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Legion Beta - Build 21796
GR NS 120 Clear with Support Crusader
Quantum Warriors <WQW> managed to clear GR 120 on the European server, with non-seasonal characters. Chewingnom shared some details on how they did it - the differences between their 4 man party and other, as well as the healing support Crusader spec that was used.
The 4 man setup used by them was an Energy Twister Wizard along with 3 support characters. Read below for all the details.
Hello, this is Chewingnom from the clan <WQW> Quantum Warriors on EU.
I'm writing this post because I wanted to share our GR120 4P clear on EU NS (EU #1) (Just done tonight!) with you. You will think that we are just some high paragon guys fishing for a good rift... but I share this clear with you because this is not the case. We actually replaced the Support Monk by a whole new build that I'm thinking about since 2.4.1 PTR (And even back in 2.4) : The Heal Crusader.
You will say "Nothing new, a lot of people have theorycrafted Support Crusader builds since 2.4". Indeed, since 2.4, there is alot of Support Crusader builds here and there, but none of these builds had the potential to be part of the metagame, mostly because the monks spot is the only viable spot to be replaced by the. Thus, I came up with a Crusader build able to replace the Monk and capable of GR120+.
After alot of brainstorming I finally found a build that was actually worth to try a few weeks ago. So we made a few tries and cleared GR115 pretty easily (You can see it here). After some more tests in GR119/120 and some builds adjustements with my mates LouLou, Hustle and S0RRY, we felt it was clearly viable and we decided to just do it. Our sweet mate S0RRY who was playing Monk switched to Crusader and he actually learned the gameplay really fast !
Setup Used :
ET Wizard : LouLou
Support Barb : Chewingnom
Support WD : Hustle
Support Crusader : S0RRY
Clear/Leaderboards screenshots :
Some hints :
- The Consecration + Inviolable Faith healing has alot of potential so you can compensate some of the toughness loss quite easily (Blur Passive + Ghost Trance BBV).
- The Sweep Attack packing is insane for Pain Enhancer and Area Damage in high density maps, especially with a static DPS like Twister Wizard.
- The Critical Law is a great DPS buff along with Resolved Judgment. Though, the problem with Judgment is that the Crit Buff doesnt work on CC-immune mobs, so the uptime is not that good sadly.
The potential :
We think it can compete with Support Monk in high end pushing (Likely 122+). I can see Support Crusader and Support Monk being equally viable in the 4 players metagame, Support Monk is in my opinion the safe way with no surprise while Support Crusader is the risky way with opportunities to really shine, more potential. Risky, indeed. Toughness is not a real issue in most cases but some bad elites combos can be hard to survive with a Crusader. Monk is still more consistent for toughness.
Why can it be worth it to play Crusader? Alongside the Critical Law, the main advantage for the Heal Crusader is Gathering Sweep. The more density you have, the more the Crusader will buff your DPS by sweeping mobs. More mobs into PE and ET range, more ET breakpoints, more AD, AD more efficient...
Still, it is very hard to quantify the DPS gain from the Sweep Attack, but playing Crusader is allways a ~5% DPS buff even without Sweep Attack and with Judgment poor uptime taken into account. But, the DPS potential due to Sweep Attack can theoretically be so insane in « dream maps » that it can justify to drop the Monk if you are at your DPS ceiling. In the end, my opinion is that you will have to decide what's best for your group and what you prefer to play.
Note that I'm only talking about the 4 players metagame here. The toughness buffs from Monk are likely mandatory in 2 players and 3 players (With the current Twister build at least, but the concept of Tal Rasha 6P is mostly locking the Wizard build anyway). But maybe we just didn't think enough about it!
The build :
How it works :
I gave up the Roland 6P (250% Attack Speed Bonus) that I tried back in 2.4 to get the Roland 2P (Cooldowns Reset with Sweep Attack) along with the Akkhan 4P (50% RCR while in Akarat and 50% CDR on Akarat) instead.
One of the keys of the build is to use the Akkhan's Addendum in the Cube Weapon Slot which gives you Prophet Rune (150% Armor & Cheat Death Proc) and Embodiment of Power Rune (+5 Wrath Regen) of Akarat Champion and allows you to take Rally Rune.
The Rally Rune is basically resetting all your cooldowns when you use it. One of the other keys to the build is Akarat's Awakening that will reset your cooldowns everytime you block, as with both Justice Lantern and Hold Your Ground Passive, you can be block-capped. Thus, all of this will allow you to put down alot of Consecration very fast and will also allow you to handle your cooldowns and Zodiac ring procs easily, giving you enough freedom to focus on sweeping mobs.
The gameplay is quite obvious and simple : You have to stack Consecration on the floor to get healing, while Sweeping mobs wisely (No mindless spam) into the Twister range. Always use Consecration and Law just before using Rally Akarat (which will reset them) in order to enhance your Consecration Stacking and Zodiac Ring Procs.
