Poison Creeper / Spirit of Barbs Druid in Hell

Hey folks!

I hope everyone who plays ladder enjoys the new season (and I hope the rest just have great lives lol)! I started mine with a Poison Creeper build, and made a little report on how I beat Hell Baal solo here (with two trades haha).

Does anyone have some unconventional build that gives a similar experience by providing a reasonable challenge to the player?

Cheers!

pratclot wrote: 3 weeks ago

Hey folks!

I hope everyone who plays ladder enjoys the new season (and I hope the rest just have great lives lol)! I started mine with a Poison Creeper build, and made a little report on how I beat Hell Baal solo here (with two trades haha).

Does anyone have some unconventional build that gives a similar experience by providing a reasonable challenge to the player?

Cheers!

Yeah I had the idea of combining two meme builds for the druid: Poison Creeper and Arctic Blast. I've only ever taken such a Druid through Normal difficulty. However your idea I think sounds better. One thing I would add is make your Druid more of hunter build - give him an Edge runeword in a bow and try and get Bramble runeword in armour as a chase item. Edge has level 15 Thorns aura when equipped and Bramble has a level 15-21 Thorns when equipped. This should boost your Poison Creeper significantly, while also boosting your Spirt of Barbs as well by adding Thorns damage on top of it. Barbs does flat attacker-takes-damage, while Thorns does %damage returned AND atd, albeit at less magnititude as Barbs. But the combination of both should return four figure damage to monsters and it should also combine well with Poison Creeper's damage over time arresting monster life regen (which is one of the biggest problems for any kind of Thorns build).

Poison damage needs Lower Resist to really *pop* so I think you need either a Barb merc with Plague runeword or a Act 3 Iron Wolf with same (and of the two? Definitely Barb would be preferable). While poison damage can be a big buggy, afaik the damage from Poison Creeper is regarded as separate from poison damage provided by the player or merc, so the Poison Nova proc from Plague shouldn't interfere with Creeper's damage. In any event, the Lower Resist proc should amplify all poison damage regardless.

EDIT Alternatively, you could have an act 1 Rogue wield both Edge and Bramble, and *you* wield Plague while also being a Rabies Druid, since Rabies will have to be maxed for synergising Poison Creeper. You lose out on the direct poison damage boost Bramble provides however, unless you make two of them lol. But we're getting really extravagant for an off-meta build here lol

ANOTHER EDIT: A Thorns Emilio might be the poor man's version of this build. He should have a higher Thorns aura than Edge provides by itself and is easier to acquire than the Sur or Ohm runes for Bramble. Both Edge and Bramble together should be higher than his max level Thorns aura unless you give him plus skills. However you need to self-wield a Plague and tank the hits in order to proc it.

Anyway this is just theorycrafting for Druid specifically. I like to think of off-meta builds for all the classes.

Yes, I was thinking to give Diane both Thorns items later, if I do get rich haha.

I did not notice Edge to be effective on its own in her hands, so I chose Harmony for now, especially for Ghosts and remote attackers.

I thought Death's Web would do the trick with -% to Poison resistance (and I don't even lose +2 to all skills this way), and I will be happy with the worst possible roll on it too which I hope is something I can already buy.

I loved your thoughts, it's always nice to see people consider underpowered characters just for the fun of it!