Multiboxing 3x Crusaders + Monk

Decided to start a new topic about this since it received a lot of attention from the ones that were already doing 4x Crusaders but wanted to add a monk to the mix for efficiency and scaling up in difficulty. Since the gameplay changes quite a bit, I think its better to keep it in its own topic. For starters, this is by far the strongest combo I've ever tried so far. Done correctly, u can literally faceroll any difficulty without the need of running around, kiting, etc. just facetank and destroy everything. Good old smash buttons and kill stuff.

Also, this is very simple and not very gear dependant as other builds but obviously u will require specific legendaries if u want to faceroll the highest difficulties. As a reference, I'm not using a single piece of the AKKHAN set and I'm doing T5 very fast, with yellow rings gloves and amulets. Been doing 4x Crusaders for a while and kept thinking on how would I add a monk and make it go seamless with the skills in the party so I dont have to create weird configs and use 10 keys to control everything. Well, it wasn't hard at all after all and the result was surprisingly good.

Lets start with the Crusaders. The build is a no wrath generator build based on Fissure as main attack, only doing Lightning damage:

Crusader #1
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...YT!gaeS!bZYYaY

Crusader #2 and #3
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...Rf!gaeS!bZYYYY

Crusader #2 and #3 will round robin permanently Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force for the 50% wrath cost reduction. Also they round robin Judgement Resolved. All 3 Crusaders need enough cooldown reduction in order to have those skills available as often as possible. 35% should be enough to have perma Laws of Valor, but I suggest u try to get a little over 40% so the rest of skills are available often.

The only mandatory item here will prolly be Reaper Wraps since u dont have a Wrath generator. Without it, u will run out of wrath constantly. Captain's set and Aughild's will help with CDR and survivability. Fate of the Fell will increase damage too, so keep those items I mind if u wanna go up to T4-T6.

Now lets talk about the Monk which is prolly the key component here and what actually lets u go up to T6 very easy. A support monk can add a ton of damage and survivability to the whole party. Monks got screwed in RoS and so far, they only shine if they support. Used correctly, it will keep your party alive always and help melt everything very fast.

I'm using a no spirit generation build here too which simplifies everything:

Monk
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...RP!bfUV!YYZacb

Yes, I have a generator skill but not for spirit generation but because I need an attack skill there so the monk doesn't run around when I'm casting Fissures, but we will talk about that later. Very simple build but with 1 key element which is Epiphany and Guiding Light passive. These 2 skills have an amazing synergy. They will give u infinite spirit but also provide huge amount of healing for your party and up to 30% damage. With enough health glove bonus, your party will be literally immortal.

So basically the monk casts Cyclone Strike Implosion to pull the whole screen to your party, then Inner Sanctuary Forbidden palace to lock them in place and get debuffed and then u cast Exploding Palm on a few mobs. A couple seconds later and everything blows up. CDR is key here since all of this works as long as u have Epiphany up to spam your skills and heal your party. I've tried with 50% CDR and didn't like it. Right now I'm at 67% and it's just amazing. I can spam Inner Sanctuary and I'm only have like 5 secs of downtime with Epiphany.

Strongarm Bracers are not mandatory but sure help a lot to clear white mobs. There are also specific legendaries that help this monk build a lot:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/the-fist-of-azturrasq
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/keke...eakable-spirit
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/the-minds-eye
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/halcyons-ascent
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/stone-of-jordan
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/sun-keeper
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/sledge-fist

The Fist of Az'turrasq is prolly the best item u can get for this kind of build. The damage it adds to the Explosion Palm explosion is huge. Killing a white mob can literally blow up an elite pack because of the chain reaction. Kekegis is nice because its the only helm with CDR and also gives u free casts. I use a Minds Eye and do great since I have Inner Sanctuary up very fast, the regen I get + Epiphany is just perfect. Halcyon Ascent is amazing too for the CDR, elite damage/reduction and CC. Sledge Fist is nice, but IMHO not that great anymore. A Fist of Az'turrasq + Sunkeeper are much better choices for monk weapons.

Stack CDR as high as possible, Physical Damage and Elite Damage. That will clear up packs extremely fast. Stone of Jordan with Physical damage and high elite damage is BiS.

