On Thorns and Vampirism

[Reldan]

I've got 50 hours in on this game so far and am High plat on Ranger and Diamond on Reaper and have found these two to be really rough buffs to try and create a build around. Not because you can't stack them, but because the counters are ubiquitous - a lot of people have the items to counter them without even trying.

Vampirism getting hard countered by Garlic, a basic food that shows up in many builds, really just kills builds looking the stack the buff. It CAN work, but it takes a lot of items dedicated around it and then you can just lose games because somebody was stacking food/nature and just happened to have a bunch of garlics.

Thorns has multiple counters. You lose hard against the Ripsaw Blade, which has a ridiculous rate of Thorn removal given how expensive stacking thorns is in the first place. While that probably won't be around endgame, it's not exactly uncommon during the midgame that somebody might just have one simply because they needed a weapon and that happened to pop up on discount or something. You also lose against builds doing anything other than Melee attacking. Which means builds around bows (common) or magic (also common) just ignore your build altogether. It'd be one thing if this was high risk/high reward where you wreck all melee builds and lose to all ranged/magic/poison builds, but in practice you also still lose to many Melee builds.

I've tried making both of these work, but the consistency is just bad. I think the main thing is the counters to these need to be toned down, and thorns should maybe do SOMETHING at least against non-melee - maybe not the full effect as against melee weapons, but it's always going to be a mess if a quarter to a third of your matchups make your entire build cease to function.

[Rea]

https://prnt.sc/9x91d1fdXRz3
i like my thornless thornbuild (aka the hardest to stack for djinn lamp)

[Gum Cuzzler]

Thorns are pretty disgusting once they get rolling. Once you hit two spiked and one valor it's pretty much over. Their early presence is insane with buckler being such a huge value swing and tusk building into both claws and spiked, giving you huge pivot flexibility, and it really doesn't take much to just steamroll fights.

I just spent an hour queueing against like 80% no weapons thorns only builds, and there's no answer once they're big enough. Ripsaw just is nowhere near enough strip - one piece of armor with a few spiked and they start with 10, and are thorns positive per swing. Garlic as the cornerstone lets them build free thorns and strip vamp, so you can't even just outheal the damage.

EDIT: A lot of strategies in this suffer from that kind of rock-paper scissors instant lose mechanics, and I think it makes the game weaker overall. it makes each match feel pretty rng dependent - if you build into crit ranger and run into someone with like, two of those luck strip birds, suddenly you do no damage. If you build poison and run into someone with holy and emeralds, suddenly you can't deal with 200 armor. You mentioned garlic, which is again the same deal, although probably the most common being both useful on it's own and solid in a few different strategies on top of having offensive utility.

the thorns counter being a 10g legendary high stamina cost sword that doesn't actually remove thorns seems too far on the other end though. You can't just slot that into a build the way you would an emerald to deal with poison, you have to build most of your offensive kit around it. It would be nice to find something in the middle, where garlic isn't an automatic buy and the ripsaw doesn't feel like a mega inefficient but mandatory purchase.

[Gum Cuzzler]

For reference, I'm still seeing some 80% thorns only builds. Unless you get extremely lucky with mana ranger, there's no answer. Ripsaw does not strip enough even with two copies, which needs hardcore stam support to even run, and it's damage negative if you do, so you're losing even before you consider any of your opponent's other items. At this point it's far far more effective to just lock and shuffle for tusk and buckler exclusively.

Reaper poison would be a great answer - except the best way for it to play defensively and apply poison is through the same thorns build.

[TK]

Originally posted by Reldan:

I've got 50 hours in on this game so far and am High plat on Ranger and Diamond on Reaper and have found these two to be really rough buffs to try and create a build around. Not because you can't stack them, but because the counters are ubiquitous - a lot of people have the items to counter them without even trying.

Vampirism getting hard countered by Garlic, a basic food that shows up in many builds, really just kills builds looking the stack the buff. It CAN work, but it takes a lot of items dedicated around it and then you can just lose games because somebody was stacking food/nature and just happened to have a bunch of garlics.

