Class

Crusader is arguably the most difficult Cleric class to play. It involves switching between "stances" or auras in order to deal optimal damage. There are several things that you need to keep in mind as you are playing this class, the most important being which aura you currently have toggled and the other being which instant skill you used last. Some people may find this a turn-off and shy away from playing Crusader. However, if you stick around and continue trying it out, you might have a lot of fun with the speed and combos of the class.

[If you're interested in learning about other classes, we have a Class Guide Archive! - Vino]

Important Skills

Cleric

[Block] saves you the trouble of dodging at the cost of occasionally ruining your combo. Use it only when you don't feel safe and if [Iron Will] is not up. You generally don't want to use both at the same time.

[Struck by Lightning] will be used as a [Class Mastery]. You're going to need this to activate [Electric Smite Instant]. It doesn't have any use outside of being a trigger for the instant.

[Divine Combo] is used as a trigger for [Class Mastery III]. It recovers the cooldown of [Goddess Relic], [Charitable Zap], [Electric Smite], and [Judgemental Hammer] by 8 seconds when it hits. You don't need to and shouldn't do the full attack animation. You can jump to the part that does most of the damage by right clicking or left clicking. Crusader has two instant skills and you should be mindful of which one you used last as this alters your [Divine Combo]. If you used [Electric Smite Instant] last, you need to left click during [Divine Combo]. If you used [Judgemental Hammer Instant] last, you need to right click during [Divine Combo]. If you use the wrong one, you lose out on a good amount of damage.

[Holy Kick & Roundhouse Kick] kick skills are generally good for pushing. Cleric's is exceptional. You have plenty of skill points to drop into here. You'll want [Holy Kick] at lv. 6 to make full use of it.

Not Essential But Useful Skill

[Paralyze Bolt] only used for crowd control, particularly for Punishers in Ice Dragon Nest Dragon P1 for example.

Paladin

[Goddess Relic] does a bunch of damage and becomes a debuff when you learn the EX passive. Used to trigger [Mighty Blow].

[Sacred Hammering] is a buff that changes your attack animation and throws light hammers forward with each attack. When the hammers hit enemies, it reduces the cooldown of [Goddess Relic], [Charitable Zap], [Electric Smite], and [Judgemental Hammer] by 0.5 seconds. Since Crusader is a class that largely revolves around RNG with [Elemental Blessing] triggering, [Sacred Hammering] is a solid filler skill should be swung in between attacks to reduce the cooldown of the skills that reset [Mighty Blow] and [Hammer Hand] as they are your main source of damage.

[Charitable Zap] mediocre damage upfront but deals damage over time on enemies hit. Do not use this on Ice Dragon Nest Dragon Crystals in phase 2 as the tick damage dealt over time will instantly kill you. Used to trigger [Mighty Blow] and [Hammer Hand] instant.

[Electric Smite] deals significant damage. You should see this as your 5th or 6th slot in your damage spread. It has an iframe while you are in the air and counts as airborne for the purposes of stomp mechanics. Used to trigger [Mighty Blow] and [Hammer Hand] instant.

[Divine Hammer] is your ultimate skill that does a large amount of burst. This skill should be one of the highest contributions to your overall damage with sufficient usage of [Conviction Aura]. Has iframe during the first swing and you have super armor and take 50% less damage during the rest of the swings.

[Shin Breaker] offers great iframe and is a mobility repositioning tool. Does not deal a lot of damage on its own. When this [Shin Breaker] successfully hits an enemy, [Judgemental Hammer Instant] can be used due to [Class Mastery II]. The iframe lasts until the damage comes out approximately. This attack can only be triggered off of your [Tumble]. However, it does reset the cooldown of [Tumble] when it successfully hits an enemy.

[Elemental Blessing] is one of the aura skills and is VERY important. While this aura is active, you gain 10% light elemental attack. When you successfully hit enemies with the following skills: [Goddess Relic], [Charitable Zap], [Electric Smite], or [Judgemental Hammer], there is a 45% chance that [Mighty Blow] and [Hammer Hand's] cooldown is reduced by 40 seconds and you will be able to use them instantly without a windup animation. This effect works as a buff when triggered which has a duration of 15 seconds.

[Conviction Blessing] is another one of the aura skills and is also VERY important. While this aura is active, you gain 10% action and movement speed. When you activate [Conviction Blessing], [Mighty Blow] and [Hammer Hand's] attack power is increased by 75% and cooldown is reduced by 40% and will reduce the cooldown of [Divine Hammer] by 10s when you hit enemies with either [Mighty Blow] or [Hammer Hand].

[Auto Block] gives a chance of blocking an attack. Useful. Learn it.

[Armor Break] debuffs enemies 20% physical/magical defense. Useful. Learn it. Not used in raids since your friends debuff.

[Iron Will] is a decent duration durability skill. Reduces damage taken by 40% for 15 seconds. I personally use this when semi-offcooldown since you generally don't know when you're going to get it. If you just hold it to use it to tank a specific attack, you're most likely not going to cast it in time or it's something that you're better off trying to iframe anyway. Most attacks that can deal a lot of damage can be blocked using [Block] and if you're gonna take a lot of damage from a wipe mech, those usually ignore damage reduction buffs or will kill you through the buff anyway.

Not Essential But Useful Skills

[Shield Charge] doesn't do any damage but is a very useful pushing tool and sometimes used a burst of mobility when you don't have [Tumble] available.

[Aerial Block] gives you a chance of blocking an attack while you're airborne. Nice. Useful. Learn it if you have points available.

[Heart of Glory] is only realistically available once per fight at the beginning as you'll be using [Divine Hammer] every other time for DPS. You can pop this on the very beginning of the boss if you want to just ignore attacks and mechanics but you'll be gimping your DPS pretty hard to do so since it shares cooldown with [Divine Hammer].

