I’ve been really wanting to do a “A Man and His Tree” build.
My first level-40+ character was Briarthorn + Primal Strike build and it was a blast. Unfortunately, as it came time to push into synergy, devotion, and late-game skills, everything presented a “one or the other” fork.
I really want to build on a duo concept, where our skills and my devotions work together. I know that I want 12/12 briar for sidekick, a 12/12 primal spirit for bosses, and enough +pet stuff to make them each viable for their intent. But I want to still be the “main attraction.” Most pet builds sacrifice one’s own survivability and dps for the pet. It seems to me like such a waste, with skills like Emboldening Roar (Briar buff), Primal Bond, and Heart of the Wild (Mogdrogen’s #2). Plus there are obvious nods throughout the devotions that we should help each other succeed!
I briefly tried something like this (only a L40-ish version): http://grimcalc.com/build/ZJaT05 But I wasn’t nearly as impressed as I expected to be. Physical damage 2H just… kinda sucks. I did not try honestly gearing for it, though - I just grabbed a blank-ish L40 warder character file and moved skills around, then grabbed whatever gear (plus a decent blue 2H club from my stash) was best on the vendor to test. I’m not attached to warder, either. Soldier seemed obvious for some synergies and for lategame skills / ultimate, and I do want to be able to facetank, but I could just as easily go caster with the tree as my melee enforcer. Arcanist has maiven’s, which would also be nice.
As for the warder attempt:
The upside was that without gear pumping the briar or the primal spirit, they were very adequate. Primal died quickly against bosses, but did enough damage to be more than worth the cast.
The downside was that even with a decent club and feral hunger + primal bond + fighting spirit + savagery, my own dps was utter crap. And I wasn’t as face-tanky as I would have wanted, either (even considering vendor gear). Moving skills to a physical primal strike with transmuter, I was at least much more effective dps-wise, but it’s still a waste of primal strike (and a drag to my energy - and didn’t necessarily “feel” like my tree and I were teammates, either).
It’s definitely a “theme” build, and I’m willing to make some concessions. It would be self-found, too, so, more concessions. But I really think it could work if I could just find the right synergies.
Any ideas? The more the merrier!