Build Introduction
Welcome to the comprehensive guide for the Spear of the Heavens Judgement Paladin for the endgame of Diablo 4. This build drops holy spears from the sky upon your foes which you judge to be unworthy causing them to erupt for massive damage. If you like a more methodical playstyle with absolutely massive damage potential and big holy explosions, this is the build for you. Let’s dive in!
- Massive screen clearing damage.
- Great AoE clear thanks to chain explosions.
- Little to no resource management.
- Very cooldown reliant.
- Slower pace of play due to no generator or spender.
- Middling defensives.
Build Requirements
This build requires a few Paladin specific uniques listed below.
- Judicant’s Glaviehelm
- Seal of the Second Trumpet
- Griswold’s Opus
- Herald of Zakarum
As for Legendary Aspects, keep an eye out for the following Paladin specific Legendary Aspects
- Aspect of the Indomitable
- Aspect of the Judicator
- Aspect of Firm Decree
- Aspect of the Golden Hour
- Aspect of Holy Punishment
Quick Navigation
Want to skip ahead? Use the table below to jump to the sections you are looking for.
Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points
Follow the Skill Path seen HERE!
Your skill bar should contain the following six skills. The location of these skills doesn’t matter, place them wherever is comfortable for you.
- Spear of the Heavens
- Aegis
- Rally
- Fanaticism Aura
- Defiance Aura
- Holy Light Aura
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 Judicator Oath.
This Oath causes your Basic Skills to apply Judgement and causes Judgement to be detonated early by Judicator Skills dealing more damage in a small area and gaining the benefits of Judicator Skills. Lastly, each time you Judge an enemy they take increasing damage from you until they die!
Gear, Stats, Gems and Runes
The following sections will cover all systems that are critical if you want to improve the power of your character and move towards the highest difficulties in the endgame of Diablo 4.
Legendary Aspects
Below you will find all of the best-in-slot Aspects found on Legendary Items that are important for this build. Remember that all Legendary Powers can be added into your Codex of Power once you salvage the items. You can still find some aspects through dungeons though they will always be at the minimum power level. To get the most out of this system, combine these Aspects with the right stats and unique items.
| Gear Slot | Gems | Aspect / Unique | Aspect / Unique Power |
| Helm |  Ahu &  Qax OR  Grand Ruby | Judicant’s Glaivehelm | Lucky Hit: Your Judicator Skills have up to a [20-40%] chance to call down a Blessed Spear that carries a Judgement Mark and deals Judgement’s damage on impact. |
| Chest |  Yul &  Ohm OR Grand Ruby | Aspect of the Indomitable | Gain up to [100-140%] Armor and impairment resistance based on your Block Chance |
| Gloves | N/A | Aspect of the Judicator | Increases the damage and size of Judgement’s Explosion by x[40-60%] |
| Pants | Grand Ruby | Aspect of Firm Decree | Judging an enemy grants you x[60-100%] increased Armor for 5 seconds |
| Boots | N/A |  Wildbolt Aspect | Every [3.5-2] seconds distant enemies are pulled in to you and take x[10%] increased damage for 3 seconds. |
| Amulet |  Grand Diamond | Aspect of the Golden Hour | Judgement detonations can detonate other Judgements early. Judgement deals x[60-100%] increased damage. |
| Ring 1 | Grand Diamond | Seal of the Second Trumpet | Judgement deals x[150-250%] increased damage. Judgement has a 33% chance to explode twice. |
| Ring 2 | Grand Diamond | Aspect of Holy Punishment | Holy & Fire damage are increased by x[50-70%] |
| Weapon |  Grand Emerald | Griswold’s Opus | Dealing direct damage grants x[1-2%] increased critical strike chance for each enemy hit within 10 seconds up to x[50-100%]. At Maximum you gain: Lucky Hit – Critical Strikes have up to a 50% chance to deal double damage, heal you for [X] life and refresh the duration of this bonus |
| Shield | Grand Ruby | Herald of Zakarum | Gain x[20-50%] increased Strength, Resistance, Armor and Retribution Chance |
To see how this build compares to the others on our site, you can check out our Endgame Tier List.
Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes
Below are the affixes to prioritize on gear. Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance. Tempering Manuals and their recommended affixes are provided in the second column and the bolded yellow affixes are the most important targets for the Masterworking Capstone Upgrade. Be sure to check out our Tempering and Masterworking guides for more details about these topics.
| Slot | Gear Affixes | Tempering Affixes |
| Helm | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life 4. Armor | Ranks to En Garde – Paladin Guard: Defensive |
| Chest | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Armor 4. Resistance to All Elements | Ranks to En Garde – Paladin Guard: Defensive |
| Gloves | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Strength 3. Critical Strike Chance 4. Armor | Spear of the Heavens Size – Judicator Innovation: Utility |
| Pants | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Armor 4. Resistance to All Elements | Ranks to En Garde – Paladin Guard: Defensive |
| Boots | 1. Strength 2. Movement Speed 3. Maximum Life 4. Armor | Movement Speed –  Natural Motion |
| Amulet | 1. Strength 2. Ranks to Crack in the Armor 3. Ranks to Heavyweight 4. Cooldown Reduction | Ranks to En Garde – Paladin Guard: Defensive |
| Ring 1 | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Strength 4. Critical Strike Damage | Critical Strike Damage – Natural Finesse |
| Ring 2 | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Strength 4. Lucky Hit: Chance to make enemies vulnerable for 2 seconds | Critical Strike Damage – Natural Finesse |
| Weapon | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Critical Strike Damage 4. Damage% | Chance for Judgement to deal Double Damage – Judicator Augments: Weapons |
| Shield | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life 4. Armor | Chance for Judgement to deal Double Damage – Judicator Augments: Weapons |
Uniques and Mythic Uniques
Below you will find information about the various Uniques and Mythic Uniques that are useful to this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.
Uniques
- Judicant’s Glaivehelm – This helm gives us a chance to call down extra spears that carry Judgement marks and deal Judgement’s damage on impact giving us even more Judgement spam and a lot of extra damage.
- Griswold’s Opus – A sword that gives a stacking damage to critical strike and gives us another source of double damage while we’re at maximum stacks. Since we stack a lot of critical strike chance, this is very easy to maintain and provides us with a large damage boost
- Herald of Zakarum – This shield provides an insane buff to all of our defenses and our strength letting us scale our armor to the moon to benefit from the Castle legendary paragon node even more.
- Seal of the Second Trumpet – A ring that provides a massive increase to Judgement’s damage through a substantial multiplier and a chance to explode twice every time we explode our Judgements. A must have to get this build’s power really going!
Mythic Unique
These are the chase rare items in Diablo 4. They have a very low drop rate from most content and a slightly higher drop rate from Tormented Bosses in Torment 1 and beyond. We will be listing only the ones useful to this build. If a mythic unique is not listed here, it is not useful to this build but may be useful to other setups. Let’s take a look.
Heir of Perdition – An alternative helm to the famous ‘shako’ that provides a large 60% damage multiplier that further take this build’s damage to the next level. If you’re fortunate enough to acquire one, replace your Judicant’s Glaivehelm.
Shroud of False Death – A powerful chest item that provides +1 to all passive skills. Paladin is a class with many extremely potent and powerful passive skills and so if you’re lucky enough to come across this chest, replace your chest with Aspect of the Indomitable as you will gain more than enough defense to make up for it with its passive skill gain.
Gems and Runewords
Gems
Listed below are the best gems to socket into gear for each slot type.
| Weapon Gems | Armor Gems | Jewelry Gems |
| Grand Emerald for increased Critical Strike Damage | Grand Ruby for increased Strength | Grand Diamond for increased Resistance to All Elements |
Runes
Runewords return from Diablo 2 in Vessel of Hatred! You are limited to two Runewords across your gear and it requires two sockets in the same item. So this limits creating Runewords by combining two Runes to either Helm, Chest, Pants, or Two-Handed Weapons. We recommend putting these in some combination of your Helm, Chest, or Pants. Let’s jump in.
| Rune Name | Rune Effects |
| Ahu | Gain 15 Offering: Lucky Hit up to a 100% chance against non-healthy enemies |
| Qax | Requires 400 Offering (Overflow: Further increased damage): Casting a skill other than a basic or defensive skill spends all of your primary resource to increase your damage by up to 100% for 1 second |
| Yul | Gain 50 Offering: Cast a Skill with a Cooldown |
| Ohm | Requires 600 Offering (Overflow: increased duration): Invoke the Barbarian’s  War Cry increasing your damage dealt for 6 seconds |
Paragon Board
We recommend using the following Legendary Nodes and Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame. Note that each glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the level 100 Version. As a reminder, glyph’s reach their maximum radius at level 46 and unlock their Legendary Bonuses at level 45.
