Get a free trial of Diablo 4’s new Paladin class when Season 12 launches this week

From March 11 – 18, Diablo 4 is offering everyone a chance to try the new Paladin class from the upcoming expansion Lord of Hatred, for free during the first week of Season 12. Though you can currently play the Paladin if you’ve pre-ordered Lord of Hatred, if you’re sitting on the fence this gives you a chance to try before you buy. (Unfortunately, there’s not a similar trial for the new Warlock class.)

Characters you create during the trial can only level to 25, but are otherwise unrestricted. And you have to already own a copy of Diablo 4 to log in and check out the new class, whether that’s on Battle.net, PlayStation, or Xbox. (Though the game is available on Xbox Game Pass, so if you’re a subscriber, you’re good to go. And if you play and decide you enjoy the class? If you preorder Lord of Hatred, you can keep your trial character and keep leveling. Also, here’s my secret: I’m going to be trying out Paladin too during this time because I haven’t preordered yet, so we’re in this together.

With only a week to try the might of the Paladin — and having to balance game time around pesky things like work and life — it will help to focus on what we can do up until that point in the game. While endgame content is out of reach, there’s an awful lot available to us. Your first choice is whether to create a seasonal or non-seasonal character, and whether to play the story campaign or jump right into demon-slaying.  My advice is to skip the entire campaign so you can head to Helltides, run dungeons, complete Whispers, join Legion events, and fight world bosses, all of which will be locked if you choose to play through the story (which you won’t be able to finish before level 25). As for whether to roll a seasonal character or not, that’s up to you. Season 12 includes a new Killstreak mechanic and lets players transform into the Butcher, neither of which will help you test out the Paladin but do give you some new gameplay options.

Paladins unlock their class ability — Oaths — at level 15, so we’ll have ten levels to freely play with different builds and playstyles. It’s free and easy to swap skills around to try different things, so there’s no reason not to try out every different Oath and skill combination to find what feels fun.

I’m not going to bore you with a thousand words about every Paladin ability, because Blizzard did that job for me, and I’m not even going to bore you with the lore of Diablo 4’s Paladins, because I did that a few months ago. But I have spent some time digging through Paladin leveling builds so you don’t have to, giving you a starting place as you give the class a trial run. At level 25, you won’t have the points to fill out all of these builds, but they’ll give you a place to get started:

• Want to rain holy spears down on enemies which then makes them explode and those explosions chain more explosions? Judgement Paladin is going to be your bread and butter.
• Want to throw Captain America’s divine shield through enemies while dealing thorns damage and exploding? Shield of Retribution Paladin has your back.
• Want to carry a big shield and bulldoze anyone in your way? Shield Charge Paladin will make you feel like the Juggernaut.
• Are you a divine vessel in a mortal body, bursting forth in radiant energy that crashes into your enemies like a holy blender? Wing Strikes Paladin is your calling, but do note that it will not pick up until near the end of your trial, so you should probably start somewhere else and come back to this one.

I will definitely be trying all four, but I think Wing Strikes and Judgement are going to be the two Paladin specs that get played the most. I’ll note that I only used leveling guides written within the last month, just to make certain they were freshly updated. Are you already playing Paladin? Have some build ideas, tips or advice? Drop them in the comments below.