Brandish

The Brandish Paladin Build Guide teaches you about Gear, Skills, Paragon, Playstyle & Seasonal Mechanics in Diablo 4 Season 11.

Brandish focuses on dealing the most possible damage with a Basic Skill, activating synergies through Aspect of Adaptability, Aspect of the Moonrise and stacking as much Maximum Resource as possible. Once you have found the new Paladin Unique Supplication, Brandish turns into a Area Damage monster and can even shotgun a huge enemy with multiple hits.

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If you are not level 60 yet, make sure to check out the Paladin Leveling Guides from our Tier List instead.

1. Spam your entire skill bar
2. Pull enemies together with Condemn
3. 1. Run into the enemy and position yourself right on top of them
3. Hold down Brandish.
4. 1. With Returning Light Brandish and Supplication you want as many waves to hit as possible.
   2. Run inside of big elites to shotgun them.
   3. Use Fortress to actually be able to survive standing in all sorts of trouble
4. Use Defiance Aura and Fanaticism Aura to reduce your cooldowns through Resplendence.
5. Use Falling Star for mobility.

Why are we using Preacher Paragon Board?

• TL;DR: It's much more damage.
• Preacher gives much more damage than the description might insinuate - the tooltip is wrong.
• The Damage Formula for Preacher is:
• • 1 + (0.65 * [1 + Sum of Attack Speed])
• Without any Attack Speed, this results in:
• • 1 + (0.65 * [1 + 0]) = 1.65 => 65%[x] multiplier.
• At 100% increased Attack Speed, this results in
• • 1 + (0.65 * [1 + 1]) = 2.3 => 130%[x] multiplier.
• However, with the Attack Speed Bonus from Fanaticism Aura being in Cap2, we can easily reach
• • 1 + (0.65 * [1 + 1.7]) = 2.755 => 175.5%[x] multiplier

I can not find an Amulet like the one listed in the build, what others stats can I use?

• Amulets with so many passives are indeed a very rare, once in a season sight. Instead of passives, other useful stats include:
• • Strength (At least some more damage)
  • Attack Speed (if not capped)
  • Cooldown Reduction (if not capped)
  • Critical Strike Chance (if not capped)
  • Lucky Hit: Chance to make Enemies Vulnerable for 2 seconds (if not present elsewhere)
  • All Resistances (generally useful)
  • Fire Resistance (to survive the nasty fire explosion Elite affixes)
• "What about the other passives?"
• • Conviction only adds a bit of Attack Speed in Cap1, which we already cap out easily.
  • Riposte block condition is hard to match if everything is dead before touching you.
  • Iron Sharpens Iron is a good alternative to the passives listed in the planner.
  • Dizzying Blow is tricky as we do not consistently apply Crowd Control.
  • Discipline does not help us, as we are not using a Core Skill to deal damage.

Where are we getting Fortified from?

• Essence of Lies as Purified Divine Gift Fortifies you for 1% Life per second.
• To count as being Fortified, any amount of Fortification will do.
• We boost the Fortified amount with some magic nodes on Preacher.
• Raheir, your mercenary, also provides a bit of Fortify through his ability.

What about Herald of Zakarum?

• Again a case of where the tooltip is incorrect. It states that it multiplies your Armor by 50%[x] so a factor of 1.5. In reality, it only increases your Armor by +50%, which gets added into a pool of all other +% Armor additives. And we have plenty of those through passives like Aspect of the Indomitable, Master Craftwork, En Guarde and Shining Armor plus Paragon Nodes. The real kicker is the 50% increase to Strength, which significantly boosts our DPS and our flat armor, resulting in a decent damage gain. However, in most setups, a Legendary Shield will outperform Herald of Zakarum, as it also is able to provide other useful stats like Critical Strike Chance and Cooldown Reduction. If you are not capped on these stats and have far past 3000 Strength without Herald already, it's benefits are significantly diminished. Only mathing it out entirely could tell you if a legendary shield is better.
• TL;DR: Pick a Legendary Shield with stats to help you reach caps, if you're already capped and there is no good aspect to use, or you're playing a Core Build like Hammerdin, use Herald of Zakarum.

Elixirs and Incenses

It's important to run Elixirs and Incenses at all times. Not only because they increase your Experience gain but also because they provide very strong combat boosts.

For Elixirs you want to use Elixir of Advantage II to increase your Attack Speed. If you are already capped on Attack Speed, use Elixir of Iron Barbs II for more Armor.

For Incenses you want to use Spiral Morning for All Stats to reach requirements for Paragon Nodes if you do not have Shroud of False Death, otherwise use Ancient Times for Strength. Song of the Mountain for Armor and Soothing Spices for All Resistances and more Armor.

25th of December 2025

• Updated the Paragon with Preacher tech and expanded the FAQ.

17th of December 2025

• En Garde Temper on Pants and Amulet instead of Arbiter Duration, typo and formatting fixes.
• Removed Herald of Zakarum as its Armor is only additive instead of multiplicative.

11th of December 2025

• Build published for Season 11 - Patch 2.5.0