Blessed Shield Paladin Leveling Build

Build Introduction

The point of this leveling guide is to quickly take your character from 1 to 60 while using Juggernaut Skills and prepare for your transition into the endgame. This guide will walk you through the skill point placement for levels 1-60 and give some insight on how each passive and skill work together to create the synergies needed to be able to tackle whatever form of leveling you choose to take. We will also give some insight on Legendary Aspects, Affixes, Gems, and Elixirs we can utilize to accelerate our journey.

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Allocation of Skill Points

Below is the recommended order for spending your points as you level up. If you are missing skill points, complete the Season Ranks to earn the additional points as you progress your journey.

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

If you are unsure how best to use these skills read our Build Mechanics section after setting up your skill bar.

Wondering what comes after level 60 or which Paragon Boards to choose? Head to the Paladin Builds Page and choose an endgame build to continue progressing your character beyond level 60 and into the endgame.

Paladin Class Mechanic – Oaths

Paladins are able to devote themselves to one of four Oaths which drastically change your game play and give you access to some new resources that allow you to take your build even further. Each Paladin archetype is represented in the Oath system allowing players to choose between Zealot, Juggernaut, Judicator, or Disciple. For this build we will want to take the Juggernaut Oath.

Under this Oath whenever we cast a Juggernaut skill it consumes 8 stacks of Resolve to increase our damage by 60% and the size of our skills by 20% for 5 seconds. It also changes resolve to have an extra stack and no longer be consumed on hit. With our Resolve generation we should be able to get 8 stacks every 5 seconds and have no problem maintaining this buff.

Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

When selecting your items, higher item power generally indicates stronger gear, but you also need to consider the affixes and effects that are relevant to your class and your build. When making gear decisions during leveling, keep an eye out for both the item power and specific attributes that complement that build.

Legendary Aspects

For general information on how to unlock the Codex of power, head to our Aspects and Codex of Power Guide. You can also imprint aspects onto items by visiting The Occultist in towns.

Listed below are all the aspects that are important to this build as well as what slot they are best placed in. However, you can move the slots around during the leveling process especially since early on some of these aspects can only be found via random drops and might not be on the most ideal slot.

Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

During your leveling journey, you may stumble across items with incredible affixes. Tempering these items can provide you with a significant boost in power, so make sure you understand how tempering works!

As a reminder, tempering is only possible if you’ve found the tempering manuals while leveling.

Keep an eye out for the following stats that are beneficial for this build. We will list the most ideal stats and best tempering affix if you’re lucky enough to find the right manual, however these are not the only affixes you can use.

Gear Slot	Targeted Affixes	Tempering Affix
Helm	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life 4. Resistance to All Elements 5. Armor	Resolve Generated – Paladin Resolve: Defensive
Chest	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Armor 4. Resistance to All Elements	Resolve Generated – Paladin Resolve: Defensive
Gloves	1. Attack Speed 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Critical Strike Chance 4. +Ranks to Core Skills	Juggernaut Damage – Guardian Finesse: Offensive
Pants	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Armor 4. Resistance to All Elements	Resolve Generated – Paladin Resolve: Defensive
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life 4. Resistance to All Elements 5. Armor	Movement Speed Natural Motion
Amulet	1. Strength 2. Ranks to Heavyweight 3. Ranks to Riposte 4. Critical Strike Chance	Maximum Resolve Stacks – Paladin Resolve: Defensive
Ring 1	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Attack Speed 3. Critical Strike Chance 4. Critical Strike Damage	Juggernaut Damage – Guardian Finesse: Offensive
Ring 2	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Attack Speed 3. Critical Strike Chance 4. Lucky Hit: Chance to enemies vulnerable for 2 seconds	Juggernaut Damage – Guardian Finesse: Offensive
Weapon (1-Handed or 2-Handed)	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Critical Strike Damage 4. Damage%	Chance for Blessed Shield to deal double damage – Judicator Augments: Weapons
Shield (If using 1-Handed Weapons)	1. Damage Reduction 2. Armor 3. Maximum Life 4. Resistance to All Elements	Chance for Blessed Shield to deal double damage – Judicator Augments: Weapons

Gems and Runewords

Gems

Listed below are the best gems to socket into gear for each slot type.

