Blizzard fully unveiled Diablo 4’s new class — the Spiritborn — via a livestream on Thursday. The Spiritborn is the first wholly new class to come to a numbered Diablo game in over a decade, and will arrive in Sanctuary as part of the Vessel of Hatred expansion on Oct. 8.
The developers behind the Spiritborn describe it as a martial arts class, and it has clear ties back to the Monk in Diablo 3. The theming, however, is very different. While the Diablo 3 Monk took from more Buddhist stereotypes, the Spiritborn is all about the jungle and various jungle cultures.
As a Spiritborn, you manifest your power from four Spirit Guardians, which also provide your central mechanic. The Guardians manifest as part of your main abilities, and each offers a unique playstyle. Jaguar attacks deal fire damage and increase your attack speed — the idea being raw chaos. The Gorilla takes things in a more defensive direction, enabling you to deal physical damage and protect yourself from big hits. The Eagle is about speed and lightning damage, and offers you more ranged moves. And finally, the Centipede allows you to poison and fear your enemies with powerful crowd control skills.
When putting your Spiritborn build together, you can stick to a single Spirit Guardian identity or spread out and use multiple. Customization is further enhanced via the Spirit Hall, which is your unique class mechanic. In the Spirit Hall, you can select one Spirit Guardian to devote yourself to. This will give you a primary passive that fits into that Guardian’s playstyle. You can then choose a secondary Guardian, which will give you a different boon. If you really like the play style of one Guardian, you can even devote yourself fully to one of them to gain both bonuses.
As far as weapons go, you’ll wield glaives, polearms, and quarterstaffs as the Spiritborn. A full suite of Ancient and Legendary items will also be available at launch for the Spiritborn, including Tempering recipes.
The Spiritborn is exclusive to the Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred expansion, which will run you $39.99 for the standard edition.
