LoD Bombardment Crusader BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your LoD Bombardment Crusader in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for Patch 2.7.3 and Season 26.
Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
As this is a Legacy of Dreams-based build, you have considerable freedom in picking out the rest of your gear slots. As a rule of thumb, focus on Skeletal Mages skill damage increases across gear and Cooldown Reduction, and remember the setup's requirement for ancient items, as well as its restriction on other set bonuses. You can run individual set pieces with beneficial stats, as long as they do not form any set bonus.
The Legacy of Dreams power allows you to run any legendary item combination
while not losing out on the damage amplification and reduction associated with
the traditional 6-piece sets. You can obtain this power in two ways; the older
way is equipping the two rings — The Wailing Host and
Litany of the Undaunted — as your only active set bonus. The newer
(and more powerful, since it also opens your ring slots for legendary jewelry)
method is the
Legacy of Dreams legendary gem. Note that using the Legacy
of Nightmares rings is still a viable option for much of your progression, and
their use allows you to slot
Bane of the Trapped as your third legendary
gem in place of the
Legacy of Dreams.
In a setup with Legacy of Dreams, you will be wearing a
Stone of Jordan (matching your elemental rolls across gear to the one on
the SoJ, due to its legendary power that equalizes your elemental damage bonuses
according to your current highest) for the Elemental and Elite damage increase.
Alternatively, you could wear a
Unity with one on your follower (plus
an immortality item for them) to reduce incoming damage in half for a tankier
version of this build. Your other worn ring will be your better roll between
Convention of Elements (for the tremendous damage increase during the
Physical cycle) and
Justice Lantern (for the damage reduction based on
block chance). You will be slotting the weaker rolled ring in the Cube.
The recommended amulet is Hellfire Amulet of Strength, since it allows
you access to an additional synergistic passive like
Hold Your Ground,
Long Arm of the Law or
Indestructible. Alternatively, you could wear
a
Squirt's Necklace for a tremendous damage boost during Shield Pylons, or
an
Eye of Etlich for the ranged damage reduction bonus. The former favorite
The Flavor of Time should now be slotted on your follower, and its power
will be transferred to your character via the Emanate mechanics.
Belt of the Trove is a key legendary item in the build. It will produce
Bombardments on a cooldown as low as 6 seconds, unaffected by your
own downtimes. These
Bombardments inherit the rune of your spec, get
doubled by
The Mortal Drama flail in the cube, and benefit from any other
relevant skill and damage bonuses.
Your helm is best taken by a Leoric's Crown — this helm doubles
the effectiveness of its slotted gem, becoming the single most powerful source
of cooldown reduction offered by a legendary item — 25% with a Flawless
Royal Diamond. In an alternate setup where you fish for GRs where you are
consistently under attack (which maximizes the
Akarat's Awakening procs),
you could run with lower Cooldown Reduction and use a Physical damage
Andariel's Visage in the helm slot.
Your chest and gloves will be taken by purely protective pieces.
Aquila Cuirass will halve incoming damage as long as Wrath does not
dip below 90% of its reserve, which is effectively a permanent bonus in this
pure cooldown spec.
Stone Gauntlets are one of the most effective
defensive pieces in the game, bumping your armor by 50% at a significant (and
stacking) mobility penalty — one which you will completely negate with the
crowd control immunity effect of
Akarat's Champion.
Your pants and bracers slots will be taken by damage increasing legendaries.
Blackthorne's Jousting Mail provide an elemental damage increase, which
is fairly unique for the slot — as long as it does not form its set bonus
with another Blackthorne item, thus breaking the LoD bonus, this will be your
best-in-slot item.
Strongarm Bracers will synergize with
Condemn
when pushing Greater Rifts, as the
Vacuum rune will proc the additive
damage on any enemy affected by the pull.
Truly deprived of a recommended legendary for the slot, the shoulders can be
taken by your best rolled ancient item. You can squeeze out a minor benefit from
Pauldrons of the Skeleton King — a low-chance extra cheat death proc
— but the item cannot be considered mandatory by any means. In practice,
a roll with Cooldown Reduction, Area Damage, Thorns and Bombardment skill damage
will be exceedingly rare, so you will likely use a
Burden of the Invoker
(only this piece from the set!) in this slot due to its synergistic innate
rolls.
Your weapon for Greater Rifts can vary according to preference and content,
including two-handed options (though you will have to switch into
Heavenly Strength, resulting in sub-optimal
Bombardment
cycling). In progression, it is recommended that you opt for a one-hander
—
Pig Sticker. While lacking any flashy bonuses, this noisy knife
more than makes up for it. First, it has the superior attack speed of the dagger
weapon class (1.5 base); second, it rolls up to five primary stats, meaning it
can have high Strength, Cooldown Reduction, Increased Attack Speed, and Area
Damage AND its base weapon damage roll can (and should, in a perfect scenario)
be rerolled into Life per Hit. And third, its unique bonuses vs. human and beast
enemies are multiplicative in nature and can lead to massive damage spikes in
certain rift compositions.
