In addition to a brand new story, tons of quality-of-life improvements, many new mechanics, and even some new endgame dungeons to enjoy, Diablo IV: Vessel Of Hatred also adds a new class; the Spiritborn.
Here’s everything you could ever need to know about the new Spiritborn class, with details for each animal variant.
What Is The Spiritborn Class?
Channeling energy from the ‘unformed lands’ (like the Witch Doctors before them), Spiritborn are close-combat experts, specializing in a wide variety of melee attacks which draw inspiration from four distinct Spirit Animals.
- Jaguar
- Eagle
- Gorilla
- Centipede
They play like a mix of the Rogue and Assassin class, and the Druid and Witch Doctor, able to flexibly channel Spirit Animals to create a customized close-range gameplay. While they can’t fill a long-range role on your team, their overall mobility, and the ability to play four distinct ways (depending on which abilities you select), makes them a solid addition to a group, and they are completely viable to play solo.
Want to be more durable and long-lasting in combat? Choose Gorilla skills and create barriers around your health to absorb damage. Want to be able to zoom around the battlefield quickly, throwing projectiles? Eagle skills are for you. As an added bonus, Eagle builds have the potential to be the most powerful the Spiritborn has to offer.
If you want to deal lots of fast damage, Jaguar skills are what you need, and the Centipede is for Spiritborn who want to debilitate their enemies with poisons and movement-impairing slowdowns (my personal favorite and one of the more powerful builds).
Click Next to get comprehensive breakdowns of each animal, and what it offers you in Vessel of Hatred.
Spiritborn – Jaguar
Jaguar skills are the ones you want to choose if you like attacking non-stop, dealing lots of burst damage quickly. This build is best suited to those who want a straightforward combat experience.
Spiritborn – Jaguar Skills
Thrash is the main basic skill for Jaguar Spiritborn. It lunges towards your enemy and lashes out. Every third use will hit surrounding enemies as well. It generates Vigor (the resource for Spiritborn), as well, meaning this is your go-to when you have no Vigor to spend on more powerful abilities.
Rake is your main Vigor spender, doing a swiping attack that deals damage twice to nearby enemies in front of you.
Ravager increases your minimum Ferocity (an offensive buff) by three passively, and each time Ravager is used, it adds an extra attack to each Skill you use for the next six seconds. Use it before you spend your Vigor!
Counterattack adds an extra 15 percent dodge chance to you passively, and automatically counter-attacks every time you dodge a direct attack (but not area attacks like fire or poison on the ground, etc.). When you use the ability, you’ll dodge every attack for three seconds. It also stacks twice, so you can use them back-to-back for six seconds of dodging, or spread out their use if you prefer.
Rushing Claw is a great move for managing groups of enemies. Use it to lunge forward a set distance, striking every enemy along your path twice.
The Ultimate Skill for Jaguar is The Hunter. Use this ability to spring forward and do a ground-slam attack, then lash out at all surrounding enemies with seven additional attacks. If you kill an enemy, there is a 40 percent chance the cooldown will be reset, letting you use it again (although the likelihood the cooldown will be reset will be cut in half each time it is triggered successively).
Spiritborn – Jaguar Spirit Hall Passives
The first passive adds the ‘Jaguar’ label to every Skill, and every fifteenth time you deal damage with Jaguar skills, it’ll add an additional attack to it, equal to 15 percent of the damage you have dealt in the last 0.5 seconds. With how fast the damage can be dealt in Jaguar, this can be a nice bonus.
The second passive increases maximum Ferocity by 1, and grants you one stack of it when you kill an enemy or damage a boss.
Spiritborn – Eagle
Spiritborn – Eagle Skills
Thunderspike is your basic ability, rushing forward to deal damage and resetting the cooldown on your Evade (dodge roll) skill during every third strike.
Quill Volley is your main Vigor spender, throwing sharpened quills through enemies and dealing damage to each.
Vortex is your crowd-control (CC) ability, drawing enemies close to you before hitting them with damage. This isn’t necessary with the most fast-moving Eagle builds, but if you want to hit groups with Quill Volley or Razor Wings, it’s nice to have a way to group them up.
Razor Wings throws out a spinning disc of feathers, acting like a boomerang to return to you. You can enhance it with the Invasive Razor Wings skill to cause it to circle around you instead, hitting surrounding enemies instead of ones in a line (and I recommend doing so).
The Seeker is the Eagle Ultimate. Summon the spirit to swoop down and deal damage both when it arrives and when it departs.
Spiritborn – Eagle Spirit Hall Passives
The first passive turns all skills into Eagle skills too, and gives you the same movement speed bonus you gain from Storm Feathers every time you use an Eagle skill. Evading also throws Storm Feathers at enemies around you with this passive.
The second passive increases your Critical Strike Chance by four percent for every four meters you move, resetting two seconds after you make a Critical Strike attack. With how mobile Eagle Spiritborn are, you’ll be critting a lot.
Spiritborn – Gorilla
Spiritborn – Gorilla Skills
Rock Splitter rushes at your target, dealing damage and increasing your Block chance as you add a point into the enhancement.
