This page will give you an overview of Paladin's skills and leveling guide. We'll also show you which bonus class and engravings are best for when the game ends.
What Paladin class is the best? Like every Warrior base class member, the Paladin ranks among the top spots on our Lost Ark classes Tier List. His impressive attack and defense stats make him suitable to perform sub-DPS duties and protect his team.
Best Lost Ark Paladin build – Overview
The Piety Metre is the core identity skill of the Paladin's early game build. Like most Lost Ark classes, the Paladin's identity meter increases when one of his attacks hits its target.
However, the Paladin can passively gain charge slower if you are role-playing an atonement seeker or focused more on support than combat. You can unleash all your pent-up righteousness by maxing out the Piety Metre.
- Holy Aura grants Paladins and their allies a 10% increase in attack damage for its duration. It is, therefore, the primary support buff for Paladin's base building.
- Sacred Executioner enhances the Paladin's Punish skills. Sacred Executioner can be more useful when doing sub-DPS work alongside your Paladin.
Piety Skills Basics
You can activate only one Piety skill effect at a given time. The Piety Metre does not refill while one of these is active. The Piety Metre will stop being usable after the skill ends.
You can choose which effect to trigger each time you activate the Piety Metre.
Best Lost Ark Paladin Build ? Skills and leveling
Lost Ark's support characters are rare. Paladin builds must strike a balance between offensive abilities and team buffs.
All of this starts with the skills you acquire in the early stages. The Paladin's normal skills are color-coded.
Blue for Punish (attack) skills, and yellow for Holy skills (support).
You should have 250 skill points by the time you reach level 50. This is enough to build a balanced normal skill building to get your character to the endgame.
Since he will have many teammates who can handle the main offensive, we recommend that you strike a balanced balance that slightly favors Holy skills. But, it would be best if you didn't forget about his Punish skills. They're secondary.
It is mandatory to advance Paladin's skills into Tripod 3, as you can easily stop at Tripod 2. Doing so gives you more points to distribute across a broader range of skills. You might consider distributing your points in the following areas:
Best PvE skills for Paladin
Below you will find my recommendations for the best skills on a PvE-oriented Paladin build:
| Skill | Tripod 1 | Tripod 2 | Tripod 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heavenly Blessings (Holy): Summons a Solar Guardian, which damages nearby foes and blesses all party members within a 24-meter radius. While blessed, a character's damage received is reduced for 8 seconds. | Inexhaustible Faith: Piety Metre gains up to 75% charge when a normal attack hits while this skill is active. | Valor: All party members within 24 meters get 15% of your attack power for 8 seconds. Overall attack power is increased by 6%. | Absolute Blessing: Mana regeneration speed increases by up to 50% for all party members within 24 meters for 8 seconds. |
| Holy Protection (Holy): Creates a barrier for a percentage of max HP for all party members within 24 meters. Lasts for 6 seconds. | Quick Pace: Movement speed is increased by up to 25% while the shield is active. | Purify: Removes the most recent harmful effect cast on all party members within 24 meters. | Vow of Light: HP is restored by up to 8% of max when the shield times out. 10-second cooldown. |
| Holy Sword (Punish): Damage a foe with a sword thrust, which then emits a stream of Divine Light to deal additional damage. | Positioning: Charge time is reduced by up to 18%. | Outburst of Light: Emits Divine Light even if the attack fails. | Release Light: Repeatedly fired light inflicts up to 120% damage. Every additional foe hit by it reduces cooldown time by 1 second (stacks up to 8 times). |
| Charge (Punish): Charge forward 6 meters, stabbing foes with your sword. | Excellent Mobility: Move distance is increased by up to 4 meters. | Shining Protection: Charging the skill creates a shield worth at least 15% of max HP for a minimum of 3 seconds. | n/a |
| Executor's Sword (Punish): Attack with rapid sword swings, launching enemies into the air. Use the skill again to finish with a downward slash. | Excellent Mobility: During skill use, attack while moving 4 meters. | Weak Point Enhancement: Enemy's weak point level is increased by 1. | n/a |
| Godsent Law (Holy): Summons a circle of magical light that damages all foes in radius, lasting 2 seconds. | Shield: Creates a shield worth at least 10% of max HP for 5 seconds for all party members within the skill's AoE. | Wide-Angle Attack: Increases the skill's AoE radius by 30%. | n/a |
| Light Shock (Holy): Unleashes a light shockwave, dealing moderate damage to enemies within radius. | Swift Fingers: Light gathering to create the shockwave is now instantaneous. | Light's Vestige: Hit enemies get the Light's Vestige debuff, making them vulnerable to 10% additional damage from all party members for 6 seconds. | n/a |
| Wrath of God (Holy): Sacred thunder inflicts damage on nearby enemies. | Wide Thunderstroke: The skill's AoE radius is increased by 20%. | Faith: Piety Metre gains up to 150% charge when a normal attack hits while this skill is active. | n/a |
Best PvP skills for Paladin
Below you will find my recommendations for the best skills on a PvP-oriented Paladin build:
| Skill | Tripod 1 | Tripod 2 | Tripod 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Execution of Justice (Punish): Hold the sword one-handed while spinning in place to inflict massive damage to an opponent, then perform a crushing blow for a further 50% damage finisher. | Rune Prison: Target is pulled into the center of rotation. | Strength Release: Damage is increased by 30% or at least 100% while in Sacred Executioner status. | Light Explosion: The Paladin gains push immunity when this skill is activated. Activation also causes a light explosion from the scar created by the skill, inflicting up to 200% damage during the last attack and knocking opponents into the air. |
| Godsent Law (Holy): Summons a circle of magical light that damages all foes in radius, lasting 2 seconds. | Shield: Creates a shield worth at least 10% of max HP for 5 seconds for all party members within the skill's AoE. | Wide-Angle Attack: Increases the skill's AoE radius by 30%. | Grace: All party members within God's Decree receive a blessing buff from the Light's Guardian, granting -70% to incoming damage for 1 second. |
