This is an idea I came up with when I was reading a guide for a hammerdin and I realized the similarities between a Smite Paladin and a Blessed Hammer Paladin. A Smite Paladin will generally max out Smite (obviously), Concentration, and Holy Shield. Having built a Smite Paladin (smiterdin), I can attest to the effectiveness of a Smite Paladin. With a scimitar of quickness, Goldwrap, and slightly increased attack rate gloves, I can achieve 5 to 6 attacks per second doing well over 300 damage per attack and giving 4.4 seconds of stun to each enemy (assuming they don't die with the first few smites). To build a Blessed Hammer Paladin (hammerdin), you would replace Smite with Blessed Hammer and attack from a range instead of up close. Combining the incredible speed and power of a smiterdin and the versatility and range of a hammerdin, you have yourself a Paladin variant that can pretty much take care of himself (for once).

Here's a quick skill guide I assembled. I'll explain the point allocation later. Mind you, this is just a base. You'll still have lots of points afterwards to specialize in other skills.

OK, that's all you need. No really, Concentration, Smite, Blessed Hammer, and Holy Shield are the only skills you need. Basically, you'll have Concentration on all the time, and you'll recast Holy Shield whenever you need to. Your attack skills (Smite and Blessed Hammer) will be changed based upon whether you want to melee the enemy or stay far away. It's that simple.

Obviously you still have lots of points left over. You could max out another skill of your choice. A point in Salvation would help immensely, and some people find it easier to hit enemies with Blessed Hammer when Holy Freeze is activated, so a point there would help. You'll be doing less damage however, and I think it's a better idea to getting used to hitting enemies when they're not frozen. Charge is another possible skill. With some mana steal, one charge can fill your entire mana ball in a single hit. A high damage weapon is optional, given the large +damage% of Charge and Concentration combined. Conviction won't do more damage to enemies when using Blessed Hammer, because it is considered to be physical in nature.

I suggest you stay away from the entire Defensive tree in general. There is very little there that is actually useful to a Smite Paladin. Salvation I think is the only skill you'll want, and only a single point is really needed. Defiance is useless because defense isn't all that useful (due to a x4 AR monster bug). Cleansing reduces poison and curse length, but it's only useful during battle once you've been poisoned/cursed. And you should have Concentration on all the time (except for Salvation against magic users). The way I see it, get a 75% poison length reduced item, and wait for the curse to run out once monsters are gone from the area (or kill the monster who cast it). Meditation isn't really needed, as you'll have a surplus of mana potions in stock, and it's more of a convenience than anything to have mana recharge faster. Healing shouldn't be done through an aura (Prayer and Redemption), as healing potions are readily available from drops and cheaply bought from vendors.

Redemption also restores mana, but mana can recharge itself quickly. Your mana ball will be refilled every two minutes regardless of level. If you have 60 mana, 1 mana will recharge every 2 seconds. With 120 mana, 1 mana will recharge every second. The more mana you have, the quicker you can regain the mana necessary to use Smite or Blessed Hammer.

When gaining the first few levels, most of your stat points will be going into vitality and strength. There is absolutely no need for any dexterity at all, except maybe a single point or five (21 or 25 dex) so you can wield scimitars and sabers (fastest weapons in the game, save exceptional cutlasses). You won't be needing much strength early on, so more vitality is a good idea. Smite won't be doing much damage until later, until you get a spiked/barbed shield. As soon as you find one of these, USE IT. Assuming you pump smite even though it doesn't do much early on, once you get a spiked shield you'll be glad you allocated as many points as you did in Act 1 (you'll probably get a spiked shield in Act 2). Later on, you'll need more mana for Smite, and much more mana for Blessed Hammer.

Strength - Strength is negligible. In fact, get no more base strength than to wear a great helm (for Howltusk). See if you can get a Twitchthroe early on, and get a spiked shield of blocking or deflecting. Later on, get Iceblink, the unique splint mail. You don't need much strength at all, even though it adds a little to Smite damage, it won't show up on the character screen and it won't be much. I don't think it's worth it to increase strength just to wear certain items.

