Yeah idk if this has been widely talked about as a threat as much as it should be (like conviction souls, or dolls). Tried to look up some info on this after I died, a few people talking about it but not a ton.

I guess the fact that I had just swapped to this build made it sneak up on me more than usual. Idk if thorns works on bow attacks, I dont remember being hurt by it at all, at least not significantly.

I had above 4k hp, it wasn't actually the Herald itself that I attacked - the Herald was a "Dark One" in Catacombs level 4 that was in the back. I died attacking Andariel, maybe it was a combination of crushing blow and a crit? I did have might aura and concentration aura on myself, idk my tool tip number, I saw 30k at some point but I forgot if that was before or after the might/conc. I also dont remember if it was from using Fend or Impale, might have been impale. I assume crushing blow though can be reflected with thorns? A near full life TZ96 Andariel crushing blow would be a lot.

Honestly I didnt even REMOTELY consider the possibility that I could die at that moment. I've always seen thorns as one of those invisible auras that idgaf about, like maybe it would do 100-200 dmg to me ooh scary.

Yeah a summon necro’s merc sure feel those thorns

50k fg should never be spent on hardcore in the first place when it comes to a new age blizzard game. Especially a game where they messed up and added all the extra loading times + people DDoS blizzard servers like once a month and if you're online during that time, good chance you might die.

D2 LoD hardcore was great and well balanced. D2r hardcore is a terrible idea.

Sorry for your gear loss though.

This post was edited by Emiliaaa on Mar 18 2026 08:28am

I couldn't disagree more with every bit of that but to each their own

Ty for the condolences

This post was edited by SerenityNow on Mar 18 2026 08:49am

The new herald thorns is supposed to hurt a lot, but nowhere near one tap potential. How do u know it wasn't just Andy smacking you really hard?

How hard does tz andy hit? I can't imagine here doing more than 700 dmg in one hit. Don't remember if she was winding up an attack there, I dont remember seeing the animation. I guess it's possible that attack made the difference.

I think her huge starting hp + crushing blow + maybe a crit may have been what did it. Crushing blow damage on those initial hits on bosses is massive.

If I trusted blizzard to actually make the game have instant loading screens vs 1-3 second loading screens for just switching waypoints + better DDoS protection and DDoS mitigation I would play hardcore as well. Until then, I wouldn't play hardcore where my death can be because of something out of my control. If I die because of my own dumb choices, I can't get mad. But if I died because blizzard doesn't understand how to mitigate a DDoS attack, then that makes me not want to play.

But understand some people don't mind those risks and still wanna play, and I don't fault them for that.

Of all my HC deaths (and I've had a few), 0 of them have been from blizzard DC or shenanigans.

Wp load time is skill issue, if youre taking the wp to another act you should go to that town act first, and THEN wp to the destination. (This is hc basics though, everyone knows this).

I lost a very expensive bowa a while ago when I was wearing my hustle armor for fun instead of my fortitude, glass cannoning it, and the red cow portal spawned on the king and I died. So that was my fault

Also died wearing hustle to a tz cold enchant explosion, my res was too low, and I didnt know that the cold enchant explosion can crit in TZs.

I also died to a DC when I made the mistake of playing on my work internet (unreliable).

But I've never died to a blizzard DDOS or anything like that in many years. Yeah that shit can happen i guess but eh, it's rare enough. Most of the people you hear complaining about dying to blizzard ddos are lying.

Edit: this thorns shit though I think is total BS, I dont want to be salty about it, but I blame both blizzard for putting in such a dogshit mechanic, and I blame the community for not sufficiently warning everyone about it.

This post was edited by SerenityNow on Mar 18 2026 09:07am

According to what we know, the thorns return flat damage to the attacker, so it's not related to how much damage you deal.
The amount returned is supposedly 90 per hit, maybe 180 due to a bug.
It doesn't sound much on the paper, but since all surrounding mobs are affected, hitting all of them at the same time with a fat AOE skill can explain the oneshot easily.
It's unclear how far that returned damage can be increased (other auras, amp dmg, etc.), and how far it can be decreased (dmg% reduction).

I haven't tested it, but as long as you do attack damage (melee or ranged), using a life tap wand is probably the way to go.
That, or use spell damage, or single target attack damage (carefully).
It of course implies that you've learnt to recognise the aura, what's really annoying is that Might looks extremely similar...

I'm 100% certain it was only 1 mob I was attacking. I also haven't seen any indications that this thorns damage is somehow flat, I've seen other stories of people being 1 shot like this so I dont think it's possible that there's a cap. It 100% does scale with the attacker damage.

Yeah now that I know to play around the thorns I'm sure I could try to figure out solutions, and I know how to differentiate between thorns and might, I just 100% ignored the mechanic entirely because... well I mean it's fuckin thorns. I love meme skills as much as anyone but thorns is like the memiest of the meme skills (unless it's tuned to a point where it does real damage, like in this case).

If i had the slightest inclination to regard thorns as an existing ability then I could have tried to play around it (or more likely I would have just left, I've played enough Path of Exile to know better).