Thorns has multiple counters. You lose hard against the Ripsaw Blade, which has a ridiculous rate of Thorn removal given how expensive stacking thorns is in the first place. While that probably won't be around endgame, it's not exactly uncommon during the midgame that somebody might just have one simply because they needed a weapon and that happened to pop up on discount or something. You also lose against builds doing anything other than Melee attacking. Which means builds around bows (common) or magic (also common) just ignore your build altogether. It'd be one thing if this was high risk/high reward where you wreck all melee builds and lose to all ranged/magic/poison builds, but in practice you also still lose to many Melee builds.

I've tried making both of these work, but the consistency is just bad. I think the main thing is the counters to these need to be toned down, and thorns should maybe do SOMETHING at least against non-melee - maybe not the full effect as against melee weapons, but it's always going to be a mess if a quarter to a third of your matchups make your entire build cease to function.

Yes please lets remove thorn counters so you can buy 4 items and watch the enemy kill themselves every time.

[Serulin]

Originally posted by TK:

Originally posted by Reldan:

I've got 50 hours in on this game so far and am High plat on Ranger and Diamond on Reaper and have found these two to be really rough buffs to try and create a build around. Not because you can't stack them, but because the counters are ubiquitous - a lot of people have the items to counter them without even trying.

Vampirism getting hard countered by Garlic, a basic food that shows up in many builds, really just kills builds looking the stack the buff. It CAN work, but it takes a lot of items dedicated around it and then you can just lose games because somebody was stacking food/nature and just happened to have a bunch of garlics.

Thorns has multiple counters. You lose hard against the Ripsaw Blade, which has a ridiculous rate of Thorn removal given how expensive stacking thorns is in the first place. While that probably won't be around endgame, it's not exactly uncommon during the midgame that somebody might just have one simply because they needed a weapon and that happened to pop up on discount or something. You also lose against builds doing anything other than Melee attacking. Which means builds around bows (common) or magic (also common) just ignore your build altogether. It'd be one thing if this was high risk/high reward where you wreck all melee builds and lose to all ranged/magic/poison builds, but in practice you also still lose to many Melee builds.

I've tried making both of these work, but the consistency is just bad. I think the main thing is the counters to these need to be toned down, and thorns should maybe do SOMETHING at least against non-melee - maybe not the full effect as against melee weapons, but it's always going to be a mess if a quarter to a third of your matchups make your entire build cease to function.

Yes please lets remove thorn counters so you can buy 4 items and watch the enemy kill themselves every time.

encountering so many thorns only builds with nothing else to support them, at least poison reaper had some item variety, this spike shield stacking nonesense is getting ridiculous. Can't play anything fun like hammer daggers because daggers would just get you killed with extra attacks and you cannot use ripsaw due to stam cost on it. It wasn't even that strong of a build before thorns became prevalent.

[Gum Cuzzler]

Originally posted by TK:

Originally posted by Reldan:

I've got 50 hours in on this game so far and am High plat on Ranger and Diamond on Reaper and have found these two to be really rough buffs to try and create a build around. Not because you can't stack them, but because the counters are ubiquitous - a lot of people have the items to counter them without even trying.

Vampirism getting hard countered by Garlic, a basic food that shows up in many builds, really just kills builds looking the stack the buff. It CAN work, but it takes a lot of items dedicated around it and then you can just lose games because somebody was stacking food/nature and just happened to have a bunch of garlics.

Thorns has multiple counters. You lose hard against the Ripsaw Blade, which has a ridiculous rate of Thorn removal given how expensive stacking thorns is in the first place. While that probably won't be around endgame, it's not exactly uncommon during the midgame that somebody might just have one simply because they needed a weapon and that happened to pop up on discount or something. You also lose against builds doing anything other than Melee attacking. Which means builds around bows (common) or magic (also common) just ignore your build altogether. It'd be one thing if this was high risk/high reward where you wreck all melee builds and lose to all ranged/magic/poison builds, but in practice you also still lose to many Melee builds.

