Rating
+5

G40+ Full Support zDPS Crusader

by last updated Sep 26, 2014 ( Patch 2.1 )
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Hybrid
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Types: Life on Hit, Cooldown Reduction (CDR), Attack Speed

Skills

  • Slash Electrify
  • Shield Glare Divine Verdict
  • Consecration Bed of Nails
  • Judgment Resolved
  • Laws of Valor Critical
  • Akarat's Champion Prophet
  • Fervor
  • Long Arm of the Law
  • Divine Fortress
  • Vigilant

Items

More Details

Build Guide


Hello, I'm Janyx, and welcome to my Full Support zDPS Support Crusader Build! Current for patch 2.1.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, a zDPS (zero damage per second) Support build is a build focused on providing buffs, utility, and crowd control for your party, as opposed to providing damage output. This greatly increases the effectiveness and survivability of other members of your group, allowing them to deal more damage, stay alive longer, and help move faster through Greater Rifts. This build is NOT intended for use in solo play- this build is intended to provide synergy in groups.

This build centers around my favorite class in Diablo 3- the Crusader. The Crusader brings a number of useful abilities to the table for a support build, as well as an amount of raw survivability that allows you to put yourself in the middle of the action to protect your teammates. In essence, this build turns your Crusader into a beastly Tank-Healer-Support monster, capable of carrying your group to new heights in Greater Rifts.

The strategy here is simple: get in the middle of things, protect your teammates, and use your CDs as much as possible. You exist in the group to provide safety to your teammates- you give them safe places to engage from, you heal them, you CC monsters who are giving them trouble. You're also a HUGE buff to their DPS- adding big damage buffs at key moments. Crusaders are also capable of something no other class in the game is: the Combat Resurrection. I'll go more into details below.


Here are the abilities we're going to be utilizing with our build, and the reasons why:

ACTIVE ABILITIES

Slash - Electrify Rune: This ability is pretty straightforward, and will be our left-click staple. The 25% chance to stun for 2 seconds, coupled with a fairly high attack speed puts out an incredible amount of CC. Coupled with the Ancient Parthan Defenders bracers, this skill can not only provide a large amount of CC but also impart quite a bit of survivability. The CC from this ability synergizes well with your teammates' Bane of the Trapped legendary gems.

Shield Glare - Divine Verdict Rune: An absolute must for any support Crusader. This rune not only blinds enemies for 4 seconds, it debuffs mobs that are hit- causing them to take 20% more damage from all sources. With enough CDR (we're aiming for 56% with this build) you'll be spamming this every 5.5 seconds. Added bonus: being blinded interrupts many special moves and attacks from Rift Guardians. I highly recommend that you try to pick up 'The Final Witness' Crusader shield for this ability. With this shield, the blind and subsequent debuff fire in all directions, hitting MANY more mobs- adding more CC and damage for your allies. The CC from this ability synergizes well with your teammates' Bane of the Trapped legendary gems.

Consecration - Frozen Ground: Another must for the support Crusader. Not only does this ability create a healing zone for your allies, but with the Frozen Ground rune it slows and freezes enemies- giving your teammates breathing room to escape. Coupled with the legendary effect of the Inviolable Faith flail, you'll be planting this zone under every ally. This creates massive spaces where you allies can safely kite and heal. This ability, and the Inviolable Faith are absolutely REQUIRED for this build. The CC from this ability synergizes well with your teammates' Bane of the Trapped legendary gems- it also synergizes well with the proc from Rimeheart (extra damage vs. frozen enemies), if any of your teammates happen to have it equipped.

Judgement - Resolved Rune: This ability is an excellent utility and damage ability. You can target groups of enemies and immobilize them in place, as well as debuff them to have 20% more chance of attacks against them to be critical hits (effectively a +20% CHC for attacks against enemies hit by Judgement). This ability is an excellent initiation ability- you can cast judgement on a pack of mobs, immobilize them, and then follow up with Shield Glare and Slash to keep them in place. The CC from this ability synergizes well with your teammates' Bane of the Trapped legendary gems.

Laws of Valor - Critical Rune: Pretty straightforward choice. Passively grants +8% Attack Speed to you and your teammates. On activation, provides another +15% Attack Speed, as well as +100% CHD to you and all of your allies. Coupled with the Long Arm of the Law passive ability and a high level of CDR, you'll have this ability up for 10 seconds at a time, with only 4-5 seconds of downtime.

Akarat's Champion - Prophet Rune: This ability pretty much makes you an unkillable beast. You're not taking this ability for the increased damage or increased resource regeneration- the only reason you are taking it is because of the Prophet Rune. +150% armor and an instant resurrection/full heal if you happen to take fatal damage? Yes please! I recommend getting to +56% Cooldown Reduction so that you can keep this ability up at all times (with Akkhan's 6-piece set bonus, of course). This ability also has a nifty side effect- you can't be CC'd. Let me repeat that, YOU CAN'T BE CC'D! That immunity to CC includes interrupts from being attacked, vortexed, frozen, or jailed, allowing you to resurrect your teammates while taking damage. It's difficult to convey how kick-ass this is. Normally, in Greater Rifts, a teammate death can mean a failed level or just a tremendous waste of time. With this ability, you're able to get off a quick resurrect, and keep your team moving.

