Spiritborn Codex — Codex of Sanctuary

DIABLO IV · FIELD MANUAL

THE COMPLETE BUILD GUIDE

SEASON 14 · DEATH AWAKENING◆PATCH 3.1.3◆LAST VERIFIED AUG 17, 2026

Four Guardian Spirits, two Spirit Hall choices, one very fast class. This chapter answers the questions a new Spiritborn actually has — what do these four animals do, why am I picking two of them, and what is actually dealing my damage — and then gives you four complete builds, every skill point from level 2 to 70.

▲ EAGLE ■ GORILLA ◆ JAGUAR ≡ CENTIPEDE

HOME SPIRITBORN CODEX

◄ SPIRITBORN COVER

▶ PART I Understanding the Spiritborn 10 MIN · START HERE

THE CLASS IN FIVE IDEAS

1 · THE GUARDIANS ARE NOT PETS

Four jungle deities — Eagle, Gorilla, Jaguar, Centipede — are schools of skills and Hall bonuses, not summons. They appear inside a skill's effect, do their work, and leave. If you came expecting an army, that is the Druid; here the animals are verbs.

2 · THE SPIRIT HALL

The class mechanic. A quest at level 15 opens a panel where you choose a Primary Spirit (15) and a Secondary (30). The Primary re-tags your ENTIRE kit as that Guardian's; both choices are free to change forever. Two picks, whole identity.

3 · VIGOR IS BUILT, THEN OUTGROWN

The resource: Basic skills build it, Core skills spend it, and it does not come back on its own. The class's strange truth is that most endgame bars stop spending it — three of this chapter's four builds are cooldown engines, and the fourth turns the bar into ammunition for one enormous shot.

4 · DEFENDED BY MOMENTUM

The survival kit is generated by attacking: Barrier films per cast, Resolve stacks that hits consume, Ferocity that collapses after one idle second. A Spiritborn standing still has no defences coming in. Offence is not just the plan — it is the armour.

5 · SPEED IS THE FANTASY

Soar is a flying dive, The Hunter strikes from above, Evade is class-signature tech, and feather bonuses stack movement speed on top. The fastest-feeling class in the game — and several builds deal their damage by arriving. If you route maps like a courier, you are home.

SPIRITBORN, ROGUE OR DRUID?

TL;DR

The Spiritborn is the martial artist Sanctuary never had: Rogue tempo with a Druid's nature magic, defended by its own offence instead of stealth or fur. You are always the one doing the killing — the Guardians multiply your hands rather than replace them. If the appeal is "the jungle taught me to punch the Burning Hells", you are in the right chapter.

SPIRITBORN

ROGUE

DRUID

THE QUESTIONS EVERYONE ASKS FIRST

What do the four animals do? They are schools: Eagle is lightning and precision, Gorilla is Barrier and Thorns, Jaguar is attack speed and ramp, Centipede is poison and debuff. Part II takes one page per animal.

Why am I picking two of them? The Spirit Hall: your Primary re-tags every skill you own and adds its mechanic to every cast; your Secondary adds a passive. It is two picks, free to change, and Part III lets you try all sixteen pairs.

What is actually dealing my damage? Usually not the button you pressed — the poison pool it applied, the Thorns it retaliated, the feathers it launched, the Beat Strike it counted toward. Every build chapter draws its engine as a chain.

Is it beginner-friendly? Moderately. The class punishes stillness, but Build II is one of the easiest builds in this codex — planted, forgiving, hard to kill — and says "start here" on the label.

Can I play it slow and tanky? Yes — Gorilla Primary wraps every cast in a Barrier, and doubling Gorilla in both Hall slots is the "I refuse to die" configuration every chapter names as its defensive swap.

Why is my Vigor always empty? Because levelling is the generator-spender era and you feel every point. The endgame bars mostly stop spending Vigor entirely. Part IV explains why that is normal, not a mistake.

What weapon do I use? Two-handed hafted only — Quarterstaff, Polearm or Glaive — so it is one slot and usually one answer: the quarterstaff, where both engine Uniques live. The weapons section below settles it.

Didn't this class get nerfed? Its launch-era absurdity and last season's Evade spam are gone. What remains is honest and current: poison Spiritborn tops the Season 14 lists, and all four chapters here are built on the live patch.

QUARTERSTAFF, POLEARM OR GLAIVE?

