Hands-On With Diablo 4's Spiritborn - No, It's Not Druid 2.0

Spiritborn is a bold choice for Diablo 4’s first DLC character. Unlike Rogues, Barbarians, and Druids, a Spiritborn is not a familiar RPG trope that’s easy to wrap your mind around. It’s clear from the early speculation online that people didn’t know what to make of the Spiritborn. Some thought it would be a hybrid between Monk and Druid, or Druid and Amazon, or a combination of all three. Some thought it would be a new Shaman-like character similar to Diablo 3’s Witch Doctor. All of those guesses are pretty far off the mark. The only thing the internet seemed to get right about the Spiritborn is that it isn’t anything like the highly-requested Paladin/Crusader archetype, which is another reason this was a brave choice.

In truth, the Spiritborn doesn’t have all that much in common with any of the classes we’ve seen before. It’s a martial arts class like the Monk, it imbues its attacks with elemental damage like the Amazon, and it has an affinity for animals like the Druid, but once you’ve played the Spiritborn you’ll never mistake it for any other class. It has a playstyle and aesthetic that’s wholly its own, yet fits seamlessly into the world of Sanctuary like it’s always been there.

Part of that is thanks to how closely the class is tied to Vessel of Hatred’s location. The expansion brings us back to Nahantu, the jungle region where Mephisto’s soul stone was unearthed during the events of Diablo 2. The Spiritborn have remained hidden in the jungles of Nahantu, intent on staying out of the ongoing conflict between the forces of heaven and hell during Diablo 4’s main campaign. But now that Neyrelle has brought the soul stone back to Nahantu, they have no choice but to join the fight. Blizzard could have appeased many fans by adding a sword and board class, but I appreciate that it let the story's needs dictate the identity of the new class. There’s a commitment to vision here that comes through in the class’ unconventional design and playstyle.

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The Spiritborn is a spiritual fighter that draws its power from the spirit realm, one of the lesser-explored areas of Diablo lore. Their connection to the spirit realm gives them abilities based on four animal gods: Jaguar, Eagle, Gorilla, and Centipede. These spirits each have their own well-defined identity and playstyle, and as a Spiritborn you can tap into any or all of these spirits to build your skill tree as you see fit.

Jaguar skills are multi-hit, combo abilities imbued with fire damage that let you quickly dispatch groups of enemies in close proximity. Eagle skills are long range electric attacks that emphasize mobility and speed. Blizzard calls this the “glass cannon” spirit. Gorilla is quite the opposite. These skills are all defense-forward attacks that build armor around you while you pummel enemies with slow, heavy attacks. Finally, the Centipede playstyle is built around poison AOEs and crowd control. Blizzard explains that this is the spirit that represents the cycle of death, decay, and rebirth.

As Spiritborn you don’t necessarily have to choose a single subclass. Each cluster on the tree has skills for each individual spirit, but you don’t have to just choose all of the Jaguar skills - and you probably shouldn’t. I had the most fun experimenting with this class when I was combining skills from different spirits together to find all the ways they synergize together.

Many skills work with multiple spirits. A skill may be color coded to one particular spirit, but if it has elements from another it may be considered a skill for both animals. This is important once it comes to gear and passives that enhance the skills of specific spirits.

A simple example: the Eagle skill, Vortex, creates a cyclone that pulls enemies inward before damaging them with an AoE downdraft. If you’re using an all-Eagle build, there aren’t many strong ways to follow up that ability once all the enemies are tightly grouped together. But if you pair that skill with the Jaguar Ultimate ability, The Hunter, you can call in the Jaguar Spirit to stomp on the group and spin around dealing rapid hits to everything in the area. The different spirits give you a nice starting point when building your character and help define the identity of your playstyle as you refine those choices and customize your skills to match your playstyle.

The Spiritborn also has access to a unique passive system called the Spirit Hall. These interchangeable bonuses enhance all of the skills from a chosen spirit, while also changing your equipped skills to also count as skills from that spirit too. Gear then feeds back into this choice by enhancing and interacting with skills from a particular spirit. This adds a deeper layer of customization to Spiritborn, a class that already has more skills than any other class, paving the way for more unique and varied buildcrafting than anything we’ve seen in Diablo 4 so far.

While the skill tree feels decently open, the real depth test for Spiritborn will come down to gear. I only saw a couple of legendary pieces in my play session, but they had interesting effects that fundamentally changed how I approached my character’s abilities. An amulet I wore enhanced the Jaguar ability Counterattack with the power to reflect small projectiles. That includes the projectile from the Eagle ability Razor Wings, which hurls out a spinning chakram that then returns to you, dealing damage to everything in its path both ways. This amulet gave me a reason to pair together two abilities that initially had no synergy, giving me the option to reflect the Razor Wings back out for a second free hit. Discovering armor pieces that unlock new synergies is what excites me the most about this new class.

The spirit skills are a huge flavor win for a class that isn’t nearly as self-explanatory as other Diablo classes, so while it might take some extra explaining to get the idea across, ultimately the Spiritborn has a more cohesive, well-defined identity than most other classes. It’s exciting to see Blizzard leaning into more complex buildcrafting after the fairly straightforward classes from the base game. Spiritborn has all of the creative juice and ambitious design philosophy that you’d expect from Blizzard. It’s a nice reminder that when the studio rallies around a strong idea, it can still produce some pretty impressive work.

Diablo 4: Everything We Know About The Spiritborn Class

Learn how every skill works for the upcoming Spiritborn class in Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred.