Rock Splitter Gorilla Thorns Spiritborn Leveling Guide

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:

Use these Opals at all times to earn reputation with the Zakarum Remnants faction and unlock further rewards.

Speed & Damage

The Hunter provides a Spiritborn with exceptional mobility, use this skill to initiate combat whenever it is available. You can to go from pack to pack or close the distance to your target. Rock Splitter is the primary damage dealer in this build. Every third attack applies 100% of your thorns damage and with increased attack speed you can rapidly apply these thorns dealing massive amounts of damage.

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 Rock Splitter and Rock Splitter. The first grants you damage reduction as well as constantly applies slow to targets, and the second grants +2 to your max Resolve and permanent Unstoppable. With Centipede as your primary, this opens up the Centipede passives for more damage multipliers as well.

Key Passive

Adaptive Stances is your key passive of choice. Since you utilize all four spirits, we are frequently gaining all of the bonuses from this passive. Movement speed, damage reduction, attack speed, and life per second. With the swaps happening frequently, you have a very high uptime on the core stat increase as well.

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 Hunter.

More info in the Endgame section below.

Spirit Hall

Primary: Centipede grants Damage Reduction and slows enemies.

Secondary: Gorilla grants Maximum Resolve and grants massive uptime on Unstoppable

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.

To get started as Rock Splitter Gorilla Thorns 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 get 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.

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

1. Rapid

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Bristleback
2. Tormentor's
3. Might

Great Uniques for this build

1. Razorplate
2. Harmony of Ebewaka
3. Sepazontec

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 Uniques

1. Jacinth Shell (enables builds and amplifies multiple Endgame Builds)

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 Rock Splitter Gorilla Thorns Spiritborn focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

• Lith + Wat - Which grants Decrepify providing a chance to execute enemies, Damage Reduction, Chance to Stun, and Slowing
• Xol + Kry - by invoking Decrepify, you constantly activate this Runeword to cast Vortex. Pulling enemies in is incredibly impactful and negates the Fear from Scourge

Alternative choices

As long as you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top Runes, you can also benefit from these options:

• Cir - Generates offering by spamming Rock Splitter
• Poc - Another way of generating offering
• Mot - Generates Dark Shroud for extra defense

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 assist you from time to time in certain situations.

Hired : Raheir

He offers you unparalleled defense that in turn buffs your offense. Valiance and Bastion reduce the damage you take and save you in dire situations. Inspiration gives you two great damage boosts as Raheir uses his skills either to save you or to attack enemies. 

Reinforcement : Varyana

Call Varyana, the Berserker Crone as your reinforcement Mercenary when you cast Counterattack to attack with Ancient Harpoons. This helps mitigate the Fear that is applied by Scourge

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.

Paragon & 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.

Glyph Leveling Priorities

Coming soon.

• The Rock Splitter Gorilla Thorns Spiritborn is a super fast, fun to play leveling build that scales very well into the lategame.
• No aspects needed to get started
• Utilizing the life steal of Scourge, you have great sustain paired with your nonstop onslaught of damage with Rock Splitter. Weaving in Armored Armored Hide for more defense and The Hunter to deal massive damage and bound across the battlefield, you are an unstoppable force with this build.
• Make sure you are getting thorns damage, attack speed, and defenses on your gear.
• While this is an up close and personal combat style, it has wonderful sustain and an overall comfortable gameplay.

Written by serocifkre

Reviewed by wudijo