In previous seasons, Diablo 4 players often used Thorns as a buff to slow down enemies and reduce damage taken. However, with each season, more and more players have discovered that this bonus can also be incorporated into purely offensive builds.
In the current Season 9, Sins of the Horadrim, several Uniques and skills, including passive and active, allow you to leverage Thorns in combat to deliver exceptional damage, encouraging players to create even more powerful builds around Thorns.
With that in mind, this guide will introduce several of the most promising Thorns-based builds to try this season, including detailed gameplay tips and recommended gear to include within them, so you can quickly build a powerful, battle-ready build, making even exploring Torment 2 or 3 a breeze.
However, due to space constraints, this guide will be a high-level overview. If you’d like to learn more about the specific options and gameplay strategies for each build, you can visit IGGM.com for more guides. Best of all, there’s plenty of in-game gold and Diablo 4 materials to earn.
1. Thorns Bash Barbarian
The first build we’re going to introduce is the most well-known Thorns-based build – Thorns Bash Barbarian build, as its strong survivability allows it to maintain a healthy health value among many powerful bosses and hordes of monsters, and to cast excellent single-target damage, which is very necessary to advance your exploration of The Pit.
More than that, Thorns, combined with Bash Barbarian’s Bash, Hammer of the Ancients, Ground Stomp, and Earthquake Aspect, makes your character a walking destroyer, capable of wreaking havoc wherever he goes.
Additionally, War Cry, Rallying Cry, and Challenging Shout can also provide you with some damage capabilities, but their main purpose is to improve your survivability in the late game.
In addition to its powerful damage and survivability, Thorns Bash Barbarian also has a simpler skill rotation than other Thorns-based builds, so even novice players can have excellent durability in high-difficulty game content.
However, it must be pointed out that Bash’s long cooldown is the biggest problem of the entire build, which makes it difficult to deal enough damage against some more agile enemies.
There are generally two solutions to this: one is to spend some Diablo 4 gold to shorten the cooldown of these skills, and the other is to directly increase the damage capacity of each skill after casting to reduce the enemy’s survival time.
Recommended Gear
- Razorplate
- Ancient’s Oath
- Aspect of the Ancestral Forces
- Aspect of Elements
- Bold Chieftain’s Aspect
2. Poison Thorns Spiritborn
In the current D4 Season 9, the developers have made unprecedented improvements to Spiritborn stats and items in Vessel of Hatred DLC. While the developers publicly stated this was for game balance, the realistic goal is to pique the interest of players who have been exploring the base game for a long time in this expansion, as the next one won’t be until next year.
With this in mind, Rake/Quill Volley Poison Thorns Spiritborn build has become one of the most damaging and effective builds. Balazan’s Maxtlatl activates its key passive, Noxious Resonance, dealing massive amounts of poison damage.
Combined with this build’s high mobility and attack speed, it can easily clear out any enemy within sight, making it an excellent choice for dungeons, The Pit, and Infernal Hordes. However, this build requires some time and D4 Gold to maximize its critical strike chance, which is a bit difficult.
Recommended Gear
- Razorplate
- Balazan’s Maxtlatl
- Loyalty’s Mantle
- Aspect of Plains Power
- Aspect of Wild Claws
- Fell Soothsayer’s Aspect
3. Thorns Minion Necromancer
While Necromancer build, with its numerous powerful minions, is already considered a top-tier build for Diablo 4 players, combining Thorns with your summoned an army of minions is even more effective.
This build with Blight, Bone Storm, Iron Maiden, and Minions as its core, offers sufficient damage. Furthermore, with Razorplate and the Spiked Armor passive equipped, Thorns provide maximum resistance to enemy attacks, giving your minions a greater chance of dealing damage.
Furthermore, your minions inherit 50% of your total Thorns from Book of the Dead, granting Skeletal Defenders and Bone Golems increased damage and survivability. This build focuses more on damage, but lacks strong defense, even been nicknamed Glass Cannon.
For this reason, you’ll want to include as much defensive gear as possible in this build, upgraded with Diablo 4 in-game gold, to successfully complete challenging gameplay while remaining safe.
Recommended Gear
- Razorplate
- Bristleback Aspect
- Needleflare Aspect
- Sticker-thought Aspect
- Blood Moon Breeches
That concludes our introduction to three Thorns-based builds worth trying in Diablo 4 Season 9. If you’re looking for a new and complex playstyle, Poison Thorns Spiritborn is your best bet; if you prefer ranged attacks, Thorns Minion Necromancer is a better fit.
And Thorns Bash Barbarian is perfect for anyone looking to experiment with this combat style. We hope you’ve found your ideal Thorns-based build here, and be sure to check out the detailed information on each build on IGGM. Happy gaming!
