Thorns (and thus Bree) are massively underpowered

[goodolarchie™]

Even at lower Madness levels, her build and the supporting cast (high vitality, high resist) just doesn't do it. For a couple reasons:

1. The game highly incentivizes fast kills. Relying on attacks to hit her, even with taunt, takes 3-4 turns to set up. And even then she's dealing perhaps a hundred damage before shielding and resist.
   
2. The fact that thorns doesn't benefit from any modifiers, only piercing resist is trash. They could allow modifiers like powerful, bless, etc. affect it and that would fix it fast.
   
3. Itemization around thorns is bad too. Why are there no "When you take x thorns damage, add x bleed damage too" endgame items? It's the only thing that makes sense to also add bleed.
   
4. Why is Thorns based on piercing? Her other damage type is blunt. Total missing synergy here. Crack and Thorns should let her kill things at least on turn 3.
   
5. Taunt isn't available early in the game, apart from one 3 cost card another warrior has to cast on her.

[Ruanek]

I've seen builds where Bree's thorns are the main damage dealer of the party. It definitely can work, at least at lower madness levels. (I've heard anecdotally that it doesn't work as well at later madness levels.)

You can get taunt in the early game via the hourglass item - though that definitely requires some luck to get it in the shop. Even if you don't get it it's not as needed in the early fights. You can also aim to get the red cape taunt item from the red zone.

I assume thorns deals pierce damage because that's what it is in real life. Blunt damage represents crushing or smashing with an unedged weapon.

[TnJ]

Originally posted by Ruanek:

I've seen builds where Bree's thorns are the main damage dealer of the party. It definitely can work, at least at lower madness levels. (I've heard anecdotally that it doesn't work as well at later madness levels.)

You can get taunt in the early game via the hourglass item - though that definitely requires some luck to get it in the shop. Even if you don't get it it's not as needed in the early fights. You can also aim to get the red cape taunt item from the red zone.

I assume thorns deals pierce damage because that's what it is in real life. Blunt damage represents crushing or smashing with an unedged weapon.

"Thorns" isn't thorns.

[Ruanek]

What do you mean?

[TnJ]

Originally posted by Ruanek:

What do you mean?

It returns damage from ranged attacks and spells.

[FitShucker]

I run Bree as my main tank most of the time and often have her dealing 30-45% of the total damage where it is >95% thorn damage. In most encounters, I am able to get an Excellent rating even with corruption.

[Ruanek]

I'm sorry, I still don't know what you mean. In AtO thorns deals piercing damage to the attacker whenever the target with thorns is hit.

Here's a screenshot of a completed low madness run where Bree's thorns were the primary damage dealer: https://imgur.com/a/zAU2Zn9 (Please excuse other build oddities, this run was pretty experimental.)

[TnJ]

Originally posted by Ruanek:

I'm sorry, I still don't know what you mean. In AtO thorns deals piercing damage to the attacker whenever the target with thorns is hit.

Here's a screenshot of a completed low madness run where Bree's thorns were the primary damage dealer: https://imgur.com/a/zAU2Zn9 (Please excuse other build oddities, this run was pretty experimental.)

I replied to your post that included some reference to thorns in real life. I'd love to see your reference for thorns in real life that hurt you if you throw a rock at them.

[Ruanek]

I mean, it's a combination of real life stuff (thorns) and video game terminology (where thorns means some form of damage reflection). It's not any more complicated than that.

[Sovieticozasz]

i have had some great runs with Bree full thorns with the thorns doing holy damage and stacking sanctify on the enemy, but never experienced good success with this after madness 10 or so :(

[cheep crybabby hatter]

I just completed my first run with Bree just now. I had no madness, and I just reached the perk ceiling after completing it, so that should give you a good idea of where I'm at in the game. The party was, from left to right, Nezglekt (however you spell it), Zek, Gustav, and Bree.

I decided to go full thorns with Bree. I invested hard in items and cards that provided thorns (even Gustav had a card that gave Bree thorns). I also invested in taunt cards where possible (it's true: they're not exactly abundant). Thorns were also fully upgraded, including the upgrade that prevents them from being reduced from attacks. When Bree got to level 4, I also chose the perk that converts 30% of defence to thorns (though not without some trepidation!).

Her blunt damage output was honestly pretty bad (despite her blunt and crack being fully upgraded). The problem was, I didn't invest in it during the run. Her energy output was pretty bad for most of the run (right at the end, I got a nice item for mitigating this), so if I drew a thorns or defence card, I'd usually play that over an attack.

