Aegis of Valor Heaven's Fury Crusader Skills and Runes

Last updated on Oct 21, 2024 at 09:00 by Deadset 41 comments

On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Aegis of Valor Heaven's Fury Crusader in Diablo 3. Updated for Patch 2.7.8 and Season 33.

Active Skills
Left Mouse Button Heaven's Fury Icon Heaven's Fury Fires of Heaven Fires of Heaven Right Mouse Button Fist of the Heavens Icon Fist of the Heavens Fissure Fissure 1 Laws of Valor Icon Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force Unstoppable Force 2 Shield Glare Icon Shield Glare Divine Verdict Divine Verdict 3 Steed Charge Icon Steed Charge Rejuvenation Rejuvenation 4 Akarat's Champion Icon Akarat's Champion Prophet Prophet
Passive Skills
1.

Rotation

In its essence, the build deals damage in a very straightforward manner — face the monsters you want to demolish and 'shotgun' their faces off with Heaven's Fury Heaven's Fury Fires of Heaven Fires of Heaven. The Aegis of Valor set itself will nudge you towards constantly interweaving Fist of the Heavens Fist of the Heavens casts in your Heaven's Fury Heaven's Fury spam, as you will need to maintain the damage amplifying triple stacks from the 2-piece bonus, and also the stacking damage reduction and Wrath restoration from the 4-piece bonus. This results in a Fissure Fissure cast roughly every few Fires of Heaven Fires of Heavens in order to maintain all the buffs. In order to maintain the Bracer of Fury Bracer of Fury damage bonus, you will also need to apply some hard crowd control on enemies, usually done via Judgment Judgment or Shield Glare Shield Glare; this will also be helpful to keep the more dangerous mobs at least temporarily disabled. While it is useful for mobility, Steed Charge Steed Charge also contributes to your damage due to the Norvald's Fervor set, so you need to make a point to use it just prior the Holy rotation of your Convention of Elements Convention of Elements to augment your burst. The remainder of your skills you will simply apply as soon as they come off cooldown, as their bonuses are universally helpful: the survivability and damage bonuses of Akarat's Champion Akarat's Champion and Laws of Valor Laws of Valor.

2.

Skills and Runes

The main damage dealer in the build is Heaven's Fury Heaven's Fury — a signature Crusader skill that sends a furious beam of holy fire that purges your enemies. You will gain the namesake Holy Shotgun effect from the rune Fires of Heaven Fires of Heaven. The entire build revolves around the amplification of its damage, including the set bonuses, skill selection and supporting gear.

In this Heaven's Fury Heaven's Fury-focused build, Fist of the Heavens Fist of the Heavens is taken strictly for the set mechanics with the 2- and 4-piece bonuses, (see this build's gear page for more information). With respect to that, the best rune to take is the arcing Fissure Fissure, whose constant ticks between two or more fissures will greatly assist you with Wrath management. Note the potential lag coming from overdoing Fissure Fissure casts, and try to restrict yourself to around 3 casts, placed optimally at the edges of a fight.

When it comes to Law selection for high end progression, squeezing every bit of attack speed (and damage, respectively) while not losing too much on survivability becomes a delicate balance, one you can straddle by taking the offensive Laws of Valor Laws of Valor with the Unstoppable Force Unstoppable Force rune. This will both mitigate your Heaven's Fury Heaven's Fury Wrath spending and trigger the Cpt. Crimson bonuses; this auxiliary craftable set scales your damage reduction based on your Resource Cost Reduction, and Unstoppable Force Unstoppable Force does count as sheet RCR.

While dealing a lot of damage on their own, your Heaven's Fury Heaven's Fury shots depend a great deal on the damage amplification of the Bracer of Fury Bracer of Fury. This legendary item necessitates the use of a crowd control skill in the build, and early on in character progression, you will be hard pressed to find a wider AoE and more defensive utility than Judgment Judgment with the Debilitate Debilitate rune. If you are looking to squeeze some additional damage from this slot instead, which will be useful in high tier GR progression, you can use Shield Glare Shield Glare with Divine Verdict Divine Verdict in this slot.

