Starting up a new paladin with a few oddities in mind. Basic template is going to be a combination of prayer and thorns. Hopefully, I can holy bolt my merc to keep him alive and let the thorns in his gear and from my aura knock down bosses. Of course, this will work even better if I could find a dedicated playing partner, but that seems unlikely.

I may also max out conversion, just to see what happens there with the increased damage of converted monsters. Would also give my thorns more things to reflect off of.

The obvious weakness of the build is that I am relying on 2 skill trees (both defensive and offensive) and that is always a challenge. Should be sort of fun though.

At the moment, he is in A1 swinging a 2H sword for kicks and having fun.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

Conversion has some really heavy diminishing returns for the buff to monster damage. I'm sure 5 points into it will be enough, even with as little as +2-5 Combat skills from your gear, you'll start getting near the top of the +Damage buff, and getting very small change in the chance to convert %.

I'm sure you've considered other classes that can pull off a thorns-based build, and you've decided on using a palaidn, so I won't comment on other build ideas, or on using an A2 thorns merc. I recall you had quite a bit of fun with a Thorns pally a couple ladders ago against Juggy.

You mentioned that you'd be spread over Defensive and Offensive skill trees, but you also mentioned that you'd be using HBolt. Do you really intend to run Prayer or Cleansing after you've maxed prayer, or are you going to just run Thorns aura? If the Prayer is just to synergize HBolt, then you might not need even 5 points in conversion, since I'm sure you'll end up with a lot of +Combat skills. Your point spread might be pretty thin in early to mid Norm. At least the 3 skills you've chosen to use have no prerequisites

Do you intend to play this char beyond Norm? I've got some lvl 29 Thorns jewels you can have. I hold onto them in the off chance I want to remake a thorns character, but I don't think I will.

what class are you hoping to duo with? im making a smiter right now, maybe that would make a decent team.

that's not bad.

incidentally - I sort of expect that this build will really pretty much suck. Monsters hit characters far too infrequently for thorns dmg to really add up and elemental dmg isn't reflected so that rules out huge sources of dmg there. To add to it, Soulmancer apparently reduced thorns too.

Still - might be entertaining at the very least.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

While reviewing items and runewords, I noticed that Oath has lvl24 Golem charges. Even though there isn't any GolemMastery, this word is available at lvl50 and can be made in scepters.

Might have to make one and see how well the golem holds up if I holy bolt it. Not quite as strong as metal grid or other end game items, but it is available so much earlier and easier that this may be rather fun.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

i was planning a dmg return build.

i saw the best option to be druid...

wolfs *more targets*
oak *yes not SOB*
lycan and wolf/bear

theres items that give thorns aura, thats part of it, you can also get IM as a 0skill, thats the other part (as far as minions go) but the main source is this little gem... uniq blade barrier

+200% Enhanced Defense
(4400-5000) Thorns Damage (Based on Character Level)
Prevent Monster Heal
+50% Faster Hit Recovery
20% Chance to Cast Level 20 Iron Maiden when Struck
Socketed (3)
Reanimate Slain as: Returned
+5-7 to Blade Shield (Assassin Only)
+5-7 to Thorns (Paladin Only)
+20 to Blade Shield (OSKILL)
+20 to Thorns (OSKILL)
100% Chance of Open Wounds

note re-animates also a good source of damage return, this has the thorns on it, 5000% thorns dmg, and 3 os... chuck in 3 uber skulls, thats 30% dr and an additional 3000% dmg return (thats why your the main source) now all you need is another 20% dmg return to own any melee boss with max oak/lycan you will have oodles of hp... and if you want insanely OP amounts of hp, i have some more gear to add in.... sazibis set (looks mediocre at first but upon closer examination)...

Full Set Bonuses:
Resist All +50%
+3 to All Skills
Increased Maximum Life 50%
Increased Maximum Mana 50%
15% Chance of Deadly Strike

that and the armour has +100 hp, the armour helm and sword all have 3 sockets.... 3 io's in the sword, 3 uber rubies in both the armour and helm... thats a additional +270 vitality, +120 hp AND +60% more life. I havnt even worked out how much hypothetical hp you would have, chuck in some +life sc's and then its fun city.....

only reason i didnt make this build is because its useless vs. missles and elemental, so i guess you could farm druiel all day haha... wow that was long, but yeah i like the way it looks, someone make one in a hax version and lemme know how much hp it has and how fast it can take down a boss lol.

Thanks, Mic.

Ya - druid or barb (dual weild) can probably pull this off better than a paladin, but I wanted a paladin, so oh well. I recall that Brevan had a rather interesting Barb doing this.

Starting to get his feet wet a bit as he is lvl29. Working on getting my merc up to par as he fell behind a little (lvl21). I think that once I can get some of sigon's parts on him with the armor it could get interesting. That is 6 sockets and I have some nice gems that were donated to boost up his thorns dmg. I am going to be reluctant to give up his shield though (swordback hold) as it has the 5% ctc lvl1 Amp. I also have a rare short spear on him that has a 5% ctc lvl5 amp, so he amps things quite a bit which really helps the thorns.

For now, I run around like a normal paladin zealing away with an eth War Scepter, but when I run in to a nasty group, I step back and holy bolt the merc while the thorns and his normal dmg bring things down. Against guys like Dark Elder or the unique beetles that worked out quite well. I haven't tried it against a real boss yet as I was with a party in A2 and my merc just didn't stay alive, so I assumed a normal healer role and kept the Assasin lively as she was doing some kickin dmg.

