Spear of the Heavens Judgement

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

Spear of the Heavens is a Judicator Justice Skill that focuses on dealing the most possible damage through procing Judgement. SotH becomes a true menace once you have access to the Unique Ring Seal of the Second Trumpet.

Our main way to deal damage is through Judgement. Judgement is a sub-skill which is applied from various sources, such as Pronouncement of Heaven Spear of the Heavens or Reach of the Law Arbiter of Justice or Rite of Judgement Holy Light Aura. It is then further spread by Judgement Day.

The Starter Variant also offers a less Cooldown Reduction reliant version through Fist of the Heavens Spear of the Heavens instead.

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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. Ascend into Arbiter of Justice.
2. 1. You need to refresh the buff before it runs out to keep Aspect of Celestial Strife and Aspect of Ascension stacked.
2. Throw down Spear of the Heavens.
3. Apply Judgement to enemies with Reach of the Law and Pronouncement of Heaven.
4. Whenever a Judgement detonates, your Spear of the Heavens Cooldown is reduced through Enhanced Spear of the Heavens.
5. Judgement Day spreads the Judgement to more enemies.
6. Detonate Judgement early with Blessed Hammer.
7. Keep monsters grouped with Condemn.
8. Use Consecration for more damage and healing.
9. Once enough Judgements detonate, your Spear of the Heavens will have no Cooldown and you can keep spamming it.
10. Use Fanaticism Aura on Cooldown to apply Weakened.
11. Use your Potions with +Potion Capacity on Pants to play around Imbiber.
12. ???
13. Get #1.

Judgement Mechanics

• Judgement is a sub-skill that benefits from Critical Strikes but can not apply Lucky Hits.
• Judgement Day spreads Judgement to unaffected enemies after detonation, leading to crazy chain-reactions.
• Judgement's damage is based on % Weapon damage.
• The following are likely bugs but massively increase Judgements damage:
• • Law acts as a direct multiplier to Judgement from Judicator.
  • Judicator gives Judgement twice as much damage as stated on the tooltip.
  • Judgement Day's tooltip is once again incorrect. Despite the tooltip saying up to 90%[x], the stacks of 6%[x] are compounding, resulting in 1.06 ^ 15 = 2.396 i.e. 139.6%[x] instead.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are we using Preacher instead of Shield Bearer as 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 reach even higher than 100%.
• "But my Block Chance from Shield Bearer! Is losing that a problem?"
• • Not if you have tempered Ranks to En Guarde on your Shield.

What about Herald of Zakarum?

• First of all 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 Master Craftwork, En Guarde and Shining Armor plus Paragon Nodes. However, The real kicker is the 50% increase to Strength and +Ranks to Core Skills which significantly boosts our DPS and our flat armor, resulting in a decent damage gain. If a Legendary Shield will outperform Herald of Zakarum is only answerable by mathing it out. Generally, if a build had access to a good aspect via equipping a legendary shield and not caring about + Ranks to Core Skills, a legendary Shield will likely be favored. It also is able to provide other useful stats like Critical Strike Chance and Cooldown Reduction. But, if you are already capped on these stats, it's benefits are diminished and the worth needs to be mathed out individually.
• TL;DR: Pick a Legendary Shield, Herald of Zakarum's tooltip is wrong.

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

• Fixed a few inaccuracies in the Speed variant.
• Updated Push variant with newest Blessed Hammer detonation tech.

23rd of December 2025

• Updated the FAQ with a more accurate Preacher formula.

20th of December 2025

• Expanded the How it Plays and How it Works sections massively.
• Changed Shield Bearer to Preacher (see FAQ).

19th of December 2025

• Adjusted Started and Midgame Paragon Boards to have a more related amount of points spent

16th of December 2025

• Removed Herald of Zakarum as it is less damage than a Legendary Shield, due to the bonus armor being additive instead of multiplicative and this build not benefiting from +Core Ranks.

14th of December 2025

• Guide fully updated with all variants.

11th of December 2025

• Build published for Season 11 - Patch 2.5.0