Aegis of Valor Heaven's Fury Crusader Skills and Runes

Active Skills
Heaven's Fury Fires of Heaven Fist of the Heavens Fissure 1 Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force 2 Shield Glare Divine Verdict 3 Iron Skin Flash 4 Akarat's Champion Prophet
Passive Skills
Fervor Holy Cause Long Arm of the Law Finery

In its essence, the build deals damage in a very straightforward manner — face the monsters you want to demolish and 'shotgun' their faces off with Heaven's Fury Fires of Heaven. The Aegis of Valor set itself will nudge you towards constantly interweave Fist of the Heavens casts in your Heaven's Fury spam, as you will need to maintain the damage amplifying triple stacks from the 2-piece bonus, and also the stacking damage reduction and Wrath restoration from the 4-piece bonus. This results in a Fissure cast roughly every few Fires of Heavens in order to maintain all the buffs. In order to maintain the Bracer of Fury damage bonus, you will also need to apply some hard crowd control on enemies, usually done via Judgment or Shield Glare; this will also be helpful to keep the more dangerous mobs at least temporarily disabled. The remainder of your skills you will simply apply as soon as they come off cooldown, as their bonuses are universally helpful: the survivability and damage bonuses of Akarat's Champion, Iron Skin and Laws of Valor.

The main damage dealer in the build is Heaven's Fury — a signature Crusader skill that sends a furious beam of holy fire that purges your enemies. You will gain the namesake Holy Shotgun effect from the rune Fires of Heaven. The entire build revolves around the amplification of its damage, including the set bonuses, skill selection and supporting gear.

In this Heaven's Fury-focused build, Fist of the Heavens is taken strictly for the set mechanics with the 2- and 4-piece bonuses, (see this build's gear page for more information). With respect to that, the best rune to take is the arcing Fissure, whose constant ticks between two or more fissures will greatly assist you with Wrath management. Note the potential lag coming from overdoing Fissure casts, and try to restrict yourself to around 3 casts, placed optimally at the edges of a fight.

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 Heaven's Fury Wrath spending and trigger the Cpt. Crimson bonuses; this auxiliary craftable set scales your damage reduction based on your Resource Cost Reduction, and Unstoppable Force does count as sheet RCR.

While dealing a lot of damage on their own, your Heaven's Fury shots depend a great deal on the damage amplification of the Bracer of Fury. This legendary item necessitates the use of a crowd control skill in the build, and early on in character progression, you will be hard pressed to find a wider AoE and more defensive utility than Judgment with the Debilitate rune. If you are looking to squeeze some additional damage from this slot instead, which will be useful in high tier GR progression, you can use Shield Glare with Divine Verdict in this slot.

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 and removing enemy collision through the Flash rune. Second, you will be running Akarat's Champion; not only does it increase your damage multiplicatively by 35% and supplies you with 5 Wrath per second as a base effect, but it 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.

There is an alternate version of this build that wields the Norvald's Fervor set, Flail of the Charge and Shield of the Steed. This is a very high damage, but also extremely high Paragon (6k+) alteration of this build.

Skill-wise, the Norvald's Fervor alteration drops Iron Skin for Steed Charge in order to proc the damage bonus of the set; said skill is used before the Holy cycle of Convention of Elements. You should also be cognizant of your vulnerability during the Akarat's Champion downtime, and dodge as much as you can via Steed Charge, and constantly moving to stack the defensive part of the Endless Walk set effect. Naturally, since this is a two-handed weapon-wielding build, you will swap Fervor for Heavenly Strength.

There is an alternate version of this build that wields Fate of the Fell in the main hand, and uses a cubed Ivory Tower to deal damage. This is a block-based variant that differs in its approach to both skill usage and gearing and while powerful, it is recommended only once you stack high enough Paragons (3k+).

Skill-wise, the Ivory Tower alteration uses Blessed Ground on Heaven's Fury; since the shield will spam the Fires of Heaven for you, you should use a DoT rune to stack Bane of the Stricken. Since you no longer use resources to cast Fires of Heaven, the Ivory Tower version also uses Divine Well on Fist of the Heavens for additional healing through Holy Cause. Iron Skin also becomes a vital part of your rotation, since you rely on it for survival of the (lengthier) Akarat's Champion downtime, as well as to reposition properly for your DPS cycles. Make sure to have Iron Skin up close to the Holy cycles of CoE, so you can position into a pull and out of a pull as the burst rotations come and go.

In a spec that is largely dependent on fast attacks and cooldowns, it is no wonder Fervor is taken for the outstanding 15% Attack Speed and Cooldown Reduction while wielding one-handed weapons.

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.

In order to maximize your damage and add sustain, Holy Cause should be added to the passive mix, since it synergizes elementally with your main damage dealer and has a healing side effect. Its base 10% damage buff is also nothing to scoff at.

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 Fires of Heaven spam and the damage mitigation of the Cpt. Crimson set.