Invoker Thorns Crusader

[Lunaji 1]

Deadset has offered his take on potions in the comments to the Akkhan Condemn guide:

On 31/05/2016 at 9:21 AM, Deadset said:

As for potions, I prefer the Bottomless Potion of Diamond for Strength classes, to balance out their naturally high Armor with a spike of All Resistance. Potions rarely make a meaningful difference though.

[Guest Replacements?]

Does anyone knows the proc rate from Sanguinary Vambraces?

 

I am trying this thorns build but I think that maybe using Ring of Royal Grandeur is good to allow replacing the set bracer. Since it's activation has been fixed, who knows?

 

Also is Convention of Elements really the best option? I am thinking about using Justice Lantern (or RoRG) on cube to allow the use of Sanguinary Vambraces. 

 

By the way, are there any circumstances that using Flawless Royal Amethyst is better than using Flawless Royal Ruby on chest/torso?

The bonus from Heart of Iron is 300%, wich means more Thorns damage, but Strength also increases overall damage. After all, wich one should I use?

 

Last but not least, is The Traveler's Pledge the to go choice as well? I mean, I could use a Hellfire Amulet for an extra passive and having an extra ring slot to use what I said above or something better that haven't came in my mind yet to ask.

 

Well, that's it. If anyone could answer me, I will be grateful, those doubts are killing me (I still haven't all pieces from guide yet, but I'm getting there).

Thanks in advance!

[Lunaji 1]

There's been discussion in this topic (and elsewhere) about using RoRG to fit in the Vambraces and the consensus is that the build falls apart. There is hardly any room to leave out any of the pieces of jewellery:

• CoE really is a massive dps increase, particularly when you master playing around its cycles (i.e. doing any moving around during bad cycles and bursting down with Iron Skin during physical)
• Justice Lantern, apart from the needed mitigation, rolls with block chance that helps your 2p bonus as well, so it's better worn
• Endless Walk is another major much needed dps boost

Amethysts never offer more damage than Rubies. You can find the math here (please note that some of the other bits on that post may be outdated). If you would like to balance damage and toughness, mix Rubies and Diamonds.

However, the latest fashion for a while now has been to put the Sanguinary Vambraces in the cube instead of Heart of Iron. (This is how I'm running myself at the moment, even though I haven't found the difference groundbreaking).

Edited April 5, 2017 by Lunaji

[Guest Ante]

Seriously Icy-veins is really bad nowadays and player(Dead) doesnt know or probably he hasnt much time to look in deep and test some things he wrote to the builds.. Cause 80% is totaly mess and goes to rubish..Numbers/breakpoints/ and so on.. Missin in 70% of builds and there are huge mistakes for exp : Barbarian thorns build with war cry goes for rune on dodge:D = when you dodge enemy miss you = 0 dmg to you = 0dmg reflected via thorns:)..

Thats why i say the icyveins for D3 is only for : ok i want test some new clasS/build - look on spells and ok and the rest is crap:) and try find something else:)

[Deadset 108]

On 4/8/2017 at 2:50 AM, Guest Ante said:

Missin in 70% of builds and there are huge mistakes for exp : Barbarian thorns build with war cry goes for rune on dodge:D = when you dodge enemy miss you = 0 dmg to you = 0dmg reflected via thorns:)

Unfortunate you feel this way, I'm curious if you can point me to a guide writer/website out there that provides more indepth written guides.

As for the Barb Thorns example, you're flat out wrong, because unlike a Thorns Sader, that build does NOT rely on getting hit to deliver the bulk of its damage. The Thorns Barb delivers the majority of the Thorns damage via its fast application from Frenzy.

But sure, you can make a War Cry rune swap to Impunity. Highly unlikely it makes any meaningful difference in damage.

[Guest jtreez]

Hey Deadset,

I want to say I've plateaued on this build until I find ancient armors. Currently at stuck at GR66, can you please take a look at my build to see if there's any area that needs to be tweaked?

Thanks, 

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/jtreez-1573/hero/86992639

 

Edited April 15, 2017 by positiv2
Changed accordingly to the follow-up comment

[Guest Alykatze]

Is this build still viable? I am playing crusader season 10 and just got a primal ancient of the BiS shield for this build, but haven't seen anyone use Invoker for a few seasons now. I heard the set took some hits from a nerf through a previous patch not too long ago, but I'd like to try this set again. This build was one of my favorites at the time!

