Poll: So which vine is the best?
You do not have permission to vote in this poll.
Poison creeper
4.55%
1 4.55%
Carrion vine
86.36%
19 86.36%
Solar creeper
9.09%
2 9.09%
Total 22 vote(s) 100%
* You voted for this item. [Show Results]

Vines
#1
I said that I'd do a vine thing, and here it is:

Oh hail! the mighty Druid, the king of all summoners and the master of the awesome force of the elements (*cough*)
The vines:
Like the spirits, the vines are another integral part of the druid's power base, although possibly not quite as essental, as they do not directly affect the rest of the druid's party, still important - particularly as they can provide some quite interesting effects. Although rarely capable of making or breaking a druid, they can tip the balance quite significantly in favour of the druid if used correctly. They are also invulnerable whilst underground.

First on our tour is the humble Poison creeper.
The only vine in the Druid's arsenal capable of dealing damage on it's own. Available at level 1 and providing most of the punch needed to take down your average fallen / quill rat. The increases in damage are quite hefty, with an increased of between 2 or 3 for every skill point, if you compare this to a skill like holy fire (lvl 6 required) which has an increase of .5 per point, it's radius can also be roughly matched by the vine, since it can move away from the Druid. The poison also has the effect of effectively ceasing HP regeneration, it also doesn't use up an aura spot. (Ok, I'll admit that holy fire isn't a particularly good skill to compare to, but the pally got 1-up on the druid with thorns/spirit of barbs). If you're really worried by Diablo or the like, you could hide behind a corner, let ravens/other minions take him down, whilst this vine keeps his HP from regenerating. Infact, by level 20, it's damage is greater than that of holy shock!, with a spectacular (for a level 1 skill) 84-86 damage over 4 seconds. Not enough to kill much on its own by nightmare, but not to be sniffed at - it can deal a pile of poison to closely knit pack of monsters in a very short time. It does have quite low life, and has a tendancy to die sometimes before even getting a single attack in. Although a straight re-cast would seem to be a solution (with a mana burden of 8 - hardly enough to clear your orb) it usually backfires, since the vine does like to die before it's ever done anything. The other unfortunatality (is that a word? well, if it's not, I'm making it a word!) of this vine is that for a real damage one needs a whole pile of skill points in it - most druids won't have 20 skill points to invest in making a vine do 80 damage...

Next up is the carrion vine.
With it's lifesteal effect, this level 12 skill is a bit of a bargain at 10 mana per shot. The other interesting little thing with this is that as it consumes a corpse, rather than return 4% (at slvl1) or the corpse's health to the druid, it adds 4% of the druid's total health to him - the more life you have, the better it becomes. For this reason, the vine works very well with an oak sage - you may only need 700 HP, but if you have 1000 it'll take you less corpses to get up to that 700 that you want. Which brings me nicely onto the other point; this vine likes to consume corpses - this can be a double edged sword, it can remove unsightly corpses and stop shaamans ressurecting them, or nihlathak from blowing them up. Unfortunately, it can also really muck up the game plan for a player who needs corpses, as my zoo-keeper necro found to his cost whilst 'co-oping' with a druid using one of these, playing on my old computer, his vine was causing so much lag every time he stole a corpse that I wasn't actually getting a chance to raise a single minion - suprisingly I turned down his offer of a duel...
The lifesteal increase is very small indeed, at only 10% with 20 skill points. Remember though that this is of total health, if you're nearly dead, this thing only needs to steal 10 corpses to bring you back up. If you're using Spirit of barbs (*shudder*), and are in WereBear form for extra life, it could also come in handy - you attack me, I kill you, then use your corpse to get my health back. Also useful for a druid who doesn't go in for so much melee attack himself - just a pity that it only applies to a druid. It can take 225 HP worth of a pounding before dieing, much more than the poison creeper, not that it makes much difference if some big, nasty, bruiser like, er, Baal, no, an extra fast fanaticism enchanted moon lord pack leaps on it. Like the oak sage - handy in hardcore as is keeps the druid's life up.

