It won’t take long for me to dive back into Blizzard’s stellar action RPG Diablo 4. The game has seen a string of fantastic seasonal content and updates since its fiendish debut. But after thoroughly experimenting with the upcoming character class, Spiritborn, I might be saying goodbye to my free time altogether. This versatile character impressively blends the Diablo ecosystem with the most customizable and diverse class to date, opens up entirely new and unexplored aspects of Diablo lore, and, most importantly, can summon giant ghost gorillas to smash demons into pink entrails like the Hulk. By the time I finished exploring the creepy jungles and dark dungeons of Vessel of Hatred, I was ready to abandon my rogue ways and declare myself a Spiritborn main, which is no small feat.
A quick note: During my time playing Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, I was almost exclusively committed to the Spiritborn character class. After choosing my preferred Spiritborn warrior, I was thrown into the action in the new region, Nahantu, creating my build and demolishing everything in sight. Everything below is there, but I didn’t see any story, meet any NPCs (aside from vendors), or check out the new mercenary hiring feature. That said, I did have a pretty thorough exposure to the Spiritborn class and what it offers, so that’s what I’ll focus on. So let’s get started!
Spiritborn are an entirely new class to the Diablo series, with their own lore tied to the ancient civilization of Nahantu, found in the jungles of Diablo II’s third act, and the spirits they commune with. Unlike other classes in Diablo IV that dive deep into a specific fantasy, like tanking as a Barbarian or doing ferocious DPS as a Rogue, Spiritborn are far more customizable and versatile thanks to the four guardian spirits they can choose from and build around. These four spirits are Eagle, which focuses on mobility, dodge, and lightning damage; Gorilla, which focuses on survivability and physical damage; Jaguar, the king of DPS, attack speed, and fire damage; and my favorite, Centipede, which uses poison, debuffs, and lifesteal to dominate the battlefield and feed off the misfortune of its enemies.
Each of these spirit guardians is represented as a giant ghostly incarnation that imbues you with power and sometimes takes to the battlefield to vanquish your foes – for example, a centipede might suddenly appear to spit giant globs of poison at everything in sight, or an eagle might swoop down to pulverize foes. The skills and abilities corresponding to each of these spirits are displayed as color-coded nodes in the Spiritborn skill tree, making it easy to identify which skills to focus on depending on your chosen ghostly BFF.
These four different styles, and the resulting variety of builds you can create, make Spiritborn feel like four new classes in one. A slow-moving, extremely durable Gorilla build, for example, feels entirely different from a Jaguar build that teleports around the map. However, while you must choose one as your primary guardian animal, one of the most distinctive features of the character class is the ability to hybridize your build with the powers offered by other guardian animals. For example, if your Jaguar build feels a bit weak, you can reach out to the Gorilla Spirit across the hall to add some of his sturdy abilities to your repertoire and make yourself significantly more durable.
This is a completely different game than the much more specific fantasies offered by other character classes, and at first I was worried it would feel like it could do anything but excel at nothing. But as I played, I stopped worrying about the class feeling weak, as I got deeper into my Centipede Eagle (Centipede?) build, filling the battlefield with life-stealing poison and popping out of reach when things got too hot. “You’d think there’d be some kind of identity crisis, but when you play this build, that’s not the case. It just works,” Diablo IV game director Brent Gibson told me. “And I think the team did a great job picking the right things within each lane and making this build very unique and distinct without trying to be a giant creamed cone.” From what I’ve played so far, I agree.
After trying out six different builds, I’ve fallen head over heels in love with this extremely unconventional class. I’m really impressed with how different each Spirit is, and the flexibility they have to take on different roles depending on my current needs and fancies. It remains to be seen whether any of these builds can compete with the five existing, more focused classes, but so far I’m very encouraged by what I’ve seen, and have a feeling I’ll be playing exclusively as the Spiritborn when I tackle Vessel of Hatred later this year.