PASSIVE SKILLS

Fervor: +15% Attack Speed and +15% CDR. The increased attack speed will help your Slash proc stuns, and the CDR will allow for more ability spam! REQUIRED SKILL

Long Arm of the Law: Doubles the duration of your Laws of Valor - Critical ability. Gives your team a huge damage buff. Allows you to keep this buff up 10 seconds at a time, with 4-5 seconds of downtime (at 56% CDR). REQUIRED SKILL

Divine Fortress: Increases your armor by a % equal to your shield's block chance (21-31% usually). This is purely for survival's sake. Not 100% required, but the damage in higher Greater Rifts starts to get out of control at level 35+, and this passive will help out quite a bit. RECOMMENDED SKILL.

Vigilant: Increases your life regeneration as well as reduces all damage from non-physical sources by 20%. This ability really starts to shine in higher Greater Rift levels- further reducing magical damage even after your Resist All is taken into account. Keep in mind that damage continues to scale in Greater Rifts without limit, so a 20% reduction is a big deal. RECOMMENDED SKILL


Gearing for this build is actually pretty simple. First, you'll want enough CDR so that you can keep Akarat's Champion up at all times (+56% with your 6-piece Akkhan's Set Bonus). Second, you want to stack as many defenses as you can. In my current build, I have about 75,000,000 Toughness when in Akarat's Champion (which is all the time). See profile link at the end of this guide for some insight into my gear.

ITEMIZATION

Cooldown Reduction (to +56%) > Resist All > Vitality > +% Life > Strength > Armor > Attack Speed > Life on Hit
Stats like reduced damage from elites, +% block, and +life from health globes are also useful, if you can find them on gear.

More specifically, here are some benchmarks you're looking to hit when gearing:

1) 6-piece Armor of Akkhan Set Bonus (for perma-Akarat's Champion)
2) 56% Cooldown Reduction (for perma-Akarat's Champion)
3) An Inviolable Faith 1-H Flail for supercharged Consecrations (I recommend socketing an Amethyst for a good amount of life on hit)
4) 1500-1600 Resist All
5) 17,000-18,000 Armor (without Akarat's Champion up)
6) 750,000+ Maximum Life

SYNERGY ITEMS

I would highly recommend the potent combination of equipping an Ess of Johan amulet with a pair of Strongarm Bracers. The Ess of Johan has a fairly high probability of proc'ing a nice pull effect that will trigger the legendary ability of the Strongarm Bracers- causing all enemies pulled to take a large % more damage from all sources. In addition, the pull can handily group up enemies for easy CC with both Shield Glare and Slash. I find that with 1600+ Resist All and the Vigilant passive it's not 100% necessary to equip an elemental negating amulet, so this combination actually has quite a bit of viability with an appropriately geared Support Crusader.

Another item to consider are the Promise of Glory bracers. These bracers have a chance to spawn Nephalim Glory Orbs whenever you blind an enemy (which you do A LOT with Shield Glare). Keeping up 3 stacks of Nephalim Glory gives you a handy movement speed buff, which can be invaluable in Greater Rifts.

LEGENDARY GEMS

There are really only 3 choices for legendary gems in this build- Gem of Efficacious Toxin, Moratorium, and Gogok of Swiftness. Invigorating Gemstone seems good- but is actually not great (you can't be CC'd in Akarat's Champion, so you really can't proc the gem). Here's my thoughts on each:

Gem of Efficacious Toxin: Worthless until level 25, this gem offers a 10% group damage buff against enemies hit by any attacks/abilities from the bearer. If no one else has this, it's your first choice for legendary gems.

Moratorium: A great way to add some additional survivability. Not really effective pre-level 25, but a good choice 25 and up for its damage mitigation potential.

Gogok of Swiftness: A nice gem for stacking as much Attack Speed / Cooldown Reduction as possible. I highly suggest this gem if you have a free spot. Keeping the stacks up for long periods of time will really help your Cooldowns be up as much as possible.

PARAGON POINTS

Here are my recommendations for where you spend your Paragon Points for this build:

Core Paragon Points: Movement Speed to +25% > Vitality - No need for strength or max. resource with this build.
Offense Paragon Points: Cooldown Reduction > Attack Speed > CHC or CHD
Defense Paragon Points: Resist All > +% Life > Armor > Life Regeneration
Utility Paragon Points: Life on Hit > Gold Find > Area Damage > Resource Cost Reduction


A Full Support zDPS Crusader will do best in groups with 3 high-dps team members, preferably of the ranged variety (DH, WD, or Wiz). The nice part about having this type of Crusader in a party is that it allows the other players to gear for total damage- without having to worry as much about survival. If you're doing your job supporting the team, mobs will be CC'd and locked down most of the time, allowing your teammates to focus on unloading as much damage as possible. When things get rough, you'll be helping them with the healing of Consecration, and the occasional mid-combat resurrection.



That's it for my Full Support zDPS Crusader build! I hope you enjoyed reading, and I hope you have a chance to try it out! Please feel free to take a look at my B-net profile which you can see here:

Janyx #1569 @ Battle.net

Thank you and happy Rifting!