Chapter 218: A New Lease on Life
Soon, the video of Chen Mo using Lin Xue’s account to push through the Greater Rift was uploaded online. On the official forums, many hardcore *Diablo* players were analyzing exactly how Chen Mo had pulled it off.
“Who watched Ah Xue’s livestream? Chen Mo crashed it, and the scariest part is, he swapped out Ah Xue’s Crusader’s gear and climbed 20 levels of the Greater Rift!”
“Holy crap, really? I don’t believe it. Same account, and the combat power can differ that much? 20 levels of the Greater Rift—how many times did the combat power multiply?”
“The recording’s already online. Go check it out yourself. The whole process was recorded. The craziest part is that Chen Mo picked up a bunch of junk from Ah Xue’s stash—all sorts of random pieces—and put together a skill build that no one could understand! But it was insanely strong!”
“Alright, I’ll go take a look!”
This recording quickly became a hot topic on the forums, especially causing an uproar among Crusader players.
At the moment, the two new classes, the Crusader and the Necromancer, were clearly lagging behind the non-expansion classes in Greater Rift progression, because the other classes already had several relatively mature and complete builds.
The main reason was that, although the expansion had been out for a while, players were still in the exploratory phase with the new classes. Especially for the Crusader, the vast majority of players hadn’t yet figured out a good enough strategy.
Chen Mo’s new playstyle naturally drew everyone’s attention.
Players also knew that every time Chen Mo played a game, he would reveal some very unique tactics. In *Warcraft III* before, classic strategies like the Wind Rider rush or the mass-expand build were all invented by Chen Mo.
This time, Chen Mo’s approach was definitely a strategy worth studying, and it likely had a significant connection to the deeper gameplay mechanics of *Diablo*!
Soon, through collective effort and using the recording as a reference, Chen Mo’s strategy was fully analyzed.
This playstyle was named “Ride and Bomb,” and it quickly spread among the Crusader player community.
The core idea of this strategy was to stack Thorns damage as much as possible, while using the set bonus of the Endless Walk and the Compass Rose ring pair to maximize the combat power of ancient legendary items equipped. The more ancient items, the greater the damage boost, allowing a collection of random pieces to surpass set bonuses.
In terms of skills, Consecration, Bombardment (commonly called “bombing”), Iron Skin, and Steed Charge could all be converted to Thorns damage through skill runes, meaning these were all damage-dealing skills.
Akarat’s Champion was a very powerful buff skill, significantly enhancing damage.
The last skill could be either Shield Glare or Justice, mainly to improve survivability.
What was most astonishing was the gear setup with these random pieces.
The strength of these pieces lay in the fact that, first, they could activate the ring set bonus, and second, they could amplify skills. The special effects of these unique items were extremely useful for the Crusader.
Leoric’s Crown: Doubled the effect of the gem socketed in it. Combined with the passive skill Finery, socketing a diamond in the crown provided massive cooldown reduction, greatly reducing the Crusader’s skill cooldowns.
Amulet: Hellfire Amulet, granting the Crusader an extra passive skill.
Chest Armor: Heart of Iron and Aquila Cuirass—one worn, one extracted for its power. Aquila Cuirass reduced damage taken by 50% when primary resource was above 90%. Heart of Iron granted Thorns damage equal to 300% of Vitality.
Since this Crusader build used skills that didn’t consume Wrath (resource), the resource was always full, permanently triggering Aquila Cuirass’s effect.
Belt: Belt of the Trove, whose special effect triggered a Bombardment every 6 seconds. Since Bombardment (bombing) was the core damage skill of this build, this belt was arguably the most important piece, directly doubling the Crusader’s damage output.
Pants: Hammer Jammers, whose special effect increased resource generation and damage while moving, and decreased them while stationary. Since this Crusader build was constantly riding around, it perfectly triggered this effect.
Boots: Illusory Boots, whose special effect allowed the character to pass through enemies without collision, moving unimpeded through monster packs. This further enhanced the Crusader’s mobility.
Weapon: Flail of the Charge (commonly called “the whip”), whose special effect doubled the duration of Steed Charge. Combined with cooldown reduction, the Crusader could stay mounted almost the entire time, moving like the wind and never needing to dismount and get surrounded.
Extracted Weapon: Mortal Drama, which doubled the number of Bombardments.
Extracted Ring: Convention of Elements, which increased a single element’s damage by 200%. For the Crusader, this ring cycled through Fire, Holy, Lightning, and Physical damage types, switching every 4 seconds. Thorns damage counted as Physical, so when Convention of Elements rotated to the Physical damage bonus, the Crusader’s damage would double again.
Although each of these random pieces seemed to have a minor effect on its own, within this build, they all played extremely important roles. With all buffs active, this Crusader’s Bombardment damage increased exponentially, which was why Chen Mo could use that account to climb an extra 20 levels of the Greater Rift.
…
After fully analyzing the “Ride and Bomb” Crusader build, all Crusader players were stunned.
The game could be played like this?!
These pieces of equipment, which originally seemed useless, all played crucial roles in a specific build. The combination of gear, skills, and gems made the class’s damage explode!
While Crusader players rushed to imitate the build, players of other classes also gained some inspiration.
Everyone realized that this game could be played in such a way. No wonder there were 17 difficulty levels!
Player enthusiasm was fully ignited. This was a critical period for climbing the leaderboards, and players of different classes were all holding their breath, frantically researching builds suited to their own class.
Like a spark thrown into a powder keg, all players’ passion was instantly detonated. Those who loved to dig deep were exploring *Diablo*’s numerical system, searching for the potential behind various strange pieces of equipment. Even those who didn’t enjoy deep research were browsing the forums for the latest builds and strategies, hoping to push to higher levels.
*Diablo*, which had already started to cool down, was given a new lease on life under the stimulation of the new version!
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