Notable Passives:

1. Armour Clad [5/5] - +75 Armour, -10% Damage Taken From Nearby Enemies. This is going to make our character much more resilient. 
2. Relentless [5/10] - +25% Damage and +100 Stun Avoidance. We need to invest points into the tree to get further and this Talent lets us do so while giving extra DPS in return. 
3. Time and Faith [2/5] - Regain 10 Health and 4 Mana when you directly use Smite, Rive, Vengeance, or Multistrike. We run Smite and Multistrike in this build, which will give us a lot of Health and Mana in the long run.
   • You don't want to take more points here as having low mana is very beneficial to the build thanks to the Unique Devotion Amulet. 
4. Blademaster [5/5] - +30 Attack and Cast Speeds for Swords and Axes. This will allow us to spam Smite much faster. 

Paladin Skill Tree (73 Points)

Notable Passives:

1. Conviction [8/8] - Increases Physical, Fire, and Lightning Damage by 32%, and Physical, Fire, and Lightning Penetration by 16%. This passive offers a very high Damage increase to both Smite and Multistrike. 
2. Honour [1/5] - Increases Block Effectiveness by 40, Stun Avoidance by 45, and Block Chance by 2% (Block Chance does not scale with points allocated). We take this for some extra Block Chance so 1 point is enough. 
3. Divine Bolt [1/1] - 20% Chance to Cast Divine Bolt on Melee Hit. This offers a noticeable DPS increase at a price of just 1 Point. It's simply too good to skip. 
4. Shared Divinity [3/5] - +3 extra Divine Bolts at the price of a 30% reduced chance to cast Divine Bolts on Melee Hits. 
5. Heavenfire [10/10] - +30 Adaptive Spell Damage when you have a Shield Equipped. We use a shield, so this offers us a very high DPS increase. 
6. Sanctuary Guardian [8/8] - +400 Armour While Shielded with a Shield, +16 Adaptive Spell Damage With a Shield. This amazing passive not only increases our DPS but also makes us much more resilient. 
7. Holy Precision [10/10] - 200% increased Spell and Throwing Crit Chance, +100% Crit Multiplier with Lightning Skills. Thanks to the Order of Lagon mod, our Smite is a Lightning skill, so it will receive a full benefit from this passive. 
8. Reverence of Duality [12/12] - 24% Increased Health, 24% Increased Damage, 24% Increased Healing Effectiveness, 24% Increased Mana. This is an all-in-one passive that's hard to pass up. 
9. Light of Rahyeh [12/12] - 96% Increased Fire and Lightning Damage and 12% Increased Movespeed. This equals more Smite Damage, so we take it. 

Notable Passives:

1. Devouring Blade [10/10] - +100% Damage for 4 seconds after Killing an enemy. This Passive will allow us to chain-kill enemies, but it's not the strongest against bosses. 

As you can see, this build focuses on maximizing the damage Dealt by Smite. It does so by securing Lightning Damage and Adaptive Damage nodes as well as nodes that improve Crit Chance and Crit Multiplier. It also takes advantage of passives that synergize with Shields to improve both defense and the offense. Nodes that increase Max Mana were taken to take advantage of synergies provided by Devotion Amulet (check Gear Section for more info). Some sustain-oriented nodes were also selected to minimize any Health and Mana problems that could arise otherwise. 

Smite - Smites a target enemy with a bolt of Holy Fire that descends from the sky. Our Multistrike and Lunge will also trigger Smite, so setting it up in a way that maximizes Damage is the way to go, even at the cost of reduced utility. With the featured setup, Smite deals a ton of Lightning damage, and crits often (it can have close to 90% Crit Chance in this build). And when it crits, it just deletes enemies from existence. 

