FOH paly

anyone know which skill should i max? to make a pvp fist of the heaven paladin..

Skill Points

Combat Skills:
20 Blessed Hammer
20 Fist of Heavens

Offensive Auras
20 Concentration
20 Conviction
5~10 Holy Freeze

Defensive Auras
1 Vigor
1 Meditation

Why is this build effective?

The fun part about this build is that you can deal 3 types of damage, lightning, magical and physical damage. Elemental damage is the easiest to negate, then physical and finally magical damage. Magical damage is the hardest to negate because there aren’t many items that will give you tons of –magic damage and if one decides to negate magic damage one will lack physical or elemental resistance. Besides it’s pretty pointless stacking –magic damage because of the way PvP penalty is calculated (-dmg is calculated first).

How do I use these skills effectively?

Blessed Hammer is a very defensive skill. I don’t think anybody would disagree with that. You cannot target a player with blessed hammer, they must come to you to take damage. Does this sound like a stupid skill? Probably if you’re new to paladins but you’ll see its effectiveness later on.

Fist of heavens can be used both offensively and defensively. Usually it’s very annoying when your fist of heavens targets a minion when you’re dueling but since this build is specifically for pal vs. pal, you don’t have to worry about any auto targeting. Unless you accidentally come across some monsters (blood moor should be cleared before duel takes place) or your opponent has a mercenary, which is frowned upon by most or should I say all duelers.

Smite is an excellent melee skill that can be used for backup to surprise your enemy with a melee attack and do severe damage. You don’t have to worry about your attack rating or you opponent’s blocking, if they’re in your smiting range, they’re goners since smite is a guaranteed hit. It also has a knockback and stun feature which comes quite in handy sometimes.

Statistics

Strength - This can vary a lot but my paladin has a base strength of 51. You should try to keep it under 70.

Dexterity - Just enough to have max blocking, I apologize for not being detailed but many people use different equipment so it’s hard to tell. What you can do is every time your blocking drops to 74%, you can add a few points and it will go up to 75% again (this usually takes only 1 or 2 stat points).

Vitality - Everything left goes here. You will probably have more life than other builds since you don’t need much strength and dexterity to equip all your items. I have a little over 400 points in vitality right now, I should be able to reach 450 if I get to level 99 (which I'm planning to).

Energy - None. Base. Nada. I have 700+ mana with base energy so mana problems aren’t an issue. Especially with the 1 second cast delay on fist of heavens and meditation (300%+ mana regeneration).

Equipment

This is what I believe to be the best setup after trying lots of different combos.

Helm: Harlequin Crest. It has everything you need, +2 skills, +life, +mana, +stats, damage reduction.

Armor: Guardian Angel. +1 skills, 20% increased blocking, 30% faster block rate, 15% to maximum resist. A very good armor, it looks very cool on a Paladin too . The increased blocking mod allows you to invest more points in vitality.

Weapon: Wizardspike. A very cheap and neat weapon. No skill bonuses though, but it has a huge 50% faster cast rate mod, 75% all resistance, and a massive bonus to mana.

Belt: Thundergod’s Vigor. This allows you to reach 95% lightning resist if used with Guardian Angel. Also it has a very useful +20 absorb mod, not to mention, 20 to vitality and strength which is very impressive.

Shield: Herald of Zakarum, simply the best paladin shield in my opinion. +2 to all skills and another +2 to combat skills on top of that. 20 dual stats and a HUGE 50% all resist. The blocking is very nice as well. I stuck a perfect topaz in mine for extra 40% lightning resist.

Gloves: Dual stat, lightning resist, +life gloves / Magefist for those who aren’t using a wizardspike.

Amulets: Mara’s Amulet (+2 skills, prismatic +5 all stats) / Rare +2, fast cast, high lightning resist amulet / Highlord’s Wrath +1 skills, 35% lightning resist, 20% Increased Attack Speed (very decent for people smite fans) / Viper Torc (the west version, not the east version which is a duped MF amulet)

Boots: 30% faster run/walk, Dual Stat, lightning resist boots. Waterwalks are also decent.

Rings: Stone of Jordan or Bul katho’s Wedding Band (I like to wear one of each)

Charms: Combat Skill Charms with +life, faster hit recovery / 20 life small charms / run/walk charms with lightning resist

Why I chose this setup:

- You get HUGE resistance
- It is possible to reach 95% lightning resist even after conviction
- You can save a lot of stat points and invest more in vitality
- Your cast rate isn’t too bad
- Decent amount of +skills
- Requires very little dexterity to reach max blocking
- Although you lack damage reduction items, you’ll learn how to not get hit by any melee attacks when you’ve dueled enough melee Paladins
- Equipment isn’t too expensive, most people should be able to afford it

Faster Cast Table for Paladins:

Amount of Faster Cast / Frames per Second

0 / 15
9 / 14
18 / 13
30 / 12
48 / 11
75 / 10
125 / 9

Personally, I think you should aim for at least 11 fps casting rate since it’s not too slow but not hard at all to achieve at all.

Standard PvP Rules

These are some rules you might want to know before you duel other people if you are new to Paladin dueling or non-public game dueling. Rules can always change depending on who and when you play but these are the general rules most legit players play by these days.

No Slow Items (e.g.. Nosferatu’s Coil)
No Bugged/Hacked Items or items that shouldn’t exist
No more than 300 poison damage
1 absorb per element
No Charged Items
No .08 Valor / .08 Shako or any other recent overpowered dupes
All Paladin Skills are legal
Nightmare Mode (well you can play on any mode as long as both players agree to actually)
No Shrines / Potions / Wells
No Leeching off monsters
No Stacking Life Regeneration Items and Running Away
No going back to town once duel starts unless there is an interruption or emergency
Start dueling after both players agree to

Strategy

Ok, let’s talk about the fun stuff now, killing people.
As you know, there are many paladin variants so you can’t use the same tactic against every Paladin you come across. Try to get a good idea of what skills your opponent is using before you duel or at least learn what they use after the first round.

