Use your favourite features in-game with our Desktop App

PoE 2 Build

Thorns Warbringer - Leveling & End Game Guide

Warrior

Warbringer

Starter

End Game

0.3 TTE

Verified

By KallTorak

Updated on Nov 20, 2025

Nov 20, 2025

Build Overview

Hey guys, KallTorak here! I'm an Off-Meta creator with an affinity for silly goose time builds! This is my Thorns Warbringer build for leveling through the campaign & end game.

Watch This Before League Starting Thorns!!!!

For years now monsters in ARPGs have gotten too used to the idea of hitting us with no repercussion. Thorns is a really fun playstyle where you take damage to deal damage! However that isn't the only way we deal damage. Thorns is a very diverse playstyle that can be used to enhance many different skills in the game. Crown of the Pale King makes it to where all hits we take deal thorns damage and proc us Barbs and Quill Burst. This helmet is required to play thorns, so if you are SSF do not play this build until you have it. Thorns builds play no different than your standard melee skill builds, we just take advantage of the fact that melee characters are always getting pummeled with lots of blows!

Videos
An Introduction To Thorns
Thorns Warbringer Guide
POE NINJA

Streams

Leveling Stream #1
Leveling Stream #2
Leveling Stream #3
Leveling Stream #4
End Game Stream #1
End Game Stream #2

Strengths and Weaknesses

Thorns is cool. Take damage to deal damage!
Cheap, Fun, and Fast Leveling
Warbringers Anvil's Weight removes a lot of the friction around armour breaking. This allows you to easily maintain stacks of Scavenged Plating.

Not SSF / League Start Friendly. Crown of the Pale King is REQUIRED for thorns.
Gotta take damage to deal damage. Always risky in a game with so many one shots. This requires us to invest heavily into defenses.

Build Variants

Act 1 | 1 - 16

Act 2 | 16 - 28

Act 3 | 28 - 40

Act4+ | 38 - 75

Armour Stacker

Avatar of Fire

For league starting thorns do not expect to be playing thorns until after level 16. Pre level 16 thorns isn't really thorns. You should expect to be playing a standard league start leveling build for at least act 1. Save your currency and trade for thorns gear for act 2.

Equipment

Act 1 | 1 - 16

Act 2 | 16 - 28

Act 3 | 28 - 40

Act4+ | 38 - 75

Armour Stacker

Avatar of Fire

Set 1

Set 2

Required Leveling Gear

For every thorns build you will use Crown of the Pale King. You can't play thorns without it.

Optional Leveling Gear

Briarpatch 25% FLAT critical hit chance is insane. You will use this forever once you put it on so invest into this early.
Cloak of Flame is a solid leveling unique because of how tanky it makes us. Rare chests with thorns modifiers will out scale its damage eventually but you can use a cloak of flame until you reach end game.
Dreadfist Solid gloves for leveling as we can't get thorns damage on this slot.
Greater Rune of Tithing are not required for leveling but they make the process so much faster. You dont have to worry about gear or scavenged plating with these in your armour. If you can afford to socket these into your leveling gear do it.

Thorns Rare Gear

You can find thorns damage rolls on the following item slots: Belt, Chest, and Shield. You will want to get items with thorns damage rolls at the following leveling brackets:

Level 1 - 1-4 Physical Thorns Damage
Level 8 - 5-10 Physical Thorns Damage
Level 15 - 11-23 Physical Thorns Damage
Level 30 - 24-53 Physical Thorns Damage
Level 38 - 40-92 Physical Thorns Damage
Level 50 - 64-145 Physical Thorns Damage
Level 59 - 101-220 Physical Thorns Damage

To make the leveling process as smooth as possible you will want to be upgrading your Belt, Chest, and Shield as often as possible. Each level bracket our thorns damage receives a MASSIVE spike. If you find your damage is lacking try upgrading your gear at these level brackets.

Important Stats For Leveling

Cap Elemental Resistances
Maximum Life
Block %
Strength
Bleed hit %
Thorns Damage
Thorns Damage %

Jewels

Prism of Belief for Scavenged Plating. Scavenged plating is where a majority of our thorns damage comes from.
Ruby Thorns Damage > Block Chance(Until 75% cap) > Global Physical Damage > Bleed Hit Chance

Skill Gems

Act 1 | 1 - 16

Act 2 | 16 - 28

Act 3 | 28 - 40

Act4+ | 38 - 75

Armour Stacker

Avatar of Fire

Support Gem Requirements:

Str 25

Dex 10

Int 5

Expand all

Rolling Slam

Boneshatter

Mace Strike

Infernal Cry

Scavenged Plating

Disengage

Skills

Scavenged Plating is your most important skill when playing thorns. In the league start you wont get the most value out of scavenged plating but we are transitioning to thorns very quickly after act 1. We don't know how easy it will be to get spirit gems on launch. If you are planning on swapping into thorns in act 2 you will want to take scavenged plating here. If you know you'll have extra spirit gems I would take Wind Dancer instead for act 1.

Mace Strike will be our main attack for bossing. Rolling Slam and Boneshatter are not better single target dps as of right now.

Rolling Slam and Boneshatter are used for clearing. You want to use Rolling Slam for the first slam, and then animation cancel with Boneshatter for a massive explosion. This setup will have you coast until you swap to thorns.

Passive Tree

Act 1 | 1 - 16

Act 2 | 16 - 28

Act 3 | 28 - 40

Act4+ | 38 - 75

Armour Stacker

Avatar of Fire

main:

123

set 1:

set 2:

For league start you can path through the middle and take a bunch of the melee damage stuff to make things easier. If you want to solve gold on the respec cost though path through to these thorns nodes.