Blessed Hammer Crusader

[Guest Cottontail]

Am I the only one finding it very hard to survive just doing a torment X neplahem rift?

I like the Idea of the build but I just cant stay alive :(

[Hemstrom 0]

Am I the only one finding it very hard to survive just doing a torment X neplahem rift?

I like the Idea of the build but I just cant stay alive

If you link your profile i can take a look. 

[Guest Joe]

Highest clears use HFA and not Traveler's pledge though.

 

If you use traveler, you have to forgo Unity, CoE or Obsidian ring. If you drop Unity, the damage reduction loss is too great, if you drop CoE, you lose 50% bonus damage and if you drop Obsidian ring, the whole build stops working.

 

Dropping CoE is the least problematic, but still you also lose a passive skill.

 

Plus, try rolling quality pieces of the set. Good luck.

[Guest seacow]

May I suggest trying the Flurry rune for Falling Sword. Especially when your CDR gets high, the benefit of rapid descent becomes less and less (with 50% CDR, at most it can shave off 5 seconds of the Falling Sword CD). The CC of Flurry is quite noticeable, allowing you more time to spam hammers when landing without worrying much about taking too much damage.

 

Furnace is great, of course, but I've also found Akkahn's Addendum very helpful. Opening up the haste rune for Akarat's Champion is pretty huge, considering with good CDR and fast attack for zodiac, you are in Akarat's Champion 100%. The value of haste appears to be doubled by Joahanna's argument, and it also offers more recovery through LPH, and of course faster resets on all skills.

 

I've also been playing around with Laws of Valor - Frozen in Terror. While it doesn't have the dps boost like Critical, the 5 second stun allows for even more CC and a nice second proc for Hammer Jammers. I've noticed Judgment not always proccing the extra damage on Rift Guardians, whereas the stun seems more reliable. Not only that, but Falling Sword takes a while to animate (that's time you aren't spamming hammer), whereas Frozen in Terror let's you proc Hammer Jammers, keep spamming, and get the extra haste while enemies are CCd. It's definitely fun to stun an RG right before a big attack and continue spamming Hammers in its face, if not very effective.

[Deadset 108]

Heya, those are some interesting variations! I can definitely agree with Flurry experimentation, the added CC can be really useful when facing larger groups of enemies. Downside being Obsidian Ring has to go through one more cooldown, whereas Rapid Descent can take care of itself, but that's pretty minor. I find Akkhan's Addendum a harder sell, but maybe I need to give it another chance! :)

[Guest seacow]

Yes, after more testing, Furnace seems to be decidedly better. I've also been liking Part the Clouds--the stun affects more than just the minor enemies that Flurry affects.

 

[Guest Athos42]

It should be noted that you can play this build also as a ranged/melee hybrid. All you need to do is replace the belt with "Blessed of Haull" (Justice spawns a Blessed Hammer when it hits a target) and equip your follower with an Oculus ring.

Left-click then goes to Justice with Crack rune.

So now, you throw the small hammers with Justice. Stand in the golden circle of the Oculus for damage increase. As soon as something is hit by Justice, Blessed Hammers start to appear. And there are a lot of them. They even can attack through walls. Anything that reaches your melee distance you can kill with regular Blessed Hammers.

Might be a bit slower compared to the original built, but it is very funny and easily Torment10/ GR45 able.

[Stargazer 0]

Just a hint for those who have survivability problems: I've found that replacing Judgement with Laws of Justice - Decaying Strength has increased my survivability considerably. Sure, you loose out on extra damage, but if your gear isn't optimized, it's pretty great. As this would render the Jammers useless, I'm cubing Leoric's Crown for better CDR for grifts, and the Nemesis Bracers for TX.
 

Edited July 10, 2016 by Stargazer
Wanted to add alternatives for the cube.

[Guest WhippWhapp]

HC, I think Sacred Harness is definitely the way to go.

[Deadset 108]

On 8/5/2016 at 1:32 AM, Guest WhippWhapp said:

HC, I think Sacred Harness is definitely the way to go.

Agreed, the free Debilitate rune is amazing for survivability!

[Guest DiabloFan2016]

I am using the progression setup with everything listed - p.lvl 840, and highest I have completed is grift rank 68. I attempted rank 70, but was a couple of minutes too slow. What am I missing, just more paragon points?

[Guest DiabloFan2016]

Forgot to mention - I am not using CoE, using Unity instead

[Deadset 108]

On 8/10/2016 at 9:35 PM, Guest DiabloFan2016 said:

Forgot to mention - I am not using CoE, using Unity instead

Heya - that's a culprit to start with, I'm sure it's a little more comfortable and safer with Unity, but the damage loss cannot be ignored too. :) Otherwise, there could be many small things that add up. Do you have fully Ancient gear? Are all the item stats correct? Has the gear been upgraded with Caldesann enchants? Are your legendary gems correct, and are they of high enough level (they should roughly correspond to the level you are attempting to solo, if not be higher due to group play)? After all these considerations, well... You could always use more Paragons in this game! :)

[Guest McWiens]

hi, really like the build. maybe i am missing it but do you happen to have a link to your current build on bnet? thanks!

