LoD Bombardment Crusader BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

As this is a Legacy of Dreams-based build, you have considerable freedom in picking out the rest of your gear slots. As a rule of thumb, focus on Skeletal Mages skill damage increases across gear and Cooldown Reduction, and remember the setup's requirement for ancient items, as well as its restriction on other set bonuses. You can run individual set pieces with beneficial stats, as long as they do not form any set bonus.

The Legacy of Dreams power allows you to run any legendary item combination while not losing out on the damage amplification and reduction associated with the traditional 6-piece sets. You can obtain this power in two ways; the older way is equipping the two rings — The Wailing Host and Litany of the Undaunted — as your only active set bonus. The newer (and more powerful, since it also opens your ring slots for legendary jewelry) method is the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem. Note that using the Legacy of Nightmares rings is still a viable option for much of your progression, and their use allows you to slot Bane of the Trapped as your third legendary gem in place of the Legacy of Dreams.

In a setup with Legacy of Dreams, you will be wearing a Stone of Jordan (matching your elemental rolls across gear to the one on the SoJ, due to its legendary power that equalizes your elemental damage bonuses according to your current highest) for the Elemental and Elite damage increase. Alternatively, you could wear a Unity with one on your follower (plus an immortality item for them) to reduce incoming damage in half for a tankier version of this build. Your other worn ring will be your better roll between Convention of Elements (for the tremendous damage increase during the Physical cycle) and Justice Lantern (for the damage reduction based on block chance). You will be slotting the weaker rolled ring in the Cube.

The recommended amulet is Hellfire Amulet of Strength, since it allows you access to an additional synergistic passive like Hold Your Ground, Long Arm of the Law or Indestructible. Alternatively, you could wear a Squirt's Necklace for a tremendous damage boost during Shield Pylons, or an Eye of Etlich for the ranged damage reduction bonus. The former favorite The Flavor of Time should now be slotted on your follower, and its power will be transferred to your character via the Emanate mechanics.

Belt of the Trove is a key legendary item in the build. It will produce Bombardments on a cooldown as low as 6 seconds, unaffected by your own downtimes. These Bombardments inherit the rune of your spec, get doubled by The Mortal Drama flail in the cube, and benefit from any other relevant skill and damage bonuses.

Your helm is best taken by a Leoric's Crown — this helm doubles the effectiveness of its slotted gem, becoming the single most powerful source of cooldown reduction offered by a legendary item — 25% with a Flawless Royal Diamond. In an alternate setup where you fish for GRs where you are consistently under attack (which maximizes the Akarat's Awakening procs), you could run with lower Cooldown Reduction and use a Physical damage Andariel's Visage in the helm slot.

Your chest and gloves will be taken by purely protective pieces. Aquila Cuirass will halve incoming damage as long as Wrath does not dip below 90% of its reserve, which is effectively a permanent bonus in this pure cooldown spec. Stone Gauntlets are one of the most effective defensive pieces in the game, bumping your armor by 50% at a significant (and stacking) mobility penalty — one which you will completely negate with the crowd control immunity effect of Akarat's Champion.

Your pants and bracers slots will be taken by damage increasing legendaries. Blackthorne's Jousting Mail provide an elemental damage increase, which is fairly unique for the slot — as long as it does not form its set bonus with another Blackthorne item, thus breaking the LoD bonus, this will be your best-in-slot item. Strongarm Bracers will synergize with Condemn when pushing Greater Rifts, as the Vacuum rune will proc the additive damage on any enemy affected by the pull.

Truly deprived of a recommended legendary for the slot, the shoulders can be taken by your best rolled ancient item. You can squeeze out a minor benefit from Pauldrons of the Skeleton King — a low-chance extra cheat death proc — but the item cannot be considered mandatory by any means. In practice, a roll with Cooldown Reduction, Area Damage, Thorns and Bombardment skill damage will be exceedingly rare, so you will likely use a Burden of the Invoker (only this piece from the set!) in this slot due to its synergistic innate rolls.

Your weapon for Greater Rifts can vary according to preference and content, including two-handed options (though you will have to switch into Heavenly Strength, resulting in sub-optimal Bombardment cycling). In progression, it is recommended that you opt for a one-hander — Pig Sticker. While lacking any flashy bonuses, this noisy knife more than makes up for it. First, it has the superior attack speed of the dagger weapon class (1.5 base); second, it rolls up to five primary stats, meaning it can have high Strength, Cooldown Reduction, Increased Attack Speed, and Area Damage AND its base weapon damage roll can (and should, in a perfect scenario) be rerolled into Life per Hit. And third, its unique bonuses vs. human and beast enemies are multiplicative in nature and can lead to massive damage spikes in certain rift compositions.

To complete the setup, the rarest Crusader shield — Akarat's Awakening — supplies this block-heavy build with a reliable source of the all too vital cooldown reduction.