• Weapons: Emerald for critical strike damage
• Armor: Ruby for more Strength
• Jewelry: Diamond for resistance to all elements

Runes

While leveling in Diablo 4, you may come across Runes, a unique gem that can be placed into an item with two sockets such as a helm, chest, pants, or two-handed weapon. Putting one Ritual Rune and one Invocation Rune into the same item creates a Runeword, which can enhance your gameplay and grant powerful boons. Ritual Runes generate Offering when the conditions are met, and once enough Offering has been met, the associated Invocation Rune’s effect will trigger. Here are some early rune suggestions for leveling if you’re fortunate enough to find them.

Place these runes in whatever combinations desired based on how you are using Skills.

Rune Name	Rune Effect
Cir	Gain 300 Offering: Cast 5 Skills then become exhausted for 3 seconds.
Lum	Requires 5 Offering (Overflow: Increased resource generation): Restore 3.5% Primary Resource
Moni	Gain 100 Offering: Cast 2 Mobility or Macabre Skills
Gar	Requires 25 Offering (Overflow: gain multiple stacks): Gain 2.5% Critical Strike Chance for 5 seconds, up to 25%

Season 11 Mechanics

Divine Gifts

As you complete the season journey and fight across Sanctuary you will earn the ire of the lesser evils. Defeating them will grant you corrupted essences which you can then purify into Divine Gifts. There are 8 of these in total and you will have four Purified and four Corrupted allowing you to modify various content and get different boons and reward as a result. For this build our recommended setup is below:

Purified

• Essence of Lies (Fortify)
• Essence of Squalor (Experience Globes)
• Essence of Anguish (Movement Speed)
• Essence of Sin (Armor)

Corrupted

• Essence of Pain
• Essence of Shadows
• Essence of Screams
• Essence of Hellfire

Sanctification

Season 11 brings a new way to “Finish” an item called Sanctification. Any item of item power 750 or higher can be Sanctified, but BE WARNED: Sanctification will make it so that you cannot alter the item any further so it should always be the final step in the crafting process! It provides many powerful options to enhance your builds. Since it requires item power 750 or higher, we won’t be including a list of options in this leveling guide. Check out our Endgame Builds for more information.

Mercenaries

As you play through the campaign in Vessel of Hatred, you will unlock various NPC Mercenaries who can join you on your quest to slay demons. Each Mercenary has their own small talent tree that will give them bonuses and skills to help you. Additionally, you can assign a Mercenary that you don’t take with you as a reinforcement to jump in when you activate certain skills. Let’s take a look at how we want to set this up for this build

We hire Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Core Skill: Ground Slam
• Core Skill Passive: Raheir’s Aegis
• Iconic Skill: Bastion
• Iconic Skill Passive: Inspiration

Our Reinforcement Mercenary will be Varyana, the Berserker Crone

• Opportunity Skill: Skill Cast
• Reinforcement Skill: Bloodthirst

Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

The playstyle of this build is fair straight forward. We want to jump into Arbiter Form and remain there for the majority of the fight while dashing around. Here is a basic look at our skills

• Clash – Our basic skill, use this to generate faith early on and gain Resolve, Block Chance, and to enter “Crusader’s March”
• Blessed Shield – The Core Skill that we will be using in-between any cooldown skill to deal large damage thanks to our Juggernaut Oath. Also pulses your Thorns damage for extra damage.
• Aegis – A quick way to increase our Block, become Unstoppable, and increase Thorns damage. Use to escape a tricky situation or to dive in for a damage boost.
• Defiance Aura – A passive defensive aura that will increase our damage (Armor) and upon activation give a massive boost to thorns damage and pulses.
• Holy Light Aura – Provides Healing and Fortification to increase our damage and survivability.
• Rally – A supportive buff that restores Faith and grants movement speed. Spam this constantly to move around as we have plenty of ways to regenerate life.

