Guide written by Alram on the DiabloII.Net Single Player Forums.
Well here it is after much tinkering, the final report.
The poison creeper skill has many unique fun attributes, but was overlooked for a long time by many Diablo players due to its low damage. This guide contains two different builds which feature the poison creeper. I have beaten the game in hell on single player mode with both of these builds. Both builds have many aspects in common. However, the strategy, tactics, and game play of each build are quite different and will provide you with hours of entertainment as you explore their possibilities. These builds require patience and skill to play. As you play them you'll develop the skills naturally.
In this report I will discuss the features, benefits and drawbacks of the poison creeper. Many people on the Amazon Basin and Diabloii.net posted information and opinions about the poison creeper which is used in this report. Credit will be given to these individuals when quoted and at the end of the report. All of the information in the report is based on single player mode only; some of the recommendations may not be suitable for player vs. player or Multiplayer.
The poison creeper travels underground. When it attacks it briefly comes above ground. While it is underground the vine is absolutely immune to any kind of attack whatsoever. Therefore the vine is vulnerable to physical and elemental damage only for a brief period of time, and so in spite of its low number of hit points it is often longer lived than you would otherwise expect. The creeper usually dies from a melee attack. I have seen it die from poison attack several times. I have seen it die from fire damage only once -- when it was in a room full of ghoul lords. Diablo's fire attacks have never had any effect on the vine. I have never seen it frozen -- not by Duriel, not by Izual, not by frozen creeper -- not by any one. It is great fun to watch Izual repeatedly cast a frost nova in a vain attempt to freeze the vine.
There is a downside to this phenomenon. Only once have I observed the poison creeper receiving any benefit from oak sage. Normally the poison creeper will not see the benefits of any of the druid auras.
The poison creeper lays down a poisonous mat on the ground when it attacks a monster. This mat will deal damage to any non poison immune monster which moves on it. If the monster remains still while on the mat it will not receive damage. The poisonous mat will remain in place poisoning monsters even if the poison creeper itself has died. The duration of the mat increases as more skilled points are placed in the creeper. One vine is capable of laying down multiple mats prior to its death. The size of the mat also increases slightly as the number of skill points are increased. If you repeatedly recast a vine in an appropriate location after it has dealt damage and formed a mat it will once again damage a monster and form a new mat. In this matter you can rapidly cover a large area of ground with poisonous mats should you wish.
The monsters which come back from the dead such as Carvers, etc. are poisoned virtually as soon as they are resurrected.
You can position your druid so that the monsters must cross the poisonous mat in order to attack him. If the mat is in a doorway, for example, all monsters which enter the room are poisoned. On normal difficulty the poison creeper can be cast into a room full of monsters and take out the whole room single-handedly.
The poison mat works well with knockback or any other effect which causes monsters to move across the mat. Hence the mat works nicely with the grizzly's knockback ability.
The poison creeper will lay down a poisonous mat over water when it attacks a river watcher or in the air -- such as in the arcane sanctuary. However these mats are always of short duration only and do not deal any actual damage..
Level 1 -- 5 sec
Level 5 -- 10 sec
Level 10 -- 15 sec
Level 15 -- 20 sec
Level 20 -- 25 sec
Level 20 -- 84-86 poison damage over four seconds
Level 21 -- 90-92
Level 22 -- 96-98
Level 23 -- 102-103
Level 24 -- 108-109
Level 25 -- 114-116
Level 26 -- 119-121
Level 27 -- 126-127
Level 28 -- 131-133
When the vine poisons a monster it emits a characteristic sound.
The poison creeper will not attack a monster which is poison immune or a monster which already has been poisoned. Apparently then the poison creeper is more intelligent than a grizzly or ravens which deal only physical damage and which will in fact attack physical immunes.
The damage definitely does go off in bursts rather than in a gradual fashion. I have seen monsters which although they have turned green do not appear to be taking any poison damage whatsoever suddenly drop dead before my eyes.
The poison damage continues even when the monster is offscreen. In level two of the sewers below the Kurast Bazaar I was getting mobbed by an Unraveller unique boss and his Unraveller minions. I went up to level one of the sewers in order to regroup, and when I returned to level two of the sewers the Unraveller unique boss and his Unraveller minions were all dead.
The amount of mana necessary to cast the poison creeper does not change as additional skill points are invested. It only costs 8 mana -- inexpensive for what you get. Your mana bulb will not be drained. It is therefore painless and easy to recast the vine as needed for strategic purposes.
The AI is interesting. Instead of standing toe to toe with a monster, the vine poisons a monster and then heads off at an angle causing the monster to chase the vine all around the screen. I have had Eldritch run right past me as he pursued the poison creeper. This can be unnerving because you get the sensation that the monster is heading for you and not the vine. If the monster should happen to kill the vine near you, of course you will be the next target.
When the screen is filled with monsters and minions then it is difficult to know exactly where the poison creeper is as it travels underground and is not readily seen on screen. The mini map is often very helpful in this regard.
The poison creeper will usually be quicker than the grizzly to head for an enemy target. However, the poison vine is not a fast mover. You will often find that it is more efficacious to cast the vine where you want it rather than to wait around and hope it goes in the right direction.
The poison creeper does not set off LEB.
The poison creeper has a reputation for creating lag. In single player mode I have never had any lag as a result of the poison creeper. The CPU on my computer runs at 600 MHz and I have a three-year-old graphics card; ravens have created serious lag problems for me when my character needs to run for an extended period of time. Of course it is entirely possible that the poison creeper creates lag problems in Multiplayer mode; however, I am not qualified to comment on this. I have read a post from Stickels who stated that after a lag all the monsters around him were dead -- killed by the poison creeper.