| Heavenly Blessings (Holy): Summons a Solar Guardian, which damages nearby foes and blesses all party members within a 24-meter radius. While blessed, a character's damage received is reduced for 8 seconds. | Mind Enhancement: Mana cost for this skill is reduced by up to 67%. | Perseverance: The skill's damage reduction is increased by up to -34%. | Heavenly Requiem: The skill's AoE radius increases by 20%, and damage increases by up to 388%. |
| Holy Protection (Holy): Creates a barrier for a percentage of max HP for all party members within 24 meters. Lasts for 6 seconds. | Quick Pace: Movement speed is increased by up to 25% while the shield is active. | Robust Protection: Shield duration is reduced by 2 seconds, but its gauge is increased by up to 158%. | Vow of Light: HP is restored by up to 8% of max when the shield times out. 10-second cooldown. |
| Holy Sword (Punish): Damage a foe with a sword thrust, which then emits a stream of Divine Light to deal additional damage. | Propulsion: While the skill is active, the Paladin can attack while moving forward 4 meters. | Vital Point Hit: Element changes to lightning, increasing crit damage by up to 60%. | Condensed Energy: Focuses light into a single point and fires it in a narrow AoE radius, inflicting up to 170% damage. |
| Wrath of God (Holy): Sacred thunder inflicts damage on nearby enemies. | Wide Thunderstroke: The skill's AoE radius is increased by 20%. | Thunder: On lightning attack hits, foes are electrocuted for up to 3 seconds. | Express Fury: Grants 15% of the Paladin's attack power to all party members within 24 meters for 8 seconds. Overall attack power is increased by 6%. |
| Charge (Punish): Charge forward 6 meters, stabbing foes with your sword. | Excellent Mobility: Move distance is increased by up to 4 meters. | n/a | n/a |
Best Lost Ark Paladin Build ? Engravings
You can apply engravings to Lost Ark characters once they reach Level 50. Engravings can be applied to Lost Ark characters as their endgame content. They allow you to add a variety of buffs and boosts to personalize your character's set. Every class also has two unique engravings that are not available for all characters. These allow you to pick a subclass in which they can specialize.
Blessed Aura and Judgment are the Engravings that the Paladin class uses to enhance their Holy or Punish skills.
- Blessed Aura is the Holy building option. The Holy Aura effect of the Piety Metre provides 20% damage resistance to all party members. It also grants party members a maximum HP regen of 2% for 1.5 seconds.
- You can use Judgement to build Punish skills. All Punish skills can deal up to 25% more damage. Doubles the duration of the Sacred Executioner effect. Also, it doubles the Piety Meter gain every time a Punish ability strikes a foe.
It is important to remember that you can still use the other effect from Piety Metre by choosing one of these Engravings. So while your build will be more focused on one side, you are not forced to choose support or attack.
Due to the high demand for Paladins in support roles, most players will default towards Blessed Aura. However, both are potent options. A player may use two Paladin builds to benefit from both.
The number of engravings you can equip varies depending on how many slots you have. Learned Engraving slots are necessary to equip class-specific bonus engravings. These slots can be obtained by reading the books you have collected throughout your adventures in Arkesia.
You can equip the two generic engraving types (damage boosts or utility buffs) according to how many engraving points you have. To do so, combine your character's accessories and their Ability stones, which you can acquire from merchants or looting.
If you shuffle your loadout, you can equip three generic engravings with your class bonus.
The choice of engravings for the Paladin is influenced by where you focus. The usual suspects in those roles work well for a DPS Paladin or sub-DPS Paladin.
- Grudge can increase damage up to 20% when you are fighting Boss level monsters or higher-level monsters and reduce incoming damage by the same amount. This engraving is one of the best in Lost Ark, and it's a great choice when in doubt. This works exceptionally well for the Sorceress because it reduces her vulnerability to incoming harm.
- Master Of Strikes: Increases the damage of attacks that do not qualify as back or front attacks by 16%. This effect does not apply to Awakenings.
- Cursed doll increases attack strength by up to 16% but decreases incoming healing by -25%.
But, to be a support Paladin, you'll need something more:
- Awakening lowers the cooldown for your character's awakening abilities (see below).
- Expert increases shield effectiveness and healing, particularly for low HP party members. This is the most important because it increases the Paladin's healing abilities and makes them more comparable to the Bard.
- Heavy Armour doubles the Paladin's defenses.
Best Lost Ark Paladin build ? Awakening skills
Awakening Skills are available to Lost Ark characters once they have reached level 50. There are two choices, but it is not an either/or proposition.
You can unlock both Awakening Skills, although you can equip only one at any given time.
The two Awakening Skills for Paladin are:
- Alithanes's Light: Infuses your sword with holy energy to do much damage. The energy is released onto the target and explodes, dealing 100% more damage.
- Alithanes's Judgement: When the Paladin leaps up, he emits a holy glow that beams towards his target. This light can overcome shields from enemies Guardian Monster types and lower. All party members receive a 10-second shield equaling 80% of the Paladin's max HP.
In this case, there is no right or wrong choice, as with all aspects of the Paladin's building. Alithane's Judgment is the better option if you focus your Paladin build around support. Alithane's Judgement: Even if you are building a DPS, Paladin is nearly equal to Alithane's Light in terms of damage. Plus, the shield makes it a better option overall.
To take advantage of many of Lost Ark's character-building elements, you must be at least Level 50. We have a guide for leveling up in Lost Ark to help you do this as fast as possible. We also offer detailed guidance on building other classes for your roster.