There is a notable alteration to this build that uses the powers of Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac. This version trades upfront damage potential for easier stacking of Bane of the Stricken at the Rift Guardian, as well as more tankiness and health sustain via Life per Hit procs. Build swaps necessary for this version are also discussed in the Skills page, but gear-wise note the following changes:

• Either wear or cube Gabriel's Vambraces, which is a necessary component in keeping Wrath manageable and maintaining the Aquila Cuirass bonuses.
• Use Johanna's Argument for the Attack Speed increase to Blessed Hammer, resulting in the signature Bane of the Stricken buildup of this version.
• Use Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac in the jewelry slot of the Cube for the cooldown resets. This inclusion allows you to reduce CDR requirements across gear, and allows you to (more easily) perfect into a double cast of Bombardment during the Physical CoE cycle.

Strength is desired across gear as it feeds into your Thorns damage. Your biggest concern is fulfilling the cooldown reduction requirements of this build; stacking over 61% CDR will allow you to properly sync Bombardment with physical Convention of Elements procs and not lose out on cycles, among survivability benefits. You will ideally reach the 65% CDR breakpoint in order to further improve the Akarat's Champion uptime during Physical cycles of Convention of Elements. Physical elemental damage (on amulet, bracers and potentially pants) increase your Thorns damage, and are important to seek out. Area Damage should also be rolled on all the pieces that are able to obtain it, including gloves, shoulders, all jewelry pieces, as well as your weapon and off-hand.

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool between 700-900k; dropping as much as you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. The build is quite limited in terms of sustain, relying mostly on Life per Hit to regain health (either from Punish or Blessed Hammer spam), and your build will ideally have two or more sources of LpH — i.e., helm, bracers, and/or weapon.

All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat, Strength.

Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item with stats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are main stats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and is unable to be rerolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for a stat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. Perfecting Secondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case for discarding an item, except where noted.

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.

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.

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally this is done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting your roll from the 25% max. After that, dump as much as you comfortably can into Strength, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness. Putting points into extra resources via Maximum Wrath is not necessary.

In the Offense section, max out Cooldown Reduction first and Attack Speed second; Thorns damage cannot inflict Critical hits, so fill the remaining stats at your leisure. In Defense, prioritize All Resistance, then Life %, then Armor, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Life on Hit first, then continue with Globe Radius. Resource Cost Reduction should be maxed out last, since this is a no-spender build, and Wrath management is irrelevant (except in a Zodiac variant, where you can prioritize RCR slightly higher).

Completely disregarding its level 25 property, you will take Boyarsky's Chip for one purpose only: boosting your Thorns damage.

Bane of the Stricken is almost universally a desirable progression gem, as it builds up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and has a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians.

Your final slot is best occupied by the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem, which provides a scaling bonus for each legendary item equipped, as long as you have no set bonuses equipped. This bonus is multiplied for Ancient or Primal quality items, and when the gem is maxed out, it matches the Legacy of Nightmares ( The Wailing Host and Litany of the Undaunted rings) set bonus. This potent bonus allows you to play around with all your gear slots for synergistic legendary powers at the cost of a gem slot; in a LoN setup, this socket would be occupied by Bane of the Trapped.

When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the highest available level of Rubies in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these will all be Flawless Royal Ruby as soon as possible. As you grow in Paragon (bulking up Strength in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive Flawless Royal Diamond. There is no specific breakpoint where you do that; the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack of toughness impede your progress. This build is highly Cooldown Reduction dependent, which means a Flawless Royal Diamond is necessary in your helm. In your weapons, use Flawless Royal Topazes for the Thorns damage boost.

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

The weapon cube slot will be taken by The Mortal Drama, a flail that doubles the number of Bombardment impacts. The effect is simple, but devastating as it not only affects your own shots, but those of Belt of the Trove as well.

A spec that has to be on the run by necessity is the perfect home for Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan; if nothing else, the 25% additive damage increase while walking and the corresponding decrease when standing still is a good reminder to stay on the move. If you dislike the playstyle created by these pants, you can alternate to Heart of Iron in this slot; you will be slightly weaker, but can play lazier and stand still during fights.

As previously mentioned, the jewelry Cube slot will be taken by your worse rolled item between Convention of Elements and Justice Lantern. In an oldschool LoN setup, it will be occupied by CoE by necessity, whereas in a Zodiac alteration it will be taken up by Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac.

In your 4th Kanai's Cube slot in Season 33, place The Furnace. The unique effect of this two-handed mace provides you with an incomparable source of bonus elite damage, significantly shortening fights with champion packs and Rift Guardians — traditionally one-on-one affairs, where Bombardment builds suffer the most.

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.

Two legendary potions can be considered useful in a Bombardment Crusader build. Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid allows you to break through Waller affixes, which is a great boon to a build that is highly dependent on mobility. 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.)

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.