Critical Hit Chance and Damage are not needed. CDR, Vitality, armor, resistances and health glove bonus are. I try to craft my armor with a Barb or Crusader so I get Strength instead of Dex. Try to get rolls with Armor and Vit, and no All Resistances. Since single element resistances can go up to 160 and all res only to 100, I rather have Armor and a single resistance as a secondary roll and use it with the One with Everything passive to boost my resistances a lot higher. It's fairly easy to get up to 2000 all res without having a single piece with all res. Only gems recommended here are diamonds. For armor and weapons.

I don't find CC that important here. I rather go with the raw damage approach. Kill everything fast so u dont need CC.

Gameplay

Now that we cleared the builds and gear, lets go into playstyle of the mixed party. For once, this will be mainly melee. The fact u added a monk will add certain limitations to your range. Sure u can always range mobs with Fissure but it will beat the purpose of this build since the monk will not add much value that way. The idea here is get everything on top of your party, debuff it and melt it. Everything tight and close together to maximize damage. A single Exploding Palm explosion will clear up as many mobs as there are together.

I'll go 1 by 1 all the skills I have in my bar, keybinds and how I use them, in the exact order I use them:

Key 1: This is used for Heaven's Fury on the Crusaders and Cyclone Strike Implosion on the monk. I didn't remap this key. I just press 1 to get everything close to me. I don't care about the lightning, that's just additional damage. My focus is only to have all the mobs I want to kill right next to me, so I use it as many times as I need to get everything in range not minding Heaven's Fury.
Key 3: This one casts several skills and has round robins. When I press 3, I cast Inner Sanctuary on my monk, cast Shield Glare on Crusader #1 and Judgement on Crusader #2 or #3. Judgement on #2 and #3 is in round robin so I have it more often. When I press 3 mobs are locked in place with Inner Sanctuary (slowed/debuffed), blinded and rooted.
Left Click: main attack is Fissure so I cast a few Fissure on top of whatever was pulled in front. Monk will just attack melee and I picked a long range skill so it doesn't teleport much around (Epiphany gives teleport ability). Will try Crippling Wave Breaking Wave for the additional 10% damage, but if it teleports too much, I'll go back to Deathly Reach.
Key 2: No remaps here as well. It will broadcast 2 to all the party so it will cast Provoke on Crusaders to get some Wrath back, add some damage, and also Exploding Palm on the monk. I just target a few mobs here and there and cast it on them.

That is enough to clear white mobs in less than 2 secs. Even elite packs will blowup very fast.

Key 4: It will only cast Laws of Justice Decaying Strenght on Crusader #1. Since I don't have enough CDR to have it up all the time nor a forth Crusader to round robin it, I use it on demand. If things get tricky and I'm getting hit hard, I press 4 and I'm able to tank a lot more for 10 secs.
Key 5: Used for round robin of Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force for Crusader #2 and #3. Have a macro to cast it every 10 secs or manually press 5 every 10 secs so u have it up all the time.
Key 6: Used for Epiphany on the monk. Again, press this thing every time u have Epiphany available or have a macro to do it for u. I have a Razer keyboard/mouse which is 100% legal AFAIK and let the software take care of this part.

Right Click: If packs have vortex, frozen, etc. I just cast Akarat's Champion and be done with it. No remaps here as well. It will cast Mantra of Conviction too.

Tried to reduce the amount of keymaps to the minimum and just have the same keys broadcast to the whole party. So basically I go close to whatever I wanna kill, press 113222 while using my main attack and watch things melt. If things try to escape, press 1 again and 3 to lock them up.

Rift Guardians are not a big of deal either. With the damage reduction u get from Inner Sanctuary and Laws of Justice, u can literally facetank them and not die, not to mention the huge amount of constant healing Epiphany gives. Every single monk skill, no matter which one, even attacks, will heal your whole party. If u have a high health glove bonus, it's almost impossible to die since Epiphany also makes the monk Immune to CC, so it can keep the heals going on forever. That's why it's so important to have as much CDR as possible with the monk so u keep those heals coming and Inner Sanctuary up all the time.

