Crusader/Strategy
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Overview
The Crusader is a strong generalist capable of fitting into many roles and positions and can be shaped to adapt to the team composition's needs. He has no particular strengths or weaknesses as far as resistances go, acting as a true jack-of-all-trades.
His main strengths are:
- Very strong rank flexibility.
- Extremely high HP and above-average DMG.
- High tanking potential and self-marking.
- Fits well into dancing parties.
- Strong recovery skills without any rank restrictions, restoring health, stress, and Light Meter.
- Potent camping skills that prevent Night-Time Ambush, heal even more stress, and remove mortality debuffs.
His main weaknesses are:
- Terrible base SPD, the slowest of all heroes.
- No debuffs or DOTs at his disposal.
Combat Skills
Smite
A standard, reliable attack targeting the front ranks which inflicts bonus damage against Unholy enemies. Deals decent damage across the board even without the type bonus thanks to Crusader's above-average DMG.
Zealous Accusation
Crusader's only ranged attack, which hits both front ranks at once. While good on paper given its fairly high damage for a cleave, it is almost always a superior choice to simply focus damage on a single enemy at a time to deny enemy actions through killing them. Typically considered the weakest of his skills as a result outside of niche setups.
Stunning Blow
One of Crusader's stronger skills. Fits very well with his support role to stun frontliers, which is where most guarding enemies are. Crusader's very slow SPD can also prove to be an advantage in fights against foes who can summon other enemies such as Shambler since Crusader will typically act after the summoning, allowing him to stun enemies before they get an action on the next turn.
Stunning Blow also has high damage for a stun and better accuracy than Smite, giving it a useful edge in securing kills against enemies low on health.
Bulwark of Faith
Very similar to Leper's Withstand, greatly increasing Crusader's PROT and marking himself to draw enemy attacks away from other heroes. While not as effective as Leper due to having weaker self-sustain and no extra resistances beyond more PROT, it is still valuable for frontline tanking thanks to Crusader's very high HP. It is especially valuable during boss encounters as the bonus will last the entire fight, with the reduced damage taken greatly adding up over time.
The torch light increase may also prove useful to cut down on the amount of torches needed for an expedition if the player is low on gold or wishes to free inventory slots.
Battle Heal
A decent healing skill, and one of the only two healing skills in the game usable from anywhere to anyone in the formation, making it a useful secondary healing. Will most frequently see use in pulling other heroes off of Death's Door due to Crusader's low speed making him act more often than not after enemies.
This skill is unfortunately overshadowed by Inspiring Cry due to it also being capable of pulling heroes away from Death's Door on top of its incredible Stress heal. Making Battle Heal restore more than a few points requires heavy trinket investments as well, making this skill difficult to justify outside of scenarios where more important healers are disabled/gone.
Holy Lance
Generally considered to be Crusader's strongest skill by a wide margin and one of the best skills in the game as a whole. The ability to snipe back ranks, coupled with its damage bonus against Unholy and its inherent CRIT modifier makes this move extremely powerful to kill backline enemies.
By far the strongest attribute of this skill is that it moves the Crusader forward by 1 rank. This attribute alone makes him highly resistant against being moved and allows him to fit nicely into dancing teams with heroes such as Highwayman or Shieldbreaker. Simply having the skill equipped is insurance that Crusader will never find himself in a situation where he cannot contribute offensively. An incredible skill at any point in progression.
Inspiring Cry
The signature support skill of Crusader, with the stress heal being only second to Jester's Inspiring Tune in term of raw numbers, and being usable from anywhere in the formation. It additionally provides minimal healing, which is enough to save heroes at Death's Door, giving it strong utility. The torch light bonus is also handy to reduce the amount of torches needed on an expedition or to counter light loss from enemy abilities or Occultist's Hand from the Abyss. A staple skill on any Crusader build.
Camping Skills
Unshakable Leader
The weakest of his camping skills, as Crusader is very good at managing his own stress already, might it be through Inspiring Cry or his other, better camping skills. Typically not worth using despite its low Respite investment.
Stand Tall
A very situational camping skill, as the main benefit will only see use if a hero has been at Death's Door on the current expedition. In such case, it is definitely worth the investment to purge persistent stat penalties on top of a stress heal.
Zealous Speech
By far his strongest camping skill. For 5 Respite points, the entire team including Crusader himself recovers 15 stress and all of Crusader's teammates get a 15% stress resist buff. A very strong choice well worth the steep cost.
