Just got to Fresh Level 70 Crusader? Good job! Welcome to the REAL D3! Your goal is to get your FREE SET ASAP. In this guide, you’ll learn exactly what to do for each step, with builds and protips, ultimately leading to the end-game in our Fresh 70 Crusader Guide.

In S20, the Crusader free set is Seeker of the Light.

It is also the SEASON OF THE FORBIDDEN ARCHIVES
You can freely cube any three items (IE:3 weapons, 2 armors and a ring).
Instead of being forced to use one weapon, armor, and jewelry.

How does Season of the Forbidden Archives affect me? 

In General

In your journey to powering up, it mildly helps you since you can cube your “three best things” to help you fill out your build. This is quite a potent effect to help your growth snowball out of control. It is heavily affected by your luck, though.

As for the endgame? This is not the scope of this guide but I may put some notes on unusual cube combinations for each seasonal free set.

NO Free Set? Go to PAGE 2!

Fresh 70 Crusader: Free set available! | No free set!
Getting the Free Set | Free Set 70 | Gaining Power | Bridging to the End-game
Crusader Leveling Guide | D3 Guide Directory

Fresh 70 Crusader: Getting the Free Set!

Light’s set is miserable leading up to the 6pc bonus. We need to “cheese” the more difficult seasonal journey entries with either a “Crafted Medley” or a basic Thorns build or trying your luck by getting a great legendary drop (which is pure RNG so we don’t recommend)

Directly below are two methods you can employ to ensure your success.

Non RNG crafted items that will HELP YOU

The first, and arguably easier, method to cheese is the “Crafted Medley”.

Also, at any time you can beat up any Torment Malthael – he will drop plans for Reaper’s Wraps. It’s a non-RNG way to make your life a lot easier!

Captain Crimson’s set and / or Aughild’s set will boost your power by a huge margin this early on. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT BREAKING YOUR 2/4 SET BONUS as Light’s 2/4 isn’t that good.

Thorns build

Another option to cheese is WITH A HALF-THORNS BUILD. For this, you need to gather EXACTLY 8 items with Thorns in it. Stash ’em until GR20 or use ’em I don’t care, but here are the “throw away” slots you can make STR VIT Thorns yellows. Remember rerolling yellows is your friend.

  1. 1H Weapon with YOUR BEST Topaz socketed (Large Thorns amount)
  2. Amulet
  3. Ring
  4. Ring
  5. Bracer
  6. Belt
  7. Chest
  8. Legs

Check the GR20 tab to have an idea of the build you’re gonna use.

For the rest of the seasonal journey: Click below for instructions on each step:

Setting up!

Don’t settle for garbage yellows – fix ’em up! And keep an eye on some decent fillers that will help you in your Fresh 70 journey!

Crusaders NEED ALL RESISTS! Remove excess ARMOR!

Crusaders are Strength characters, and they gain 1 Armor for each point of Strength gained. Since you have so much Strength and Armor – its effectivity is massively diluted. Instead, stack ALL RESISTS on your gear! This is your prime defensive stat.

WEAPON: (IMPORTANT) The very first thing you should do once you hit Fresh 70 is craft a good 1H MACE (up to your preference). Try to get STR + VIT + “Regenerative Stat” – Life per Hit OR Life per Wrath Spent. Honestly, you can use 2H + Heavenly Strength but I like the flexibility of the passive slot (you’re not forced to use Fervor with 1h).

Shield: with STR VIT and/either/or Life per Wrath Spend/Block Chance.

Bracer: during the journey, we use Physical% – so roll that on temp gear. But on tryhard gear you want Holy% + STR (and, hopefully, VIT > CRIT > ALLRES).

Amulet and Rings w/ SOCKET! As long as they have STR+Socket (and hopefully, you can fix them up more). You’re gonna need them very soon and it’s best to prepare now!

Belt: these have so many defensive stats it ain’t even funny. Try for STR > VIT > RES > LIFE% – you can gain millions of toughness from just the belt.