Finally, the one you've all been waiting for...
The solar creeper.
Oh! what an anticlimax. Considering the record of the vines before it, the solar creeper does a bit of a spirit of barbs, but not quite so spectacularly. The mana steal works the same way as that of the carrion vine, except that the percentage is even less - considering that most druids won't have more than a couple of hundred mana anyway. Carrior vine = up to 10% of maybe 1K or more life, solar creeper, up to 6% of maybe 300 mana, see the point? The only build that would have a real use for this is the elemental druid (both of them) - as the elemental skills require huge mana to, er, well, I would say spam, but you can't really spam them. The shifter may also have a use if they use lots of skills, and hunger isn't one that they've invested into. But since they need points into hunger to get some of the other skills, they aren't likely to have completely neglected it - since it steals life and mana it's far more useful than using one vine. Since this player will also be doing melee, they can have mana steal on other items too. A summoner would have little use for one either - the only real burden on a summoners mana is a grizzly - he shouldn't be dieing so frequently that you have a crisis; you could always drop 1 point in just to summon one if you're having a problem with a LeB. It's mana cost also increased with skill points, so where as the carrion vine uses 10 mana, this one starts at 14 and goes up to 33 by level 20. A druid's regeneration should cover most of his mana costs unless he uses lots of 'cost per attack' skills. It has more HP again, at 393 it's actually beginning to look like something proper, but that's the level 20 count, 82 HP is something quite different for an slevel vine, although it is 10 more than a poison creepers maximum at level 20.

Conclusions.
At least one of the vines can make a very useful addition to the some build or other of the druid - whether it be lowering the mana scrabbling burder on the elemental druid, to pulling in a 200 HP whack for a shapeshifter with every corspe, or simply stopping a monsters HP regeneration, they can also make a good decoy, keeping 3 or 4 monsters standing around waiting for it to pop out of the ground so that they can have a swipe. Most druids aren't going to max them out, as there are far more effective skills to put 20 points into. They can be very useful if you have much +skills equipment, as you can invest just a few points, and get a high-ish level vine, it's one of those nice side effects of +skills equipment that you rarely see on most other characters as they are concentrated on only using one or two skills. My choice, the poison creeper for a summoner or a carrion vine for a high-HP'd melee fighter. The solar creeper can come in handy on a elemental druid, but by level 24 one may well have started saving for more powerful elemental skills. Although the 2 later vines confer a benefit by getting rid of corpses, they can cause more problems than they are worth - wherease the poison creeper can air everyone by slowly knocking down the hit points of everything else that that gets in everyone's way. These are a lot harder to choose between than the spirits, which is why I'll let you, the reader decide which one you like more.

NOW, go to the top of the thread and make your vote.
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#2
Hi Bob

Quote:At least one of the vines can make a very useful addition to the some build or other of the druid.

Since I completely agree with that statement, there is no way for me to cast a vote that makes any sense.
And you may call it righteousness
When civility survives,
But I've had dinner with the Devil and
I know nice from right.

From Dinner with the Devil, by Big Rude Jake


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#3
Which vine has the greatest effect on one of your druids?

Which vine does/do your druid(s) use?
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#4
Generally, for shifter druid I don't use any vine at all.... My skill points seem to be very limited, and I don't see a "will keep me alive in a bad situation" affect from any of the vines(I do play HC only, so YMMV). On my elementalist(and shockbear), I use carrion due to the fact that I have no leach to sustain myself.

It works pretty well for maintaining my hp(and with 3k life, normal red potions are useless) during regular play, but neither solar creeper or carrion vine are any use at all vs act bosses, or nasty leaders.

I guess poison creeper is the only vine that will actually help vs act bosses, but my points are so scarce, I rarely have any for vines(and poison creeper must be maxed to have an appreciable affect...
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#5
Bob,Apr 4 2003, 12:18 PM Wrote:Which vine does/do your druid(s) use?
The only Druids I have are Hunter Druids. They enjoy the benefits of Carrion Vine, as they do not leech. All three use elemental damage bows and let the minions do the physical damage.
And you may call it righteousness
When civility survives,
But I've had dinner with the Devil and
I know nice from right.

From Dinner with the Devil, by Big Rude Jake


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#6
Personally? I never bother with those hippy vines. When I play a Druid, it's just my spirit, my merc, and my paws. If I want a decent Poison Creeper substitute, I stock up on poison jewels and slap some perfect emeralds on my weapon. If I want life and/or mana, I switch to Hunger and a weapon with several pskulls and in a moment I'm sitting on two, lovely, full orbs without having to wait on my brain-dead plant for one or the other.

But, if I crossed over to the darkside and built a summoning Druid (*Cough*) then I would probably plump for Carrion Vine.
When in mortal danger,
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.

BattleTag: Schrau#2386
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#7
Quote:Originally posted by Nitefox
But, if I crossed over to the darkside and built a summoning Druid (*Cough*)
Why the *cough*? Everyone loves summoning Druids! :D
USEAST: Werewolf (94), Werebear (87), Hunter (85), Artimentalist (78), Meleementalist (76, ret.)
USEAST HCL: Huntermentalist (72), Werewolf (27)
Single Player HC: Werewolf (61, deceased), Werewolf (24)
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#8
Bob,Apr 5 2003, 04:30 AM Wrote:NOW, go to the top of the thread and make your vote.
No.

The poll is stupid. Why make a stupid poll that makes no sense and follow it with the correct answer directly below? To distill your own words in the follow up post, "Each vine has varying degrees of useful/uselessness depending on the build it is catering for."

