Lost Ark Paladin Guide (Builds, Engravings, and Tips)

Paladin Class Guide – Lost Ark

Paladins are an advanced class available to warriors that mix damage and support to protect and buff your allies. This makes them extremely valuable in end game content but also more difficult as they try to time their skills properly to prevent damage.

Most of the playstyle revolves around giving damage reduction buffs to nearby allies while also increasing their damage output at the same time. Later with your class engraving you’ll be able to grant damage buffs and a heal over time from your Holy Aura. Their abilities also have high stagger and countering bosses is a key part of their kit.

Paladins are the tankier of the supports and will keep these buffs up for most of the time but they do require better positioning than other classes and can’t keep up with the Bard’s healing.

While they are a support, paladins can still use their skills to deal some good AoE damage so clearing content yourself won’t be a problem.

If you’re interested in leveling this class, check out our Paladin leveling guide.

Comparisons to other classes

When it comes to your other advanced warrior classes – the berserker is focused on dealing damage and gunlancer is more of your traditional tank. The Gunlancer does have access to some support skills but focuses more on disruption while being extremely tanky.

Compared to the other support class the Bard – Paladins will be much tankier and focus a bit more on damage while maintaining damage buffs and damage reduction buffs to the team. The bard tries to be more defensive, keeping allies alive longer with shields and heals.

To see how well Paladin performs in both PvP and PvE, please, read our article on the best Lost Ark classes in the current meta.

PvE

Like most classes Paladins will build up their Piety meter during combat but have two choices when it’s filled.

Holy Aura is used for group play and will boost your team’s damage but also reduce damage and heal them once you have your class engraving.

Sacred Executioner is your damage version – attacks and punish skills now deal more damage and have a higher range.

During normal gameplay, you will be providing shields and damage reduction to your allies around you while rotating between different skills that give damage buffs. While position is key for most of your skills – you will also be applying debuffs and trying to counter boss attacks too.

PvP

In PvP, Paladins are still a tanky support class but they can output pretty big damage as well, especially if they use their piety for sacred executioner instead of buffing their allies.

Paladins excel at using their skills to engage and set up their team, which combined with the shields and damage reduction make it great to pair with other dive classes.

Sacred Executioner is even better for this as it extends the range – you’ll often be able to catch enemies off guard with crowd control and set up kills.

Your job is to protect allies, which you can do with good timing of skills, while also looking for an opportunity to crowd control enemies and dive in.

Core Abilities

Charge

Your main mobility spell that deals some damage but also grants a shield with a common tripod. Using Excellent mobility, shining protection and ambush attack are common starting points.

Executor’s Sword

A combo skill that knocks targets up and deals damage in front of you. Taking stigmata, challenger’s will and broad slash will make this more of an AoE damage skill.

Holy Sword

Deals burst damage in front of you and is one of the higher damage abilities you have access to. The most common tripods are stigmata, weak point detection and condensed energy to boost that damage all the way up.

Execution of Justice

Another common skill you’ll use a lot that spins and deals damage. Rune prison pulls enemies in and with acuteness plus express fury you’ll deal much more damage playing alone.

Holy Protection

One of your main defense skills that gives a shield to all allies around you. Quick pace, Robust Protection and Vow of Light gives movespeed and improves the shield but also heals at the end, even if now has a higher cooldown.

Godsent Law

Summons a circle of light and deals damage but with the right tripods it becomes much more supportive. Shield.. well.. Gives a shield, wide-angle attack improves the radius and finally Grace reduces incoming damage by 70% for 1 second. Grace is extremely strong but requires good timing to make proper use of it.

Heavenly Blessings

Unlocks at level 50 – and deals damage to nearby enemies while also blessing nearby allies to reduce damage taken. Faith instantly gives 50% piety meter when used, Valor gives more attack power and Heavenly requiem makes it pack a real punch.

Awakening Abilities

As with all classes, the Paladin has access to two Awakening abilities.

Alithanes’ Judgment

• Unleashes a holy light at the target location that deals damage and creates a barrier based on your maximum health for allies.

Alithanes’ Light

• Deals damage in front of you and then explodes again to deal even more damage.

Judgment is the preferred skill for almost all builds.

Advanced Class Engravings

Every Lost Ark class has access to engravings that will focus your playstyle in one particular direction. For Paladins, you will choose between Blessed Aura and Judgment.

Blessed Aura

The core of any supportive Paladin build – it adds damage reduction and healing to your Piety Holy Aura. Once at level 3 you get a considerable amount of damage reduction and healing making this a core choice for keeping your allies alive.

This will be your go-to raid playstyle and a big boost to your team when activated

When used with a coordinated group or when you know the fight and have a window to burst the boss this can be even more powerful.

The easiest stats for this build is to prioritize specialization and swiftness afterwards. This will allow you to build your meter faster and make the aura more effective.

Judgment

Your DPS choice, increasing your punish skills damage, the piety meter gained from those skills and increasing the duration of your sacred executioner. This offers a huge boost to your damage but pales in comparison to Blessed Aura for supports.

During solo play, this will help you take down bosses much quicker with your Holy Sword however in group play it cannot make up for the damage boost.

Focus on Swiftness and Crit if you want lower cooldowns, better attack speed and bigger burst to clear content faster.

Builds

Support Build

This build used Blessed Aura class engraving as the main engraving. This build prioritizes the use of the Holy skills to give buffs to your party members while charging your Piety meter and once the gauge is full use Holy Aura to heal and buff your party.

Here are some of the skill explanations and tripods you will take (Make sure to max your Holy skills first which include Heavenly blessing, Wrath of God, Holy Protection and Godsent Law (level 10) and at least 4 points in every Punish skill and if you have enough skill points, level them in the following order:

• Heavenly Blessing
  • 3:3:1
  • This is your main buff skill. Make sure to use this skill off cooldown.
  • It grants Attack Power and Mana Regan speed to all your party members.
  • This is also your main meter generation skill. Take meter generation tripods and make sure to land this skill. Wealth rune goes on this skill.
• Wrath of God
  • 3:2:2
  • Your Secondary buff skill after Heavenly Blessing. Use this when Heavenly Blessing buff time is over to bridge the gap.
  • Good Paladins should rotate between Wrath of God and Heavenly Blessing to ensure the party is buffed almost all the fight.
• Holy Protection
  • 3:2:2 or 3:1:2 (to remove harmful effects from your party members)
  • Use it to shield and heal your party members.
  • Galewind rune should be placed on this skill to reduce casting time.
• Godsent Law
  • 1:1:1
  • Good shielding and defensive skill. Provides shields and damage reduction to allies within the area of the skill.
• Light Shock
  • 1:3 or 1:3:2 (if you have more skill points)
  • Your party synergy skill. Landing this skill marks your target to take additional damage. A good Paladin can land all their Light Shocks to keep this debuff up 100% of the time.
• Charge
  • 1-0-0
  • Used mainly as a mobility skill.
• Holy Sword
  • 1:1:2
  • Your Main stagger skill that can do good damage.
  • Good counter skill that can be effective on close or medium range
• Executor’s Sword
  • 3:1:2
  • Second stagger skill that can do average damage.
  • Good counter skill that can be effective on close or medium range
• The Awakening ability used is Alithanes’ Judgment to fill up the Piety meter faster.

Stat Priority

• Prioritize Swiftness and make Specialization your secondary stat.
• Swiftness allows a more consistent playstyle because of the additional cooldown reduction and movement speed making it much easier to be forgiving with your skills rotations and dodging mechanics.
• Optimum ratio is 70% Swiftness,30% Specialization.

Runes

• Wealth runes on Heavenly Blessing, Wrath of God.
• Overwhelm on Holy Sword and Executor’s Sword to increase stagger.
• Galewind on Holy Protection.
• Conviction and Judgment runes can help if you have mana issues that may come from high swiftness.
• Everything else is preference.

