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What is Thorns damage in Diablo 4? Diablo 4 has a lot of different new types of damage, but Thorns is a damage type that is one that’s been a mainstay of the franchise and it makes a return in Diablo 4. We’re going to go over everything you need to know about this damage type.
In the meantime, check out our other Diablo 4 guides, such as our guide on what Overpower is in Diablo 4, also our guide about crowd control in Diablo 4. Also check out our Diablo 4 Season 2 release date guide.
What is Thorns damage?
Thorns in Diablo 4 is a mechanic that is deals reflective damage back to an attacker. Players will have Thorns damage on different gear pieces at random, but there are pieces of gear and builds that are specialized around Thorns damage.
The way that Thorns is calculated is actually quite simple. Players will have a Thorns stat, which again comes from gear and skills at times. When a player is hit by an enemy, that enemy will take damage equal to the Thorns stat multiplied by skill damage increases from your characters main stat.
Here is the main stat for each character that you’ll want to have:
- Rogue: Dexterity
- Necromancer: Intelligence
- Sorcerer: Intelligence
- Barbarian: Strength
- Druid: Dexterity
For example, if a Necromancer has 1,000 Thorns, and has a 50% increase in damage, the monster will take 1,500 damage. This may seem small at first, but the higher you scale your Thorns stat, the bigger your damage. One thing to note is that Thorns damage cannot trigger off purely damage over time hits against your character, there needs to be a hit involved. You also can add additional Thorns by socketing Emeralds into your armor pieces.
What’s the best Thorns builds in Diablo 4?
The to best thorns builds in Diablo 4 belong to two different classes, the Barbarian and the Necromancer. The Barbarian is essentially a Whirlwind build that has that additional layer of offense with Thorns. For our Necro friends, they’re leveraging the offensive capabilities of minions. Our Skeletal Warriors and Bone Golem both inherit increased Thorns from us, increasing our overall damage output from that, and our Skeletal Mages our our extra damage source.
For both of these builds, you’re going to want to make sure that you have a Razorplate unique chest. This is a must have because it can grant you up to almost 11,000 Thorns all by itself. Combine this with Thorns on your other pieces of gear, and you’ll be all good to go. Additionally, you’ll want to try to get as much of your main stat as possible to scale your Thorns damage as high as possible.
And that’s all you need to know about Thorns in Diablo 4. For more, check out our Diablo 4 guide on if Diablo 4 is coming to Game Pass. Also check out our Diablo 4 Paragon Glyphs guide to learn about them and how to upgrade them.
