Akkhan Condemn Crusader Skills and Runes

Active Skills
Justice Sword of Justice Judgment No rune chosen 1 Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force 2 Phalanx Bowmen 3 Condemn Shattering Explosion 4 Akarat's Champion Prophet
Passive Skills
Heavenly Strength Lord Commander Long Arm of the Law Finery

Your strategy when playing the Condemn build is to stay indefinitely in Akarat's Champion form through the Akkhan set and Cooldown Reduction, and barrage your enemies from the safety of its bulwark with a relentless spamming of Condemn, Phalanx, and — most importantly — Judgment. You will maintain your intense resource costs with the passive Wrath regeneration of Akarat's Champion, the resource cost reduction of Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force, and the occasional use of Justice. During the Rift clear, you will need to cast your Primary skill at least once every 5 seconds to keep up the bonuses of the Bastions of Will set, Focus and Restraint; on the Rift Guardian, it needs to be spammed on top of everything else in order to stack Bane of the Stricken as quickly as possible. Mobility is a key part of this playstyle that excels in mass clearing of trash mobs for its Rift progression; stopping in place not only lowers your damage output due to the diminishing returns on CC as it lessens your control over monsters, but can potentially expose you to unbearable amounts of damage. Moving in irregular curved patterns should become second nature, as you generally lack a dedicated mobility skill in this build, and need to be vigilant and agile at all times.

Somewhat unusual in its application of damage, this build relies on Phalanx-inflicted Condemns just as much as its own self-casts. Your main goal is to cover as much of the battlefield as you can with Condemn explosions — and to that end, using either the extended radius of the Shattering Explosion rune, or the immediate effect of Unleashed, become preferable to other options. As for the Phalanxes, your most reliable and steady source of attacks are the Bowmen — although other runes are seen as viable as well.

As you will notice from the Armor of Akkhan 4-piece set bonus, Phalanxes only inflict Condemn on targets that have been targeted by Judgment. This turns Judgment into one of the main skills you need to spam, covering as much of the battlefield as your cooldown allows. On the upside, the Akkhan 2-piece bonus grants you all the runes for free (hence the unruned skill in the setup above); you gain the healing of Penitence, the displacement of Mass Verdict, the lengthened effect of Deliberation, the increased Crit Chance of Resolved, and the damage reduction of Debilitate, all in a single cast.

Your stalwart source of protection is found in the signature Crusader steroid Akarat's Champion. With the rework of the Akkhan set, you no longer have a specific CDR breakpoint to chase, but you still want CDR across all of your gear, so you can be sure to maintain permanent Akarat's Champion comfortably. While it increases your damage multiplicatively by 35% and supplies you with 5 Wrath per second as a base effect, the skill also takes on a defensive role through the tanky Prophet rune. Supplying you with 150% additional Armor and a free life, this skill will keep you safe and alive in high Greater Rifts.

At a hefty 40 Wrath per cast, Condemn will quickly deplete your Wrath. Thus, parts of the build are dedicated either to mitigating the costs, or replenishing your reserves. On the cost mitigation front, we have Laws of Valor. The Attack Speed buff of the law empowers your Phalanx summons, while the Unstoppable Force rune provides a massive, 50% resource cost reduction boon. This resource cost reduction bonus will provide an indirect source of damage reduction as well, due to the Cpt. Crimson 3-piece bonus.

Finally, a generator makes its way into the build as the third pillar of resource management. All equal in Wrath generation and proccing Focus and Restraint, you get to choose which Crusader Primary skill you like best. Our general recommendation to match the ranged nature of this build is the far-reaching Justice, with the added movement speed utility of the Sword of Justice rune. Alternatively, you can run a non-FnR, generator-less build — and opt for Iron Skin Flash, or Steed Charge Endurance instead.

Heavenly Strength is a signature Crusader passive, allowing you to wield two-handed weapons in one hand, and have a shield in the other. This Blade of Prophecy-wielding Condemn build is no exception.

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 amounts to a decent boost of both damage and toughness.

Long Arm of the Law doubles the duration of the active effects of Laws and ensures near-permanent uptime of Unstoppable Force or Wings of Angels. Aided by this passive, you will have an easy time maintaining spam of Condemn during the prolonged fights of Greater Rifts, and the valuable party-wide speed buff in regular Rifts.

Lord Commander earns it place among your Passives by simply bumping up the damage of your Phalanx summons by 20%. The passive grows in value if you go for a generator-less, Steed Charge-using build, as it cuts the mount downtime by 25%.