Diablo 3: Season 24 Crusader Aegis of Valor Fist of the Heavens/Heaven’s Fury Build for Patch 2.7.1

This is one of the last guides I’m going to do before Season 24. I probably won’t make one for the Necromancer just because I don’t have a lot of interest in one. But I have played around with the Aegis of Valor set and figured it would be good to do a write up. It is a build that will be getting nerfed in the coming patch 2.7.1 but with Ethereals, there will be a variation to make it work, which is the build I’m presenting here.

Legendary Items

• Aegis of Valor (helmet, gloves, boots, chest, shoulders)
  • (2) Attacking with Fists of the Heavens empowers you, allowing Heaven’s Fury to deal 125% increased damage for 5 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times. – This aspect got nerfed in patch 2.7.1 and it loses the multiplicative damage for Heaven’s Fury.
  • (4) Hitting with Fist of the Heavens returns 5 Wrath and reduces damage taken by 1% for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 50 times. – This is primarily how you will reduce your damage.
    
  • (6) Increase the damage of Fist of the Heavens and Heaven’s Fury by 20,000%. – You will want to use both skills, especially to make yourself less squishy.
    

• Captain Crimson’s Trimmings (belt, pants) – Mostly for the resource and cooldown reduction as well as improved defense and offense.
• Bracer of Fury (bracers) – Heaven’s Fury deals 342% increased damage to enemies that are Blinded, Immobilized, or Stunned. (Crusader Only) – You will want to use Shield Glare to get your Blind off and improve your Heaven’s Fury damage.
• Fate of the Fell (2-handed flail/cube) – Heaven’s Fury gains two additional rays and has its damage increased by 473%. (Crusader Only) [375 – 500]% – This boosts up your Heaven’s Fury damage big time and helps clear out large areas.
• Khassett’s Cord of Righteousness (belt/cube) – Fist of the Heavens costs 40% less Wrath and deals 163% more damage. (Crusader Only) [130 – 170]% – There’s not a lot of ways to scale Fist of Heavens but this is one of them.
• Darklight (1-handed flail) – Fist of the Heavens now casts twice and deals 874% more damage. (Crusader Only) [800 – 1000]% – This is another way to improve your Fist of Heaven’s damage.
  
• Shield of Fury (offhand) – Each time an enemy takes damage from your Heaven’s Fury, it increases the damage they take from your Heaven’s Fury by 26%. This effect stacks up to 10 times. (Crusader Only) [25 – 30]% – Helps to increase your Heaven’s Fury damage.
• Endless Walk (ring/amulet) – Since you are channeling your damage by standing still periodically, the Endless Walk set makes for a good way to reduce damage as you are rushing through foes.
  • • While moving, damage taken is reduced by up to 50%.
    • While standing still, damage dealt is increased by up to 100%.
  • The Compass Rose (ring)
  • The Traveler’s Pledge (amulet)
• Ring of Royal Grandeur (ring/cube) – A must have simply to use Captain Crimson’s Trimmings along with 5 pieces of Aegis of Valor.
• Unity or Convention of Elements (ring) – I’ve found that this build can be very squishy which is why I suggest a Unity as well. Another consideration would be an Obsidian Ring to help keep up Akarat’s Champion.

This variant is used since Ethereals invalidates the more popular  version with Norvald’s Fervor. On the bright side, you aren’t forced to keep up Steed Charge any longer, which makes the build slower but a little less chaotic.

For Ethereals, my choice is Khalim’s Will because of the Wrath Regeneration and life per hit. I found this version of the build with the gear recommendations less Wrath starved  so I wanted to make it slightly less squishy with the sketchy uptime on Laws of Valor.

The legendary power of choice here for me is either Darklight or Fate of the Fell. The positive is that all three weapons are 1-handers which allow you to do more damage and get more cooldown from Fervor.

Legendary Gems

• Bane of the Trapped – More damage. Also, you will cause some CC through frequent blinding of enemies through Shield Glare.
• Bane of the Stricken – To help with single target damage.
• Gogok of Swiftness – To help with uptime on Steed Charge, Shield Glare, Laws of Valor and Akarat’s Champion as well as some dodge.

Active Skills

• Fist of the Heavens: Fissue – Functions partly as a generator from the 4 piece and will be used to help buff your Heaven’s Fury and increase your damage reduction from your 4 piece bonus.
• Heaven’s Fury: Fire of Heavens – Changes Heaven’s Fury into a spender rather than cooldown ability. But it’s a very heavy cost. So you’ll be using this as a finisher after hitting enemies with Fist of the Heavens.
• Steed Charge: Endurance – Without Norvald’s Fervor, you will be significantly slower. So this should help with your uptime.
• Shield Glare: Zealous Glare – Besides applying a blind for the bonus damage for Heaven’s Fury through your bracers, this ability also helps provide some wrath back.
• Laws of Valor: Unstoppable Force – This should help minimize the cost of both Heaven’s Fury and Fist of the Heavens. Keep this up as much as possible.
• Akarat’s Champion: Prophet – Cheat death, armor bonus, wrath regeneration and increased damage. Again, keep this up as much as possible.

Passive Skills

• Fervor – Since Ethereals will be all one handers, you can use this for the extra cooldown that you’ll need.
• Lord Commander – Mostly for the cooldown to Steed Charge after losing Norvald’s Fervor.
• Long Arm of the Law – To help keep up your Laws of Valor.
• Holy Cause – Increases you damage and helps to heal you.
• Finery – More strength for your sockets.

Followers

Enchantress is my #1 choice here for the cooldown reduction, extra armor and cheat death. You could get a 3rd cheat death via Indestructible as a passive, but I would only allow it if I get a good Ethereal. A Templar also can be useful here for resource regeneration and healing but not necessary. I prefer the additional cooldown wherever I can get it.

Final Thoughts

While the upcoming nerf sucks, it’s not going to be a build killer. The Ethereals will help rearrange the meta for Aegis of Valor since they’ll be BiS and help give some damage back. With that in mind and the damage nerf to Heaven’s Fury, I feel that Fist of the Heavens becomes more important to this build especially with the two supporting pieces of gear. Usually, the builds for Aegis of Valor either choose Heaven’s Fury or Fist of the Heavens for selecting the gear since most people use Norvald’s Fervor. The nerf and Ethereals provide a little more incentive to try both setups.

What I like about this build compared to the Norvald’s Fervor with Heaven’s Fury version is that it’s less awkward to play. The two support pieces for Fist of the Heavens make maintaining Wrath much easier and it’s something I want for the damage reduction whereas Norvald’s Fervor forces you into a play style that requires turning Steed Charge on all the time, which makes the game play sketchy.

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