I did try skeletals and revives, but after what I could see only the regular skeletons were proccing thorns when hit. Didn't test them too much, but I couldn't see a single thorn number coming from mages and revives. Monsters appeared to ignore skeletal mages but fight revives. This would probably need better testing, of course.
after some testing, here are a few relevant obersvations I made:
- All primary skills seem to apply thorns via Hack, but Grim Schythe and Bone Spikes being AoE skills, appears to proc only one enemy with thorns per attack. (which makes sense after reading Cheng's comment.)
- Siphon blood always proc thorns the first tick, but as you keep channeling it will not. If you spam Siphon blood by recasting constantly, you will proc thorns alot faster than attacking with Grim Scythe or Bone Spikes. (unless you hit faster than ~3.5-4 APS which was the rate of the SB-spam) Also worth noting here, is that Attack Speed didn't seem to affect the rate of how fast I could spam the skill.
-With my sheet 145k Thorns, Inarius 6p + krysbyn, i would deal around 1B damage with Siphon blood (Weapon Damage rolled off). Slowed enemies would take ~2B. Frozen enemies 6B, and with just 30 stacks of Jairo, goes over 30B. With this a GR 60 was doable, but the fact that you can't apply thorns multiple times per attack sadly makes it pretty useless no matter how many stacks :'( Even if damage is dealt from pets taking damage as well, I feel thorns are simply not coming out fast enough.
Yeah, i think now the reason my spells didn't deal thorn damage is because the spells I used might have 0 proc rate for thorns. I will start testing all the spells with all runes, to see if anything has proc rate greater than 0, as spells on other classes has varied proc rates.
I will look into your suggestion. But it really irritates me that hack wont apply thorns through skills and even minions. I guess there is no need for hack with necro yet. If they decide to fix/change it, i think a inarius thorn build would really blast damage numbers through the roof.
Just raw gear, no extra stats applied. with just 10 stacks of jairo, triple krysbin damage and bone armor activated for 2750% damage, it appears to give hack billions of damage. Bracers could maybe go in the trillions too, haha.
I'm sure some skills could be swapped out, but the idea was to get as high attack speed as possible.
Well, first I used D3-planner to quickly put together a build I thought would work quite well (which was based around Inarius set, hack and spear of jairo for large damage numbers). With all the multipliers put together, (int, elemental dmg, krysbin, endless walk, inarius 6p etc,,) the thorns from hack would easily go beyond billions of damage, but after equipping all gear and physically trying the build, I barely made it over a million damage. (Hack weapon damage rolled off)
Knowing that Inarius 6p has a 2750% increase damage from necro, I thought that would be a better choice than LoN's 1300% dmg boost. But I tried with LoN as well to see if I would have the same issue, and yet again my damage numbers are only laughable. (~600 k damage numbers on attack).
Unless I have done something horribly wrong, I think there is a good chance thorns in some way is not working correctly with the necro.
There could be a few victims here, but these are the ones I suspect the most:
1. Hack axe not applying thorns damage like it should. (seems to work with other characters)
2. Inarius set not applying damage to thorns
3. Thorns damage not applied correctly
I'm a huge fan of thorns, and I hope that this could be throughly tested and fixed, unless I've overlooked some basic factors for this to work.
For the record, here is something i have tested:
- With LoN gear and hack equipped, I tested damage done attacking mob vs mob attacking me. I did ~1 million to mob, but they took ~300 million damaging me. Odd, considering Hack applies thorns on attacks.
There seems to be a problem with thorns with the necromancer, as I have tried both LoN Thorns and Inarius Thorns with the Hack axe, and it doesnt seem to apply the LoN or Inarius 6p bonus damage for the thorns. Anyone had same thoughts?
I did try skeletals and revives, but after what I could see only the regular skeletons were proccing thorns when hit. Didn't test them too much, but I couldn't see a single thorn number coming from mages and revives. Monsters appeared to ignore skeletal mages but fight revives. This would probably need better testing, of course.
