It is actually much weaker now on hell. Was it too strong?
Level 30 thorns. Live version - about 1400% damage returned. PTR - about 600 damage returned.
1400% damage for most melee hell monsters much more than 600.
Some hell monster damages for reference:
Dark Spearwoman: 49-98
Soul Killer: 55-88
Marauder: 56-95
Doom Knight: 65-139
Enslaved: 68-91
So even by minimum damage standards, damage is nerfed. And that is not taking into account monster bonuses like their own auras.
Iāve just tested out killing eldritch with Conversion+Thorns build, and it is moderately fast in LIVE version; quite very fast if they have some damage buff of their own (e.g. fanaticism); And painfully slow in PTR.
P.S. Many days later: I have since then played through normal and nightmare with thorns, and in there it was actually good.
The problem is that thorns+conversion build just stops developing after 40 skill points + some utilities and prerequisites (so around level 50).
I would love for thorns to get some synergy for end game. Maybe some other aura that isnāt used a lot, e.g. sanctuary.
skill was never viable for pve to begin withā¦pvp case its almost viable now but too low
1800 dmg should do it for pvp(150 dmg taken everytime you hit the player)ā¦if lvl equate to 30ā¦and would not be too strong for pvm(pvp penalty(1/6) and 50% dr accounted for, for the resulting dmg)
Problem with that statement is some of us have long memories. in 1.09 and before thorns rocked. A thorns merc was the choice for a summoner and a Zealot always specced into it in case there was a fanat pack of frenzytaurs coming. Thorns was the aura you used on them. Thorns lost itās usefulness when 1.10 brought in the massive life pools monsters have with the relatively small damage. When your monster has 10K life and does 100 damage, 1400% damage return is only doing 14% of itās life. Monster regen then reduces that damage even further so monsters no longer died after hitting you three times.
I believe the Devās were thinking that with monsters taking damage on attack rather than damage they would get damaged more and thus the low damage would be worth it. They didnāt really test this in Hell and definitely not Players 8 Hell. The fixed damage return really becomes a problem with monster life scaling in the higher player difficulties.
One main improvement the new thorns does is damage on strike rather than on damage. This should be kept. The % damage reflection is important so it can scale with difficulty. I say leave the % damage āreflectionā but make it on strike and up the higher end from 1400% to 3000% at lvl 30. Players 8 Hell Bovine has 54,000 life, whatās 600 damage going to do to that?
Itās probably going to be unpopular, but Iād set Thorns to do a % of the aura ownerās physical damage (base + bonus/lvl). That damage should scale reasonable well, and it basically turns āthornsā into an extension of your attack.
I like this idea but it only works for Thorns from a Melee Pally or Thorns merc. Iron Maiden, which has always been Thorns little brother, canāt work that way. Same for Spirit of the Barbs.
Yeah, agree with Rondelā¦ There would be caster builds (druid summoner, necro iron golem) that wouldnāt be able to function if it was based on melee damageā¦
Maybe best way would be for thorns to just act like a weak/passive version of static - every atempted attack deals a flat % of the monsterās healthā¦ Level 20 thorns might take 8-10 attacks for amonster to kill itselfā¦ Level 40 thorns might take 4-5 attacks for the monster to kill itself? Effectiveness versus bosses could be lower (canāt drop their health below 50% or something)ā¦
you dont want it dealing 3000% in pvpā¦a hit of 500 dmg would 1 shot the melee attackers :Sā¦pve perspective it be inneficient for zealot and sort of meh for smiter
thorn should be a forgotten relic or get the ability to spruce spikes from the ground that pull mobs to the paladin while dealing dmg to themā¦just not a return to reflect X % dmgā¦Paladin has evolve to Poison ivy from Batman except that those thorns be made of iron XD
One thing it was supposed to achieve was being no longer anti-synergistic with defense. As for what the number ought to be, thatās an interesting question. how much damage does it need to be putting out to have the same impact on character as the off-weapon ED provided by Might, for instance? Is thorns supposed to be your entire offense? Still, Iād agree with you that it shouldnāt be doing less damage.
My fantasy is a conversion+thorns build. I donāt want it to be strong\efficient\meta\whatever. It just needs to be able to slowly and relentlessly walk through the game.
They buffed the conversion quite well, I like it! But thorns change was backwards for this build, itās really slow now, wherease before it was kinda good enough.
Thatās why I specified the aura owner, which would be the spirit or golem. Those critters could have a physical damage value independent of the caster. IIRC the golems are affected by item properties while the Spirit would just have a value at each level.
It was clear that flat damage without any kind of scalling would be bad.
The issue never was thorns or maiden, but the crazy multipliers on foeās hp comparated to their damage increase. They just tried the easy path by messing on skills that were underperforming without messing on what makes it underperform.
Unless they make thorns/maiden having extra modifier on each difficulty, they just need to address the problem. The huge amount of hp that foes have. Focus on making them more resistant, do more damage and be less AP with crazy HP pool, instead do the similar GP treatment that characters had.
Itās not funny when damage from normal to hell increases less than a 1/10 of the value that hp increases. Some damage factors are joke comparated to the hp factors.
Multiply foeās damage by at least 2 times on nightmare and 3-4 times on hell. Thorns start to become less useless than before and way better than right now. Do it 3-4 times on nightmare and 5 on hell, would become great. More than that would become strong enough to compete, but sadly most folks would complaint and cry about foeās lethality.
So, unless they reduce foeās hp, they should increase their damage or make the flat damage have crazy multipliers based on difficulty, because theyāre reactive skills
How about having it apply Crushing blow, Deadly strike, Open wounds, Prevent monster heal from gear? Or give it 5% dmg synergy from Defiance aura - boosting defense for Holy shield while increasing dmg for Thorns.
Crushing blow will certainly help with high-hp scaling of monsters.
The problem was the route that LoD introduced and the not well planned fix at 1.10
Their intentions were good, but the execution were poorly implemented. They took largely increasing foes hp instead of their defenses, resistances and damage.
Folks want to play P8 or PX because the game itās too easy for meta builds, somewhat fine on non-meta. Then theyāre trying to buff stuff, if they donāt counter-balance either by nerf overall playerās power against monsters itās just recipe to disaster.
A simple thing like give foes elemental and magic absorb, could make things like poison, physical, thorns and iron maiden viable if paired with hp reduction.
If a foe has 25 fire resist, give it more 25 and give it fire absorb also. If a foe became fire enchanted instead of 75 give it 50 and more 25 fire absorb. That way the immunity ceilling would stay the same, while the overall damage from player would decay about 1/2 on enchanted version and 1/3 on non-enchanted comparatively to right now. That would make viable things like reduce 25-50% foeās hp already, if done across all elements. Same could be done with magic damage or any other element. Even physical if needed.
This patch made holy fire be interesting on hell, but made normal and nightmare become a joke a paly passively killing duriel at lvl 8-10 isnāt funny. So scale based on difficulty should be a thing across those kind of skills, also improving the ādifficultyā ladder between difficulties would be make more desireable to folks actually enjoy their time on normal and nightmare, not just skip it.
except that those thorns be made of iron XD