geared up quite a lot, even managed to make it to rank #500 ish for solo sader Grift season 3 :}

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Moogle-6806/hero/61111083

Didn't gear up anything since playing Barb in patch 2.2, managed to make it to rank #100 ish for solo sader Grift



This post has been edited by Ricgatebecko: Apr 24 2015, 12:15 PM

After Patch 2.20, is it the most popular crusader set is rolands + shield bash?

I actually struggle going up high (LVL 36) with Arkhan Phanax Stampede build.

Max critical hit damage is 30M+

Main reason is phy dmg is only 20% + phanax 34%

dilemma in choosing rings, amulet, 2h weapon and belt

Current set is Arkhan x 6, Focus Restraint, Eyes of Glitch, Vigilante belt, The Furnace

Previous is Ancient Bombartment 2H Flail + Bombartment belt

so then that means you were using horsey phalanks phys build were you ?


with shield bash build i'm hitting 600m + dps aoe burst consistently.

my crits go between 1-2 billion dps.

my regular attacks are also quite fast due to abilities, so i benefit from faster wrath regen and life per hit somewhat (though i'm not really focusing on this too much, except to reduce my cooldown for abilities by hitting faster)

my blood brothers weapon + shield + hellfire amulet (stand your ground) increases my block chance up to 50% The weapon effect, everytime i successfully block, reduce that damage by 30% also, increase my next damage attack by 30%

using the recommended focus and restraint rings for their op effect for damage increase.

For belt i use string of ears for melee damage reduction.

a full set of rolands gear

a piro mela shield for cost reduction using shield bash





I recommend getting these stats for shield bash build

- helm (chc, str,shield bash, socket)

- shoulder (str,vit, ares,cdr)

glove (str,vit,chd,chc)

chest (str,vit,ares,socket)

pants (str, vit, ares,socket)

boots (str, vit, ares, shield bash)

shield (str,vit,chc,shield bash)

belt (str,vit,life,ares, dmg reduction)

bracer (str, vit, ares, fire dmg)

amulet (fire dmg, chd,chc, socket) *preferably etlich with rng dmg reduction. Other strong contenders hellfire with stand your ground.

rings (str, chd, chc, socket) *preferably focus with restraint set rings

weapon (10% DMG, str, vit, socket) *preferably blood brothers, also ancient version



the only downside i see so far is that akkarat champion (prophet) cooldown is not quite good. Without it, you won't be able to spam shield bash for long, also your dmg output as well as survivability drops alot. So you end up waiting around for akkarat champ to be ready. This is a big problem for higher grifts, where you can't afford much downtime. But the thing is where would you fit in CDR into this build to improve on that ? From what i heard you only need 30 cdr roughly for the build to work. Not sure if that is true or necessarily enough

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: Apr 24 2015, 05:31 PM

Just see your reply today, really thanks a lot for detail explanation
It seems that your build must have hellfire amulet right? It is one of the most difficult to farm especially with good stats and correct passive skill (tried that before in my Asia server, the stat was sucked)

Right now to me is to find a good Roland sets (ancient), weapon and shield (I have been trying condemn shield for more than 10,000 blood shards before and still dont get it). Guess my luck isnt good along the time I play

Arkhan set permanent cooldown is 56% somewhere similar if i am not mistaken. I notice few top players with arkhan champion active in Roland set, is it a good choice as the cooldown is 90s?

I have most of the items you mention, will try once I finish season.

if want to maximize BB, then i recommend hellfire with stand your ground, or alternatively a passive that you would use in your bb build, so you got an extra slot to add in stand your ground.

Alternatively, instead of the hellfire amulet, you would have to then instead roll in str,block chance%, chc, shield bash into your piro shield. The upside is you can use another amulet e.g. xephirians, etlich or other. The downside is your now missing a huge chunk of vitality which you would normally have. So don't do the 2nd approach if your HP drops down too much.

Alternative to BB, the furnace is also very good because of the 50% elite damage. I have an ancient version with 48% So because it doesn't rely on block, i can safely ignore that.


You make a good point about akkarat's champion..... yes it's core because it minimizes a huge chunk of dmg intake from minions/elites. Not to mention you also can spam shield bash while it is active.

in a SB build cdr isn't maxed to the full like a zdps. However the dillema is, akkarats champ relies on faster cooldown for you to be able to use this as soon as possible. I heard that 30% is the recommended minimum cdr for this fire sb build. But it still feels like more would be useful, but where to add the cdr from ?

8 shoulder, 2 rings.