Chest & Legs: STR VIT and as many sockets as you can manage. TRY TO GET THORNS ON THE SECONDARY!!!!

Gems for Body, Legs, Misc Sockets: Early on you might want Diamonds for ALLRES.
Head: Usually take Diamond for CDR, but Amethyst for Life or Topaz for RCR.
Weapon: Red for flat damage early on, Green when you have lots of Crit Chance (but remember Topaz on weapon grants Thorns).

Generally speaking remove terrible stats such as:

  • Life Regen: Absolute trash.
  • Armor: We have tons of it.
  • RCR: Decent in the early game but ultimately a crutch…
  • Excess CDR: Your raw stats may suffer.
  • ASPD: Is more of an endgame adjustment stat.

and reroll useful stats like:

  • STR VIT: Our core stats!
  • ALLRES: The highest scaling defensive stat for Armor characters.
  • Life per Hit: Is great early on.
  • Life% Not bad.
  • Crit Related Stats: are always a welcome DPS boost.
Customize Skill Bindings

If you’re not allowed to put two skills on your bar because they’re from the same category – FEAR NOT! This isn’t a bug or a permanent in-game restriction. You simply have to CHECK ON ELECTIVE MODE, via Esc > Options > Gameplay > Elective Mode!

Binding Force Move to Mousewheel up & down is a value change that every player should make IMO. It prevents misclicks and skill misfires, and forces you to move to where otherwise an enemy might be.

Season Journey Chapters Table

Here’s an overview of what you should accomplish per chapter for this season. Or press Shift+J in game to check.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Complete a Neph Rift Neph Rift on Expert Neph Rift on Master Neph on T1
Do 5 Bounties Craft L70 Weapon or Armor Craft Imperial Gem Reforge weapon with Mystic
Socket 5 gems in gear Fully equip a follower Spend Blood Shards at Kadala Keywarden Act I at T4
Blacksmith to L10 Blacksmith, Jeweler & Mystic to L12 Kill Urzael at L70 on Master Keywarden Act II at T4
Jeweler to L10 Find Kanai’s Cube Kill Skeleton King at L70 on Master Keywarden Act III at T4
Mystic to L10 Get to L70 Act I bounty cache Keywarden Act IV at T4
Kill Siegebreaker Kill Azmodan at L60 Hard Act II bounty cache Kill Adria on T2
Kill Maghda Kill Zoltun Kulle at L60 Hard Act III bounty cache Kill Butcher on T4
Get to L50 Craft L70 Ring or Amulet Act IV bounty cache GR 20 solo
Enchant an item with Mystic Act V bounty cache Upgrade rare to legendary item
Transmogrify an item with Mystic Extract Legendary Power 5 Blacksmith recipes
5 Jewelcrafting recipes
NO REWARD 1st set of
Haedrig’s Gift		 2nd set of
Haedrig’s Gift		 3rd set of
Haedrig’s Gift

1st set: Helm + Gloves
2nd set: Boots + Shoulders
3rd set: Chest + Pants

Here is the Conqueror Season Journey entries you need to accomplish to unlock a stash tab (if you haven’t unlocked all).

Conqueror
Complete a TXIII Neph Rift in under 5 mins
GR 60 Solo
Kill Izual at L70 under 15 sec on TXIII
Kill Greed on TXIII
Reforge a Legendary or Set item
Augment an Ancient item with a L50 Legendary Gems
Level 3 Legendary Gems to 55
Complete 2 Conquests

 

Seasonal Journey Chapter 2: Getting the 2 piece

If you followed our leveling guide, you may be using the NO SHIELD 2-HANDER CRUSADER. I have TWO BUILDS for you to choose from. 2H No Shield and Shield.

