So basicly i wanted to build a pala with conviction and runewords with holy auras.
first i thought about 1.10 had that silly bug with stacking auras from items.
Then i saw that here dragon not gives holy fire anymore..
but still i wanted to figure out sthing
So basic idea is that i get hand of justice as weapon ..Dream as helm.
gona have a war as chest and exile/dscale as shield.
So mainly he will be a tank becaus even with 1 point in smite he can do wonders i guess.
The skills will be the following:
20 conviction
20 resist fire
20 resist light
20 holy shield
20 defiance

Conviction will be the main aura i will use all the time .. while i have holy fire and holy shock from dream/hand of justice, and holyfire/light i think will get the synergie from my maxed resist fire/light auras also i will put one point into salvation so i get the synergie from thhat aswell.
After i have all these goodies i will make an act3 fire merc i heard they can do some rly good dmg now.
I max holy shield and defiance for tanking purposes and higher smite dmg aswell, defiance only as a synergie i whont use it, hopefully i will have enough def.
Im hopeing that conviction and holyfire/shock will make enemies so vulnerable that any of my friends and also my merc can slay them as they are like in normal, while as i am a high defence pally i can tank anything they have problems with.
Becaus i will wear dream as helm ..i cant make full mancer .. i will have to gather the uniqes that are best for him.
He will be smiter so i guess dracs are essential even if i have exile as shield.

I would be glad to hear any advice about the skills and items. Also i dont know if fanaticism gives ias/dmg for smite anymore, so that conviction is a good alternative.
The other big question i have is that my a3 merc will have holy fire, does it stack with my holyfire or its a waste to get a3 merc then and its rather a better idea to choose a1 fire merc.
About the low own dmg as i will be not abel to kill anything without m8s i had the idea to have zeal instead of defiance .. what do u think ? is it a better idea?

I had this pala idea way befour this update ..but after it i think its more good to make it.

Thank you in advance

I'd say get a a3 cold merc instead, since you already have light and fire from yourself. He will freeze enemies aswell, helping you alot. Or you could go doom and a a3 fire merc for the tripple threat again.

The level 20 holy auras might not be as strong as you're expecting, even after you've synergized them with the Resistance auras. Most elemental skills in HU only start becoming strong after about level 24 or 32. Here are some answers to points you brought up:

1) Conviction does not stack with holy auras, the aura with the largest -res goes into effect. Your HFire and HShock will not stack with your own Conviction, or with the auras of mercs. <Edit> This has been changed so that the Holy Auras stack with Conviction</edit>

2) You mentioned putting 1 point into Salvation so that you'd get synergies from it, but keep in mind that you don't get synergies from +Skills, only hard points. You'll only get 1 point of synergy.

3) I am not sure why you heard that A3 Fire mercs are doing good damage. Since their skills do not synergize with each other (like Ice and Lightning mercs), I would be surprised to see them do well. I heard Cold mercs were pretty strong since they don't suffer from the casting delay of Blizzard, so even though they cast a low level Blizzard, they might stack it more often if you are lucky. I once made a Conviction paladin with an A3 merc, and felt that he was much too fragile (low HP, no def, no leach) to survive long, even though I was tanking.

I think A1 Fire is a better idea. With +Fire damage (mavina belt, mavina hat, etc) gear and Fire jewels, you can get alright fire damage in her explosions. With high pierce and your conviction, she will do more damage than more A3 mercs, but only to crowded trash monsters. I had an A1 merc a long time ago (> 3 years) doing about 10k explosions.

4) Fanatacism does give a speed boost to Smite, only weapons do not give a speed boost anymore. Smite will be slow without Fanatacism.

5) Paladins are alright as tanks, but if you are gearing yourself to do elemental damage (no leach) then you are going to find it very hard. The low life of paladins means you can only take a few hits from bosses without dieing. Normally a Zealot uses leach to get the life back, since his high block and defence will give him time to leach. You will have to use many rejuvination potions, although Mega and Ultra potions might be okay for some bosses.

