2014-03-31, 03:19 AM
Now that my Crusader is max level, here are my overall thoughts:
The damage feels a bit weak at end game, especially compared to [MENTION=6037]Dark Link[/MENTION]'s Entropy, WHICH IS BROKEN ABUSING YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO USE PURE SPENDER
A lot of skills lack proper scaling. Basically anything that heals is a flat amount and isn't affected by Life on Hit, Life per Second, Life on Kill, or Health Globe Bonus. The exceptions are the passive Wrathful that takes 1% of Health Globe Bonus, and one rune on Blessed Shield that increases your Life per Second by 5% which is nothing. It's pretty hugely detrimental to the usefulness of a lot of these skills. I think Wrathful heal's too much to begin with though. It's something like 825 + 1%/Wrath, which flat out beats every other skill except Sweep Attack's Holy Shock which is around 2000/target.
Punish - Rebirth, Smite - Reaping, and Justice - Holy Bolt definitely need to be able to scale to be worthwhile. The amount they heal isn't that great, especially compared to max Paragon Life on Hit (around 4k) or even one piece of gear, which is usually around 2k.
Rebirth is something like 1600/2s when you Block. Not sure if it stacks, but that would help. There's a passive that gives 12395 when you block though so...? Which also doesn't scale with gear. The most dangerous damage is typically unblockable to begin with though.
Reaping stacks up to 4 times and is around 1600/2s again, you'd need a decent amount of IAS with a 1H even to meet the max stacks. Seems like it would be okay if you could maintain max stacks while spending, but you can't with the new limitations on IAS from gear.
Holy Bolt is just terrible, healing around 1600-2100 when you hit an enemy. It's hardly noticeable on myself when I don't even reach 300k HP, and Link's running nearly 600k.
Then there's all the dedicated defensives like Consecrate, or Law of Hope. It makes healing builds pretty useless, Monk is infinitely better at this.
The other things I noted are there's a distinct lack of elemental diversity. There's 4 fire generators (of which one is on Punish and the other 3 are on Slash) and 3 fire spenders when you don't include the cooldown skills. I think there's 3 more fire with cooldown and Akarat's Champion. To make matters worse, Sweep Attack's fire rune is bugged and doesn't deal its DOT properly. There's one ice spender for some reason. There's only one lightning generator and like six spenders.
I really enjoy Smite for some reason. I'd like Slash more if it were an actual slashing animation instead of a thrust which makes sense. Punish is a bit on the short side for duration, and lacks range. It isn't too great for utility for me thus far, though Roar + Quill Rats is insane. Justice is baaaaad.
Spenders seem okay, though there are a few bad runes in there that just don't make sense why anyone would ever want them. Shield Bash - One on One or Blessed Shield - Piercing Shield have negative synergy with themselves. AOE skills that force enemies away from their attack path don't make sense. I don't believe the Crusader has any dedicated 1v1 spenders either, except a different Shield Bash rune.
Otherwise, Shield Bash's charge is awesome. Shattered Shield, Shield Cross, and Pound are all pretty neat for their niches.
Sweep Attack's animation is really nice, though the element distribution is wrong. Fire, Physicalx3, Cold? Holy Shock is Physical? Gathering Sweep is fun, and I hope to get a Golden Flense one day.
Blessed Hammers lack a bit of power since they're so cheap, but they really shred low difficulty well.
Blessed Shield makes me feel free and democratic.
Fist of the Heaven's I've used the least. I'll need to try it some more.
I've also used Heaven's Fury - Fires of Heaven and it's amazing seeing 10m crits. Really expensive though.
Phalanx is terrible so far.
Nothing else in the spammable department to talk about. Haven't really messed a lot of with the CD skills. I take Shield Glare, Judgment, Law of Valor, and Provoke. Would like to be able to take Steed Charge, Consecrate, or Falling Sword but the utility on those other ones are too good to pass up.
The skill I enjoy the most though is Judgment - Resolved. +80% Critical Chance for 6 seconds every 20 seconds is pretty broken. Makes group play bursting bosses probably too good, especially with Law of Valor - Critical for its +100% Critical Damage. Trying to imagine 3 or 4 Crusaders running this, all spec'ing for 20% crit chance and full crit damage. Probably going to get nerfed because of this though unless elite CC resistance prevents the critical buff as well.
ALSO pineapple YOU LINK I SEE LOTS OF MARQUISE IN THERE.
Want to give me Malthael quest tomorrow so I can get my legendary and hopefully some Reaper's Fear?