Zealous Sigil
A very good option if Crusader himself has high stress as it simultaneously heals 25 stress to him and prevent night-time ambushes. The ambush prevention alone makes it valuable, similarly to any other hero with such skill.
Trinkets
Due to Crusader's role as a generalist, it is often recommended to have a trinket slot dedicated to ACC and the other one dedicated to whatever role he is intended to occupy, although it is up to the player to decide on the approach to take, such as commiting to full tanking instead.
Class trinkets
- Defender's Seal - A mediocre trinket overall, as 5% PROT is not enough to justify making the Crusader nearly unable to inflict critical hits.
- Knight's Crest - A decent trinket early on since it is a net positive. Good to use until better trinkets are found.
- Swordsman's Crest - A decent early game trinket for offensive Crusaders and the downside will not prevent Inspiring Cry and Battle Heal from saving heroes at Death's door.
- Paralyzer's Crest - A very strong trinket viable at any stage of the game. +20% Stun chance makes Stunning Blow much more consistent for a downside that is essentially nonexistent.
- Commander's Orders - A decent trinket which makes Inspiring Cry stronger on himself and his healing skills better across the board. -10% damage is not too severe for Crusaders not invested in full offense.
- Holy Orders - A terrible trinket. While the -20% stress is good by itself, the extra virtue chance and Death Blow resist are very weak attributes due to circumstances - rolling either virtues or Death Blow resists means the player is in a very dangerous position to begin with and both rolls are impossible to guarantee. The loss of blight and bleed resist is also a very hard sell due to DOTs typically being what kills heroes the most and chewing through Crusader's defenses. This trinket is best ignored.
Crimson Court
- Glittering Spaulders - A decent, but unremarkable trinket overall. While the +PROT and -Stress are good, the Move resist is redundant due to Crusader being naturally strong against it and the -SPD typically has no effect either since he's already the slowest hero in the game. Individual stats are better covered by other trinkets.
- Signed Conscription - A decent trinket which significantly boosts the potency of Inspiring Cry and Battle Heal. Strong for support Crusaders.
- Set Bonus - While the set bonus is strong for tanking purposes, running the set bonus means no ACC investment, which can be very hard to justify late game.
Non-Euclidean Hilt
None of the attributes from this trinket are worth the extreme price of 200 shards, and the 5% random target chance is an additional layer of randomness to take into account. Best ignored.
Notable Neutral Trinkets
- Focus Ring - A strong trinket which improves ACC and CRIT with a downside that is irrelevant for Crusader.
- Ancestor's Signet Ring - A strong late-game trinket which improves ACC and PROT. The extra stress is easily countered by Crusader's kit.
- Heavy Boots - Greatly improves PROT for a negligible downside.
- Legendary Bracer - Greatly improves damage with little consequence.
- Tough Ring - Substantially improves longevity through +HP and +Prot at the cost of damage and stress. A strong option for tanking.
- Barristan's Head - Powerful PROT increase and Crusader can usually handle the extra stress.
Quirks
As the generalist hero of the game, Crusader has no specific preferences and will want any universally good quirk such as ACC, PROT or DMG improvements. He also finds value in quirks that improve resistance against Blight, Bleed and stuns.
While SPD quirks are always desirable, Crusader can live without them due to already being the slowest in the game, and in some cases a slow SPD can help in maintaining turn order.
Teammates
While Crusader works well with any hero, he particularly enjoys the presence of fast, dancing heroes with strong reach and capable of getting around high PROT or HP.
Highwayman pairs very nicely with Crusader. Highwayman's high speed, raw damage and generous reach allows him to kill enemies Crusader would struggle to reach while Crusader can stun frontliners and absorb damage that would put Highwayman in danger. Highwayman can also freely use Duelist's Advance without compromising Crusader's skillset.
Shieldbreaker is another great partner for similar reasons to Highwayman, with the additional advantange of being exceptional at defeating foes with high PROT, which Crusader struggles against.
Grave Robber can dance very well with Crusader. For instance, making Graverobber start in Rank 4 and Crusader in rank 3 will allow Graverobber to use Lunge, putting her in rank 2. If Crusader then uses Holy Lance on his turn, he pushes back Graverobber in rank 3, allowing her to use Lunge twice in a row, devastating enemy back ranks.
Multiple Crusaders can also work well with each other for similar reasons as stated above, either taking turns using Holy Lance or extra uses of Inspiring Cry for strong long-term health.
Plague Doctor has a strong Blight that ignores PROT, stuns to disable dangerous backliners and her Battle Medicine skill can cure DOT stacks that would harm Crusader.