Therefore there is no best vine. Only suitable or unsuitable vines depending on the character who uses them.
Heed the Song of Battle and Unsheath the Blades of War
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#9
WarBlade is entirely correct.

But I being a moronic gullable fool, voted for Carrion Vine. Because I feel it is the best overall vine for most druid builds.

Take my wonderful very original godlike druid build for example. 10% vine gives me around 1k life per body. Now, how could anything possibly beat that! :)
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#10
Quote:Originally posted by Ultra-Tank
10% vine gives me around 1k life per body. Now, how could anything possibly beat that! :)
Well, in theory, a Vine that gave 20%, 50%, or even 11% Life per Body would win out. :P I mean, technically. :)
USEAST: Werewolf (94), Werebear (87), Hunter (85), Artimentalist (78), Meleementalist (76, ret.)
USEAST HCL: Huntermentalist (72), Werewolf (27)
Single Player HC: Werewolf (61, deceased), Werewolf (24)
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#11
Well, I voted solar creeper because my elemental druid kicked ass . . and his level 1 solar creeper sure helped on cow levels :)
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#12
I took Poison Creeper up to about level 15 or so once

To be frank it was a poor skill, even in Act 2 Normal, nothing like as good as Ravens

The carrion vine is actually pretty good. I have a 4K life druid with a 10% vine and thorns merc. 400 life a pop, which reflects for almost 4K damage against physical meleers

The solar creeper is less useful than one might think. It gives a % of one's mana and the mana pool is usually small. Secondly it is almost impossible to build a tweaker druid in the sense of maxxing fast cast and burning through spells. This is because the druid has the second slowest casting animation and so never gets very fast. The only spammable spells are Tornado and Twister and they are actually fairly cheap
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#13
Like warblade said, there is NO right vine.....only a wrong vine....and that vine is

You guessed it!!! Poison creeper. Poison creeper, being the most useless of all, does not provide an advantage to ANY (successful) build of driud.

Carrion vine works in the advantage of a meat shield druid or, for that matter, any druid that takes alot of punishment and needs to keep alive-namely...and meat shield...!

Solar creeper...another very useful vine, when used in the correct way...of corse. Solar creeper works in harmony with the druid who is constantly out of mana and has no (X to mana after each kill.) Therefor, Solar creeper is best used for the elemental druid.

However, in my opinion, vines are used by people who lack the nessasary items corrosponding to the type of druid they are making. A druid that normally uses carrion vine should have lots of life leech, therefor reducing the difference of having carrion vine around. Also, oak sage, increasing the health of those in its area effect, reduces C. Vines effect even more so.

An elemental druid or a summoning druid should have items that regenerate mana and items that give (X to mana after each kill), again, reducing the use of solar creeper out there in the field.

In conclusion, vines are used when you do NOT have the equipment an experienced player has and therefor should be used by characters new or newer to diablo II.

(Otherwise, vines are just a big fat waste of precious skil points, that can otherwised be used to complement the druid you are buiding further.





Every1 applauds...(please?)
To learn how to keep an idiot busy, look down.
To learn how to keep an idiot busy...look up.

Blabbering nonesence,

--::x||[XOblivionX]||x::--
___________________________________________
Quote of the month: If I had 1 dollar for every brain you DIDNT HAVE, I'd have 1 dollar. <_<

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#14
Hail Lurkers,

A few people have mentioned how good Solar Creaper is for Elemental Druids. How many of you have really played the style before? I would be surprised if you have ever played one far and would say that. I have an all Vitality, no (added) Energy one who has NEVER run out of mana (well, perhaps VERY early on, but long before Solar Creaper is even available). His spells are all either on heavy timers (where regen fills it long before the timer goes), or so cheap you'll hardly notice the hit. I happily blast away all day with Arctic Blast, and only drain his mana is I'm being an idiot and spraying it all around the place to make pretty patterns or something.

Seriously, it is perhaps more use to a melee Druid who has no leech, and the odds of one really needing it are pretty slim: I personally can see no great use in the vine. Poison Creaper is much the same really: it doesn't really make a big difference, so it best left to the variants. Carrion Vine is better, but I personally never make any real use of it. Played several Druids that used them, but in the end I found a Full Rejuvenation *far* more effective :P Waste of two points in the end.

Anywho, that's enough of my rant for now...
May the wind pick up your heels and your sword strike true.
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#15
The style you describe Elric is all well and good under low player count conditions where one can run around encased in a Hurricane and bask happily in the warm blue swirl of Mana per Kill items doing their work as monsters drop in a second.

