Thorns – Barbarian Build for Diablo 4 (Season 8)

Build Introduction

Welcome to the guide for the Thorns Barbarian! If you like daring demons to touch you and watching them explode when they try, this is the build for you. With the revamp to the itemization system, this build has returned with a vengeance. Let’s dive in!

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Requirements

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Aspect of Elements

Bold Chieftain’s Aspect

Earthquake Aspect

Recommended Uniques

Razorplate

Ancients’ Oath

Quick Navigation

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Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Skill Bar Setup for the Thorns Build (Order does not matter)

Bash Steel Grasp Challenging Shout Rallying Cry Hammer of the Ancients War Cry

Follow the points allocated in the image above for the complete 59 point build. The additional 12 skill points are completed using the Renown system.

Barbarian Class Mechanic – The Arsenal System

The Barbarian can wield four weapons simultaneously as well as choose a weapon expertise to use as their Technique allowing them to gain that weapon’s bonus even if they’re wielding another weapon type. Finally, the Barbarian can assign its skills to use different weapon types shuffling between Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapons, Two-Handed Slashing Weapons, and Dual-Wield Weapons.

For the Thorns Barbarian, we must use a Bludgeoning Weapon for Bash and Hammer of the Ancients and we want to assign both skills to our Dual-Wield Weapons for faster attacks since for Thorns, these attacks don’t do our damage and only facilitate our real damage, thorns It is important to note that at least one of your dual-wield weapons be a one-handed mace to benefit from Concussion and Wallop and to be able to cast Bash and Hammer of the Ancients.

For our Weapon Technique slot we’ll want to equip Two-Handed Axe so we get a damage bonus for increased vulnerable damage

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

The following sections will cover all systems that are critical if you want to improve the power of your character and move towards the highest difficulties in the endgame of Diablo 4.

Legendary Aspects

Below you will find all of the best-in-slot Aspects found on Legendary items that are important for this build. Remember that all Legendary powers can be added into your Codex of Power once you salvage or extract the item. You can still find some aspects through dungeons though they will always be at the minimum power level. To get the most out of this system, combine these Aspects with the right stats.

Slot	Gems	Legendary Aspect / Unique	Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Grand Ruby	Aspect of Might	– Basic Skills grant 20% Damage Reduction for [2.0-6.0] seconds.
Chest	Grand Ruby	Razorplate	– Thorns has a 10% chance to deal [100-200%] increased damage.
Gloves	N/A	Aspect of Inner Calm	– You deal x[5-13%] increased damage. Triple this bonus after standing still for 3 seconds.
Pants	Grand Ruby	Aspect of Bul-Kathos	– Leap creates an Earthquake that deals [X] Physical damage over 4 seconds. While standing in Earthquakes, you gain [10-30%] increased Damage Reduction
Boots	N/A	Exploiter’s Aspect	– You have 20% increased Crowd Control duration. While enemies are Unstoppable, you deal x[25-40%] increased damage to them
Amulet	Grand Diamond	Earthquake Aspect	– Ground Stomp creates an Earthquake that deals [X] Physical damage over 4 seconds. While standing Earthquakes you gain x[10-30%] increased damage
Ring 1	Grand Diamond	Bold Chieftain’s Aspect	– Whenever you cast a Shout Skill, its Cooldown is reduced by [10-30%] seconds per nearby enemy up to a maximum of 70%
Ring 2	Grand Diamond	Aspect of Vocalized Empowerment	– Your Shout Skills generate [5-12] Primary Resource per second while active
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	Yul and Xal Runes OR Grand Skull	Needleflare Aspect	– Thorns damage dealt has a [25-45%] chance to deal damage to all enemies around you and your minions.
2-Handed Slashing Weapon	Lith and Tec Runes OR Grand Skull	Death Wish Aspect	– Gain [X] Thorns while Berserking
Dual Wield Weapon 1	Grand Skull	Aspect of Elements	– Gain + [15-35%] increased damage to a set of damage types for 7 seconds. This effect alternates between 2 sets: Fire, Lightning, and Physical. Cold, Poison, and Shadow.
Dual Wield Weapon 2	Grand Skull	Aspect of Accursed Touch	– Lucky Hit: Up to a [20-35%] chance to inflict Vampiric Curse on enemies. Enemies with Vampiric Curse are also Vulnerable. Vampiric Curse’s stored souls deal [20-50%] increased damage.

To see how this build compares to others on our site, you can check out our Endgame Build Tier List.

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Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Below are the affixes to prioritize on gear. Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance. Tempering Manuals and their recommended affixes are provided in the second column, and the bolded yellow affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades. Be sure to check our Tempering guide and Masterworking guides for more details about these topics.