2H No Shield No HeavenlyShield + Fervor/Heavenly
Crusader Fresh 70 2H NO SHIELD Build
Skills Rune
Smite Shatter
Fist of the Heavens Fissure
Condemn Any
Steed Charge Nightmare
Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force
Falling Sword Rise Brothers
Passives
Righteousness Wrathful
Holy Cause (Any) Finery, Long Arm
Crusader Fresh 70 SHIELD Build
Skill Rune
Punish Retaliate / Roar
Blessed Shield Shattering Throw
Steed Charge Rejuvenation / Endurance
Phalanx Bowmen
Provoke Hit Me!
Laws of Valor (Any) Unstoppable Force (Any)
Passives
Heavenly Strength or Fervor Holy Cause
Insurmountable Hold Your Ground

Both of these builds are easily adjustable to accommodate any powerful legendaries you may have looted.

YOUR MAIN MISSION DURING THE EARLY CHAPTERS
ARE TO FIND THE HOLY 8 ASAP!

Complete chapters 1 & 2 on Hard Mode.  You want to get your free set as soon as you can, I presume, so why make it harder? Increase difficulty only when you have to (complete a neph on Expert Mode).

Entries for the first 2 chapters are pretty basic. I personally start going through the entries when i reach level 60~ so I can tick off multiple entries in one go… do a a round of bounties while killing the required bosses…

But then again, this should be easy as long as you take time to fix your gear.

Seasonal Journey Chapter 3: Getting the 4 piece
S20 Crusader 2-piece Seeker of the Light
Skills Runes
Blessed Hammer Limitless
Falling Sword Rise Brothers
Steed Charge Endurance
Provoke Hit me!
Justice / Punish (Open) Crack / Celerity (Open)
Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force
Passives
Insurmountable Hold Your Ground
H. Cause / Heavenly Blunt / Wrathful

Welcome to the world of Seeker of the Light! The build is a decent general purpose build. The main thing you should learn at this point is spamming Provoke and tracking Falling Sword cooldown! Provoke = Wrath generation.

Adjust the build to your needs, but it’s fine as is. I put Punish in the “open” slot just to help versus lone enemies since that’s the only problem this build has.

Also, I don’t care how many times I have to remind you… you’re gonna need the Holy 8 very soon. Continue to gather them here, or you’re gonna regret it real soon.

Although there are entries here in Chapter 3 that needs to be done on Master Difficulty, the rest can be completed on Hard mode.

Complete on Master difficulty:

  • Beat a Nephalem Rift:
  • Kill the following Bosses
    • Urzael – Act V, Westmarch Heights
    • Skeleton King – Act I, The Royal Crypt

Do the rest of the requirements (NPC interactions), get your first 2 pieces of your free set from the mail and let us proceed to the next chapter.

Seasonal Journey Chapter 4: Getting the 6 piece

At this point you should REALLY be using 1-hander + Shield.

S20 Crusader 4-piece Seeker of the Light
Skills Runes
Blessed Hammer Limitless
Falling Sword Rise Brothers (Rapid Descent)
Steed Charge Endurance
Provoke Hit me!
Justice / Punish Crack / Celerity
Phalanx Bowmen
Passives
Insurmountable (Wrathful) Hold Your Ground
Fervor Holy Cause

Things start to get dicey here and you’re really gonna start seeing the limitation of Seeker in TII. The TI rift seems ok but, trust me it, goes downhill fast from here. Remember to use your Provokes and Falling Swords! The build looks weird… but you’ll soon see why.

Before you try your luck with GR20, complete first the other entries for chapter 4 and hopefully you can increase your chances to easily clear this tier.

Upgrade a Rare to Legendary w/ Kanai’s Cube: You want to get Johanna’s Argument so upgrade a 1-hand flail. Might as well start looking for it now!

Recipes: These are usually dropped from bounty cache… but if you’re missing a couple and you’re tired of bountying… you can buy some recipes from Squirt the Peddler in Act II. You can then craft a Hellfire amulet to get a “free” passive skill.

Complete a Torment I Rift: TI still feels pretty slow, eh? Go for Master if you need to farm but try to avoid unnecessary delays. Bowmen is your friend vs elites!

