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Kanai's Cube

• 

  • Akarat's Awakening

  

  Legendary Crusader Shield

  • Primary Stats
  • • +128–163 Strength
    • +6% Chance to Block
    • +3 Random Magic Properties
  • Secondary Stats
  • • Every successful block has a 20–25% chance to reduce all cooldowns by 1 second.
  Akarat's Awakening
• 

  • Heart of Iron

  

  Legendary Chest Armor

  • Primary Stats
  • • +18–23 Vitality
    • +2 Random Magic Properties
  • Secondary Stats
  • • +2 Thorns Damage
    • Gain Thorns equal to 250–300% of your Vitality.
      
    • One of 3 Magic Properties (varies)

    • +18–23 Dexterity

    • +18–23 Strength

    • +18–23 Intelligence

  Heart of Iron
• 

  • Convention of Elements

  

  Legendary Ring

  • Primary Stats
  • • Critical Hit Chance Increased by 4.5–6.0%
    • +2 Random Magic Properties
  • Secondary Stats
  • • Gain 150–200% increased damage to a single element for 4 seconds. This effect rotates through the elements available to your class in the following order: Arcane, Cold, Fire, Holy, Lightning, Physical, Poison.
    • Empty Socket
    • One of 3 Magic Properties (varies)

    • +220–349 Dexterity

    • +220–349 Strength

    • +220–349 Intelligence

  Convention of Elements

Until I find time to update the stat prio of all items, this is the general priority.

THORNS (it's a secondary, keep that in mind) > CDR > AS > STR > VIT > AR

Crit and Crit damage are very undesirable stats and should only be used if you cannot roll them away but the item still adds more overall benefit than you lose from not having a more useful stat in that slot.

This build relies on Thorns to be present on nearly all items, and as high as possible. Gem prio should be, once all are 25 ofcourse, put into the Boyarsky's chip. For weapon gem, which is crucial, you need a max level Topaz if you can, or simply the highest topaz you have avaliable to you.

Block is a very strong stat too, as it provides damagereduction at a flat rate (as AR would) and it increase the chance of getting the CD reduction to procc off Akarat's awakening, keep in mind while the sheet number can surpass 75% block, in reality you cannot push beyond that 75% block. This means that every 8 or so hit (on average) made to you, will grant you 1sec of ALL your cooldowns. However, you do get damage reduction Justice Lantern from block value over 75%, so you do still gain some benefit from anything above 75%.

You also have a 100% uptime on the damager reduction provided by the 4pc bonus, as bombardments from the belt of troves happens every 6-8 seconds while the buff lasts a full 20 seconds, so that's not anything to ever worry about.

This build has a ton of damage reduction, and I was able to do Grift 72 with 4 minutes to spare in modest gear and only at paragon 300ish on the last build of the 2.4 PTR.

I will update with stat priority once I can do more testing on Live, probably that will be a week or so into season 5.

Reasoning behind pig sticker is it's guaranteed (or is it just very high?) chance of rolling with AS coupled with high attack per second. As this effects how much you can spam out Punish you will want as much AS as you possibly can.

Every stack of Punish you gain 25% thorns (this stacks) and you gain it from using punish but ALSO from blocking attacks while having the punish buff up. I've seen mine stack to nearly 20 on PTR, so there might be a cap at some point but I really doubt it.

This build has the ability to get well into the GR 80s solo and I have played it quite well in a 4 man group, albeit I do belive some item alternations would have to be made to fully utilize the awesome power of a thornsader.

You can change this build a little bit, but I found this to be the best way personally this may not hold true for you. You can use the Akarat's awakening shield on your character and instead in the cube use Blood Brother, this nets you another neat toughness bonus but I would only suggest this if you have trouble surviving.

For augmentation you can augment abit (1 or tops 2 items) with vitality, as it does provide Thorns damage but as a general rule of Thumb I would go with Strength as it effects the damage done by thorns.

Paragon Priorities