Diablo 3 Season 28 Invoker Thorns Crusader Guide

Introduction

Thorns of the Invoker Crusader build, as the name implies, utilizes Thorns to deal damage. However, the Thorns of the Invoker (6) Bonus makes sure that 99.7% of your damage comes from Punish, effectively turning this build into Generator Crusader with Thorns itemization.

Bombardment changes in Season 22 Patch made Akkhan/Invoker Bombardment build incredibly overpowered, so Thorns of the Invoker set was adjusted to move even more of its power into the (6) Bonus. Buffed at the same time Norvald's Fervor set was now strong enough to be included into the build and overall Invoker Crusader came out of the whole ordeal stronger than it was before.

Invoker Crusader is quite strong as a Rift Guardian Killer. It's also very consistent and brings a great buff Laws of Valor Critical for your Trash Killer.

In solo this build is also quite strong, but it has some major playstyle issues. The only thing you do in this build is stand still and hold down your attack button. All the other skills are just toughness buffs and you cast them as soon as they come off cooldown.

Tanky ✔
Great Sustain ✔
Very High Attack Speed ✔
Great Single Target Damage ✔

❌ Small AoE
❌ Extremely Boring
❌ Inconsistent Toughness
❌ Very Bad at Speedfarming

Core Setup

Core Item Build

Items

Thorns of the Invoker set provides 50% damage reduction, 100% Punish attack speed, 900% increased Thorns, and also lets your Punish deal 675 times your Thorns as damage.
Captain Crimson's Trimmings set gives around 65% DPS and 65% damage reduction, as well as 20% Cooldown Reduction.
Ring of Royal Grandeur allows us to get full bonuses from all the sets.
Aquila Cuirass provides 50% damage reduction, that is always active in a Generator build.
Endless Walk provides another 100% damage boost.

Season 28 Altar of Rites

Season 28 brings a brand new progression feature called the Altar of Rites that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you unbelievable Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops, 3 Potion Super Powers, and the juicy Wings of Terror. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic Season!

Note: The suggested path assumes you are playing Solo and used the Challenge Rift Cache to help you level up.

Optimal Path

Node 2: Choose Anointed to gain a full set of 70 yellows from level 18-70!

Node 6: Rush to gain double Bounties to help unlock other Nodes in the Altar.

Nodes 7-14: These are the last Nodes you can gain until the Challenge Rift resets. Take at least 1 Node at the bottom of each path to unlock all 3 Potion Super Powers. Pick up the Mirror Node at the top for a colossal 41% extra XP all season. Remember to unlock Father once you clear GR70 solo and have your first Primal!

Nodes 15-26: Pick up the final Quality of Life, Damage, and Defense Nodes (in that order) to finish the Altar.

Potion Super Powers: Take Father first, then Mother, and finally Mortal.

Disclaimer: The Mortal and Mother Potions require you to salvage 2 and 3 Primals respectively. Unlock them as soon as you have those materials as they don't cost a point!

Recommended Altar Path
Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression

Global Stat Priorities

There are no Cooldown Reduction Breakpoints in this build, but you still stack as much CDR as possible for more uptime on defensive buffs, as well as more DPS from Captain Crimson's Trimmings. In terms of Attack Speed, you should aim towards a 7 frames Breakpoint (see here for more information), which is achievable with 7% roll on Pig Sticker and a total of 27% on Jewelry and Gloves. You should invest heavily into Life per Hit, as it is your only source of Recovery; try to get at least 40k of it. As usual, you stack DPS stats everywhere—Physical Damage, Elite Damage, Thorns Damage and Strength. Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Damage and Area Damage do not work with Thorns and should be ignored.

Assembling the Build

1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cube Legendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!

2. Gather the full Thorns of the Invoker set. Each piece can be gambled from Kadala for Bloodshards. Do not salvage any duplicate pieces you find! Instead convert them to another part of the set with Recipe 4 in Kanai's Cube. If you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.

3. Gamble from Kadala in this order:

The full Thorns of the Invoker set
Shield of the Steed and Akarat's Awakening
Aquila Cuirass
Belt of the Trove and Goldwrap
Nemesis Bracers

4. Craft using Recipe 3 in Kanai's Cube in this order:

2-Handed Flails to get Flail of the Charge
Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired.

5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:

Act 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur
Bounty Turn In: Recipe for Captain Crimson's Trimmings

6. At this point you can somewhat comfortably farm Nephalem or Speed Greater Rifts where you can find all the remaining items you need for different variants of the build. It's better to spend your materials improving your set pieces, getting ancient weapon etc.

7. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:

The Traveler's Pledge
The Compass Rose
Akarat's Awakening

Item Stat Priorities

SLOT	ITEM	STAT PRIORITY
Main-Hand	Pig Sticker Flail of the Charge The Furnace (Cubed) Echoing Fury (Cubed)	1. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 2. Attack Speed 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Elite Damage 5. Life per Hit 6. Strength
Ideally, you want to roll off the Damage Range from Pig Sticker. Be wary: rerolling Damage Range to Elite Damage requires, on average, 885 attempts. Tread with caution.
Off-Hand	Shield of the Steed Akarat's Awakening (Cubed)	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Elite Damage 3. Thorns (Secondary) 4. Block Chance 5. Strength
Helm	Crown of the Invoker Leoric's Crown (Cubed)	1. Socket Flawless Royal Diamond 2. Strength 3. Vitality 4. Life per Hit 5. All Resistance
Gloves	Pride of the Invoker	1. Attack Speed 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Life per Hit 4. Resource Cost Reduction 5. All Resistance 6. Strength
Shoulders	Burden of the Invoker	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Resource Cost Reduction 3. Strength 4. All Resistance 5. Vitality
Chest	Aquila Cuirass	1. Sockets Flawless Royal Diamond 2. Thorns (Secondary) 3. Elite Damage Reduction 4. All Resistance 5. Strength 6. Vitality
Pants	Renewal of the Invoker Captain Crimson's Thrust (Crafted)	1. Sockets Flawless Royal Diamond 2. All Resistance 3. Thorns (Secondary) 4. Strength 5. Vitality
Boots	Zeal of the Invoker Captain Crimson's Waders (Crafted)	1. All Resistance 2. Strength 3. Vitality 4. Thorns (Secondary) 5. Armor
Ring 1	Ring of Royal Grandeur (A1 Bounties) Convention of Elements (Cubed)	1. Socket 2. Attack Speed 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Life per Hit 5. Thorns (Secondary)
Ring 2	The Compass Rose Justice Lantern	1. Socket 2. Attack Speed 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Resource Cost Reduction 5. Life per Hit 6. All Resistance 7. Thorns (Secondary)
Bracers	Shackles of the Invoker	1. Physical Damage 2. Strength 3. Life per Hit 4. All Resistance 5. Vitality
Amulet	The Travelers Pledge Squirt's Necklace (Cubed)	1. Socket 2. Physical Damage 3. Attack Speed 4. Thorns (Secondary) 5. Strength
Belt	Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle (Crafted) Belt of the Trove (Cubed) Omnislash (Cubed)	1. All Resistance 2. Strength 3. Thorns (Secondary) 4. Vitality 5. Life %
Potion	Bottomless Potion of Amplification	To gain extra healing

Gems

Boyarsky's Chip is our most powerful DPS gem. It provides more than half of our total Thorns, effectively being an over 100% damage increase.
Bane of the Stricken is extra useful on this build. Apart from Rift Guardian, this gem also helps us kill elites in the rift, due to Punish's single target nature.
Bane of the Trapped adds extra 60% DPS. This is a melee build, so nothing special needs to be done in order to activate the damage bonus.

Skills

Slash Zeal is the main source of DPS, and it also provides a nice boost of 10% Attack Speed.
Iron Skin Reflective Skin provides both 50% damage reduction and around 30% extra damage via increased thorns.
Akarat's Champion Prophet is a staple in every single crusader build. One skill providing 35% DPS, more than double toughness, CC-immunity, Wrath regeneration and full heal on "death" is just too good to pass up.
Laws of Valor Unstoppable Force provides 50% damage reducton and 15% Attack Speed.
Bombardment is used to activate the damage reduction from Thorns of the Invoker (4) Bonus.
Steed Charge Draw and Quarter is used for mobility and to activate Norvald's Fervor (2) Bonus.

Passives

Fervor provides 15% Cooldown Reduction and Attack Speed for Pig Sticker variant of the build.
Heavenly Strength is required to equip Norvald's Fervor set.
Finery is the strongest generic crusader passive, which provides about 15% DPS and 12% toughness boost.
Iron Maiden increases Thorns, and therefore damage, by 50%.
Fanaticism provides 15% multiplicative Attack Speed Increase for Punish.
Hold Your Ground is needed to reset cooldowns with Akarat's Awakening.

