Build Guide
OLD BUILD HERE: http://www.diablofans.com/builds/85778-thorns-of-the-invoker-gr95-in-depth-guide (with OLD video! Check it out for FULL OLD VERSION of the build!)
GENERAL TIPS:
The build is less density dependent now but killing trash is still important!
1) Avoid fighting lonely elite/blues. You need to generate Thorns procs from BLOCKS. No packs = no blocks. Lure them into the packs of trash and let your area damage work for you.
2) Try to maintain at least 50% cdr and AS MUCH ATTACK SPEED as possible. The faster you attack, the faster you apply thorns damage/area damage through HACK and 2pc Invoker.
5) Since in density you will reset cooldowns fast with Akarat's Awakening, it is possible to sacrifice even more CDR for attack speed/all res.
5) RGs without adds will take more time to kill (less 2pc stacks).
6) Arcane/Frozen is bad as usual. Also skip Shielding and Illusionist.
7) Area Damage is pretty strong in this build. So i suggest sacrificing some CDR for AOE on weapon, and CDR/AS/AOE gloves would be great too, as well as AOE shoulders wtih CDR.
8) Thorns secondary rolls everywhere
9) As much all resist as possible
10) Watch for COE physical rotation. Never miss it.
11) Try to find balance between Life on Hit and CDR/Area Damage/Attack Speed. I personally recommend to have LOH on bracers/helm and weapon.
SKILL OPTIONS:
1) Decaying Strength instead of Invincible. Much more damage mitigation, but less recovery and lower DPS (lower attack speed). Recommended to use with paragon less than 1000-1500. Sometimes i get annoyed with frequent deaths and switch to Decaying Strength..The difference in survivability is HUGE.
2) Provoke - Too Scared to Run/Cleanse instead of Hit Me. More CCing of mobs, but less damage reduction. Better be used along with Invincible.
3) Bed of Nails instead of Provoke if you will use Akarath's Awakening + Pig Sticker/Hack and cube Blood Brother. This will compensate some damage loss from the Spiker/Provoke. Not as good as it was in 2.4.1 though
GR100 CLEAR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzdCxTnmeU0
Thank you!
subscribe for more videos:
http://www.angryroleplayer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/c/angryroleplayer
http://www.twitch.tv/angry_roleplayer
Follow:
https://twitter.com/RoleplayerAngry
support/donations/tips:
https://twitch.streamlabs.com/angry_roleplayer
https://www.patreon.com/angryroleplayer
Also, fun note: Spent the past few days and god knows how many thousand Blood Shard and Rifts trying to get Sanguinary Bracers...
Do you see what I did wrong?
Because I only spotted it today...
Sanguinary Vambraces only from a bounty cash in act 1. You can't get them from blood shards or anywhere else
I suggest to watch basic thorns guide for understanding where Thorns damage comes from.
You misunderstand. I mean on D3Planner, when it shows you the breakdown of your damage dealt, it doesn't tell you how much damage your thorns actually deal. It only tells you the damage from your abilities, I'm guessing this is because it doesn't actually ever have you GETTING hit, so it can't work out the damage for things with proc from hits recieved, like Thorns, or Punish Runes, because they proc from blocks. Same thing for procs on Akarat's Awakening.
This means that your damage dealt is actually a fair amount higher than the damage it shows. How much higher depends on the number of mobs currently hitting you.
It also doesn't seem to account for stacks of Invoker2pc, it updates the damage on your character sheet, but your simmed Dps remains the same, doesn't matter if you have 0 stacks or 25.
Could this be because I'm keying something in incorrectly... Maybe... But I've never had odd numbers like this before.
Yeah, I know that now XD. Sadly I didn't know it before I spent a metric ****ton of Blood Shards trying to gamble one.
Ah well, tomorrow I start farming act one. Hopefully my luck improves a little...
Equip Hack and you will see amount of thorns you inflict with each attack.
Invoker stacks all show up correctly. But you need a THORNS skill to actually see how damage numbers change. Punis not a thorns skill.
Equip Hack and you will see up to 100% thorns damage.
I went into pretty excruciating detail, I don't know how I can say it any clearer... D3Planner does not show the thorns damage that procs when you are struck.
