Invoker Thorns Crusader Skills and Runes

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Quick Reference
    • 2.1. Skill Setup
  • 3. Builds
    • 3.1. Gear Setup
    • 3.2. Legendary Gems
    • 3.3. Kanai's Cube
  • 4. Role in the Current Meta
  • 5. Reading Further
  • 6. ChangeLog
• ×Skills and Runes
  • 1. Rotation
  • 2. Skills, Runes and Passives
• +Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
  • 1. Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
  • 2. Paragon Points
  • 3. Gems
  • 4. Kanai's Cube
  • 5. Follower
• +Speed Farming Variation
  • 1. Speed Farming
  • 2. Adapting Skills
  • 3. Adapting Gemming
  • 4. Adapting Kanai's Cube

General Information

Below, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Invoker Thorns Crusader in Diablo 3. Updated for patch 2.6 and Season 11.

The other pages of our Invoker Thorns Crusader guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

Active Skills
Punish Celerity Steed Charge Endurance 1 Laws of Justice Decaying Strength 2 Iron Skin Reflective Skin 3 Provoke Hit Me 4 Akarat's Champion Prophet
Passive Skills
Fervor Iron Maiden Hold Your Ground Finery

1. Rotation

The build promotes a fearless brawling playstyle that does not just endure hits to the face, but relishes in them. You will be running from fight to fight as quickly as possible using Steed Charge. As soon as you find your new target — preferably a large pack of enemies with an elite in their midst — you will draw them in with a Provoke, plant yourself in place and start cutting through them with Punish. Activate Laws of Justice when you throw yourself in a bigger fight and anticipate a lot of burst coming your way; Akarat's Champion is to be used as soon as it comes off its hefty cooldown. Pay special attention when activating Iron Skin Reflective Skin — it will provide with a short term burst of damage, so ensure enemies are within reach to take full advantage of its duration. If you time the Iron Skin activation to match a Physical damage proc of Convention of Elements, the burst will be downright devastating.

2. Skills, Runes and Passives

Punish is the solitary non-cooldown skill in the build, but do not be fooled by its unassuming generator damage — it will serve to amplify your Thorns damage through the Invoker 2-piece bonus, and conveniently dishes it out through the 6-piece bonus.

Iron Skin is a defensive staple of the class, and Thornsaders are no exception; instead of traditional choices like the lengthy Steel Skin or the mobile Flash, you will be taking the niche Reflective Skin. This powerful rune is the unique take on a nuke in the build, and resetting its cooldown as quickly as possible is a major reason for the implementation of high CDR and Akarat's Awakening.

Provoke is a triple-purpose cooldown; besides its taunting base function, it also increases block chance by 50% (feeding into the Justice Lantern damage reduction and Akarat's Awakening cooldown resets) from Hit Me, and provides another damage spike with its Vo'Toyias Spiker interaction. Due to their matching durations, it can be timed along with Reflective Skin for an even bigger burst of damage.

Akarat's Champion is the favorite alternate form of the Crusader — seemingly irrespective of build, as the Thorns build implements it as well. While the advantage of the 35% multiplicative damage increase is obvious, the protection from Prophet's 150% additional armor and second life build the skill up to an undeniable status. Cheating death is especially important, since the build has a hard time fitting Indestructible in due to more advantageous passives and a neck slot locked away from a Hellfire Amulet by the necessary The Traveler's Pledge.

Laws of Justice is yet another tool in the tanking arsenal of the Invoker set; due to the critless nature of Thorns, Laws of Valor can only be a consideration in parties. When soloing high Greater Rifts however, the percentage based scaling of Decaying Strength adds some of the best defense the Crusader has to offer — activating the law in the thick of the fight will cut down incoming damage considerably.

Mobility is one of the most important aspects when rifting, and Crusaders have no better movement ability than their trusty Steed Charge. You will be picking up the extended duration from the Endurance rune, allowing you to reach — or skip — more efficiently.

This concludes the overview of the active skills, now let us look through the passives.

In a spec detached from weapon damage constraints and largely dependent on fast attacks and cooldowns, it is no wonder Fervor is taken for the outstanding 15% Attack Speed and Cooldown Reduction.

A no-brainer inclusion in the build, Iron Maiden increases your Thorns damage by 50%.

To maximize the benefits of your Justice Lantern ring and saturate the procs from your Akarat's Awakening shield, you will be taking the massive 30% block chance increase from Hold Your Ground when pushing Greater Rifts.

Finery rounds out your passives with a balanced source of both Damage and Toughness. Increasing Strength by 1.5% for every socket across your gear (weapons and jewelry included), it amounts to a sizable boost with an assumed average of 10 sockets on a well-equipped character.

About the Author

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.