Dexterity - 21. It's the base need for a scimitar. A scimitar of quickness is the 2nd fastest weapon on the game, right behind the cutlass of quickness. I don't think a cutlass is needed at all. It's only 1 unit of speed faster (like an added slightly increased modifier), but it requires 52 dexterity. That's 31 more dexterity needed than the scimitar. 31 stat points can mean an extra 93 life or 45 more mana. I think that adding only a single point to dexterity is best.

Vitality - This will be getting a lot of points. Melee attackers won't be doing much damage however, as they'll be stunned from Smite before they can deal any significant damage or dead from Blessed Hammer before they can reach you. It's the ranged enemies that will be doing damage. Resistances and -magic can help a lot versus magic users, so a "resistance armor" may come in handy. More on this later.

Energy - Depending if you want Blessed Hammer or not, energy will be fairly high for a Paladin. In fact, it may even surpass your vitality. It's not uncommon to have over 200 mana just for Smite at higher levels, and way over 300 for Blessed Hammer. You won't really need mana potions, as your mana bulb will automatically refill itself in two minutes, regardless of level. More mana means more mana refilled per second, so 240 mana will give you 2 mana needed for Smite in one second.

A note about fast weapons: Smite speed is based upon weapon speed. So a scimitar of quickess will get you a very fast Smite while a war hammer or no weapon will give you a very slow Smite speed. Goldwrap and slightly increased attack speed gloves all help Smite speed. The cutlass (exceptional scimitar) is slightly faster than a normal scimitar. Therefore, a cutlass of quickness is the fastest weapon in the game. Don't go nuts looking for one, a scimitar of quickness will serve you well. Sabers are also fast, but require 25 dexterity (allocate five points if you need to, not a big deal). Flails are probably next, followed by long swords. War/divine scepters are about as fast as flails or long swords, but they can have many useful modifiers like +skills. You won't want to use your normal attack once you have some good Smite damage going, so weapon damage is practically nonexistent. Speed is all that matters, so don't spend more than 5 points in dexterity if all you want to use is a flail or long sword. Stick with a faster saber or scimitar. It can only mean more life or mana for you.

Smite always hits, except the 5% auto-miss built in, so you can completely forget any +attack rating modifiers you see. Both Smite and Blessed Hammer will NOT steal mana, so +mana after each kill items are great. If you Smite more, then use a spiked/barbed shield with +mana after kills rings. Only +2 is needed. However, if you use Blessed Hammer more, then Wall of Eyeless is outstanding (unique bone shield, +5 mana after every kill, faster cast rate). You can Smite with a bone shield, but they do less damage than a spiked/barbed shield (Holy Shield will help this).

A good loadout:

Helms:
Howltusk (unique great helm, 35% of damage goes to mana)

Weapons:
rare scimitar/cutlass with greatly increased attack speed
rare war/divine scepter with greatly increased attack speed

Shields:
Wall Of The Eyeless (unique bone shield, +5 mana after every kill, faster cast rate, hammerdin)
rare spiked/barbed shield with increased chance of blocking (smiterdin)

Armor:
Twitchthroe (unique studded leather, before Holy Shield, increased block %)
Iceblink (unique splint mail, after Holy Shield, freezes enemies)
resistance armor (preferably light armor, +fire and +lightning resistance)

Belts:
Goldwrap (unique heavy belt, slightly increased attack speed)
Nightsmoke (unique belt, 50% damage goes to mana, +20 mana, +10 resistances)

Gloves:
Magefist (unique light gauntlets, faster cast rate, regenerate mana 25%, hammerdin)
rare gloves with slightly increased attack speed (smiterdin)

Boots:
Goblin Toe (unique light plated boots, 25% chance of crushing blow, smiterdin)
Treads of Cthon (unique chain boots, fastest run/walk, 50% stamina drain, hammerdin)

Good weapon modifiers:
+life/mana
greatly increased attack speed
faster casting rate
+mana after every kill
resistances
+1/2 Paladin skills (scepters only)
+skills to Smite, Concentration, Holy Shield, and Blessed Hammer (scepters only)

Good shield modifiers:
increased blocking chance
faster hit recovery
resistances
+life/+mana
+mana after every kill
% of damage goes to mana
damage/magic damage reduced
half freeze duration
poison length reduced

You should know about how the monsters have x4 attack rating than they should due to a bug, so defense is never an issue. You're going to get hit anyway, so go for the best modifiers, not the best armor class. As long as you have a good block (75% is max, try to keep that), it's 100x more important than defense.