Will try to get some thorns action in, but I imagine that he will be healer mostly for the early levels.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

The Blade barrier shield isn't % thorns returned, it's just thorns damage, 50 per level. I considered it on my barb a few ladders ago, but with just 4500 damage, and damage reduction by 30%, my thorns output took a big dive. I went back to dual-SuicideBranch wands. Also that IM on struck was constantly overriding Amp. That meant that on Hell difficulty, where Amp would almost exactly double my damage output (i.e. 10k thorns acts like 20k) I got an extra 2k thorns (10k to 12k). A definite contender to SuicideBranch in later levels is Lacerators, for that really consistent Amp on strike.

I think on a thorns build it's good to remember that damage reduction just slows everything down. You kill slower and die slower. One of the reasons Leoric kills himself on this build so damn fast was because he Amps you. I guess if you maxed the damage reduction, then you could try drinking heal pots instead of juvs, but that would just mean replacing belt slots with heal pots instead of juvs. That might be handy in some circumstances.

Spirit of Barbs is nice for poison dmg reduction, but horrible for curse reduction (when I'm amp'd = gg dmg). The biggest problem with a spirit is that it distracts stuff away from me, so my effective thorns took yet another dive. Taunt helped a lot.

That aside, I agree with Blue that thorns builds don't do super well in the early game. Only the Pally has as aura to use, and it's outclassed by SuicideBranch alone. At least at level 29, Thorns jewels become available, and each one can be up to 300% (like 5 levels of Thorns right there). You'd have to quad socket a hat, armor, and whatever else you planned to use, but you could get some pretty high thorns quickly at lvl 29.

Ya - Iron Maiden as a player curse really is a major fail. Without some sort of way to reduce physical resistance it just doesn't hold a candle to Amp. Then again, this is part of the snowballing problem that this mod has with super-duper crazy over the top damage resulting in holy-cow, crap that's a lot of hitpoints on monsters.

I might use that shield on my paladin though for the big boost to thorns and reanimate, despite the fact that every other mod on it (except 3 sockets) completely stinks.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

To be honest, the only way I see this build succeeding is by having a super beastly merc with tons of leech and amp. Not only do they take more damage than a player does, but you can keep them healed with holy bolts while they contribute some of their own damage as well. Even if you meet these conditions, the build won't achieve anything past somewhat-playable, as it's capabilities are severely limited by magic attacking enemies. Plus just about any other pally build will out damage you in mostly any situation, so you'll more than likely end up being a healer anyway.

Another problem you'll encounter is bosses that spawn portals; you'd have to swap all thorns sources off before the boss dies in order not to screw your party over.

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The intention of the build is to try something different. When I made my thorns Barb build, I didn't expect him to pwn every situation, although I was pleasently surprised to see how easily he soloed Hell Mephy (Might have been NM, but pretty sure it was Hell). I think builds that are strong at everthing are really boring to play. The fact that Blue has tried the Rabies druid knowing that it would be weaker this ladder than last and the fact that he's tried this thorns pally again both show that he's also just trying to have fun with the game.

For me, most of the fun of playing this game is having an idea for a strange play-strategy, and then putting it into practice to see if I was correct.

Some people play the game just for the fun of stamp-collecting uniques and sets. That just goes to show that sitting back and viewing your collections can be enjoyable. Those players would probably enjoy playing a Fury Druid, WW Barb. or Necro more than anything else. For them, success of their build is defined differently, where ability to overcome all obstacles (i.e. Hell Sammy and LoShadows) is key.

Its not that I don't enjoy "rare" builds, its that I enjoy builds that work. I don't like the idea of being entirely out of the fight in some areas. For instance, a sorc cannot contribute when there's an immune boss in a certain place, whereas something like a barb faced against physical immunes will still be useful for BO.

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Duh - I am playing a healer, I can contribute all the time.

Isn't there kiddy porn you should be off viewing rather than babbling nonsense in my threads?

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

I said this, and you criticize my reading skills? You might as well call the build a healer with hybrid thorns instead of trying to pass it off as a thorns build, because healing is the most you'll be contributing in a group anyway.

As far as nonsense goes, I'm not the one trying to convince people that thorns is good.

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these forums are so zzz now

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“Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism”

Fired this character up again after leaving him sitting in A3 Norm for ages. With the buff to diamonds I am toying around with ways to utilize high defense, MDR/PDR and thorns and try to make this work.

I forgot to put level restrictions on my Mephisto game, so he was a bit of a rollover with Lorek's healer around. Of course it was entertaining to watch the druid in the game ask if Lorek was going to help when he was just standing in the corner. As if a +600Hp prayer pulse that almost makes you immortal isn't help enough. I say almost, because the druid managed to get himself killed....twice.

A4 has been fun though, had a couple good games of players all at the right level and we cheerfully ripped things up. The amp from my merc's weapon is key and 8x flawless diamonds in my gear makes me crazy tankable. I took down the Hellforge dragon in a solo game. With constant holy bolts my merc stood toe to toe with the dragon and knocked him down fairly quickly. With my thorns aura running and 3000% dmg returned in his gear from the sockets in full sigon, it seems like this worked fairly well.

If nothing else - it is a change of pace.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

It was fun playing with your paly last night in a4. The combination of prayer and amp kicking in felt great for my underpowered crushing blow sin.

Hopefully suicide branches will be useable by some merc

No shit man.

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I was never more at home than I was in battle. - Solomon Kane