LoD Condemn Crusader BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

Since the build is based on the Legacy of Dreams power, you have some flexibility in the items you choose to slot across your gear, provided they are ideally of Ancient quality, have the appropriate stats, and do not form any other set bonuses (meaning you can temporarily run individual set pieces, if necessary). Stat-wise, focus on pieces that have Condemn skill damage increase, as well as Cooldown Reduction and Area Damage.

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.

In a setup with Legacy of Dreams, you will be wearing your two best rolled rings and cubing the third between Convention of Elements, Unity, and Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac. Unity reduces incoming damage in half when paired with another on the follower, plus an immortality relic for them (i.e. Enchanting Favor). Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac is a crucial ring for the build due to its cooldown reducing mechanics, which tirelessly chip away at your Akarat's Champion downtime with every Condemn. Convention of Elements simply provides a massive damage increase during the Holy cycle of its rotation (see this build's skills page for more information).

The recommended amulet is Hellfire Amulet of Strength, since it allows you access to an additional synergistic passive like Heavenly Strength, Long Arm of the Law, Finery, Holy Cause or Indestructible. 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.

Most of your armor slots can be roughly split into three categories: Damage oriented items, Protective items, and Utility items.

• 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. Tyrael's Might provides a multiplicative damage increase against monsters classified as demons; this adds a notable "fishing" aspect to the build during progression, but the enemy type is common enough that equipping this chest piece is considered to provide optimal results. Strongarm Bracers provide an additive damage increase on displaced enemies; a property you will easily trigger with the pulling effect of Condemn Vacuum.
• Stone Gauntlets are one of the most effective protective pieces in the game, bumping your armor by 50% at a significant (and stacking) mobility penalty — one which you will completely negate with crowd control immunization skills like Akarat's Champion and Steel Skin. Your helm slot 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. Lastly, Pauldrons of the Skeleton King bring a chance for an extra cheat death proc to the build, which is adequate for a slot with no particularly synergistic legendaries.
• Illusory Boots greatly assist with repositioning as they remove enemy collision, which is crucial since you rely on getting into the thick of the fight and then weaving out when necessary, and you have no other mobility options available. Rounding out the utility category, Vigilante Belt makes up for its lack of flashy legendary bonuses with the unique for the slot Cooldown Reduction roll.

You have two viable options for the weapon slot; the dedicated Condemn sword Blade of Prophecy and elite demolisher The Furnace. The rule of thumb is that you will be wearing your better roll between the two items, and cubing the other. Ideally though, you will be wielding The Furnace, due to its higher damage range and the fact that Condemn is unaffected by Attack Speed. Blade of Prophecy is also a mandatory weapon for the playstyle, a two handed sword tailored for a build based around Condemn. Its lifelong power (two additional Condemn triggers when at least two targets are present in the initial Condemn radius) has been bolstered by a substantial skill damage boost of up to 800%.

Frydehr's Wrath is the former Season 1 exclusive shield that turns the otherwise Cooldown-based nature of Condemn into a spender — an extremely potent effect, as proven by the Fires of Heaven rune from the Holy Shotgun build. Crit Chance and Cooldown Reduction rolls on this Crusader shield are mandatory for an endgame setup, and the shield has been strengthened in 2.6.1 with up to 800% Condemn damage affix as well.

For Offense stats, try to obtain Condemn % bonus on both the chest and shoulders (maximum of 30%), Holy elemental damage on both the amulet and wrists (maximum of 40%), Crit Chance and Crit Damage within a 1:10 ratio (ideally over 50% and 500%, respectively), and Area Damage of 100%+. While this is not an Akkhan-based Condemn build, you will still be trying to maximize CDR across gear, ideally reaching over 60% on a well-optimized character.

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 sustain in this build will come from activations of your Holy Cause passive, as you deal Holy damage with Condemn.

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.

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, or Maximum Wrath if you want to play around with a bigger resource pool.

In the Offense section, max out Cooldown Reduction, Crit Chance, Crit Damage and Attack Speed in that order. In Defense, prioritize All Resistance, then Life %, then Armor, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Resource Cost Reduction first, then finish off with Life on Hit and Globe Radius.

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 is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem procs itself with its level 25 property, and is otherwise triggered by the Too Scared to Run debuff, making it an inseparable part of this melee setup.

Bane of the Stricken firmly occupies one of your jewelry sockets during GR progression. Building up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. Condemn is one of the oldest examples of such a build, making the gem mandatory.

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 the older LoN setup, this socket would be occupied by Esoteric Alteration.

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. Condemn Crusaders are highly Cooldown Reduction dependent, so a Flawless Royal Diamond should be socketed in your helm. In your weapon, use a Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.

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

As previously mentioned, your weapon Cube slot is interchangeable between Blade of Prophecy and The Furnace, according to your better rolled item. Ideally, Blade of Prophecy will be stored here.

Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan are an important part of your setup, as they not only bring a sizable additive damage boost, but also greatly improve your resource generation, which is a strenuous part of this build. Note their requirement for constant movement, and strive to always be on the move to avoid the potential penalties from stationary fighting.

As previously mentioned, your jewelry Cube slot will be taken by your worst rolled ring between Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, Unity and Convention of Elements.

In your 4th Kanai's Cube slot in Season 33, place Aquila Cuirass for its damage halving properties when at high resources.

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 Scoundrel due to his powerful crit buff, allowing you brief windows of extra damage that are well suited to the strengths of this build. Alternatively, if you feel yourself too squishy, you can alter to the Templar for his powerful heals and sustain boons.

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.)