Set Difficulty to Torment II: Kill Adria – Act V, Ruins of Corvus

PROCEEDING TO TORMENT IV W/O EITHER OF THE CHEESE SETUPS (Crafted Medley or Thorns) IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT A GREAT LEGENDARY DROP.

Seeker of the Light 4-piece Thorn + Seeker Hybrid Build
Skills Runes
Blessed Hammer Brute Force
Bombardment Barrels of Spikes
Steed Charge Spiked Barding
Iron Skin Reflective Skin
Consecration Bed of Nails
Falling Sword Rapid Descent
Passives
Lord Commander Hold Your Ground
Divine Fortress Iron Maiden

The above is for the thorns cheese build. Use any of the previous builds or a custom one if you got a great legendary OR the crafted medley.

THE TORMENT IV ENTRIES CAN AND WILL TRASH WEAKER CHARACTERS. For clues on how to “chip away” at this, check the GR20 tab below for relevant advice.

Set Difficulty to Torment IV: Go straight to the bosses! No need to kill those creeps you charge past!

  • Kill Butcher – Act I, Halls of Agony Level 3
  • Kill Odeg the Keywarden – Act I, Fields of Misery
  • Kill Sokahr the Keywarden – Act II, Dahlgur Oasis
  • Kill Xah’Rith the Keywarden – Act III, Stonefort
  • Kill Nekarat the Keywarden – Act IV, Garden of Hope 2nd Tier
  • Keywardens maps have a key icon next to the waypoint. Purple arrows point you to their location after a short while once you’re in their respective map.

Finally done with all other entries? The time has come to conquer GR20! But first, check the obelisk for the highest GR you can do. If GR20 is still locked for you, you will need to do a couple of high GRs. Torment 3 and above should do the trick.

Crusader GR 20: 4 piece Seeker of the Light

Still no Thorns gear or crafted medley? Scroll back up top and go to the setting up tab. Don’t dare come back until you have. I’m dead serious this time around. Unless you have a game-breaking legendary, this is nigh impossible without the cheese setups. 

S20 Crusader GR20 4-piece Seeker of the Light Build
Skills Runes
Blessed Hammer Brute Force
Bombardment Barrels of Spikes
Steed Charge Spiked Barding
Iron Skin Reflective Skin
Consecration Bed of Nails
Falling Sword Rapid Descent
Passives
Lord Commander Hold Your Ground
Insurmountable Iron Maiden

Our chances decrease drastically if you underestimate this. This is a GENERATOR LESS build – but it’s okay since you barely need any wrath anyway. Insurmountable and passive regen should help you with Hammers (that stun, for defense) which in turn reset Falling Sword (for 50% damage reduction).

FIX PARAGONS: STR | CDR | ALL RES | LpH (I used only 5 each -20 total)

Below are the stats I had during my runs….

  • Offense (sheet): 147K
  • Toughness (sheet): 8M
  • Recovery (sheet): 170K
  • NO ‘special’ legendaries aside from the 4PC Seeker of the Light.
  • NO Pylons taken.
  • NO Legendary Gems.
  • NO Cubed powers used.
  • Remaining Time: 2 minutes~

“ANTI ELITE Thorny rotation”
(Falling Sword) – Iron Skin – Consecration – Bombardment – Steed Charge – Hammers

You see that rotation right up there? You can literally win GR by pressing the skills in that order while actively finding elites. WHEN USING IRON SKIN – ALWAYS USE AT LEAST 2/3’s of the THORNS SKILLS (Consecration, Steed Charge, Bombardment). Don’t be tempted to press it if you only have one of ’em up. I’d rather DIE against an elite than have Iron Skin down for the BURST.

You can be a bit liberal with Consecration and Steed Charge, fighting clumps of whites if you can gather them up. But make every IRON SKIN and BOMBARDMENT count!

Falling Sword and Hammers are purely in the build for defensive purposes.

