Crusader Invoker Thorns Build

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.

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
Fervor Iron Maiden Hold Your Ground Finery

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

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 Gem 1: Bane of the Trapped
• Legendary Gem 2: Boyarsky's Chip
• Legendary Gem 3: Bane of the Stricken

• Weapon Slot: Echoing Fury
• Armor Slot: Omnislash
• Jewelry Slot: Convention of Elements

This Season revives the Pandemonium Kill Streak buff from Season 19. Each stack grants a bonus to movement speed and damage, capping at +50% movement speed and +100% damage at 1000 kills. Hitting specific kill thresholds unleashes powerful effects. Read more in our dedicated Season of the Eternal Conflict Mechanics Guide!

While speedfarming sees limited use from this theme, Greater Rift pushing benefits significantly. Effects like Geysers (150), Meteors (400), and Angels (500) can clear elites and Rift Guardians instantly. Players may reset streaks after 150 kills to repeatedly trigger Geysers or push for 500+ kills near boss fights, often using Nemesis Bracers to spawn extra enemies.

Because the most potent effects (Geysers, Meteors, Angels) can obliterate Rift Guardians instantly up to GR150, players can retool builds for efficiency and comfort. Here’s how:

Since you can rely on killstreak procs to clear the Rift Guardian, Bane of the Stricken can be safely omitted in favor of:

• Another generic damage-scaling legendary gem ( Bane of the Trapped for builds with any form of crowd control and/or melee range, Zei's Stone of Vengeance for far ranged builds, Taeguk for channeling builds, Simplicity's Strength for primary attack-focused builds, Enforcer for pet-oriented builds, etc.)
• A survivability-oriented legendary gem ( Esoteric Alteration, Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard), or additional utility ( Gogok of Swiftness for CDR-reliant builds, Pain Enhancer for attack speed-heavy builds, or Wreath of Lightning for extra movement speed).

Adjust your equipment to items that favor durability, health sustain, and ease of movement. Consider adjusting non-essential skills for the build to ones that pull, reposition, or otherwise displace enemies to facilitate large pulls of enemy packs. In more concrete terms, this means:

• For class-synergistic items, Crusaders should strongly consider equipping Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac if not already included, as it synergizes well with cooldown-heavy builds that rely on Akarat's Champion or Bombardment.
• For additional defense, cross-class standouts like Unity (used with follower and immortality relic for them), and the Endless Walk set ( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose) are top picks, balancing damage reduction during movement with stationary damage scaling.
• Situational defensive gear includes staples like Aquila Cuirass (perfect for builds with minimal resource spending like Invoker Thorns), Stone Gauntlets ((mitigated by Akarat's Champion, Iron Skin, wearing Ice Climbers, or Altar of Rites CC-immunity node), and even niche inclusions like Justice Lantern (boosts block-based mitigation) and String of Ears (massive melee damage reduction).
• For situational items that improve your utility, strongly consider Nemesis Bracers as the extra elites equal both killstreak upkeep and GR progression. When soloing, they should be equipped by your follower; in groups, at least one party member should commit to wearing them. Edge cases will see the inclusion of Warzechian Armguards or Krelm's Buff Belt (more speed for easier scouting and pulls), and Strongarm Bracers (extra damage vs. displaced enemies). To facilitate large pulls, consider using a Follower equipped with The Ess of Johan, a proc-based analogue to an enemy-pulling skill (albeit outside your control).
• Skill-wise, make sure to include at least one movement skill ( Steed Charge) and/or an enemy-pulling tool like Condemn Vacuum or Sweep Attack Gathering Sweep. Take a look if you can include passives like Fervor (for cooldown reduction and attack speed with one-handed weapons), Lord Commander (reduced cooldown on Steed Charge) or Long Arm of the Law (to extend the benefits of your Laws for both solo and group play). The latter will be especially beneficial if you can slot Laws of Hope Wings of Angels in the build.

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.