hmmm, You SHOULD find something, I wrote some pretty detailed run downs of both spirits & vines. I can't seem to find the spirits one (it's on the forums somewhere, and is the better one), see below for the vines one.
The conclusion that I came to for spirits was:
Oak Sage is ok for increasing HP, but requires 15 points for a doubling effect.
HoW is good because it increases damage & AR, allowing you to skimp a bit on dex if you're using a 2-hand weapon (or don't care about blocking). Double damage at 13 points
Spirit of Barbs is pants, at all times. 20 points, into a secondary skill, for 410% (as of 1.10) er...
The document must still be on the school network.... yikes! I'm leaving in about 3 weeks, better get it copied
Although those conclusions were based on 1.09 numbers.
I'd go for the HoW, since the damage is always nice, and your main affected summon, your bear has mucho HP anyway. Most stuff will be hard pressed to knock him down much at all, and by that point you'll have enough maan to cast a new one. Anything able to outright kill him will likely do the same with OakSage, so you might as well do as much damage in your one swipe as possible..
vines below (note: I posted this as a poll):
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 - whereas the poison creeper can aid 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.
-Bob
STOP PRESS:
found it (based on 1.09 numbers still);
Spirit discussion
O!, hail the great and good druid (yada, yada, yada...), but anyway, One of
the most vital druid skills has GOT to be his spirits, it's like having a
mini pally float around with you, but which to use?
The Oak Sage
Well, if you want to develop the spirits line, you need at least one point
in here, and, since nothing has a similar effect, until a barb can get, er,
some warcry, there is no way to get a boost to everyone's HP, and it seems
doubtful that a barb would be able to sink stacks of points into his warcry
and it has a limited duration and costs mana to cast each time, the Oak Sage
on the other hand, is a clvl6 skill, which, with a decent quantity of points
sunk in can add quite a bonus, and doesn't cost much mana to cast, as long
as you / merc / minions can slaughter enough stuff to keep the monsters away
from him for long enough, it can be quite useful, but requires 15 points to
be sunk into it to get double life. And, it you want more life, you can sit
around as a WB or WW with plenty o' point in lycanthropy.
So, The Heart Of Wolverine
It's like having a mini fanaticism all to yourself, except for the lack of
IAS, but if you stay as a WW, then you'll get that anyway. IIRC, the damage
bonus is applied properly, unlike fana, and with a Grizzly and a merc who
does substantial physical damage, in can come in really handy, if you're not
using a shield, the AR can help you skimp on DEX. Double damage is attained
at lvl 13 and the spirit itself can take a decent pounding. The extra damage
really can help you mow packs down and IMO tons of extra life isn't the most
useful thing anyway, as long as you have decent replen, and a reasonable
sized pool, you'll be ok (I survive with just over 680 in nm/a2, /w +18
replen). You can get a doubling effect for 2 spoints less as well.
Lastly the Spirit of Barbs.
Aside from having another interesting acronym (we have OS HoW & SoB...
hmmm). The Spirit is much like having a mini thorns aura, unfortunately it
only becomes available at lvl 30, when thorns become available at clvl6. and
considering that at 20 points only 240% of damage is returned, compared to
%1100 IIRC for thorns... However, as it becomes available so late, one will
have all the experiance points that you would put into other spirits
available to put into other skills. (Unless you sink points into other
skills which you don't intend to use much). I don't know if it has a penalty
in duels, someone? but if it doesn't it may be viable, of course, if one has
lots of points in d.wolf and a grizzly & a barb merc, it may be useful, but
other than that, it seems to be a long wait for such a small bonus in PvM.
My choice:
The HoW, because it has 2 bounses and is a nice compromise between it's HP
and mana cost. I also like the fact that it makes my rogue a damage cannon,
and gives my grizzly pure destructive capabilities. Life isn't the most
useful thing ever and return damage can be provided by a NM combat
guardsman.