Our primary skill with this build is Clash as our primary Faith Generator. We’ll be augmenting this skill using:

• Enhanced Clash – This gives us “Crusader’s March” which grants additional Block Chance and more importantly 2 stacks of Resolve.
• Punishment – Improves our Crusader’s march to grant increased Thorns Damage and Retribution Chance. You want to be casting Clash every few seconds to make sure Punishment stays online.

Our Core Skill and primary method of dealing damage is Blessed Shield. Our spender and what we’ll be using to chop up the forces of hell. We augment this skill with:

• Enhanced Blessed Shield – Increases the damage from Blessed shield for every additional Armor on your shield. Very powerful as you find bigger shields while you level.
• Shield of Retribution – Turns Blessed Shield into a Juggernaut skill, making this a must-take node. Also allows Blessed Shield to travel without returning, pulsing Thorns damage along the way and exploding at the end.

Our main Aura skills for this build are Defiance Aura and Holy Light Aura as they both provide ways to heal and become tankier which in turn helps us dish out more damage as well.

• Enhanced Defiance – This gives you and your allies 10% Maximum Life
• Rite of Thorns– Makes Defiance passive grant Thorns damage and the active releases a Nova dealing 500% of your Thorns damage.
• Enhanced Holy Light – Increases the passive to target 2 additional enemies
• Rite of Mercy – Holy Light Chains 2 more times and now fortifies you and your allies for 4% of their maximum Life.

The Valor skills being used in this build are Aegis for great blocking and a boost to Thorns damage and Rally to generate Movement Speed and Faith

• Enhanced Aegis – Aegis grants Unstoppable for 4 seconds, allowing the skill to now help you get out of trouble or stomp in without worry.
• Impunity – Increases Thorns and Retribution while Aegis is active. Essentially, use Aegis as often as possible to get a nice damage increase!

• Enhanced Rally – Increases movement speed further and generates more Faith on use.
• Words of Sacrifice – One of the best nodes in the game. Rally now costs life but no longer has charges or a cooldown and can stack. This allows you to move insanely fast around the map and as long as you have some minor ways to get health back you will be completely safe.

There are currently no Justice Skills being used in this build however Consecration could be used as an alternative to Holy Light Aura if desired.

There are currently no Ultimate Skills being used in this build, as Fortress simply takes too long, however it is still a powerful skill and can be considered as a sixth skill.

The Key Passive we are taking for this build is Coat of Arms as it is a simple damage boost from our Armor and Blocking which we want to max out as much as possible.

Resolve

Resolve is a damage reducing effect. While we have any stacks of Resolve, we gain 20% damage reduction. Getting hit by an enemy removes one stack of Resolve no matter how big the hit was. You can hold a certain number of Resolve stacks, the default is 8 stacks but this can be increased through some Legendary Aspects, Unique Items, and Tempering.

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist in any main town to craft helpful Elixirs that increase stats, and experience gain for 30 minutes. Make sure to forage plants and pick up the necessary crafting materials during your adventures; they randomly spawn around the world. We want to use Elixir of Advantage for the attack speed but any Elixir you have should be used for the extra experience as they all grant between 5 and 8% increased experience to help you fly to level 60 even faster.

Season 11 Updates

For a complete overview of Season 11, its mechanics and theme, new leveling activities, and other changes coming with the Season of Divine Intervention, please check out our Season Hub!

Season 11 is the introduction of the Paladin Class! So there are no class updates to post yet.

Difficulty & Endgame

Once you hit level 60 with this build, you will be ready to tackle harder difficulties as you transition into more challenging content. Make sure to pick one of our recommended Endgame Builds to continue the journey. Additionally, we recommend keeping your Obols until your reach level 60 then spend them on a weapon to help kickstart your preferred endgame setup!

• December 21st 2025: Guide created for Season 11.