Akkhan Condemn Crusader is the build that has been around for the longest time, created with the introduction of Frydehr's Wrath in Season 1. Once the strongest in the game build for solo XP farming, for a long time it's been barely useful in T16, and even then, only if you have optimized gear and high Paragon.
Season 27 patch changed that with Akkhan rework, which made it into a set specifically focused on Condemn. The build now also includes Phalanx but the avatars themselves deal no damage, they are only here to proc Condemns and reduce the cooldown on Akarat's Champion. With the new set you can trigger almost a hundred explosions per second! A huge increase compared to the measly 5-6 we could do before.
Of course, there's also some bad news: Condemns triggered this way do not proc area damage, everything you are fighting will very quickly become CC-immune thanks to Judgment with all runes and no cooldown, and finally you are once again at the mercy of Pet AI (this seems to be a pattern with the buffs lately).
Overall, while the build was buffed by quite a few tiers and can now do everything decently well, it's only great for Solo Pushing. In Greater Rifts speedfarming it loses to LoD Bombardment, while in T16 AoV Fist of the Heavens still reigns supreme.
Tanky ✔ Great AoE Damage ✔ Can Include Horses ✔ Can do Everything on the Move ✔
❌ Long Bossfight ❌ Dependent on Pet AI ❌ Very Starved for Skill Slots ❌ Forced to Spam Ludicrous Amounts of CC
Core Setup
Core Item Build
Items
Armor of Akkhan set provides 50% damage reduction, 1,500% damage increase, reduces cooldown of Akarat's Champion to just a few seconds and most importantly, lets our Phalanx avatars cast Condemn when they hit an enemy.
Captain Crimson's Trimmings set gives roughly 60% DPS, 20% Cooldown Reduction and around 65% damage reduction.
Ring of Royal Grandeur allows us to get full bonuses from both sets.
Blade of Prophecy increases Condemn damage by 800% and also doubles the amount of explosions.
Frydehr's Wrath increases Condemn damage by another 800% and also turns it into a spammable skill with a Wrath cost.
Unrelenting Phalanx doubles the number of avatars we can get out and gives us 60% Phalanx Damage.
Warhelm of Kassar provides an additional 1.6x damage multiplier and reduces the cooldown of Bowmen and Shield Bearers.
Season 31 Forbidden Archives
For the duration of Season 31, the slots in Kanai’s Cube that allow you to equip three additional Legendary Powers will not be restricted to their usual categories. While normally a player can equip one power each from the Weapon, Armor, and Jewelry categories, Season 31 players can mix and match between all three! This might allow you to run two Weapon powers with one Armor power. Or perhaps you might choose to run three Amulet powers instead.
This build benefits greatly from this Season Theme because we can cube all 3 weapons that we need for this build and use Norvald's Fervor set instead. To fit in our other items we have to also get rid of Bastions of Will and Aughild's Authority but we gain Convention of Elements and Strongarm Bracers in return. In total we don't gain all that much damage, but we replace a largely useless generator with Steed Charge which is always a nice skill to have.
Global Stat Priorities
Stack as much Cooldown Reduction as possible, there's no specific breakpoint to hit, ideally you want a CDR roll on every piece that can have it except amulet. For Attack Speed aim for 18 frames breakpoint in Bowmen builds. For this you need Laws of Valor, 6-7% roll on the weapon and 13%+ or 12%+ on two other pieces. If you can't hit this breakpoint (or use a non-Bowmen build), don't bother with Attack Speed at all and focus on other stats. Make sure your defensive slots—Boots, Pants and Belt—have Vitality and Resistance to All Elements on them. Stack DPS stats wherever possible: Elemental Damage, Condemn Damage, Critical Hit Damage and Critical Hit Chance. Ignore Area Damage as it doesn't work with Condemns triggered by Phalanx avatars.
Assembling the Build
1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cubeLegendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!
2.Gather the full Armor of Akkhan set. Each piece can be gambled from Kadala for Bloodshards. Do not salvage any duplicate pieces you find! Instead convert them to another part of the set with Recipe 4 in Kanai's Cube. If your last missing set piece is Talisman of Akkhan - don't gamble for it! Instead gamble for a cheap and easy item, like Pauldrons of Akkhan, and once again covert it with Recipe 4. If you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.
Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired.
5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:
Act 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur
Act 3: Avarice Band and Pride's Fall
Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Captain Crimson's Trimmings, Cain's Destiny and Sage's Journey
6. At this point you can somewhat comfortably farm Nephalem or Speed Greater Rifts where you can find all the remaining items you need for different variants of the build. It's better to spend your materials improving your set pieces, getting ancient weapon etc.
7. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:
1. Elemental Damage 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Strength 4. Vitality 5. Resistance to All Elements
Amulet
The Travelers Pledge Squirt's Necklace Talisman of Akkhan
1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Elemental Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance
Belt
Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle (Crafted) Guardian's Case (Crafted)
1. Resistance to All Elements 2. Strength 3. Vitality 4. Life %
Potion
Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid
For breaking walls to pull enemies and increase DPS
Gems
Bane of the Trapped is the most common damage gem. Mostly we use Judgment and the follower's slows to activate the bonus.
Enforcer boosts damage of our pets by 60% and that includes damage of Condemns triggered by Phalanx.
Bane of the Powerful is used for an extra bit of damage in T16 and speedfarm builds. Solo push version uses Bane of the Stricken to kill the Rift Guardian.
In some cases the last gem can be Boon of the Hoarder for gold or Esoteric Alteration for extra protection.
Skills
Phalanx and Judgment are both necessary to deal damage. Judgment has all runes at once, and Phalanx is usually set to Bowmen, but other runes also can be used in some builds.
Akarat's Champion Prophet is needed to activate our set bonus, on top of huge stat bonuses it provides.
One of the remaining skill slots is occupied by Law skill, which is either Laws of Hope Wings of Angels for mobility or Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force for defense.
Condemn, despite being the main damage skill, is not always included. Shattering Explosion rune is used in pushing for increased AoE and Unleashed is a must-have for speedfarming.
The last skill slot is usually a generator like Justice Sword of Justice for builds with Bastions of Will set or an utility skill such as Iron Skin Flash or Steed Charge in other builds.
Passives
Heavenly Strength is necessary to equip a 2h weapon together with Frydehr's Wrath.
Finery is the strongest generic crusader passive, which provides about 15% DPS and 12% toughness boost.
Long Arm of the Law is used to get higher uptime on our chosen Law skill.
The last passive is either Lord Commander for a little bit of extra damage or Indestructible for more survivability.
Paragon Points
Core
Offensive
Defensive
Utility
1. Movement Speed
1. Cooldown Reduction
1. All Resistance
1. Pickup Radius
2. Strength
2. Critical Hit Damage
2. Armor
2. Resource Cost Reduction
3. Vitality1
3. Critical Hit Chance
3. Life %
3. Life per Hit
4. Maximum Wrath
4. Attack Speed
4. Life Regeneration
4. Area Damage
1 Add a bit of Vitality if you feel too squishy (a total of 750,000 Life is recommended).
Altar of Rites
The Altar of Rites is a tree that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!
Note: The suggested path assumes you are playing Solo and used the Challenge Rift Cache to help you level up.
Optimal Path
Node 2: Choose Anointed to gain a full set of 70 yellows from level 18-70!
Node 6: Rush to gain double Bounties to help unlock other Nodes in the Altar.
Nodes 7-14: These are the last Nodes you can gain until the Challenge Rift resets. Take at least 1 Node at the bottom of each path to unlock all 3 Potion Super Powers. Pick up the Mirror Node at the top for a colossal 41% extra XP all season. Remember to unlock Father once you clear GR70 solo and have your first Primal!
Nodes 15-26: Pick up the final Quality of Life, Damage, and Defense Nodes (in that order) to finish the Altar.
Potion Super Powers: Take Father first, then Mother, and finally Mortal.
Disclaimer: The Mortal and Mother Potions require you to salvage 2 and 3 Primals respectively. Unlock them as soon as you have those materials as they don't cost a point!
Recommended Altar Path Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression
Follower
Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:
The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25.000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10.000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
Guardian's Jeopardy(3) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.
Select Follower
T16 Enchantress
T16 Enchantress
For T16 we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is T16 content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death.
Stat Priorities:Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For extra Elites, Death’s Breaths and In-geom procs.
Avarice Band: For the insane pickup radius.
Ring of Royal Grandeur: To complete our sets.
Gloves of Worship: For 10 Minute Shrine Buffs.
Sage’s Journey: For double Death’s Breaths.
Cain’s Destiny: For 25% more Greater Rift Keystones.
Speed GR Enchantress
For speed Greater Rifts we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is speed content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death.
Stat Priorities:Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Hellfire Ring, Leoric's Crown and Cain's Destiny: For more Experience and Attack Speed.
GR Pushing Enchantress
For Greater Rift Pushing we recommend this Enchantress setup for the Slow from Temporal Pulse, Holy Damage from Amplification, Damage Reduction and Armor from Powered Shield, and the Attack Speed from Focused Mind.
Stat Priorities:Since we have the immortality relic, we do not need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence> Attack Speed. Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Unity: For 50% damage reduction if you're also wearing one.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Mempo of Twilight and Cain's Destiny: For more Attack Speed.
Gameplay
Phalanx, the Law skill, and Condemn you can just mindlessly spam all the time, they don't have any animation and there's no reason to be conservative with either of them.
