Thorns mechanics are very convoluted and there is no wonder you don't know how it works.
First, the mechanic: In theory, every time a source does damage to you, you do damage back at the source. This applies to ranged attacks, melee attacks, spells, ground effects, everything. Some exceptions apply however, and Blizzard has changed how thorns work in certain situations. For example, Ghom's poison gas. This cloud does damage in small amounts but insanely fast. If thorns were to apply to each individual tick the return damage would be insanely high with a high enough thorns stat. So Blizzard decided to cap the damage intervals at some level, making thorns tick somewhat fast but not to the point where it is OP. (In ghom's case, this is a very recent change). This probably applies to many more abilities and effects in the game, I don't know them all though.
As for the damage thorns does, the calculation of this damage is very much hidden in-game. You have a base Thorns value, the one you get from items and passives. Say this value is 10.000(ten thousand). Then to calculate the actual damage done to whatever source hitting you, this formula is applied:
So if you're a Crusader, and you have 8000 strength and 10.000 thorns (as displayed in the stats details on your character sheet), your actual thorns damage would be: 10.000 * ((8000 / 4) / 100) = 10.000 * (2000 / 100) = 10000 * 20 = 200.000.
So 8000 strength and 10.000 Thorns gives you 200.000 damage return on all sources of damage you take. This effect can crit.
Hope that was understandable. All this is stuff I've tested myself, if anything is wrong please do correct me.
I really wanted to play a thorns crusader when I saw all the new legendaries coming that had the possibility of making it a viable main damage source, on top of allowing it to scale with main stat. It seems though that the legendary effect I've managed to test so far, Sanguinary Vambraces, applies the effect from base thorns damage only. I can't speak for the thorns set as I've not managed to test it myself or seen anyone test it out.
Sanguary Vambraces - Chance on being hit to deal 1000% of your thorns damage to nearby enemies.
Not sure about that one. Even with 20k thorns this is only 200k damage, not really that much.
With the expensive shield I would prefer Reaper's Wraps. More shields, more damage, more movement!
Sanguary Vambraces only deal the baseline thorns damage, and is NOT affected by strength. Thus, it is a very small increase, and pales in comparision to other legs out there.
It was "fixed", i just replied in another thread about how it was going to get fixed soon, since it was scaling to hell. Aparently, its already been hotfixed, so thorns is pretty mediocre.
Blessed Shield and the Lightning Hammer build are pretty much the best builds now.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Ive tried Google as Google never lies but havent been able to find out what it is, what I need to spec for it , its importance and what it does.
The ingame tooltip just saids melee hits.
So if someone can explain it to me I'd really appreciate it.
First, the mechanic: In theory, every time a source does damage to you, you do damage back at the source. This applies to ranged attacks, melee attacks, spells, ground effects, everything. Some exceptions apply however, and Blizzard has changed how thorns work in certain situations. For example, Ghom's poison gas. This cloud does damage in small amounts but insanely fast. If thorns were to apply to each individual tick the return damage would be insanely high with a high enough thorns stat. So Blizzard decided to cap the damage intervals at some level, making thorns tick somewhat fast but not to the point where it is OP. (In ghom's case, this is a very recent change). This probably applies to many more abilities and effects in the game, I don't know them all though.
As for the damage thorns does, the calculation of this damage is very much hidden in-game. You have a base Thorns value, the one you get from items and passives. Say this value is 10.000(ten thousand). Then to calculate the actual damage done to whatever source hitting you, this formula is applied:
Actual thorns damage = Thorns * ((Your mainstat / 4) / 100)
So if you're a Crusader, and you have 8000 strength and 10.000 thorns (as displayed in the stats details on your character sheet), your actual thorns damage would be: 10.000 * ((8000 / 4) / 100) = 10.000 * (2000 / 100) = 10000 * 20 = 200.000.
So 8000 strength and 10.000 Thorns gives you 200.000 damage return on all sources of damage you take. This effect can crit.
Hope that was understandable. All this is stuff I've tested myself, if anything is wrong please do correct me.
So if I understand correctly thorns is the damage Iam returning back to the mobs attacking me scaling from my main stat.
In this case Strength.
So basically if I stack strength and take Iron Maiden as a passive this would increase my thorns damage right?
thanks again for the help.
I'am not quite 70 yet but I'am going to work on that set and give the Thorns build a go, at least I know what to look for now.
So with the right gear and build Thorns makes that much better dps overall?
A bug caused it to scale with difficulty, making it overpowered. They fixed the bug but not the tooltip.
Even with 20k thorns this is only 200k damage, not really that much.
With the expensive shield I would prefer Reaper's Wraps. More shields, more damage, more movement!
Edit: Lame, doesn't merge my posts.. Apologies!
Blessed Shield and the Lightning Hammer build are pretty much the best builds now.