Last Updated:July 8, 2024|Change Log
Introduction
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LoN Thorns Bombardment Crusader was the META Crusader solo build back in Seasons 5 through 8. It was later outclassed by various set builds and more or less forgotten until Season 22 when it received massive buffs. With two separate multipliers added to The Mortal Drama and Belt of the Trove, the build's damage was buffed by approximately 23 Greater Rift tiers. This made LoN Bombardment quite strong again.
Compared to Akkhan/Invoker Bombardment, LoN Bombardment has a lot more flexibility in terms of items and skills, making the build much more pleasant to play and a lot better at speedfarming. With Season 23 LoN Bombardment found another niche where it can shine: No Six Piece Set Crusader leaderboard!
During Season 24, LoN Bombardment could make use of Ethereals unlike its Akkhan counterpart which allowed LoN Bombardment to pull ahead and claim the title of the strongest Bombardment build.
This is an Area Damage (AD) as well as a Thorns build, since Bombardment Barrels of Spikes interestingly benefits from both these mechanics. The setup is very easy to get going since you don't need any Critical Hit Chance or Critical Hit Damage rolls, but at the same time leaves a lot of room for gear hunt. Getting all items in Ancient quality with Thorns secondary rolls on everything is no easy task.
Can be Very Tanky ✔
Top tier Speedfarming Build ✔
Great at Utilizing Area Damage ✔
Can do Everything on the Move ✔
❌ Hard to Gear
❌ Inconsistent Cooldowns
❌ Limited Control Over your Damage
❌ Long and Boring Rift Guardian Fights
Core Setup
Items
- The Mortal Drama doubles the number of Bombardment impacts and increases its damage by 500%.
- Belt of the Trove casts a free Bombardment every 4 seconds and increases its damage by another 500%.
- Convention of Elements increases Physical damage by 200%.
- Akarat's Awakening reduces all cooldowns with each block, while Leoric's Crown straight up adds some extra Cooldown Reduction. With these items we have permanent Akarat's Champion and can cast Bombardment on every Convention of Elements rotation.
- Stone Gauntlets increase our Armor by 250% with no downside thanks to Akarat's Champion.
- Aquila Cuirass reduces incoming damage by 50%.
Season 32 Ethereals
Ethereals are powerful rare weapons that can only be found during Season 32. They were initially the Season 24 Theme. They have incredible stats, a random Legendary power, and a free passive for your class. Read our Ethereal Mechanics Guide for full details on how they work and our Ethereal Farming Guide to learn how to acquire them. What you should prioritize on them is the following:
- The Legendary Power
This build requires The Mortal Drama and either The Furnace, Blood Brother or Johanna's Argument to be functional. We need our Ethereal to roll one of these powers so we can cube the other. We also want a good roll on our Legendary power if it has a range. For speed content it is always helpful to have Ethereals with In-geom or Messerschmidt's Reaver powers, so keep those if you find them. - The Ethereal Itself
There are 3 different weapons available to us, each with its own benefits:- The Redeemer - This is the best Ethereal option providing +50% Damage to Demons and Undead (about 60% of enemies you find in Greater Rift are one of these two types) and also Holy Damage that can be utilized by variants with Stone of Jordan.
- Khalim's Will - This is the defensive option with its high Attack Speed and Life per Hit. It's also the best choice for Nephalem Rifts where damage is not needed and the Steed Charge reset is very welcome.
- Astreon's Iron Ward - This is the worst Ethereal as it doesn't give anything useful since Barrels of Spikes cannot crit.
- The Ethereal Stat Rolls
Each Ethereal comes with its own fixed set of powerful affixes. While some have a static value, many have a wide stat range. Since this is a Thorns build you only care about Cooldown Reduction roll and Undead/Demon damage on The Redeemer. - A Useful Passive
This is just icing on the cake because a fifth passive is not going to make or break your build. You're better off hunting for the things above. Check out the Passives section down below to see which ones you're looking for.
