Legendary Mace - Requires Level 70
Combat Pets gain 10% of your Thorns per Combat Pet.
They attack enemies at close range and no longer expire,
explode, take damage or deal weapon damage.
[5-15]% “Fear the Nephalems, but above all, fear their pets” - Rakkis
Spiked Hord
Legendary Shield - Requires Level 70
Thorns dealt by Combat Pets against impaired enemies can
be Critical Hits. Taunted enemies gain 125% increased attack
speed against Combat Pets.
[50-200]% “Beware, those wild creatures might carry the rabies” - Marteks
Collar of Obedience
Legendary Amulet - Requires Level 70
Combat Pets deal Thorns damage equal to 10% of your
recent Thorns Critical Hits to enemies within 20 yards
every 1 second.
[5-15]% “Animals can retaliate instinctively, without any warning” - Caltra
Explainer
Combat Pets
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Pet
gain [5-15]% of your Thorns per Combat Pet
Scale with number of combat pets
They attack enemies at close range and no longer
expire, explode, take damage or deal weapon damage
Weapon damage is irrelevant
Pets are permanent, invulnerable and infight
Thorns dealt by Combat Pets against impaired enemies
can be critical hits
Pet Thorns can use critical chance
Taunted enemies gain [50-200]% increased attack speed
against Combat Pets
Pet Thorns can hit more often
Combat Pets deal Thorns damage equal to [5-15]% of your
recent Thorns Critical Hits to enemies within 20 yards
every 1 second.
Pet Thorns can hit more often
Usage (Any class)
Equip items and skills able to spawn combat pets
Equip Boyarsky’s Chip and use Primary skill to taunt enemies
Keep Crowd Control effects on enemies (Taunt, Slow, Immobilize…)
Any class can have combat pets https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Pet, through skills or itemization, but most of classes currently cannot use them to deal damage (Barbarian, Wizard, Demon Hunter, Crusader).
This proposal is about to offer pets gameplay to any class through Thorns.
Yeah, I got that, but clearly the char needs to stack thorns as the pets damage are directly linked to the chars thorns, and I can’t really think of a single build for pet classes that would not be severely gimped by doing that.
Unless those pet classes got a set like Invoker, I have a hard time seeing anyone make a use of those items.
While some classes can effectively use a set with a thorns damage increase (Thorns of the Invoker 2p), a general damage increase (Grace of Inarius 6p) or a resource damage increase (Trag’Oul’s Avatar 6p), most characters don’t need a set to make Thorns shine.
The Legendary Gem Legacy of Dreams provides a general damage increase bonus that applies to Thorns.
At rank 99 with 13 Ancient items, this is futher increased to 9750% increased damage done and 52% reduced damage taken.
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Legacy_of_Dreams
Because any class can equip both Legacy of Dreams and Boyarsky’s Chip, any class can enjoy Pet Thorns.
This is especially true since set and non-set leaderboards are separated, per class, so there is no competition between classes or between set and non-set.
On sets, absolutely.
Sets, to be begin with, were not designed to be equal.
Hopefully we now have Legacy of Dreams.
Some differences might remain on skills (crusader and necromancer having thorns oriented skills). That said, the point is not to compare classes between them, nor design a super performant build, but rather allow a different playstyle. A cool and easy one, no-brainer gameplay that you can play while watching a movie on second screen.
The fundamental issue here is the number of pets different classes could have. A Barb, using Call of the Ancients, gets 3. A Witch Doctor with dogs, gargantuans, fetishes, spiders, might have 20+. So, a Barb’s pets would gain 30% of their master’s thorns, a WD’s pets would have 200% of their master’s thorns. It’s inherently unfair between classes, and that’s before you take into account that some classes have passives that boost thorns and some that do not.
The best thorns build to date used to be the Necromancer but due it one-shotting elites at GR150, it was severely nerfed.
From the point of view that the skeletons have been one of the Necro’s primary feature in most versions it was a good thing in principle, but like most character classes that have been adjusted, like them being over-powered, they have all been over- nerfed unfortunately.
EDIT: Your idea in concept is ok, the issue is balance between classes.
Realistically all classes should have an equal total damage by thorns potential no matter how many pets each class can amass, with the exception of Thorns of the Invoker which is purely a thorns build for Crusader. At present the dev’s have shown no signs of ramping thorns up for all classes. It would be good but I do not see it in the near future.
Considering we can index the thorns bonus on other values than number of pets (see my post above), I assume the remaining problem is the thorns surface implied by the number of pets.
What if we limit the number of pets able to receive that Thorns bonus, like “up to X pets gain { thorns bonus }” and they have a distinctive aura ?
I don’t know, I’m not interested by your proposal, if I want to see pets kill monsters, I know that I can create a Pets LoN/LoD build and summon 30+ pets
Hum, to extinguish the debate, the proposal could, just like Inna, create a special pet upon condition, and bind the thorns bonus to this pet, so any class would have the same number of thorned pets using this bonus.
For Witch Doctor, it would need to work similarly to The Dagger of Darts in that a select number within a given range gain the bonus, making it unpredictable and therefore unreliable unless you keep the numbers low for pet summons. For example, to keep in line with the lower number of native summons available, “3 of your pets within 25 yards gain 75% of your thorns.”
I think it’d be fun to add some way for this: “Your pets can now gain damage bonuses from Oculus Ring.”
I do not think removing “explode” makes sense as that seems to also kill some very useful runes like Kill Command or Sacrifice (and every item that goes along with it.) Unless the effect happens… you just don’t lose the pet.
