i see many builds using blessed shield doing higher torment levels. does anyone have any other kinda builds that can do T3+ or is this the only viable option for crusaders at the present time? i see a few lightning hammerdin builds but people tend to talk shit about them due to their slow killing speeds.
high torment builds for crusader often rely on certain items, mainly things like Fate of the Fell (build nerfed), Blade of Prophecy, Mortal Drama, Hellskull, Jekangbord, Akarat's Awakening,... and 6-Set Akkhan Bonus.
If you plan on doing higher torments, especially T6 you should aim to get any of those items and 6 Set Akkhan Bonus, the builds depend on those items. There are different builds, I am using the Jekangbord-Build posted by LastZoul iirc, but there are also Condemn-Builds like the one Mannercookie posted with Blade of Prophecy or the Fate of the Fell / Fire's of the Heaven Build which has been nerfed in the recent patch.
Viable in high torment is also different on your definition, do you want to do T6 solo or in a group? Because in a group you can be carried easier as Crusaders have quite a lot of group buffs (Judgment/Resolved, Laws, Shield Glare/Divine Verdict)
I myself was using the Hammerdin Lightning build for some time until I found a Jekangbord and I wouldn't want to go back. Lightning Hammerdings are a bit slower in killspeed, but they still work quite well and I could do T5 without any Akkhan pieces or special weapons.
Plenty of crusaders (such as myself) are using a Fist of Heaven holy damage stack with condemn and AC/Rally along with some set bonuses etc. to do T3/T4 no problem. Although the poster above is correct that if you want to push into T5/T6 you essentially need the class set 6 piece bonus. Plenty of other builds *can* do it but not very efficiently and my idea of fun isn't running in circles half the time.
It's doable for T5-6 but very slow. I swap around a few pieces to make myself more tanky for those runs. I mainly run T3-4 as they're more efficient. With a few more upgrades I'm hoping I can get my T6 runs down to around 15 mins. I've been extremely unlucky and haven't found a single piece of akkhans set so am making the best I can out of the gear i've got. This build is very underrated. In my gear i'm doing ~18M dps outside of CDs, 50M dps with Akarat's up.
i gotcha... so i'm basically stuck on T2 til i can start to get some of those specific build legs is more or less what i'm gettin from these posts. though i do still want to hear about more builds you guys have and what it can handle. it seems like crusaders are supposed to be heavy on the +lightning damage skills, or maybe +holy depending on your spec. my main issue with the game atm is for some reason i'm not really finding any decent legs for the crusader. @osamix i did find that darklight, so maybe i'll look into getting that build going and see if i can get into T3 or somethin. pushing up nin torment level is the only thing i can really see to start finding some usable legs.
on a side note, how did you guys acquire most of that gear that allows you to do higher torments? did you just grind normal for a few days and find shit that way? because i've basically pushed myself up to T1 and haven't really been doing anything else since, hoping for akkhan pieces.
apparently i put on the darklight, and decided to dick around with the fist of the heavens build..... i ran through keep, and got my first piece of the akkhan set...... i'd been running rifts all week to no avail. i run keep once and apparently find one... god damn you RNG
on a side note, i'm kinda really liking this FoTH build, so thanks for bringing that up!
on a side note, how did you guys acquire most of that gear that allows you to do higher torments? did you just grind normal for a few days and find shit that way? because i've basically pushed myself up to T1 and haven't really been doing anything else since, hoping for akkhan pieces.
Grinded rifts trying to be in groups most of the time. Did T1 for ~30 hours, then T2 for ~20 hours, then T3 for ~20 hours. Now my gears been stagnant for about the past 30 hours worth of T3/4 farming (only upgraded 2 items in the past 2 weeks).
I can do T6 pretty easily with FoH Fissure and Justice Burst, and a metric ton of DMG. Toughness is only around 8mil. Being totally ranged and just kiting away with wrathful +100k to health globes, it's pretty hard to die.
I can do T6 pretty easily with FoH Fissure and Justice Burst, and a metric ton of DMG. Toughness is only around 8mil. Being totally ranged and just kiting away with wrathful +100k to health globes, it's pretty hard to die.
That sounds incredibly inefficient. i play the same build but with 28m toughness solo on T5 and T6 in a group. the only time i ever risk dying to is a fast 5 blue pack with fire chains.
If that build somehow words for you with little toughness that's great. i just don't feel like a crusader unless i can do take it to the face.
That's the "problem" with crusader, specific item and/or shield is needed to make a certain build viable.
This has been my experience as well.
Most Crusader skills are split between med-high cost or long cooldowns, so a single unique affix makes a world of difference on the viability of most builds. I've been running a block based build that uses punish, provoke, and condemn through T4s, but that's because I managed to snag a good Defender of Westmarch and Death Watch Mantle early on. My build would be MUCH less effective without those.