Global Stat Priorities
Get at least 60% Cooldown Reduction (CDR). Thanks to Akarat's Awakening there's no hard breakpoints but having more CDR makes your life easier. Make sure your defensive slots—Boots, Pants and Belt—have Vitality and Resistance to All Elements on them. Get around 40k Life per Hit (Weapon, Bracer, Rings, Helmet, Gloves). Your damage stats are: Physical Damage > Bombardment Damage > Area Damage > Thorns. Attack Speed is mostly useless as it only lets you stack Bane of the Stricken faster; you can get some in place of Strength at high Paragon. Critical Hit Chance & Damage are completely useless because they don't affect Thorns damage.
Assembling the Build
Item Stat Priorities
Gems
Skills
Passives
Paragon Points
Altar of Rites
Follower
Gameplay
Hardcore
Variants
Ethereals
If you don't have any Ethereal Item use In-Geom.
Concept
Bombardment is not the best build for Nephalem Rifts because the skill is quite slow and Belt of the Trove stops casting when there's no enemies on the screen. As a result you have to spend 1-2 seconds on each group of enemies, despite having enough damage to oneshot everything. In this variant we use Messerschmidt's Reaver to reset Bombardment cooldown and a bunch of movement skills to go faster.
This build is outclassed by AoV FotH Crusader in terms of speed, but as an upside you can play it without using the keyboard!
Gameplay
Spam all your movement skills and Bombardment, use Akarat's Champion Rally to reset Bombardment's cooldown.
If you feel very lazy, you can just let Belt of the Trove do all the heavy lifting. All you need to do is walk through the rift picking up gold and loot, pressing any buttons is purely optional.
Setups
If you lack damage, use Squirt's Necklace and replace Condemn or Provoke with Iron Skin Reflective Skin. In groups, you need to equip Nemesis Bracers and cube Avarice Band because you no longer have a follower.
Ethereals
If you don't have any Ethereal Item use In-Geom.
Concept
In Solo Speeds we use a Cooldown-centered version of the build with In-geom and Akarat's Champion Rally. For extra damage we equip Squirt's Necklace protected by St. Archew's Gage and Laws of Hope. Instead of an attack skill we use Steed Charge Endurance for more mobility. CDR is by far the most important stat for build. You need at least 65%+ to make the build work somewhat well, but don't stop there and try to get it all the way to 72%. Prioritize CDR over everything including Thorns, Ancient items and even Physical Damage!
Gameplay
Constantly spam, Laws of Hope and Iron Skin and Condemn. It's tempting to hold Iron Skin and only use it before Bombardment, but if you do that your Belt of the Trove procs will deal no damage. Hunt for elite packs to proc your In-Geom. When you enter the rift, just ride the horse until you find the first elite. Use Bombardment -> Rally -> Bombardment to kill it. From that point move through the rift using Bombardment and Belt of the Trove to kill trash and saving Akarat's Champion for the next elite pack.
Always pay attention to your Iron Skin and only use Bombardment when it's up!
When the Rift Guardian spawns look at your Convention of Elements. Use Iron Skin at the start of Lightning cycle and 3 seconds later double cast Bombardment. With 10 Squirt's Necklace stacks this combo should oneshot the Rift Guardian.
Setups
If you're low paragon and/or have many non-ancient items, toughness may become an issue. In that case switch to Akarat's Champion Prophet.
You can replace Lidless Wall with any Crusader Shield with Cooldown Reduction, Bombardment Damage and Thorns. This trade will cost you about 5% damage, but if you have a good crusader shield and bad Lidless Wall then it can be an upgrade. If you do this switch, the similar philosophy can be applied to Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan and Blackthorne's Jousting Mail.
Keep in mind that Stone of Jordan lets you use any element and not just Physical. Don't salvage Lidless Walls and Squirt's Necklaces just because they have 'wrong' element!
If you want to play this build in groups change Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan to Blackthorne's Jousting Mail, equip Convention of Elements instead of Unity, move Squirt's Necklace to the cube and equip The Flavor of Time.
Select Build Version
Ethereals
If you don't have any Ethereal Item use Pig Sticker.
Concept
This is the basic version of the build utilizing the Legacy of Nightmares ring set to include Bane of the Trapped.
Gameplay
With this build you follow a 16s rotation tied to your Convention of Elements. At the start of Lightning you need to activate Iron Skin and make a tight group of mobs with Condemn Vacuum. Couple seconds later, when the CoE buff is at 8 o'clock, use Bombardment. Move into Oculus Ring when it spawns and use Vacuum again to suck in more mobs.
