Thorns Build: Is it worth it?
Just wanted to post something for the five people interested in a Thorns build.
Firstly, a big/obvious scaling point for a Thorns is the Spiked Armour node in the Warrior area of the tree, which reads "Gain Physical Thorns equal to 2% of Armour from equipped Body Armour." After quick testing, this node is only affected by the raw armour number on your equipped body armour, and does not scale with the nodes on the tree which increase the armour you receive from body armour (it also doesn't scale with generic armour increases, but I was never that hopeful.)
This removes a big scaling point for the build I feel. Hopefully it's changed, but we'll see.
Thorns can roll on Body Armour, Shields and Belts, with a rough average of 45 Physical Thorns at the top roll. If we (maybe unreasonably) assume a body armour with 2000 armour, that's another 40 Thorns from Spiked Armour.
Assuming Titan's Hulking Form, the tree has a Total of 150% increased Thorns Damage, plus another 75% if you've blocked recently.
There is also a notable for +5% base crit to Thorns (which I'm guessing starts at 0%) and two small nodes for 25% Thorns Crit. damage bonus (a crit is base 100% extra damage).
As for Unique items, the two usable ones I know of so far are the helm 'Crown of the Pale King', which makes Thorns proc from any enemy hit, not just melee (essential) and the boots 'Briarpatch' which adds a further +15% to base crit for Thorns.
As for if Thorns is worth it, below is a rough min/max, generously assuming another 100% generic increased damage (physical bonus and Strength scaling from Brute Strength Notable), and the Amulet Anoint: Careful Assassin (50% increased crit chance, 20% reduced crit damage), we get:
(Very rough Math)
-
Base Thorns (rough avg.): 175
-
Thorns with 325% increase: 743
-
20% Base Crit
-
204% increased crit chance (60 real crit chance)
-
201% crit damage bonus (total 301%)
Damage with averaged out crit over time: 2080 Thorns
Math was done considering the below tree, which is level 100, focus on Strength, Life Regen, Thorns and Crit. Is it worth it? I don't know, still in Act 2 myself, but I'd argue not. Even if the avg. damage is decent, standing around getting hit is an easy way to die.
Comments
I definitely don't think it's worth it as a build in its own right but it's a lot of passive damage that you're getting with no inputs required.
The big question for if Thorns is worth building around is if it triggers anytime you are hit, or if you have to take damage from the hit for it to proc. If the former, then you should build heavily into block for defense and prioritize that. If the latter, then damage mitigation is more important so that being hit doesn't cost you resources.