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 2.7.5 and Season 28.
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.
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
- 22 Feb. 2023: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 28.
- 26 Aug. 2022: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 27.
- 13 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 09 Dec. 2021: Reviewed for Season 25.
- 23 Jul. 2021: No changes required for Season 24.
- 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
Farming Guides
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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