This build uses Akarat's Awakening so you need to block enough attacks to reset your Akarat's Champion cooldown. Depending on the mobset you will have to stop and fight some trash to get extra blocks. When doing this you can use Iron Skin just for damage reduction as it will be back up in no time.
During the Rift Guardian Fight you need to use Condemn and run at least 15 yards away from the boss to proc Strongarm Bracers. Do this before or during every Physical.
To maximize your damage, sync up your Belt of the Trove and Convention of Elements. For that you need to drink a potion when your current element is 1s away from running out (CoE buff at 9 o'clock). Keep in mind that if you have no enemies around, Belt of the Trove will not fire, it will most likely desync and you'll have to do it again. The same will happen if you drink the potion at the wrong moment, so try to avoid panic potions. Changing zones also resets the internal cooldown of the belt, so you need to do it with the same timing (3s into any element).
Setups
At low Paragon you can make a super tanky version of this build by dropping Bane of the Trapped for Legacy of Dreams gem and using Justice Lantern plus Unity as your rings. This will cost you 38% of your damage but you will be virtually immortal.
Hellfire Amulet is the best necklace for this build but it can be very difficult to obtain. If you don't have it, your other options are Squirts Necklace for double damage during Shield Pylon, or Eye of Etlich for 30% reduced missile damage.
If you don't want to deal with the downside of Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan you can replace them with Heart of Iron. You will lose about 5% damage but now you can be lazy and just stand still.
At high Paragon (5,000+), you can change Akarat's Champion's rune from Prophet to Rally. With this setup you also need to get full Cooldown Reduction (including Enchantress' Prophetic Harmony and Lord Commander passive). This will let you double cast Bombardment on each Physical Convention of Elements cycle, provided you can reset your Akarat's Champion cooldown in time. You will lose about 30% toughness and "cheat death" effect but gain almost 50% damage.
Ethereals
If you don't have any Ethereal Item use Johanna's Argument.
Concept
In this version we use the Legacy of Dreams gem in order to include Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac with Blessed Hammer buffed by Johanna's Argument to proc it. Gabriel's Vambraces together with Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force let us keep Aquila Cuirass buff while spamming Blessed Hammer.
Compared to LoN version this build deals less damage but it's tankier and it procs more Life per Hit and stacks Bane of the Stricken much faster. It's also easier to gear because you can get away with less Cooldown Reduction.
Gameplay
The damage rotation is the same as the LoN version, but you are a lot busier in-between your CoE cycles. You need to constantly spam Blessed Hammer while stutter-stepping and keep up all your buffs. Only recast them when they are about to expire to avoid wasting Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac procs! Long Arm of the Law passive makes this buff management a lot easier but it's not required, so you can replace it with Indestructible or Holy Cause if you feel comfortable enough.
During the Rift Guardian Fight you can cast Iron Skin + Bombardment once or twice (depending on your Cooldown Reduction) off rotation to get in some extra damage.
Setups
Hellfire Amulet is the best necklace for this build but it can be very difficult to obtain. If you don't have it, your other options are Squirts Necklace for double damage during Shield Pylon, or Eye of Etlich for 30% reduced missile damage.
If you don't want to deal with the downside of Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan you can replace them with Blackthorne's Jousting Mail. You will lose about 5% damage but now you can be lazy and just stand still.
At very high Paragon (6000+), you can change Akarat's Champion's rune from Prophet to Rally. With this setup you also need to get full Cooldown Reduction (including Enchantress' Prophetic Harmony and Lord Commander passive). This will let you double cast Bombardment on each Physical Convention of Elements cycle, provided you can reset your Akarat's Champion cooldown in time. You will lose about 30% toughness and "cheat death" effect but gain almost 50% damage.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Thorns
Condemn Vacuum
Bombardment Barrels of Spikes
Belt of the Trove
Summary
- Put together the core items and level up the Legacy of Dreams gem.
- Stack at least 60% Cooldown Reduction.
- Cast Iron Skin Reflective Skin and Bombardment on Physical Convention of Elements cycles.
- Stack Area Damage, Physical Damage and Thorns.
- The monsters go "poof"
Dropping barrels full of spikes on top of monsters seems a bit impolite, but hey, it works!
Credits
Written by Northwar.
Contributions by mawbs.