But under "Players 8" in an Open game or the equivalent Solo-8 in multi, monsters just don't drop like flies and take many long moments to kill by the end of Nightmare. Under "Players 8" I had to give up my minionless ways around the River of Fire, because there simply weren't enough Mana pots to sustain him. About 2 or 3 Mana regenerating items and a Solar Creeper later, he is once again able to proceed at his usual sedate pace. ;)
Heed the Song of Battle and Unsheath the Blades of War
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#16
Hail WarBlade,

As Nicodemus may be able to attest, I have used my Elementalist effectively in eight-player games. Then again, I do have the advantage of seven allies adding their force to mine to keep the kill rate at `stupidly quick', but is that not the whole point of playing a multiplayer game ;) However, while on that topic, I did wander off like an idiot at one point, rallied up a huge mob, and slew them quite easily. Please do not make assumptions on that aspect: though it's well known I rarely play multiplayer, do I spend all summer on Open with guild-friends every year. As for when I play him solo, I mostly played at player 3-5: anything more is plain pointless IIMO. Need I bring up my "What is the big deal about solo-8" topic again? I think I was only flamed by about twenty people last time, and not one of them had a legitimate argument against it.

Oh, and I was referring to normal Regen: not Mana per Kill items. I'll admit I have an item or two that increased mana regen, but not by enough to make THAT big of a difference. In the end, I've not ever used a Solar Creaper, and never had a time I would have ever WANTED one. It's the old `one-hit, one-kill' philosophy: make your attacks count, and you'll be right. By using the attack pattern of Armageddon (when you can use that spell) to your advantage, I am able to deliver more total damage/attack (I'll count one casting as one attack) with this guy than any one of my other characters could ever imagine doing. Heck, he likely does more damage/second than any of my other characters, and none of them have any trouble in solo-8 either!

Anywho, rant off again: I don't want to go on like that for too much.

PS Nico, if you're reading this, I THINK you were in the game where Lupan got his wuff to 99, right? I know I used him for part of that day, and I'm sure I used him in a game where a lot of us where hitting late V/Hell that you were also in.
May the wind pick up your heels and your sword strike true.
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#17
Quote:PS Nico, if you're reading this, I THINK you were in the game where Lupan got his wuff to 99, right? I know I used him for part of that day, and I'm sure I used him in a game where a lot of us where hitting late V/Hell that you were also in.

One or the other, it was late.

My own experience with an Elemental Druid accepts both your points, gents. I find, however, that I rarely if ever run out of mana... hence my usage of a Carrion Vine most of the time. Unless I'm trying to outnumber Kansas for Tornados... it's usually a full blue orb.

Level 72, Patriarch and counting. He's still one of the most fun characters I've done.

*tips helm*
Garnered Wisdom --

If it has more than four legs, kill it immediately.
Never hesitate to put another bullet into the skull of the movie's main villain; it'll save time on the denouement.
Eight hours per day of children's TV programming can reduce a grown man to tears -- PM me for details.
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#18
Elric of Grans,Apr 5 2003, 02:42 AM Wrote:Hail Lurkers,

A few people have mentioned how good Solar Creaper is for Elemental Druids. How many of you have really played the style before? I would be surprised if you have ever played one far and would say that. I have an all Vitality, no (added) Energy one who has NEVER run out of mana (well, perhaps VERY early on, but long before Solar Creaper is even available).
My elemental druid kicked serious tail, man. He had no points invested in anything except like str 45. The rest was all vitality. His primary purpose was PVP. In pvp games, he would use his poison vine just to freak people out. All 3 vines just had 1 point invested.

He would use oak sage, which was constantly being recast so that it wouldn't slow down monsters by them stopping to attack it. That ate quite a chunk of mana.

In addition, his skills were all level 42+, and he used:

Fissure
Volcano
Moulten Boulder (only level 23)
Armageddon (pvp only vs. certain builds, level 30-ish)
(if I remember correctly, most if not all of those had static mana costs where they didn't actually increase w/skill level, but I'm not certain anymore it's been awhile)

Solar Creeper was a huge help. He had tons of fast cast (enough so that he could catch running characters with his volcano and get them stuck on it -- note that volcano doesn't start doing damage until the END of the casting animation), but no +mana per kill. Granted, with 2 soj's and some other nice items, he had a lot of mana, but eventually he would run out. With solar creeper, he never ran out.
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#19
Nebuul,Apr 5 2003, 08:16 PM Wrote:he had a lot of mana, but eventually he would run out.&nbsp; With solar creeper, he never ran out.
That's my experiance of Elementalists too. When the action hots up he eventually runs out and that vine just solves all the problems. :)
Heed the Song of Battle and Unsheath the Blades of War
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#20
There's a very interesting post on the AB druid forum by Alram, explaining how he has taken Poison Creeper quite far through the game and is managing to make it work effectively

http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/in...ST&f=57&t=23270
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