You can find the Paragon Board Setup HERE!
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
- Essence of Pain
- Essence of Screams
- Essence of Sin
Corrupted
- Essence of Squalor
- Essence of Shadows
- Essence of Anguish
- 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. For the most part there are no bad outcomes with all Sanctification bonuses providing at least some power, though it can replace an Affix you previously had on an item. It is rare though and all items you will want to use should be finished off with Sanctification. There are some options that provide larger bonuses than others so we recommend the following options if you’re fortunate enough to acquire them:
- Holy Damage
- Total Armor
- Cooldown Reduction
- Increased item quality
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 them up for this build.We hare Raheir, the Shieldbearer
Ground SlamCore Skill Passive: 
Raheir’s AegisIconic Skill: 
BastionIconic Skill Passive: 
Inspiration
BloodthirstBuild Mechanics
Rotation and Playstyle
This endgame setup relies on casting its namesake skill as often as possible, Spear of the Heavens, to apply Judgement which is a passive that marks an enemy for 3 seconds dealing 80% damage. We want to get out as many of these as can since they will chain explode thanks to Aspect of the Golden Hour. Let’s dive into our skills
- Spear of the Heavens – Our main skill. Cast on Cooldown at everything in front of you
- Aegis – Press Aegis on cooldown which will apply further Judgements
- Holy Light Aura – Press on cooldown which will of course, apply even more Judgements and its cooldown is reduced
We use the above 3 skills constantly to apply Judgements and detonate them in rapid succession. The next three skills are more supportive. Let’s review.
- Rally – We spend this in order to reduce our cooldowns per charge of rally and keep the fight and judgements coming
- Defiance Aura – We activate this as a defensive buff to gain more life and gain a little damage whenever we gain Resolve
- Fanaticism Aura – We press this to Weaken enemies and reduce the damage they deal with to us. Additionally critical strikes will trigger its passive giving us more attack speed and crit chance for even more damage.
Runeword Synergy
- Yul builds up some offering whenever we cast a skill that has a cooldown which is basically every skill we use
- Ohm uses the built up offering from Yul to cast the War Cry skill from Barbarian giving us a free damage multiplier to make our judgements do even bigger explosions
- Ahu gives us offering in small amounts whenever we hit a non-healthy enemy. Non-healthy means anything under 80% so as long as we don’t 1-shot the enemy, we’re guaranteed to get some offering from killing demons as the first hit will put them below 80% and the second will give us offering through Ahu
- Qax uses up the stored offering to give us 1 second of 100% damage which is huge. We can choose when to detonate this once we have the buff as we have to cast a non-basic non-defensive button such as Spear of the Heavens so you can ensure large damage windows every so often.
Which Elixir 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. Use 
Elixir of Iron Barbs II for more armor to scale our Castle legendary node.
Season 11 Updates
For a comprehensive look at what’s new in Season 11, its mechanics and theme, new activities, and other changes, check out our comprehensive Season Hub.
Paladin was introduced in Season 11, as such there are no updates to cover yet.
Obol Gambling
A final point on acquiring gear is using your Obols to target farm specific slots instead of randomly spending them on random drops. Similar to Kadala in Diablo 3, you can use Obol Vendors in towns to try and get what you’re missing. With the expansion when a level 60 Character spends obols, all gear from the vendors will be at least 750 item power, the highest non-ancestral power allowing you to fill out gear with the affixes or Legendary Aspects you need while also having a small chance to grant Ancestral Items, Uniques, and even Mythic Uniques!
Check out our Obol Gambling Tool Guide HERE.
Changelog
- December 15th 2025: Guide created.
