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
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:
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!
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.
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
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. This is a Legacy of Nightmares/Legacy of Dreams build and in the latter case its success is heavily dependent on this gem's rank. The first order of business is to equip a(n ancient) Legendary or Set item in every slot to take advantage of its power. Make sure to not have any Set Bonuses equipped or the rings/gem will be nullified and you will deal no damage! Farm speed Greater Rifts (in under 5 minute clears) to find the items and level your gems as high as possible.
Rings to get Convention of Elements, Stone of Jordan, Unity, Justice Lantern, and The Wailing Host/Litany of the Undaunted.
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 2: Gloves of Worship (for your follower)
Act 3: Avarice Band
Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Cain's Destiny and Sage's Journey (for your follower)
6. At this point you can somewhat comfortably farm Nephalem Rifts or low GRs where you can find all the remaining items you need for different variants of the build. It's better to spend your mats improving your set pieces, getting ancient pieces etc. Finally you can spice up your season by doing some Ubers to craft Hellfire Amulet (recipe can be bought from Squirt the Peddler in Act 2).
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:
Belt of The Trove
Akarat's Awakening
Item Stat Priorities
SLOT
ITEM
STAT PRIORITY
Main-Hand
Pig Sticker Johanna's Argument Messerschmidt's Reaver In-Geom The Mortal Drama (Cubed)
1. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Area Damage 4. Life per Hit 5. Attack Speed 6. Strength
Avarice Band (A3 Bounties, Cubed) Convention of Elements The Wailing Host
1. Socket 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Area Damage 5. Thorns (Secondary) 6. Attack Speed
Ring 2
Justice Lantern Unity Stone of Jordan Litany of the Undaunted
1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Area Damage 4. Cooldown Reduction 5. Thorns (Secondary) 6. Attack Speed
Bracers
Strongarm Bracers Nemesis Bracers
1. Physical Damage 2. Strength 3. Life per Hit 4. Resistance to All Elements 5. Thorns (Secondary)
Amulet
Hellfire Amulet Squirt's Necklace
1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Physical Damage 4. Area Damage 5. Thorns (Secondary) 6. Cooldown Reduction
Belt
Belt of the Trove Goldwrap
1. All Resistance 2. Strength 3. Vitality 4. Thorns (Secondary) 5. Life %
Potion
Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid
For breaking walls to pull enemies and increase DPS
Gems
Boyarsky's Chip is our most powerful damage gem. It provides more than half of our total Thorns, effectively being an over 100% damage increase.
Bane of the Trapped adds an extra 60% multiplicative damage. This is a melee build, so nothing special needs to be done in order to activate the damage bonus.
Other gems vary depending on what you do: Bane of the Stricken to kill the boss in high GRs, Boon of the Hoarder for gold in T16, Legacy of Dreams in Speed GRs to equip extra rings.
Skills
Bombardment Barrels of Spikes is the main source of damage. Belt of the Trove uses the equipped rune, so we must have this on the skillbar even in T16 build.
Punish Celerity is used to proc Life per Hit and stack Bane of the Stricken. It also provides 15% Block Chance and Attack Speed.
Akarat's Champion Prophet is a staple in every single crusader build. One skill providing 35% damage, more than double toughness, Crowd Control Imunity, Wrath regeneration and full heal on "death" is just too good to pass up.
Iron Skin Reflective Skin increases Thorns by 300%.
Condemn Vacuum lets us pull enemies together and destroy them with Area Damage.
Finally the last skill slot is usually occupied by a law: Laws of Justice Decaying Strength, Laws of Hope Wings of Angels or Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force.
Passives
Fervor provides 15% Cooldown Reduction and Attack Speed.
Iron Maiden increases Thorns, and therefore damage, by 50%.
Finery is the strongest generic Crusader passive providing for 15% damage and 12% toughness.
Hold Your Ground gives 30% block chance for more Cooldown Reduction via Akarat's Awakening.
Lord Commander massively reduces cooldown of Bombardment letting you use it on every cycle.
Long Arm of the Law is used in T16 and GR Speeds for movement speed.
Paragon Points
Core
Offensive
Defensive
Utility
1. Movement Speed
1. Cooldown Reduction
1. All Resistance
1. Area Damage
2. Strength
2. Attack Speed
2. Armor
2. Life per Hit
3. Vitality1
3. Critical Hit Damage
3. Life %
3. Pickup Radius
4. Maximum Wrath
4. Critical Hit Chance
4. Life per Second
4. Resource Cost Reduction
1 Add a bit of Vitality if you feel too squishy (a total of 800,000 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!
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
Speed GR 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.
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.
For Greater Rift Pushing we recommend this Enchantress setup for the Slow from Temporal Pulse, Damage Reduction and Armor from Powered Shield, and the Attack Speed from Focused Mind. You can choose between Prophetic Harmony and Amplification depending on how much Cooldown Reduction you have on your gear. 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
Bombardment is the main damage skill. In high GRs you cast it every 16s, for every Physical cycle of Convention of Elements. In speeds you just spam it as much as you can.
Use Punish whenever possible to get some healing and to keep up the Attack Speed and Block Chance buffs.
Akarat's Champion should be used every 20s. Without Akarat's Champion you will get slowed by Stone Gauntlets!
Iron Skin should be used before every Bombardment cast to buff its damage.
Condemn Vacuum is used all the time to group up mobs and before/during Physical to apply Strongarm Bracers debuff.
Hardcore
For Hardcore, your last passive must be Indestructible. You can make this build extremely tanky by playing the Legacy of Dreams version and using either Unity or Justice Lantern (or even both). 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
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.
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.
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
All damage done by Thorns is Physical.
Thorns Damage cannot critically strike (except with Envious Blade).
Iron Maiden passive provides a separate 1.5 multiplier to your total Thorns.