The rings would be like 8cdr/50chd/6/chc/socket (so no str basically). Though i probably would have 2nd thoughts on that if it were ancient version of FR

amulet you wouldn't because you'd want fire element/100chd/10chc/socket. The only possibility of cramming in the extra 8cdr ontop of that is the time amulet, which downside is no special ability like elemental immunity or dmg reduction.

weapon and shield have a huge chunk of vit, so is a bit hard to justify adding in the cdr there, especially if those pieces were ancient.

then belt vigilante belt versus string of ears. you'd want more tanky for higher grifts.

helm you can't use leoric's crown with a diamond, because that would mean using a RORG which you can't because your go to rings are the F&R.


so bottomline cdr in shoulders, and maybe even rings if you can add them after getting chd/chc/socket. And last resort into amulet only if it's a timeless ideally.

Yesterday I tried your suggestion, play around with some passive skills, change some defensive and offensive gems, forge new piro marella and finally got an ancient version with max %block chance (31%) with 8.5% crt chc.

1st trial:
blood brothers weapon (non ancient and reroll to 1 socket) + ancient piro marrella + Gems Lv 25 (Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver + Pain Enhancer + Esoteric Alteration) + passive (Hold Your Ground + Towering Shield) + active skills (Iron Skin (7s) + Provoke (slow down) + Laws of Justice (Decaying Strength) + shield glare + slash)

Thanks to Waller + Poison + arcane, died 4 times in Lv 35

2nd trial:
change gem to Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard lv 25 and Bane of the Trapped lv 19 + drop Provoke and call back Steed Charge + drop Hold Your Ground call back Finery + drop Slash use Punish + drop Towering Shield use Renewal + change to ancient Restraint with 120+ Resistance, results total 1000+ for each resistance.

Successful pass Lv37 with no death, avg crt dmg is 200M~700M

I think I gonna upgrade gem and use back Towering shield instead of Renewal

This post has been edited by shin2l: May 12 2015, 08:44 AM

It's been a long time since I last played Crusader after 2.1.2. Feels good to be back wielding flail and seeing "blocked" in-game after those dizzy full flight barbarian's WW action. Manage to clear some 53s and ranked server's #28 Solo Crusader while I'm trying out those Roland set changes...



This post has been edited by Ricgatebecko: May 13 2015, 02:36 AM

if your using a piro shield then that means your using either a fire (crumble) or phys (cross shield) build.

so judging by your usage of a pain enhancer for phy, i'm guessing your going with later ? probably not pound because it's deceptively higher dmg on a single target, but your aoe is gonna suck so hard, that i don't think it's really worth it.

so for example this guy uses an angels braid punish in his shield bash build
http://www.diablofans.com/builds/53544-2-2...olands-grift-50


why use slash for ? Also if your going to use punish, i'd at least make use of the angels braid belt, if not i wouldn't bother using punish at all. because i wouldn't see the point as i would be spamming shield bash anyway. the only point to punish would only then to get the buff from it, but is it useful and a buff worth using up 1 slot ? thats what you should ask yourself.


To me for a crusader i'll sum up the top builds you should only consider

1. shield bash fire (crumble)

http://www.diablofans.com/builds/53544-2-2...olands-grift-50

http://www.diablofans.com/builds/53320-ptr...50grift-updated



2. sweeper lightning = good against aoe, but really horrible on single target. though ironically that is the build alkaizer used to get #1 on solo sader



basically the build is like this
http://www.diablofans.com/builds/55493-ine...p-attack-roland




3. zdps (cc, buffer, debuffer for group grift) = the best role to play to do higher grifts 40-60 and above as a group of 2-4 players.



if your a beginner, this zdps build is the easiest to make to get you started
http://www.diablofans.com/builds/54243-zdps-crusader-2-2


for the best in slot zdps build once you got gear, you should ideally do this
http://www.diablofans.com/builds/30489-br-...ps-monstrosader


this guy uses a sweep zdps build for high grift content
http://www.diablofans.com/builds/54902-2-2...port-build-zdps





4. condemn = i think this an alternative to sweeper specifically for low level grifts 30-40s and t6 speed rift farming for a sader. I still think that a WW barbo is much superior and efficient compared to this though, because barbos don't have to stop moving to kill (which kinda ruins the effectiveness of your swiftmount) But we do

http://www.diablofans.com/builds/30691-con...et-t6-speed-run

http://www.diablofans.com/builds/52409-gr4...-in-depth-10-eu

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: May 15 2015, 10:07 PM

got tired of the akhan set - hows the roland set?

actually season 3 akkhan set has taken a back seat to rolands set.

choices are either....

sweep lightning rolands build (grift solo/speed rifting/can group as well i guess)

fire build rolands (grilft solo/group dps/general stuff)

zdps build (this is either using sweep, or vacuum, or a hybrid of both. eitherway the one that uses sweep there a few strategies involved. once of which is to stack for wrath regen, or just to stick to the regular enchants)

I don't have much stash space, so i didn't really actively farm for a specialized zdps sweep build that is using the wrath regen strategy. I do have a manald ring which is required for it though, but i don't think it has both socket and cdr which is what i would have needed



Anyway i'm kinda maxed out on sc content, so i've been trying my hand at hardcore season to build my barbie to do the achievements i'm missing.

