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 |
---|
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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
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
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 face of
Unity, or
Oculus Ring and
The Flavor of Time for your Follower.
Changelog
- 13 Apr. 2022 (this page): Guide revised for Season 26.
- 13 Apr. 2022 (gear page): Guide revised for Season 26.
- 13 Apr. 2022 (skills page): Guide revised for Season 26.
- 09 Dec. 2021 (skills page): Guide revised and added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 09 Dec. 2021 (gear 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 (this page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 23 Jul. 2021 (gear page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 23 Jul. 2021 (skills page): Minor clarification for a Season 24 adjustment.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (gear page): Added follower recommendations.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (this page): Added follower recommendations.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (skills page): No changes required for Season 23.
- 18 Nov. 2020 (this 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 (gear page): Revised equipment and Cube recommendations for Season 22.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (gear page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (this page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (skills page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (skills page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (this page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (gear page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (skills page): Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (this page): Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (gear 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 (this page): Revised Cube recommendations for the build for Season 18.
- 22 Aug. 2019 (skills page): Reviewed 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 (this 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.
- 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.
- 17 Jan. 2019 (gear page): Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
- 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 (this page): Guide updated to reflect the Patch 2.6.1 buffs.
- 31 Oct. 2017 (skills page): Replaced Provoke with Consecration.
- 02 Jul. 2017 (this page): Updated for 2.6 and moved to new guide format.
More Crusader Guides
Builds from Other Classes
Farming Guides
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.
- Diablo 3 Celebrates 10 Years Today
- Diablo Immortal: Realm of Damnation Official Zone Preview
- Arclight Rumble Will Not Have Loot Boxes or NFTs
- Warcraft Arclight Rumble Minimum Specs, Possible 2022 Release, and No PC Port
- Warcraft Arclight Rumble Gameplay Videos
- Battle.net Balance Can Be Used for Purchases in Diablo Immortal
- Blizzard on Making Diablo Immortal for PC
- Diablo Immortal Launch Date and PC Open Beta