Paragon Points

Core	Offensive	Defensive	Utility
1. Movement Speed	1. Cooldown Reduction	1. All Resistance	1. Life per Hit
2. Strength	2. Attack Speed	2. Armor	2. Resource Cost Reduction
3. Vitality¹	3. Critical Hit Damage	3. Life %	3. Pickup Radius
~~4. Maximum Wrath~~	4. Critical Hit Chance	4. Life Regeneration	4. Area Damage

¹ Add a bit of Vitality if you feel too squishy (a total of 750,000 Life is recommended).

Follower

Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:

The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25.000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10.000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
Guardian's Jeopardy (3) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.

Select Follower

Gameplay

Spam Iron Skin, Laws of Valor and Bombardment as much as possible at all times.
Akarat's Champion can be spammed as well, but pay attention to your health: if you are about to die, delay your Akarat's Champion so that you can immediately recast it, after the "cheat death" effect procs.
Hold down Slash to kill enemies. Use Steed Charge when the buff falls off or when you need to move.

Hardcore

This build is not very hardcore-friendly; your toughness depends on 3 different buffs, and they only stay up if you block enough attacks. At some point, while running through the rift, you can become unexpectedly squishy. If you play hardcore, swap Finery for Indestructible and also use the Justice Lantern setup. This way you will not only gain about 50% damage reduction, but also extra block chance, which in turn will get you more consistent uptime on your defensive buffs. Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!

GR Solo Push

Invoker Solo Push

Concept
The solo push version uses Endless Walk set, Convention of Elements and Echoing Fury to maximize damage. In season 28 we can also afford to run a more squishy setup with Norvald's Fervor thanks to all the toughness buffs we get from Altar of Rites.

Gameplay
With this build you want to fight lots of small melee trash monsters with some elites mixed in. Try to stand next to your Enchantress so that she doesn't lure the mobs away from you.

You deal pretty good damage to elites and can kill them on big enough maps but you still never want to fight just elites. You need some trash around to feed you progress, Echoing Fury stacks, and Oculus Rings.

Setups
If you want more toughness you can go back to Pig Sticker setup, but it will cost you quite a bit of damage. Instead, it's better to play conservatively until you get Protection Shrine and Empowered Shrine via Father. After that you should be borderline invincible even at low Paragon.

GR Group RGK

Invoker RGK

Concept
In RGK version of this build all our equipped items stay the same, only two items the cube change. We drop Akarat's Awakening to get The Furnace. Instead of resetting our cooldowns with blocks, we now just stack as much CDR as possible. Leoric's Crown in the armor slot helps with that. Since we no longer need to block, we drop Provoke for Bombardment to activate Thorns of the Invoker (4) Bonus. We switch the rune on Laws of Valor from Unstoppable Force for Critical to buff the damage of our Trash Killer.

Gameplay
In the rift, use your Laws of Valor Critical on your Trash Killer's DPS rotation. You can also put some damage on the Elites, if you manage to get close to them.
On the boss, you just need hold down Slash and activate your buffs in sync with your Convention of Elements. Iron Skin and Laws of Valor at the start of every Physical and Akarat's Champion at the start of every other Physical.

Setups
If you are struggling to stay alive you have several options: you can give up the Attack Speed roll on the necklace to get Stone Gauntlets in the cube. You can change Finery to Long Arm of the Law and Critical to Unstoppable Force. Finally you can switch to Akarat's Champion Prophet. Each of these changes will cost you 12-25% DPS but hey, it's better than dying!

You can choose between Endurance and Draw and Quarter runes on your Steed Charge. The former lets you adjust your position inside the pull so that you can try DPSing Elites in the rift. The latter lets you pull the mobs, which can be very powerful in an open map, thanks to Norvald's Fervor.

Video Guide

Guide Video

Mechanics

Thorns

All damage done by Thorns is Physical.
Thorns Damage cannot critically strike (except with Envious Blade).
Iron Maiden passive provides a separate 1.5 multiplier to your total Thorns.
Thorns bonuses from Thorns of the Invoker (2) Bonus and Iron Skin Reflective Skin stack additively with each other.
Read the full guide on Thorns Mechanics here.

Thorns of The Invoker

Increased Thorns Damage, provided by Thorns of the Invoker (2) Bonus, stacks with itself up to 10 times.
Each stack of the buff has a separate 2s timer.
Attack Speed from Thorns of the Invoker (6) Bonus stacks multiplicatively with Weapon Attack Speed, Attack Speed Increase from gear and skills, and Fanaticism.