Crusader

I'm not going to cover the EX skills since I mention them in the base skill that they are associated with.

[Judgemental Hammer] deals pretty solid damage and has an instant version which is triggered by [Shin Breaker]. The bulk of the damage is actually on a melee range hit. The projectile does not deal that much damage. The instant version's projectile stays in one place while the regular cast shoots forward and returns to you. Used to trigger [Mighty Blow] and [Hammer Hand] instant.

[Crusader's Zeal] is a buff that grants you 15% action speed and 20% final damage. Use this off-cooldown but strategically. If you can guess that the boss is about to use a mechanic where they will be invulnerable for, don't use it. A lot of your damage relies on using this buff. So you should be mindful of the enemy's attack pattern.

[Class Mastery]: when you hit enemies with [Struck By Lightning], [Electric Smite] can be used instantly. [Electric Smite Instant] and [Electric Smite] do not share cooldown. Therefore, you can use [Electric Smite], [Struck By Lightning], and then use [Electric Smite] again to use the instant version. The instant version does not have an iframe and does not count as airborne.  

[Class Mastery II]: when you hit enemies with [Shin Breaker], [Judgemental Hammer] can be used instantly. [Judgemental Hammer Instant] and [Judgemental Hammer] do not share cooldown. Therefore, you can use [Judgemental Hammer], [Shin Breaker], and then use [Judgemental Hammer] again to use the instant version. The instant version's hammer projectile does not move forward. Similarly to regular version of [Judgemental Hammer], the main damage is on the initial hit.

[Class Mastery III] changes [Divine Combo's] attack to light element. As previously mentioned under [Divine Combo], when you hit enemies using [Electric Smite Instant], your [Divine Combo's] left click attack is enhanced to deal significantly more damage. Similarly, when you hit enemies with [Judgemental Hammer Instant], your [Divine Combo's] right click attack is enhanced to deal significantly more damage. You cannot have both effects at the same time. Therefore, you should keep in mind which instant ability you used last.

[Mighty Blow] one of your strongest abilities. You gain super armor while preparing to leap. Once you are "in the air", you are invulnerable to normal attacks. However, you are NOT technically airborne for the purposes of stomp mechanics that ignore iframes such as Barbados's stomp mechanic in Red Dragon Nest. You can press spacebar to land instantly instead of staying "in the air". There are three versions of [Mighty Blow]. There is a [Conviction Blessing] version, a [Elemental Blessing] version, and a regular version. You should NEVER use the regular cast. The elemental version of the skill can be casted instantly while the conviction version deals increased damage and reduces the cooldown of [Divine Hammer]. The elemental version does not share cooldown with the conviction version. Whenever [Elemental Blessing] triggers its effect, it reduces the cooldown of the elemental AND the conviction version.

[Hammer Hand] another one of your strongest abilities. Slam a hammer down in front of you. Simple. There are three versions of [Hammer Hand]. There is a [Conviction Blessing] version, a [Elemental Blessing] version, and a regular version. You should NEVER use the regular cast. The elemental version of the skill can be casted instantly while the conviction version deals increased damage and reduces the cooldown of [Divine Hammer]. The elemental version does not share cooldown with the conviction version. Whenever [Elemental Blessing] triggers its effect, it reduces the cooldown of the elemental AND the conviction version.

[Awakened Passive Divine Bless] awakens [Elemental Blessing] and [Conviction Blessing]. Their effects has already been explained above.

[Awakened Passive Shin Breaker] now deals magic damage. Nice.

[Awakened Passive Divine Hammer] animation speed is increased by 50%. As previously mentioned, you can reduce the cooldown of [Divine Hammer] by hitting enemies using [Conviction Mighty Blow] and [Conviction Hammer Hand].

[Awakened Passive Crusader's Zeal] gain final damage in addition to its normal effects (which is technically nothing when it was not awakened iirc).

Skill Crests

[Divine Combo CDR] / [Goddess Relic DMG] / [Electric Smite DMG] / [Divine Hammer DMG] / [Crusader's Zeal Buff Duration] / [Judgemental Hammer CDR]

[Holy Kick Action Speed] (Optional)

+1 [Electric Smite]

Skill Build

The Swap-Thwap-Thwap-Swap

You'll be using [Elemental Blessing] most of the time. When you do use your main skills, it has a chance of lowering cooldown and triggering the instant version of [Mighty Blow] and [Hammer Hand]. When this effect triggers and lowers the cooldown of both of those skills to zero, use the instant version immediately. The effect also lowers the cooldown of the conviction version of both skills. Therefore, you should immediately swap to [Conviction Blessing] to use the conviction version of [Mighty Blow] and [Hammer Hand] as they do not share cooldown with the elemental aura version, deal more damage, and reduce the cooldown of [Divine Hammer]. This is extremely important to your overall DPS.

There will be a small period of approximately 2 seconds in which the conviction version is still on cooldown. You can optimize these 2 seconds by using [Electric Smite Instant] or [Judgemental Hammer Instant] during this time as the instant cast version can not trigger [Elemental Blessing's] effect. Once you cast the conviction version of both skills. Swap back to [Elemental Blessing] to continue DPSing to and repeat the loop.

This is the core gameplay loop that you will be in while playing this class. This means a whole lot of aura switching. Not every proc of [Elemental Blessing] will be enough to lower the cooldown of [Mighty Blow] and [Hammer Hand] to zero.

Rotation

Crusader doesn't have a standard rotation exactly due to the RNG and how many time you hit enemies with [Sacred Hammering]. The only thing to keep in mind is a priority list. Always use make full use of aura switching, use [Divine Hammer], effectively use your [Divine Combo] and [Sacred Hammering] and you're golden. Oh, and also use your instant skills.