Melee Crit Healing Hands Paladin Build Guide

You don't need any specific unique to start playing this build

Excellent damage scaling with Healing hands

Very pleasant flashy visual and satisfying gameplay

Very good defense, with cumulative HP and ward

One button melee build

Vulnerable to dot damage

Need critical strike chance to shine

Gameplay :

Use Rive as your filler with a good attack speed to pull ennemies at a good range and apply a ton of shred armor, Rive also trigger Healing Hands wich is your main damage source and give a good amount of ward.

Void Cleave is your movement skill wich trigger Abyssal Echoes wich give you Embrace the Darkness a powerful buff. Use Rebuke to avoid big damage incoming.

Before start a fight (arena, monolith or boss), use twice Healing Hands in direct cast to generate a good amount of ward.

Leveling Tips :

1. Start your story with a 2H sword Bastard sword with SuffixChance to Bleed on Hit
2. Unlock Rive at level 5 and spec into Foe Cleaver as quickly as possible.
3. Find a Cultist Chopper at lvl 14 and a Imperial Halberd at lvl 33.
4. Unlock Healing Hands and spec into Purity of Thought, Cleric's Hammer, Seraph Blade and Bane of Evil in this order.
5. Put five points in as quickly as possible in sentinel passives Time and Faith to avoid mana problem.
6. Try to find as many PrefixCritical Strike Chance, PrefixIncreased Healing Effectiveness and PrefixAttunement on your gear.
7. At lvl 56 found a Odachi and you are done to go very far in monolith.

You can follow this build for leveling : https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/0QdwDJpA

Normal Monolith :

1. You need to be at least at 1K HP.
2. You can start monolith with a 2H axe with bleed and ignite but it's better to find a Melee crit Odachi as soon as possible.
3. Try to cap your resistance at 75%.

Empowered Monolith :

1. You must be at 2K HP, 75% resistance everywhere and be at 100%crit avoidance or 100% less damage taken from crit.
2. Be sure to have a Odachi to enhance your Healing Hands damage.
3. You should try to be at 70% melee crit chance.
4. You need to have 35 attunement to have a good ward generation with Healing Hands.
5. Make your blessings as quickly as possible. And start your target farm at Reign of dragons for Volcanus with 1LP.

Defense Optimization :

1. Try to found a good Eternal Gauntlets with a PrefixExperimental Ward per Missing Health Prefix by killing as many exiled mages as possible in monolith.
2. For arena Ladder pushing you can change Rive for Vengeance to improve your defense with Bolster and try to take Hammer and Anvil , damage lost is not a problem.
3. Two unique possibilities are available to you to improve your defenses Exsanguinous or Titan Heart but both require LP to shine.

Can i play this build with a sword and shield ?

Definitely not, for that we need to theorycraft a other build.

Can i play this in hardcore ?

I think it's possible, actually im 97 in 300 corruption without any death and i don't have any problem of damage or defense.

Why Rive and not Vengeance ?

Rive is very more fast than vengeance which results in more triggers of Healing Hands per seconds, apply a tons of shred armor. Mapping is also very more comfy because you can pull ennemies at a good range. But Vengeance can be a good option for arena pushing.

Why invest into Ward ?

Paladin suffers from defense problems at very high levels. The ward helps to solve this problem and offers greater possibilities of tankyness. Which allows you to add a big HP pool and a good ward generation on monsters. Actually im up to 4K ward easily on bosses.

Can i replace Void cleave ?

Sure you can, Lunge or Shield Rush or Smite is a good option for movement skills. Be sure to replace Abyssal Echoes with Sigils Of Hope or Volatile Reversal.

I'm playing with friends, can I improve the build ?

Sure you can, just replace Abyssal Echoes for Volatile Reversal to improve damage of your friends.