Spiritborn Class Overview

Introduced with the Vessel of Hatred Diablo IV Expansion, the Spiritborn is a class that is completely new to the Diablo franchise. The apex predators of the Nahantu jungle, the Spiritborn are a fast and agile class that thrives off the connection to the Spirit Guardians.

Class Identity

The defining characteristic of the Spiritborn is their ability to call on the Spirit Guardians that they are sworn to protect. Born out of the desire to protect the Spirit Realm and its connection to Sanctuary, the Spiritborn were made to be quick, secretive, and deadly.

Some serve Rezoka, the Jaguar, who specializes in unleashing flurries of blows. Then there is Wumba, the Gorilla, which focuses on thorns and damage reduction. Third is the Eagle, Kwatli, who is fast and agile but with a focus on precision. Fourth is the Centipede Balazan, with a focus on the damage over time and poison. Overall, you can mix and match what aspects you take from each Spirit Guardian, leading to endlessly customizable gameplay. Their abilities are fueled by Vigor which is generated by using Basic Skills.

Strengths

• Customizable Playstyle. Between 4 different Spirit Guardians your Spiritborn can be anything from an agile melee berserker to an unstoppable tank dealing thorns-based damage to some sort of sneaky poisonous life-stealing monstrosity.
• Fast and Agile. Spritborn has a big focus on mobility. They have many unique traversal and movement skills, which work differently with each Spirit Guardian, and have access to bonuses that activate when these mobility skills are used.

Weaknesses

• Requires Vessel of Hatred. You are unable to make a Spiritborn with the base game for Diablo 4 as this Class is locked behind the Vessel of Hatred expansion.
• Limited Weapon Options. The Spiritborn is restricted to Two-Handed Weapons, the Glaive, Polearm, and Quarterstaff. This restricts some of the affixes available on gear and Mythic Unique weapons which are usable by the class.

Equipment

The Spiritborn uses a Two-Handed Weapon (Glaive, Quarterstaff). While using a Two-Handed Weapon, the Spiritborn does pack quite the punch on each individual hit. Legendary Aspects are much more powerful, which often offsets the downside of a slower attack speed. While both the Glaive and Quarterstaff are unique to the Spiritborn, the Quarterstaff is also notable for its defensive implicit, as it is block-related.

Spiritborn Item Slots:

Armor

Helm
Chest Armor
Gloves
Pants
Boots

Jewelry

Amulet
Ring (x2)

Weapons

Two-Handed Weapon

Skills & Passives

Skill points are unlocked by level-ups and the Renown system. As you spend more points, you unlock more and more categories of skills. Each active skill can be leveled up to 5 times or more with items, increasing their power (usually +10% of the base value) or reducing their cooldown by 5% with each additional rank. After unlocking a skill, you can enhance it with another point and then choose one out of two upgrades to specialize it further.

In addition, there are passives found all over the tree, attached as optional choices to certain skill clusters. They grant small bonuses to damage, defense, or utility under certain conditions and help to round out your build by shifting it further in the direction you want to take. All passives have 3 ranks and usually scale linearly.

Basic Skills

Core Skills

Focus Skills

Defensive Skills

Potency Skills

Ultimate Skills

Ultimates are high-impact abilities with a long cooldown. Only one can be chosen and only have a single rank with a two-step linear upgrade path that offers no extra choices.

Key Passives

These passives are located at the very bottom of the Skill Tree. They are extremely powerful and define the overall playstyle of your build. Similar to Ultimate Skills, only one of them can be chosen!

New Keywords

The Spiritborn has several new mechanics, these take the form of keywords which you can harness to empower your builds.

• Ferocity: This buff increases your Attack Speed, by default it stacks up to 4 times buy some Spiritborn Skills allow you to overcap this and gain increased stacks. Typically Ferocity appears in and is enhanced by Jaguar skills or class mechanics.
• Resolve: Increases your Damage Reduction while at least 1 stack is active. Taking direct damage consumes a stack and you can hold up to 8 stacks. Typically this buff appears in and is enhanced by Gorilla skills or class mechanics.
• Storm Feathers: Grant movement speed, some Eagle skills harness these feathers to deal damage to foes. Typically this buff appears in and is enhanced by Eagle skills or class mechanics.
• Pestilent Swarms: Appear to attack enemies and deal Poison damage. These swarms are created by Centipede skills and their associated Legendary Aspects.

Class Mechanic - Spirit Hall

The Spirit Hall is the unique Spiritborn class mechanic in Diablo 4. At level 15 you can select one of the Guardian Spirits as your Primary Spirit, unlocking a new special bonus tied into that Spirit Guardian's playstyle. This also transforms all of your Skills to count as being from your chosen Guardian Spirit in addition to their normal Spirit. Then at level 30, you can select a Secondary Spirit, unlocking a different bonus. You can go all in on one Spirit Guardian or mix and match - the choice is yours!

The Spiritborn Spirit Hall

Attributes

The four core attributes provide the following to the Spiritborn:

• Strength: Armor (20 per 100), Critical Strike Chance (2% per 100)
• Intelligence: All Resistances (2% per 100), Resource Generation (3% per 100)
• Willpower: Healing Received (7.5% per 100), Overpower Damage (25% per 100)
• Dexterity: Skill Damage (12.5% per 100), Dodge Chance (0.6% per 100)

Dexterity is considered the main attribute as it multiplies all your damage done. Strength and Intelligence are also useful for their offensive and defensive bonuses while Willpower does less for scaling most Spiritborn builds. Some items can roll bonuses to attributes and later on, Paragon boards allow stacking the right stats for your character. In addition, you may find hidden Altars of Lilith in the open world that unlock a permanent stat bonus for all of your characters.

Summary

• The Spiritborn class is brand new to the Diablo franchise.
• The Spiritborn class focuses on drawing power from the Spirit Guardians and their variety of skills to create new and innovative playstyles unique to this class.
• Each Spirit Guardian supports a different element and playthrough. Jaguar is Fire, Eagle is Lightning, Gorilla is Physical, and Centipede is Poison.
• Mix and match the Spirit Guardians, or go all in on your favorite one - the choice is yours, but make it wisely!

Credits

Written by ehtoka
Reviewed by wudijo, Dredscythe