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LoN Bombardment Crusader Guide

Last Updated: January 10th 2024

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Introduction

LoD Bombardment Solo Speeds
View all variants

LoN Thorns Bombardment Crusader was the META Crusader solo build back in Seasons 5 through 8. It was later outclassed by various set builds and more or less forgotten until Season 22 when it received massive buffs. With two separate multipliers added to The Mortal Drama and Belt of the Trove, the build's damage was buffed by approximately 23 Greater Rift tiers. This made LoN Bombardment quite strong again, however, the simultaneous buffs of Armor of Akkhan and Norvald's Fervor sets produced an even stronger Bombardment build.

Compared to Akkhan/Invoker Bombardment, LoN Bombardment deals less damage but has a lot more flexibility in terms of items and skills, making the build much more pleasant to play and a lot better at speedfarming. With Season 23 LoN Bombardment found another niche where it can shine: No Six Piece Set Crusader leaderboard!

During Season 24, LoN Bombardment could make use of Ethereals unlike its Akkhan counterpart which allowed LoN Bombardment to pull ahead and claim the title of the strongest Bombardment build.

This is an Area Damage (AD) as well as a Thorns build, since Bombardment Barrels of Spikes interestingly benefits from both these mechanics. The setup is very easy to get going since you don't need any Critical Hit Chance or Critical Hit Damage rolls, 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.

Can be Very Tanky
Top tier Speedfarming Build ✔
Great at Utilizing Area Damage ✔
Can do Everything on the Move ✔

Hard to Gear
Inconsistent Cooldowns
❌ Limited Control Over your Damage
❌ Long and Boring Rift Guardian Fights

Core Setup

Core Item Build

Items

  • 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%.
  • Convention of Elements increases Physical damage by 200%.
  • Akarat's Awakening reduces all cooldowns with each block, while Leoric's Crown straight up adds some extra Cooldown Reduction. With these items we have permanent Akarat's Champion and can cast Bombardment on every Convention of Elements rotation.
  • Stone Gauntlets increase our Armor by 250% with no downside thanks to Akarat's Champion.
  • Aquila Cuirass reduces incoming damage by 50%.

Season 30 Soul Shards

Soul Shards are powerful socketable items that initially dropped during Season 25 but they are returning for Season 30! There are 4 available for Weapons based on the Lesser Evils, with another 3 for Helmets based on the Prime Evils. They drop at Rank 0 and be upgraded three times with the brand new Hellforge Embers to unlock additional powers, or be used in the Kanai's Cube as Augments. Here's how they progress:

  • Rank 0: Soul Shards begin with a unique static Legendary Power. Creates a Rank 50 Augment.
  • Rank 1: Gives all powers from the normal gems. Creates a Rank 75 Augment.
  • Rank 2: Grants one additional powerful stat. Creates a Rank 100 Augment.
  • Rank 3: Unlocks 1 of 3 bonus Legendary Powers unique to that Soul Shard. Creates a Rank 125 Augment.

Warning: Leoric's Crown and Broken Crown do not work with Soul Shards!

Read our Soul Shards Guide written by Chewingnom for full details on how they work. What you should prioritize on them for Solo Pushing is the following:

  1. The Correct Soul Shard & Rank 3 Power
    The best shards for Solo Pushing are:
    • Helmets: We want to use Sliver of Terror for the massive damage buff from our abilities on cooldown. For the Rank 3 power take the Ring of Fire to unleash a devastating AoE blast for big leaderboard pushes!
    • Weapons: We want to use Remnant of Pain to let our Bombardment Crit. For the Rank 3 power take the additional Attack Speed to further power up your character!
  2. The Rank 2 Stat
    The stats that come from the second upgrade are not equal. Here's what we're looking for on them:
    • Helmets: We want either Main Stat for damage or Melee/Ranged Damage Reduction to survive. Avoid Armor and All Resistance as their stat ranges are far too low compared to the others options.
    • Weapons: We want Physical Damage to boost our character's power the furthest. Avoid Attack Speed and Critical Hit Chance as their stat ranges are too low compared to the others.
  3. The Stat Ranges on the Rank 1 and 2 Powers
    This is just icing on the cake because the ranges will not make or break your build. Still, look for the Soul Shards with the best stat ranges, especially on the offensive stats.

For the other game modes, other Soul Shards can be used. Check the Variants below to see what's used there.

What about extra Soul Shards? Either salvage them for gems, or upgrade and use them in Kanai's Cube for Augments.

Global Stat Priorities

Get at least 60% Cooldown Reduction (CDR). Thanks to Akarat's Awakening there's no hard breakpoints but having more CDR makes your life easier. Make sure your defensive slots—Boots, Pants and Belt—have Vitality and Resistance to All Elements on them. Get around 40k Life per Hit (Weapon, Bracer, Rings, Helmet, Gloves). Your damage stats are: Physical Damage > Critical Hit 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 is useless because we can only crit via Remnant of Pain effect.

