Stinger Centipede Spiritborn Leveling Guide
Last Updated:November 21, 2024|Changelog
Welcome to the Stinger Centipede Spiritborn Leveling Guide! This build relies on Centipede Skills and focuses on high Poison damage output to unleash devastating explosions with the Noxious Resonance Key Passive. While Stinger is a melee ground-targeted attack, it has the special perk that it hits all nearby Poisoned enemies, giving it a pseudo-ranged AoE all around you.
In addition to the Poison from Stinger itself, it can also trigger Pestilent Swarms, an effect created and amplified by various aspects and uniques such as Pestilence, Infestation and Ring of Writhing Moon. Luckily, the most important aspect Pestilence can be unlocked from Dungeons, giving this build an easy start and the hardest to get piece (the unique ring) is actually a downgrade so we don't worry about that one.
Even though this setup sports potent damage over time effects, we also scale direct hit damage and critical strike synergies to get the most out of our Stinger, Pestilent Swarm and Noxious Resonance hits. In addition, this build brings one of the coolest skills in the game to the table: The Devourer. We use this ultimate from the start until we enter the endgame in Torment 1.
While this guide brings you into Torment difficulties with ease, this is only the beginning. Once all of the synergies are unlocked from following the Stinger Centipede Spiritborn Endgame Guide you eventually ascend into an unstoppable AoE machine that reminds of the good old Hammerdin days. Let's get started!
This build guide takes you up to level 60 and gets you started for the early Endgame on Torment 1 difficulty. If you're looking for in-depth Endgame guides, check out our Spiritborn Guides section!
- Massive DPS
- Dungeon Aspect
- Incredible Recovery
- Mediocre Mobility
- Resource Management
- Unpredictable Targeting
Check out our Leveling Builds Tier List to see how this build compares to others.
Season Theme
Season 6 is the Season of Hatred Rising. It features the Zakarum Remnants faction which hunts Realmwalkers, massive behemoths that roam outdoor zones and beckon Mephisto's hellspawn. Participate in these zone events and take down the Realmwalkers to spawn a portal to a Seething Realm. There you can acquire Seething Opals, new consumables that stack with Elixirs for a XP buff and the chance to gather extra rewards when defeating enemies. The types of Opals are:
- Seething Opal of Equipment
- Seething Opal of Gold
- Seething Opal of Materials
- Seething Opal of Torment
- Seething Opal of Socketables
Use these Opals at all times to earn reputation with the Zakarum Remnants faction and unlock further rewards.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
Getting Started
To start off you have to put 2 points into Basic Skills to unlock the other sections. Thunderspike is your choice to generate resources, apply Vulnerable and reset the Evade cooldown for the Eagle primary hall effect. Stinger is your main ability which has the great perk that it can hit any Poisoned enemy in approximately half a screen radius, giving you great coverage as long as you infect everything. Together with Pestilence (and Infestation once you find it), you spawn spiraling Pestilent Swarms from the center of the impact which eventually become the core part of your damage output.
Resources
Stinger is a costly skill and for a while in the early game you have to rely on Thunderspike to generate Vigor. Passives like Vigorous and Velocity help a great deal early on, later you also pick up Measured Ravager. In addition, there are a range of useful legendary resource aspects you can find on jewelry, so keep an eye out for Starlight, Umbral, Dark Dance and Vigor per Second rolls on your Helm, Chest and Boots.
Speed & Damage
Rushing Claw is a staple for early game Spiritborn mobility. Use it whenever you can to go from pack to pack or close the distance to your target. Soar is used for the early game to increase your mobility further but is eventually replaced once you have more base movement speed.
Spirit Hall
At level 15, you can unlock your class mechanic called Spirit Hall. There you may choose one out of the four spirit guardians for both the primary and secondary slots. In this case, you go with Eagle (primary) and Jaguar (secondary). The first allows your evade to shoot out feathers that deal a good amount of flat damage and apply Vulnerable. Try to get boots with "Attacks reduce Evade cooldown" on them to benefit from this effect even more. It also allows you to pick up Eagle passives such as Brilliance and Acceleration. The second hall bonus gives you easy access to Ferocity for extra attack speed and Invasive Rushing Claw cooldown resets.
Key Passive
Noxious Resonance is your key passive of choice. It converts your Poisoning effects from damage over time into instant-damage explosions, consuming the DoT on the target. Together with the rest of your kit, this Key Passive creates an absolute AoE monster, so most of the optimizations in this build are tailored towards single-target damage from this point forward. To get the combo to work, aim for some rolls of Critical Strike Chance on your gear.