Akarat's Champion you can also just spam if you don't want to think about it, but if you want to optimize your survivability a little bit, only recast it when the green bar on top of the skill disappears.
Judgment is a skill you need to spam the most. Always make sure that every single enemy you encounter is properly judged and reapply the debuff at least once every 6 seconds.
Steed Charge is your main mobility skill and it also activates the Norvald's Fervor buff so don't forget to cast it even when you don't need to move. When all buffs and debuffs are applied and Phalanx avatars are out you don't need to do anything else so might as well stay on the horse and ride around to avoid damage.
Hardcore
For Hardcore, swap Holy Cause for Indestructible. The build is fairly tanky as it is, but if you feel that it's not enough, you can use Esoteric Alteration instead of Zei's Stone of Vengeance. Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!
Variants
Nephalem Rifts
GR Solo Speeds
GR Solo Push
T16 Physical Condemn
Concept In T16 it's best to use the old manual cast build and only include Phalanx for cooldown reduction. Casting Judgment and then waiting for your pets to attack the target is just way too slow when you can simply kill everything by pressing Condemn once or twice.
Gameplay Playing Condemn Crusader in torments is not exactly rocket science. You spam all 6 of your buttons as much as you can and you run forward. That's literally it.
Setups If you play in groups, equip Nemesis Bracers and replace Squirt's Necklace with Avarice Band. You can also put Warzechian Armguards into the cube if you want to be faster rather than tankier.
At low level and with unoptimized gear you might struggle to deal enough damage. In that case you can run Phalanx version of the build, similar to GR Speeds variant but with more movement speed and Goldwrap (click on the planner to see details).
Condemn Solo Speeds
Concept This build Phalanx Bowmen to deal damage without having to stop. We use Laws of Hope Wings of Angels instead of Unstoppable Force to get some movement speed. Condemn rune is switched to Unleashed to avoid overkill.
Still this build has very little mobility so your runs will not be shorter than 3 minutes.
Gameplay The gameplay is the same as described in the section above. In speeds you should pay extra attention to applying Judgment to every single mob on the screen. If your pets are stuck attacking unjudged enemy you are dealing no damage whatsoever!
Solo Push
Concept Here we use Phalanx Shield Bearers to proc Condemn. Each casts of Phalanx spawns 8 avatars in a ring around and each avatar applies Condemn to all enemies in small AoE 9 times over the next 5 seconds. We also use Norvald's Fervor and Convention of Elements to get a more damage.
Gameplay Make sure that your Phalanx avatars are always hitting something. It doesn't have to be a huge pull but they shouldn't just stand in empty space. You need them to constantly refresh your Akarat's Champion.
Generally your rotation goes like this: walk in the middle and cast Phalanx + Judgment then use Steed Charge to go into the Oculus Ring and sit there for 5 seconds. Repeat these 2 steps until most of enemies are dead and then switch to pulling more enemies and slowly moving forward instead of standing in the Oculus.
Never fight less than 3 enemies in the rift and try to save a Pylon for the boss fight. If you have to fight the boss alone stand next to a wall (or even better in a small corner) to let your avatars stack in one spot where they all can hit the boss.
Setups At high Paragon (6,000+) you can drop Laws of Valor in favor of more offensive option such as Condemn Vacuum. This also lets you switch Long Arm of the Law to Indestructible or Holy Cause. Alternatively, you can just run a different Law, for example Critical or Wings of Angels.
Mechanics
Blade of Prophecy
Produces up to two extra explosions with 0.1-0.3 second delay.
Each enemy hit can trigger only 1 extra explosion; at least two enemies need to be hit to get full benefit.
Extra explosions inherit damage type and proc coefficient of equipped Condemn rune.
Extra explosions can proc Area Damage and Holy Cause.
Frydehr's Wrath
Reduces the cooldown of Condemn to 0.5 seconds.
This cooldown cannot be further reduced by Cooldown Reduction.
Condemn Vacuum
Only pulls in enemies that are at least 15 yards away.
Pulls in every 0.5 seconds for 6 pulls over 3 seconds in total.
Maximum pull range is increased by 2.5 yards with every pull, up to 30 yards.
Each pull can suck in a maximum of 10 enemies.
Enemies caught within the same pull ignore hitbox collision, however, they still need a space to be pulled into.
Armor of Akkhan
Condemns triggered by Phalanx:
inherit the equipped rune
have no proc coefficient and cannot proc Area Damage, Life per Hit or Holy Cause
can proc Blade of Prophecy
have their damage affected by Phalanx Damage rolls on gear and Enforcer.
benefit from Warhelm of Kassar damage multiplier.
Summary
Put together the core items and acquire the full Armor of Akkhan set.