[Guest Thundy]

Heey, I restarted playing Diablo 3 again after being absent for 2 years.

Just checking in to say that this build really kicks ass! Btw this build comes actually really close to the old Diablo 2 hammerdin playstyle with the fallen sword even functioning as teleport. It feels very solid and skill wise I wouldn't change a thing for progression setup.

I'm currently farming for an ancient weapon (I crafted 10 non-ancient johannas already...) so not doing much progression runs yet. But I succesfully run GR61 < 10 minutes with just non-ancient items with proper rolls. (all gems at lvl40, paragon level 495, 4x resist, 2 x str gemmed)

I don't own a furnace nor proper johanna's shield yet, so using a stormshield with nice rolls with johanna's shield in the cube as temp solution that actually provides a lot of safety. As for CoE vs Unity, I use neither (currently testing BK and that dmg reduce on block ring) so I guess this only comes to play in GR65+ or so. Planning on Unity though if I ever find a second one.

Btw I say multiple people on twitch using law of valor instead of judgement. They really seemed to struggle with white mobs compared to your suggested setup. As for farming/speedrunning I actually drop iron skin in favor of horse riding.

Thanks for great guide,

Thundy

 

[Deadset 108]

On 8/31/2016 at 10:39 AM, Guest Thundy said:

I'm currently farming for an ancient weapon (I crafted 10 non-ancient johannas already...) so not doing much progression runs yet. But I succesfully run GR61 < 10 minutes with just non-ancient items with proper rolls. (all gems at lvl40, paragon level 495, 4x resist, 2 x str gemmed)

I don't own a furnace nor proper johanna's shield yet, so using a stormshield with nice rolls with johanna's shield in the cube as temp solution that actually provides a lot of safety. As for CoE vs Unity, I use neither (currently testing BK and that dmg reduce on block ring) so I guess this only comes to play in GR65+ or so. Planning on Unity though if I ever find a second one.

 

Thanks for the kind words! As a small bit of advice, I'd really prioritize obtaining the Johanna shield, it is a vital damage increasing piece and you will immediately feel the difference in power for the build. I'd definitely prioritize it over getting The Furnace, and maybe even the ancient Johanna weapon (just because how much easier it is to obtain a good roll of the shield, comparatively). Unity vs. CoE will largely be a personal preference thing, I'd start with Unity until you get a good feel for the build in progression, and then give CoE a chance for the burst during the Holy rotation.

[Guest Houd]

I want to share my exp with the build.

I havent played since vanilla and decided to start again in s7. Used the leveling guide and tried the hammerbuild.

 

When i was around high 500p/low 600p i completed Grift70 with few sec left using the excact build.

 

Deal breakers that exploded my dps along the way was: hammer jammers, rose/traveler set even though first many rings/amu had dog shit rolls and still have to some extent.

After getting ancient Johannas weap, which still isnt perfect by any means, a better travelers i got Grift71 today - with 2 min left. Think im p665 now.

 

Unity is a deal breaker for me. And that leaves me to my question. I am squishy as fuck even with Unity. I dont have life on hit on weap, but how to improve surviveability?

All though it may not be the strongest build there is still lots of room to grow for me and I like it alot!

[Valks 2,375]

9 hours ago, Guest Houd said:

Unity is a deal breaker for me. And that leaves me to my question. I am squishy as fuck even with Unity. I dont have life on hit on weap, but how to improve surviveability?

Your Obsidian Ring allows for more uptime of your defensive CDs (Akarat + Iron Skin), which should help with managing the damage. It essentially becomes a task of understanding when your CDs are up and you are ready to take damage, as well as what kinds of damage you can survive at that point. 

Practice makes perfect!

[Deadset 108]

As Blainie pointed out, the cubed Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac is a crucial piece to reset your defensive cooldowns, as it will lead to high Akarat's Champion and Iron Skin uptime. I'll just assume you have it cubed though, since it's been recommended very strongly in the guide; other pointers I can give you are:

1. In the Sacred Harness vs. The Witching Hour belt debate, lean towards Sacred Harness if you are feeling squishy. The free Debilitate rune will cut incoming damage by a quarter from affected enemies.

2. Even one Life on Hit roll can greatly assist your situation, as the build's naturally high attack rate scales very well with the stat. You mentioned not having it on the weapon (the preferred place to obtain it), but assuming LoH's place is taken by, say, a decent Vitality roll you can trade places for the stat with the bracer - and roll LoH there (example bracer: Str / Crit Chance / Holy % / LoH).

3. Make good use of the invulnerability window of Falling Sword. Not much to expand on here - you get resets from the set, abuse them to reposition away from bad affixes, take a breather, or even escape a bad fight.

