Build Guide
Hey gang,Have you collected the full Roland's set but can't find anything very useful to do with it? Looking for a crusader pet build that works well enough to be worth gearing up an alt. character? You may just like this build I put together that combines Roland's set with the Eternal Union and Unrelenting Phalanx. Is this the best crusader build in 2.1? Nope. It is however pretty good at clearing bounties in a reasonable time, I can solo clear T6 rifts in 6-7 minutes on average (with imperfect gear) and I had no trouble reaching tier 30 on my first attempt solo with an unfinished version of the build and no Unity. This build also works well in trial rifts and offers some pretty nice defensive buffs in a party.
Here's how it works:
The point of the build is to allow your bowmen to do the majority of your damage while buffing them by running around and sweep attacking everything to proc the Roland's 6 piece bonus and simultaneously proc strongarms via the gathering sweep rune for sweep attack. Since Roland's set is so squishy compared to perma-Akarat, every time you hit an elite pack you will drop consecration/bathed in light for 48k life per second and hit laws of justice/immovable object for a massive boost to armor and all resist. With long arm of the law you (and your party) will be stupidly tanky for 10 seconds which should be enough time to melt blue packs and lesser yellow packs. With a diamond in your helm, a CDR roll on your shoulder and CDR maxxed in paragon you will have a 12 second downtime before you can pop consecration and refresh laws of justice again which is not bad at all. If you want to go extra aggro you can swap justice/immovable for laws of valour/critical or swap consecration for really anything you feel like. If you want to go super defensive you can switch the rune on sweep attack to holy shock for the built in LoH and then swap the strongarms out for reapers wraps to maintain wrath for more sweeping. I threw shield glare/divine verdict into the build because you can never have too many damage buffs and the CC comes in handy with charging/jumping/spinning monsters etc. Steed charge is obligatory, I can't imagine playing crusader without it. You could run the ramming speed rune for physical damage and knockback but I prefer the extra travel distance of endurance (don't forget to keep a swiftmount in your inventory preferably with CDR for maximum horse uptime).
Here are the Target stats to make this build function smoothly:
Attack speed is important in this build because we want to get the maximum damage from the bowmen. I saw a post on Reddit that said the breakpoints for bowmen are 1.62163, 1.93549, 2.40001, 3.15790. I'm assuming these are correct, if these are wrong let me know and I will try to revise this guide. Based on those numbers you ideally want 1.39 APS. This means that a single stack of Roland's buff will take you over the 1.62 breakpoint and 5 stacks will get you over the 2.4 breakpoint. To get to 1.39 APS you want attack speed rolls on your gloves and your belt, the rest you can get via paragon. Bonus attack speed on your weapon doesn't hurt either. Ideally you want to run a Witching Hour for Grifts and maps low on clickables and carry a Harringtons in your inventory to swap in for maps with lots of clickables. If your APS is 3.9 with the Witching Hour equipped swapping to Harringtons will drop your APS to a point where it will take 2 stacks of Rolands buff to reach the 1.62 breakpoint but 5 stacks will still exceed the 2.4 breakpoint which is a small price to pay for the huge Harringtons buff. If you don't have a witching hour you can use a Hellcat or my preference would be to craft a Fleeting Strap. For a weapon you really want to use the Golden Flense. I tried Heartslaughter and a few other options but ultimately this build plays much, much smoother with the Golden Flense. The bonus wrath per hit goes a long way towards keeping the Roland's buff up and you will constatntly be running out of wrath with this build even then. The good news is that even when you completely exhaust your wrath if you just keep hitting anyways you should regenerate wrath fast enough to get a hit in just before the Roland's buff times out allowing you to maintain 5 stacks of the buff even when your wrath is on empty.
Your other stat targets are: 50% crit chance, 400-450% crit damage (depending on belt), 750-800 on your lowest resist (including the laws of justice passive boost), 27% cooldown reduction (diamond in helm, 8% on shoulder, 10% in paragon), 50-60% physical bonus (amulet, bracers, SoJ), 30-45% phalanx bonus (boots, shield, helm), 22k armor and a 400-450k life pool. Staying over 400k life can be difficult if you run a Witching Hour and have a phalanx damage roll on your helm before you reach 600 paragon so you may want to keep Vit on your helm or run a fleeting strap (str/vit/life%/attk spd.) until you have the paragon to stay over 400k life. If you solo with double Unity/invincible follower then you should be able to run <400k life pool no problem however I prefer the damage of the SoJ over a Unity so I solo this build without a Unity. I don't play hardcore right now but if you do and you want to try this build then disregard my defensive recommendations, you will need to determine on your own what is an acceptably safe way to run this build, I really couldn't advise you at all about hardcore.
Ok here are the recommended rolls for the gear:
Helm: Str/Socket/Crit/Phalanx damage (or Vit, see above).
Chest: Str/Vit/All Res/Sockets
Shoulders: Str/Vit/All Res./CDR
Gloves: Str/CC/CD/Attk Spd
Bracers: Phys/Str/Vit/Crit
Belt: Witching Hour= Str/Attk Spd/CD/Vit, Harringtons or Fleeting Strap=Str/Vit/Life%/All Res
Pants: Str/Vit/All Res/Sockets
Boots: Str/Vit/All Res/Phalanx damage (All Res isn't as critical as the other 3 slots on boots)
Rings: Eternal Union=Str/CC/CD/Socket, SoJ=Phys/STR or CD/Elite/Socket, Unity=Str/Elite/CC or CD/Socket
Amulet: Phys/Str/CC/CD (optionally drop Str or Phys for a 3rd jewellery socket)
Weapon: You should really use a Golden Flense. Use the best rolled one you can, there is no really important roll here, just get good damage.
Shield: Str/Vit/CC/Phalanx Damage
Leg Gems: I prefer Pet gem and Pain enhancer. Pain enhancer besides being physical is one of the only gems that can be procced by the bowmen. I do not recommend Gogok, it just didn't run smoothly because wrath depletes too quickly. Boon of the hoarder or either of the Bane gems are decent choices. I haven't come to a conclusion on the best third gem, more testing will be required. I will update this guide if I find something that stands out. Go ahead and put your recommendations in the comments if you think you have a winner.
Paragon point allocation:
Core: Mvmnt Spd until capped>Max Wrath>Vit if needed then the rest in Str
Offence: CDR>Attk Spd. (until at 3.9 APS)>CD>CC
Defence: All Res>Armor>Life%>Regen
Utility: RCR>Area Damage>LoH>Gold
OK so thats pretty much it, I've had fun working this build out over the last week or so, hope you enjoy it too. It's not going to set leaderboard records but I think this build adds some nice variety to bounty and trial key farming and it performs better than I expected it to. Good luck!
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Posted Sep 17, 2014-
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Posted Sep 17, 2014