Crushing Hand is a skill that is useful across builds. I found it very useful in my Centipede build too, because while it slams down with two damaging shockwaves by default, enhancing it can cause any enemy caught by both shockwaves to be knocked to the ground. If you are having trouble surviving or keeping your enemies in one place, and your main Vigor spender doesn’t add something essential to your build, consider switching to Crushing Hand.
Armored Hide passively gives you increased damage reduction, with two stacks of the ‘Resolve’ buff (which reduces the damage you take when you Block) every few seconds. When you activate the ability, you become Unstoppable and gain 100 percent Block chance for several seconds. Since Unstoppable keeps you from being stopped, slowed, or otherwise impaired, and it removes those effects, this is a great way to bust out of annoying enemy abilities.
Concussive Stomp performs a shockwave that damages enemies and knocks them down for several seconds, and enhancing it can add a Barrier to your health, helping add to your survivability. Additionally, you can grab a second enhancement that deals six times the damage to enemies that are Unstoppable (and to Bosses), meaning it can stay useful in every situation.
Payback is a big smash attack that has a 15 second cooldown, but every time enemies hit you, there is a chance to reduce the cooldown remaining. Use this every time it’s available, and consider taking the enhancement where Payback grants you passive Vigor every time you take damage. The other side of that enhancement? It spends all your Vigor when you use Payback, dealing extra damage based on how much Vigor you spent. A nice all-out attack to have.
The Protector Ultimate skill slams the area for six seconds when used, dealing damage and generating a protective barrier around you. Great to use when you need to stay alive for just a few more moments to get the kill on a boss or Elite group.
Spiritborn – Gorilla Spirit Hall Passives
The first Gorilla Passive adds the Gorilla tag to every Skill, and every time you use a Gorilla Skill, it will deal 100 percent of your current Thorns (damage enemies take when they hit you) to enemies and give you a Barrier to increase your survivability.
The second passive increases your maximum Resolve by two, and when you have at least five stacks of Resolve, you’ll also gain Unstoppable.
Spiritborn – Centipede
The build I primarily focused on, Centipede is all about poisoning and weakening your enemies, and calling upon the mighty power of the Centipede spirit to execute your poisoned foes. Unlike Jaguar, Centipede is all about damage-over-time. It’s slower to kill than Jaguar, but it’s consistent and synergistic with healing, weakening enemies, and probably the second strongest endgame build right now.
Spiritborn – Centipede Skills
Withering Fist is the basic Centipede ability, but when choosing enhancers, you can go with Accelerated Withering Fist if you are having trouble staying alive (it reduces the damage dealt by poisoned enemies) or Sharp Withering Fist if you want to maximize damage you deal against groups of enemies.
Stinger is what you’ll use to spend your Vigor. Choose Rampant Stinger if you want to improve your single target damage (a good idea if you struggle against bosses and elites) and Advantageous Stinger if you want to add some Vulnerable debuffs and healing into your play.
Toxic Skin gives you a trail of poison behind you, and it adds to your Thorns damage. If you picked Advantageous Stinger, pick Measured Toxic Skin to generate Critical Hits every second to foes made Vulnerable by that Stinger enhancement.
Scourge is a great way to help keep yourself alive by CC’ing enemies. Feared and slowed, you can pick them off as they flee. Choose Reinforcing Scourge to get more Vigor back when you use it, but you can opt for Adaptable Scourge if you are having trouble staying alive, as it gives you a chance to be healed for a portion of the damage it deals.
Touch Of Death is a strike that unleashes a swarm of insects that cause damage over time. If you kill the afflicted enemy, the swarm will seek out a new host to damage. Invasive Touch Of Death adds a pulse of damage to the attack, dealing poison damage to surrounding enemies every second. Poised Touch Of Death, however, removes the cooldown on the ability, changing it to cost 70 Vigor per cast. I recommend this option, but you’ll need to generate more Vigor (Reinforcing Scourge is a great way to do this).
The Devourer is the lynchpin of the whole Centipede build. Summoning a massive centipede spirit, it will instantly execute any enemy who has had poison build through their entire health bar. It also spreads poison on the ground and shoots poison beams, making it great to call when Elites or Bosses are about. Every rank you add into the ability reduces the cooldown, letting you get it down to nearly 30 seconds at rank 5.
Spiritborn – Centipede Spirit Hall Passives
Your Spirit Hall will be best served by selecting Centipede as well. If you choose the first passive for Centipede, it turns every skill into a Centipede skill, and reduces and slows every enemy hit by Centipede skills (which is now EVERY skill), stacking up to eight times.
If you are having trouble staying alive, and are running largely Centipede Skills, you can also opt to choose Gorilla’s first passive.
The second selection in the Spirit Hall will add passive healing. Heal one percent of your Maximum Life for every nearby enemy you Poisoned in the last three seconds (up to five percent).
Spiritborn are powerful, no matter which way you slice it. They have some of the most satisfying and useful gameplay loops in the game, with tons of viable ways to play them. Regardless of which build you decide to use, I’m sure you’ll have a good time.
As someone who loved the Witch Doctor class in Diablo III, having a similar ‘spirit-based’ class which focuses on close-range combat instead of spell-casting is a heck of a lot of fun.
Go with the spirits, friend, and put an end to Mephisto’s ambitions. Happy hunting!
.
Leave a Reply