For instance, when I run a sim, it says I do 82B damage against the boss.
96.15% of that is Invoker 6pc
0.01% is Bombardment (from Trove)
Punish is 0.02%
Steed Charge is 3.83%
At no point does it say how much damage the enemy takes, from hitting me and proccing Thorns. It also doesn't mention any damage dealt to the enemy by the Roar proc, because than only happens when I block.
Because it doesn't calculate actually getting HIT by the enemy.
You can set a skill called Consecration Bed of Nails, put as many multipliers/thorns stacks as you want and what you will see on skill is what you will reflect when enemies hit you.
However, when YOU hit with the Invoker set you manually "attack" with all your thorns damage/stacks (and first enemy hit gets 800% more thorns damage) in 15 yard radius.
Roar does almost zero damage compared to thorns, because it uses weapon damage and not thorns damage.
http://imgur.com/a/kp9WT
Getting hit = always 100% of thorns. This is also mentioned in my Thorns Guide.
I think I see the problem you're having... It's a wording issue.
I know the per hit damage that Thorns does. As you've said it's super easy to work out.
What I mean, is that D3Planner doesn't show the Dps of Thorns. When you put all your skills and stats and paragon and everything, and then hit "Simulate" it shows you how much damage you will deal over the length of a fictional boss fight...
However, as during the course of this "Fight" it's not accounting for the boss hitting you, it's impossible for them to say how much of your Dps is due to Thorns.
For instance, right now it's saying once I've got my gear together I'll be doing 83B Dps, however, I know the real number will be a bit higher than that, because every time the boss hits me, it'll proc my thorns damage.
But as their simulations don't account for bosses hitting your character, it's impossible for them to tell me how much damage the boss would have taken in that time frame form my thorns, because as far as they're concerned, the boss hit me 0 times, and took 0 damage from my thorns.
And while it's true Roar would deal like... 0.001% of my total damage, I'm guessing Celerity will increase my damage by a decent amount... but I'll never know because it doesn't factor the attack speed increase into their model, for the same reason that it doesn't include Thorns Dps.
However, seeing as 95% of my damage comes from the 6pc and that IS effected by the 15% increase, can we not just assume that a 15% AsP increase would be a ~14% damage increase?
Well, i never was a fan of it and used it very briefly. I don't think it will show valid numbers EVER. Just don't use it and try to test everything in game and calculate yourself.
Thorns melee builds depend on attack speed directly. This is the sole reason why builds like Lon frenzy barbs work. This is why Celerity is the only decent rune of choice. Cause you simply proc 2pc bonus faster and attack with Hack/Pig sticker faster, doing faster 6pc damage.
Finally we're on the same page... And come to much the same conclusion, namely: Simulation is a bit flawed.
Sadly, this comes a few days too late, as I'm retiring my current Thornybarb, in order to level one in season 9 and no be too bored ;p
But yeah, I figured from what little I could glean that didn't seem totally borked from D3planner that AsP >> All for Thornsader. No real surprise there.
Also the guy has no understanding how thorns damage works at all "Crit chance and damage might be a useful thing to invest in too"
What would you recommend for ring stat priority? You left that spot empty, so I've just kind of followed the general stat order rather than get anything different.
First get block chance on Justice Lantern, then CDR, then attack speed/area damage. Attack speed Preferred for Hack.
Thanx!
That's a tough choice. I suggest load yourself on d3planner.com and just try both MAX numbers and see how damage on HACK changes.
I might try rerolling SECOND secondary stat to physical resistance as well (i don't know what you have there)
Ok then i'd roll thorns to 3500 here i guess
Hey I just wanted to ask how much i am dependant on thorns raw numbers, or how much I should approx. have. I ask because I dont have anywhere near perfect gear yet and dont know if rerolling some minor stat is more or less important than getting a better roll on thorns.
thank you in advance
Overalll Thorns pool is #1 importance. But for example if you have pants with armor, str and life regen and 3000 thorns, you should still roll life regen to vit and not thorns to 3500. You need to survive as well, somehow
For thorns rolls it's mostly VERY important to get big thorns rolls like: shoulders, shield, chest, belt, where you can get up to 9500 thorns.
thank you very much for the quick answer