Introduction
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Almost completely forgotten and barely able to clear GR125, Bombardment Crusader received a whole bunch of buffs in Season 22 patch. Between reduced cooldown on Belt of the Trove, buffed damage on Armor of Akkhan and Norvald's Fervor sets, and separate multipliers added to The Mortal Drama and Belt of the Trove, the build's damage was buffed by approximately 33 Greater Rift tiers. As it turns out, a build that can clear GR158 (if it existed) solo is a tad overpowered. The build was nerfed before hitting live by approximately 10 tiers via Thorns of the Invoker adjustment.
Even after the nerf, Bombardment Crusader was the second best Crusader solo build. But then came the Akkhan set rework and while it didn't completely kill the build, it definitely was pushed out of relevance.
Akkhan Invoker Bombardment Crusader is a Thorns build, which makes it very easy to get going, but at the same time leaves a lot of room for gear hunt. Getting all items in Ancient quality with Thorns secondary rolls on everything is no easy task.
This build utilizes at least 4 different sets: Armor of Akkhan, Thorns of the Invoker, Norvald's Fervor and Captain Crimson's Trimmings. Some versions of it can also include Bastions of Will set, making it the first Set-only build in history in Diablo III. So if you are worried about the environment, this is your chance: "Play green crusader—save the Earth!"
Tanky ✔
Lazy Playstyle Available ✔
Easy to Get Starter Gear ✔
Can do Everything on the Move ✔
❌ Invoker 2P is Clunky
❌ Cooldown Dependency
❌ Limited Control Over your Damage
❌ Wildly Inconsistent Damage vs Bosses
Core Setup
Items
- The Armor of Akkhan set provides 50% damage reduction, 1,500% damage increase, and it lets us easily achieve 100% uptime on Akarat's Champion.
- Thorns of the Invoker (2) Bonus increases Thorns by up to 900%.
- Captain Crimson's Trimmings gives around 60% DPS, 20% Cooldown Reduction, which is necessary to reach our Breakpoints, and around 70% damage reduction.
- Norvald's Fervor set increases damage by 200% and lets us spam Steed Charge.
- Ring of Royal Grandeur allows us to get full bonuses from all these sets.
- The Mortal Drama doubles the number of Bombardment impacts and increases its damage by 500%.
- Belt of the Trove casts a free Bombardment every 4 seconds and increases its damage by another 500%.
Global Stat Priorities
Stack Cooldown Reduction to reach 59.3% CDR breakpoint. This lets you cast Bombardment every 16 seconds, on every Physical cycle of Convention of Elements.
Make sure your defensive slots—Boots, Pants and Belt—have Vitality and Resistance to All Elements on them. Your DPS stats are: Physical Damage > Bombardment Damage > Area Damage > Thorns. Attack Speed is mostly useless as it only lets you stack Bane of the Stricken faster; you can get some in place of Strength at high Paragon. Critical Hit Chance & Damage are completely useless, because they don't affect Thorns damage.
Assembling the Build
Item Stat Priorities
Gems
Skills
Passives
Paragon Points
Follower
Gameplay
Hardcore
Variants
Concept
In T16 variant we drop Thorns of the Invoker set entirely. There's two reasons for that. First, it's incredibly clunky and you need to stop to hit or get hit all the time to get stacks. Second, Bombardment oneshots everything short of the Rift Guardian even without the set. Instead of damage we focus entirely on Movement Speed and Cooldown Reduction. This build is outclassed by AoV FotH Crusader but it's playstyle is ideal for watching a movie on your second screen.
Gameplay
This is the ultimate lazy build. Belt of the Trove automatically casts a Bombardment (which lasts 4s) every 4s. And that alone will kill everything in sight, as long as you have Akarat's Champion active. So all you have to do is go through the rift and pick up loot. Unfortunately, Belt of the Trove stops casting when there's no enemies on screen, which happens all the time in T16. You can cast your own Bombardment to get some more barrels, but it's not necessary.
Setups
This build is pretty tanky but it's not running Goldwrap, so you have to respect stacked molten explosions. If you ain't about that life, drop Captain Crimson's Trimmings set and get Goldwrap and Gloves of Worship instead.
When playing in groups, equip Nemesis Bracers, replace Rechel's Ring of Larceny with Avarice Band and exchange Captain Crimson's Trimmings for Sage's Journey. On the Rift Guardian switch to Cain's Insight and Cain's Travelers to get extra Greater Rift Keystones.
Concept
This is almost the same build as the one used for solo pushing at low paragon, the only differences being Bane of the Powerful instead of Bane of the Stricken, Condemn Vacuum in place of Laws of Valor and Akarat's Champion Rally. This build is quite clunky and slow so your runs will be around 4-5 minutes long.
Gameplay
In speedruns, you mostly ignore your Convention of Elements and just use your Bombardment when you see a lot of high HP mobs or an elite pack. Spam Akarat's Champion, Iron Skin and Condemn. When you find a yellow elite and kill everything around it, don't stay and wait for it to die, take it with you on a ride via Draw and Quarter!
Setups
At high Paragon (3,000+) switch from Guardian's Jeopardy to Aughild's Authority for more damage.
Concept
In the push build we need the most damage and toughness possible, so we use Convention of Elements and Unity. Provoke Hit Me is used for extra block chance.
Gameplay
With this build you follow a 16s rotation tied to your Convention of Elements. At the start of Lightning you need put down Phalanx at the side of the pull and then Steed Charge inside. Once inside, press Provoke and Iron Skin and hold down Punish to build Invoker stacks. Couple seconds later, when the CoE buff is at 8 o'clock, use Bombardment. After that you don't have to worry about stacks, activate your Steed Charge for the damage bonus and move into Oculus Ring when it spawns.
To maximize your damage, sync up your Belt of the Trove and Convention of Elements. For that you need to drink a potion when your current element is 1s away from running out (CoE buff at 9 o'clock). Keep in mind that if you have no enemies around, Belt of the Trove will not fire, it will most likely desync and you'll have to do it again. The same will happen if you drink the potion at the wrong moment, so try to avoid panic potions. Changing zones also resets the internal cooldown of the belt, so you need to do it at the same time (3s into any element).
On this build you have plenty of toughness but almost no recovery. Instead you can "die" every few seconds thanks to Akarat's Champion. Especially during your rotation when you go in and facetank everything you are almost guaranteed to die once or twice, so make sure that your Akarat's Champion is up.
Setups
At low paragon you have no chance to survive the beating that is necessary to stack up Thorns of the Invoker (2) Bonus, so you have to drop the set and use Guardian's Jeopardy instead. This lets you change Justice Lantern to Unity and drop all the block chance. Instead of Punish and Hold Your Ground you can get Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force plus Long Arm of the Law for more toughness or Condemn Vacuum and Finery.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Thorns
Thorns of the Invoker (2) Bonus
Bombardment Barrels of Spikes
Belt of the Trove
Summary
- Reach 55.8% Cooldown Reduction before anything else
- Cast Bombardment on Physical Convention of Elements cycles
- Stack Area Damage, Physical Damage and Thorns
- The monsters go "poof"
Dropping barrels full of spikes on top of monsters seems a bit impolite, but hey, it works!
Credits
Written by Northwar.