Slot	Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Thorns 3. Strength	1. Thorns Natural Schemes 2. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance
Chest	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Thorns	1. Thorns Natural Schemes 2. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance
Gloves	1. Attack Speed 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life	1. Damage While War Cry is Active Berserking Finesse 2. Thorns while Fortified Thorn Body
Pants	1. Resistance to All Elements 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life	1. Challenging Shout Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Thorns While Fortified Thorn Body
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Strength 3. Ranks to War Cry	1. Movement Speed Natural Motion 2. Thorns While Fortified Thorn Body
Amulet	1. % Strength 2. Ranks to Counteroffensive 3. Ranks to Pit Fighter	1. Damage While War Cry is Active Berserking Finesse 2. Thorns While Fortified Thorn Body
Rings	1. Resistance to All Elements 2. Attack Speed 3. Strength	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	1. Vulnerable Damage 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life	1. Chance for Earthquakes to Cast Twice Wasteland Augments 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse
2-Handed Slashing Weapon	1. Strength. 2. Maximum Life 3. Vulnerable Damage	1. Chance for Earthquakes to Cast Twice Wasteland Augments 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapons	1. Vulnerable Damage 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life	1. Earthquake Duration Wasteland Augments 2. Damage While War Cry is Active Berserking Finesse

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Uniques and Mythic Uniques

Below you will find information on Uniques and Mythic Uniques that are useful for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.

Uniques

Below you will find the unique items useful to this build that provide specific utility.

• Razorplate – The must have item for the Thorns Barbarian. An update in Patch 1.4.0 is shifting the power level of this item to grant it normal affixes which are just large amounts of Thorns four times allowing it to be properly Masterworked. While you can play the Thorns Barbarian without this, we highly recommend acquiring this unique item first to get the most out of the build.
• Ancients’ Oath – While kind of a joke in the Diablo community for a long time, this weapon has a new time to shine in Vessel of Hatred. It causes all the mobs we pull in via Steel Grasp to take a ton more damage from our thorns and die much faster. A great addition to the build.

Mythic Uniques

Here you will find the Mythic unique items that are useful to this build. If a mythic unique is NOT listed here, it is not useful to this build and does not provide any meaningful increase or effect.

• Doombringer – A very powerful one-handed sword that provides a shadow damage proc, but for Thorns that isn’t the real reason we will want to use this powerhouse of an item if we’re lucky enough to find one. It comes with a massive amount of life gain on lucky hit and since we want enemies to hit us to proc our thorns, this healing shoots this build into the stars in terms of survivability and tankiness. An incredible boon to our build if we manage to snag one.
• Harlequin Crest – The infamous “Shako” remains powerful in Vessel of Hatred. If you’re lucky enough to acquire this helm, equip it. It grants a massive amount of armor, cooldown reduction, and nets a neat 20% damage reduction which couldn’t be more perfect for a thorns build where we want to be hit.
• Ring of Starless Skies – A new addition to this Thorns setup, this helps us spam through our hammers faster to benefit more from our new thorns based key passive. If you’re lucky enough to find one of these, replace the ring with Aspect of Vocalized Empowerment.

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Gems and Runewords

Listed below are the best gems to socket into gear for each slot type.

Gems

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Skull for increased Life on kill	Grand Ruby for increased Strength	Grand Diamond for increased All Resistances

For your jewelry, it may be necessary to change the Grand Diamond for another gem for a specific type such as Grand Sapphire to ensure all of your resistances are capped at 70% and Armor is at 1000.

Runes

Runewords returned from Diablo 2 in Vessel of Hatred! You are limited to two Runewords across your gear and it requires two sockets in the same item. So this limits Runewords to either Helm, Chest, Pants, or Two-Handed Weapons. We generally recommend them in both of your Two-Handed Weapons for Barbarian. Let’s jump in.

Rune	Rune Effects
Yul	Gain 50 Offering: Cast a Skill with a Cooldown
Xal	Requires 200 Offering: Cooldown 1 second, Gain 20% Maximum Life for 4 seconds
Lith	Gain 25 Offering: Stand still while fighting for 0.3 seconds
Tec	Requires 50 Offering: Cooldown 1 second, Evoke the Barbarian’s Earthquake, dealing damage to enemies within

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Paragon Board

We recommend using the following Legendary nodes and Rare Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame. Note that each Rare Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 100 version. As a reminder, glyph’s reach their maximum radius at level 46, and unlock their Legendary bonus at level 45. Let’s take a look!

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Boss Powers (Season 8)

Season 8 brings a slew of powers to equip similar to Season 2’s Vampiric Powers. You can equip a total of 4 powers. A single main power that will trigger its primary effect when certain conditions are met and three modifier powers that modify the main power and other skills for even more power. For this build we recommend the following combination:

Main Power

• Varshan’s Life Steal – This allows us to stand still and tank even more hits letting our thorns do the work while getting some extra damage from the deal.

