Blessed Hammer Crusader BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Blessed Hammer Crusader in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for patch 2.6.10 and Season 22.
Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
The build incorporates the full Seeker of the Light set, taking all
six pieces available and leaving the jewelry to balance offense and defense with
the Endless Walk set. Rolls-wise, this Blessed Hammer-centric playstyle
makes good use of skill damage affixes on the
Crown of the Light and
Foundation of the Light.
Heart of the Light and
Towers of the Light are dedicated to toughness rolls, while
Will of the Light incorporates a CDR roll alongside the staple Crit Chance
and Crit Damage. A Cooldown Reduction roll is also taken as the fourth primary
alongside Strength, All Resistance and Area Damage on the
Mountain of the Light, adding to the solid foundation of CDR present in
the build.
Not skipping on any of the six available set pieces to obtain the full Seeker
of the Light bonus allows you to split between offense and defense in the jewelry
slots. One of the 2.4 reworks, the Endless Walk set —
The Compass Rose ring and
The Traveler's Pledge amulet — adds a
unique mechanic that slowly increases your damage by up to a 100% if you remain
stationary, and drains it away and increases your damage reduction while moving.
This dynamic fits the Hammerdin playstyle, which alternates long-distance jumps
with periods of stationary
Blessed Hammer spam (see this build's skills page for more
information). Your second ring slot should be taken by
Convention of Elements; the ring rotates through all elements available
to Crusaders, providing a massive bonus to your main damage skill during the
Holy proc.
Created with this very build in mind, Gabriel's Vambraces are the
mandatory bracers for the build. One of your strongest resource management
tools available, these bracers will allow you to pump out hammers at your
normal AoE rate without worrying about the lack of targets to
Provoke.
Naturally, try to obtain as close to the 100% Wrath refund as you can while
still aiming for the usual Strength, Crit Chance and Holy Damage rolls.
The Sacred Harness belt is a dedicated legendary for Hammerdin builds,
which adds a free
Judgment
Debilitate effect at the landing location of
your
Falling Sword — an indispensable effect for the GR variation
of the build.
Similarly to the bracers and belt, a mandatory weapon and shield combo has
been added to the game to specifically enhance the Blessed Hammer playstyle.
Johanna's Argument is the recommended one-handed flail to take up your
weapon slot, and what it lacks in elite and elemental bonuses, it makes up in a
powerful unique property: increasing the Damage and Attack Speed of your
Blessed Hammers by a whopping 100%. Rolls-wise, seek Life per Hit for
some much-needed sustain, alongside the usual recommendations for high damage
range, damage % and Strength properties.
The shield counterpart is the aptly named Guard of Johanna: tailored
for a
Blessed Hammer playstyle, it adds a massive damage boost of up to
250% against the first three targets you hit with a hammer. This adds a
repositioning nuance to the build that often gets lost in the thick of a fight,
but you would do well to remember it, as it allows you to prioritize targets. It
also shines during Rift Guardian fights, where the AoE superiority of the build
takes a natural step backwards. For its rolls, try to obtain high Crit Chance,
Strength, Cooldown Reduction and Skill Damage.
Desired Stats, Breakpoints and Other Notes
For Offense stats, try to obtain Blessed Hammer % bonus on both the helm and boots (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%+. Blessed Hammer Crusaders are somewhat CDR dependent, so try to reach a comfortable minimum 50%+ CDR.
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. You will mostly sustain through Life per Hit on gear, with at least one high roll in your setup, but ideally two (optimal slots are the weapon and/or bracer).
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.
Slot | Pieces | Stat Priority |
---|---|---|
Head |
|
|
Shoulders |
|
|
Torso |
|
|
Wrists |
|
|
Hands |
|
|
Waist |
|
|
Legs |
|
|
Feet |
|
|
Amulet |
|
|
Ring #1 |
|
|
Ring #2 |
|
|
Weapon |
|
|
Off-hand |
|
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.
Paragon Points
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 Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Cooldown Reduction, 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.
Slot | Paragon Points |
---|---|
Core |
|
Offense |
|
Defense |
|
Utility |
|
Gems
Bane of the Trapped is a massive source of additional damage, which is a
separate multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem procs itself with
its level 25 property, and is otherwise kept up with
Too Scared to Run and
Judgment, making it an inseparable part of the Blessed Hammer
Crusader.
Gogok of Swiftness synergises well with the build in Greater Rift
pushes, indirectly providing you with more cooldown resets and improved healing
through your faster attacks. The 2.4.1 addition of scaling Dodge chance to the
gem is just survivability icing on the cake.
Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken occupies the third and
final jewelry socket during GR progression. 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. When facing less
threatening content (lower GRs or regular difficulties), this slot is better
served by the overall damage boost of
Bane of the Powerful.
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. Blessed Hammer Crusaders are moderately 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.
Slot | Gems |
---|---|
Jewelry | |
Helm | |
Torso and Pants |
|
Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Kanai's Cube
Faithful Memory is a Patch 2.4.3 rework that greatly increases
Blessed Hammer damage according to the number of enemies struck by
Falling Sword. Note that this slot is theoretically interchangeable with
Johanna's Argument depending on your better rolled item, but
Blessed Hammer scales much better in an attack speed, one hander-oriented
build, making equipping
Faithful Memory a temporary solution.
Hammer Jammers are a targeted rework for the Hammerdin builds, and
they take a guaranteed spot in the armor slot of the cube. The massive, temporary
damage bonus against crowd controlled targets shifts the former kiting playstyle
of the build into a more comfortable, deliberate pace that encourages you to jump
into a big brawl and stay there, melting enemies caught within a
Judgment
snare.
Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac is a powerful option for Crusaders to cube
in the jewelry slot, easing the CDR management of this cooldown-centric class.
Benefiting greatly from the attack speed inherent to this one hander build, it
allows for near permanent uptime of vital skills like
Akarat's Champion.
In your 4th Kanai's Cube slot in Season 22, place The Furnace. The
unique effect of this two-handed mace provides you with an incomparable source
of bonus elite damage, significantly shortening fights with champion packs and
Rift Guardians — traditionally one-on-one affairs, where Blessed Hammer
builds suffer the most.
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.
Legendary Potion
The preferred potion for this build is Bottomless Potion of the Leech due
to its Life per Hit bonuses, which synergize perfectly for the high attack speed
and sustain-through-attacks playstyle of the build.
Follower
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.
Changelog
- 18 Nov. 2020: Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 19 Nov. 2019: Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 22 Aug. 2019: Reviewed for Season 18.
- 15 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 27 Jan. 2019: Revised the Season 16 extra slot recommendation.
- 17 Jan. 2019: Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
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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