Diablo 4 Thorns Build Explained
D4 Thorns Damage Explained
- Deals damage to attackers when hit by direct attacks. Excludes attacks that are entirely damage over time.
- Damage dealt is affected by the Skill damage increase from your Strength, or Dexterity, or Intelligence, or Willpower.
Thorns is a special “offensive” stat that lets you deal damage to enemies when they hit you. Damage dealt is increased by a portion of your primary Core Stat. Thorns can roll on Chests, Pants, Shield and you can also boost your Thorns by certain skills and passives.
It's important to understand that Thorns doesn't bestow any invulnerability against enemy assaults. Thus, despite having the Thorns effect, your character is not immune to enemy-inflicted damage.
When it comes to characters with a lower health or defense pool, Thorns might not be the most effective strategy due to its lack of damage reduction capabilities. While Thorns does permit you to retaliate with some damage, your character still sustains significant damage from enemy attacks. This is why Thorns becomes particularly effective when utilized by hardier classes in Diablo 4, such as the Barbarian or Druid. These Classes can truly harness the full potential of the Thorns effect.
Thorns damage is amplified based on your character's primary Stat:
- Barbarian: Strength
- Druid: Willpower
- Rogue: Dexterity
- Sorceress: Intelligence
- Necromancer: Intelligence
Thorns affixes
- +x Thorns
- [Minion] Inherit +x% of Your Thorns
Thorns Skills
| Name | Description | Tags | Power Name | Rewards |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tough as Nails | Increase your Thorns by +{3 skill_rankup_desc: Thorns +{3 | Tags: Bleed, Thorns, Damage | Barbarian Talent Warlord T1 N2 |
|
| Outburst | Gain {20 skill_rankup_desc: Thorns {20 | Tags: Life, Thorns | Barbarian Talent 07 |
|
| Spiked Armor | Gain {40 skill_rankup_desc: Thorns {40 | Tags: Thorns | Necromancer Talent 10 |
|
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Iron Barb Elixir
| Name | Requires | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Weak Iron Barb Elixir | Level 5 | Increases Armor by 50, Thorns by 25, and Experience by 5% for 30 minutes. |
| Iron Barb Elixir | Level 35 | Increases Armor by 200, Thorns by 100, and Experience by 5% for 30 minutes. |
| Strong Iron Barb Elixir | Level 50 | Increases Armor by 300, Thorns by 150, and Experience by 5% for 30 minutes. |
| Potent Iron Barb Elixir | Level 65 | Increases Armor by 400, Thorns by 200, and Experience by 5% for 30 minutes. |
| Heady Iron Barb Elixir | Level 80 | Increases Armor by 500, Thorns by 250, and Experience by 5% for 30 minutes. |
You may only have one Elixir active at a time.
Gems
| Name | Armor | Requires Level |
|---|---|---|
| Crude Emerald |
| 15 |
| Chipped Emerald |
| 20 |
| Emerald |
| 40 |
| Flawless Emerald |
| 50 |
| Royal Emerald |
| 60 |
Diablo 4 Thorns Barbarian
Thorns Barbarian is all about pulling large groups of mobs into Elites and quickly bursting everything down. You want to use Steel Grasp to move mobs and use Flay to gain extra Thorns and damage reduction.
Once your Flay is stacked, you pop Wrath of the Berserker and Challenging Shout to dish out loads of damage. Keep using Steel Grasp to make sure mobs stay together, and be sure not to move too much so that you don’t accidentally walk out of hits.
| Name | Cluster | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Combat Flay | Basic | Upgrade |
|
| Outburst | Defensive | Passive |
|
| Tough as Nails | Defensive | Passive |
|
| Strategic Challenging Shout | Defensive | Upgrade |
|
Diablo 4 Thorns Necromancer
| Name | Cluster | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spiked Armor | Corpse & Macabre (1st Cluster) | Passive |
|
Level Up Skills or Equip Aspects and Gear With Thorns
Depending on the class you're currently playing, you may level up Skills as well as upgrade gear with Aspects to use Thorns. Examples for these are Sorcerer's Spiked Armor skill that gives you 16 Thorns and Barbarian's Death Wish Aspect which gives you Thorns while Berserking.
In addition to Skills and Aspects, players can also utilize Thorns by equipping any Gear with this stat.
Diablo 4 Thorns Unique
| Image | Name | Category | Slot | Classes | Uniques Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Rage of Harrogath | Chest Armor | Torso | Barbarian | 500 Item Power. 875 Armor
|
 | Ring of Mendeln | Ring | Ring | Necromancer | 500 Item Power.
