Build Guide - Paladin

Introduction

It’s that time of the year. A new water-themed map. The sun is high in the sky. And you are still stuck wearing a heavy and hot chainmail, but now you get a new cool title - we are now Paladins! Or Payladins for the spenders.

After reaching level 82, you will be able to unlock this new advancement after having a collective class level of 48, with at least 16 levels as a Knight. Let’s dive into the changes!

New important skills

Paladins get 4 Legendary skills, 4 Epic, and 3 Rare skills when classing up.

The identity of the class didn't really change: we are still here on a crusade to protect our party members from harm, except we now get to deal more damage and stay alive a bit longer. Compared to Knight, Paladin isn’t actually as in need of their Legendary skills as the lower tiers. They are useful, and you will probably find use for them, especially the first one in our ‘watchlist’ below.

• Star Shattering Slash is what happens when a Knight gets a ‘delete this’ button. Heavy Impact is great, we all loved Heavy Impact , and it’s 292% dmg at Mythic. Loved. Star Shattering Slash starts at 466%, and it just gets more powerful as you get dupes in it. You use it when pushing PVE. You use it in Dragon. You use it in PvP. No, you are not a Duelist, but you get something cool for once, young Paladin!

• Desperate Protection does exactly what the name suggests. It grants the ally with the lowest current HP a shield based on your defense for 3 turns, with a 2-turn CD. Great to keep your team alive, both in dungeons and in 4vs4 pvp.

• Block Mastery manages to take the cake for the rare skills, and for a good reason - we can finally improve the block efficiency, making our block matter even more when reducing the damage. 

• However, the other two rare skills are also incredible: Lunarwater Threads is a wide AoE water spell that can pull enemies closer to you, and Stone Skin will reduce the damage of each hit you receive for one round, stacking up to 9 times. This becomes super helpful when your main job is soaking damage in Dungeons or in team PVP, but becomes less important in regular PVE builds, as the competition for charm slots becomes more and more fierce.

Builds

Generic Dungen Grid

Some changes from our Knight build, we replace a more ‘selfish’ skill with extra party safety. If your survival is not an issue, replace Luminous Shield with Lunarwater Threads for extra damage and utility.

Overall, unless you are carrying a lower-level Dungeon, you are not gonna contribute as much to damage, so it’s fine to maximize your defense with charms: if your team dies, it’s your fault, and dead party members won’t contribute to damage!

Water Paladin

Compared to our Knight days, we now have a wide skill that also deals Water damage, so Ricocheting Shield can be dropped. However, it can be used in stages with single-target bosses.

Insightful Eye is great for adding some consistency to the damage we deal. If you die too much, consider running a reflect build or adding a more defensive option like Potential Rebirth.

Generic PVE Grid

Armopi can work better than Aegiswing here. Can and should replace Luminous Shield with Valor Surge to increase damage as soon as surviving becomes less of a concern.

In AoE-heavy stages, Star Shattering Slash can be replaced with another AoE. Forceful Charge helps push enemies away if you have to kite, Lunarwater Threads helps pull enemies if they tend to hit with ranged skills.

Stats

Secondary Main Stats

Below are the recommended secondary stats to look out for when gearing up. Having the right secondary stats is important for maximizing performance, but significant “Power/Gear score” upgrades or pieces with better additional stats can overwrite this priority.

This is especially important to reach 580k CP as soon as possible, since it will unlock hard mode in the first seasonal dungeon.

Sub Stats

All item slots will roll a number of additional stats on them, which are chosen randomly from a universal pool. Below is roughly the order of priority to look out for on your gear; however, just because an item has great additional stats doesn’t make it the best choice. Make sure to consider the item's overall power and whether it has the optimal secondary stats as well.

Compared to your Knight days, Elemental Mastery becomes more important, with every 40 points or so improving your Elemental damage by 1%. This becomes very appealing for Water builds. Light spells start making an appearance here, but we’ll revisit them as we get more support for this playstyle later.

Fantomon

Starting level 50, you will be able to summon pets - aka Fantomons to help you in battle. We won’t go in-depth covering pets since we have a dedicated guide here, so let’s just mention the good ones.

Fantomon Guide

There are virtually no changes to this section. Aegiswing becomes more common in this tier, but Armopi remains a solid alternative, especially for counter-based builds. The stacking def buff can even provide better results compared to a 50% HP recovery, especially when your stats are still a work in progress. Mix and match based on preference!

• Armopi - is your main choice for tanking if you don’t have access to the Mythic Pet Aegiswing, and it remains a great choice, especially if you can get dupes for him.

• Boaro - There’s nothing wrong with using this little fella if you are lacking Armopi . It’s just..he’s boaring.

• Kels (Honorable Mention) - Good supporting option for Paladins in Crucible, as you want to contribute as much damage as possible and can dispel buffs.

• Any other Legendary Pet. They are gonna be slot 2-4 for the stats, so slap here anything you have lots of resources for for free stats.

Relics

As a rule of thumb, most classes will focus on specific elements when planning their Relic investments. For the Paladin class, those are usually Water and Light. That doesn’t mean you should avoid all other elements, as they can have useful, unique stats that will help you in your journey. We will mostly prioritize unique stats that will complement your tanking stats or good offensive stats to start building towards the damage side of Tanks - it exists, and it can be quite impressive!

Mythic Relics are a bit of a different issue, since they cannot be obtained outside of gacha and/or selectors.

We’ll briefly mention the best pick for Paladins in case you are a high spender or happen to get a selector from events, but you are more than welcome to join our Discord community if you want more personalized advice. As the Paladin is going to be your main class in the Aqualis region, we’ll focus only on the relics you can obtain here. Did you get here after changing your class? No worries, just check our Knight guide for the previous tier!

Build Guide - Knight

Coming Soon!