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The new Spiritborn class fromDiablo 4’s Vessel of Hatredexpansion has many powerful and interesting builds. However, its poison builds are among the best for boss killing in the game. One such build, the Touch of Death Spiritborn build, melts through the endgame while being nearly unkillable. Best of all? Players only need two items to make it work, and the playstyle is very laid back.
However, even simpler builds can get complex inDiablo 4, and many players would rather follow a guide so they can spend maximum time playing the game. Keep reading for a step-by-step guide to building the Touch of Death Spiritborn including: how to allocate ability points, the most important stats and items, Spirithall bonuses, Paragon Boards and Glyphs, Runewords, and even Mercenary choices.
Why The Touch Of Death Spiritborn Build Is Powerful
The Touch of Death Spiritborn is apowerful boss-killing build with insane survivability. While it somewhat lacks speed farming capability due to lower mobility than the average Spiritborn Build, players running it can still expect enemy packs to melt like paper once in range. The secret to this build’s success lies in the existence of theInsatiable Aspect,and the upgrades available to the ability in the skill tree - mainlyPoised Touch of Death. Finally, while many working versions of the build use other items, this variant of the build further buffs Touch of Death by usingCraze of the Dead God.
The Insatiable Aspect is an offensive Aspect that increases the duration of Touch of Death’s spawned swarms with each kill and causes them to explode when the player overcaps the number of active swarms. This turns an ability that would otherwise struggle to clear packs and deal AoE damage into a versatile skill without compromising its single target damage.
Additionally, upgrading the Touch of Death skill with the poised modifier turns it into a core skill. While its Vigor cost is quite high in this form, its damage is high enough to match. Players can also use careful Temper choices to make its Vigor cost negligible - spamming the ability as they please. Craze of the Dead God then takes the ability to insane levels by adding up to three ranks (pre-Greater Affix andMasterworking) of Touch of Death.
Touch Of Death Spiritborn Ability Points & Skill Tree
The skill tree for this build relies on several defensive abilities alongside Touch of Death as the main damage dealer. While items will provide further ranks of many abilities, this section will strictly go into how many points to spend on each node.
Basic Node
This build’s basic ability is Rock Splitter, taken for its' Enhancement to increase Block Chance and Vigor generation. Block will be a big part of the defensive capability of this build.
Core Node
This build takes no abilities from the Core node, as we’ll be converting Touch of Death into our Core Skill. Instead, buy passives to unlock the next node.
Focus Node
In the Focus cluster, Toxic Skin is going to be the build’s main way to become Unhindered - important for a build that lacks mobility skills - and will provide bonuses to Touch of Death’s Poison Damage while active.
Defensive Node
In the Defensive Node, players will need several skills and passives. Most notable are the points put into Armored Hide, Antivenom, and Scourge. Armored Hide will allow the player to become Unstoppable - a godssend in touch situations. Antivenom will provide a massive amount of Poison Resistance and increase the max reduction, which will help the player survive the DoT damage inflicted by Craze of the Dead God. Finally, Scourge gives the build some of its many Crowd Control options while also regenerating a large amount of Vigor.
Potency Node
In the Potency Node, this build picks up its' most important skill - Touch of Death. Because the build also has so many crowd control options, make sure to put maximum points into the Oppressive passive.
Ultimate
This build takes The Exhalted Seeker as its Ultimate to reliably make key enemies such as bosses Vulnerable. However, the Ultimate isn’t a core part of the build and can be changed at the player’s discretion.
Key Passive
Finally, the Touch of Death Spiritborn uses the Key PassiveNoxious Resonance,which causes the player’s Critical Strikes to interact with poisoned enemies for explosive damage. Make sure to build some Crit Chance to make full use of this passive.
Spirit Hall Choices For The Touch Of Death Spiritborn
The Touch of Death Spiritborn relies primarily on Gorilla and Centipede Spirit abilities, but this gets shaken up slightly in the Spirit Hall.
Primary Spirit
The Primary choice, the Centipede, reduces all enemy damage. This affects poison taken from the Craze of the Dead God Gloves, making it very useful to survive sometimes overwhelming DoT damage. Additionally, it slows enemies, which counts as a Crowd Control effect - activating Oppressive.
Secondary Spirit
The second Spirit used in this build is the Jaguar. This gives the player a way to generate Ferocity - something that this build would normally lack. While the attack speed buff from Ferocity is so-so, it is required to activate the passive ability of the Ring of the Midday Hunt. This causes all Poison damage DoTs on enemies to deal the same amount of damage as normal in a third of the time.
Gear & Affixes For The Touch Of Death Spiritborn
While this build can work with only The Insatiable Aspect and Craze of the Dead God, several otherUnique Itemsand Aspects can be used to further elevate the build. Additionally, there are a couple of Mythic Uniques that are worth running, although they are not required.
Helpful Unique Items
While Craze of the Dead God is of course used in this build, other Uniques that are BiS are:
These rings serve to condense the delivery of Touch of Death’s DoT damage and speed up the build’s clear. The Legs meanwhile drastically increase Elemental Resistance and Max Resistance to further improve survivability (especially against Craze of the Dead God’s DoT).
Stat Priority & Greater Affix Priority
The best stats to look for on Gear are as follows:
Tempering Choices
This build uses enough Unique items that Tempering slots are in short supply. As such, players should choose carefully.WhenTempering Items, maxing Touch of Death Swarm Duration (+100% total) as well as Touch of Death’s Healing Bonus (+100% total) as the first priority.After this, use remaining slots to increase:
Best Legendary Affixes
In addition to the required Insatiable Aspect, the following Legendary Aspects go well with this build:
Raider’s Aspect and Aspect of Interdiction are more or less interchangeable, as both provide survivability. It is advised to use the one for which players have the best roll.
Optional Mythic Unique Items
If players are lucky enough to get Mythic Uniques, both Shattered Vow andAndariel’s Visageare worth running in this build.
Touch of Death Spiritborn Paragon Boards & Glyphs
The Paragon choices for the Touch of Death Spiritborn prioritize damage against crowd-controlled enemies, maximum resistance, and take advantage of the build’s steady self-healing. Choose the following board and glyph combinations:
If still getting all of their Paragon Points, players can use Exploit instead of Fester until later on in the build.
Leveling Priority
When leveling glyphs, level all of them first to fifteen in the following order, then start at the top of the list to go to 45 on each one, then 100.
The new glyph leveling system in the Pit rewards higher tiers with more experience, so leveling glyphs at Pit level 100 will be much faster than level 30. Players should run the highest tier they are comfortable with.
Mercenary & Reinforcement Choices For The Touch Of Death Spiritborn
The Mercenary choices in this build are quite straightforward - the build craves the vulnerable status condition and CC. Subo and Varyana arethe best Mercenariesat providing this without making the player squishier too (looking at you Aldkin).
Mercenary Choice & Skill Tree
This build uses Subo as the Mercenary of choice due to his ability to inflict Vulnerability without the dangerous debuff from Aldkin. Choose the following in the skill tree:
Reinforcement Choice & Skill Selection
Players should hire Varyana as their Reinforcement, selecting the Earthbreaker ability to trigger whenever they cast Scourge. This should hopefully keep enemies from running away from the poison cloud, and allow us to apply the Oppressive passive.
