Blizzard Entertainment
We’ve played Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred’s new class, and it’s a massive shake-up for the game
We’ve had the chance to try out Diablo IV’s new class that’s releasing alongside the Vessel of Hatred expansion, and it’s basically 4 different classes in one
Diablo as a franchise has a long history, not only because its first title was released in 1997(almost 30 years ago), but because when it did launch it revolutionized the industry with its real-time action RPG gameplay and addictive systems. Ever since, the developers at Blizzard Entertainment have been pushing the franchise into new unexplored territories through its iconic classes, and while some have become as ingrained into the series’ identity, like the Barbarian, others tend to be more experimental.
But one thing is certain: whenever a new class is released, it’s quite an event. New classes have proven to be experimental, often subverting what people would expect from fantasy RPGs. We’ve seen the classic paladins and sorcerers, druids, and even the super edgy Demon Hunters. But now the team behind Diablo IV’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, has revealed the Spiritborn, and explaining it is quite complex.
We were recently invited to the Blizzard campus for a chance to try out the new class and learn more about its place in Sanctuary, and what we found is nothing short of extraordinary: an unexpected class that has many strengths, incredible art design, and that is deeply embedded to the franchise’s story and world.
Meet the Spiritborn, guardian and warrior of ancient spirits
Hailing from deep in the jungles of Nahantu (which fans of Diablo might recognize as the jungle maze in Act III of Diablo II), the Spiritborn are warriors that embrace four Spirit Guardians, making use of their powers to imbue their attacks with different animalistic aspects. These entities themselves come from the Spirit Realm, which is something that players will discover more of throughout the expansion, but they allow Spiritborn to be created through a special ritual where they push the strongest candidates to their limits, and those who survive are able to bond with them.
This new class is incredibly agile and extremely adaptable to whatever situation may appear, and this is thanks to the fact that each of the Spirit Guardians grants the player different types of abilities that encompass four completely distinct playstyles. As has already been revealed in their official livestream for the new class, Spiritborn are able to bond with the Jaguar spirit, the Gorilla spirit, the Eagle spirit, and what was probably our favorite of them all, a giant Centipede spirit.
However, each of these are extremely different in what they can do:
- The Jaguar is all about aggression and lethality, with its abilities being multi-attacks that are able to clear out entire screens in seconds. Being bonded with it gives passive buffs to your attack speed.
- The Eagle grants players high mobility, letting them soar throughout the battlefield (sometimes literally) and reposition themselves to better find their targets. It’s abilities help you move at high speed and throw lightning infused attacks, as well as evade and counterattack at will.
- The Gorilla makes you a complete tank, as you might have expected from the creature, focusing instead on blocking and reducing damage taking and helping you survive encounters by taking in hits and dishing them out. It’s a slower pace than the rest of the spirits, and that may make it feel sluggish, but when it hits, it barrels through everything in its path.
- The Centipede isn’t the most straightforward of the creatures, as it represents the cycle of life and death in Sanctuary. However, its focus on poison, debuffs, and crowd control is one of the most fun playstyles coming with this class. It’s gameplay can be quite complex, but it’ll allow players to weaken and kill foes easily while healing yourself at the same time.
Each of the spirits represents an entirely different way of playing, which when tried by themselves makes the Spiritborn feel like it’s four different classes entirely. And that would be basically true, where it not for one of the best parts about the entire ordeal: you get to mix and match their abilities, as well as can get passive skills and buffs from two different spirits at the same time thanks to the “Spirit Hall”
What this means is that, yes, a pure Eagle Spiritborn and a pure Centipede Spiritborn will play completely differently, but you can fuse them in to something entirely new. For example, one build we got to try out had a poison burst ability that launches orbs of ichor around you every time you kill an enemy with it. Its short range, but we could compensate for this by using the “Soar” ability from the Eagle spirit to jump straight into a mass of enemies. As we weren’t that strong, we survived by healing a percentage of the poison damage we dealt. Add to that that before you even start this attack, you can summon the Centipede to activate a trail of high-damage-dealing poison whenever you move, and in seconds we’re able to clear an entire horde of enemies, all while getting in and out fast and healing along the way.
