Preparing Season 21 build (new D3 player)

Crusader
1

Hello there. I am preparing to play a Crusader for the upcoming season 21.

First I wish to say that I am a former WoW player, I played several years during multiple expansions, I had my fun and fill with a Demon Hunter in season 20 at least what I caught of it, I wish to play a Crusader because I got the feel of it, I leveled to 70 with 500 Paragon and I liked what I saw, but there are a couple of issues I wish to adress. ( I even wish to play because of the thematic, my first RPG character was a paladin )

So, let’s get started, I got the feel of a Barbarian too, and of course I searched build guides written and video, it did not seem hard to create a build, figured it out pretty fast, saw what it can do, but, for Crusaders, I keep running into these very in depth and extremely detailed guides and videos, when all I am looking for sometimes is the essentials, like a “rotation” , yes, I know it’s not that anymore but maybe like in WoW, a “priority system”…

The main questions I am thinking about are that I saw to use “Heaven’s Fury” as a fury generator (correction I saw not that this is also a spender, and a big one, how do I generate wrath then) but it has a ridiculous CD, and I must have missed with what this cooldown can be reduced or removed, the second thing is that I do not know and did not understand from the videos when I need to pop the skills on 1 2 3, “Law of Valor”, “Steed Charge”/ “Iron Skin” and “Judgement” , I understand “Akarat’s Champion” needs to be on cooldown at all tiems and right click “Heaven’s Fury”, left click “Fist of Heavens”. (P.S ok, upon more research I see Eberli Charo and Ivory Tower are viable choices if you agree, regarding the CD of Heaven’s Fury )

The next thing is that I have a question regarding “Stone Gauntlets” in Kanai’s Cube, and I have “String of Ears” and “Thuderfury” for lack of anything better and nowhere near BiS, the damage mitigation is phenomenal but it’s like I can’t even move, how do you guys do it if you have SG cubed, I feel permanently stunned, I don’t die, it’s like I don’t even take any damage, but I can’t move, I wait too much time, let’s say down time until I can hit with “Fist of Heavens” and kill something.

2

To combat the slowing debuffs of the Stone Gauntlets, you need sufficient Cooldown Reduction so that you can maintain 100% up-time on Akarat’s Champion (which makes you immune to the slowing) and Iron Skin / Flash also makes you immune to movement impairment.

Steed Charge isn’t in the AoV pushing build. You’d drop that for Shield Glare / Divine Verdict as using that procs the damage bonus of the Bracer of Fury.

As for your equipped weapon, the suggestion is for the Pig Sticker. That’s because, as a dagger, it has the highest natural attack speed (and in particular, this dagger has one more primary attribute than any other one-hander) so this ensures you can build up the stacks on your Shield of Fury as quickly as possible.

One thing to be aware of, in the patch notes for the upcoming Patch 2.6.9 PTR the Shield of Fury is being nerfed even further, so it only stacks to 10 rather than 20, so the build will be less effective than it currently is. Also, that patch has completely new sets for DH and Necromancer. You could have a look at those on the PTR next week and see if you’re actually finished with DH or not.

1 Like
4

Welcome to the game brother…

Since you mentioned barbarian too, this is like an entirely personal interpretation. Please don’t get mad crusader players. I am very partial in favor of the barbarian since it is my favourite class for the majority of the time I spent playing diablo. For me diablo 3 is a race. A game of rythm, high tempo and efficiency and time is the most important variable I take into consideration when I play the game. Time and how fun is something to play no matter if it is strong or overpowered or meta. When you play the game (or rather the end game) most of the time you have to go from point A to point B as fast as possible killing whatever is in the way. Barbarian seems to fit in the soul of diablo 3 like a charm. Very aggressive play style, amazing mobility and thankfully strong class overall. While crusader seems to be a more tactical class with cooldown management, strong but brief buffs that you have to keep up as much as possible and somewhat limited mobility. Now I am not saying crusader is week or anything like that, -in fact the valor set is probably the best build I’m the game right now or at least top 3- and has many interesting fun and strong builds (Barbarian has also one of the top builds right now). This is like the feeling I get from crusader. But remember this paragraph is not about who is best between the two. This how I approach the class. Again this is an entirely personal taste, I don’t mean to provoke anyone.

Oh and another thing, the stone of gauntlets pair really good with the ice climbers if the build can afford to have both items. Having both of them equiped (or in the cube) translates that you basically get the defensive buff from gauntlets but never the movement debuff.

Appart from that the other build details were covered by meteor.