Just going over the PTR notes and wow, Thorns is not only going to be viable on Necro, but vastly superior to Barb.
Barb gets a whopping 2 passives, can’t use shields, and no real support for it in the Paragon Boards outside of the Revenge Glyph (which thankfully is actually a great choice for the initial board).
Hack needs to come back as a Unique weapon or something, maybe some additional Synergy inside the skill tree or Paragon. I tried my hardest to make it work in the first two seasons and had moderate success, but it just fell off around tier 70;
You either give up Razorplate for survivability, or use it and pray the damage gets the job done.(That item could also use some love)
Thorns should have the highest DR and Max HP of any build with investment. Additionally, there needs to be Support that adds your Thorns Damage to Attacks. More thought needs to go into how Thorns works for Bosses also where a lot of Utility vanishes due to Boss mechanics (no CC conditionals) and being a single target.
Blizzard really should take a cue from Grim Dawn on how they handled Retaliation/Thorns (especially with the Soldier archetype). There were entire Skills based around Counter-Attacks.
A big fix could be having a portion of Weapon DPS transfer as Thorns with heavy investment into the Skill/Paragon Trees. You could basically eliminate from having to get the “Thorns” Affix entirely this way and open up players to really stack DR/EHP.
Razorplate seems like pretty low-hanging fruit. The fact it only has Thorns, a single Affix, and nothing more is atrocious. There should be a Unique Aspect for Thorns specifically and EHP Affixes.
Thornes is great now, its going to be much more powerful later. You dont need a lot for it to work, just a couple aspects and skill nodes. It works great as a secondary dps power. Razorplate is just lazy design, LOL. No stats 4tw.
Thorns already is a real build. It is king of PvP. It can AFK NMD 100 already. The only reason i think most don’t play it is because it is slow, not because it is weak, but b/c monsters dont have attack speed to speed up the reflection damage, so you are just waiting around for their slow attack speed to hit and proc thorns.
Barb actually does not lean on the revenge glpyh for damage, that’s now how theyare built.
Razor plate will be even more powerful with greater affix roll, and plus b/c only 1 affix greater chance to hit the roll.
If you doubt the ridiculuous level of power Thorns Barb has, I invite you to bring your strongest PvE character and just hit a thorns barb 1. I will loan you out the throns test dummy. Genuine offer for you to see how power Thorns exists today.
Hmm… tempting offer. Guess I should pull out my Flamewall Sorc.
My AFK thorn build only goes up to NMD 70. I’m still looking for Melted Heart to see if I can go higher.
im at about 400k with thornes in this weeks gauntlet. its can be done lol.
Still waiting for a thorn sorcerer, maybe one day
Give it a go for a friendly match so you can what the if you have a toon in eternal. Just drop me an invite.
That way you can see what thorns can be and decide what you want to do with it.
Razorplate does not have any affixes, the thorns is the unique aspect so it won’t ever drop greater and masterworking won’t impact it…unless they change it…
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Oh no! You’re absolutely right. Dreams dashed.
Okay, revised statement. Imagine what greater affix on +life will mean for the thorns barb, especially if it rolls on Grandfather and Doombringer. The damage and tankiness! 180k health Barb here we come!
This is the biggest cry baby post I have ever seen about a build… you just want the easy button for everything. Go play a different game kid. Obviously you have zero clue how to build a thorns if your saying you give up survivability if you wear Razorplate… stupid pleb.
Correct, and I hate that. At the very least what they could do is change it so it is upgradeable, and always drops as a max rolled GA given it’s such a niche item.
I personally think it should have some DR, especially now that in this new system DR is being reduced across the board and being made considerably more rare.
Can’t Temper the thing either since it’s a Unique.
Considering Thorns is an Affix that can roll on your Chest, a Greater Affix Thorns, Max Health, Damage Reduction Tempered and Mastercrafted with newly Buffed Gems will so far outperform Razorplate it isn’t even funny.
It was a very odd choice to not allow Unique items to be Tempered. This solidifies most of them as garbage.
Not really it makes sense for Uniques to not be tempered - otherwise they wouldn’t be “Unique” now would they.
What’s baffling is why Razorplate only has the one modifier, and that it’s treated as an Aspect rather than an affix and can’t be upgraded even now.
Like do the devs not realize Thorns builds want to be hit, and therefore need all the defensive stats they can get?
I would go a step further. RAISE the thorn value on Razorplate. Up to 50k. I just want to see consistent 1 million thorn damage.
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Speaking of Razorplate, it kind of feels dated after seeing the patch notes.
Unique items would be Unique to the player still if you could Temper that 5th Affix onto it. 3 Affixes should be common, 1 Affix should be “Unique” and the 5th Affix the player gets to decide from Tempering. This would bring it back on par with traditional Legendary items.
Agreed. If they’re going to make Razorplate a meme item, at least go all out on it.
But I’m guessing they can’t do that now that Necro is getting 100% inherited stats, taunt on defender skellies and Needleflare applying to minions.
If you think Thorns Barb is good, wait until you see minions in action because now you have potentially up to 14 sources of Thorns instead of 1.
This is partly why I want to see a feeling Thorns Paragon Board already, and maybe some skill tree adjustments.
Thorns has been a favorite playstyle of mine ever since D2, because just the idea of enemies offing themselves from hitting me is hilarious.
D4 needs to elevate Thorns so it isn’t 1 note and all Passive. Being able to Taunt/Pull and increase Enemy Attack Speed while increasing DR as enemies attack you would be a great addition to Razorplate as a Unique Aspect (or elsewhere).
Having Counter-Attacks be a viable path with existing Skills and allowing a contribution of Thorns to be used Offensively with Defensive Abilities is another path. Ditching the Fortify from Iron Skin and instead making it a Thorns Support would be super interesting. It could work similar to Barber in that damage dealt to you and absorbed by your Barrier gets collected and released in a large AoE when Iron Skin ends. The Damage collected would be modified by your Thorns value.
after thinking about it, thornes on barbs might not be viable anymore with the blood rage nerf. you are losing 60x damage or more. if they kept blood rage power level as it is now, and nerfed its ability to work with CORE skills, that would be awesome.