To complete the setup, the rarest Crusader shield —
Akarat's Awakening — supplies this block-heavy build with a reliable
source of the all too vital cooldown reduction.
Alternate Zodiac Setup
There is a notable alteration to this build that uses the powers of
Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac. This version trades upfront damage potential
for easier stacking of
Bane of the Stricken at the Rift Guardian, as well
as more tankiness and health sustain via Life per Hit procs. Build swaps
necessary for this version are also discussed in the
Skills page, but gear-wise note the following
changes:
- Either wear or cube
Gabriel's Vambraces, which is a necessary component in keeping Wrath manageable and maintaining the
Aquila Cuirass bonuses.
- Use
Johanna's Argument for the Attack Speed increase to
Blessed Hammer, resulting in the signature
Bane of the Stricken buildup of this version.
- Use
Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac in the jewelry slot of the Cube for the cooldown resets. This inclusion allows you to reduce CDR requirements across gear, and allows you to (more easily) perfect into a double cast of
Bombardment during the Physical CoE cycle.
Desired Stats, Breakpoints and Other Notes
Strength is desired across gear as it feeds into your Thorns damage. Your
biggest concern is fulfilling the cooldown reduction requirements of this build;
stacking over 61% CDR will allow you to properly sync Bombardment
with physical
Convention of Elements procs and not lose out on cycles,
among survivability benefits. You will ideally reach the 65% CDR breakpoint in
order to further improve the
Akarat's Champion uptime during Physical
cycles of
Convention of Elements. Physical elemental damage (on amulet,
bracers and potentially pants) increase your Thorns damage, and are important
to seek out. Area Damage should also be rolled on all the pieces that are able
to obtain it, including gloves, shoulders, all jewelry pieces, as well as your
weapon and off-hand.
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 build is quite
limited in terms of sustain, relying mostly on Life per Hit to regain health
(either from Punish or
Blessed Hammer spam), and your build will
ideally have two or more sources of LpH — i.e., helm, bracers, and/or
weapon.
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. Putting points into extra resources via Maximum Wrath is not necessary.
In the Offense section, max out Cooldown Reduction first and Attack Speed second; Thorns damage cannot inflict Critical hits, so fill the remaining stats at your leisure. In Defense, prioritize All Resistance, then Life %, then Armor, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Life on Hit first, then continue with Globe Radius. Resource Cost Reduction should be maxed out last, since this is a no-spender build, and Wrath management is irrelevant (except in a Zodiac variant, where you can prioritize RCR slightly higher).
Slot | Paragon Points |
---|---|
Core |
|
Offense |
|
Defense |
|
Utility |
|
Gems
Completely disregarding its level 25 property, you will take
Boyarsky's Chip for one purpose only: boosting your Thorns damage.
Bane of the Stricken is almost universally a desirable progression gem,
as it builds up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and has a level
25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians.
Your final slot is best occupied by the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem,
which provides a scaling bonus for each legendary item equipped, as long as you
have no set bonuses equipped. This bonus is multiplied for Ancient or Primal
quality items, and when the gem is maxed out, it matches the Legacy of Nightmares
(
The Wailing Host and
Litany of the Undaunted rings) set bonus. This
potent bonus allows you to play around with all your gear slots for synergistic
legendary powers at the cost of a gem slot; in a LoN setup, this socket would be
occupied by
Bane of the Trapped.
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. This build is highly Cooldown Reduction
dependent, which means a
Flawless Royal Diamond is necessary in your helm.
In your weapons, use
Flawless Royal Topazes for the Thorns 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
The weapon cube slot will be taken by The Mortal Drama, a flail that
doubles the number of
Bombardment impacts. The effect is simple,
but devastating as it not only affects your own shots, but those of
Belt of the Trove as well.
A spec that has to be on the run by necessity is the perfect home for
Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan; if nothing else, the 25% additive damage increase
while walking and the corresponding decrease when standing still is a good
reminder to stay on the move. If you dislike the playstyle created by these
pants, you can alternate to
Heart of Iron in this slot; you will be
slightly weaker, but can play lazier and stand still during fights.
As previously mentioned, the jewelry Cube slot will be taken by your worse
rolled item between Convention of Elements and
Justice Lantern. In
an oldschool LoN setup, it will be occupied by CoE by necessity, whereas in a
Zodiac alteration it will be taken up by
Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac.
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
Two legendary potions can be considered useful in a Bombardment Crusader build.
Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid allows you to break through Waller affixes,
which is a great boon to a build that is highly dependent on mobility.
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.)
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
- 13 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 09 Dec. 2021: Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 18 Sep. 2021: Item recommendations thoroughly revised for Season 24.
- 18 Nov. 2020: Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 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: Item recommendations have been revised for Season 18.
- 15 May 2019: Guide was revised with additional recommendations for Season 17.
- 17 Jan. 2019: Information was reviewed and approved for Season 16 with no changes required.
More Crusader Guides
Builds from Other Classes
Farming Guides
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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