The Diablo experts AnnacakeLIVE, Rob2628 and Wudijo revealed along with Stephen Stewart, Associate Class Designer of Vessel of hatethe best tips to transform the spiritborn into a deadly powerhouse.
With the launch of Diablo IV Vessel of hate Fans around the world are trying out the brand new Spiritborn class. The Spiritborn is a wonderful mix of martial arts and mystical powers from the spirit realm. This exciting new class offers fans new possibilities.
What are the most important attributes or stats to look for when creating the Spiritborn class in Diablo IV?
AnnacakeLIVE: “It usually depends on your build, but Spiritborn is a skill-based class, so skills will always benefit you. There are also a lot of really cool starting guides for giving the items you’re currently using the chance of double damage trait.”
Stewart: “Which values are important to you depends not only on which Spirit Guardian you primarily focus on, but also on which Spirit Guardians you want to form synergies with at the same time. Each Spirit Guardian typically has certain stats that improve with their set, such as movement speed and critical strikes for the eagle. But these lines begin to merge more and more when you add mechanics from other Spirit Guardians (such as the Centipede and the key passive Noxious Resonance) and especially when you start using Spirit Hall to distribute skill tokens in your build.”
What is the best balance between offense and defense for the Spiritborn to maximize effectiveness?
Stewart: “The classes in Diablo IV are generally designed to stand on their own. But since we have a shared open world and co-op features like the Dark Citadel, we also want to create cool moments where you’re happy to have a specific class that helps you deal with enemies more easily become. For the spiritborn, I would like to emphasize that the centipede skills are a great way to control opponents, which is another form of defense.”
What ability combinations or synergies should one favor at critical moments to achieve high burst damage?
Wudijo: “The Spiritborn has many ways to scale its damage. For typical direct damage builds, there are many synergies revolving around the Jaguar theme, such as its primary Haunted Hall bonus and passives like Powerful and Furnace.
For multi-hit abilities like Thrash or Spike Volley, the primary Jaguar Spirit Hall bonus contributes a lot to the overall output, improving the faster you hit and increasing the value of attack speed bonuses. Later in the game, unique items such as the Staff of Kepeleke in combination with the Ring of the Midnight Sun allow for constant spamming of basic skills with guaranteed critical hits.”
Stewart: “We spent a lot of time on the Spiritborn Ultimate Abilities. Because activating these skills is important so that the Spirit Guardian can emerge in all its glory. We’ve given players the ability to invest more than one skill point into these skills, increasing the availability of charges, reducing cooldowns with certain mechanics, creating opportunities to modify the ultimate skills with additional skill tokens, and also passives and to provide other means that make the activation of Ultimate Abilities highly desirable.”
Can you tell us a little about what combinations of Spirit Guardians work well for damage dealers, tanks, and ranged attackers?
Rob2628: “I played a ranged build that focused on the Spike Volley skill with constant jumps using Ravager. At the same time, the Gorilla Ghost H alls bonus with all of its barriers made me extremely resilient! I got my highest damage with a Poison Centipede-focused build whose main skill was Death’s Touch. So many options!”
Stewart: “The massive damage output of all of Jaguar’s multi-hit attacks combined with the near limitless mobility of the Soar and Eagle mobility passives should make for quick and hard progression through the content. At higher levels of difficulty, such as when the goal is to get as deep into the pit as possible, a combination of gorilla and millipede could prove extremely effective.”
How is the Spiritborn’s power fantasy brought to life through gameplay? Is there a Spirit Guardian that players should prefer if they are looking for a specific play style?
Stewart: “For me, Spiritborn is a class full of energy. Once you get the hang of the gameplay, it almost feels like a fighting game where you’re stringing together combos and fighting your way through a whole pack of demons. The Jaguar is the best example of this, especially with some of the built-in kill streak mechanics. The Eagle offers more dynamism at range while also having its own combo flow that rewards big damage. With the centipede it’s more about stopping the opponents’ momentum and constantly poisoning everything. The Gorilla is all about retaliation and repelling the enemy’s attacks many times over.”
How should Spiritborn players approach survivability? What specific rotation or defensive cooldown strategy have you found to improve stamina?
Wudijo: “The key defensive mechanics for most Spiritborn builds are Resolve, Blocking, and Evasion. You can choose one of these mechanics or combine them as you like. At the start of the game, simple healing from effects like Scourge, Death’s Touch, the key passive Living Blows, or the Ghost Hall Centipede’s secondary bonus is enough.
Later in the game, unique effects like Cloak of Loyalty, Jacinth Shelll, Harlequin Crown, or reset effects like the Cunning passive make it easy to achieve very high or permanent uptime on most of your defensive skills like Counterattack or Shell Skin to reduce the need for healing and improve overall survivability.”
Stewart: “I’ve always believed that if you feel like you’re lacking toughness, you should turn to the Gorilla. This doesn’t mean that your choice of gorilla limits the amount of damage you can do. However, in order to balance the fantasy of the ghost guardians with the game mechanics, it made sense for the gorilla as a protector to be the basis of the defensive reinforcements. For example, Gorilla skills like Shell Skin provide very easy access to Resolve, making them a very defensive option that can be used to reduce damage.”
Are there any crowd control skills or mechanics that are essential to surviving as a high-level Spiritborn?
AnnacakeLIVE: “Spiritborn have a lot of synergy between skills and crowd control items, which is very helpful. The Scourge skill, for example, slows down enemies and scares them. It also casts all sorts of buffs on the character, including a lot of damage dealt to enemies.”
Stewart: “The primary centipede power in the Haunted Hall is quite powerful for this very purpose. It applies a stacking slow to enemies while also stacking a debuff that reduces damage taken. One of my favorite aspects is the immersive fear aspect, which puts enemies in a state of crowd control. Combining these two aspects, an enemy that reaches this centipede’s maximum slow will also be frightened. This aspect also provides a damage bonus against frightened enemies.”
Which endgame gear and legendary items will give Spiritborn players the greatest advantage?
Stewart: “I’m really excited to see what players think of the two unique Harmony of Ebeweka and Cloak of Loyalty helmets. These helmets have identical affixes, but differ significantly in the unique powers they grant. The Harmony of Ebeweka allows you to reap as many benefits as possible as a Spirit Guardian. But maybe you started your Spiritborn adventure with Threshing, then moved on to Rake, and eventually fell in love with all things Jaguar. You are probably the perfect candidate for the Cloak of Loyalty.”
Did you have any moments that surprised you while playing Spiritborn? For example, that certain skills are used in tandem or that there are different applications for certain skills?
Rob2628: “In any case! The first time I got the Centipede ultimate ability, I walked up to a dungeon boss and with all the poison my spirit guardian spewed, the boss just melted. That was fantastic!”
Stewart: “One of my favorite combos that feels really satisfying is the Counterattack/Spikewing combo. We have a legendary aspect that ensures that if you have Counterattack activated and the Spiked Wings come back to you, they will bounce back. It becomes a fun game about coordinating interactions and being rewarded for that detailed attention to your gameplay, which to me is very central to the identity of Spiritborn gameplay overall.”
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