1. Blinding Flash [2/5] - 20% chance to Blind enemies with Smite and 20% more Hit Damage with Smite against Blinded enemies. 
2. Sacrifice [5/5] - +250% Damage at the cost of consuming 15% of your Current HP on cast. The downside of this is rather severe, but Atonement fixes it. 
3. Atonement [4/5] - -80% Health Cost of Sacrifice. From 15% of your current HP down to 3% of your current HP. 
4. Deep Impact [1/4] - +25% Crit Multiplier. With this, Smite's crits will hit even harder. 
   • If you feel like you're too squishy without 5/5 Atonement, skip this and max it instead. 
   • If you have some additional Smite points, max Deep Impact and Atonement. 
5. Conviction [5/5] - 10% increased Base Crit Chance at the cost of 25% slower Cast Speed. 
6. Piety [2/5] - 40% Chance to Electrify enemies with Smite. 
7. Order of Lagon [1/1] - Changes Smite's Fire Damage to Lightning and its chance to Ignite to chance to Electrify. We use Lightning as our element of choice for Smite because it lets us maximize its Damage potential with Devotion Amulet. 
8. Unbalanced Scale [1/1] -  Smite also casts a Lightning Bolt at 3 nearby enemies but it costs 5 more Mana. Increased Mana cost is actually a benefit because we're using Devotion as our Amulet. 

Multistrike - This is our melee ability that gets better with every consecutive use. Each successful Multistrike attack adds a stack of Armament that improves our defenses and causes an additional sword to strike a nearby enemy whenever we use a Multistrike... except that, with Hallowed Arsenal mod, the additional swords are replaced with Smites! In other words, we use Multistrike to spam Smites at our enemies! This is our main offensive ability. 

1. Relentless Advance [3/3] - +15% Attack Speed with Multistrike. This makes Multistrike more dynamic. 
2. Perfect Steel [1/1] - Increases maximum Armament Stacks by 1. Each stack of Armament allows you to strike an additional nearby Enemy when you use Multistrike. 
3. Guarding Stance [5/5] - Eash Stack of Armament now also gives +150 Armor and +150 Block Effectiveness. This is a melee build, so we take quite a lot of damage with it. This mod allows us to withstand it much easier. 
4. Flanking Strikes [1/1] - This basically makes our Armament Stacks always start at 1 and ever go down to 0, which reduces our build-up time. 
5. Vengeful [3/3] - Adds a 45% chance to retaliate with Multistrike swords on a successful Block. This cannot occur more than once per 3 seconds. 
6. Hallowed Arsenal [1/1] - Replaces all additional Swords with Smites. Smites cast with Multistrike cost their fill mana cost per cast. Another source of Smites! 
7. Determination [3/5] - +36% Damage if our Armament stacks are at Maximum. 
8. Sweeping Blows [3/4] - +45% to the AoE of the Additional Swords (Smites, in our case). 

Holy Aura - This is an amazing passive utility skill that increases our Damage and Elemental Resistances. Activating it will double the bonuses it grants for 4 seconds. With the featured setup, Holy Aura also increases our Crit Chance, Crit Multiplier, Attack Speed, Physical Damage, and Block Effectiveness. Moreover, it Cleanses us from all Ailments every time we activate it. 

1. Vital Boon [2/4] - Some additional Health Regen. 
2. Purification [1/1] - Holy Aura now grants 20% Poison Resistance and activating it will cleanse Ailments from you and your allies. There are a lot of annoying Ailments in the game and this gives you a very simple way to get rid of them. 
3. Shelter From the Storm [2/5] - Increases Elemental Resistance granted by the Aura by 10% and Endurance granted by the Aura by 6%. It also increases Elemental Resistance and Endurance Thresholds by the same amount. 
4. Mighty Shield [3/4] - Grants you and your allies +90 Block Effectiveness and makes you regain 6 Health every time you Block an attack. This is a great Shield synergy mod. 
5. Call to Arms [2/5] - 20% extra Physical Damage. 
6. Fanaticism [4/4] - +16% Attack Speed with Holy Aura active. This improves the build's dynamics quite a lot. 
7. True Strike [3/4] -  30% increased Crit Chance when the Holy Aura is active. This is a very high Crit Chance increase that simply cannot be skipped. 
8. Extreme Zeal [3/3] - +15% to Crit Multiplier, because bigger crits are always nice. 

Sigils of Hope - Summon a Sigil that will orbit you, increasing your and your HP regeneration by 25% and causing you to deal additional Fire Damage with attacks and spells. With the featured Setup, Sigils of Hope turn into an instant-cast ability that will help us use up our mana (which is a good thing because of our Unique Amulet). They also improve our defenses and boost our Damage. 

