LoD Blessed Shield Crusader Skills and Runes

Last updated on Jan 08, 2024 at 09:00 by Deadset 27 comments

On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing LoD Blessed Shield Crusader in Diablo 3. Updated for Patch 2.7.7 and Season 30.

Active Skills
Left Mouse Button Blessed Shield Icon Blessed Shield Combust Combust Right Mouse Button Condemn Icon Condemn Vacuum Vacuum 1 Provoke Icon Provoke Hit Me Hit Me 2 Laws of Valor Icon Laws of Valor Critical Critical 3 Iron Skin Icon Iron Skin Steel Skin Steel Skin 4 Akarat's Champion Icon Akarat's Champion Prophet Prophet
Passive Skills
1.

Rotation

The LoN Blessed Shield Crusader moves from fight to fight, looking for a favorable engagement and trying to attract the biggest amount of monsters possible, building up density with Condemn Condemn Vacuum Vacuum. Once you get a good pack of demons engaged, draw them in with Provoke Provoke and pop Laws of Valor Laws of Valor Critical Critical, then then begin your Blessed Shield Blessed Shield barrage. In emergency situations, you should pop Iron Skin Iron Skin to halve incoming damage. Last but not least, activate Akarat's Champion Akarat's Champion whenever it is available; ideally syncing up with your Law activation and a Fire cycle of Convention of Elements Convention of Elements for a massive spike in your damage.

2.

Skills and Runes

Your primary damage dealer is found in Blessed Shield Blessed Shield — a far range, ricocheting projectile that only needs aiming for its initial target. Rune-wise, take Combust Combust, for its one-in-three chance to inflict a significant amount of extra AoE on hit; with Gyrfalcon's Foote Gyrfalcon's Foote at your disposal (see this build's gear page for more information), resource is no longer a consideration and you can spam for as long as the fight demands.

To boost the damage of Blessed Shield Blessed Shield, you can implement Provoke Provoke with the Block chance-raising Hit Me Hit Me rune. The rune's effect overwrites the 75% block chance cap of the game and provides a nice, albeit short boost to your damage.

Laws are a cornerstone in Crusader builds, and in this high GR progression setup, you will be trying to squeeze every bit of DPS possible by including Laws of Valor Laws of Valor Critical Critical; its attack speed bonus is an exact fit with the resource-free, spam-oriented nature of the build, and its Crit Damage bonuses make up for deficiencies in this stat, which are inherent in Shield-wielding builds.

Your emergency protective cooldown comes in the form of Iron Skin Iron Skin, improved with the longer lasting Steel Skin Steel Skin rune. Since the build fights in mid-to-close range (keep in mind the relatively short radius of Pain Enhancer Pain Enhancer, which is an important part of your DPS), you will frequently be faced with situations where facetanking is your only option. Iron Skin Iron Skin will cut incoming damage in half for a reasonable amount of time, allowing you to fight through the pain.

The signature Crusader steroid, Akarat's Champion Akarat's Champion, is present in this build as well; unlike Akarat-based builds, you will not be able to reach permanent uptime, but even 50% or so is more than enough to make its inclusion desirable. Coupled with the Prophet Prophet rune, this skill nets you a 35% multiplicative damage increase, 150% additional Armor buff and a cheat death proc, which results in an impressively durable build.

You have some flexibility in your final active skill slot. Our general recommendation is to take Condemn Condemn Vacuum Vacuum, as it allows you to build up monster density with a further reach and more reliability than simply using Provoke Provoke. Alternatively, you can slot Steed Charge Steed Charge — either with the longer lasting Endurance Endurance rune, or the pulling utility of Draw and Quarter Draw and Quarter.

This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.

3.

Passives

Blessed Shield Blessed Shield Crusader builds are armed by necessity with Gyrfalcon's Foote Gyrfalcon's Foote, and as such, they make great use of the Fervor Fervor passive. It nets you Cooldown Reduction and Attack Speed bonuses, both of which are a great fit to the build.

Towering Shield Towering Shield is a passive tailored for Blessed Shield Blessed Shield Crusaders, providing a sizable additive damage bonus to your main damage dealer.

Finery 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 Finery amounts to a decent boost of both damage and toughness.

You have some freedom in your final passive slot. Generally, we recommend using Hold Your Ground Hold Your Ground to cap yourself on Block Chance and add a nice smattering of damage to your Blessed Shield Blessed Shield, since it scales partially off this stat. If you value safety higher, you can not go wrong by slotting the Crusader cheat death passive Indestructible Indestructible.

4.

Changelog

  • 08 Jan. 2024: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 30.
  • 13 Sep. 2023: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 29.
  • 22 Feb. 2023: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 28.
  • 26 Aug. 2022: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 27.
  • 13 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 09 Dec. 2021: Reviewed for Season 25.
  • 23 Jul. 2021: No changes necessary for Season 24.
  • 31 Mar. 2021: No changes necessary for Season 23.
  • 18 Nov. 2020: Reviewed for Season 22. No changed were needed.
  • 30 Jun. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
  • 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
  • 19 Nov. 2019: Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
  • 22 Aug. 2019: Condemn over Steed Charge for Season 18.
  • 14 May 2019: Guide added.
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