I was just wondering: Is a Condemn build not optimal anymore? I had chest and shoulders drop with Condemn dmg %, and I was curious whether it was worth building around it or moving on to Heaven's Fury or FotH. Thanks!
Condemn not optimal much anymore but you can still get a fun playstyle that's a little light on CDR (gone as low as 35% and still reset Akarat's to be 100%) if you use the Akarats Shield for reducing CD on block. You can build very tanky and leads to more of a Hardcore playstyle (meaning slower but can clear T6 without Unity). They buffed the eternal retaliation rune on Condemn so you can go below 10s now. It's actually possible to block enough times in the 3s condemn charge to cast another condemn before the first explodes.
Either way one talent buffs block amount and the other buffs armor based of block chance so neither had any synergy before they changed Insurmountable.
Why bombardment? Why lightning? Why 3 different damage types? Why Righteousness? Just don't see what's going on with all the various and spread out skills.
Just doesn't seem to be in sync compared to most any other build that focuses one element.
You CANNOT get anywhere near efficient clearing T6 with just thorns and I'm fairly certain the majority of the damage you are currently doing is still just from spenders/generators not thorns.
Honestly changing skills like mentioned above to Punish results in a large damage increase with a decent block amount and still gives that thornsy vibe. Not many spenders fulfill the thornsy vibe so it's really your choice.
Believe me I'm all with you and want to do some serious thorns damage, but everything i've tried just doesn't equal most other specs; even bad specs. I'm waiting till some talent reworks and holding my thorns gear in hopes.
The foote i have rolled about the same damage as yours but has IAS (I had to roll a socket into mine) I can do t4 fine t5 slow t6 with some deaths on nasty elites and really slow on bosses. the Usefullness of the weapon drops a lot into t5 on solo play. Group play is another thing it's still useful depending on your group since you can run tons of buffs. But with the damage you have on that it's already solid, I just wouldn't use mats to upgrade it honestly. But i could possibly see getting some huge benefits from the knockback if you have the +damage bracers.
I just dont see min maxing this weapon to be worth it especially ~100 str away from cap.
it doesnt matter at this point 8 or 10% added to any elemental type is still bugged and giving you nothing until fixed.
Also math: .08x1490=119.2 .1x1395=139.5 I'd almost say reroll the Str higher but honestly you should leave it as is since it should perform relatively equal no matter what you change. Leave as is save the mats since its more of a progression item that becomes less useful in later tiers because its 1h and currently crusaders heavily favor 2h end game. reroll the 8 wrath into some type of CC (possibly knockback for the bracers buffs)?
The shield with Reaper's Wraps make Shield Bash actually useable. Still not as fun and as much dps as I think/would like it to be compared to other specs, but without 6 set those two items work well to keep your wrath high and to continue to spam Shield Bash. It's worth it to make a decent one for progression but in the end it's unlikely you will use this shield if you get 6set and regear accordingly.
It would be nice if they gave all slots with elemental affixes and equal option for all other elements. IE Elemental belts for everything not just lightning. Not just being able to reroll light to holy but an all new item with special bonus.
Shield Bash
One on One - Lightning
Crumble - Fire with reworking the explosion so it explodes wider
Pound Physical
Sweep Attack
Holy Shock - Holy
Blessed Shield
Piercing Shield - Physical
Fist of the Heavens
Retribution - Fire or scale from highest % of fire or lightning
Iron Skin
Reflective Skin - Thorns turns into Holy damage while active
Explosive Skin - Fire increased radius as well
Judgement
Mass Verdict - Extends the effect to 25-30 yards and then pulls them into a 10-20 yard area
Conversion - Fire
Condemn
Shattering Explosion - Fire
Reciprocate - Physical
Phalanx - I wish this skill overall would either do damage based off your current weapons element type. IE Holy Damage weapon does holy damage physical only weapon does Physical etc etc... If not the spell colors of runes below should change to match element for sure.
Shield Charge - Fire
Bowmen - Holy and need to be able to spawn more than one set at a time like other runes
Bodyguard - Lightning
Falling Sword
Rise Brothers - if possible follow Phalanx rule above does damage based off weapon and make it follow the rune you have selected if you are running Phalanx
Rapid Descent - Holy
Heavens Furywould be nice to see some non holy variants but the runes I'd suggest changing would probably upset a lot of people and change gearing/builds but these are the best elemental changes I can think of
Ascendancy - Lightning (name change too imo to match lightning)
Fires of Heaven - Fire
Bombardment - would be nice to see Phalanx treatment from above or similar
Annihilate - Lightning and stuns for 1-2 seconds
Mine Field - Fire
Targeted - Holy (Holy powers helping to increases your ranged targeting skills to 100% i guess?)
Proof07 - Block is capped at 75% before or after buffs. I got 61% without Punish up, and after it still stops at 75% (should hit 76%). It's the hard cap.
Most thorns damage is Physical, the 2pc on Demon set is Fire. But Thorns is not a skill, so all the "Physical skills deal +X% more damage" items in the world won't change your thorns damage, cause it's not a skill you use, it's a gear stat. Same goes for Legendary/set procs that do damage, they won't scale with elemental damage gains.