If you already have the items for this character, and you plan to play in a party, then you'll be alright.

After reading what Brevan wrote it seems for me that my knowledge in diablo after 6 years is still rly sad
Anyway thanks for clearing me lots of things i didnt even know.,
i will re think the whole pally idea maybe even drop it.
Yeah i have the items btw already but doesnt matter.

If you've got the items, then you should be alright. Your build is pretty similar to the Convictor build I like playing. It's not a powerhouse by any means, but it's novel and pretty fun. Your builds would be much more effective against bosses, but as I mentioned earlier, you wouldn't be the best choice to tank for too long without a lot of pots.

The Convictor uses spell-procs and elemental damage added to attack (e.g. Meteor from Dragonhead, Blizzard from "Rfit", elementalist set) to do most of his damage. His char screen listed damage is about 5k, but he clears trash fine solo (just doesn't clear as fast as many other builds). In his case, a lot of his damage is not listed on the char screen. Of the damage that is applied to monsters, it's multi-element and the monster's resistances are greatly lowered.

I'm guessing what disheartened you was the lack of aura-stacking for -res. It's really not a big deal because of the way breaking immunities works. If the monsters are immune, then all of the auras and curses applied to break the immunity work at 1/5 effect, so the lack of aura-stacking from the Holy auras means you only lost out on 4%. If the monster was not immune, then you lose out on 20%, but you've already lowered it by 80-85% with Conviction, so the change in damage done by your party is negligable.

Here's a quick example, assuming your partner has 40% elemental pierce and did 1k dmg with their attack:
1) Immune monster brought down to 99% res via Conviction, then down to 59% via passive pierce:
- with additional -4% from holy aura stacking, your partner does 450 dmg
- without stacking, your partner does 410 dmg
2) Non immune monster with 0% res, brought down to -85% via Conviction, then down to -125% (I was once told that -100% this is the cap, but can't find a good reference, so I'm ignoring any cap to prove the example) via the passive pierce.
- With additional -20% from holy aura stacking, your partner does 2450 dmg
- Without stacking, your partner does 2250 dmg.

As I said earlier, since you've already got the gear lined up, you should be fine. Just don't expect to tank bosses without pots. My Convictor didn't even bother with LifeTap, since I just flashed Redemption when needed.

its a basic auradin idea, but as opposed to vanilla d2, not sure how much more powerful the auras will be in HU with monster/boss life being a lot higher. also, vanilla d2 had stackable auras on multiple gear slots (3 types of holy fire runewords, 2 types of holy shock runewords... they stacked to make them a LOT stronger... we only have dream for only helmets, and only hoj for only weapons).

Conviction and holyauras stack now, test it in pvp

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Thanks for the informations:) Helps a lot.
I think it over .. maybe i shouldnt max resist light/fire and such and choose other combos/directions maybe find other runeword to build upon idk yet
Thank you rly for ur time i appreaciate it

Hmm is it true then .. that auras stack with conviction ?
how should i test it out

last i checked they didn't stack with conviction

As Mrawskrad said, just test in Player vs Player duels.

When you paladin gets to level 36 (for conviction), just hire an A3 merc, and ask a partner to hostile you (but not kill each other or your merc). Have the partner walk around until he should definitely be affected by both Conviction and the Merc's holy aura. I think a good spot might be if he stands between you and the merc, since the merc will not walk too far away from you. It should be really easy to tell if your partner is under the affect of just conviction (-25% at lvl 1) or both auras (-25% + -20%).

Don't forget that if the auras do stack, then it still might not be worth using the A3 merc, since his aura will help very little when your partners do low damage.

Don't forget to report back to this thread with your findings.

dont have time yet to start this char but i will do it and report back after that test.

I have news: I met with Pako .. i guess most of u know him he seems a rly old hu player, and he said with hes sorc who has thirst for knowledge (akalvl6conviction) and an act3 Frost merc. He sais hes conv gives around -66 and hes merc around -25 and it adds up to -91 .. maybe the numbers are not that apropirate becaus i dont remember well but it was around that.
After i asked him if he sure about this he said yes.
So after all it seems holy auras does stack with conviction.
Im getting information becaus i made 2 chars who got to the rubbish bin this ladder .. i dont want to make another one.
I found a 2 conviction cadeuces today .. maybe i should look for a 3 conv one to put rw in.
About the act3 merc thing .. my experience and one of my friends aswell .. is that if u buy act3 merc after the new update ..u cant equip anything for him, no normal nm or hell.
Anyway i will stick to the a1 one that seems better.. only question is if i should choose fire one .. and get bow with a good amount of fire dmg.. or use cold one and put ICE rw on her so i have all the 3 auras together with conv. I dont see many cold sorc in need of me and all my buddies who i will play with are fire/light so its not a must .. i will wield HOJ for sure.
Nobody told me about my other problem though.. the defiance aura max, shal i go for better tanking and max it .. or get Zeal instead to 20 so i can do some dmg/leech. i guess after i got those auras on .. i get some dmg from them aswell ..not only as aura/second but as add up to my weapon, maybe i would be abel even to beat vengence pallys in elemental dmg.


Edit:
Oh shit i just got a new idea.
The thing is that u said zealers are only good with ias from fana..
But i was wondering what can i give my merc to deal fire dmg well enough.. it dont seems there much options then put on her Templars with fire facets and griffons with fire facets(got an eth one anyway) also put on her hellmouth or mancer gloves.. also i got that fire dmg boots in eth version aswell, for belt maybe mavina then.. anyway the thing is that i couldnt find any bows (hellrack sux) that does enough ele dmg that i need ..so why dont give her a faith? so i have fanatic aura .. then i can go hack and slash with zeal while her dmg output increase with the more fire arrow shooting aswell.

catch me on the realm some time - I have a conviction paladin and an A3 merc and am happy to run the test with you.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

Tested with my paladin.

With just me, he was at 41% light res. With merc, dropped down to 21% light res. So they stack

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

wow good to know.. so if a fire sorc runs thirst of knowledge and a fire merc from act three.. the benefit from both auras will occur.. good to know... u shouldof went with a fire merc blue

Atm u cant, i just stated that act3 mercs are bugged ... u cant use them.

So the next question - will runeword items stack with merc aura + conviction?

If you have Fire merc (-20%), Hand of Justice (-20%), Conviction (-80%) will you end up with -120% reduction? Or will the HoJ aura and Conviction aura cancel each other out (or alternatively HoJ and Merc aura cancel out).

I am gonna bet that you will only get -100% but it would be interesting to know. If anyone has a Dream helmet, I can test it with my Avenger and A3 light merc.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

Tested with a friend who made a bow pally(? O.O) and he used dream with conviction and worked .. so now i made my Doom my Dream, Faith and already have enigma.. im prepared:) Oh he was the one who suggested doom over HOJ becaus the better attributes and dmg (483ed i got) so i will choose a1 cold merc.
I started him so i gona post infos if i get to a problem or an awesome experience.

Thank you for confirming that Conviction works with On-Equip auras from stuff like "Dream".

Blue's latest test request was to stack the HolyShock from "Dream" with HolyShock from a Paladin or an A3 mercenary (and try both of them together with the "Dream" aura, so 3 auras). Do you still have the opportunity to test that?

Last night my sorc tried recruiting an A3 fire merc, and found that any problems they had with gear have been fixed. If you're still having problems, then just run D2modSetup.bat again (run it 3 times, just to satisfy paranoia). Ignore the message pop-up from running that program, it isn't accurate.

i didnt have problems with merc .. my friend had but only becaus he didnt use -direct -txt ..
Anyway we have to ask blue to try it out with merc aura ..i will rent him my dreeam to try it.

Has anyone tried testing the double auras against monsters? Or is there even a need to? I know a few things differ from fighting players and monsters. Would be nice to be certain they do indeed stack against monsters and players alike. Maybe someone with MH could look into it, otherwise it sounds like a bitch to test.