Ultimate Cluster
The Devourer is your ultimate until you reach endgame. You already bring some Poison synergies to buff it and while active it usually takes care of most enemies on its own. Unfortunately, it falls off in the lategame and we replace it with The Hunter at max level for the Ferocity stacks and other benefits The Hunter provides. Regardless of which skill you're using, you benefit from passives such as Supremacy and Resolution for more damage.
Final Journey to Level 60
At this point, most of the key synergies are unlocked and the gameplay loop is almost complete. As you level up, you unlock a lot of extra points that go into various offensive and defensive passives or max out certain skills. Check out the skills progression above to see where to put your points as you go, but feel free to deviate from the order displayed as necessary. For example, you can pick up Auspicious earlier for extra defense or leave out some of the Ultimate passive cluster nodes until later if you find yourself rarely using The Devourer.
Endgame Skill Swaps
The endgame build looks different from the leveling build due to additional synergies you unlock later. Among other small adjustments on the tree, you need more defense so you replace Soar to pick up Resolve generation and related bonuses such as Armored Hide, Maximum Resolve Stacks tempers and Perseverance. Second, your basic attack Thunderspike gets replaced by Rock Splitter and you switch your primary spirit hall bonus to Gorilla. Find all the details in Stinger Centipede Spiritborn Endgame Guide.
Check out our Renown Guide to unlock all your additional Skill Points efficiently.
Spirit Hall
Primary: Eagle allows to use Evade as a free damage cooldown that also applies Vulnerable
Secondary: Jaguar grants Ferocity for attack speed and to trigger Invasive Rushing Claw.
Unlocking the Spirit Hall
Once you reach level 15, you have to complete a short questline starting in Gea Kul, Kehjistan. A Priority Quest leads you there to help out Tarka. After a few stops outside of town you have to enter the Sacred Hunting Grounds and defeat the Spirit Beast. While inside this dungeon you have to use the emote wheel at two separate stops, once for "Help", once for "Thanks" in order to progress. The boss fight is relatively long and difficult for low level characters, so it's recommended to do this quest on normal. After finishing the quest your secondary Spirit Hall unlocks automatically at level 30.
Learn more details in our full Spiritborn Spirit Hall Guide.
Gear & Stat Priorities
To get started as a Stinger Centipede Spiritborn, focus the most on upgrading your weapon as its damage is the base for all further damage calculations. Otherwise, follow the priority list below. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage, Damage to Close, Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life, Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful.
Tip: For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you are twinking. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.
Legendaries & Uniques
The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist. They unlock after completing specific Dungeons located around Sanctuary or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.
For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.
Must-have Dungeon unlocks
- Pestilence (Hallowed Stones - Nahantu)
Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks
- Haste (Seething Underpass - Nahantu)
- Turbulence (Ruined Wild - Nahantu)
Other useful Aspects (drop/gamble)
- Infestation
- Starlight
- Unyielding Hits
- Binding Morass
- Interdiction
- Duelist's
- Raider's
What to Gamble
Offensive | Gloves |
Defensive | Helm, Chest, Pants |
Utility, Mobility | Boots |
Resource | Rings |
Great Uniques for this build
- Harmony of Ebewaka
- Ring of the Midnight Sun
- Peacemonger's Signet
- Mother's Embrace
Jackpot Drops
As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can massively amplify your power and speed up the leveling by switching to another build. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:
Build-defining Aspects
- Moonrise + Adaptability (enables Rock Splitter Thorns and Thrash Endgame Builds)
Build-defining Uniques
- Sepazontec (enables Rock Splitter Thorns and Thrash Endgame Builds)
- Loyalty's Mantle (greatly enhances multiple Endgame Builds)
- Jacinth Shell (greatly amplifies multiple Endgame Builds)
Learn more details in our articles covering the Codex of Power and Unique Items.
Runes
You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Stinger Centipede Spiritborn focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Lith + Que - We aim for high uptime on Earthen Bulwark for extra defense and synergy with Viscous Shield
- Tam + Kry - Grouping up enemies is a big damage boost because Pestilent Swarms spiral outwards, hitting enemies multiple times at the center
- Tal - In Pit Pushing where boss damage matters more, we replace Kry to spawn even more swarms and use Vortex on our skill bar
Alternative choices
As long as you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top Runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Wat - Decrepify helps with stagger, defense and allows execute at 10% HP. When combined with Xol in your other Runeword it also generates large amounts of offering
- Cir - Generates offering by spamming Stinger
- Poc - Another way of generating offering
- Xal - For extra defense
- Mot - Generates Dark Shroud for extra defense
- Ohm - War Cry provides a substantial damage buff
Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.
