Unholy Melee Paladin [105-125 content in TU's]

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Johnny Impak
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I’m worried about boss killing potiential. Bloodthorne is awesome at mob killing, but slower on bosses. Necrolyte merc doing most damage here
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Elendilli
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not relevant skip to bottom post 1/31/2020 edit

Lemures and Bloodthorns deals with most bosses in Median relatively well (120-125 ubers). End game zones like Labyrinth however, is a way different story. You cannot really do much to improve your damage output on Rift bosses and Phoboss or Unstable Anomaly (you will literally deal no damage expect long 5-10 minute kills) however Labyrinth mobs can be killed at a mediocre pace (not fast, not slow I guess). This makes UHM a slow Rifter in terms of dps but one of the best tanky supports for rifting with a partner. The key to tanking as UHM lies within Grim Presence, Sanguine Covenant and as much Uninterruptible Attack as possible.

Of course there are other methods to tank up such as investing in block (Eviscerator) and whatnot but doing that lowers your damage output which is totally fine if your partner can dps.

Morph has also tested rifts as Bloodthorns UHM and the damage output against Rift Bosses is really unforgiving and slow (10 minute kills per Phoboss/Anom no joke). I don't remember what his %ar was considering UHM lacks the ability to naturally obtain +%AR but even with ideal amounts of AR we're still looking at close to 10 min kills.
Edited by Elendilli 4 years.
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koffi
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Johnny Impak wrote:Any input would be appreciated, currently lvl 24. Lol

Gz on reading through, I'd say most useful information mentioned during these 25 pages is 100% Chance of Uninterruptable Attack. It really helps a lot. About gearing I can only share my limited experience with mid-game. Set with TU4 boots and crafted gloves, mostly socketed with ohm/pruby, has me at 25k life and 7,5k blood thorns damage. By going full quiet craft with focus on vitality, I managed to get 33k hp and 4k blood thorns, so I'd say set is quite decent for mid game. Spent only 60-70 shrines though, might try to roll better gear later.


Grim Presence adds damage to Divine Apparition, Vessel of Justice and Symphony of Destruction, so it might be worth to consider maxing it for some bosses or farming. Divine Apparition does cold dmg to whole screen which weakens and freezes big groups of enemies quite nicely and SoD can deal huge single target damage.

But in general you seem to have understood it all really well.
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Knight_Saber
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Johnny Impak wrote:
► Show Spoiler

You are correct with your assessment of Possession, 16 points is mandatory for late game.
As for which melee attack you use (cold or fire), 1 point. The damage increase per hard point is barely significant once you have many +skills. All you do is cause yourself mana issues by maxing it.
I say max stormlord and leftovers in sanguine covenant. The more max HP/regen you have, the less life on attack matters. With max stormlord and a few charms, you can literally dump 100% of your stat points in vit and still wear the heaviest gear.

[edit] I didn't mention points in rapture, which is basically determined by other gear...
Need more speed, more points in rapture, it's not rocket surgery.
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Mangler
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In this thread people keep talking to (or about?) someone called Khamul but I can't see any posts by him...

Where can I find some info on Khamul's paladin build? (I tried search)

Also - some posts seems to be saying that Sanguine Covenant gives uninterruptible attack but I don't see it on the skill tooltip? Is it just because you get 200% FHR?
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Elendilli
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Captcha wrote:In this thread people keep talking to (or about?) someone called Khamul but I can't see any posts by him...

Where can I find some info on Khamul's paladin build? (I tried search)

Also - some posts seems to be saying that Sanguine Covenant gives uninterruptible attack but I don't see it on the skill tooltip? Is it just because you get 200% FHR?


i name changed thats my old forum name. the post is somehwjhere around page 19
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Mangler
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Ah I get it now, thanks.

Your post on p19, is that just for Lemures or would you build a fire-based UHM the same way?
I think it was written after the DA nerf so I guess it's still viable to use Lemures and DA within a cold build. I try to get "Spell damage" over fire or cold damage when I can so that I can use either Lemures or the fire one.

I'm also planning to try vit crafts and see how that works out.

