As Diablo 4’s Vessel of Hatred expansion inches ever-closer, Blizzard has shared first gameplay and details for its new Spiritborn class during a lengthy deep-dive livestream.
In lore terms, the Spiritborn comes from the jungles of Sanctuary’s Nahantu and is described as “an apex predator with a deep connection to the spirit realm”. From a gameplay perspective, though, the Spiritborn is a dexterity focused class built around a spirit-infused martial arts move set – combining aspects of Muay Thai, taekwondo, karate, kickboxing, and boxing – that promises to make for Diablo 4’s “fastest, most aggressive” class yet.
It has multiple gap-closers built into its basic attacks, several movement skills with “very high damage”, plus various ways to upgrade its evades – and all its abilities are themed around four god-like Spirit Guardians that it summons 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 these down further, jaguar skills are all about speed and piling on constant pressure, and they generate a new stacking buff known as Ferocity through use. Ferocity increases the attack speed of all skills as it stacks, but also further enhances jaguar skills so they can be used more often.
The Ravager skill, for instance, has a passive effect that maintains Ferocity at a minimum level, but it can be activated to generate additional attacks when players hit something. Rushing Claw, meanwhile, is all about mobility, enabling the Spiritborn to dash and slash through targets over and over again, while the The Hunter is an ultimate skill that summons the jaguar onto the battlefield, 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 that kill streak growing.
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, which reduces damage but falls off whenever a player is 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 a player. Its ultimate brings in the gorilla itself, creating a large area on battlefield that grants protection while a player is 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 reposition 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 to anything within it on landing. Then there’s Razor Wings, essentially a boomerang-style throw attack, and The Seeker. This ultimate summons the eagle to a selected position, 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 built around things like damage over time poisoning and crowd control, combined with 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 within 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 – although players can go down a single Spirit Guardian route if they’d prefer to specialise. This works through the new Spirit Hall class mechanic, enabling players to choose a starting Spirit Guardian as a primary bonus that’ll boost all skills of that type, while also adding that spirit’s tag to their entire skill kit for additional benefits. Later, it’s possible to unlock three more bonuses so players can infuse more Spirit Guardian elements into their chosen playstyle.
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 Diablo 4’s Vessel of Hatred expansion ahead of its launch on 8th October.