That's pretty much it. Hope it helps. Tried to kept it as simple as possible without too complex stuff. Just smash 3 buttons and kill stuff. T6 will prolly need AKKHAN sets for my 3 Crusaders or a little more DPS at least. Right now my Crusaders have 900k dps and 9m+ toughness and are doing T5 smooth without issues. The occasional dead every now and then only, but at a very good pace.

Nothing beats the feeling of a tank just rolling thru everything

Bookmarked :D

very well made guide will definitely try this weekend

I've tried 3 wd 1 monk combo and definitely agree with you. you do need some type of "force stand" skill when mixing a monk due to its all melee skills.

I did try 3Dh strife/Tempest rush monk that was a pretty interesting combo too.

I am just waiting for the huge monk buff in 2.1 hopefully no big changes in all these "party buff" skills

Quick update to my build after some fine tuning:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...YT!gaWS!bZZYaZ

Basically switched to Heaven's Fury Ascendancy instead of Thou Shall Not Pass. Eventho it's Holy damage which I'm not stacking at all, it does a LOT more damage than the lightning rune. Bottom line, the lightning rune SUCKS, even with 3x Fate of the Fell, the damage seems ridiculous compared to Ascendance. Maybe it's bugged or something. I went from using Heaven's Fury as a low secondary damage skill that I was even considering to replace, to start building around it. Now I'm trying to get 3x Eberli Charo shields so I can spam it. Also the aim of Ascendance seems to work a lot better, specially for single targets. Beams tend to stack more for some reason while the Lightning beams wander around a lot. Dunno, something is off with the lightning rune.

Also removed any kind of healing passive on my Crusaders and switched to Holy Cause for the 10% additional damage. Obviously I wouldn't recommend this unless your monk has a decent amount of Healing Globes bonus and 65%+ CDR so u have good healing for your party. Laws of Justice Immovable Object on Crusader #1 gives more survivablity than Decaying Strength. It pretty much doubles my toughness for 10 secs which is nice.

Now, I gave Fire and Darklights a fair try and I went back to Fate of the Fell with Ascendance. For Fire I had trifecta Magefists and Cindercoats so I had 30%+ Fire damage. Damage was higher but still I didn't feel it faster. Lightning felt smoother and faster in general. Maybe is pure perception, but I believe the arcs damage from the Fissure adds a lot in a party with several Crusaders. Solo, no doubt, Fire seems the way to go, but in a party with Crusaders, lightning seems much better choice IMO.

I was lucky and got 2x Darklights in a single rift and since I had one already, gave them a try. I fell in love fast with it since the attack speed and CDR bonus from Fervor was amazing, not to mention the 2x Fissures per cast which was procing almost everytime. I was gonna stick to Darklights but then I tested Heaven's Fury Ascendance and I can't ignore the huge damage I was getting from it. Sure, I can spam more Fissures and have Akarat Champion available more often but I'm missing 6 Heaven's Fury beams that cost no wrath and do insane damage. Also the DPS from Fate of the Fell doesn't come from IAS which usually is not actually real DPS cause not all skills benefit from it. I was lucky to get a Fate of the Fell that has 2800+ dps and I can even reroll it for higher %damage. Going back to FotF was a no brainer for me.

Considered also going with full Akkhan set but the bonus is not that great IMHO. With a monk, white mobs die FAST, so Akarat Champ is overkill. I just need it for elites and bosses, and not even for all of them. With enough CDR, I won't need it. Losing Aughild's and Captain's just to cut Akarat Champ cooldown by 50% doesn't seem like a great idea compared to the massive loss of toughness and dps. I rather go with Aughild + Captain + 2-4 piece Akkhan than 6 piece Akkhan.

Also using again a 2H weap has the benefit of switching to The Furnance without losing the shield. This really helps for Rift Guardians.

PS: Doing T6 at a comfortable pace.

Man I really need to get back to this game. Your observations match mine regarding heavens fury , even without fate of the fell.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

Agreed on the points above. Using 3 crusaders with no fate of the fells and burning through T5 with no issue at all. Will bump it to T6 when I get that weapon on all as the damage boost is massive.

Once I get 3x Eberli Charo shields, I'll try Holy and see how it is compared to Lightning since Heaven's Fury is already doing a crapload of damage. Might as well just switch to Holy to boost that damage and ignore the Fissure arcs. I'll post my findings once I get those shields which seem rare cause I haven't seen even 1.

