Aegis of Valor Fist of the Heavens Crusader Skills and Runes
On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Aegis of Valor Fist of the Heavens Crusader in Diablo 3. Updated for Patch 2.7 and Season 23.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Rotation
This variation of an Aegis of Valor build ties both damage dealing and
damage reducing mechanics together, relying on Fist of the Heavens —
strategically placed around the battlefield to maximize the arcing procs of the
Fissure rune — to both demolish your enemies and encase you in
the 4-piece set bonus protection. You will be seeking out foes with
Steed Charge, cancelling the skill as soon as the engagement begins to
attain the damage buff of the equipped Norvald's Fervor set. Immediately lock and
draw monsters in with a
Judgment
Mass Verdict, followed by an onslaught of
Fist of the Heavens, while you keep your distance to maximize the bonuses of
Zei's Stone of Vengeance and protect yourself with buffs like
Akarat's Champion,
Iron Skin and
Laws of Valor on
cooldown.
Skills and Runes
In an alternate take on the Aegis of
Valor set, Fist of the Heavens is both the damage dealer and the
protector (via the 4-piece set bonus). The best rune is still the arcing
Fissure, whose constant ticks between the spread out fissures not only
has the highest damage potential, but also provides the best Wrath returns from
the 4-piece.
When it comes to Law selection for high end progression, squeezing every bit
of attack speed (and damage, respectively) while not losing too much on
survivability becomes a delicate balance, one you can straddle by taking the
offensive Laws of Valor with the
Unstoppable Force rune. This will
both mitigate your
Fist of the Heavens Wrath spending and trigger the Cpt.
Crimson bonuses (see this build's gear page for
more information); this auxiliary craftable set scales your damage
reduction based on your Resource Cost Reduction, and
Unstoppable Force
does count as sheet RCR.
In order to control enemies within the Fist of the Heavens barrage, as
well as to clump them up to the benefits of Area Damage and the damage bonuses
from
Strongarm Bracers, you will be using the hard crowd control of
Judgment with the monster displacement effect of the
Mass Verdict
rune.
Mobility is one of the most important aspects when rifting, and Crusaders have
no better movement ability than their trusty Steed Charge. You can choose
between the extended duration from the
Endurance rune, allowing you to
reach — or skip — more efficiently, or
Draw and Quarter,
which allows you to lead surviving stragglers from one fight into the next.
The remainder of your skill selection is dedicated to protective cooldowns.
First, we have Iron Skin — a staple damage reduction tool, cutting
incoming damage in half for the extended duration of the
Steel Skin rune.
Second, you will be running
Akarat's Champion, whose powerful bonuses you
will strive to have permanently with the help of
Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac
resets. While
Akarat's Champion increases your damage multiplicatively by
35% and supplies you with 5 Wrath per second as a base effect, the skill also
takes on a defensive role through the tanky
Prophet rune. Supplying you
with 150% additional Armor and a free life, this skill will keep you safe and
alive in high Greater Rifts.
This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.
Passives
As a baseline equipment passive, you are locked in Heavenly Strength
due to
Flail of the Charge being a two-handed flail.
Finery is another Crusader staple, adding 1.5% Strength for every
socket across your gear, including weapon and jewelry. Assuming an average of 10
sockets across a well-equipped character,
Finery amounts to a decent
boost of both damage and toughness.
Long Arm of the Law doubles the duration of the active effects of Laws and
ensures the permanent uptime of
Unstoppable Force. Aided by this passive,
you will have an easy time maintaining both the
Fist of the Heavens spam and
the damage mitigation of the Cpt. Crimson set.
You have some flexibility in your final passive slot; in general, we recommend
taking either Holy Cause for the damage increase, or the Crusader cheat
death —
Indestructible.
Changelog
- 31 Mar. 2021: No changes required for Season 23.
- 18 Nov. 2020: Revised skill choices to go with new gear choices for Season 22.
- 30 Jun. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 19 Nov. 2019: Page added.
More Crusader Guides
Builds from Other Classes
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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