Later into Hell difficulty, you might want some resistances, so be sure to have a point in Salvation available, and find a "resistance armor" with +fire and +lightning resistance (boots are fine as well, try to get some fastest run/walk). It doesn't matter what kind of armor it is, simple leather will do. Trust me, defense really is that useless.

In order not to be hit in Hell/Hell, you need something like 16,000 defense. Only a barbarian with Shout, maxed Iron Skin, and 800 defense Ornate Plate and probably an armor shrine is going to get that. Hence Blizzard changed all monsters to x4 AR, to give the barbarian a challenge in Hell difficulty. All Paladins by nature are considered low armor class, so magical bonuses and blocking are much more important than any high defense armor.

Depending if you want to use Smite or Blessed Hammer more, there are different modifiers you can choose from:

Smite:
Increased attack speed

Blessed Hammer:
Faster cast rate

Both:
+mana after every kill
% of damage goes to mana

Rings and amulets with mana gaining abilities (not mana steal) are very useful to either style of play.

When starting the game, you'll be playing a normal Paladin, probably a weaker one because you don't want zeal or sacrifice. No big deal really, the game is still easy at this point. Once you hit Act 2 and you buy a spiked shield, you'll be playing a smiterdin for quite a while. For a long while in fact, probably until you reach Act 3 or 4. You could play the rest of the game as a smiterdin and never use Blessed Hammer at all. Smite is that effective. However, you'll have lots of points to throw around, and since you're always using Concentration anyway, might as use that skill with the hammerdin's style of play. It'll give you a range advantage. Plus, it'll make the game less boring and make your character more versatile. From there on out you could just play a hammerdin. Any way you look at it, you could be playing a smiterdin who decided to mess around with Blessed Hammer, or you're playing a smiterdin just until you get Blessed Hammer and can finally play a hammerdin.

Early skill point allocation includes pumping Smite until you get Concentration and you then pump Concentration (or Smite as you'll gain 0.2 additional seconds of stun as well as +15% damage) until you get Holy Shield. Then max out Holy Shield, Smite, and Concentration in that order. If you want to use Blessed Hammer, just detract some points from Smite and Holy Shield. Extremely easy, isn't it? It's one of those characters you can't possibly screw up.

There isn't much strategy to a smiterdin. Just go up to an enemy and smite away. If you're fast enough, Lightning-Enchanted uniques will not release bolts upon getting hit. You can whack them repeatedly to stun-lock them (true stun-lock, from the stun from Smite and that if you're really fast and have them where they won't go anywhere, they'll be stuck in one frame of animation, unable to do anything, including release lightning bolts). Lightning-Enchanted enemies might as well not even have the ability, as it means nothing to a smiterdin once he gets started. Dual-wield Barbarians wish they had the stun-lock capabilities you do. Don't settle for anything but the "enemy seems frozen in one frame of animation" stun-lock, it's the best way to go.

Also, when surrounded by enemies, don't bother to Smite one to death before moving on to the next. Just Smite them once and do the same for every other enemy. By the time everything's stunned (4.4 seconds at level 20), you can go back to the first and finish him off, and repeat to everyone else in the same order.

A hammerdin is a little different. You need to be able to anticipate your enemies moves and be able to whack them with the hammer as it spirals outwards. You can stand still and cast multiple hammers and let the enemies walk into them, or you can walk towards or away from your enemy to hit them with the hammer. In tight hallways this can be tough, hence you have the Smite ability.

Be sure to practice with Blessed Hammer often, to get a feel for hammer speed and direction. Eventually, you'll have pinpoint aim with the hammer and will be able to take down enemies anywhere.

Hammerdins complained that they have a hard time killing enemies in hallways, and smiterdins complained that they had trouble killing ranged attackers. The Smiting Hammer Paladin combines the best of both worlds (incredible melee with damaging range) into a hybrid Paladin. The same way the Amazon can do melee damage with a spear or fire off arrows with a bow, you can attack up close (and be able to block to boot), and kill enemies far away from you (and probably do more damage than a bow anyway, especially with the +damage% bow bug).

A few good sites:
The Lurker Lounge (has a great hammerdin guide, check the forum too for tips)

DiabloII.Net Network

-