Modifier Powers

• Torusk’s Rage – Extra attack speed lets us trigger effects such as Aspect of Accursed Touch and survive
• Harbinger of Hatred’s Volley – Since we’re not relying on resources, outside of a single Hammer of the Ancients cast for its damage amplifier, this gives us a quick way to get vulnerable on everything and deal more vulnerable damage making thorns even more effective
• Flesh Reaper’s Disruption – Yet another vulnerable damage multiplier letting our thorns strike with even more intensity

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Mercenaries

As you play through the campaign in Vessel of Hatred, you will unlock various NPC Mercenaries who can join you on your quest to slay demons. Each Mercenary has their own small talent tree that will give them bonuses and skills to help you. Additionally, you can assign a Mercenary that you don’t take with you as a reinforcement to jump in when you activate certain skills. Let’s take a look at how we want to set this up for this build.

We hire Raheir, the Shieldbearer:

• Core Skill: Ground Slam
• Core Skill Passive: Raheir’s Aegis
• Iconic Skill: Bastion
• Iconic Skill Passive: Inspiration

Our Reinforcement Mercenary will be Varyana, The Berserker Crone:

• Opportunity Skill: War Cry
• Reinforcement Skill: Bloodthirst

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

Thorns rely on getting hit to do damage. As such, we don’t have a Fury Spender, but we have several other skills to ensure our survival from getting hit and group mobs up and deal damage while our Thorns does the work. Let’s run through our buttons.

• Group mobs up with Steel Grasp.
• Rush into mobs and spam Bash to quickly get 4 stacks of Combat Bash.
• Cast Hammer of the Ancients to overpower and get the buffs from both Violent Hammer of the Ancients and Warpath.
• Use your Challenging Shout to make sure mobs attack you and trigger your thorns
• Use your other shouts for resources and unstoppable when in tight spots.
• Spend as much resource as you can to benefit from the new key passive Barbed Carapace.

Runeword Synergy

Let’s take a moment to review our runes and how they interact with this build.

• Yul grants us 50 Offering whenever we cast a skill with a cooldown such as our Shouts or Steel Grasp
• Xal requires 300 offering, so 6 casts of a skill with a cooldown when paired with Yul afterwhich we gain 20% life for 6 seconds. Since we’re relying on getting hit to deal our damage, we need more life to survive the punishing blows
• Lith grants us 25 Offering whenever we stand still fighting for 0.3 seconds and since we’re relying on getting hit, we stand still a lot after grouping up mobs.
• Tec requires 50 Offering to spawn Earthquake, standing still for 0.6 seconds with Lith will trigger this. Once we’re standing in our quake we can benefit from various aspects and paragon boards for large benefits. The damage from the quakes is a nice addition as well.

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist in any main town to craft helpful Elixirs that increase stats, and experience gain for 30 minutes. Make sure to forage plants and pick up the necessary crafting materials during your adventures; they randomly spawn around the world. Use Elixir of Iron Barbs at the highest level you can craft due to its increase in both armor and thorns to provide more survivability and damage

Return to the Alchemist again when you reach Level 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.

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Season 8 Updates

For a comprehensive look at what’s new in Season 8, please check out our Season Hub

Here is a quick list of the changes this season that are relevant to this build:

• Tec damage reduced from 1400% to 700%

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Obol Gambling

A final point on acquiring gear is using your Obols to target farm specific slots instead of randomly spending them on random drops. Similar to Kadala in Diablo 3, you can use Obol vendors in town to try and get what you’re missing. With the expansion when a level 60 Character spends Obols, all gear from that vendor will be 750 item power, the highest non-ancestral power allowing you to fill out gear with the affixes or Legendary Aspects you need while also having a small chance to grant Ancestral item power 800 gear.

Check out our Obol Gambling Tool Guide HERE.

Changelog

• April 25th 2025: Reformatted and updated for Season 8
• March 31st 2025: Updated skill tree recommendations
• January 19th 2025: Tooltips and Seasonal section updated for Season 7
• January 15th 2025: Updated build for Season 7
• October 24th 2024: Updated Paragon section with post-launch boards
• October 3rd 2024: Build updated for Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred
• August 2nd 2024: Build updated for Season 5 and Patch 1.5.0
• May 7th 2024: Ownership of page transferred, guide restructured and updated for season 4
• March 5th 2024: Updates for Patch 1.3.3.
• January 30th 2024: Marshal Glyph changes.
• January 21st 2024: Season 3 speculative changes.
• October 23rd 2023: Build Revamped for Season 2.
• October 13th 2023: Build Adjusted to prepare for Season 2 launch.
• August 29th 2023: Build Creation Season 1.