[Guest gort]

Hello, guys.

Let me ask a question about this thorns/invoker build.  Why not Simplicity Strength gem instead Bane of the Stricken/Powerful? Lot of my damage on elites/guargians coming from Punish with Hack axe.

 

[Lunaji 1]

On 19/04/2017 at 6:38 AM, Guest Alykatze said:

Is this build still viable? I am playing crusader season 10 and just got a primal ancient of the BiS shield for this build, but haven't seen anyone use Invoker for a few seasons now. I heard the set took some hits from a nerf through a previous patch not too long ago, but I'd like to try this set again. This build was one of my favorites at the time!

The build is definitely viable and can comfortably do GR80+ in a season. However, there are other stronger builds (Hammerdin and LoN bomber). The Hammerdin dominated the leaderboards last season (GR107 the highest clear).

On 19/04/2017 at 1:09 PM, Guest gort said:

Hello, guys.

Let me ask a question about this thorns/invoker build.  Why not Simplicity Strength gem instead Bane of the Stricken/Powerful? Lot of my damage on elites/guargians coming from Punish with Hack axe.

Simplicity's Strength only buffs the base Punish damage, not the extra thorns components from 6p and Hack. Thus its benefit is completely insignificant.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Lunaji

[Guest Feuershark]

Hey guys

I got several stuff to ask about the build. First is Hack : 100% thorn on attacks. Is it really such a huge damage increase ? Since we already got 800% thorn on Punish, I was wondering ... and I don't know if Belt of the trove's auto bombardement is included since it's from a item and not casted.

Second is Vo'toyas Spiker : double thorn to enemies taunted by Provoke. Does that counts every thorn dealt to them or just the regular thorns ? That would mean that punish deals 1600% thorn instead of 800% on Punish, which sounds so awesome to me I'm doubting it.

Third, it's been said that diamonds are good for the Toughness and rubies for the Strength, but I'm don't know if amethysts can be a good in-between, with the increase in thorn + health, or if it's worthless. Could someone tell me ?

Lastly, does Laws of Justice Decaying Strength works on damage dealt by stuff like arcane sentry and the like ?

After that I just have some random stuff to say : Coven's Criterion works so good I use it instead of Akarat's Awakening, , got white damage ar 1B with yellow crits at 1M (and the orange-red are at 9B), and green legendary potion is good

[Lunaji 1]

It is not easy to say with absolute certainty, because there is no combat log and the information out there is often conflicting (it may even have all been accurate, at different points in time). To my knowledge, the current consensus is:

• Hack procs off the 2p aoe, thus making it a potent aoe addition
• Vo'toyas Spiker only applies to reflected thorns; still significant because those benefit from the 2p multipliers
• There is no realistic strength/thorns ratio where Amethysts would give you more damage.
• Decaying strength - not sure to be honest. That said, it's very tangibly the best mitigation Law.

Coven's Criterion doubtlessly procs a lot, however it can only be of limited benefit since the build is already extremely tanky. The CDR from Akarat's Awakening is overall much more powerful - and arguably, keeping Akarat's Champion up permanently helps your survivability a lot more than the damage reduced by CC.

Edited May 4, 2017 by Lunaji

[Guest Alex]

Hey guys,

What do you think about having " chance to deal % are damage on hit" on items? Some say it procs some say it doesn't because of a bug and it's totally useless?

Cheers

[Guest Melychath]

What about Consecration, Bed of Nails? Does that skill add any meaningful damage to this build? Pop Iron Skin, Consecration, then Punish, Punish, Punish. 

 

I was using Steed Charge, Spiked Barding (instead of Endurance) as an extra dps skill, supplemental to the assistance it provides in charging from elite mob to elite mob. I can see how Spiked Barding will be unnecessary, maybe even detrimental, once I've got Endless Walk (I've only got about half the gear I need for this set), but Consecration seems like a nice dps skill to add to the rotation. Am I missing something?

 

Love your build guides, by the way. It's some impressive work. 

