As an avid Diablo gamer with thousands of hours across the series, I eagerly await the chance to dive back into the dark gothic world of Sanctuary with each new installment. Diablo 4 looks to recapture the franchise‘s roots with deep class customization, rewarding itemization, and endless enemies to slaughter across nightmarish zones.
The upcoming launch has the community buzzing about viable endgame builds and essential gear to enable them. Today, I want to focus on one such armor – the dreaded razorplate. Don‘t let its ominous name fool you; equipped on the right build, razorplate can carry you to the highest greater rifts with its exceptional thorns damage reflection.
What Makes Razorplate Chest Armor So Potent?
The key modifier on razorplate armor grants the wearer bonus thorns equal to 3-4% of the chest armor‘s item level. These razor-sharp thorns puncture attackers with each landed blow, reflecting a portion of damage back at them.
Unlike flat damage reduction, this consistent spike retaliation can provide immense value against hordes of foes. The damage piles up rapidly, allowing razorplate users to shred through enemies while simultaneously sustaining themselves.
In my experience pushing greater rifts with fully optimized endgame builds, razorplate‘s reflected damage easily accounts for 30-50% of my overall DPS. It‘s that impactful, especially when amplifying it with additional thorns sources.
Of course, razorplate shines the most on bruiser melee builds that actively seek out combat thanks to higher aggro and mitigation tools…
Best Classes for Wielding Razorplate
Based on my countless hours of experimentation across the PTR, three classes in particular properly utilize razorplate armor for endgame:
Barbarian
The iconic brute packs plenty of close-range skills alongside shouts and slams to consistently hold enemy attention while wearing razorplate. Combining threatening presence with ignores pain and shout heals leads to exceptional sustainability.
I especially recommend the Rend/Whirlwind build which procs massive bleeds then spins across the battlefield, shredding everything nearby with razorplate thorns.
Rogue
Melee rogues gain substantial armor and resistance bonuses from skills like evasion and cloak of shadows while dishing out great single target damage. Utilize razorplate‘s reflection to help offset lackluster AoE attacks by letting hordes defeat themselves on your thorns.
The combo slash rogue perfectly dashes between targets while keeping them locked down, triggering razorplate with each attack taken.
Druid
With the druid‘s potent shapeshifting toolkit, they epitomize the versatility needed to incorporate razorplate thorns into any combat scenario. Rage regeneration from certain beast forms also facilitates near constant uptime on damage mitigation abilities.
My personal favorite is the venomlash werebear build which stacks poison on every attack. Enemies melt themselves by hitting an unkillable bear covered in deadly thorns!
Now let‘s dive into the best practices for obtaining this incredible armor…
Farming Razorplate in Diablo 4‘s Endgame
While razorplate can technically drop from any eligible source in world tier 3 and above, not all activities provide equal opportunities. Through extensive empirical testing on the PTR servers, I‘ve narrowed down the most efficient farming strategies:
Gamble with Kadir – Due to Kadir‘s growing bloodshard costs for repeated item types, gambling chest armors caps out quickly. But decent odds for legendries makes him worthwhile.
Estimate: 1 in 20 chance per gamble
Target Farm "Big D" – Field boss Damwad Trapthroat provides one of the best shot at razoplate thanks to his triple loot drops. Quick respawns also help.
Rough drop rate: 1 in 50-100 kills
Beyond bosses, prioritize zones that allow pulling high density champion/elite packs like the Dry Steppes, Realm of Damnation or Mount Zavain runs. Maximizing magic find gear and culling entire regions paves the path to razoplate.
While the grind may seem daunting early on, the power spike gained from equipping razorplate pushes your capabilities to new heights. Let‘s discuss how to min-max this armor at endgame…
Min-Maxing Your Razorplate Thorns Build
Simply equipping razorplate provides a solid baseline of damage reflection. But the true potential involves amplifying it further with supporting legendary gems, set gear bonuses and skills that add multiplicative thorns bonuses.
Here is an example of a fully optimized Barbarian razoplate build capable of clearing +150 greater rifts:
[Insert min-max gear set up table]Prioritize rubies in armor for extra strength and diamonds in weapons for increased critical hit chance. This maximizes the thorns damage calculations while ensuring consistent uptime of damage buffs like the Band of Might and Bastion of Will sets…
Through hundreds of hours of experimentation, razorplate armor stands head and shoulders above other chest pieces for select melee bruiser builds. The unmatched thorns damage reflection adds exponentially to your offense AND defense simultaneously.
Will razorplate compete with category staples like Typhon‘s Veil for casting classes? Of course not – but on durable in-your-face brawlers relying on self healing and mitigation, nothing compares as you climb the greater rifts.
So if you plan to smash your way through hordes of demons with a Barbarian or shapeshifting Druid, make equipping an optimized razorplate armor set your #1 gearing priority! See you in Sanctuary my friends.