You have to use Judgment wisely too, because it roots enemies, you have to figure out the best way to use it : Only on the mobs already stacked with Gathering Sweep into Twister Range, right before an Arcane CoE... Condemn is still very useful to pack density and sometimes keeping it together but Shield Glare may likely be a viable option to get 20% damage buff.
It seems to me that the build is pretty strong in its current state and may likely be the best group setup while fishing for a dream map in high endgame. The coordination of the group and the teamplay is likely way more difficult to master than with a Monk though.
Remember that the metagame is never settled in stone and copy/paste builds from Rank 1 guys doesn't mean you are playing the best setup (Or the only viable setup). There are so many build-possibilities, so many group synergies that maybe nobody thought about yet, that you can't just say "If Rank 1 is playing this, it is the best build/setup, no matter what". No.
Thus I wanted to thank my mates LouLou, Hustle and S0RRY who are very smart/good players and always want to try out new builds and group setups. Thanks guys, keep up the good work
<WQW> Chewingnom
PS : A video of the GR120 clear will be uploaded soon !
Video of the GR 120 Clear
Who gives a shit about non-season. Paragon 3700, time to get laid instead, huh?
OT: imo NS is still pretty competitive and 120 it's def. a nice record specially with a crusader.
Is non season and every guy there have 3,6k+ so for seasonal players is "no chance" to use that,this high para group is what ever he use he gonna have clear if all know how to play and even this guy admit it that u need crazy "dream" rift,so crazy,crazy fishing.
tried today this build with guild on 115.
Very squishy. Many deaths.
And most important i didn't notice any dps increase.
i think crusader brings less to party in terms of dps then combined monk buffs and witch doctor damage voodoo(you need to switch to ghost trance).
This build just looks like a challenge and not competitive with classic monk setup..
Eighteen million billion hp...my UE dh would be there all day.
As strong as you wanna believe in it to ensure yourself, our whole team is not botting. I actually gained 90 paragon this patch, which would have mean around Paragon 1500 in season 6 when top players are around Paragon 2200. You can do 6 hours straight bounties or T10 sessions with us whenever we do it or add us in friendlist to spy our connections timing if you want, its absolutely no problem. It's easier to just spite your venom without knowing anything right ? We are just focused players, sorry if it bother you, but anyway, you should at least don't care about what we are doing if you have no respect for this. Thanks.
On another side, thanks everyone for all your kind posts
Haters gonna hate, pay them no mind Chewy. Personally I think this is quite amazing, well done.
I should enlighten one thing : We had so many close tries on things you can't call "crazy dream". For instance 16 minutes clear without Conduit (Twice or three times), we had a clear in 16 minutes without Conduit by doing around 55% on accursed/bees, which is clearly not dream. Basically the thing to know is that we never had a close try that we could have done by using Monk instead of Crusader.
So the fishing seems roughly the same than with a Monk, except that if you got a high density map where the Barb can bring you dozens of % progress, the Crusader could likely be better. The map we cleared was obviously crazy, but I didnt had alot of pulling to do because the layout was not allowing me to do it so.
Alot of people began to think about the build and are trying it, which is really interesting and sounds promising !
So much hate on this build. I had something similar in 2.3 that worked rather well for 60+. Even without paragon, crusaders have the kit to fill this role.
The problem is like most people say here, it isn't worth the skill level to play. Monks have a better setup and an easier time doing it. It was very fun to play my variant. but even then I didn't see the point when monks can do it better.
WQW was banned 80% last season lol.
Only those from NS deinitely survived, cause blizzard hasn't touched NS yet.
Yeah build isn't that good...just got them rank 1...
I actually like this build, played it a bit yesterday and felt like old school support sader.
A couple general observations on the build:
It is squishy as heck compared to Monk. Akarat's Awakening (and Salvation) do this build an injustice. Switching to Storm Shield or Coven's Criterion made a world of difference in survivability in higher GRs.
Cooldown is almost too much if you prioritize it on all slots. Was over 65% plus using Gogok gem seemed like overkill since all my skills never were waiting on cooldown, by far. I tried changing CDR for Vit or All Resist in a couple slots which seemed stronger and still allowed for plenty of CD.
Gogok is good, but Mutilation Guard was simply awesome for staying alive since you are always in melee range. If you keep the CDR on the slots, this can easily be swapped in and not sacrifice much. The Attack Speed and Dodge benefit from Gogok seems to be lost on this build anyway.
HF ammy proved to be another decent alternative to the Eye as you mentioned, still playing with passives to see what is best. Eye was good, but it was melee, not ranged damage that was getting me.
Moving from pack to pack is the most dangerous thing to do (as with monk). Consecration casts under your feet and while moving it is no real help.
Overall, this is a fun alternative to playing Monk. I can see where it has potential and gratz on doing 120, regardless of what the peanut gallery says. Glad to see people trying other things instead of being sheep and simply copy and pasting builds as you mentioned...