Thorns Intentions?

I've been messing around with the idea of a heavy thorns build with Path of Exile 2. I'd love to have my primary source of damage to be from thorns, but it doesn't effect ranged attacks. Is it subject to change? Or is it completely intentional for it to only reflect melee hits? That turns me off on the idea of ever doing anything with thorns. There are no uniques or passives currently that allow thorns to affect ranged damage. I'd love to see this added as a large node on the tree, on a unique, or just as a base functionality for thorns damage.

it's called thorns

lets look at it literally, you are wrapped in vines that have thorns, someone comes up and punches you and gets a fist full of thorny pain

Someone stands back and sticks an arrow in you, it's not like they are hitting you, the projectile is.

It can be quite literal in PoE how stuff works

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lagwin1980#2224 wrote:

it's called thorns

lets look at it literally, you are wrapped in vines that have thorns, someone comes up and punches you and gets a fist full of thorny pain

Someone stands back and sticks an arrow in you, it's not like they are hitting you, the projectile is.

It can be quite literal in PoE how stuff works

We're in Wraeclast lagwin, Porcupines that launch projectiles exist and have plagued us for generations.

It woulnd't be too much of an ask for them to do this however thematically it might be a good idea if it were a keystone or on a unique that would only activate at a percentage of the normal thorns 100% on melee hits thus launching a thorn to strike the ranged enemy.

You also nerf the damage of the ranged thorn a bit, ranged enemies tend to be weaker anyway so its somewhat relevant damage wise.

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lagwin1980#2224 wrote:

it's called thorns

lets look at it literally, you are wrapped in vines that have thorns, someone comes up and punches you and gets a fist full of thorny pain

Someone stands back and sticks an arrow in you, it's not like they are hitting you, the projectile is.

It can be quite literal in PoE how stuff works

I see your literal view, and I agree, but this is a game, and in many others it functions as a straight reflect to both melee and ranged. I was only curious of the possibilities. I believe the game would be a bit boring if most things were taken realistically with it's fantastical combat.

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SilentSymphony#3358 wrote:

We're in Wraeclast lagwin, Porcupines that launch projectiles exist and have plagued us for generations.

It wouldn't be too much of an ask for them to do this however thematically it might be a good idea if it were a keystone or on a unique that would only activate at a percentage of the normal thorns 100% on melee hits thus launching a thorn to strike the ranged enemy.

You also nerf the damage of the ranged thorn a bit, ranged enemies tend to be weaker anyway so its somewhat relevant damage wise.

A unique named something like, "Spined Aegis" with flavor text reading something like "imbued with the power to retaliate against any foe, near or far" I feel would be fitting.

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SorrowsEdge#5083 wrote:

I've been messing around with the idea of a heavy thorns build with Path of Exile 2. I'd love to have my primary source of damage to be from thorns, but it doesn't effect ranged attacks. Is it subject to change? Or is it completely intentional for it to only reflect melee hits? That turns me off on the idea of ever doing anything with thorns. There are no uniques or passives currently that allow thorns to affect ranged damage. I'd love to see this added as a large node on the tree, on a unique, or just as a base functionality for thorns damage.

Heyo, thorns build enjoyer here to help you out!

The unique item you’re looking for is “crown of the pale king” so you can trigger thorns on ALL hits. This item is essential to get this all going. Unfortunately thorns suffers from a “number too small” situation until WAY later when prefixes/suffixes are much higher but there’s a few early uniques that can help, edyrn’s tusks being a good source of thorns for a long time. Jewel sockets are probably going to be your best friend for a while after getting as much thorns on your equipment/passive nodes

Note: slams aren’t able to be blocked. You can still proc thorns off of them but you’re basically eating a huge amount of damage and chugging potions for a measly bit of thorns damage. And considering that most bosses later on primarily use slams……. I feel like that needs to be revisited a bit. I’m definitely going to make a post for feedback once I make it to the endgame about it.

Also check out this guy on YouTube: ‘KallTorak’, he’s got a couple of videos and a mobalytics page of his journey on making a thorns build and it is pretty useful. The guy gave me hope for thorns to be viable!