Diablo II: Tesladin Skill Layout

A Tesladin is a paladin type character that utilizes the Holy Shock aura to add lightning damage to his attacks. This coupled with a quick Zeal attack cycle means the character can deal high damage amounts to multiple monsters in a short amount of time. There are several variations of the Tesladin build to deal with immunities. Some require the build to become a hybrid with Holy Freeze as a backup skill. Others have the build become a lightning-physical hybrid. I decided on the latter method as I've build a Teslafroster already and wanted something a little different. The skill setup is as follows:

Might - 1
Sacrifice - 1
Smite - 1
Holy Fire - 1
Holy Bolt - 1

At level six the character receives an attacking fire bonus from Holy Fire, after having used Might for the very beginning of the game. While not the most damaging skill, Holy Fire will allow the character to deal respectable amounts of damage if some +skill equipment can be found. This is good as the skill has to last the character up to level 18 with only a single hard skill point invested.

Charge - 1
Zeal - 1

At level twelve Zeal becomes available and replaces normal attacking as the default attack. This coupled with Holy Fire allows the character to deal with any monsters encountered without too much difficulty.

Zeal - 4
Blessed Hammer - 1
Holy Freeze - 1

At level eighteen Holy Freeze replaces Holy Fire as the aura of choice. It deals slightly more damage with a single invested skill point, but more importantly the aura slows down all monsters at this level. As a result the character's survivability increases dramatically. The aura also provides the character with a chance to shatter any monsters killed, a definitely bonus when facing monsters that can be resurrected, such as skeletons and fallen.

Holy Shield - 1
Holy Shock - 1
Resist Lightning - 9

At level 24 the main aura of Holy Shock becomes available to replace Holy Freeze. Along with this all extra skill points are placed in Resist Lightning, a synergy of Holy Shock, to increase the aura's damage even more. While Holy Shield received a point, the skill itself really isn't used in Normal beyond when engaging Act bosses, as the mana investment and low timer are simply prohibitive at level 1.

Holy Shock - 20

At level 43 the main aura is maxed and the character is dealing a respectable amount of damage. Offensively the character is very powerful, but it must be remembers that defensively he is fairly fragile due to not utilizing Holy Shield consistently.

Resist Lightning - 20

At level 50 the character is done maxing the main synergy to Holy Shock and his damage is significant. That coupled with a Zeal cycle that deals the maximum number of hits per cycle and this character can pretty much rip through any mod he encounters at this point, as lightning immunities won't show up until later in Nightmare.

Blessed Aim - 1
Concentration - 1
Fanaticism - 1

At level 53 Fanaticsm becomes available, as the way this character will deal with lighting immunes when they begin to show up. The general idea is to have a high damage weapon on switch with Fanaticism active on that switch. When LIs are encountered the character will switch to the alternative weapon/aura to deal with these monsters. It's best to ensure that the switch weapon has some decent elemental damage (not lightning) just in case a dual LI/PI monster is engaged.

Holy Shield - 20

At this point a decision must be made. If the plan is to make this character an excellent tank and concentrate on increasing defense about the 10k mark, then Holy Shield is the next skill to complete and will be done by level 70. This ensures that Holy Shield won't run out in the middle of a fight and provides a huge defensive bonus to the character so monsters have a much harder time hitting him to begin with. Couple that with the increase in blocking percentage that makes 75% simple to achieve and this character is going to be tough to hurt. If however defense isn't high on the list of necessary the increasing damage potential should be, so Salvation is the next skill to max instead to finish off all of Holy Shock's synergies, although a few more points into Holy Shield is recommended to increase the timer and the chance to block to acceptable levels. Say 5 hard points total.

Salvation - 20

If the defense route was taken then only Holy Shield is maxed then Salvation is maxed as well to finish off the damage potential of Holy Shock. This is completed at level 84 and finishes off the skills for this character. If any additional skill points become available they can be placed in either Zeal for greater Attack Rating or into Defiance as a synergy for Holy Shield and increased defense.

Final Skill Distribution:

Holy Shock - 20
Holy Shield - 20
Resist Lightning - 20
Salvation - 20
Zeal - 4
Fanaticism - 1