[Lunaji 1]

On 04/05/2017 at 6:12 PM, Guest Alex said:

Hey guys,

What do you think about having " chance to deal % are damage on hit" on items? Some say it procs some say it doesn't because of a bug and it's totally useless?

Cheers

As far as I know: area damage procs off the 2p bonus, as well as things like Consecration, Bombardment etc, but it does not proc off the 6p bonus. Thus, it's not totally useless, but not as strong as it could be.

17 hours ago, Guest Melychath said:

What about Consecration, Bed of Nails? Does that skill add any meaningful damage to this build? Pop Iron Skin, Consecration, then Punish, Punish, Punish. 

 

I was using Steed Charge, Spiked Barding (instead of Endurance) as an extra dps skill, supplemental to the assistance it provides in charging from elite mob to elite mob. I can see how Spiked Barding will be unnecessary, maybe even detrimental, once I've got Endless Walk (I've only got about half the gear I need for this set), but Consecration seems like a nice dps skill to add to the rotation. Am I missing something?

My first post here a few pages back was wondering about Bed of Nails - and in fact I did my first GR80 clear last season with it. Apparently, it was once part of the build (see the first pages of this topic), but has been since replaced. The fact is, there's not much room for it. What would you replace? I replaced LoJ - Decaying Strength because I was finding the toughness overkill at that point, but have since reinstated it as I push higher.

You will find some people running the build without Vo'toyas Spiker, i.e. equipping Akarat's Awakening and cubing Blood Brother of Furnace. In this case, replacing Provoke with Bed of Nails makes a lot of sense (particularly with BB in the cube as it provides ample block chance).

Edited May 6, 2017 by Lunaji

[Guest Melychath]

4 hours ago, Lunaji said:

As far as I know: area damage procs off the 2p bonus, as well as things like Consecration, Bombardment etc, but it does not proc off the 6p bonus. Thus, it's not totally useless, but not as strong as it could be.

My first post here a few pages back was wondering about Bed of Nails - and in fact I did my first GR80 clear last season with it. Apparently, it was once part of the build (see the first pages of this topic), but has been since replaced. The fact is, there's not much room for it. What would you replace? I replaced LoJ - Decaying Strength because I was finding the toughness overkill at that point, but have since reinstated it as I push higher.

You will find some people running the build without Vo'toyas Spiker, i.e. equipping Akarat's Awakening and cubing Blood Brother of Furnace. In this case, replacing Provoke with Bed of Nails makes a lot of sense (particularly with BB in the cube as it provides ample block chance).

Thanks for the response, and the explanation. I was thinking of replacing Steed Charge, but after some testing have determined Consecration is not worth the space in my rotation.

As a side note, I haven't found the Spiker yet and am using Skywarden until I do find it. From reading the guide and the unique attribute of the Spiker I expect it to have substantially more damage than the Skywarden, but the Skywarden is a nice place-holder.

[Valks 2,375]

10 hours ago, Guest Melychath said:

Thanks for the response, and the explanation. I was thinking of replacing Steed Charge, but after some testing have determined Consecration is not worth the space in my rotation.

As a side note, I haven't found the Spiker yet and am using Skywarden until I do find it. From reading the guide and the unique attribute of the Spiker I expect it to have substantially more damage than the Skywarden, but the Skywarden is a nice place-holder.

The issue with replacing Steed Charge is that it essentially fills the role of a cheat death, given that it can allow you to escape the more dangerous moments of a rift. It's also incredibly useful for stacking since you can use it to pull enemies ahead back to where you are stacking.

[Guest Melychath]

 

2 hours ago, Blainie said:

The issue with replacing Steed Charge is that it essentially fills the role of a cheat death, given that it can allow you to escape the more dangerous moments of a rift. It's also incredibly useful for stacking since you can use it to pull enemies ahead back to where you are stacking.

I hear ya there. I was figuring the extra damage would be nice at higher GRifts, but once I found a 6th piece for Invoker my damage output skyrocketed. I also learned that the escape Steed offers is necessary at times, even for a tank. 

Love this community. The knowledge base is great!

[Valks 2,375]

2 hours ago, Guest Melychath said:

I hear ya there. I was figuring the extra damage would be nice at higher GRifts, but once I found a 6th piece for Invoker my damage output skyrocketed. I also learned that the escape Steed offers is necessary at times, even for a tank. 

