LoN Bombardment Crusader Skills and Runes

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Quick Reference
    • 2.1. Skill Setup
  • 3. Builds
    • 3.1. Gear Setup
    • 3.2. Legendary Gems
    • 3.3. Kanai's Cube
  • 4. Role in the Current Meta
  • 5. Reading Further
  • 6. Changelog
• ×Skills and Runes
  • 1. Rotation
  • 2. Skills, Runes and Passives
• +Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
  • 1. Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
  • 2. Stat Priorities per Gear Slot
  • 3. Paragon Points
  • 4. Gems
  • 5. Kanai's Cube
  • 6. Follower
• +Speed Farming Variation
  • 1. Speed Farming
  • 2. Adapting Skills
  • 3. Adapting Gear
  • 4. Adapting Gemming

General Information

Below, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing LoN Bombardment Crusader in Diablo 3. Updated for patch 2.6.1 and Season 15.

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

Active Skills
Bombardment Barrels of Spikes Steed Charge Spiked Barding 1 Condemn Vacuum 2 Iron Skin Reflective Skin 3 Consecration Bed of Nails 4 Akarat's Champion Prophet
Passive Skills
Fervor Iron Maiden Lord Commander Finery

1. Rotation

The playstyle of the build places heavy emphasis on movement, encouraging you to constantly weave around enemies to keep up Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan and prepare density for a Belt of the Trove proc. While the belt's effect is autonomous and aims for itself, a significant portion of your burst will come from your own Bombardment cooldown, which you should do your best to synchronize with an Iron Skin Reflective Skin activation and a physical damage cycle from Convention of Elements. Condemn Vacuum will be used to group up enemies and maximizing the profits of individual Bombardments. The rest of the build is dedicated to keeping you safe: trigger Akarat's Champion on cooldown, use Shield Glare to temporarily disable your enemies, and speed off on Steed Charge whenever trouble stirs too close to you.

2. Skills, Runes and Passives

Bombardment is the namesake and primary damage dealer of the build; you will be taking the rune Barrels of Spikes, uniquely scaling with your Thorns damage. Belt of the Trove will inherit the rune you have chosen, aim and trigger it by itself, but you are in charge of your own cooldown — keep an eye on the rotation of Convention of Elements and sync your Bombardments with the physical cycle, adding Reflective Skin for massive burst.

Steed Charge is one of the best survival tools at this squishy build's disposal: allowing your Bombardment Crusader to cut a swath through his enemies, circle them in relative safety while waiting for belt procs and cooldowns, and otherwise cover distances from fight to fight. You can choose between several runes, but the general recommendation is the Thorns-scaling Spiked Barding, which adds a smattering of damage to your mobility skill — useful to finish low health mobs with.

You will be taking Condemn in the build, but not as a damage-dealing skill — your priority is the crowd-control of Vacuum. This rune choice not only procs Strongarm Bracers, but also the Bane of the Trapped gem, while grouping enemies near you to maximize the benefits of the Bombardment AoE. It goes without saying, but in high progression environments this skill can expose you to a lot of danger as well by grouping enemies on top of you. Depending on your choices for the utility slot, you can counteract the threat with the hard crowd control of the Shield Glare blind, cast in quick succession after Vacuuming enemies near you.

While it is usually perceived as a defensive cooldown, resist the urge to trigger Iron Skin when endangered; the rune Reflective Skin will be fuel for your burst damage, and you will benefit much more if you pop it right before a Bombardment — even more so if you synchronize it with a Physical cycle of Convention of Elements.

You have some freedom in your utility slot; Shield Glare Divine Verdict can provide a source of hard crowd control and an additive damage increase against affected enemies (strengthened further if you carry The Final Witness). Provoke can stick stragglers to you for the inevitable cannonade (especially good if you carry a Vo'Toyias Spiker), and Too Scared to Run will enfeeble them. The general recommendation for GR pushing however is Consecration Bed of Nails; it offers considerable healing along with a smattering of damage in a spec that struggles for recovery.

With the amount of cooldown reduction stacking in the build, the Crusader mainstay Akarat's Champion will have decent uptime of about 60% — more than enough to warrant its inclusion, especially considering its multiplicative damage increase, the Prophet value of additional defense, and a cheat death in this vulnerable spec.

This concludes the overview of the active skills, now let us look through the passives.

Even though its attack speed properties will be for naught, Fervor is nevertheless taken for the considerable 15% cooldown reduction. Notice that if you reach the 61+ CDR breakpoint purely through gear, you can freely swap Fervor out for another synergistic passive like Long Arm of the Law.

The task of Bombardment is to deliver the damage, but the spec relies on Thorns at its core, and as such will not skip on the 50% increase of Thorns from Iron Maiden.

Considering the dependency of your burst potential on the Bombardment cooldown, it is no surprise you will be taking Lord Commander, shaving the considerable 35% off the downtime. You will also receive the added benefit of more frequent Steed Charges.

The Akarat's Champion of Crusader passives, Finery takes a firm fourth spot in the build. Boosting Strength by 1.5% for every socketed piece you have equipped, it adds a solid chunk of damage and toughness on a properly geared character. Note the absence of Indestructible — this build ideally runs a well-rolled Hellfire Amulet of Strength that features one of the recommended passives and allows you to run the cheat death. If you prefer having a fail safe at all times (when you play Hardcore, for example), this is the passive slot to be taken by Indestructible.

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.