Thorns Bombardment Crusader Speed Farming Variation

The Akkhan Bombardment Crusader 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
Phalanx Bowmen Bombardment Barrels of Spikes 1 Laws of Hope Wings of Angels 2 Steed Charge Endurance 3 Iron Skin Flash 4 Akarat's Champion Prophet
Passive Skills
Heavenly Strength Iron Maiden Long Arm of the Law Indestructible

You will maintain the basis of your progression build, with Bombardment Barrels of Spikes still serving as your main damage dealer, and Akarat's Champion Prophet as your mandatory baseline buff.

While necessary for Bane of the Stricken stacking for Greater Rift progression, Punish will not be necessary in regular Rift farming. In its stead, use the massive, party-wide movement speed buff of Laws of Hope Wings of Angels. The same movement-driven logic is applied to Iron Skin, where you should adjust from progression runes like Steel Skin or Reflective Skin to Flash.

Moving stragglers around will be unnecessary in an environment where you mostly oneshot monsters, so change the Draw and Quarter rune of Steed Charge to Endurance.

Due to Akkhan being a 7-piece set, you can adapt the Condemn build to include the Death's Breath farming Sage set. In order to do this, you will replace the Cpt. Crimson slots from the progression build with Sage's pieces, meaning a mandatory Sage's Ribbon plus one more craftable piece of your choosing. The extra damage from the Aughild 2-piece will not be necessary, so you can exclude it in favor of utility legendaries like Leoric's Crown and Nemesis Bracers. You can even carry 2 pieces of the craftable Cain set (like Cain's Insight and Cain's Habit, for example) in your inventory and make a quick swap right as the Rift Guardian is about to die, proccing the Cain 3-piece bonus for additional Greater Rift Keystone drops.

The progression-oriented Unity should be dropped from your jewelry during farming, since the lower difficulty of standard Rift farming devalues its toughnes bonus. In its stead, use a Physical damage Stone of Jordan for the consistent boost to your Bombardments, and — when grouped up and follower-less — an Avarice Band for its synergy with Boon of the Hoarder.

During speedfarming, where you can drop the overkill protection of the GR progression setup and its rigid distribution of set pieces, the preferred bracers become Warzechian Armguards, for the environment destruction speed buffs that are easily provided by the AoE of this build. The former favorites, the elite spawning Nemesis Bracers, are still very valuable, but they can now be equipped on the follower while still getting their bonus via the Emanate mechanics. You should still equip them in groups, where you cannot have a follower with you. The Nemesis Bracers value comes from the additional loot — not to mention progression — coming from the extra elite spawns. They let you finish standard rifts that much faster, and acquire the coveted GR keys in greater amounts.

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.

Since monster health is much more tame in the standard difficulties, you should also replace Bane of the Stricken 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 an Avarice Band for a massive Pickup Radius increase.

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

You will keep the base selection of Cube items from the progression build — The Mortal Drama for the additional Bombardment impacts, Belt of the Trove for the automated Bombardment blasts, and Ring of Royal Grandeur to maintain the Akkhan and Sage set bonuses.

The recommended follower for this build during standard rift farming for keys is the Enchantress due to her numerous utility bonuses, allowing you to smooth out your speed runs even further.

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.

The preferred potion for this build is Bottomless Potion of the Tower for its additional mitigation bonuses upon consumption.

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.