I am completely new to Diablo 2. I watched several guides for the Paladin class and it sounded like Hammerdin was the way to go. Since you can’t do Hammerdin until level 18, I was going with a Holy Fire build to start. That felt very powerful and I basically just laid waste to everything in Act 1. Once I hit level 18, I respecced into hammers…and I immediately felt ten times weaker. I don’t know if I’m just not using the build correctly or if it gets better at higher levels. I just felt like it was extremely weak. I also put points into Might and Blessed Aim as the guide I was looking at recommended.
It doesn’t help that the controls feel incredibly wonky since I can’t have the hammer skill mapped to right click and have an aura active at the same time. I’m not sure how to deal with that aspect as I have to use left click to move. It’s just very frustrating.
Any tips, ideas, helpful advice, or comments are appreciated.
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You went from a ‘high level’ holy fire build to a low level Hammer build. Yes you actually are weaker. It would have paid off to wait until maybe lvl 30 or so before you re-spec’ed so that you wouldn’t start out with a lvl 1 Blessed Hammer. All skills are better at higher level so when you traded in a lvl 15 Holy fire for a level 1 BH your damage dropped dramatically. Only solution to it now is push ahead and get some levels.
You need to put the hammers on the left button and concentration on the right button. As long as you are not targeting a monster when you click the left button you will move. To cast hammers while standing still hold (shift? mind fart if I’m off on that.)
This brings up another question. Blessed Aim and Vigor increase the damage of BH, but do you have to be actively using them to get the bonus? If so, why run concentration as my active aura?
You use conc aura as your active aura to buff BH. Then swap to vigor when you want to charge for fast movement(charge animation scales with “movespeed”). Might is just for synergies. Might only enhances physical dmg, conc covers all damage. Rip those guides that should have covered this >_>
I don’t think you understood my question properly. I’m asking if the bonus damage to Blessed Hammer from Blessed Aim applies when the aura is inactive (i.e. you get the bonus just from having points in the skill) or if that aura has to be active for that bonus to apply.
The bonus damage from Blessed Aim comes from the Synergy damage bonus. If you look at the tooltip of the skill it tells you what skills give bonuses to that skill. Blessed Hammer gains bonuses from skill points put into Blessed Aim, not by using Blessed Aim. Blessed Aim is absolutely useless as an aura, never use it, ever.
What was your build on lvl 18?
You should have something like 1 in hammer, 1 in concentration (the aura you’ll use when doing damage), 1 in vigor (to move around faster) and a good amount of points in blessed aim (boosts hammer damage). Then after every level up you put all points in hammer, anything left in vigor/conc aura.
When I leveled my Pala I used Holy Fire for a bit longer because you basically just killed everything by just standing there 
If you want to play around with skill builds:
https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner
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Rondell pretty well answered my main question. I don’t think the issue was my build as I was using the skills that both Shrotty and the guide I was looking at suggested.
I think going from high level Holy Fire damage to level 1 Hammer damage was just a significant power loss. I actually started over with a new Paladin because I didn’t want to play like that. This time I will hang onto Holy Fire a bit longer and respec at level 30 or so.
I did have one other question. I know that I’m supposed to pick up an Act 2 Might merc from Nightmare, but on my first playthrough on normal, should I be switching to the Act 2 mercs or should I stick with the Act 1 merc for some ranged damage?
Thank you for all of the answers and suggestions.
Farm countess until you get the runes to put stealth on your guy at 17 and insight on your A2 merc.
I’m not sure I understand what you are telling me here. The only options I have for the Act 2 Merc are Blessed Aim, Prayer, and Defiance.
Which runes should I be farming?
He tried to say:
Get an Act 2 merc and give him an Insight Polearm for Mana regen.
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Insight_Rune_Word
Doesn’t answer your questions though and is only relevant once you’ve reskilled to Hammerdin. On normal mode the auras are imho only nice to have and not really relevant for a holy fire build. I think I chose Defiance.
No need for vigor or BA to active, points in it will passively increase your BH damage. You need to keep conc. aura on via right skill slot. BH on left skill slot.
To play, hold left mouse button down all the time and move your mouse to move around like you normally do. Press shift key when you move into the right position to cast BH. Let go of the shift key to stop and continue moving.
You need to move around and position yourself for BH. Its not as easy as most folks think. Even more so if you don’t have Enigma.
My hammerdin clears CS in Hell in under 5 minutes without enigma, but I have to constantly run around to reposition, hold shift to spam hammers, let go to move around again. Rinse and repeat.
You need 1 point in redemption to reclaim corpse for life & mana after kills.
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My friend 
Number of reasons
a) Hammerdin while cheap it still required few items to make things work (namely Spirit in the crystal sword and spirit in Paladin Shield … well toss here Lore in any Helm you are GTG)
b) you re-speced to early … hammer by itself … well weak 
it comes to full potential closer to level 80. Believe you or not but MeteorOrb Sorc will face roll NM (and so will Wind Druid) but hammerdin will do it a lot slower - things will reversed in hell when immunities kicks in and when hammer get all synergies plus full potential of Concentration aura.
c) strictly imo - don’t respec into hammer until at least you spirits+lore and insight for merc and redemption aura. In other words nothing forcing you re-spec your Holy Fire Paladin into Hammer until middle of NM.
With 75+FCR (Spirit+Spirit+Stealth) and at least maxed hammer (w/o synergies) you should be more or less fine