Crusader Invoker Thorns Build
Introduction
The Thorns of the Invoker set unlocks a powerful, retaliation-based playstyle with what used to be the laughing stock of stats, Thorns. This tanky, utility and cooldown-oriented playstyle is designed towards Greater Rift solo progression, but we also have a speed farming variation.
Quick Reference
Skill Setup
The basic skill setup of the Invoker Thorns Crusader is displayed below. Read the dedicated Skills page for detailed information on choices, alternatives and build customization.
Active Skills |
---|
Slash Zeal Steed Charge Draw and Quarter 1 Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force 2 Iron Skin Reflective Skin 3 Bombardment Barrels of Spikes 4 Akarat's Champion Prophet |
Passive Skills |
Gear Setup
The required gear setup for the Invoker Thorns Crusader is listed below. Check the Gear page for detailed information on choices, alternatives, gemming, Kanai's Cube and Paragon distribution.
- Helm: Crown of the Invoker
- Shoulders: Burden of the Invoker
- Gloves: Pride of the Invoker
- Chest: Aquila Cuirass
- Belt: Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle
- Pants: Captain Crimson's Thrust
- Boots: Zeal of the Invoker
- Bracers: Shackles of the Invoker
- Amulet: The Traveler's Pledge
- Ring 1: The Compass Rose
- Ring 2: Ring of Royal Grandeur
- Weapon: Pig Sticker
- Offhand: Akarat's Awakening
Season 33 Theme — 4th Kanai Slot
With this Season's addition of a 4th slot in Kanai's Cube as a theme, your ideal setup will be:
- Kanai's Cube 4th Slot: Unity
Altar of Rites
The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.
Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).
You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.
Legendary Gems
- Legendary Gem 1: Bane of the Trapped
- Legendary Gem 2: Boyarsky's Chip
- Legendary Gem 3: Bane of the Stricken
Kanai's Cube
- Weapon Slot: Echoing Fury
- Armor Slot: Omnislash
- Jewelry Slot: Convention of Elements
- 4th Slot (Season 33): Unity
How to Get This Build Going?
In this section, we will briefly go over how to kickstart this build into reality; which items you should aim for with priority when farming and gambling, and what is their relative priority for the functioning of this spec. Note that these suggestions are exclusively aimed at getting you up and running into endgame farming, and might not reflect the gear you need to wear for high-end Greater Rift solo or group pushing. This section also assumes a fresh Season's start, which usually is the point where most players work on assembling their first build with a particular set.
If the Invoker set is part of the Haedrig's Gift for the Season, your simplest and most straightforward path to assembling the build is to complete the Seasonal Journey chapters up to Chapter IV. The Seasonal Journey chapters will gradually give you a complete class-specific set, giving 2-3 pieces for Chapters II, III and IV.
From the pre-game menu, choose and do this week's Challenge Rift. When successfully completed, this weekly event will grant you 5,1 million Gold, 475 Blood Shards, 370 Reusable Parts, 350 Arcane Dust, 125 Veiled Crystals, 35 Death's Breaths, and 15 of each Bounty cache material: Khanduran Rune, Caldeum Nightshade, Arreat War Tapestry, Corrupted Angel Flesh, and Westmarch Holy Water. This will allow you some early Seasonal leeway to extract and reforge items in Kanai's Cube, speeding up the assembly of this build with the items recommended below.
Having some materials at your disposal, either from farming or the Challenge Rift, is particularly important when you get duplicate pieces of your desired set. When you do, you can use Kanai's Cube Skill of Nilfur recipe (10x Forgotten Souls, 10x Death's Breaths, 1x Set item) to convert into another item from the same set. You should never salvage duplicate pieces of a desired set before you have it assembled.
In order to assemble an Invoker Thorns Crusader, you should do the following.
- Gather the full 6-piece Shadow set using the advice above, or by spending Blood Shards at Kadala. In order of gamble chance, you should spend for: Shoulders, Boots, Gloves, Pants, Gloves, Helm, and Bracers. A trick you can also use is to gamble for duplicate pieces with an easier gamble chance (i.e., Shoulders) and convert them into another piece from the same set using the Skill of Nilfur recipe in Kanai's Cube.
- Gamble Belts for Omnislash and/or Belt of the Trove. Omnislash will provide the Thorns build with a much needed AoE attack. Belt of the Trove will automatically proc the 4-piece damage reduction bonus, freeing up a skill slot on your bar from the otherwise necessary Bombardment. Gambling on Belts will also net you Goldwrap, which is a nice survivability alternative for T16 runs.
- Upgrade rare (Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube) One-handed Swords to get In-geom; doing this on a level 1 Demon Hunter alt will improve your chances due to their lowest loot pool of legendary swords. Invoker builds are pretty good at hunting and bursting down elites, which makes In-geom a great piece for them.
