Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred's new Spiritborn character class is a satisfying addition to the roster.
Blizzard Entertainment has finally dropped Diablo 4’s first big expansion: Vessel of Hatred. Returning players will find the expansion to be a pretty significant package of new content, adding a story campaign centered around Neyrelle and Mephisto, an all-new character class called Spiritborn and the region of Nahantu. While players are still sifting through the bulk of this expansion’s content, one thing is clear: the new class is a hit.
Adding a new class to Diablo 4 always seemed like a risky endeavour. The game’s core classes shift wildly in viability from one season to the next due to constant re-balancing updates, and new additions need to be just as fun as any of them at their peak - while also bringing something completely new to the table and staying true to the new campaign thematically. This new class will set the tone for all future playable additions of its kind, so it’s a good thing that it’s layered and fun enough to be an instant highlight of Vessel of Hatred.
What's all this about a Spiritborn class?
The Spiritborn class is Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred’s big ticket item. It’s the one thing you’re going to want to check this expansion out for, as it gives you a whole new class capable of taking on at least four very different-feeling builds. This is because Spiritborn characters channel animalistic Spirit Guardians in combat to flex different sets of abilities. These Guardians are the Jaguar, Gorilla, Eagle and Centipede - and their abilities manifest in the skill tree in different ways.
Players can either lean hard into a specific playstyle or do some mix-and-matching to get the best out of their entire potential kit, simply by taking their pick of Spirit Guardian abilities in the skill tree. For example, Centipede abilities typically have players inflict poison debuffs on enemies, while Eagle abilities make them more mobile in combat with higher crit damage. Jaguar abilities pump up attack speed, while Gorilla abilities are all about increased defense.
Rest assured that this is a condensed version of what these Spirit Guardians have to offer the player. Starting from Level 15, you'll also be able to pick a primary Spirit Hall animal, which grants a key passive to your Spiritborn character. More importantly, it also alters all of your abilities, sometimes quite dramatically, according to the animal of your choosing. This makes your choice of Spirit Hall animal that much more complicated - do you want to lean further into a Centipede build, or add a Jaguar modifier to all your existing Centipede skills to mix things up? Each animal brings something to the table, and their boons should not be discounted easily.
How does it fit into the current roster of playable classes?
I spent my time muddling a few different animal abilities together, in the pursuit of a fast and easy poison-heavy build. The majority of my skill points were spent in favour of building a strong Centipede build capable of wiping out crowds of enemy mobs using poison attacks, and the rest went towards different Spirit Guardian abilities for increased attack speed and evasion. A ‘meta’ build will eventually form and take some of the fun out of this experimentation, but for now, there are plenty of worthwhile build combinations for players to try out. This in turn gives Vessel of Hatred as a whole some long-term replayability.
There’s a lot to play around with here, and we haven’t even reached the point in this expansion’s life cycle where truly wild endgame Spiritborn builds began to crop up and really shine. Inevitably, someone will post a Spiritborn build with 1 million damage and everyone’s going to flock to it - and that hilarious level of brokenness is part of the fun of trying out a new class this early. Even by the midgame, this class feels like a unique addition to the current roster. Its set of abilities may seem eclectic at first glance, but they fit together in a build much more cohesively than, say, the Druid's class skills.
I would be remiss to go without mentioning that Spiritborn characters offer what is essentially a jungle-themed twist on the Monk class, which isn’t a bad thing at all. For Monk lovers, it delivers the familiar fast-paced martial arts-like combat loop they know and love - with a few new elements incorporated into gameplay by way of the Spirit Guardians, giving them a refreshed version of the class. One wonders if this is the route Blizzard plans to take with future class additions, too. Will we finally get our long-awaited Crusader/Paladin class, or will we get a distant cousin that ticks all the expected boxes while also giving players something new?
More of this, please
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred has a lot of value to offer players addicted to the action-RPG’s satisfying gameplay loop, but its strongest point is shaping up to be the Spiritborn class. With a medley of Monk-like combat speed and Druid-like animalistic prowess, the game’s first all-new character class already feels well-developed and complex enough to tide me over until next year’s expansion. The only question left is whether I'll go Jaguar or Gorilla-heavy with my next build.
Decisions, decisions!
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred is out now on all platforms.