Love this community. The knowledge base is great!

Yeah, the Invoker's set would have been a huge leap in damage :p

It really is. There are certain situations that you simply can't deal with at times, especially when using something like Thorns where the damage can be pretty unpredictable.

[falrinth 2]

Hi, curious about one comment in the guide that I wasn't able to fully understand even after perusing these posts.

"...due to the critless nature of Thorns, Laws of Valor can only be a consideration in parties..."

but what about Laws of Valor: Answered Prayer? The guide generally advocates attack speed, and this rune provides good uptime of the 15% buff.

I understand that when pushing higher GRs, Laws of Justice: Decaying Strength is superior due to its significant defensive bonus and that when speedfarming, Laws of Hope: Wings of Angels would be useful for additional movement speed, but what about in-between cases? The comment above seems to me misleading in that Laws of Valor basically confers IAS not CHD (except through the Critical rune) and IAS is otherwise indicated as useful to the build. Or is the in-between case actually better served by another option, e.g., Consecration: Bed of Nails?

Thanks for any feedback!

Edited May 12, 2017 by falrinth

[Lunaji 1]

Can't speak for what Deadset meant, however I have run and seen others run with Laws of Valor - Invincible in such in-between cases. It's a good mix of damage and survivability. IAS is useful as you noted and the LPH synergises very well with it.

Between that and Bed of Nails I would say that LoV is superior for elite hunting playstyles, while BoN for more aoe-focused ones.

 

[falrinth 2]

Thanks for the insights. I actually hadn't considered that Invincible would yield a good synergy between LPH and IAS -- I'll try that out!

[Guest Melychath]

The suggested rolls for Justice Lantern don't mention block chance %. I assume that stat (block chance %) is to be kept and the other 5 are listed in order of importance, knowing you won't obtain them all? 

[Lunaji 1]

Yes, you definitely want to keep the block% as the build largely revolves around this stat. This unique property of Justice Lantern to roll block% is also the reason to wear it rather than cube it, even though it can't roll thorns.

Guides on this site will often list more stats than it's possible to get, presumably to give an idea of priorities when an item has rolled with several non-ideal ones.

[Guest Alpharien]

Great Guide!

Love the build so far, a few more tweaks to gear, and I will be able to break the GR70 threshold (solo cleared a 68 with 4 minutes to spare and 2 deaths). I have followed 98% of the guide with great success thus far. Been op testing wear/cube of SV, HoI, RoRG and COE like all the above comments. I have found that GR 60 and below, cubing RoRG and wearing SV works great,  but above 60 I was running into Single Target Damage issues (GRG, Juggs, and Avengers), and Having CoE in the cube and wearing 6PC helped my single target a lot to move up to GR68. Also, been swapping between Steed and Nails Consecrate. Again, for me, Nails Consecrate works great with Provoking packs in the harder Rifts, and helps with DMG. However, as I went to 65+ having another get out of crap card with Steed was more beneficial. I am super tanky, but my recovery sucks (135Mil Tough, 5mil Recovery), so more testing to be had if I need the HPS from Consecrate or not.

Questions:

1) For my "Hack", I should re-roll the +1182-1492 Fire Damage to LoH? Just want to be clear, because that drops my weapon to 489 DPS and my Character damage from 446k to about 100k. That "feels bad man", but Weapon Damage and my Character DMG has no effect on my Thorns/2PC/6PC damage, correct?

2) Simplicity's Str Gem- I am correct in assuming it doesn't double dip with "Hack" and 6PC? It only affects only the "Punish" base damage? (That 4% heal with really high atk speed looks so enticing! <3) 

3) Gogok of Swiftness- Any use for the Atk Speed increase and CDR stacks? Compared to say, the flat dmg of Bane of the Trapped?

Thank you!

 

[Lunaji 1]

1. Correct, weapon damage is effectively a dead stat.
2. Correct again, thus the gem is not really useful.
3. Atk speed and CDR are both great, but the build starts to starve for damage and Bane of the Trapped just plain offers more of it. I'm also not sure how the dodge% on it works out - I have read conflicting info on whether Hold Your Ground nulls it.