Invoker set rebalance thoughts

Crusader
1

I absolutely love the invoker set playstyle, especially the way it inverts thorns damage in a way to make it essentially an elite killing nuke build - when I first played this build I really didn’t expect this, I thought for sure that a thorns build would be a trash clearer.

What every thornsader knows playing this build is that trash is really not worth your time even though you can kill it. This is in my opinion and experience why the set build itself simply cannot go above a certain point - low 130’s maybe? The rift guardian isn’t the issue and neither are elite health pools. Thornsader can survive in packs decently - perhaps better than valor - but simply has no way to decently get enough trash down to make survive easier.

Unlike every other build capable of clearing 140 and beyond, this build cannot clear trash effectively for progression. My suggestion is to incorporate the set or supporting items to really give a stronger boost to the thorns dmg output. Frenzy barbs have something of this mechanism in via the Bastion’s revered weapon, and the Sanguinary bracer deals a static percent of thorns dmg in AoE. I really think the set itself needs to be changed to give some scaling aoe element to get down some of the trash or give them some debuff to mitigate dmg, etc. the problem with this second suggestion is that the whole point of a thorns build is to get hit often and make those hits feel punishing to the attacker.

All in all, I love the thornsader, especially its huge nuke single attack. I’d like to see more options for AOE dmg to kill trash for optimal progression. The damage of the build is good, but could be better, but the main thing is to have some AoE. Compared to impale, frenzy, and HF valor builds which also do RGK work, the thornsader is woefully behind both for solo and group play.

One suggestion: make a real difference in attacks around the primary skill selection. Slash or smite should give a considerable AoE boost to the thorns build, while also reworking the set bonus slightly to give greater AoE dmg output per monster attacking - this mechanic should imitate the battle rage bloodshed rune for barbs (esp. frenzy barbs) and would scale in packs based on monsters hitting you, rather than monsters hit.

2

Add a massive multiplier to Belt of the Trove so that Bombardment / Barrels of Spikes could be the trash clearing ability.

3 Likes
3

There’s a good thread going on by Xelnavagan using this idea, I like it a lot! Imagine a steed charge bombardment and spiked barding build capable of 90-95 solo with low para. Would be amazing.

4

The simplest solution would be to increase the area of the 2 piece proc, perhaps add a damage increase to the proc itself as well - Say, getting hit deals 500% of Thorns damage in a 25 yd area. It would allow Sader to gather great density and clear it out - Not as fast as builds in which they can just decimate large clumps, but at a fairly decent rate so that you can just focus on the 3-4 elite packs while the rest of it dies around you.

5

… Except that LoN Bombardment can ALREADY do 90-95 solo with low paragon?

6

I always thought with thorns it would make sense for it to cause bleeding since it’s a death by a thousand cuts type play style. If there was a bleedout effect kind of like the firebird wizard effect. Something like, non-elites with less than 50% hp continue to bleed 1% life per second until dead. This would probably just cause more lag though like area damage with the server having to keep track of a couple hundred mobs constantly losing hp every second in 4 player groups.
Even just buffing consecration thorns damage would probably be enough though to give the set some much needed aoe damage.

7

Yeah dots cause the same problems as area damage in a large crowd, especially if they scale over time. It is one thing to compute stricken dmg increases on a controlled internal cooldown, not so much on a pack of 80-100 mobs ticking at different intervals and scales…