Blessed Hammer Crusader BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Video Guide
  • 3. Quick Reference
    • 3.1. Skill Setup
  • 4. Builds
    • 4.1. Gear Setup
    • 4.2. Legendary Gems
    • 4.3. Kanai's Cube
  • 5. Role in the Current Meta
  • 6. Reading Further
  • 7. ChangeLog
• +Skills and Runes
  • 1. Rotation
  • 2. Skills, Runes and Passives
• ×Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
  • 1. Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
  • 2. Paragon Points
  • 3. Gems
  • 4. Kanai's Cube
  • 5. Follower
• +Speed Farming Variation
  • 1. Speed Farming
  • 2. Adapting Skills
  • 3. Adapting Gear
  • 4. Adapting Gemming

General Information

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 and Season 11.

The other pages of our Blessed Hammer Crusader guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

1. 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, Vitality and All Resistance 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. 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, Vitality, 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 Vitality.

Slot	Pieces	Stat Priority
Head	Crown of the Light	Strength Socket Critical Hit Chance Blessed Hammer % Vitality
Shoulders	Mountain of the Light	Strength Vitality Cooldown Reduction Area Damage All Resistance
Torso	Heart of the Light	3 Sockets Strength Vitality Reduced Damage from Elites All Resistance
Wrists	Gabriel's Vambraces	Strength Critical Hit Chance Holy Damage Vitality Life per Hit
Hands	Will of the Light	Strength Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction
Waist	Sacred Harness	Strength Vitality All Resistance Life %
Legs	Towers of the Light	2 Sockets Strength Vitality All Resistance Armor
Feet	Foundation of the Light	Strength Vitality All Resistance Blessed Hammer % Movement Speed
Amulet	The Traveler's Pledge	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Holy Damage Strength
Ring #1	The Compass Rose	Socket Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Area Damage
Ring #2	Convention of Elements	Socket Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Area Damage
Weapon	Johanna's Argument	Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) Weapon Damage % Weapon Damage Strength Life per Hit Cooldown Reduction
Off-hand	Guard of Johanna	Strength Crit Chance Vitality Cooldown Reduction Socket

2. Paragon Points

Slot	Paragon Points
Core	Movement Speed up to 25% cap Strength Maximum Wrath (personal preference) Vitality
Offense	Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed
Defense	All Resistance Life % Armor Life Regeneration
Utility	Area Damage Resource Cost Reduction Life on Hit Gold Find

3. 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.

Slot	Gems
Jewelry	Bane of the Trapped Gogok of Swiftness Bane of the Stricken
Helm	Flawless Royal Diamond
Torso and Pants	Flawless Royal Ruby (Damage) Flawless Royal Diamond (Toughness)
Weapon	Flawless Royal Emerald

4. 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.

5. 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.

About the Author

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.