There are many things to look forward to in the expansion of Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, but one of the most attractive new additions is the Spiritborn character class, which promises to be amazing…
Based on the trailer and the testers’ reports, it seems that the Spiritborn character of the upcoming Diablo IV expansion will be great. This “everything” refreshes the Diablo ecosystem with the most customizable and diverse class yet. It opens up an entirely new, hitherto unexplored aspect of the game’s story. And if that wasn’t enough, it allows us to summon a giant spectral gorilla with which we can crush demons to a pulp like the Hulk would done. Need I say more?
What exactly can the new Spiritborn class do?
The Spiritborn are an entirely new class in the Diablo series, with their own story tied to the ancient civilization of Nahantu. Unlike other Diablo IV classes, where you get pretty deep into a specific fantasy, like tanking with the Barbarian or doing crazy DPS with the Rogue, the Spiritborn is much more customizable and varied. This is primarily due to the four “Guardian Spirits” that serve as the basis of the various builds. These four spirits are: the eagle, which focuses on mobility, evasion, and lightning damage; the gorilla, which is about survivability and physical damage; the jaguar, which is the king of DPS, attack speed, and fire damage; and my personal favourite, the centipede, which uses poison, debuffs, and health boosts to control the battlefield and feed off of enemy misfortune.
A huge, ghost-like avatar represents each of the Guardian Spirits. It empowers you and occasionally enters the battlefield to destroy your enemies. For example, the centipede appears on the scene to spit giant balls of poison at everything it sees. Or the eagle swooping down to crush your enemies. Skills and abilities corresponding to each spirit appear as colour-coded nodes on the Spiritborn skill tree. This way, you can quickly identify which one you should focus on depending on your ghost BFF of choice.
With these four different styles and the different builds you can create from them, Spiritborn is like four new classes in one.
For example, a slow-moving, highly resilient gorilla build will feel completely different than a jaguar build where you teleport around the map and fight through the jungle like the protagonist of Apocalypto. Although you must choose one to be your primary patron, one of the most defining features of the character class is that you can hybridize your build with some of the abilities offered by other guardian animals. So, for example, if you’re feeling a bit frail in your jaguar build, you can switch to your gorilla spirit and add some of his tanky abilities to your repertoire, making you significantly more resilient.
How should you play the new character class?
This is an entirely new method compared to other character classes’ more specific build options. At first, it may seem that the Spiritborn is a “jack of all trades” character: good at everything but not really a master of anything. However, the longer you play, the less you’ll worry about the class not seeming strong enough. Because of the diversity described above, thanks to the hybrid skill trees, everyone can adapt Spiritborn to their preferred play style. By mixing the skills of the gorilla and the jaguar, or even the centipede and the eagle, we can actually create even more special and compelling character builds than in the case of previous classes.
According to Vessels of Hatred testers, at least eight different build variations can be successfully built with the character. Whether any of these will be able to compete with the five existing and much more focused classes is yet to be seen, but what we’ve seen so far is very encouraging.
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