The damage feels a bit weak at end game, especially compared to [MENTION=6037]Dark Link[/MENTION]'s Entropy, WHICH IS BROKEN ABUSING YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO USE PURE SPENDER
A lot of skills lack proper scaling. Basically anything that heals is a flat amount and isn't affected by Life on Hit, Life per Second, Life on Kill, or Health Globe Bonus. The exceptions are the passive Wrathful that takes 1% of Health Globe Bonus, and one rune on Blessed Shield that increases your Life per Second by 5% which is nothing. It's pretty hugely detrimental to the usefulness of a lot of these skills. I think Wrathful heal's too much to begin with though. It's something like 825 + 1%/Wrath, which flat out beats every other skill except Sweep Attack's Holy Shock which is around 2000/target.
Punish - Rebirth, Smite - Reaping, and Justice - Holy Bolt definitely need to be able to scale to be worthwhile. The amount they heal isn't that great, especially compared to max Paragon Life on Hit (around 4k) or even one piece of gear, which is usually around 2k.
Rebirth is something like 1600/2s when you Block. Not sure if it stacks, but that would help. There's a passive that gives 12395 when you block though so...? Which also doesn't scale with gear. The most dangerous damage is typically unblockable to begin with though.
Reaping stacks up to 4 times and is around 1600/2s again, you'd need a decent amount of IAS with a 1H even to meet the max stacks. Seems like it would be okay if you could maintain max stacks while spending, but you can't with the new limitations on IAS from gear.
Holy Bolt is just terrible, healing around 1600-2100 when you hit an enemy. It's hardly noticeable on myself when I don't even reach 300k HP, and Link's running nearly 600k.
Then there's all the dedicated defensives like Consecrate, or Law of Hope. It makes healing builds pretty useless, Monk is infinitely better at this.
The other things I noted are there's a distinct lack of elemental diversity. There's 4 fire generators (of which one is on Punish and the other 3 are on Slash) and 3 fire spenders when you don't include the cooldown skills. I think there's 3 more fire with cooldown and Akarat's Champion. To make matters worse, Sweep Attack's fire rune is bugged and doesn't deal its DOT properly. There's one ice spender for some reason. There's only one lightning generator and like six spenders.
I really enjoy Smite for some reason. I'd like Slash more if it were an actual slashing animation instead of a thrust which makes sense. Punish is a bit on the short side for duration, and lacks range. It isn't too great for utility for me thus far, though Roar + Quill Rats is insane. Justice is baaaaad.
Spenders seem okay, though there are a few bad runes in there that just don't make sense why anyone would ever want them. Shield Bash - One on One or Blessed Shield - Piercing Shield have negative synergy with themselves. AOE skills that force enemies away from their attack path don't make sense. I don't believe the Crusader has any dedicated 1v1 spenders either, except a different Shield Bash rune.
Otherwise, Shield Bash's charge is awesome. Shattered Shield, Shield Cross, and Pound are all pretty neat for their niches.
Sweep Attack's animation is really nice, though the element distribution is wrong. Fire, Physicalx3, Cold? Holy Shock is Physical? Gathering Sweep is fun, and I hope to get a Golden Flense one day.
Blessed Hammers lack a bit of power since they're so cheap, but they really shred low difficulty well.
Blessed Shield makes me feel free and democratic.
Fist of the Heaven's I've used the least. I'll need to try it some more.
I've also used Heaven's Fury - Fires of Heaven and it's amazing seeing 10m crits. Really expensive though.
Phalanx is terrible so far.
Nothing else in the spammable department to talk about. Haven't really messed a lot of with the CD skills. I take Shield Glare, Judgment, Law of Valor, and Provoke. Would like to be able to take Steed Charge, Consecrate, or Falling Sword but the utility on those other ones are too good to pass up.
The skill I enjoy the most though is Judgment - Resolved. +80% Critical Chance for 6 seconds every 20 seconds is pretty broken. Makes group play bursting bosses probably too good, especially with Law of Valor - Critical for its +100% Critical Damage. Trying to imagine 3 or 4 Crusaders running this, all spec'ing for 20% crit chance and full crit damage. Probably going to get nerfed because of this though unless elite CC resistance prevents the critical buff as well.
ALSO pineapple YOU LINK I SEE LOTS OF MARQUISE IN THERE.
Want to give me Malthael quest tomorrow so I can get my legendary and hopefully some Reaper's Fear?