I have 3x Eberli Charo shields and 3x FoTF, 6 piece set bonus and I stack holy. It's a no brainer. I still use Fissure, it's crazy good with 3x crusaders since it can arc among all the fissures, even with no lightning damage bonus. My Crusaders have 35-40% CDR, my monk has 60%.

My video from a while back that shows the gameplay - down below.

And this was T6 with a poorly geared monk, my monk is way better geared now. All my guys have Unity to split damage. My monk has a ton of +physical and +elite damage, and uses the freeze sword and freeze gloves just in case.

Monk: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/K.../hero/30050343

So it makes T6 rifts very easy. I'll try and get another video together tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR7MBspIVzs

That's exactly what my gameplay looks like except I don't have any FotF's so I play on Torment 5 until I get those.
I was thinking with 2.1 and tiered rifts. Can drop a Crusader for the CC WD that perma fears everything is damage is an issue.

It's a very fun and smooth build :)

I've tried the CC WD and it adds survivability but not damage. At least not compared to the monk which is a problem for T6 where mobs have a ton of HP. Monk is a must IMO for T6. CC WD lets u kill stuff safe, but it's too slow and boring. A monk adds a lot of efficiency and also survivability, which makes it a better choice for higher torment difficulties. Exploding Palm alone, beats ANYTHING a WD can add in terms of damage. Nothing comes even close to the damage that single skill adds to the party.

Yesterday I finally got my Fist of Az'Turrasq and I was so damn lucky to get one with 8% CDR and 96% increase for Exploding Palm. Just perfect. Added a socket and I'm at 103% elite damage. Elites just blow apart easily when white mobs die. Really happy with my setup. Just need those shields to make it perfect.

I'm a dummy and salvaged the fists when I initially got them.. I should really run 4x monk just to get one.

I got 1 when RoS came out but I gave it to my main account which I don't really play monk. Now its bound and can't move it. Been playing 4x monks for a long time to get another one and nothing. Played my mixed party 1 hour yesterday and there it was. RNG I guess.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Devile

I got 1 when RoS came out but I gave it to my main account which I don't really play monk. Now its bound and can't move it. Been playing 4x monks for a long time to get another one and nothing. Played my mixed party 1 hour yesterday and there it was. RNG I guess.

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Awesome, I have been trying to get that fist no luck so far. I had like 8 crystal fists or whatever they are, crazy. I tried doing 4 monks to increase my chances, but they really suck. I can do like torment 2 maybe with 4 monks super slow. I much prefer just doing it with the crusaders and 1 monk at t6. Although I still didn't get the fist.

Finally managed to get full Akkhan sets for my 3 Crusaders and try the shotgun build, the results were incredible. I don't even have all my gear with Holy / Heaven's Fury damage and this build makes my Jade WDs look pretty bad. I'm around 1m dps and T6 elites go down VERY fast. I'm only at 44%+ CDR which gives me 5 secs downtime for Akarat's Champion which is ok. Since my main attack is Heaven's Fury, I have 1 free skill slot which I used for Shield Glare and Judgement Resolved on the Crusaders that didnt have them. This gives me a ton more CC and damage than before.

My current build is:

Crusader #1
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...RT!gaWS!cYaYYZ

Crusaders #2 and #3
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...Rf!gaWS!cYaYYY

Monk
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...RP!bfUV!cYZacb

Only difference between Crusaders are the Laws. Round robin for Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force, Reaper Wraps and Akarat Champion take care of the Wrath problems. Only time were I can have some problems is with the Rift Guarding but nothing to worry. Once I get more CDR, RG won't be a problem.

What's so amazing about this is the huge huge damage difference compared to Fist of the Heavens Fissure. It's day and night difference. FotH Fissure is a great skill but u need to wait for stuff to die since it ticks and it may not be long time but compared to Holy shotgun build, its a noticeable difference. White mobs die in 1-2 hits and elites die extremely fast with Exploding Palm.

As I mentioned before, freeing 1 skill (FotH Fissure) let me use Shield Glare and Judgement Resolved in all 3 Crusaders so my damage is even higher. With the monk is amazing synergy cause once I pull mobs, they are right in front of my Crusaders so the 3 beams of Heaven's Fury hit everything for max damage and on top of that, they are blind/rooted I have 20% more crit chance, they get 20% more damage from Shield Glare and 30% more damage from Inner Sanctuary, besides Mantra of Conviction damage. Things die way way faster than with my previous builds, even Jade WDs.