As to Topaz vs Emerald, I think Emerald still wins, cause even 4975 Thorns from the Topaz, likely won't make up the loss of 130% Critical Hit Damage from the Emerald. Not by a long-shot.
I regularly go past 75% chance to block and even cap at 100% with Provoke Hit Me active, I don't know if combat table rolls caps out at 75% but damage bonuses from skills that take block into account do go past the 75% all the way to 100%
It scales with your character sheet block chance and goes to 100%
they are buffed by temporary bonuses and passives as well ie Punish, Provoke: Hit Me, Hold your ground, and Towering shield
Remember any block chance on gear is worth 250% Blessed Shield Damage. So take 16% from a Justice Lantern for example
16X2.5=40
That's right an additional 40% damage added to Blessed Shield.
the tooltip is very misleading for Blessed Shield and Shield Bash they read "plus x% of shield Block Chance" they key thing to notice in the grammar they used was the caps in "Block Chance". Which when you look at the detailed stats sheet is "Block Chance" but shields read "x% Chance to Block"
really its terrible grammar and they need to remove the world shield from the tooltips
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http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/crusader#aZVdiQ!WRSa!Ya.cbY
Passive offer a lot of options between survival and DPS. By no means optimal in anyway manner would consider it (speed priority.) Fun, sure!
This set also requires very specific gear, 6 set/BoP/Akkarat's Shield/Reaper's Wraps(not required but very very useful)
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Just doesn't seem to be in sync compared to most any other build that focuses one element.
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Honestly changing skills like mentioned above to Punish results in a large damage increase with a decent block amount and still gives that thornsy vibe. Not many spenders fulfill the thornsy vibe so it's really your choice.
Believe me I'm all with you and want to do some serious thorns damage, but everything i've tried just doesn't equal most other specs; even bad specs. I'm waiting till some talent reworks and holding my thorns gear in hopes.
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I just dont see min maxing this weapon to be worth it especially ~100 str away from cap.
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Also math:
.08x1490=119.2
.1x1395=139.5
I'd almost say reroll the Str higher but honestly you should leave it as is since it should perform relatively equal no matter what you change. Leave as is save the mats since its more of a progression item that becomes less useful in later tiers because its 1h and currently crusaders heavily favor 2h end game.
reroll the 8 wrath into some type of CC (possibly knockback for the bracers buffs)?
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Celerity - Lightning
Rebirth - Holy
Slash
Carve - Physical
Guard - Holy
Smite
Shared Fate - Lightning
Surge - Fire
Justice
Sword of Justice - Physical
Shield Bash
One on One - Lightning
Crumble - Fire with reworking the explosion so it explodes wider
Pound Physical
Sweep Attack
Holy Shock - Holy
Blessed Shield
Piercing Shield - Physical
Fist of the Heavens
Retribution - Fire or scale from highest % of fire or lightning
Iron Skin
Reflective Skin - Thorns turns into Holy damage while active
Explosive Skin - Fire increased radius as well
Judgement
Mass Verdict - Extends the effect to 25-30 yards and then pulls them into a 10-20 yard area
Conversion - Fire
Condemn
Shattering Explosion - Fire
Reciprocate - Physical
Phalanx - I wish this skill overall would either do damage based off your current weapons element type. IE Holy Damage weapon does holy damage physical only weapon does Physical etc etc... If not the spell colors of runes below should change to match element for sure.
Shield Charge - Fire
Bowmen - Holy and need to be able to spawn more than one set at a time like other runes
Bodyguard - Lightning
Falling Sword
Rise Brothers - if possible follow Phalanx rule above does damage based off weapon and make it follow the rune you have selected if you are running Phalanx
Rapid Descent - Holy
Heavens Furywould be nice to see some non holy variants but the runes I'd suggest changing would probably upset a lot of people and change gearing/builds but these are the best elemental changes I can think of
Ascendancy - Lightning (name change too imo to match lightning)
Fires of Heaven - Fire
Bombardment - would be nice to see Phalanx treatment from above or similar
Annihilate - Lightning and stuns for 1-2 seconds
Mine Field - Fire
Targeted - Holy (Holy powers helping to increases your ranged targeting skills to 100% i guess?)
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To determine damage increaes from block items its 2.5XBlock%
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they are buffed by temporary bonuses and passives as well ie Punish, Provoke: Hit Me, Hold your ground, and Towering shield
Remember any block chance on gear is worth 250% Blessed Shield Damage. So take 16% from a Justice Lantern for example
16X2.5=40
That's right an additional 40% damage added to Blessed Shield.
the tooltip is very misleading for Blessed Shield and Shield Bash they read "plus x% of shield Block Chance" they key thing to notice in the grammar they used was the caps in "Block Chance". Which when you look at the detailed stats sheet is "Block Chance" but shields read "x% Chance to Block"
really its terrible grammar and they need to remove the world shield from the tooltips