Jumping into Reaper of Souls and creating a new Crusader? Full Cleared did the same yesterday, leveling a brand new Crusader to level 70 and gearing it up to be Torment ready as quickly as possible. By the end of the night, it was able to survive through Torment II difficulty Rifts in a full group, doing decent damage but most importantly, able to live through most of everything while supporting the group with an attack speed buff. Read on to find out more about our Crusader Torment build for Reaper of Souls.
A fun build that works for solo and group play
Skills
Let’s start off the Crusader Torment build by touching on all the skills it uses. For Wrath generation, we chose Smite with the Shatter rune in order to take advantage of Life on Hit. Our main single target damage dealer is Fist of the Heavens with Divine Well, which once again, spreads for additional Life on Hit. For the large clumps of easy-to-take-down mobs, we have Blessed Hammer with Limitless since we’re sticking with all Holy damage for our skills. Steed Charge with Endurance is not only used as a movement skill, but to also break crowd control effects and to get you out of a sticky situation. For our Law, we opted for Laws of Valor since this build revolves around having fast attack speed. The Critical rune also gives a nice buff to Critical Damage while on Elites and Champion Packs, though we’re mostly opting for it to make up for the Critical Damage deficiency our itemization has at the moment. The last skill can really be up to you and your needs, but we chose Condemn with Vacuum since we mostly do group play. While it’s no substitute for Cyclone Strike from a Monk, it does deal a good amount of AOE damage and gathering up the mobs for a few Fist of the Heavens on top of the group makes for quick killing.
For our Passive Skills, we’re running Holy Cause, Righteousness, Fervor and Lord Commander. Holy Cause works great as a Life Steal, returning 1 percent each time you deal Holy damage. Righteousness helps with Wrath regeneration, so that you can alternate spamming a couple of Smites while chucking Blessed Hammers. Fervor is really important to the build, since it helps buff Attack Speed, which is mainly what this build revolves around. Lastly, we went with Lord Commander to lower the cooldown of our Steed Charge. You never know when that five seconds will get you out of a sticky situation like Frozen. You can also take advantage of the Lord Commander passive by running Bombardment or Phalanx instead of Condemn.
With 351 Paragon points to spend, we really filled in some voids on our Crusader
Paragon
Now it’s worth mentioning that this build is done on a Paragon 351 account. But the advice is a good general rule of thumb. Given that 50 Paragon points in the Core tab equates to either 250 Strength or 250 Vitality, you’re better off not getting Movement Speed on any of your equipment and getting another more meaningful Primary Stat. Because of that and since we do a lot of group play, we put our first 50 points into Movement Speed in order to keep up with the rest of the group. Your needs may differ here, and if you’re lacking Toughness through your gear, you can stress Vitality over Strength. Use your best judgment, but it’s more ideal to meet a Toughness goal and work Damage back into your build than the other way around – that way at the very least you can farm, even if it’s slow paced.
In the Offense tab, Attack Speed is your priority and then you’ll want to fill in Critical Hit Chance before Critical Hit Damage. That is, unless you’re over 50 percent Critical Hit Chance from your gear. At which point, you’ll want to focus on Critical Hit Damage. While Cooldown Reduction would be nice, you’ll want to maximize your sheet damage before taking advantage of that stat.
Defensively, since Strength buffs Armor, you’ll want to put points into Resist All first, and then buff your Life. We chose to add a single point into Life Regeneration just so our Crusader has some, even if it’s not a lot. During movement when there’s no mobs around, a little bit of Life Regeneration is better than none. We would ideally max out Resist All then Life and Life Regeneration before putting points into Armor.
Lastly in the Utility tab, you’ll want to maximize Area Damage first before putting as many points into Life on Hit as possible. If you’re low on Paragon levels, you may want to do the opposite as Life on Hit will help keep you alive. If you’re struggling to stay alive, prioritize Life on Hit, because again, you’ll want to live and kill slowly before being able to kill but dying often.
There’s no special game-breaking Legendaries in this build… yet
Itemization
Since this is a fresh Crusader, there’s literally no game-breaking Legendaries in the build and the only item that carried over from pre-2.0 is a crafted Amulet. But the key to the build is to find a fast-attacking one-hander weapon with a socket with the most Damage you can find. Ideally it’ll have Holy Damage on it, but now you can re-roll that stat if you have the luxury to. We were lucky enough to pick up a Fulminator for our Crusader, but haven’t had the chance to re-roll the Lightning Damage on it yet.
For our gloves, if you aren’t holding onto any Trifectas, we recommend getting Critical Hit Chance and Attack Speed and working Critical Hit Damage into your jewelry slots. Assuming you don’t want to deal with finding Trifectas, you can opt for Attack Speed and Critical Hit Chance on one ring and grabbing Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage on your other ring. For the amulet, you definitely want Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage and grabbing Strength and Vit. Make sure you get a good set of bracers with Critical Hit Chance, a helm with Critical Hit Chance and a shield with Critical Hit Chance.
Also, if you were lucky enough to farm any of the amulets that negate certain elemental affixes, you’ll want to keep those in your bag to swap in on pesky Elite or Champion Packs. For us, we have Countess Julia’s Cameo, Mara’s Kaleidoscope and Talisman of Aranoch ready to go.
Let’s be honest… how can you not use Blessed Hammer on a Crusader?
Playstyle
Playing this Crusader build isn’t overly complex. You’ll want to spam Smite to build your Wrath but alternating with Blessed Hammer to get them going for Life on Hit. For larger groups of mobs and Elite/Champion Packs, you’ll want to trigger Condemn (if you’re running it) to Vacuum them in, activating your Law and spamming Fist of the Heavens as the mobs get sucked in. For most trash, you’ll simply be able to walk around spamming left-click and Blessed Hammer to clear your way through. Use your Steed Charge to get to the next group of mobs, but always keep in mind to have it handy when you’re fighting against anything with crowd control since it does break effects such as Frozen.
Crusader Torment Build for Reaper of Souls Gallery