It was either that or retire from D3

Im watching ZE stream and found "new" (at least for me) zdps build for 2-3 man high GRs. That guy ( a DH) dont want to inspect his crusader fren build when i ask him to do so. so i just login to EU and check the leaderboard..here the video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dmro3mrjd245ud7/D....58.03.mp4?dl=0 but like you said, GG manald ring like impossilble to get, especially for me that not actively play as crusader.

hammerdin returns!!!

the question is why hammerdin has to pair with falling sword ?

tbh too lazy for myself to create more variations of the sader tank build. i just collect whenever i get, but i'm not really actively looking.

atm i'm kinda retired from diablo 3 until season 4 (i'll play a bit, not too much). Or until next expansion ... (still waiting )

This thread has been quiet, nobody running Crusader in 2.3? Thought I give Crusader a try in 2.3 without having any new gears, manage to cleared a GR60 solo. Gonna farm some new Crusader 2.3 Seeker of the Light 6pc set, Johanna's Argument flail, Guard of Johanna shield and Gabriel's Vambraces to try out the new 2.3 meta Hammerdin build.

playing season 4, only crusader ....

hammeradin .... how to say..... if you hate stutter step... your gonna hate this.

even with dominion kunai effect (which i haven't seen anybody use), i seriously doubt that would be enuff the issue.... which is.... mobility wise, i'd rate barb ww more efficient at faster clearing compared to a hammeradin. lets put it that way :/

hammeradin core gear is...

1. johanna flail (either as weapon in use, or kunai effect. either way your gonna have to use it, as it's core....)

2. new bracers (the keeps hammer cost in check to even be viable. this is core as there isn't anything better for hammeradin builds)

3. hammeradin set (duh)

4. the recommended spec for hammer is perma akkarats, so have to stack cdr. is recommended then to use leorics helm as kunai effect, while you wear set helm. So you gain CDR from diamond in helm from leoric effect.

5. new shield (makes hammers hit for more. if your going hammer build of course you'd use this)


in terms of mobility, most of the builds i've seen don't even have room for horse endurance ..... which makes moving around kinda slow, even if you opt for falling sword.... i tend to just switch falling sword out for horse when doing speed runs or i get left behind.

alternatives is probably the bracer which increases speed when you break stuff as kunai effect. but then this is going to conflict between choosing that or leorics helm which is important for cdr, or heck your exp gem bonus so it all comes back to using horsey endurance for mobility for lower end content that doesn't need you to go all out.

so crusader has taken a back seat again? saw that on paper my crusader can do 1.1 m paper damage but unable to complete/compete tier 7/8 with full roland seat compare to other classes

what am i doing wrong

i didn't do any other set other than hammer. also not fully prepped so can't make a call on that. but from what i see so far doesn't look that great

*update

once got full set 6 piece, i get the dmg bonus 700% things start feeling very different

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: Sep 5 2015, 11:35 PM

Seems no one update in Crusader thread, I share my own findings during PTR 2.4:

Blessed Hammer:

Surprisingly to see the dmg has been greatly increased (700% to 1350%), but need to have the following:

Hammer Jammers (you hit enemies with immobilize, freeze, stun = enemies take max 400% increased from Blessed Hammer for 10s)
Sacred Harness (for Falling Sword to gain effect of Judgement immobilize + 40% reduction)

I think I will play this set

Roland - Shield Bash:

Dmg increases, but the Crumble rune has changed to "increases dmg of shield bash", no more fire pillar.

Thorn Set:

Seriously, I still dont know how it works yet, but you definitely need the following:

bombardment belt: so that you can have 6s of 50% dmg reduction
Heart of Iron: gain thorn equal to your max 300% vitality
Hack axe: max 100% thorn applied in every attack
Sanguinary Vambraces: Chance on being hit to deal 1000% of your Thorns damage to nearby enemies
Boyarsky's Chip: new thorn gem

This is my findings so far