WHEN · {{w.when}}

YOU GAIN · {{w.gain}}

IT COSTS · {{w.cost}}

USED BY · {{w.who}}

{{q.q}} {{q.a}}

READING THE SKILL TREE

The budget. 69 points from levelling (one per level, 2 through 70) plus 14 bonus points — Season Rank on a seasonal character, Renown on Eternal. Total 83. Every build chapter here accounts for all 83 and none ends with "spend the rest wherever".

No Key Passive. If you played launch-era Spiritborn, the capstone slot the old builds raced toward is gone — the Lord of Hatred rework replaced it with wider branching inside the tree. Any guide telling you to rush a Key Passive is describing a game that no longer exists.

Upgrades per skill. Each active skill carries 1 Major and 2 Minor upgrades. Majors often rewrite what the skill is rather than scaling it. This codex marks the ones each build takes with a filled diamond and explains the ones it deliberately skips.

Categories: Basic, Core, Focus, Defensive, Potency and Ultimate, with one Ultimate equipped at a time — and every skill also carries a Guardian tag. Clusters unlock in stages, so you cannot spend into a trap early.

The class's real trap: spirit-modified variants. Some Major upgrades move a skill's Guardian — a Counterattack that starts breeding Pestilent Swarms shifts toward the Centipede. Your Hall, gear and charms multiply TAGS, so a variant can quietly move a skill out of everything you own that scales it. Read the tag line before you spend the point — and know that before patch 3.1, these variants could fail to trigger the Gorilla Primary at all. That is fixed on live; Build I is built on the fix.

WHAT DOES THIS WORD MEAN?

The terms this codex leans on. The same definitions appear as hover tooltips everywhere else on the page — on mobile, tap them.

WHY IT MATTERS · {{g.why}}

ADVANCED · {{g.adv}}

▶ PART II The Four Guardian Spirits EAGLE · GORILLA · JAGUAR · CENTIPEDE

{{e.glyph}} {{e.name}} of {{e.deity}}

{{e.difficulty}} TO LEARN

ITS SKILLS · {{e.skills}}

ITS STATES · {{e.states}}

AS PRIMARY · {{e.prim}}

AS SECONDARY · {{e.sec}}

IN THIS CODEX · {{e.use}}

PICK IT IF · {{e.like}}

SEASON 14 · {{e.s14}}

THE FOUR, SIDE BY SIDE

▲ EAGLE

■ GORILLA

◆ JAGUAR

≡ CENTIPEDE

DO I HAVE TO PICK ONE?

{{m.q}} {{m.a}}

▶ PART III The Spirit Hall THE CLASS MECHANIC

BEGINNER TL;DR

A quest at level 15 opens the Spirit Hall: choose a Primary Spirit there, and a Secondary at level 30. The Primary adds its Guardian's mechanic to every cast and re-tags your ENTIRE kit as its skills; the Secondary adds a passive. Both are free to change forever, same Guardian twice is legal, and a level-40 Spiritborn who skipped the quest is playing without a class mechanic.

THE CLASS QUEST — DO NOT SKIP IT

➤

{{q.q}} {{q.a}}

TAGS — HOW ONE PICK CHANGES EVERY SKILL

The Hall matters because of tags. Follow one skill — Withering Fist, a poison punch — through the current meta's setup, then read the questions beside it.

▼

{{q.q}} {{q.a}}

THE COMBINATION ROOM — TRY ALL SIXTEEN

Every pair is legal. Set a Primary and a Secondary and read what the Hall would give you — and whether a codex build already runs it.

PRIMARY SPIRIT — CHOSEN AT 15

THE TAG CONSEQUENCE · {{hallTagNote}}

SECONDARY SPIRIT — CHOSEN AT 30

THE PAIR, TOGETHER {{hallBuild}}

SYNERGY · {{hallSyn}}

VERDICT · {{hallWhy}}

▶ PART IV Vigor, States, Poison, Movement & Not Dying EVERY MECHANIC, PLAINLY

UNDERSTANDING VIGOR

{{q.q}} {{q.a}}

THE STATES YOU MAINTAIN

Three buff economies run the class. Each build chapter tells you which of them it lives on; this is what they are.