But the same could be done with every other Guardian Spirit. Mix Gorilla and Jaguar for a tanky damage dealer, or Jaguar and Eagle to create a lightning-fast glass cannon. Gorilla mixes well with everything, granting you high survivability no matter what, but its gameplay can change dramatically depending on the secondary spirit you incarnate: if mixed with eagle you get a build all about counterattacks and exploiting rebounding abilities, while with Centipede it’s basically a “thorns” build where you take hits and let enemies kill themselves with damage and poison while you focus on the bigger ones.
Complexity on top of complexity, perfect for theorycrafters
As if all that mixing and matching of abilities and spirits wasn’t enough, the devs have revealed that they’ve leaned heavily into creating unique skills through loot and gear. We’ve seen a little bit of this through Loot Reborn, but what it means is that certain pieces of gear can have special effects that fundamentally alter how skills and effects work.
This could be as simple as giving you more charges of a certain attack, but it could also change the trajectory of your poison Centipede projectiles, for example making them spiral outwards around you instead of going straight ahead. Or it could cause an Eagle ability that shoots out a fan of storm feathers reach its apex, cause an elemental explosion, and then fly back toward your character while still dealing damage.
You could then build upon that with other unique skills: our favorite combo was a mixture of every spirit in which you shoot a spinning blade that bounces back to you, so we’d throw three of them out in different directions. Then we activate a gorilla shield that typically absorbs damage, but when activated it reflects projectiles and increases their damage: we discovered that our spinning blades count as projectiles, so if we timed it right we would become a walking death trap, reflecting the same attack up to 3 times each. Then, activate a centipede poison cloud that refreshes with every enemy that dies infected by it and causes another cloud to burst out of it. We became almost unstoppable.
This kind of combination and discoveries is what the developers hope players will have an amazing time figuring out once the game releases, and from what they mentioned it appears as though this kind of customization is going to be a main feature of not only the Spiritborn, but of every other class as well.
In speaking to the developers after our time trying out the class, they revealed that “from the start, something we were interested in was exploring what iwould look like for a class that kind of had the ability to mix and match, that’s always something we’ve wanted. [-] Like, how can we both let players customize it but also let it be sort of almost part of the class fantasy of like, ‘this is an expression of each Spiritborn’s personal bond with those Spirits’.”
A side of Sanctuary that Diablo Players haven’t seen before
Aside from the gameplay side of things, the Spiritborn’s design is outstanding in almost every aspect of its presentation. Not only is there a wide variety of inspirations behind the class, such as martial arts styles, ancient pre-hispanic cultures for their animalistic themed warriors, and the lore of the world of Diablo itself, but every detail that’s goine into the creation of the class is outstanding.
From its armor, which is described as more of a ritualistic outfit that helps the Spiritborn look like its chosen Spirit and not so much functional protection (as they are already protected by the spirits), to their choice of weapon that brings in a new type of armament that’s been missing in Sanctuary: the double-sided glaives that the class uses as a focus through which they unleash the powers of the Spirit Guardians. Every part of this new class oozes out personality and history, which is tied to the story we’ll be able to discover.
But its not like playing as the Spiritborn is a requisite to enjoy the upcoming expansion. We asked the designers of the class if they were worried about players missing out on lore or parts of the Vessel of Hatred experience if they chose not to try out the new warrior immediately, and they assured us that while it’s an incredible path that carries with it its own lore and is deeply ingrained in the history of the new region we’ll be able to explore, they also have surprises and ways to connect with every other character class in the game, “just as with Scosglen and the Druids”.
You’ll be able to find out more about the expansion once Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred releases alongside Season 6 of the game on October 8, 2024, available on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
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