As the October release of Diablo 4’s Vessel of Hatred expansion inches ever-closer, Blizzard has shared first gameplay and details for its brand-new Spiritborn class during a lengthy deep-dive livestream.
The Spiritborn comes from the jungles of Nahantu and is described as “an apex predator with a deep connection to the spirit realm”. It’s also a dexterity focused class built around a sort of spirit-infused martial arts move set – combining aspects of Muay Thai, taekwondo, karate, kickboxing, and boxing – that makes it Diablo 4’s “fastest, most aggressive class”, according to Blizzard.
It has multiple gap-closers built into basic attacks, several movement skills with “very high damage”, plus various ways to upgrade its evade skills. Each of these elements, though, is themed around four god-like Spirit Guardians that Spiritborn can summon during battle. There’s a jaguar representing courage and ferocity; a massive centipede embodying balance and persistence; a giant eagle reflecting awareness and finesse, plus a gorilla that’s a manifestation of protection and strength.
Breaking down each of these further, jaguar skills are all about piling on constant pressure. These are tied to Ferocity, a new keyword stacking buff primarily earned by using jaguar skills that’ll increase the attack speed of all skills, but also enhance other jaguar skills so you can use them more often.
The Ravager skill, for instance, has a passive effect enabling players to maintain Ferocity at a minimum level, but it can also be activated to generate additional attacks when you hit something. Rushing Claw, meanwhile, is all about mobility, enabling players to dash and slash through targets over and over, while the The Hunter is an ultimate skill that manifests the jaguar onto the battle field, destroying everything in the vicinity as it lands. This can even be upgraded for a chance to reset its cooldown after a kill to keep up a kill streak.
As for the gorilla, it offers a tankier skill set based around protection and defence. Its core mechanic is damage reduction through active blocking, all tied to the Resolve stacking buff that gives a damage reduction bonus but falls off whenever a player gets hit. Example skills include Crushing Hand, essentially two separate attacks that overlap in the middle and can smash enemies to bits, and Payback – which does increased damage the more something hits you. Its ultimate brings in the gorilla itself, creating a large area on battlefield that grants protection while you’re in it, with the gorilla smashing enemies that stray inside.
Moving onto the giant eagle, its skills are all about freedom of movement, letting players tactically repositioned themselves anywhere on the battlefield, increasing evade skills, even extend attacks into pseudo-ranged style moves. Soar, for instance, takes the Spiritborn up and out of battle for a second, then allows them to pick a descent position, amplifying damage anything within it when you land. Then there’s Razor Wings, essentially a boomerang-style throw attack, and The Seeker. This ultimate summons the eagle to a position of your choice, whereupon it’ll charge up and unleash an upgradeable blast of energy. It’s also the first ultimate with multiple charges, so it can be used back-to-back.
And finally, there’s the centipede. This Spirit Guardian’s skills are build around things like damage over time poisoning and crowd control, with additional sustaining elements such as the ability to leach life from enemies. Stinger, for instance, is a core skill that does a large amount of damage in a small area, but that damage also echoes out to poisoned enemies elsewhere on the battlefield. Scourge, meanwhile, adds fear, slow, and poison to enemies, and the Devourer ultimate summons the centipede to unleash a massive poison laser beam – which can be upgraded to instantly annihilate a poisoned enemy.
Notably, all these different skills can be mixed and matched for greater flexibility these – although you can go down one single route if you want to. This works through what’s being called the Spirit Hall class mechanic, allowing players to choose a starting Spirit Guardian as a primary bonus that’ll boost all skills of that type, but also add that spirit’s tag to your entire skill kit so centipede skills etc will still hook into jaguar elements. Later, you unlock a second bonus enabling you to infuse more spirit guardian elements onto your first choice.
And that’s only the basics. Blizzard’s deep dive then showcases a few examples of Spiritborn itemisation, promising a large suite of legendaries and uniques for the new class. Expect more details on Diable 4’s Vessel of Hatred expansion ahead of its launch on 8th October.