DO NOT try to engage elites without Iron Skin. DO NOT try to engage Elites (or ‘fat enemy types even) with just Hammers. You will get CRUSHED.

Rift Guardian should die in 2 casts of Iron Skin… 3 at most. So you’ll need around 2 minutes. But if your mega burst is there, it might just die in ONE. Don’t underestimate the damage you’re gonna take. Falling Sword is your friend.

Sheet numbers DO NOT take into consideration most Legendary Powers and Gems. But since I did it RAW – these will serve as a great estimation.

Fresh 70 Crusader: 6 piece Free Set Build

Lights is rather poor for both speedfarming and tryharding right now. So don’t be sad if you split your efforts to progressing towards the Crusader speedfarming build!

S20 Crusader Seeker of the Light Free Set Build
Skills Runes
Blessed Hammer Limitless
Falling Sword Rapid Descent
Provoke Hit me!
Steed Charge Endurance
Akarat’s Champion (Open) Prophet
Laws of Valor (Laws of Justice) Unstoppable Force (Immovable Object)
Passives
Insurmountable (Wrathful) Hold Your Ground (Holy Cause)
Fervor (if forced, Heavenly Strength) Finery (Once you socket up)

A lot of these choices are to help you manage your Wrath. The better you can manage your Wrath with some gear upgrades (*cough, Reaper’s Wraps, cough*) you can remove them for their parentheses-ed counterparts…

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So, now what now!?

Torment V+: Is your new MINIMUM farming level. You  can try goin’ higher. Try getting used to the rhythm of the build! There’s a lot of damage and survivability options so the build is easy to adjust!

CRAFT REAPER’S WRAPS NOW. Recipe drop from any Torment Malthael.
It will offer a HUGE increase in quality of life!

Other nonRNG crafted stuff?

Captain Crimson’s set or Aughild’s set are both viable boosts to power but REQUIRE Ring of Royal Grandeur. I’d say it’s worth grinding for it just to suit up one of these sets.

A quick review before proceeding…

As you’re proceeding with the next steps, keep these important things in mind!

Gear Review & Fixing up

GET YOUR ALLRES!
Socket DIAMONDS into your gear, as well as rolling off all Armor rolls on your gear into ALLRES if you can! Try to get Allres everywhere except maybe accessories.

SOCKETS: on amulet and rings for the legendary gems that we’re soon getting.

Life per Wrath Spent is CRITICAL! The build SUFFERS without self-healing of some kind and this is one of the easiest ways to get it! A very powerful stat you should be chasing for, relevant at ANY STAGE OF THE GAME. Life per Hit is acceptable, too. LpWS is practically only found on crusader weapons and crusader shields (as well as the Wrathful passive).

Holy% on Bracers and ,hopefully, on amulet. You won’t ever be sad with an additional 30-40% damage.

Hammer% on Boots. It’s a must have stat for this item. Other stats you want are STR, VIT, RES, Movespeed.

Belt: A huge source of toughness! Stats needed are STR VIT ALLRES LIFE%.

Generally speaking, remove terrible stats such as:

  • Life Regen: Absolute trash.
  • Armor: We have tons of it.
  • RCR: Decent in the early game but ultimately a crutch…
  • Excess CDR: Your raw stats may suffer.
  • ASPD: Is more of an endgame adjustment stat.

and reroll useful stats like:

  • STR VIT: Our core stats!
  • ALLRES: The highest scaling defensive stat for Armor characters.
  • Life per Hit: Is great early on.
  • Life% Not bad.
  • Crit Related Stats: are always a welcome DPS boost.

Gaining Power!

Now we have to gain as much power, as quickly as possible. Legendary Gems is the first place we look – and make sure to keep an eye out for key items.

Legendary Gems

This is the easiest way to gain power simply because acquiring them has little to no RNG. Getting 3 of your best gems will increase your power dramatically in a short time span.

Click on the tabs to see Seeker of the Light’s “Big 3” gems, and “others”.

Seeker Fresh 70 - 3 GemsOther gems?

