Melee/Healing Paladin?

Is there a build that can do this on hardcore and untwinked? I really like the aspect of healing and i wanna be able to help my merc out with killing so i don't have such slow progress. So far i have tried a Hammer/Holy Bolt paladin, FoH/Holy Bolt paladin and a thorns squire paladin. But this time through, i wanna go melee. My main goal with the healing is to be able to heal through Diablo's lightning hose attack without my merc flopping over. I figure that if i can heal through that, then i can heal through pretty much everything in the game and there is no reason to acquire more healing power.

So i guess what i'm asking for is a build that has at least decent healing along with some decent melee damage. I'm fine with any of the melee skills just as long as they can kill at bearable speeds. Although, keep in mind, i'm on SP hardcore untwinked which may make it hard to achieve this. I just can't figure out a build that would work that doesn't require me to be level 90+ |||If you go for healing, then you have to go with ... I don't know currently what is that gloves what gives life tap by percentage? Now you should go and find that. Until that go to the shop, and buy a necro-wand with lifetap charges.

On the other hand you can at the same time go for resists against Diablo's hose. Even in single player you can find things like String of Ears or Rockstopper to aquire physical resist.

Oh, a nice tip against Diablo's lightning hose: if you have a short ranged weapon (like any paladin scepter, lol) then if you stand face to face with Diablo, his lightninghose will start BEYOND you (but the fire-wave can still effect you, so watch out).

In single, hardcore, untwinked you CAN melee yourself through the game with paladin with, or without focusing on healing.

For example I've gone as far as Hell Ancients with lightning offensive aura, Zeal and an upped Horadric Staff! (if upped, it turns into a Hand Axe with the same stats) I did not have enough damage with that at that point, but if I had another weapon, I even could do that.

My other builds in SP, HC, melee were: vengeance + conviction and sacrifise + cleansing.

So all the other melee skills of the paladin (not counting charge or smite) are also valid options, the only trick is to have high enough HEALTH. The problem with the paladin, and especially the melee paladin is, that in Hell difficulty a stygian doll for example can kill it with one hit, because it has too low (maximum) life.|||Thanks for the ideas :] and the info on diablo! I've always suspected that! but never really tested it. I just thought i had high resistance so i was leeching faster than he hurt me.

But the whole point of this build is to heal my merc and fight along side with him. I do plan on getting gloves that do life steal for myself, but that isn't much of an option for the merc. And like i said, i want to be the one to heal him. I find it entertaining :]

I actually tested a build this morning that easily has enough points, but i think it is highly unlikely to beat the game with it. I decided to max Holy Bolt, Prayer, Fanata, and a point in zeal. Then the rest went into holy shield. It worked perfectly fine. Although, the only problem is getting a decent weapon to zeal with. Is there any good achievable runewords for melee weapons on single player? I can stand a little countess running. But i think i would rather spend more time beating the game rather than running for runes :P

Thanks for the reply :]|||For Normal there is "Steel", and for Nightmare "Holy Thunder" is good. For Hell, I usually go what unique I manage to find, runewords for weapons are hard to assemble in a selffind game. Maybe Lawbringer is what I can pull out from my *** for now.