1. Empowering Sigils [5/5] - Grants +30% Damage per Active Sigil to you and your allies. This amounts to a very high Damage boost. 
2. Decree of Flame [1/3] - Adds Fire Damage per Active Sigil. 
3. Word of Alacrity [2/2] - With this, we'll cast Sigils 30% faster and heal for 30 every time we do so. The healing part is all that matters because of Exigency. 
4. Exigency [1/1] - Turns Sigils of Hope into an Instant-Cast ability but increases the mana cost by 10 and adds 1s Cooldown. 
5. Iron Sigils [5/5] - Increases your and your Armor by 160 per active Sigil. This can and will improve your survivability quite significantly. 
6. Enduring Hope [4/5] - Makes your Sigils last 8 seconds longer. With this, Sigils of Hope's effects will remain more powerful for significantly longer. 
7. Tetragram [1/1] - Increases the maximum number of Sigils by 1 and thus improves the ability's overall scaling. 
8. Meditation [1/1] - Doubles your HP regen from Sigils but your Sigils don't affect your allies anymore. For solo play, this doesn't have a drawback. 

Lunge - With the featured setup, Lunge is not only a dash ability. It is also a powerful finisher that will kill off every enemy that is below 15% HP. Moreover, it will restore some of our Health every time we use it... and if we travel at least 10 meters with it, it will also fire off up to 3 Smites on nearby enemies! If that weren't enough, Double Strike gives us the ability to use Lunge 2 times before it goes on Cooldown. 

1. Dawn Charge [5/5] -  Restores 40% of your Missing Health when you use Lunge. This works extremely well with Double Strike. 
2. Warrior's Renewal [1/3] - 
3. Endless Will [2/2] - 20 Health Gain and 6% more Cooldown Recovery from using Lunge. 
4. Ambuscade [2/5] - Lunge deals 60% more Damage to enemies above 65% of max Health. 
5. Double Strike [1/1] - Adds an additional charge of Lunge at the cost of a 15% increased Cooldown. 
6. Initiate's Onslaught [2/5] - +100% Damage to Lunge's last hit and +40% to its AoE. 
7. Cull the Weak [3/3] - Lunge instantly kills enemies that are below 15% HP. This effect doesn't stack - if you have more similar effects, the higher one is always chosen. 
8. Holy Incursion [4/4] - 100% chance to cast a Smite at up to 3 nearby targets based on the distance traveled (must be at least 10 meters away for this to trigger). This is an amazing mod for this Build it basically gives us a second Smite! 

Stat priority:

For this build, we focus on increasing the Damage of our Smite. To do so, we stack Crit Chance and Crit Multiplier (which is the obvious path) and we stack Mana and Attunement (which is the less obvious path that becomes viable thanks to Devotion Amulet which gives us 1 Adaptive Spell Damage per 5 missing mana). Other than that, we simply increase our Lightning Damage as it's the type of Damage our Smite does. To increase our defenses, we also take Resistances, Armor, and Health. 

1. Crit Chance and Crit Multiplier 
2. Mana and Attunement 
3. Lightning Damage 
4. Health 
5. Resistances 
6. Armor 

Recommended Unique Items: 

Devotion  - This amazing Unique Amulet is the centerpiece of the build and it changes the way we approach the build's sustainability. It increases our Cast Speed with Smite by 1% per 2% Missing Mana and adds +1 Adaptive Spell Damage with Smite per 5 Missing Mana. If you use this, you want your Mana to be as low as possible, but you don't want it to run out. This makes managing it a bit tricky but also very rewarding. 

Bastion of Honour - A very powerful Unique Shield that will greatly increase our survivability and sustain. It synergizes extremely well with block chance as it restores Health on each Block. 

Aurelis - This powerful Unique Sword gives us Multistrike and Smite Levels, which is great. It also gives us a 100% chance to cast a Smite after we use a Multistrike against a Boss or a Rare enemy, which is amazing. On top of that, it boosts our Lightning Damage. 

Idols:

• Large Rahyeh Idol (1x3) - These Idols can give us Increased Smite Damage, which is simply amazing for the build. On top of that, they can boost our Health by quite a bit. 
• Grand Solar Idol (3x1) - With these, we can improve our survivability by boosting up Armor and Health Regen. 
• Stout Lagonian Idol (1x2) - Extra Health and Health% from these is always welcome. 

END NOTE

This is the beta version of our Smiter Paladin build for the Last Epoch. We didn't have much time for testing, but this build shows a lot of promise, scales quite well, and outperforms many other End Game setups. Obviously, as the game gets new content updates, we will be updating this guide regularly, though it may be impossible to be done after each Patch.