Get these to L25 ASAP:

Bane of the Powerful: a value gem that you don’t have to invest much into. It also helps us out against elites. Also adds a defense against them! Keeping it at 25 is fine.

Gogok of Swiftness is a great gem for Light’s and is part of many of the endgame builds. CDR, AS and a little dodge do wonders. It’s efficiency drops massively after L25, you do not have to invest heavily into this YET.

Moratorium IS TEMPORARY, OK! Don’t freak out! This gem synergizes extremely well with Life per Wrath spent! Even keeping it at 25 is fine. You can even use it to augment later on! It adds a much needed layer of defense that you need right now. Esoteric Alteration very quickly surpasses this once you get some defensive items.

You can even use both defensive gems (Moratorium + Esoteric) if desperate!
Removing Trapped in the meantime since you don’t really need DPS.

Any other gems worth it?

Bane of the Trapped: good ‘ol basic Trapped! A gem that reliably increases your DPS – nothing much else to say! Dump as many points as you can in here as it’s one of your best options for an endgame gem – it outperforms many other gems once it’s highly leveled.

Bane of the Stricken: is the only other gem you would want to be as high as your Trapped. This is great for the late game and you should invest in this once you 25 the three mentioned before. Mandatory once you go higher up.

Esoteric Alteration: your go-to defensive gem for lategame.

Boon of the Hoarder: You need this for speedfarming – get it up to 50 ASAP!
(See: Speedfarming General, Crusader Speedfarming, Best Crusader Speedfarming Build)

Aside from these 7 gems listed in these tabs, any other gem is considerably worse.

Just get them asap while slowly climbing the GR’s you’re allowed to do. Do neph/GR/neph/GR etc until you get the big 3. Don’t overdo the level, just go for efficient farming and cheap empowering. GR 34 is enough to 25 a gem.

With 3 of your best gems at L25 – try much higher Torment levels. Now it’s time to find some key items!

Playing the Build & Adjustments

Here’s some really basic tips for playing Seeker of the Light to help you as you progress into higher difficulties. It’s by no means comprehensive, but still helpful.

As you progress and get items, your build may have a weak point here and there that you can patch up given the simple skill, rune, and passive changes listed below.

We will discuss Playstyle Notes and build Build Adjustments.

Playing Seeker 6 - BasicsOffense & ResourceDefense & HealingSpeed & Mobility

Steed to find > Falling Sword chunks > Hammer > Provoke > Falling as needed

It’s pretty basic – you’ll notice some Wrath problems against thin groups of enemies. “Stutter stepping” by walking + Hammering is actually pretty good to mitigate this at times.

Falling Sword should always be up against elites – so use it as a movement tool sparingly. Thankfully, the Rapid Descent rune gives us a ton of leeway for this.

Mainly, studying and getting used to the RHYTHM will yield you the most progress with the build. Judging when to best use Provoke is a huge difference in Wrath management. Insurmountable helps you out greatly with this early on.

The two OPEN slots give you a LOT of flexibility for random fixes to your build.

More offense or Wrath needed?

Offense is usually categorized in Damage or, indirectly, Resource Gain.

Wrath Gains is managed by many of the entries in the base build above:

Ultimately, gaining more Wrath via conventional skill and rune changes isn’t that viable. Core items will help you with this, but for right now, FIGHTING LARGER GROUPS and not wasting time with 1-2 whites is what’s gonna help your clear time.

Damage? Is mainly augmented by passives at this point…

Fervor, Holy Cause, Blunt are the best DPS passives (aside from the all-encompassing Finery). It’s unlikely you’ll fit all three at any given time, keep them in mind.

Akarat’s Champion is the only skill that gives a meaningful DPS increase in your ENTIRE KIT at this point. Using it consistently is a problem without Zodiac. It’s a great tool, no doubt. Wrath generation, damage, utility – you name it!

More defense needed?

Defense is usually self-healing and/or damage reduction.