{{s.name}} FROM {{s.from}}

GAIN IT · {{s.gain}}

LOSE IT · {{s.lose}}

AT THE CAP · {{s.max}}

WHEN IT FALLS · {{s.falls}}

POISON · THE META'S DAMAGE

{{q.q}} {{q.a}}

MOVEMENT · THE CLASS SIGNATURE

{{q.q}} {{q.a}}

SLOWED, FEARED, PULLED — AND WHAT ISN'T CONTROL

ON BOSSES · {{c.boss}}

WHO WANTS IT · {{c.who}}

HOW TO NOT DIE AS A SPIRITBORN

▼

WHERE · {{d.when}}

THE FIVE RULES

· {{r.t}}

PART V

FOUR SPIRITBORN

Four genuinely different characters, not four flavours of one list. One falls out of the sky, one rots things where they stand, one is a drum solo that never stops, and one saves the whole bar for a single guaranteed crit.

BUILD {{b.num}} · {{b.difficulty}}

▶ BUILD {{bd.num}} {{bd.name}} · {{bd.sub}} {{bd.difficulty}} · {{bd.hall}}

ONE-SCREEN VERSION EVERYTHING BELOW IS OPTIONAL DETAIL

YOUR JOB

PRESS

SPIRIT HALL

◆ {{e.t}}

MAIN DAMAGE

MAIN DEFENCE · {{bd.osDefense}}

MOST IMPORTANT STAT · {{bd.osStat}}

THE VIGOR BAR · {{bd.osVigor}}

IF YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE · {{bd.osDying}}

DON'T WORRY ABOUT YET · {{bd.osLater}}

BUILD {{bd.num}} · {{bd.hall}}

DIFFICULTY · {{bd.difficulty}}

This build is for you if: {{bd.tagline}}

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE

MAIN DAMAGE SOURCE · {{bd.mainDamage}}

MAIN DEFENSIVE MECHANIC · {{bd.mainDefense}}

VIGOR MECHANIC · {{bd.resourceMech}}

CORE MECHANIC · {{bd.coreMech}}

BIGGEST STRENGTH · {{bd.strongest}}

BIGGEST WEAKNESS · {{bd.weakest}}

RATINGS

BEST FOR

THE SIX BUTTONS — WHAT EACH ONE IS FOR

WHEN · {{k.when}}

WHY IT'S ON THE BAR · {{k.why}}

SYNERGISES WITH · {{k.syn}}

BEFORE YOU UNLOCK IT · {{k.before}}

YOUR SPIRIT HALL — AS IMPORTANT AS THE BAR

PRIMARY · CHOSEN AT 15

SECONDARY · CHOSEN AT 30

WHAT PRIMARY CHANGES · {{bd.hallChanges}}

WHAT SECONDARY ADDS · {{bd.hallAdds}}

WHY NOT THE OBVIOUS PICK?

THE HONEST ALTERNATIVE · {{bd.hallAlt}}

WHILE LEVELLING · {{bd.hallLeveling}}

EVERY POINT, LEVEL BY LEVEL

One point per level-up, 2 → 70, plus 14 bonus points at the end. Set your level to see exactly what you should own at that moment, what to buy next, and where your Spirit Hall stands.

LEVEL

LVL {{bd.lvl}} · {{bd.spentPts}} PTS

PRIMARY SPIRIT

SECONDARY SPIRIT

NEXT IMPORTANT UNLOCK

SPEND YOUR NEXT POINT HERE ➤ {{bd.nextName}}

◆ WHAT CHANGED: {{bd.nextNote}}

{{n.name}} {{n.cur}}/{{n.max}}

+14 BONUS POINTS (SEASON RANK · OR RENOWN ON ETERNAL) — SPEND AS THEY ARRIVE

· +{{br.n}} {{br.name}} — {{br.why}}

YOUR BAR AT LEVEL {{bd.lvl}}

QUEST · HALL · ITEM PLAN BY LEVEL {{bd.lvl}}

L{{p.at}} · {{p.pick}} — {{p.why}}

▶THE LEVELLING STORY, 1 → 70 (READ ONCE BEFORE YOU START)

LEVELLING → TRANSITION → ENDGAME

The same character, before and after. When a build "feels wrong" at level 40, the usual reason is that it is still being played as the left-hand column.

LEVELLING BUILD

➤

ENDGAME BUILD

THE BUILD COMES ONLINE HERE ➤ {{bd.trMoment}}

YOUR VIGOR ENGINE

Every build treats the class resource differently — including ignoring it on purpose. If your rotation feels broken, it is nearly always one of these two paragraphs.

HOW THIS BUILD PAYS FOR ITSELF

IF IT STILL STALLS, IN THIS ORDER

▼

HOW THIS BUILD SURVIVES

Four jobs, and which button on this bar does each of them. A gap here is not a flaw — it is a thing to know about yourself.

STAT PRIORITY

In order, with what each one actually affects. Stats not listed here are not worth a roll on this build.

