Thorns - Notes on a Disconnected System

Hello, everyone. After wasting a few hours on doing thorns research and testing out some interactions I couldn't find answers for anywhere else on the internet, I've decided to make a post to state my findings and save anyone else doing the same search some time. I'll give some more details later, but I'll just state my findings up front:

Does Thorns ""HIT""?

No. I tried holding Olrovasara and getting smacked around, which states: It did not improve my damage, as hitting things should. Other 'on hit' interactions didn't work as well, such as Warbringer's Anvil's Weight Passive, which applies 10% of damage of 'Hit Damage' as armor break.

Can Thorns Bleed or poison or Ignite or Shock or Chill or Freeze?

No. To be clear, I only tested bleed using the generic '+% chance to bleed on hit' jewels, but after several packs of monsters killing themselves on me I did not notice any bleeding out. I would assume other ailments are similarly not working, even if you convert the damage to the respective type, or have an 'all damage contributes to x ailment' effect.

Does Thorns contribute to Cast on Critical?

No. Cast on Critical specifically states 'from skills' so I'm assuming this is intended to prevent this exact interaction.

---- (More Q&A to be added? Who knows!)

So if you're here, it's probably because you saw the thorns nodes and wanted to make a build, right? Well, I'd recommend checking out https://www.youtube.com/@KallTorak on youtube for his series on Thorns and how to make it 'work' to some degree. He did a very straight laced 'Big thorns' damage build, which I will admit impressed me with how much damage he can accomplish, but ultimately it looks not so fun and seems very hard to pull off in hard bosses or pinnacle content.

So like any good PoE player I turned to work arounds and possibly helpful game-mechanic interactions and found...nothing. Thorns doesn't work with anything. From my scouring of the internet, it seemed like a few people noticed that Thorns is still using 'reflect' based code to turn monsters own ailments against them, but I couldn't recreate this effect.

The main thrust I wanted to test was if I could propagate other effects off thorns, and use it as an engine starter of some kind. Cast on crit, cast on ignite, or maybe build up Olrovasara or rage off thorns hits, but nope, it doesn't work. At all. Nothing I tried has any effect. It doesn't even seem to break armor with Warbringer's Anvil Weight passive!

This might be pessimistic to say, but it seems like it's just a half-baked or disconnected system they put in to clutter equipment explicits, at least for now. I agree with those predicting that Druid or the third Warrior ascendency will have more support/interaction with thorns, but right this minute? I think thorns are a road to nowhere.

Let me know if you have any more notes on mechanics and interactions with thorns that could be added to the list of questions and answers above. I'll try to make a note or edit if things get patched and interactions change, but no promises there. Thanks for reading, and hope this saved you some trouble!