PS If anyone can explain Uninterruptible Attack that would be good.
Ugluk
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hello all is this build viable as a starter?
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Seekers
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Unholy Melee Paladin is currently one of the meta builds so yes
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Elendilli
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Captcha wrote:Ah I get it now, thanks.

Your post on p19, is that just for Lemures or would you build a fire-based UHM the same way?
I think it was written after the DA nerf so I guess it's still viable to use Lemures and DA within a cold build. I try to get "Spell damage" over fire or cold damage when I can so that I can use either Lemures or the fire one.

I'm also planning to try vit crafts and see how that works out.

PS If anyone can explain Uninterruptible Attack that would be good.


I actually haven't properly tested the fire variant of UHM (i have now so feel free to ask 1/31/2020) but I believe the Radiance setup is fine. The focus of the build is to get more damage out of Bloodthorns, so maxing it is essential unlike my Lemures setup which relies on procs/Divine Apparition for most of its damage. Fire/Bloodthorns is superior to cold/Lemures UHM because it has a lot more skills and items tailored towards it like a Fire-based Vessel of Justice,
Mark of the Que-Hegan
Mark of the Que-Hegan
Targe (Sacred)

Defense: (4742 - 5541) to (5247 - 6097)
Chance to Block: 2%
(Paladin Only)
Required Level: 100
Required Dexterity: 437
Item Level: 120
+4 to Paladin Skill Levels
-(20 to 30)% to Enemy Fire Resistance
+20 to Ranged Blood Thorns
+20% to Summoned Minion Resistances
+(150 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
+(750 to 1000) Defense
+(75 to 225) Life Regenerated per Second
Maximum Fire Resist +2%
5% Reanimate as: Random Monster
Socketed (4)
which has Ranged Bloodthorns for certain ubers albeit gigantic manacost,
Adjudicator
Adjudicator
Goedendag (Sacred)

One-Hand Damage: 53 to 54
(Paladin Only)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 574
Item Level: 120
Strength Damage Bonus: (0.14 per Strength)%
Holy: Holy Fire Deals 4.5% of Strength as More Total Damage (max 250%)
Unholy: Blood Thorns: +40% Damage Multiplier
Nephalem: +25% Total Vessel Damage Bonus from Passives
+1 to Paladin Skill Levels
+50% Damage to Undead
Adds 175-325 Fire Damage
Adds 1-600 Lightning Damage
Adds 200-250 Cold Damage
+800 Poison Damage over 1 seconds
-(15 to 25)% to Enemy Elemental Resistances
Socketed (3)
for more Bloodthorns damage, better procs (Cataclysm, Flamestrike) etc... There's just a lot more going for fire.

forget radiance setup seriously follow the post below instead 1/31/2020 edit

If you can't do the Radiance setup for obvious reasons, you could craft everything similar to Lemures guide with emphasis on %fire spell damage and %vitality. Paladin helms spawn up to +5 Paladin skills and can spawn Spellbind proc which is very very very strong utility. Paladin Shields also have up to +5 Paladin skills and can roll Bear Stance. Gloves and Belts roll up to +2 paladin skills with a few useful procs on both, but not as good as Spellbind on helm. Body can roll +2 all skills, 10-15% all attributes, high energy factor and 50% magic find. Boots are trash no matter how hard you try to craft a good pair (Use Wake of Destruction TU at all stages of the game). I would just use Honorifics and MO with UMO's if I got my hands on a few good ones. If you don't have any UMOs, boots with high +energy factory, 30-40% movespeed and %fire spell are the best you can do. All these crafts are done by Quiet (+%vit) or Fascinating (+%fire spell) and Eerie (+EF) for boots/body. (no longer relevant since honorific nerf just use Wake of Destruction).

Uninterruptible attack or UA is exactly as it implies - attacks cannot be interrupted so it's like a get out of jail free card. With 100% UA you can ignore every attack that puts you in Faster Hit Recovery mode as long as you are attacking something and if you're attacking something you'll be leeching forever in situations where you would normally get stuck in FHR mode and mowed down by mobs. Well not exactly accurate but it more-less explains it I think

edit: i should've mentioned that manacost becomes gigantic and didn't mention that %AR is necessary for bosses. Jewels are the best way to circumvent this issue. If you plan to challenge labs its different i cba in this post.
Edited by Elendilli 4 years.