If you provide me with a link to your battle.net character, I can probably provide you with even more specific advice. :)

[Guest Matari]

Will have to give this build a go and see how it compares to mine.

Its not far off from this current build but it has 1 big difference. NO CRIT HIT CHANCE.  As you raise the eyebrow and think are you flipping serious, yup I am.

Here are some differences in my build and the gear was the first pieces I could get for the whole set so they pretty much suck but with just a ancient weapon and the build was able to clear GR 65 with a bit of a struggle but still cleared without Unity.

This is a lightening build

1 skill difference is I use Justice for extra hammers, Wrath generation and healing.

Amulet=  The Ess of Johan for gathering, I don't have Hellfire amulet yet for sader or I would be using for extra passive.

Ring= Broken Promises this is the base of this build.  Lots of hammers = lots of consecutive hits and with my 5% crit chance means lots of up time on 100% crit chance.

Ring cube passive= Wyrdward for the stunning effect to work with Hammer Jammers passive in cube. I know that 35% isn't a great way to base extra damage for the Hammer Jammers compared to Bane of the Trapped.  It does proc quite a bit and saved me a few times from some nasty Elite packs by stun locking them.

Legendary Gem= Pain Enhancer works hand in hand with the crits, with everything around you crit and bleeding atk spd also increases.  Which means more hammers in less time.  Still Bane of the Trapped could be just as useful minus the atk spd increase that Pain Enhancer provides.

Belt= Blessed of Haull more hammers must have more hammers.  Over all its not best is slot Witching Hour would still be best for the atk spd and crit hit dmg.  Just figured more hammers increases chances of ring proc.

Weapon Cube Passive= Justinian's Mercy So all those lovely hammers follow you

Since there is no crit hit chance on any gear you can focus on increasing life per hit, armor, or life % or what ever helps to improve toughness.  This being said I used Diamonds in sockets to improve toughness, might not be needed if the set gear is ancient with good stat rolls.  Only used them since my set gear was all crap rolls.  Main stats for DPS would be main stat with atk spd and crt hit dmg with lightening skill dmg increase.

My base DPS is around 600k and jumps to 2.6 mil with ring proc and possibly even higher with pain enhancer.  Hard to check since everything dies rather fast once crits start popping.

I will mention that this build was created on console and the lacking feature that PC doesn't have is the dodge roll.  This increases survival by dodging attacks and while the hammers move with you still hitting mobs.  The force move hotkey while casting Blessed hammer is a good way to keep on the move while keeping DPS up as well.

Thanks Deadset for your build and guide.

Wouldn't be surprised if we see a new Sader build pop up here ;)

[Guest sleepy]

Is it really the best choice to have flash instead of steel skin as the rune for iron skin? I was finding that when I was in full swing, the obsidian ring basically let me have 100% uptime with steel skin, which I really felt was needed at GR71, even with unity and the falling sword DR from the set bonus. Is the extra mobility from flash really that useful?

[Valks 2,375]

On 12/8/2016 at 10:50 AM, Guest sleepy said:

Is the extra mobility from flash really that useful?

The key here, at least in my opinion, is the ability to move through enemies. This is incredibly useful for kiting in higher GRifts, since you can find yourself getting trapped or blocked into some heavy damage, even if just melee.

[Guest Ferimer]

I'm fairly new to d3 and when looking at the paragon points numbers of importance means what exactly ? I'm to level 1 first all the way then 2 all the way etc. Or is it put a point in 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 and repeat in each tab ? I just don't know 

[Valks 2,375]

4 hours ago, Guest Ferimer said:

I'm fairly new to d3 and when looking at the paragon points numbers of importance means what exactly ? I'm to level 1 first all the way then 2 all the way etc. Or is it put a point in 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 and repeat in each tab ? I just don't know 

Yeah, you stack the first one until you can't anymore. For the first page, only some of them actually have a cap. You can actually stack primary stat infinitely, for example. The thing is, you'll reach a point where +1 main stat won't benefit you as much as a bit more HP, for example.

[MarkusRamikin 0]

Deadset:

1. Love your guide, but where'd the Unity go? You replaced it with the Convention, but doesn't that make the Hammerdin more squishy? Have you actually tried handling a 90 GRift that way?

In my experience, I'm pumping out hammers all the time, not just waiting for a 25% window like with the Fan of Knives builds for the DH. So a 200% increase in damage 25% of the time amounts to a 50% increase - and Unity would mean a 100% increase in effective hitpoints, so not sure why you think this is worth it, especially since Faithful Memory already boosts us to several Grifts above what we used to play at - and thus puts us in more danger.

Still, you clearly know your stuff, so really interested in your reasoning.

2. Also, is it just me, or is the Faithful Memory really crap against fighting single targets like Rift Guardians or Malthael? Is there no way to get more stacks going? It seems self-cancelling to me, would you say that's a design flaw?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Edited January 10, 2017 by MarkusRamikin