Thorns

Thorns
	Thorns; Level 35 Balance, Feral, Restoration druid PvP talent; 40 yd range; 18% of base mana; 45 sec cooldown; Instant; Sprout thorns for 12 sec on the friendly target. When victim to melee attacks, thorns deals X Nature damage back to the attacker.; ; Attackers also have their movement speed reduced by 50% for 4 sec.;
Properties
Class	Druid
School	Nature
Cooldown	45 seconds
Other information
Level available	35
Related buff
	Magic ; Thorns ; Melee attackers take Nature damage when hit and their movement speed is slowed by 50% for 4 sec. ; Duration: 12 seconds ;
Related debuff
	Magic ; Thorns ; Movement speed reduced by 50%. ; Duration: 4 seconds ;

For the Pet Battle ability, see [Thorns]. For the other, similarly-named PvP talent, see [Prickling Thorns].

We can learn much from the elder vine, which threatens with barbs the hand that would trim it back.^[1]

Thorns is a Balance, Feral, and Restoration druid PvP talent, available at level 35. It applies a buff on a friendly target that causes enemies to take Nature damage when they deal melee damage to the target.

Notes and trivia[]

The Azerite essence power [Conflict] grants this talent when used by a Balance or Feral druid.
When Thorns deals damage, it can trigger procs such as [Ancient Flame].
Thorns will act as a buffer against dispels in PvP, giving enemies a chance to dispel your Thorns instead of some more important buff.
Thorns can be useful when being attacked by an enemy that has very low health, as they will often die quickly from the Thorns damage without requiring your attention.
During the Legion alpha, the honor talent was named Razor Thorns.^[2]

Patch changes[]

Hotfix (2020-12-01): Fixed an issue where Thorns was not dealing damage to attackers after being melee attacked.
Patch 9.0.1 (2020-10-13): Level requirement changed to 35 (was 40).
Patch 8.1.5 (2019-03-12): Mana cost increased by 50%.
Hotfix (2019-02-20): Resolved an issue that caused Thorns to deal damage when the target is struck by unintended spells such as [Eye for an Eye], [Frost Fever], or Virulent Plague.
Patch 8.0.1 (2018-07-17):
- Now a level 40 PvP talent (was a rank 37 Feral/rank 19 Restoration honor talent).
- Now available to Balance, Feral, and Restoration.
Hotfix (2016-10-26): Thorns now has a 1 second cooldown between procs.
Patch 7.1.5 (2017-01-10): Now available to Feral and Restoration (was Restoration only).
Patch 7.1.0 (2016-10-25): Now deals 5% of the attacker's total health in Nature damage.
Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19): Re-added as an honor talent. Now lasts for 15 seconds, down from 20 seconds.
Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): Removed.
Patch 4.0.3a (2010-11-23): Beginner tooltip revised to no longer imply the spell could be kept up at all times. In addition, Thorns damage has been reduced by 60%.
Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): Duration reduced from 10 minutes to 20 seconds. Damage increased significantly.
Hotfix (2009-05-22): The bonus damage from spell power on the Druid ability Thorns has been reduced by half.
Patch 3.1.0 (2009-04-14): This spell will now properly use the druid's spell power to determine its scaling instead of the target's spell power.
Patch 0.9 (2004-08-17): Mana cost reduced for early ranks, raised for later ranks.
Patch 0.7 (2004-06-15): Mana cost and damage increased.