125 To Strength (Based on Character Level)
Increase Maximum Mana 5% (Armor Only)
+50 To Mana (Shields Only)
+5% To Maximum Lightning Resist
Damage Reduced by 7

Shield: Dragon

Dragon

Gloves: Laying of Hands

Laying of Hands

Defense: 79-87 (varies)(Base Defense: 54-62)
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 50
Durability: 12
+25 Defense
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+350% Damage To Demons
Fire Resist +50%
10% Chance To Cast Level 3 Holy Bolt On Striking

Amulet: Highlord’s Wrath

Boots - Gore Rider

Gore Rider

Defense: 140-162 (varies)(Base Defense: 43-53)
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 94
Durability: 34
Assassin Kick Damage: 39-80
+160-200% Enhanced Defense (varies)
30% Faster Run/Walk
10% Chance Of Open Wounds
15% Chance Of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike
Requirements -25%
+20 Maximum Stamina
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.09 or later)

Belt: String of Ears

String of Ears

Defense: 102-113 (varies)(Base Defense: 29-34)
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 20
Durability: 22
16 Boxes
+150-180% Enhanced Defense (varies)
+15 Defense
6-8% Life Stolen Per Hit (varies)
Damage Reduced By 10-15% (varies)
Magic Damage Reduced 10-15 (varies)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.09 or later)

Rings: Raven Frost, Doom Loop

Raven Frost

Required Level: 45
+150-250 To Attack Rating (varies)
Adds 15-45 Cold Damage, 4 sec. Duration (Normal)
Cannot Be Frozen
+15-20 To Dexterity (varies)
+40 To Mana
Cold Absorb 20%
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.09 or later)

For Chase gear, there's a lot more flexibility than people think. But at the same time, it's not really in the slots people want since the Dragondin has pretty much 3 hard required pieces of gear for the end-game version that runs Holy Fire from gear rather than self. That is Dragon armor, Dragon shield, and Hand of Justice in the weapon. These are all super expensive and nearly impossible to find in a single-player unless you play for literally years. And online while Sur runes and even the Cham rune are relatively affordable usually the low runes are not, so it will be a pain to get in trades. In single player finding these is a royal Nightmare since Sur and Cham despite being cheap online are Actually really hard to find yourself.

Now, these all give you the Holy Fire Aura we use for our tricks and for making the D2R patch 2.5 Dragondin build lazy, go with Flickering Flame on the helmet, so another rare Rune in the form of Vex. But it does keep you alive much easier if you're using a fire Sunder thanks to it keeping a resist fire aura Active to counter the minus resistance penalty from it. So if you want to go for maximum damage some socketed helmet kind of thing, rainbow facets would help out a lot more since the plus percent damage on them happens after synergies are already applied. So they do Actually provide a relatively significant bump to damage that the other helmet choices just cannot match, not even Flickering Flame.

The rest of our D2R unidentified is a bit flexible, though we do need a bit of attack speed So usually like to get that from Laying of Hands since it's just a solid pick in general with increased attack speed, fire-resist damage to demons, and holy bolt. Though you could also do some blood crafting here instead to get crushing blow as an alternative and possibly other mods, they both work fine this is just way easier to find. We also get a bit of attack speed from Highlord's Wrath for that plus skill which we Actually do use to hit the 150 limit on conviction. We also get deadly strikes and the 20% increase in attack speed we just need for this.

The rest of our gear is standard melee setups, Raven Frost cannot be frozen attack rating and just good mods in general and it works well with the freeze effect on our sword and we have our usual dual leech ring. For the boots, we have the trusty Gore Riders for crushing blows, deadly strikes, and bleed. They're just tried and true and useful. If you want more life there are options for that as well but, this D2R ladder season 2 Paladin build is plenty tanky enough even on Players 8. Especially if you use something like String of Ears for the belt.

If you're looking to squeeze magic find into this build, go for the boots and leech ring slot first as well as charms to get you a decent baseline of magic find. Since while every additional bit of magic find does help, the diminishing returns really do start to be felt even at 250% which is easy to reach even in just those slots and maybe the belt or glove swap.

D2R 2.5 Holy Fire Paladin Build Mercenary

As far as the mercenary, it is important to remember you are self-casting conviction. So you have pretty much two choices, if you want to free up your gloves and amulet, you go on Act 1 mercenary with faith to get basically a free attack speed boost from fanaticism. If you want to be killing faster, go with Act 5 dual plague mercenaries for lower resist procs. Especially for enemies that may be in a different pack than what is in range of conviction. The third place would generally be an Act 2 mercenary with Reaper's Toll and either Might or Holy Freeze depending on your preferences and weapon choices. Overall, this Diablo 2 Resurrected 2.5 Holy Fire Paladin build has honestly surpassed the Tesladin in terms of how smooth and fun it is to play, especially with Sunder Charms.

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