|
 | Razorplate | Chest Armor | Torso | All | 500 Item Power. 875 Armor
|
Related Incense
| Name | Requires | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scents of The Desert Afternoon | Level 70 | Use: Increases Thorns by 250 for every nearby player. Lasts 20 minutes. This is a type II incense. Only one Incense of a type may be active at a time. |
Thorns Legendary Items
| Name | Icon | How to Get | Category | Class | Bonus | Dungeon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aspect of the Prickling |  |
| Offensive | Barbarian | Damaging an enemy with a Core Skill has up to a [X]% chance to grant [X] Thorns for 5 seconds. Allowed Item Types: 1H Weapon, 2H Weapon (Power increased by 100%), Offhand, Gloves, Amulet (Power increased by 50%), Ring. | N/A |
| Death Wish Aspect | |
| Offensive | Barbarian | Gain [X] Thorns while Berserking. Allowed Item Types: 1H Weapon, 2H Weapon (Power increased by 100%), Offhand, Gloves, Amulet (Power increased by 50%), Ring. | Penitent Cairns, Scosglen |
| Needleflare Aspect | |
| Offensive | All | Thorns damage dealt has a [20-40%] chance to deal damage to all enemies around you. Allowed Item Types: 1H Weapon, 2H Weapon (Power increased by 100%), Offhand, Gloves, Amulet (Power increased by 50%), Ring. | Yshari Sanctum, Kehjistan |
Bonus Thorns Inherited by your Skeletal Mages:
- Your Skeletal Mages inherit {#} more Thorns from you than normal.
- Their total Thorns inherited from you is now {#}.
Bonus Thorns Inherited by your Skeletal Warriors:
- Your Skeletal Warriors inherit {#} more Thorns from you than normal.
- Their total Thorns inherited from you is now {#}.
Bonus Thorns Inherited by your Golem:
- Your Golem inherits {#} more Thorns from you than normal.
- Its total Thorns inherited from you is now {#}.
Thorns Shield
Rod Fergusson: Before Server Slam ended yesterday I found a cool thorns shield for my Necro and now I'm just sitting here thinking about a thorns-centric build and why isn't it June 1st already so that I could be making that build already!
Q: Imagine you could give a % of your thorns value to your skelly defenders though.
A: You do - there's even a passive that boosts it.
Diablo 3 Thorns
Thorns (a.k.a. Melee and ranged attackers take X damage) are a secondary statistic in Diablo III that can appear on any non-weapon item (although Neanderthal and Nailbiter weapons can roll Thorns as well).
Thorns automatically cause damaging hit to any melee or ranged direct attacker. Damage type of this hit is not elemental; if used against players, it takes average of resistances to mitigate (Armor also works against it). However, with patches, it was allowed to benefit from Physical elemental skill damage bonuses, unless another type is specifically stated.
Thorns only trigger when the character is attacked; however, skills like Aberrant Animator can bestow these on pets as well.
Thorns damage is increased by your primary attribute, 1% per point, as any other damage. However, it may not score Critical Hits, and does not benefit from it in any way.
There are Thorns-centered builds, particularly for Crusaders, and even skill runes and passive skills and items that enhance the Thorns damage or grant it special properties. Thorns can trigger special effects where possible, but have a 0 proc coefficient. Many items, gems (Topaz in weapons and Boyarsky’s Chip) and even one set enhance Thorns. Note: most percentage enhancements of Thorns from items or skills are additive (i.e., not multiplicative) and stack directly. Vo’Toyias Spiker and some other temporary effects are noted exceptions, being multiplicative to all other enhancements.
At level 70, most items can roll up to 2800 Thorns damage; while helms, chests, amulets, pauldrons, and belts can roll up to 7696. This results in a theoretical total of 58080 on all slots except main and off hands (73492 with weapons and shields). However, with Ancient Legendary items, these values increase further, equating to 75504 / 95540, for with out and with weapons and shields, respectively. A Topaz gem in the weapon socket can also add up to 38000 damage to Thorns (when using a Flawless Royal Topaz). +999 / 6000 Thorns damage can be gained from Demon’s Hide / Demon’s Skin sets, respectively.
Overall, for all classes but Crusaders with Thorns of the Invoker set, Thorns is not a major source of damage. However, a good assortment of protection can make the total damage inflicted with Thorns quite considerable, easily allowing a player with sufficient primary stat and/or thorns to make monsters lose more Life per hit than the damage they successfully inflict upon the hero. It is most effective against weak numerous attackers, especially if those are way below the character in Life and damage; on lower difficulties, one may kill most foes without as much as pressing a button. Collecting the variety of Thorns-centered gear can turn this mechanic from defensive to offensive, so a well-armed Crusader may, if desired, make it a lethal weapon.
In PvP, while it will rarely actually kill an adequately geared foe, it will add some form of extra punishment. Considering that players generally have less Toughness than monsters, it may prove even more effective in PvP than against the minions of Hell.
Diablo 2 Thorns
This aura will do severe damage to any monster or player that hits the user (or affected ally) with any melee attack, dealing damage to them: a flat value and based on a percentage of the damage they did to the user. Thorns will only work if the enemy actually hits the user however; if the monster is unable to hit users due to high defense, high shield blocking, high level compared to the monster, or if they’re often killed before they have a chance to do melee damage, then Thorns is not very effective.
Thorns is useful when fighting bosses, as it give much more damage than taken, which in most cases is significant.
The damage returned is physical and can be reduced by physical damage resistance, lowering the effectiveness of this aura in hell difficulty where monsters have 50% physical resistance. Curses such as Amplify Damage and Decrepify greatly increase this aura’s effectiveness, particularly on nightmare difficulty and hell difficulty. It also stacks with the Iron Maiden curse, which operates similarly to Thorns.
Necromancer’s Iron Golem always has this Aura, but it only affects themselves.
There are also a few items that give this Aura, including the runewords Edge and Bramble.
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