Life per Wrath Spent is a stat you SHOULD want on Weapon / Shield / Both. While it may not be the best stat for ultra tryhard GR (are you in that state yet?), this can also be obtained via the Wrathful passive. I’ve mentioned it many times above but I need to reiterate how important LpWs is – your build has a chance to just fall apart without it.

I have to mention Holy Cause here, since it provides self-healing and a damage boost.

Laws of Justice-Immovable Object is the ultimate defensive law. Use it when you sorely need defense to advance! It’s great until the end-game. It’s notable that the base aura is pretty sucky compared to Monk. It’s a FLAT INCREASE worth 1 roll of ALLRES.

It sounds a little weird but I feel that with Light’s set, at this point, you can’t really push for too much defense…

While you have a lot of defensive cooldowns in the form of Iron Skin-Steel Skin, or Akarat’s Champion-Prophet – they’re not very consistent. Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac helps with this, of course.

Divine Fortress isn’t that bad… but you need some high Strength, Armor, and block chance for you to see this shine.

More mobility needed?

Steed Charge-Endurance is recommended in the base build since none of the other runes matter at this point. Good for us since you can cover some crazy distance with this.

If you really want more speed, Lord Commander (Passive) helps reduce your CDR for more Steed Charges. Fervor (Passive) also helps with this.

Crusaders have their mobility locked behind item synergies so don’t sweat it if you feel a little slow currently. Norvald’s Set is your friend. Lights is pretty mobile already, so don’t go overboard for now… it’s not worth it yet.

(See: Speedfarming General | Crusader Speedfarming | Best Crusader Speedfarming)

Items to look for

Okay, now that the easy part of powering up is done, it’s time for the farmy bit. Here, I will be listing all the high-impact items you can equip, and how to get them (aside from drops).

Hate to remind you again, but if you don’t have Reaper’s Wraps, trash any torment Malthael for the plans and craft it. It’s very relevant for the Light’s set early game.

Blood ShardsDeath's BreathClassics

Using Blood Shards:

Bracer: This is first up. Gabriel’s Vambraces is what you’re after! It provides a damage boost as well as resource management. You also get Nemesis here. It’s also the easiest to obtain, highest impact, “single” legendary for our build.

Belt: Drops Sacred Harness and it’s a cute boost (by itself) – but it enables Hammer Jammers all on its own. Judgment roots WITHOUT a RUNE so you don’t need to have it on your rune bar. You also get fillers here like Goldwrap.

Legs: Hammer Jammers are obviously strong but useless without Sacred Harness.

Shield: while this is truly an RNG effort, shards and DB’s should be used to get Guard of Johanna. It has a really low chance to pop from here, though.

Other body pieces gives some low level fillers that don’t affect your game play too much to note (Aquila, Leoric’s, Archew’s, etc). Use your shards to bait for ancients from here on out!

Using Death’s Breath – Rare to legendary:

1H Flail for Johanna’s Argument. This is an extreme boost to power, doubling attack speed and damage. Tunnel into finding one! You can also get a bunch of consolation fillers here.

2H swords for Faithful Memory. This is a godlike dps increase. Godlike! If you’re wondering why we chase for Johanna’s first, its due to the high attack speed which gains us Life and CDR.

Crusader Shields while costing only 25 shards to gamble for – we should also be doing a double sided effort with Death’s Breath, too, trying to get Guard of Johanna.

The weapons for Light’s are set in stone. You can look for the all important speedy Norvald’s Set which are a 2H Flail and a Crusader Shield.

The Classics: Good for any type of newer character, and even the most battle-hardened of builds.

Ring of Royal Grandeur: “Break” your 6-piece to make space for a good filler item!

Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac

Reaper’s Wraps: Kill Malthael for the plans – and craft it! A legit early boost with no RNG reliance.

Accessory Sets: Focus–Restraint or Traveler’s Pledge. Completing any of these 2-sets is a vast power jump. +100%++ is substantial for only 2 slots.