Engravings

• Blessed Aura lvl 3 is essential to the build due to how efficient the extra healing and support is at level 3.
• Awakening lvl 3 allows for increased amount of awakening uses as well as reduced cooldown. Since Alithanes’ Judgment awakening is a supporting ability, this gives Paladins more chances to save their teammates in addition to filling their Piety meter.
• Expert 3 is good third engravings as the extra healing/shielding can be very useful since your main healing skill is Holy Protection.
• Heavy Armor 3 is optional for Paladins since they have decent defense and vitality, but if you want more defense, you can equip it as It is important for supports to survive and later in raids, it’s important for supports to take hits from the raid instead of the DPS during certain boss mechanics.
• Drops of ether 3 and Vital Point 3 can make good extra engravings once you can slot either one of them in (depend on preference).
• Vital Point allows paladins to help with stagger checks from bosses much more easily.
• Drops of ether 3 makes you drop ether around you which can help your party members and give them extra buffs.

Gems

• Support Paladins don’t focus on damage so getting cooldown gems for your skills is what matters most.

DPS Build

This build used Judgment class engraving as the main engraving. This build prioritizes the use of the Punish skills to do damage and fill your Piety meter and once full, use it to enter Sacred Executioner mode which increases the damage and range of your Punish skills greatly.

Here are some of the skill explanations and tripods you will take (Make sure to max your two holy skills (Heavenly Blessing, Wrath of God) and your main damage Punish skills which include Holy Sword, Executor’s Sword, Flash Thrust and Flash Slash (level 10) and at least 4 points in every other skill and if you have enough skill points, level them in the following order:

• Heavenly Blessing
  • 3-3-2 (for increased damage) or 3-3-1 (for Mana Regan speed buff for party)
  • This is your party synergy buff skill. Make sure to use this skill off cooldown.
  • It grants Attack Power and Mana Regan to all your party members.
  • This is also your main meter generation skill. Take meter generation tripods and make sure to land this skill. Wealth rune goes on this skill.
• Wrath of God
  • 3-2-2
  • Your Secondary buff skill after Heavenly Blessing. Use this when Heavenly Blessing buff time is over to bridge the gap.
  • Good Paladin should rotate between Wrath of God and Heavenly Blessing to ensure the party is buffed almost all the fight
• Charge
  • 1-0-0
  • Used mainly as a mobility skill.
•  Holy Sword
  • 2-2-1
  • Your Main stagger skill that can do very good damage.
  • Good counter skill that can be effective on close or medium range.
• Executor’s Sword
  • 2-2-2
  • Second stagger skill that can do good damage.
  • Good counter skills that can be effective on close or medium range.
• Flash Thrust
  • 2-3-1
  • Fast and reliable damage skill.
• Flash Slash
  • 2-3-2
  • Very Good damage skill.
• Dash Slash
  • 3-1-2
  • Good mobility skill with decent damage.
• Awakening ability used is Alithanes’ Judgment to fill up the Piety meter faster

Stat Priority

• Prioritize Swiftness and make Crit your secondary stat.
• Swiftness allows a more consistent playstyle because of the additional cooldown reduction, movement and attack speed making it much easier to be forgiving with your skills rotations and dodging mechanics.
• Optimum ratio is 60% Swiftness,40% Crit.

Runes

• Wealth runes on Heavenly Blessing, Wrath of God.
• Galewind on Holy Sword, Executor’s Sword, Flash Thrust and Flash Slash.
• Everything else is preference.

Engraving

• Judgment lvl 3 is essential to the build because Judgment increases your Punish skills damage and how much Piety meter you gain from those skills. It also increases the duration of your Sacred Executioner mode.
• Adrenaline 3 is another engraving that is good to pick up early.
• Judgment Paladin doesn’t have issues keeping this up with their low cooldowns and the extra crit rate helps them maximize their DPS.
• Grudge 3 is good engraving as it gives increased damage against bosses.
• Keen Blunt Weapon 3 is a good choice for Judgment Paladin due to how much crit rate they can get from Adrenaline and if they landed their skills from the back.
• Cursed Doll 3 and Master of Ambush 3 can make good extra engravings once you can slot either one of them in (depend on preference).

Gems

• Judgment Paladins should put damage gems on Punish skills which include Holy Sword, Executor’s Sword, Flash Thrust, Flash Slash and Dash Slash.
• Cooldown gems on Heavenly Blessing, Wrath of God.
• Cooldown gems on Holy Sword, Executor’s Sword, and Dash Slash.

Thanks for reading! To learn more about the other classes, check out our collection of Lost Ark class guides.