Here's the text of the progression section of the video for my Fire Crusader Guide, the video is taking longer than expected so I wanted to at least get this out to you guys for those of you just starting out with fire crusaders for the time being.Normal to T1 ProgressionAt this level of progression you really can't get by without the use of a primary wrath generating attack.
There are a few choices when it comes to fire based attacks for the Crusader Class.
Punish - Roar
Slash - Carve
Slash - Crush
It's not really a big difference in which skill you decide to go with and you can even use other skills available as a generator in this slot.
But if you were playing with efficieny in mind I prefer slash /w the carve rune.
Second slot is Fist of the Heavens, Heaven's tempestThis is our main damage wrath expendor and is what provides us with the majority of our damage.
The initial attack does 545% weapon damage followed by a fire cloud that ticks for 100% damage every second, for 5 seconds as well as an AOE attack that shoots fire bolts across the map that deal 255% weapon damage.
Third slot is Steed Charge, NightmareWith the recent changes to steed charge in 2.05, the duration and cooldown of this skill has been greatly improved upon and because of this a lot of the other runes for this skill are now viable.
The rune of choice here is Nightmare, it provides another source of damage in the form of fire across the ground we touch while steed charge is activated.
It also serves as our mobility skill that allows us to cover ground as well as escape bad situations.
Fourth slot is shield Glare, zealous glare.At the earlier stages of progression, shield glare /w zealous glare has enormous value as it allows us to generate 9 wrath per enemy hit as well as provide us a form of crowd control that lasts 4 seconds.
Later on you will be replacing this skill as your gear progresses, but it is very effective in the beginning.
Fifth slot is provoke, charged up.Provoke is the only wrath generating ability that the Crusader class has. It generates a base wrath of 30 as well as an additional 5 wrath per enemy taunted.
There are many good rune choices here, but my rune of choice is Charged Up.
Even though Charged Up is not as effective as previous patches due to it's mechanics being changed, it's still additional damage you can inflict and there aren't really any offensive choices to go with.
Last but not least FireStarterAkkarat's Champion in patch 2.05 has been changed to now give 35% additional damage as well as 5 bonus wrath per second, for 20 seconds.
Our rune of choice and the skill that the fire crusader is built around is FireStarter.
FireStarter inflicts a 460% Damage attack over 3 seconds, everytime you deal damage, or in other words roughly 150% damage per second for 3 seconds.
The reason why this skill is so powerful is the fact that you can stack this 150% damage per second over the course of a fight with most of your skills/items that cause damage.
At this point of progression however, it is not the core of our damage output as the cooldown is very long for akarat's champion without the 6 piece bonus and near max'd coold down reduction.
However I've decided to include it into the build even at lower progression so that new players to the build can start to get a feel for this skill.
PassivesThese are the ideal passives pretty much from beginning to end and will not change unless you are switching to a 2hander.
1. Holy Cause
2. Wrathful
3. Finery
4. Fervor
They are pretty self-explanatory, Holy Cause increases damage by 10%, Wrathful provides us with sustain with life per wrath, Finery gives a huge str bonus nearly double what it was last patch, and the newly re-designed fervor is absolutely amazing for this build and more so later on in progression.
This post was edited by MannerCookie on May 24 2014 04:55pm