Thorns

Thorns is a stat that deals damage to enemies that hit you with a melee attack. It is similar to, but not considered to be Reflected damage. Mechanically, this works as if enemies are "hitting" themselves.

Mechanics

Thorns can trigger off from any melee hit, including blocked hits and hits that deal no damage, but not evaded hits. Thorns damage does not scale with the amount of damage the hit that triggered it dealt.

Thorns damage does not count as a character's own hit, and any effects inflicted by thorns damage (such as ailments) also do not count as originating from the player.

Thorns damage can be scaled by all relevant modifiers to damage, such as generic damage, physical damage (or other damage types for non-Physical thorns/with conversion), and critical hit chance/critical damage bonus. Thorns has a base critical hit chance of 0%, but can be increased through sources of base crit such as Briarpatch and Thornhide. Resolute Technique also removes thorns crit chance. Thorns damage can also be converted, including regular conversion (Avatar of Fire) and gain conversion.

Thorns can inflict ailments to enemies based on their chance to inflict ailments on all hits (for example an enemy with all damage shocks will shock themselves when they hit you). Thorns can inflict elemental ailments based on the damage it deals (such as if your thorns do fire damage from Avatar of Fire. Thorns do not benefit from players' increased chance to inflict ailments, but it does benefit from effects that apply to all hits, such as Shaper of Winter.

Crown of the Pale King allows thorns to trigger from non-melee hits. It also enables self-damage to trigger thorns damage against the player character.

Sources

Thorns can roll as explicit Prefixes on Belts, Body Armours, and Shields. The largest provider of Thorns damage is from Scavenged Plating.

Unique items

Item	Base item		Stats
Crown of Thorns	Twig Circlet	1	+(100-150) to maximum Energy Shield Lose 5 Life when you use a Skill (3-5) to (6-10) Physical Thorns damage Pain Attunement
The Blood Thorn	Wrapped Quarterstaff	1	Adds (8-12) to (16-18) Physical Damage +(10-15) to Strength Causes Bleeding on Hit (4-5) to (8-10) Physical Thorns damage
Briarpatch	Laced Boots	11	(10–20)% increased Movement Speed +(40–60) to maximum Life +(60–80) to Stun Threshold +25% to Thorns Critical Hit Chance (10-15) to (20-25) Physical Thorns damage
Edyrn's Tusks	Iron Cuirass	11	(120-160)% increased Armour 50% chance to inflict Bleeding on Hit 50% reduced Slowing Potency of Debuffs on You (15-20) to (25-30) Physical Thorns damage
Crown of the Pale King	Cultist Crown	16	(50–100)% increased Armour and Energy Shield +(40–80) to maximum Life 10% increased Rarity of Items found (10-15) to (20-25) Physical Thorns damage Thorns damage is triggered by all Hits
Cloak of Flame	Silk Robe	22	+(30-50)% of Fire Resistance (30-50)% reduced Ignite Duration on You 40% of Physical Damage taken as Fire Damage 25 to 35 Fire Thorns damage
Belly of the Beast	Explorer Armour	33	(100-150)% increased Armour and Evasion +(100-150) to maximum Life +(100-150) to Stun Threshold Life Recovery from Flasks is instant (25-30) to (35-40) Physical Thorns Damage
Beetlebite	Velour Shoes	52	(20–30)% increased Movement Speed (60–120)% increased Evasion and Energy Shield Aggravate Bleeding on Enemies when they Enter your Presence 100% increased Thorns damage