Thorns

[Striker]

Hmm... What if I made an avenger, using thorns?

Typically avengers use conviction as the aura of choice. Conviction helps to boost the damage output by reducing elemental resistances (plus it can break immunities). Thorns is doable, but the damage output that you could get isn't as high as it could be.

Also be aware of what adeyke mentioned in his post, in that you'll most likely be dealing with many monsters at once, not individually. Why not consider using zeal? It can help your crowd control by possibly sending some monsters into hit recovery. While they wouldn't be receiving any returned damage, you're not getting damaged yourself. And last time I checked, that's a good thing. ;)