Convention of Elements: Good ‘ol CoE. Wear it, Kanai it, as a filler or till the end of time. Learning to maximize CoE in any build you choose is a turning point for higher GR’s.

Unity: Straight 50% damage reduction in the cube. Too bad you need two of ’em.

Goldwrap + Avarice + Boon of The Hoarder: I don’t care how many times I have to remind you about this combo. Be on the lookout. Avarice drops from ACT III bounties.

Might as well remind you about the 2 bounty rings here…

Ring of Royal Grandeur: is from ACT I bounties. Great for sneaking in filler items.
Avarice from Act III bounties, for speedfarming.

Bridging to the End-game

So you skipped a whole chunk of the powering up phase with the free set. Now what? Like I always say, “Speedfarming first before pushing GR’s”. So, convert what you have NOW to be as speedfarmy as possible, first.

Other Crusader Guides:

Check out our D3 Guide Directory for other resources.

Fresh 70 Crusader: Free set available! | No free set!
Getting the Free Set | Free Set 70 | Gaining Power! | Bridging to the End-game

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24 COMMENTS

  1. Fantastic guide, I’m a total newbie so really helped me understand all the mechanics and figure things out.

    One question though, what is recommended for powers to equip from the legendaries? I’m using the sweep build atm and about to start farming G32 rifts for gem lvling. Finding no difficulty but can be killed if I’m lazy or not paying attention.

    • Sorry I found it, didn’t see it under the menu. For anyone looking it’s under Roland Woe’s. So I guess I’m farming for items (Golden Flense and Denial) but should I equip them or just use their powers and equip a different weapon/shield?

  2. Why no Iron Skin in the “Season Journey Chapter 4: Getting 6 piece” build? Sweep Attack instead? How does that help with Thorns?

  3. I think I might be missing something here. This is my first season and I’m still figuring out how certain things adjust the offense/defense/recovery numbers. I’m just about set to go for Chapter IV completion and I was comparing my stats to where your stats are going in to completing the Level 20 GR and I’m pretty much lined up in each stat except my damage is only at 16000 and you say your damage is at 19000. I’m geared pretty much exactly how you suggest, however I already have the Belt of the Trove. Everything non-invoker has strength and Thorns and I just don’t understand 3000 damage difference.

    I’ve got a pretty solid yellow dagger and have slotted everything with a Diamond. Should I be willing to upgrade to a different weapon or slide some Rubies into some slots instead? At what point do I jump out of the suggested setup suggestions and focus on more damage?

    • Damage numbers don’t matter for the most part – IGNORE SHEET DAMAGE for the purposes of D3 (in 99.99% of builds) – it’s near meaningless. Especially for a thorns build, the “damage” stat is extremely useless as it does not take into account thorns in any way shape or form. You have ZERO chance of failure with Belt of the Trove.

  4. I love these fresh 70 guides!
    One technical difficulty – Have tried several reload / clear cache options, and I am still seeing the Season 12 version of this guide.
    Is anyone else experiencing this problem too?

  8. Amazing build for fresh 70, I couldn’t believe how potent it is with full set of yellow only, I was doing T1 GR, and it felt like a walk in the park, guardian died right away. I was lucky to pick up the Boyarsky’s Chip in that GR, and it’s even more potent now I am sure.

    Thank you so much for writing this guide, it truly is amazing.

  12. From 2.4.2 Patch Notes:

    Thorns of the Invoker

    (6) Set Bonus
    The 800% Thorns damage dealt to the first enemy hit can now benefit from +% Physical Damage

    This should make Doombringer a viable alternative to Pig Sticker.

    • we’re fixing our site right now to correct the bugs we got after changing our site’s theme… but apparently some pages were reverted to older guides. will fix this in a couple of days. really sorry about this. for now, you can see our build in Dfans/TeamBRG.

  15. Used this guide and leveled to 70 in a matter of hours.
    Hit 70 and found a Gyrfalcons Foote to cube, that along with aquila curiass i never spend wrath. Pretty boss right now

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