Invoker Thorns Crusader Speed Farming Variation

The Invoker ThornsCrusader deals with regular Rift farming decently all the way through the highest Torments, making it a viable build for the task. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if you want to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.

Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.

Active Skills
Slash Zeal Steed Charge Draw and Quarter 1 Laws of Hope Wings of Angels 2 Iron Skin Flash 3 Bombardment Barrels of Spikes 4 Akarat's Champion Prophet
Passive Skills
Heavenly Strength Iron Maiden Long Arm of the Law Finery

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

In speed farming, mobility is a much bigger consideration for Thorns Crusaders, since you do not have the AoE clear of the more conventional farming builds. You need to keep up your Laws of Hope Wings of Angels up at all times, and zip from one elite pack to another to trigger In-geom's CDR resets. Keep up your set-based damage reduction by casting a manual Bombardment at least once every 20 seconds. When in need to cross greater distances, simply mount up with Steed Charge.

Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, but others will have to change according to the task at hand. Ability to cross over great distances faster and more efficiently take precedence.

• Slash Zeal, Steed Charge Draw and Quarter and Bombardment Barrels of Spikes will remain in your active skill lineup from the progression build. Use Iron Skin Flash for extra mobility.
• When speedfarming, the additional durability of Laws of Justice or extra attack speed of Laws of Valor will be overkill, so you can safely swap this slot out for the movement speed buffs of Laws of Hope Wings of Angels.
• Akarat's Champion Prophet is an omnipresent self-buff in both versions of the build.
• The majority of passives from the progression build are too valuable to ignore; you will keep Heavenly Strength, Iron Maiden and Finery.
• In speed farming where damage is of lesser concern compared to mobility, you should take Long Arm of the Law for the improved uptime of Laws of Hope Wings of Angels.

You will largely keep the gear pieces from your Greater Rift progression setup. When it comes to armor sets, you will still use the 6-piece Invoker and 3-piece Cpt. Crimson bonusеs, using 5 pieces from the former and 2 from the latter and cubing a Ring of Royal Grandeur to complete their power. The playstyle shifts into heavy use of Steed Charge for mobility, so you can use the Norvald's Fervor set — Flail of the Charge and Shield of the Steed — to great effect in T16s.

The notable differences are in the jewelry slots, where you can make some adaptations to complement T16 farming. Instead of the slow-and-steady Endless Walk set, you should use a combo of Squirt's Necklace and a Physical damage Stone of Jordan — both of which will provide a consistent damage bonus suitable to bursting enemies down. Your second ring should be Rechel's Ring of Larceny, which has a Fear-based movement speed proc and comes with an innate Chance to Fear on Hit roll, essentially proccing itself.

Note that former favorites for the jewelry slots in T16 — like Nemesis Bracers, The Flavor of Time, and Avarice Band — can now be equipped on your Follower, and their bonuses "Emanate" (meaning, their effect applies to you as well). Obviously, you should consider fitting these pieces back into the build, if you are farming T16s in a group.

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.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

Both Bane of the Trapped and Boyarsky's Chip remain universally desired damage amplification gems for Thorns Crusaders across all forms of content.

When doing speedruns, health values will be a significantly smaller barrier, diminishing the value of Bane of the Stricken; you would do well to replace it with Boon of the Hoarder. The latter is a high utility gem that feeds you practically infinite gold, gives you a massive short-term speed boost while picking it up, and synergizes excellently with a and Follower-worn Avarice Band.

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

In regular Rift farming, the pace at which you kill elites facilitates the use of the most potent source of cooldown reduction in your weapon Cube slot — In-geom. As long as you fuel its power by regularly bursting down elites, it will practically ensure permanent uptime of all of your important cooldowns.

With the changes in Patch 2.7.3, the Invoker set now gains AoE capabilities that were previously absent from the set. To capitalize on those changes, you will be using the Omnislash belt, which will give Slash a 360 degrees effect around the character. Note that the removal of the former favorite for the slot, Belt of the Trove, necessitates that you use Bombardment on your bar.

In order to mix in the Raekor set with the craftable Captain Crimson set, you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur: a cache legendary ring from Act I bounties, to tie the two set bonuses together.

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 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.

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.

This Season revives the Pandemonium Kill Streak buff from Season 19. Each stack grants a bonus to movement speed and damage, capping at +50% movement speed and +100% damage at 1000 kills. Hitting specific kill thresholds unleashes powerful effects. Read more in our dedicated Season of the Eternal Conflict Mechanics Guide!

While speedfarming sees limited use from this theme, Greater Rift pushing benefits significantly. Effects like Geysers (150), Meteors (400), and Angels (500) can clear elites and Rift Guardians instantly. Players may reset streaks after 150 kills to repeatedly trigger Geysers or push for 500+ kills near boss fights, often using Nemesis Bracers to spawn extra enemies.

Because the most potent effects (Geysers, Meteors, Angels) can obliterate Rift Guardians instantly up to GR150, players can retool builds for efficiency and comfort. Here’s how:

Since you can rely on killstreak procs to clear the Rift Guardian, Bane of the Stricken can be safely omitted in favor of:

• Another generic damage-scaling legendary gem ( Bane of the Trapped for builds with any form of crowd control and/or melee range, Zei's Stone of Vengeance for far ranged builds, Taeguk for channeling builds, Simplicity's Strength for primary attack-focused builds, Enforcer for pet-oriented builds, etc.)
• A survivability-oriented legendary gem ( Esoteric Alteration, Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard), or additional utility ( Gogok of Swiftness for CDR-reliant builds, Pain Enhancer for attack speed-heavy builds, or Wreath of Lightning for extra movement speed).

Adjust your equipment to items that favor durability, health sustain, and ease of movement. Consider adjusting non-essential skills for the build to ones that pull, reposition, or otherwise displace enemies to facilitate large pulls of enemy packs. In more concrete terms, this means:

• For class-synergistic items, Crusaders should strongly consider equipping Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac if not already included, as it synergizes well with cooldown-heavy builds that rely on Akarat's Champion or Bombardment.
• For additional defense, cross-class standouts like Unity (used with follower and immortality relic for them), and the Endless Walk set ( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose) are top picks, balancing damage reduction during movement with stationary damage scaling.
• Situational defensive gear includes staples like Aquila Cuirass (perfect for builds with minimal resource spending like Invoker Thorns), Stone Gauntlets ((mitigated by Akarat's Champion, Iron Skin, wearing Ice Climbers, or Altar of Rites CC-immunity node), and even niche inclusions like Justice Lantern (boosts block-based mitigation) and String of Ears (massive melee damage reduction).
• For situational items that improve your utility, strongly consider Nemesis Bracers as the extra elites equal both killstreak upkeep and GR progression. When soloing, they should be equipped by your follower; in groups, at least one party member should commit to wearing them. Edge cases will see the inclusion of Warzechian Armguards or Krelm's Buff Belt (more speed for easier scouting and pulls), and Strongarm Bracers (extra damage vs. displaced enemies). To facilitate large pulls, consider using a Follower equipped with The Ess of Johan, a proc-based analogue to an enemy-pulling skill (albeit outside your control).
• Skill-wise, make sure to include at least one movement skill ( Steed Charge) and/or an enemy-pulling tool like Condemn Vacuum or Sweep Attack Gathering Sweep. Take a look if you can include passives like Fervor (for cooldown reduction and attack speed with one-handed weapons), Lord Commander (reduced cooldown on Steed Charge) or Long Arm of the Law (to extend the benefits of your Laws for both solo and group play). The latter will be especially beneficial if you can slot Laws of Hope Wings of Angels in the build.