I was stubborn and started the ladder with one, but it is probably not optimal.

Is this build a ladder starter? Yes, sort of.

Higher end runewords (Famine, Phoenix) do get expensive though. You can make a perfectly viable Avenger with 10-15 wss.

Is this build expensive? Not initially.

There is not a single one listed on the Discord trade channel at the moment Hwanin’s Blessing, for example, is one of the best Avenger belts.

Non-meta gear can be hard to trade for.

Some alternate setups are discussed at the end of this guide that may overcome this problem.

There is no way around this, you will struggle to kill map bosses, and Ubers/DClone is probably a no go with this build. You do almost no physical damage, so you cannot rely on life/mana steal for sustain Vengeance has a good AR bonuses, and level 20 Conviction gives -64% to enemy defense. You will have no need to stack AR to hit things. You will end up with 80-85+ fire/lightning resist without much effort Many of the good flat elemental damage gear choices also increase your maximum resists. Many BiS options are traded for mid-runes at most. The main stat you are looking for – flat elemental damage – is not something anyone else cares about. As a result, you can run any area as long as you can survive it. You do lightning + fire + cold damage and you will be running Conviction. That said, there are some very interesting options at the high end of gear that make this build competitive with the best melee options out there. I’m sure many of you are in the same situation. This is particularly appealing to me since I have plenty of time at work to plan my build but much less free time to actually play the game. This isn’t one of those builds that needs Infinity or Beast to work. A side benefit of this is gear is cheap: you can make a functional Avenger for about 10-15 wss. The appeal of the new Vengeance to me is that gear choices are very interesting, letting you use many previously ignored items.

I think those people are wrong – while it certainly isn’t the meta and won’t get you the fastest possible clear times, it is absolutely viable for mapping. The consensus among many players this season is that the new Vengeance skill is not viable to base a build around (see this thread: ). Advanced notes on base damage, synergies, +% damage, and charm slots.

Diablo 2 avenger paladin build stats