I've tried making both of these work, but the consistency is just bad. I think the main thing is the counters to these need to be toned down, and thorns should maybe do SOMETHING at least against non-melee - maybe not the full effect as against melee weapons, but it's always going to be a mess if a quarter to a third of your matchups make your entire build cease to function.

Yes please lets remove thorn counters so you can buy 4 items and watch the enemy kill themselves every time.

I think you misread my guy - I was specifically advocating for more ways to deal with thorns so we don't all have to eat glue and roll for walrus tusks

[MetalFreak]

Originally posted by Gum Cuzzler:

Reaper poison would be a great answer - except the best way for it to play defensively and apply poison is through the same thorns build.

Played reaper all the time and the poison / life leech combo will get outdamaged by thorn stacks with the claw + thorn whip if you dont have a ripsaw.

We may need one more item which is not a weapon to remove thorns. Since life leech and poison can be removed by no weapons (so no defensive triggers or thorn damage can be applied).

[Gum Cuzzler]

Originally posted by MetalFreak:

Originally posted by Gum Cuzzler:

Reaper poison would be a great answer - except the best way for it to play defensively and apply poison is through the same thorns build.

Played reaper all the time and the poison / life leech combo will get outdamaged by thorn stacks with the claw + thorn whip if you dont have a ripsaw.

We may need one more item which is not a weapon to remove thorns. Since life leech and poison can be removed by no weapons (so no defensive triggers or thorn damage can be applied).

This was my point - reaper with thorns is much more effective than leech or poison, because the coffin passive gives you free offense

Also, FWIW, ripsaw isn't NEARLY enough strip to deal with thorns once they get to like three bucklers, which I think is the main problem I have with the build

[ocefur]

did you know the magic staff being magic might be the best counter to thorn damage??? The magic staff doesn't proc thorns plus it can do high amounts of dmg per swing which seems to be the other way to counter thorns. dagger hammer is weak to it because it is lots of low dmg hits.

[Gum Cuzzler]

Originally posted by ocefur:

did you know the magic staff being magic might be the best counter to thorn damage??? The magic staff doesn't proc thorns plus it can do high amounts of dmg per swing which seems to be the other way to counter thorns. dagger hammer is weak to it because it is lots of low dmg hits.

Yeah, a mana build is the best way to deal with thorns

The problem is that whole build depends entirely on rolling four or five of two very specific items, requires a lot more bag space than other choices, and loses outright to other strategies making it a very niche option.

It's totally possible to build into magic to counterpick thorns, and it's very effective when you can pull it off, but you need to find a lot of very specific pieces very fast (thorns is online at like, win two, and if you don't have an answer by then you lose to it), you need to also build in another alternate win condition which stresses your gold and limits your rerolls, and you still need to build defensively due to how slow the damage ramps - and the best way to supplement a solid offensive magic core is to build into thorns as a result.

thorns is strong for the same reasons magic is weak - pieces are VERY common, every items can flex really well into alternate strategies if you find core pieces early (tusk into gloves into hero sword or other dps buffs like crit), you want to pick up those pieces even on builds that don't go hard into thorns (garlic is an obvious culprit), and all of the items are cheap to buy which leaves you free to roll or invest hard into an alternate win condition.

It makes buying into thorns early very very safe, and because it's so easy (and fast) so set up you have a lot more time and money to either flex out or commit hard - or both, because you have the cash to spam rerolls for bags.

The only consistent way I've been able to beat thorns is to either build thorns myself or hard commit to potion cheese (crazy strong and super underrated btw)

[Gum Cuzzler]

I put this in another thread but I had a showerthought way of limiting thorns without buffing or nerfing anything:

Increase walrus tusk's rarity (to like, blue)

Limits the early rush, forces you to commit into investing in it, moves the flexible piece out of the common tier so it's no longer a guaranteed safe buy, and makes the other common pieces less of a free buy too - if you can't guarantee tusk, it's a much more interesting decision on if you buy buckler on turn 1.

Plus, it doesn't actually ruin the build once it's online, and it doesn't add a free instant-win counter the way garlic kind of ♥♥♥♥♥ vamp - which I think makes for a more interesting strategy.