Goon Sun Paladin Guide 1.1.5
Sun Paladins in 1.2
So Sun Paladins in 1.2 went from "super tanky but took forever to kill things" to "sun-infused machines of pure blinding destruction". There are two ways they can go, sword and shield or two-handed, and both are supremely good now! As expected, SnS is tankier while 2H hits harder, but both cover the other's strengths pretty damn well.
Sword and Shield: Your trees of choice are Shield Offense, which is as amazing as ever, and Guardian. For Shield Offense, you want 4 points in Counterstrike, and everything else is to taste. Of note is that in 1.2 the awful Overpower was replaced by the incredibly good Shield Slam, which hits an enemy with your shield three times (amazing for onhits) and then immediately blocks without checking or affecting Block's cooldown. This allows you to block a ton even without Eternal Guard, and is great even with one point. Shield Pummel and Assault are still Fantastic. Guardian has some amazing skills - Shield of Light both ups your damage and can almost negate chip damage, Brandish is whatever, Retribution is hilariously good at making you incredibly hard to kill and does a nasty spike of burst damage when it goes off, and Crusade is nice for the cooldown reduction if nothing else. You want some good 1h+shield combos - the Temporal Rift in particular is great. There is actually a sword and shield set now, but I haven't gotten it so I'm not sure how good it is
Two-handed: You miss out on Retribution but you do get some insane stuff to make up for it. In Two-Handed Assault I like to max Stunning Blow for the duration, everything else can be left at 1 or pumped as you choose. The guaranteed crit on Execution is craaaaazy good! But the real meat of the build is in the Crusader tree. Absorption Strike is nice for replenishing some positive energy and setting a target up for more light damage. Mark of Light can give you absurd amounts of sustain against bosses, you just keep smashing them and healing off it. Righteous Strength is a sustain that just makes you monstrously strong as a melee combatant. But Flash of the Blade is just absurd - a massive AoE attack that at rank 4 makes you immune to damage for 1 turn. 1.2 also added Champion's Will, a 2-handed sword made for Sun Paladins that makes them titans of destruction, so if at all possible you want that.
Both: The Celestial/Combat tree is amazing regardless of which you use. Weapon of Light, in addition to dealing some extra damage, prolongs shields - particularly amazing on the Rune of Reflection. Wave of Power is a viciously powerful attack at range, and with points invested and high strength can hit targets at range 10 twice with a 75% chance, which is really useful for dealing with ranged enemies given Sun Paladins' relative immobility. Weapon of Wrath doesn't scale well above two or three points but is nice for that. Second Life is just awesome, instead of dying you instead get healed for over 1000 life easy. As for the Sun tree, Sun's Vengeance is the important one there, but to make good use of the effect on it you really should max out Sun Ray (but I never do). Path of the Sun is also important, though - it's one of the few mobility skills you have! Good use of Path of the Sun can allow you to get out of bad situations or close the gap on nasty foes, so don't forget about it. Radiance is pure preference for the category point - the light is nice, the blind resist is great, and the constant dazing of enemies can be quite nice for some passive crowd control. I've heard people swear by Judgment but the damage on it looks underwhelming. I do like to unlock and max Rush just for the extra mobility, it is useful.
For generics, Sun Paladins don't have too many trees, but what trees they have are amazing, so with a good racial you probably won't unlock any new ones from escorts. You get Light, which is still one of the best generic trees in the game and makes Skeleton Sun Paladins surprisingly excellent. The new Chants are all incredibly good, but you either want to max the first or third - a choice of either a ton of extra hp and saves or a hefty chunk of allres. You really can't go wrong there! You'll also want the standard 20 points in Combat Training ASAP, so you're pretty well covered for generics. I ran a Skeleton and a Shalore and both performed excellently.
Your pattern of play is pretty simple: walk up to fools and crush them. You'll be pretty tanky thanks to your Chant alone regardless of your build, and you'll have heals and shields for days. You'll want to run probably a wild, a teleport, and a third rune of your choice early. Your level 10 category point should go to Crusader or Guardian, and your level 20 I like to unlock Rush with, as that's when mobility really starts being an issue. Whether you want Radiance or 5 inscriptions is up to you. Make good use of Path of the Sun for both gapclosing and escaping, it's quite versatile. Good Prodigies include Arcane Might, Irresistible Sun (on theme), Eternal Guard/Spectral Shield, Flexible Combat, Windblade, Steamroller.
The one major tip is that you should probably have Bathe in Light on autocast when no enemies are visible or the like - if you keep your positive energy maxed out going into fights you will be much more effective. The many sustains of Sun Paladins was one of the new balancing factors on them - especially early when your total pool is low, keeping a large number of (admittedly awesome) sustains up will give you a very small pool to actually use your abilities with. Later on this becomes less of an issue.
I think that covers it pretty well.
There's an old forum guide here: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=36847