Did some research, and found a comment from skill designer Wyatt Cheng about the Hack:
"The design of Hack is that it will trigger exactly once every time you make an attack that actually requires you to push a button." (Cheng, 2015 http://www.diablofans.com/blizz-tracker/topic/60925-thorns-interaction-with-fire-walkers)
after some testing, here are a few relevant obersvations I made:
- All primary skills seem to apply thorns via Hack, but Grim Schythe and Bone Spikes being AoE skills, appears to proc only one enemy with thorns per attack. (which makes sense after reading Cheng's comment.)
- Siphon blood always proc thorns the first tick, but as you keep channeling it will not. If you spam Siphon blood by recasting constantly, you will proc thorns alot faster than attacking with Grim Scythe or Bone Spikes. (unless you hit faster than ~3.5-4 APS which was the rate of the SB-spam) Also worth noting here, is that Attack Speed didn't seem to affect the rate of how fast I could spam the skill.
-With my sheet 145k Thorns, Inarius 6p + krysbyn, i would deal around 1B damage with Siphon blood (Weapon Damage rolled off). Slowed enemies would take ~2B. Frozen enemies 6B, and with just 30 stacks of Jairo, goes over 30B. With this a GR 60 was doable, but the fact that you can't apply thorns multiple times per attack sadly makes it pretty useless no matter how many stacks :'( Even if damage is dealt from pets taking damage as well, I feel thorns are simply not coming out fast enough.
Yeah, i think now the reason my spells didn't deal thorn damage is because the spells I used might have 0 proc rate for thorns. I will start testing all the spells with all runes, to see if anything has proc rate greater than 0, as spells on other classes has varied proc rates.
I will look into your suggestion. But it really irritates me that hack wont apply thorns through skills and even minions. I guess there is no need for hack with necro yet. If they decide to fix/change it, i think a inarius thorn build would really blast damage numbers through the roof.
https://www.d3planner.com/253188927
Just raw gear, no extra stats applied. with just 10 stacks of jairo, triple krysbin damage and bone armor activated for 2750% damage, it appears to give hack billions of damage. Bracers could maybe go in the trillions too, haha.
I'm sure some skills could be swapped out, but the idea was to get as high attack speed as possible.
Well, first I used D3-planner to quickly put together a build I thought would work quite well (which was based around Inarius set, hack and spear of jairo for large damage numbers). With all the multipliers put together, (int, elemental dmg, krysbin, endless walk, inarius 6p etc,,) the thorns from hack would easily go beyond billions of damage, but after equipping all gear and physically trying the build, I barely made it over a million damage. (Hack weapon damage rolled off)
Knowing that Inarius 6p has a 2750% increase damage from necro, I thought that would be a better choice than LoN's 1300% dmg boost. But I tried with LoN as well to see if I would have the same issue, and yet again my damage numbers are only laughable. (~600 k damage numbers on attack).
Unless I have done something horribly wrong, I think there is a good chance thorns in some way is not working correctly with the necro.
There could be a few victims here, but these are the ones I suspect the most:
1. Hack axe not applying thorns damage like it should. (seems to work with other characters)
2. Inarius set not applying damage to thorns
3. Thorns damage not applied correctly
I'm a huge fan of thorns, and I hope that this could be throughly tested and fixed, unless I've overlooked some basic factors for this to work.
For the record, here is something i have tested:
- With LoN gear and hack equipped, I tested damage done attacking mob vs mob attacking me. I did ~1 million to mob, but they took ~300 million damaging me. Odd, considering Hack applies thorns on attacks.
There seems to be a problem with thorns with the necromancer, as I have tried both LoN Thorns and Inarius Thorns with the Hack axe, and it doesnt seem to apply the LoN or Inarius 6p bonus damage for the thorns. Anyone had same thoughts?
Edit: now seems to work.