- Gamble Shields or upgrade Rare Crusader Shields for Akarat's Awakening; this is the block-based equivalent of Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac for Invoker builds, as it chips away at your cooldowns as you facetank attacks. This shield is one of your shortcuts to resetting the indispensable Akarat's Champion cooldown, and can ease you into GR pushing with this build.
- Gamble Bracers for Nemesis Bracers to get yourself additional Elite spawns, feeding into your In-geom cooldown reduction machine and greatly speeding up farming runs overall. Gambling Bracers will net you other valuable pieces, such as the farming staple Warzechian Armguards, or the numerous build-specific legendary bracers for Crusaders.
- Do Act I bounties to attain the act-specific Ring of Royal Grandeur from Bounty caches. This will be helpful either in completing the basic set bonus, or mixing other helpful sets in (Cpt. Crimson) as described in the dedicated endgame Invoker Thorns guide. Bounties will net you the craftable set recipes to begin with, so you will be killing two birds with one stone. Bounties will also net you Avarice Band (Act III), another farming-oriented staple for most builds and classes, this one included.
- While largely undesirable due to high costs, gambling or upgrading rare Jewelry is also possible; Justice Lantern, Convention of Elements, and the Endless Walk set ( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose) will all drastically improve the build, with other standout pieces that can also substitute or be temporarily helpful in the form of Unity, or Oculus Ring and The Flavor of Time for your Follower.
Changelog
- 21 Oct. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
- 21 Oct. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 33.
- 21 Oct. 2024 (this page): Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
- 09 Jul. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
- 09 Jul. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 32.
- 09 Jul. 2024 (this page): Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
- 10 Apr. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
- 10 Apr. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 31.
- 10 Apr. 2024 (this page): Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
- 08 Jan. 2024 (gear page): Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
- 08 Jan. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 30.
- 08 Jan. 2024 (this page): Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
- 13 Sep. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
- 13 Sep. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 29.
- 13 Sep. 2023 (this page): Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 28.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (this page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (gear page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 27.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (this page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 13 Apr. 2022 (gear page): Guide revised for Season 26.
- 13 Apr. 2022 (skills page): Guide revised for Season 26.
- 13 Apr. 2022 (this page): Guide revised for Season 26.
- 09 Dec. 2021 (gear page): Guide revised and added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 09 Dec. 2021 (skills page): Guide revised and added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 09 Dec. 2021 (this page): Guide revised and added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 23 Jul. 2021 (gear page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 23 Jul. 2021 (skills page): Minor clarification for a Season 24 adjustment.
- 23 Jul. 2021 (this page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (gear page): Added follower recommendations.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (skills page): No changes required for Season 23.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (this page): Added follower recommendations.
- 18 Nov. 2020 (gear page): Revised equipment and Cube recommendations for Season 22.
- 18 Nov. 2020 (skills page): Updated advice to match usage of Norvald's Fervor in S22. Changed a passive.
- 18 Nov. 2020 (this page): Revised equipment and Cube recommendations for Season 22.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (gear page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (skills page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (this page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (gear page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (skills page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (this page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (gear page): Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (skills page): Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (this page): Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 22 Aug. 2019 (gear page): Revised Cube recommendations for the build for Season 18.
- 22 Aug. 2019 (skills page): Reviewed for Season 18.
- 22 Aug. 2019 (this page): Revised Cube recommendations for the build for Season 18.
- 17 May 2019 (gear page): Minor fixes to skill recommendations; guide approved for Season 17.
- 17 May 2019 (skills page): Minor fixes to skill recommendations; guide approved for Season 17.
- 17 May 2019 (this page): Minor fixes to skill recommendations; guide approved for Season 17.
- 24 Feb. 2019 (gear page): Item and skill recommendations revised further to reflect the meta.
- 24 Feb. 2019 (skills page): Item and skill recommendations revised further to reflect the meta.
- 24 Feb. 2019 (this page): Item and skill recommendations revised further to reflect the meta.
- 17 Jan. 2019 (gear page): Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
- 17 Jan. 2019 (skills page): Information was reviewed and approved for Season 16 with no changes required.
- 17 Jan. 2019 (this page): Guide was revised with additional recommendations for Season 16.
- 20 Sep. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 15.
- 14 Jun. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 14.
- 31 Oct. 2017 (gear page): Changed weapons to reflect Thorn's changes in Patch 2.6.1.
- 31 Oct. 2017 (skills page): Replaced Provoke with Consecration.
- 31 Oct. 2017 (this page): Guide updated to reflect the Patch 2.6.1 buffs.
- 02 Jul. 2017 (this page): Updated for 2.6 and moved to new guide format.
More Crusader Guides
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This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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