As someone who’s been trying to make Primal Bear my solo minion for a little while now, I have some feedback on the Briar Thorn spell.
Against bosses and stationary targets, it’s very nice! Definitely good damage, and a cool and unique way to play Primal Bear.
Against at least 50% of the enemy archetypes, Briar Thorn simply misses the first few casts. The projectile is too slow to catch small enemies, and several archetypes dance around the bear for quite a while without the Retaliatory Thorns specced.
This is because of two things, projectile speed, and/or projectile homing. If there was a node to let Briar Thorn have these, I’d take them in a heartbeat.
This is doubly compounded with how the Retaliatory Thorns spell is both homing, and has a node to increase speed and range.
Bringing up the Retaliatory Thorns, its tooltip currently says ice thorns is cast, which is definitely not the case. I can only assume this is part of Beta work.
All in all, I just wish for more Briar Thorn viability, with more options to increase projectile speed or targeting. Enemies that block distant hits also very much negate all of Briar Thorn unless I can manage to ‘A’ command my primal bear close enough without him stopping to attack.
Thanks for your time, and thanks for the Game! Loving Primalist, Primal Bear, and Briar Thorn! Definitely going to continue tinkering with him!