Anyway, the result was a huge success. It was my best run so far; no one died, and I finished the final boss on close to full health. Part of this was the abundance of insanity and dark, so Nezglekt's passive ability healed the party passively a lot. Also, regeneration no longer degraded, and Gustav helped with the healing a fair bit too. Certainly Bree needed it.

Bree did 38.2% of the damage (second to Zek, who did 41.0%). Of Bree's damage, 86.4% was due to thorns. She was *very* competitive in terms of damage output. It scaled well as the game went on too. Many enemies in the fourth act would attack the front person repeatedly, while the bosses tended to attack everyone at once. Towards the end of the final boss fight, Bree would be doing close to 1000 points of damage just by standing there.

I don't know what it's like on higher madness settings, but Bree kills it, IMHO.

It was a stark comparison with my last run, which was the first with Grukli. Leaning into fury seems like a *bad* idea. I barely made it through (one party member survived the final boss fight, on like 5% health). I think Grukli died something like 8 times. He ended the game with 4 Death's Doors in his deck! I'm pretty sure I removed them whenever I got the chance (except the final time in act 4, since I really needed a heal). Anyway, he seems like the warrior dumpster fire that maybe needs some re-balancing.

[Dread910]

Run Bree with skills. I run her with vitality and just have her shout all the time. You get some thorns from her class skills and trait. Demolishing Blow and Titan Fall ( if you can get them ) do some horrible things. Did an all 4 warriors run and that was what healed the party. It was great. I've tried running her as a thorns focus and it can work, but if you go blue or have random fights getting your thorns stolen can be painful.

[Gaius]

Originally posted by goodolarchie™:

Even at lower Madness levels, her build and the supporting cast (high vitality, high resist) just doesn't do it. For a couple reasons:

1. The game highly incentivizes fast kills. Relying on attacks to hit her, even with taunt, takes 3-4 turns to set up. And even then she's dealing perhaps a hundred damage before shielding and resist.
   
2. The fact that thorns doesn't benefit from any modifiers, only piercing resist is trash. They could allow modifiers like powerful, bless, etc. affect it and that would fix it fast.
   
3. Itemization around thorns is bad too. Why are there no "When you take x thorns damage, add x bleed damage too" endgame items? It's the only thing that makes sense to also add bleed.
   
4. Why is Thorns based on piercing? Her other damage type is blunt. Total missing synergy here. Crack and Thorns should let her kill things at least on turn 3.
   
5. Taunt isn't available early in the game, apart from one 3 cost card another warrior has to cast on her.

Dunno, I'm just playing at madness 0, but the feels OK to me. Once you grab the card that split thorns to the whole party, AoE attacks are basically suicide. The only issue I had was with the blue dragon who stole 94 stacks of thorns forcing me to just survive until he killed himself ironically in Bree thorns.

[cheep crybabby hatter]

Originally posted by Gaius:

Dunno, I'm just playing at madness 0, but the feels OK to me. Once you grab the card that split thorns to the whole party, AoE attacks are basically suicide. The only issue I had was with the blue dragon who stole 94 stacks of thorns forcing me to just survive until he killed himself ironically in Bree thorns.

I had the same problem with that dragon!

I am curious about the thorn-sharing card, because (before it's upgraded) it seemed a little useless. Surely, if an attack hits the whole party, then the total damage will just be the number of thorns you started with?

[mdart]

Originally posted by cheep crybabby hatter:

Originally posted by Gaius:

Dunno, I'm just playing at madness 0, but the feels OK to me. Once you grab the card that split thorns to the whole party, AoE attacks are basically suicide. The only issue I had was with the blue dragon who stole 94 stacks of thorns forcing me to just survive until he killed himself ironically in Bree thorns.

I had the same problem with that dragon!

I am curious about the thorn-sharing card, because (before it's upgraded) it seemed a little useless. Surely, if an attack hits the whole party, then the total damage will just be the number of thorns you started with?

yes and no. the thing with the card that shares thorns is it has 1 advantage over other cards that share block. and that is based on perks. also the shared thorns is kinda a lie since it should never gave you the same amount unless you never put into thorn perks. since when it splits the thorns its applys them giving 3 or 4 extra thorns. but the perks also allow for things like a dps regi/ottis apply alot of santify on the enemy then there thorns do holy damage instead of pericing. so 50 thorns on them could turn to 100 damage. then if you also have a person like ardin or thurls who focused on poison grab the poison perk for thorns you can get thorns giving poison and bleed due to viper ring so while on paper you do the same damage in truth based on items and perks you can do alot more or less damage.

[forcecomdr]

Thorns is great... until a mob steals your 150 stack and now you have to take 4 rounds to kill it because you have to slowly chip away and heal or you kill yourself.

I played a thorns Bree one time, that happened and i said nope! Never again lol.