I think it's the fact that Blessed Shield is a very solid skill WITHOUT specific gear that makes it popular. Sure there are a few pieces of gear that make it more effective, but un-modified it's easily one of our best wrath spenders. Cheapish, powerful, ranged.
on a side note, how did you guys acquire most of that gear that allows you to do higher torments? did you just grind normal for a few days and find shit that way? because i've basically pushed myself up to T1 and haven't really been doing anything else since, hoping for akkhan pieces.
Grinded rifts trying to be in groups most of the time. Did T1 for ~30 hours, then T2 for ~20 hours, then T3 for ~20 hours. Now my gears been stagnant for about the past 30 hours worth of T3/4 farming (only upgraded 2 items in the past 2 weeks).
is that all T1 grinding? and did you just rift to the guardian, and then tp out and remake, then back to guardian? or did you clear everything?
I don't see the problem with T6 'farming' requiring certain gear. Logically, there are only going to be only a small # of build/gear variations that are ideal. If they made it so that any combination that you wanted (including lots of non-optimal builds and gear setups) could do T6, that would mean that it would be possible to use the ideal build and crush through T6 like it was normal. This isn't the intention. I think it's totally fine that anything works on T3 or below, T4-T5 there are 3-5 builds and gear setups that are viable, and T6 is only efficient with the class set or spamming ranged abilities.
In addition - it's only been a month since the game came out. I've been farming plenty (Paragon level 284 all on Crusader) but until I hit paragon level 400-500 and still don't have the full Akkhan set I'm not really going to be upset. Hoping to have all best in slot in a month when a game like D2 last for years is not realistic. And not really fun - guess what you'll do when you have best in slot on your character? Play him for fun once in a while, power level friends, crush through public rifts to show off ... and then never play it again. The game is only fun when there are upgrades remaining.
If you plan on doing higher torments, especially T6 you should aim to get any of those items and 6 Set Akkhan Bonus, the builds depend on those items. There are different builds, I am using the Jekangbord-Build posted by LastZoul iirc, but there are also Condemn-Builds like the one Mannercookie posted with Blade of Prophecy or the Fate of the Fell / Fire's of the Heaven Build which has been nerfed in the recent patch.
Viable in high torment is also different on your definition, do you want to do T6 solo or in a group? Because in a group you can be carried easier as Crusaders have quite a lot of group buffs (Judgment/Resolved, Laws, Shield Glare/Divine Verdict)
I myself was using the Hammerdin Lightning build for some time until I found a Jekangbord and I wouldn't want to go back. Lightning Hammerdings are a bit slower in killspeed, but they still work quite well and I could do T5 without any Akkhan pieces or special weapons.
My T5-T6 build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/crusader#UedlQf!aSig!aZYabY
My Gear: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/power-1760/Powershield/43820436
Clear times for solo are:
T1: 5 mins
T2: 6 mins
T3: 8 mins
T4: 10 mins
T5: 15 mins
T6: 20 mins
It's doable for T5-6 but very slow. I swap around a few pieces to make myself more tanky for those runs. I mainly run T3-4 as they're more efficient. With a few more upgrades I'm hoping I can get my T6 runs down to around 15 mins. I've been extremely unlucky and haven't found a single piece of akkhans set so am making the best I can out of the gear i've got. This build is very underrated. In my gear i'm doing ~18M dps outside of CDs, 50M dps with Akarat's up.
on a side note, how did you guys acquire most of that gear that allows you to do higher torments? did you just grind normal for a few days and find shit that way? because i've basically pushed myself up to T1 and haven't really been doing anything else since, hoping for akkhan pieces.
Thanks for all the replies!
on a side note, i'm kinda really liking this FoTH build, so thanks for bringing that up!
Was #2 World, #1 NA "Lightning Crusader" -3.2M Elemental/Elite DPS
I solo T13 @ http://www.twitch.tv/mdubz
If that build somehow words for you with little toughness that's great. i just don't feel like a crusader unless i can do take it to the face.
Most Crusader skills are split between med-high cost or long cooldowns, so a single unique affix makes a world of difference on the viability of most builds. I've been running a block based build that uses punish, provoke, and condemn through T4s, but that's because I managed to snag a good Defender of Westmarch and Death Watch Mantle early on. My build would be MUCH less effective without those.
I think it's the fact that Blessed Shield is a very solid skill WITHOUT specific gear that makes it popular. Sure there are a few pieces of gear that make it more effective, but un-modified it's easily one of our best wrath spenders. Cheapish, powerful, ranged.
In addition - it's only been a month since the game came out. I've been farming plenty (Paragon level 284 all on Crusader) but until I hit paragon level 400-500 and still don't have the full Akkhan set I'm not really going to be upset. Hoping to have all best in slot in a month when a game like D2 last for years is not realistic. And not really fun - guess what you'll do when you have best in slot on your character? Play him for fun once in a while, power level friends, crush through public rifts to show off ... and then never play it again. The game is only fun when there are upgrades remaining.