Due to the use of Norvald's Fervor (Flail of the Charge Flail of the Charge and Shield of the Steed Shield of the Steed), the build uses Steed Charge Steed Charge in order to proc the damage bonus of the set; said skill is used before the Holy cycle of Convention of Elements Convention of Elements. You should also be cognizant of your vulnerability during the Akarat's Champion Akarat's Champion downtime, and dodge as much as you can via Steed Charge Steed Charge, and constantly moving to stack the defensive part of the Endless Walk set effect. The rune does not matter too much, and you can either go with the longer lasting Endurance Endurance rune, or the health restoring Rejuvenation Rejuvenation. Lastly, if you choose to run a simpler Pig Sticker Pig Sticker/Shield of Fury Shield of Fury combo version of this build, use Iron Skin Iron Skin Flash Flash in this slot for the combination of damage reduction and mobility.

No endgame Crusader setup is complete without Akarat's Champion Akarat's Champion; not only does it increase your damage multiplicatively by 35% and supplies you with 5 Wrath per second as a base effect, but it also takes on a defensive role through the tanky Prophet Prophet rune. Supplying you with 150% additional Armor and a free life, this skill will keep you safe and alive in high Greater Rifts.

2.1.

A Note on Ivory Tower Alteration

There is an alternate version of this build that wields Fate of the Fell Fate of the Fell in the main hand, and uses a cubed Ivory Tower Ivory Tower to deal damage. This is a block-based variant that differs in its approach to both skill usage and gearing and while powerful, it is recommended only once you stack high enough Paragons (3k+).

Skill-wise, the Ivory Tower Ivory Tower alteration uses Blessed Ground Blessed Ground on Heaven's Fury Heaven's Fury; since the shield will spam the Fires of Heaven Fires of Heaven for you, you should use a DoT rune to stack Bane of the Stricken Bane of the Stricken. Since you no longer use resources to cast Fires of Heaven Fires of Heaven, the Ivory Tower version also uses Divine Well Divine Well on Fist of the Heavens Fist of the Heavens for additional healing through Holy Cause Holy Cause. Iron Skin Iron Skin also becomes a vital part of your rotation, since you rely on it for survival of the (lengthier) Akarat's Champion Akarat's Champion downtime, as well as to reposition properly for your DPS cycles. Make sure to have Iron Skin Iron Skin up close to the Holy cycles of CoE, so you can position into a pull and out of a pull as the burst rotations come and go.

3.

Passives

In a two-handed weapon-wielding Norvald's Fervor setup, you will need to use Heavenly Strength Heavenly Strength to allow the combo. If you opt for the simpler and easier to manage Pig Sticker Pig Sticker/Shield of Fury Shield of Fury combo, Fervor Fervor should taken for the outstanding 15% Attack Speed and Cooldown Reduction while wielding one-handed weapons.

Finery Finery is another Crusader staple, adding 1.5% Strength for every socket across your gear, including weapon and jewelry. Assuming an average of 10 sockets across a well-equipped character, Finery Finery amounts to a decent boost of both damage and toughness.

In order to maximize your damage and add sustain, Holy Cause Holy Cause should be added to the passive mix, since it synergizes elementally with your main damage dealer and has a healing side effect. Its base 10% damage buff is also nothing to scoff at.

Long Arm of the Law Long Arm of the Law doubles the duration of the active effects of Laws and ensures the permanent uptime of Unstoppable Force Unstoppable Force. Aided by this passive, you will have an easy time maintaining both the Fires of Heaven Fires of Heaven spam and the damage mitigation of the Cpt. Crimson set.

4.

Changelog

  • 21 Oct. 2024: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 33.
  • 09 Jul. 2024: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 32.
  • 10 Apr. 2024: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 31.
  • 08 Jan. 2024: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 30.
  • 13 Sep. 2023: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 29.
  • 22 Feb. 2023: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 28.
  • 26 Aug. 2022: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 27.
  • 13 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 09 Dec. 2021: Reviewed for Season 25.
  • 23 Jul. 2021: No changes required for Season 24.
  • 01 Apr. 2021: Revised the guide to more clearly reflects its variations.
  • 18 Nov. 2020: Skill changes to go with the gear changes for Season 22.
  • 30 Jun. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
  • 12 Mar. 2020: Slight skill clarification for endgame pushing.
  • 19 Nov. 2019: Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
  • 22 Aug. 2019: Reviewed for Season 18.
  • 15 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
  • 17 Jan. 2019: Information was reviewed and approved for Season 16 with no changes required.
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