Akkhan Condemn Crusader BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

The backbone of every Condemn Crusader is, of course, the Akkhan set. Cooldown Reduction takes priority on the slots where you can get it — certainly on the gloves, where it accompanies the Crit stats, as well as on the shoulders. The latter should also serve as a source of skill damage, as Condemn % can be rolled on both the shoulder and the chest pieces. The helm is largely a stat stick, where high Strength, Vitality and Crit Chance rolls are ideal.

Armor set-wise, you will also be crafting and equipping two of the three pieces of the Captain Crimson set (the Captain Crimson's Thrust, Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle and Captain Crimson's Waders), as well as two of the four pieces of the Aughild's Authority set ( Aughild's Search, Aughild's Power, Aughild's Rule and Aughild's Spike). You will attain the complete set bonuses of this three-set amalgamation via Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. The Captain Crimson set provides CDR as well as RCR bonuses, and then scales your damage dealt and damage reduced according to both stats — bringing a massive boon to the build. Aughild's set also increases both your defensive and offensive powers, especially versus elite enemies, where Condemn historically struggles — another substantial power spike for this build.

Note that the suggestions in the table below are just examples, and with the exception of Aughild's Search all other craftable pieces can be mixed and matched with your Akkhan pieces according to your best rolls, as long as you maintain the 5 Akkhan - 2 Crimson - 2 Aughild split across your gear.

As far as jewelry is concerned, you will be running a powerful offensive combo: the Bastions of Will set, Focus and Restraint. This set is unmatched in damage potential with its 2.25 independent multiplier as long as you alternate between generating and spender attacks, a requirement which you fulfill by alternating Condemn with your generator of choice (see this build's skills page for more information). Seek double Crit stats, Cooldown Reduction and an open Socket as the best-in-slot stats for both Focus and Restraint.

You have two viable options for the weapon slot; the dedicated Condemn sword Blade of Prophecy and elite demolisher The Furnace. The rule of thumb is that you will be wearing your better roll between the two items, and cubing the other. Ideally though, you will be wielding The Furnace due to its higher damage range and the fact that Condemn is unaffected by Attack Speed. Blade of Prophecy is also a mandatory weapon for the playstyle, a two handed sword tailored for a build based around Condemn. Its lifelong power (two additional Condemn triggers when at least two targets are present in the initial Condemn radius) has been bolstered by a substantial skill damage boost of up to 800%.

Frydehr's Wrath is the former Season 1 exclusive shield that turns the otherwise Cooldown-based nature of Condemn into a spender — an extremely potent effect, as proven by the Fires of Heaven rune from the Holy Shotgun build. Crit Chance and Cooldown Reduction rolls on this Crusader shield are mandatory for an endgame setup, and the shield has been strengthened in 2.6.1 with up to 800% Condemn damage affix as well.

For Offense stats, try to obtain Condemn % bonus on both the chest and shoulders (maximum of 30%), Holy elemental damage on both the amulet and wrists (maximum of 40%), Crit Chance and Crit Damage within a 1:10 ratio (ideally over 50% and 500%, respectively), and Area Damage of 100%+. Akkhan-based builds aim for permanent uptime of Akarat's Champion, which requires a CDR breakpoint of 56%.

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool between 700-900k; dropping as much as you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. The sustain in this build will come from activations of your Holy Cause passive, as you deal Holy damage with Condemn.

All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat, Strength.

Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item with stats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are main stats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and is unable to be rerolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for a stat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. Perfecting Secondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case for discarding an item, except where noted.

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap Normally this is done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting your roll from the 25% max. After that dump as much as you comfortably can into Strength, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness, or Maximum Wrath if you want to play around with a bigger resource pool.

In the Offense section, max out Cooldown Reduction, Crit Chance, Crit Damage and Attack Speed in that order. In Defense, prioritize All Resistance, then Life %, then Armor, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Resource Cost Reduction first, then finish off with Life on Hit and Globe Radius.

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem procs itself with its level 25 property, and is otherwise triggered by the Too Scared to Run debuff, making it an inseparable part of this melee setup.

Esoteric Alteration is the strongest mitigation gem available, a welcome addition to a build that revels in drawing monsters on top of itself. Improving your elemental resistances with every gem level, as well as providing you with a last line of defense against one shots through the level 25 property, Esoteric Alteration edges over other defensive options like Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard and Mutilation Guard.

Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken takes a firm slot in the third jewelry socket when Greater Rifting. Building up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. Condemn is one of the oldest examples of such a build, making the gem mandatory.

When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the highest available level of Rubies in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these will all be Flawless Royal Ruby as soon as possible. As you grow in Paragon (bulking up Strength in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive Flawless Royal Diamond. There is no specific breakpoint where you do that; the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack of toughness impede your progress. Akkhan Crusaders are highly Cooldown Reduction dependent, so a Flawless Royal Diamond should be socketed in your helm. In your weapon, use a Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

As previously mentioned, your weapon Cube slot is interchangeable between Blade of Prophecy and The Furnace, according to your better rolled item.

Tucked away in your armor Cube slot, Illusory Boots offer unparalleled freedom of movement, especially with the tendency of Vacuum to imprison you in a crowd of bloodthirsty mobs.

In the Akkhan / Aughild / Captain Crimson mixture, you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur: a cache legendary ring from Act I bounties, to tie the three sets together. The ability to run with one full 6-piece set bonus and two additional 3-piece bonuses, dodging the undesirable guaranteed stats on the Grandeur by cubing its power, is a tremendous boost to the build.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the Enchantress due to her cooldown reduction buff from Prophetic Harmony, as well as the Focused Mind attack speed buff.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

Waller affixes are problematic for Condemn Crusader builds, since they greatly limit your opportunities to maneuver from one pack to the next, back and forth, which is the general playstyle of the build. As such, our general recommendation for your legendary potion is the Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid, which allows you to break through Waller affixes. Alternatively, Bottomless Potion of the Diamond is a straightforward addition that simply layers a short All Resist protective coating after drinking (All Resistance is the preferred form of mitigation stacking for Strength-based characters, since their mainstat scales Armor already.)