Akkhan Condemn Crusader Nephalem Rift Speed Farming Variation

The Akkhan Condemn Crusader can deal reasonably well with Nephalem Rift Speed Farming, covering the whole battlefield in Condemn detonations, while zipping through the Rift with Laws of Hope Wings of Angels. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if you want to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.

Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.

Active Skills
Provoke Flee Fool Condemn Unleashed 1 Laws of Hope Wings of Angels 2 Phalanx Bowmen 3 Iron Skin Flash 4 Akarat's Champion Embodiment of Power
Passive Skills
Heavenly Strength Indestructible Long Arm of the Law Finery

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

The T16 key farming build will mimic parts of the GR speed farming rotation, but sped up one step further: you no longer wait on Phalanxes to deliver the devastation, but inflict it yourself with manually cast Condemns, old-school style! You still cast Phalanx Bowmen on cooldown, but since Judgment is dropped in this variant, the summons are disempowered and are strictly there to reset your Akarat's Champion cooldown. You should be able to oneshot pretty much any enemy pack with a single detonation of Condemn Unleashed, and fluidly move between packs with Laws of Hope Wings of Angels (for short distances), or Steed Charge Endurance (for long distances). When in need of Wrath (or means to proc extra movement speed — see below), pop Provoke and continue the onslaught.

Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, but others will have to change according to the task at hand. Ability to cross over great distances faster and more efficiently take precedence.

• With your greatly increased speed, you will be zipping from one pack to the next, reducing the usefulness of the greater reach of of Condemn Shattering Explosion. In its place, use the immediate explosion of Unleashed for precise, on-demand devastation.
• Phalanx Bowmen are included in T16 runs strictly for their ability to reset the cooldown of Akarat's Champion, which comes from the Akkhan set 4-piece bonus.
• Instead of spreading Judgments and waiting on the summons to kill your foes, you will be diving into the fray and destroying them yourself; use Provoke to ensure you have enough Wrath to continually cast Condemns, and augment it with the Flee Fool rune for a proc of Rechel's Ring of Larceny, granting you additional movement speed.
• For T16 farm, the inclusion of a Generator skill — usually there to proc the Bastions of Will jewelry set — will be too slow and an overkill of extra damage for the difficulty. Instead, you should use Iron Skin with the Flash for an additional movement speed proc and removal of monster collision.
• You should alter your Law of choice from the resource-oriented Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force to the party-wide movement speed buff of Laws of Hope Wings of Angels.
• Akarat's Champion is an omnipresent self-buff in all versions of the build. With the protection of Goldwrap, you can consider substituting Prophet for Embodiment of Power.
• Your passive selection remains largely unchanged from the progression build: Heavenly Strength, Long Arm of the Law, and Finery are still of great value. Consider using Indestructible as your final passive, as a cheat death failsafe allows for some truly care-free plays in T16 — looting while inside Molten explosions, etc.

You will still be taking advantage of the full 6-piece set bonuses of Akkhan, as well as the 3-piece set bonus of the Cpt. Crimon set — for its additional Cooldown- and Resource Cost Reduction, as well as the scaling "damage dealt increased by CDR" and "damage reduced by RCR" bonuses.

The difference from the usual GR progression setup come from the self-casted orientation of the T16 build. Phalanx-related items are dropped from the setup, as the summons are there just for Akarat's Champion CDR. You should have the Condemn-boosting legendaries, Blade of Prophecy and Frydehr's Wrath, equpped on your character — this frees up Cube slots for T16 farm-oriented legendaries (see below).

The freed-up helm and bracer slots should be taken up by Pride's Fall and Warzechian Armguards, respectively. Pride's Fall, and Act III Bounty Cache-specific item, reduces the cost of your Wrath spenders by 30% after not taking damage for 5 seconds, making Condemn spam care-free. (You will protect its power with the near-impenetrable shield of a Cubed Goldwrap.) Warzechian Armguards provide an environment destruction-based speed boost, which is constantly triggered by the Condemn explosions. Note that in groups, you should use the Nemesis Bracers in this slot to proc the extra elites at Shrines and Pylons, since you lose your Follower when partying up.

You have a bunch of viable choices for your jewelry. Pick and choose according to your needs between:

• A Holy damage Stone of Jordan, for the consistent elemental and elite damage increase;
• A Unity, which — when paired with another on your follower, as well as an immortality item for them (i.e. Enchanting Favor — reduces damage intake by 50% (only available when soloing);
• A Rechel's Ring of Larceny, which greatly speeds you up when you Fear an enemy — achieved by using Provoke Flee Fool;
• An Avarice Band, which increases your Pickup Radius as you pick up Gold, and has massive synergy with a socketed Boon of the Hoarder and Goldwrap (needs to be used when grouped up!)

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

This Season comes with the theme of Angelic Crucibles — consumable items that empower Legendary items with perfected Ancient-level stats, as well as infuse them with one of three unique, powerful, class-specific abilities at random.

Unfortunately, T16-oriented Condemn builds do not have a great way of utilizing the three Sanctification powers. Thus, you should simply use Angelic Crucibles on an item that crosses over most (if not all) variants of a build, and is also an item that is relatively harder to perfect than other slots (since sanctifying an item maximizes its stats). The Sanctification power outcome does not matter. In the case of this build, a good candidate for Sanctification is your weapon, Blade of Prophecy.

You can read more on Angelic Crucibles and the sanctification process in our dedicated Angelic Crucible Mechanics guide.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

Bane of the Trapped remains a universally desired damage amplification gem.

During speed farming, waiting on Phalanx to deliver the Condemn damage is too slow; for this self-cast Condemn variant, you should replace Enforcer with Boon of the Hoarder. The latter is a high utility gem that feeds you practically infinite gold, gives you a massive short-term speed boost while picking it up, and synergizes excellently with a cubed Goldwrap and a worn (by yourself of your follower) Avarice Band for practical invincibility of your character.

Since monster health is much more tame in the standard difficulties, you should also replace Bane of the Stricken with Bane of the Powerful for the consistent, easily sustained damage increase. If you overpower content so much that even Bane of the Powerful is unnecessary, you can consider using Wreath of Lightning for the extra speed.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

For a self-cast Condemn build, In-geom is the ideal choice for the weapon Cube slot. Its power will allow you to easily chain long protective and mobility cooldowns, and even drop CDR from items in favor of other stats.

Our default recommendation for the armor Cube slot is Goldwrap, since its synergy with Boon of the Hoarder and Avarice Band will render you practically invincible during regular Rifts.

Lastly, in order to maintain the valuable 6-piece bonus of Akkhan and 3-piece bonus of the Crimson set, you will need to cube a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the jewelry slot. Another viable option is to equip Ring of Royal Grandeur on your character, and use this slot for some extra, daredevil damage multiplication from Squirt's Necklace.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the Enchantress due to her cooldown reduction buff from Prophetic Harmony, as well as the Focused Mind attack speed buff.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

Waller affixes are problematic for Condemn Crusader builds, since they greatly limit your opportunities to maneuver from one pack to the next, back and forth, which is the general playstyle of the build. As such, our general recommendation for your legendary potion is the Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid, which allows you to break through Waller affixes. Alternatively, Bottomless Potion of the Diamond is a straightforward addition that simply layers a short All Resist protective coating after drinking (All Resistance is the preferred form of mitigation stacking for Strength-based characters, since their mainstat scales Armor already.)