An additional benefit from using the Akarat set and enough CDR is that I can use the Prophet rune for Akarat Champion and my toughness more than doubles. My weakest Crusader has 10m toughness and with AC goes up to 23m. But if that's not enough, I can cast Laws of Justice Immovable Object and the same Crusader will go up to 40m toughness for 10 secs. And with my current CDR, it's just 7 secs of downtime so I can use it very often.

By far this is my strongest combo now. Been playing a lot with it and I love it. Far more comfortable than my WDs which also do T6 very good but this is even better. Love being immune to CC and not care about frozen, knockback, nightmarish, etc. and all that crap that is very annoying for multiboxers. My monk is at 72.95% CDR so it's also immune to everything too. Party runs very smooth and I very rarely die.

The only problem with this party and that applies to my previous build, is Epiphany. Its all about how you position and attack mobs so your monk doesn't teleport all over the place. It takes some time to get used to not range mobs but always pull them and only then attack when they are right in front of u, never a few feet away or your monk will desync. Also, with Holy shotgun multibox, is more important to have all Crusaders in sync because the AoE is a cone right in front of u, not like Fissure where u could cover more ground with arcs hitting more mobs. Takes a while to be more careful and not go all crazy spamming skills. But in general, a very solid build and the best I've tried.

I'll stick to this combo for 2.1. I'm going to start farming keys and will proly do T6 ubers tonight and see how well it goes. I still have a lot of room to improve my Crusaders. My monk is pretty much finished already. I want more DPS and elite damage.

Did 2 rounds of Ubers and I'm extremely happy with how things went down. On my first try I simply destroyed all but Diablo. They literally took like a minute only each. Diablo did kill me a few times cause I tried to facetank it and it was just too much damage when he spawned the other bosses. Once I changed my strat, it went down fairly easy. Next try was a lot smoother and didn't die with Diablo at all. I'm very happy with this setup. I did change my Crusader #1 so it could use a Furnace to speed up things. Went for Firestarter instead of Prophet for Akarat champion and Fist of the Heavens Heaven's Tempest instead of Heaven's Fury, in order to have a higher proc for the Furnace. Just 1 Furnace and they went down so fast.

And is not just about the damage and the toughness but the CC u get from 3 Shield Glares. Ubers, Bosses and RGs can't be pulled and quite a few of them move a LOT. Being able to cast chain Shield Glares makes a huge difference when killing these mobs. U can chain blind them and have them locked in place so u can spam your skills. Also it cancels their attacks which is very important against Ubers, specially Diablo that can be very annoying. Zoltun Kulle is very easy/fast to kill this way. I blind him once and he is dead most of the time. He rarely teleports.

Same goes for the key wardens that wander around or have attacks than deal a ton of damage. Chain blind and they go down without being able to cast much or escape.

With EP nerf are you sure this group is still viable?

This is all based on 2.0.6 only. Besides, we don't really know what will happen on 2.1 live. PTR keeps changing and they might change their minds, who knows. If EP remains the way it is in the current iteration of PTR, will have to make changes for sure.

The EP nerf is a huge blow to this build. The damage bonus the monk brings to the party are still awesome and Cyclone Strike is definitely a huge bonus but 4x Crusader may be just as effective.

Other builds are looking amazing though such as 4x Witch Doctor - pet doctor.

Yes and no. EP nerf is huge in terms of damage, specially for Greater Rifts where mobs have a ton of health. Still, monk as a support is amazing. Cyclone Strike alone can multiply your efficiency by a LOT and since Crusaders are not really great for AoE, u will still need something to group mobs to remain efficient. Sure, u can always go with Condemn Vacum but the range is pretty bad and it has horrible cooldown. Also the debuffs and buffs are still there so is not GG for support monks yet.

Maybe just switch to a DPS monk build, keep some support skills and see how that works, I dunno. I'm gonna wait 1-2 iterations of the PTR before investing time on it. Already working on my wizards to see if I can make them work in 2.1.