“What does it mean to summon a god into battle?”
With this intriguing thought, Brent Gibson, Game Director on Diablo IV, kicked off a special event at Blizzard HQ to introduce gathered journalists to the game’s newest class. We got to deep dive on the theory behind the all-new Spiritborn with the Diablo team before getting two hours of hands-on time at Level 30 to test it for ourselves.
The quick verdict? There’s a lot of intricate interplay to explore in this class with a design that flows any specialisation through every ability. This makes it a dream for theorycrafters who want to hunt down broken power combinations that make a giant mess on the battlefield.
The Jaguar Spirit will be a fan favourite
Emerging from the jungle heavy land of Nahantu, the setting for the storylines in the Vessel of Hate expansion, the Spiritborn is an all-new class to the Diablo franchise. (Side note: Nahantu is a new name for the jungle areas that were part of Kehjistan in Diablo II).
The rumour mill pegged the class as potentially some kind of hybrid blend of Monk and Witch Doctor, and while it’s not a bad guess it’s a lot more the former than the later,, with a fast, aggressive playstyle that makes vibrant use of the spirit powers concept.
The concept for the class is as messed up as any you can think of in Diablo. Small children wander into the jungle to die, but a select few are embraced by the spirits to become their chosen warriors. Just try not to dwell on all those other kids who aren’t chosen.
The Diablo team used the term “aggressive mobility” as a descriptor for the class and it fits very well. Unlike many high mobility classes that use mobility as a way to not get hit, Spiritborn mobility is about quickly getting into your enemy’s face to tear it off. Rinse. Repeat.
Spiritborn’s animations are a constant delight
There are four Spirit Guardians that form the basis of the Spiritborn class specialisations, drawn from representations of spirits “from the sky to the soil”. The team says they were aiming to offer distinct martial styles across the four paths to give players plenty to explore and see what resonates with their personal preferences.
I present them here as something of a countdown, from the pretty great to my One True Spirit Lord: Eagle, Gorilla, Jaguar, and Centipede.
Eagle: Precision and Flow
The Eagle Guardian is about rapid-flowing movement in battle, whether to escape danger or to rapidly engage – or even to extend the range on your skills. These powers focus on the element of Lightning with electric blue effects bursting around you.
Gorilla: Active Protection
Winston? Is that you? Sometimes a tank spec can feel a bit passive, but the team says they’ve focused the Gorilla guardian on being a very active style of protective power. The word ‘retribution’ was used, with an idea that you can give back the damage you have been absorbing. This is based on Physical damage with a very white hot set of visual effects.
Jaguar: High-speed Hunter
Probably going to be many players’ favourite style, Jaguar Guardian is a multiattacking style that offers opportunities to compound your attack speed into incredibly rapid flurries of damage output. I found I could reset the ultimate very quickly at times to sit in large packs of enemies and just keep bringing the Jaguar out to play. This is a fire damage focus with lots of reds and oranges. Yum.
Centipede: Life and Death
An absolute curveball choice but I love it, the Centipede Guardian is about poisons and debuffs, while also offering self-healing to give you that ‘cycle’ feeling. It’s creepy and green and gooey and gorgeous. One guy at the event kept harping on about how he thought everyone was going to hate the Centipede so I’m here to say he was very, very wrong. It’s the best.
My beloved Centipede Spirit
Spiritborn characters unlock the choice of a primary and secondary guardian as their focus. Across the four options, this creates 16 combination choices for the player (you can even choose to go ‘all in’ and make the same Spirit your primary and secondary).
The standout for Spiritborn is how your primary specialisation unlock changes every ability in the class kit. When you choose one of the four Spirits as your focus, EVERY ability gains that Spirit’s keyword. From there, every item and every ability that plays off specific Spirit powers will play off all powers on your ability tree.
For example, choosing Centipede (you know it) means that every time you hit an enemy with a Centipede skill you reduce their damage by 2.5% and slow them by 10% for 3 seconds, stacking up to eight times. But it also makes all your skills Centipede skills! So if you lean into some fast-moving Jaguar skills you could find yourself hitting those full stacks regularly to debuff the hell out of your foes.
In the Gorilla example, hitting enemies with Gorilla skills deals 100% thorns damage and grants a barrier for 10% of your maximum life. But again, all skills are now Gorilla skills so get your thorns armour set ready to go to town with every ability in the arsenal.
The team also said the class will receive items and Legendary Aspects that encourage hybridisation, such as doing more thorns damage to enemies you have poisoned to bring together the Gorilla and Centipede skill lines. This adds more and more opportunity to search for those game breakers that suggest a Spiritborn ‘hybrid’ can avoid the master-of-none problem and hold the potential to become far better than the sum of its parts.
The two hours we had were not nearly enough to unpack the opportunities lurking in the Spiritborn class. There will be dozens of ideas for combining Jaguar skills with an Eagle primary or mixing and matching bits of every focus area under any primary banner to combo up some spectacular damage profiles.
I spent a chunk of my time testing each of the main specs using some pre-built builds they had ready to play, with just some minor tweaks to test out a few variations. The overall impression I’m left with is how beautiful the class looks as you play. There is a gorgeous flow to the abilities and the Spirit animations feel exciting to use.
And isn’t that the key to really enjoying your time in an action RPG? Whether on PC or console, there’s a core set of buttons you press again and again to progress. You want those buttons to feel powerful and fun. From what we’ve seen so far, Spiritborn delivers that feel very nicely.
Diablo IV Vessel of Hatred is set for launch October 8, 2024.