After many duels with other paladins I have learnt that it is impossible to be beaten by a paladin who doesn’t have FoH if you learn to use the skills correctly. FoH is pretty much the only viable ranged attack for a paladin. Some Paladins might have a stack of javelins or a bow but in order for them to hit you, they need to have extremely good accuracy. Charged items are banned so don’t worry about multishot. Besides you have a 1 in 4 chance of getting hit while FoH is unblockable and undodgable.

FoH = Fist of Heavens
ITD = Ignore Target Defense
Hammers = Blessed Hammer
Fps = frames per second (5 fps attack means an attack animation is 5 frames long meaning you’d be attacking 5 times per second)

Vs Charger
Difficulty: Easy~Hard
How can this be hard? Well, for me, chargers create insane desynch. These guys will pop up into my screen from nowhere. My favorite way of killing them is running away and stopping every few seconds to cast a couple hammers so they have to change direction thus giving you more time to cast hammers around yourself and more opportunities to snipe them. The easy part about facing a charger is they are allergic to hammers. Hammers are nasty irresistible things, a charger’s worst fear. If he decides not to come near you, they’re asking you to give them more time to say their prayers.

Vs Zealots
Difficulty: Extremely Easy
These pals should be no problem at all. Simply spam some hammers around you and FoH away. This match-up should be no problem for most people, as long as you keep your distances at all times.

Vs FoH’ers
Difficulty: Easy~Hard+Annoying
I cannot comment much here. This is a battle between life, lightning resist and who does how much more damage. This is a pretty boring duel, since pure ones will never get close to you and continuously FoH you to death. They will do slightly more damage than you do because they focus more on +skills.

Vs Smiters
Difficulty: Easy
All you have to watch out for here is not to get close to them. Smite has an ITD effect, it ignores both your defense and blocking so be careful. However, one cannot leech with smite, thank god Keep the hammers flying and FoH them to death.

Vs Rangers
Difficulty: Easy
You shouldn’t lose to any ranger since they, unlike amazons have no multishot and guided arrows. You should be able to dodge their arrows very easily. Snipe them with FoH (they have no shield meaning they'll need to sacrifice quite a bit to be immune to lightning). One cannot dodge FoH. Use it to your advantage.

Vs Zealot/FoH
Difficulty: Easy~Medium
Again, this is a duel of life and lightning resist. Just try to keep your distance so he can’t get any hits off you. Decent hybrids will leech quite a bit of life, putting you at a huge disadvantage. Good ones will fake you, meaning they will pretend to come near you but when you start running away or cast hammers, they’ll get an extra FoH off you. You can do the same thing but a decent hybrid will hand you your ear shortly after since well built zealots will simply barbeque smiters.

Vs Smite/FoH
Difficulty: Easy~Almost Hard
Basically this is like fighting a zealot/FoH pal but this one has both advantages and disadvantages compared to a Zealot/FoH. Good news is that he cannot leech life. Bad news is smite is ITD meaning he will hit you every time he swings at you in range, thus you must be extra careful. I find these types to be harder to beat.

Vs Charger/Smite/Zealot
Difficulty: Easy
These paladins can be very deadly if you’re not careful but you’ll get to a point where these types are just a piece of cake. They will try to use charge to get close to you (watch out for desynch here) and use smite or zeal when they’re close. Swap some of your vita charms for run/walk charms and you’ll do fine. In order to win this match you need to use hammers to your advantage, these hammers act like an extremely high level thorns that doesn’t involve sacrificing yourself. After you cast your hammers you can now freely FoH him and if he follows you, hop into your circle of death for protection. If they turn on Holy Freeze, turn on yours as well. One should always try to be faster than a melee Paladin. This should be a very easy match.

Note: You can put some damage reduce equipment on if you have a bad connection or you have little experience with melee Paladins.

Vs Mage
Difficulty: Easy~Hard
Facing your clones. One thing to look out for here is, decent mages have a backup melee skill such as smite, zeal or charge. But mage zealots are pretty rare since zeal requires fanaticism and lots of speed (4 fps attack) to be effective. This is mostly a battle of FoH but it does require some skill. Faking is a very good strategy here. Act as if you’re going to charge/smite them and when they start casting hammers or run away, you have a free shot. Mage Vs Mage duel is mostly about who gets more FoH shots and who plays more carefully. Speaking of being careful, you should always try to keep track of which hammers belong to who since hammers look identical and get very confusing if they get mixed. Try to get a few smites off them, however do NOT smite them if you know they have a higher damage smite, you will lose no matter what. Charge is quite risky, if you charge at the wrong place and time, you will most likely be dead or take serious damage if he’s ready for you. You will come to a point where one of the players has significantly more life than the other and that is where the losing one gets aggressive which is sensible. This is where Holy Freeze shines, you can turn on Holy Freeze and slowly kill him with FoH, take your time and do not rush yourself, this is where you have to be extra careful since your opponent will play much more aggressively. Holy Freeze is probably the best and safest aura to have on to finish someone off.

Final Tips:

Use the Terrain to your advantage (surround yourself with obstacles so it’s harder for your opponent to approach you)
Try to time your hammers
Don’t Cast more hammers than what you need
Socket your items with the appropriate runes/jewels/gems. (ex. Don’t socket an Um rune into your shako, instead socket it with Ort)
Use the right auras at the right time