Mercenaries
Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.
Hired: Raheir
He provides us with Fortify, Stuns, some extra damage, more armor for Unyielding Hits and prevents us from getting oneshot every 30 seconds thanks to Valiance. Beware that he's not present when playing in groups and make sure you remain armor capped without him.
Reinforcement: Varyana
We choose Earth Breaker for extra crowd controls.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
How To Level
In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.
Campaign Leveling
- For your first character in Diablo 4, completing the Campaign provides all the background lore information but is not necessary.
- The Campaign is the slowest way to level, but it's worth experiencing the Campaign and Diablo 4's storyline at least once.
- To play Seasonal Content you need to have completed or skipped the Campaign.
- If your account is below Rank 4 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
- This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
- After finishing the campaign, you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
- Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.
Seasonal / Alt Leveling
- Complete the Seasonal Questline in order to progress your Seasonal Journey to unlock additional Legendary Aspects and work on your Seasonal Powers.
- If your account is below Rank 4 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
- This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
- Complete the Dungeons needed for any Legendary Aspects from your Codex of Power.
- From level 1-60 you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
- Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.
- If you're playing an Alt, make sure to use Tempers and Leveling Caches crafted from the Alchemist to speed up your progression.
- Find the most efficient way of leveling your character in detail with our Speed Leveling Guide.
Tips and Tricks
- Don't Imprint Your Weapon
- It is a better idea to put your best Offensive Aspect on your Amulet, which will usually not be replaced as often as your Weapon.
- Compare Your Items
- Press Shift to activate item comparison. Use this build guide's Stat Priorities section to identify potential upgrades.
- Choose an Easy Difficulty
- Ideally, start on Hard difficulty for the extra XP modifier, then try to go higher when it's way too easy. If that slows you down noticeably, it's better to stay on a lower difficulty.
- Use Your Materials
- There's no point in holding on to your gold or materials for later. Use everything to speed up your journey to 60. If you're twinking, make sure to craft the Allowance Caches from the Alchemist at level 20 and if available, equip your Mythic Uniques at level 35 to make the leveling a breeze.
Speedrun Route
- If you're looking to min/max your time spent on the way to 60 instead of following a generic guideline, you need to use a specific strategy.
- This usually includes farming certain activities up to a specified level and then switching to other tasks while gathering XP in high density areas and pushing the difficulty as high as you can.
- We update this strategy seasonally in our Speed Leveling Guide.
Endgame Transition
As you approach level 60 with the Stinger Centipede Spiritborn, you unlock higher item power gear that represents a massive jump in character power. This is a good time to refresh your setup with new tempers and imprints.
At level 60, Paragon Levels and The Pit unlock. Work towards Tier 20 to enter Torment 1, where the Endgame begins. Focus on overcapping your Armor (1000+) and Resistances (70%+) as you receive some penalties to your character's stats:
- -250 Armor per Torment difficulty
- -25% All Resistances per Torment difficulty
At this point, your setup should look roughly like this before you dive into min/maxing with Uniques, Mythics & Masterworking. With better gear, more levels and Glyphs, you can push further and eventually unlock higher difficulties for increased rewards.
This step marks the end of the leveling guide. Below is the Paragon setup to get you started in Torment difficulty, but ideally, you should now transition towards the endgame version of this build or choose another of your liking.
Paragon & Glyphs
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 at level 15 and from 4 to 5 at level 46. Some of them cannot be activated before reaching these thresholds! Progress through The Pit to rank up your Glyphs.
Use the slider to see progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.
Some Glyph position swaps, board changes and other pathing adjustments may occur as you unlock your full potential. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build before spending additional points that do not significantly impact your character's power.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
To Level 15
- Fitness
- Bane
- Spirit
- Consumption
- Fester
To Level 46
- Bane
- Consumption
- Spirit
- Fitness
- Fester
There are a total of 328 Paragon Points. After reaching level 60, you gain up to 300 Paragon Levels, 24 from Renown and 4 from Altars of Lilith. Check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Video Guide
Coming soon.
Summary
The Stinger Centipede Spiritborn creates a fun mix of Poison explosions and a Hammerdin feel with Pestilence Swarms that decimate everything in its path.
- Unlock Pestilence for the Codex of Power and start blasting!
- Get resource recovery where possible.
- Poison up enemies to hit them all at once with Stinger.
- With Noxious Resonance, you can convert your DoTs into hits and blow up packs immediately.
- Stack critical strike chance, attack speed & defenses on your gear.
- Become the Swarm!
Credits
Written by wudijo