Assembling the Build

Item Stat Priorities

Gems

Skills

Passives

Paragon Points

Altar of Rites

Follower

Gameplay

Hardcore

Variants

Nephalem Rifts
GR Solo Speeds
GR Solo Push
T16 LoN Bombardment

Concept
Bombardment is not the best build for Nephalem Rifts because the skill is quite slow and Belt of the Trove stops casting when there's no enemies on the screen. As a result you have to spend 1-2 seconds on each group of enemies, despite having enough damage to oneshot everything. In this variant we use Messerschmidt's Reaver to reset Bombardment cooldown and a bunch of movement skills to go faster.

This build is outclassed by AoV FotH Crusader in terms of speed, but as an upside you can play it without using the keyboard!

Gameplay
Spam all your movement skills and Bombardment, use Akarat's Champion Rally to reset Bombardment's cooldown.

If you feel very lazy, you can just let Belt of the Trove do all the heavy lifting. All you need to do is walk through the rift picking up gold and loot, pressing any buttons is purely optional.

Setups
If you lack damage, use Squirt's Necklace and replace Condemn or Provoke with Iron Skin Reflective Skin. In groups, you need to equip Nemesis Bracers and cube Avarice Band because you no longer have a follower.

Bomb Solo XP

Concept
In Solo Speeds we use a Cooldown-centered version of the build with In-geom and Akarat's Champion Rally. For extra damage we equip Squirt's Necklace protected by St. Archew's Gage and Laws of Hope. Instead of an attack skill we use Steed Charge Endurance for more mobility. CDR is by far the most important stat for build. You need at least 65%+ to make the build work somewhat well, but don't stop there and try to get it all the way to 72%. Prioritize CDR over everything including Thorns, Ancient items and even Physical Damage!

Gameplay
Constantly spam, Laws of Hope and Iron Skin and Condemn. It's tempting to hold Iron Skin and only use it before Bombardment, but if you do that your Belt of the Trove procs will deal no damage. Hunt for elite packs to proc your In-Geom. When you enter the rift, just ride the horse until you find the first elite. Use Bombardment -> Rally -> Bombardment to kill it. From that point move through the rift using Bombardment and Belt of the Trove to kill trash and saving Akarat's Champion for the next elite pack.

Always pay attention to your Iron Skin and only use Bombardment when it's up!

When the Rift Guardian spawns look at your Convention of Elements. Use Iron Skin at the start of Lightning cycle and 3 seconds later double cast Bombardment. With 10 Squirt's Necklace stacks this combo should oneshot the Rift Guardian.

Setups
If you're low paragon and/or have many non-ancient items, toughness may become an issue. In that case switch to Akarat's Champion Prophet.

You can replace Lidless Wall with any Crusader Shield with Cooldown Reduction, Bombardment Damage and Thorns. This trade will cost you about 5% damage, but if you have a good crusader shield and bad Lidless Wall then it can be an upgrade. If you do this switch, the similar philosophy can be applied to Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan and Blackthorne's Jousting Mail.

Keep in mind that Stone of Jordan lets you use any element and not just Physical. Don't salvage Lidless Walls and Squirt's Necklaces just because they have 'wrong' element!

If you want to play this build in groups change Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan to Blackthorne's Jousting Mail, equip Convention of Elements instead of Unity, move Squirt's Necklace to the cube and equip The Flavor of Time.

LoN Bomb Solo Push

Concept
This is the basic version of the build utilizing the Legacy of Nightmares ring set to include Bane of the Trapped.

Gameplay
With this build you follow a 16s rotation tied to your Convention of Elements. At the start of Lightning you need to activate Iron Skin and make a tight group of mobs with Condemn Vacuum. Couple seconds later, when the CoE buff is at 8 o'clock, use Bombardment and follow it up with Shield Glare to blind the mobs. Move into Oculus Ring when it spawns and use Vacuum again to suck in more mobs.

Be careful to not make mobs too CC resistant, ideally only use Condemn once per rotation: either 4s+ before Physical or right after your Shield Glare.

This build uses Akarat's Awakening so you need to block enough attacks to reset your Akarat's Champion cooldown. Depending on the mobset you will have to stop and fight some trash to get extra blocks. When doing this you can use Iron Skin just for damage reduction as it will be back up in no time.

During the Rift Guardian Fight you need to use Condemn and run at least 15 yards away from the boss to proc Strongarm Bracers. Do this before or during every Physical.

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 with the same timing (3s into any element).

Setups
At low Paragon you can make a super tanky version of this build by dropping Bane of the Trapped for Legacy of Dreams gem and using Justice Lantern plus Unity as your rings. This will cost you 38% of your damage but you will be virtually immortal.

If you don't want to deal with the downside of Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan you can replace them with Heart of Iron. You will lose about 5% damage but now you can be lazy and just stand still.

This build has weird relationship with Cooldown Reduction. Everything you can do with 65% Cooldown Reduction you can also do with 50% if you block enough hits. So if you are willing to fish for a rift where you're constantly fighting lots of monsters, you can drop couple Cooldown Reduction rolls to get more Attack Speed.

Video Guide

Mechanics

Thorns

Condemn Vacuum

Bombardment Barrels of Spikes

Belt of the Trove

Summary

  • Put together the core items and level up the Legacy of Dreams gem.
  • Stack at least 60% Cooldown Reduction.
  • Cast Iron Skin Reflective Skin and 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.
Contributions by mawbs.

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