AFFECTS
{{s.affects}}

GEAR — AND WHAT TO DO UNTIL IT DROPS

Every slot has a best answer and an honest "until then" answer. No build in this codex requires a unique item to reach level 70.

UNTIL THEN · {{g.until}}

Legendary Aspects

WITHOUT IT · {{a.missing}}

Uniques — With & Without

WITH · {{u.with_}}

WITHOUT · {{u.without}}

“I don't have that”

{{f.q}} → {{f.a}}

WHAT DO I ACTUALLY PRESS?

NORMAL ENEMIES

ELITES

BOSSES

IF THINGS GO WRONG

WHY IS THIS BUILD GOOD?

The engine, start to finish. Break any link and the damage sags — which is how the troubleshooting below diagnoses it.

▼

TROUBLESHOOTING

▶“{{t.q}}”

PARAGON, AFTER 70

Board order: {{b.t}}

Glyphs: {{g.t}}

▶RESEARCH & SOURCES FOR THIS BUILD

Verified against current sources: {{bd.srcVerified}}

Synthesized (my ordering and framing): {{bd.srcSynth}}

Flagged as uncertain: {{bd.srcUncertain}}

▶ DECIDE Which Spiritborn Is Mine? SIDE BY SIDE · 1 MIN

I · THE SKYFALL

II · THE WITHERING

III · THE WAR-DRUM

IV · THE REPRISAL

◆ I want the strongest current option → Build I · The Skyfall

◆ I want the easiest ride, and to start today → Build II · The Withering

◆ I want the highest actions-per-minute in the codex → Build III · The War-Drum

◆ I want one enormous button and a rhythm around it → Build IV · The Reprisal

◆ I can't choose between the two poison builds → dive-and-detonate is I, stand-and-rot is II. Same Hall, same detonator, opposite temperaments.

Season 14's Spiritborn podium is poison: Icy Veins lists Soar Swarm (Build I) as the strongest current Spiritborn and the Withering Fist archetype (Build II) S-tier beside it. The matched-Jaguar War-Drum holds A-tier on the strength of Loyalty's Mantle and the Rezoka's Rage charm set; the Kepeleke Reprisal sits B — strong in all content, one tier off the pace, and the most distinctive thing the class does. Last season's Evade Counterswarm is gone from the lists entirely. All checked August 2026.

▶ PART VI Unlocks, Paragon & The Endgame Map TORMENT · PARAGON · TALISMANS

CLASS UNLOCKS — DO NOT MISS THESE

LEVEL 2

First skill point. Vigor exists from the start and does NOT regenerate — the generator-spender rhythm is the class before any mechanic is. Every chapter opens with the same Basic-skill era.

LEVEL 15 · THE SPIRIT HALL

A short priority quest appears, marked on the map. Do it immediately and choose your Primary Spirit — a Spiritborn who skipped it is playing without a class mechanic, and nothing in the interface will say so.

LEVEL 30 · THE SECOND SLOT

The Secondary Spirit opens — no second quest, easy to miss. Two chapters here level on Centipede's healing and swap it later; the swap moment is marked in their point lists.

LEVEL ~50–60 · THE ENGINE ERA

The chase items that close each build's loop — Scorn of the Earth, Widow's Web, Sepazontec, Rod of Kepeleke, Wushe Nak Pa — start dropping and cube-crafting into reach. Every chapter marks the moment its build is "born".

LEVEL 60 · TALISMAN SEAL

A Legendary Seal with +1 Charm Slot is the target: six slots means a five-piece charm set plus one Unique Charm. Kwatli's Grace (Eagle) and Rezoka's Rage (Jaguar) both carry builds this season.

LEVEL 70 · THE PIT

Paragon, glyph levelling and Torment climbing start here. Your build does not change; your items do.

THE LADDER

Difficulty runs Normal → Hard → Expert → Penitent, then Torment 1–12. Torment is where endgame loot lives.

The Pit (unlocks at 70) is the gate: clear around tier 10 to open Torment 1, then keep climbing as your glyphs grow.

Each Torment tier applies a resistance penalty, so keep Armor capped (1,000) and all Resistances 70%+ before chasing damage. On a class defended by momentum, the caps are what make momentum survivable.

PARAGON — BEGINNER VERSION

Past 70, XP becomes Paragon points, shared across your realm's characters. You may attach up to five boards; each exists to reach a Legendary node and socket a Glyph.

First board: Starter. First path: straight at the Legendary node, ignoring everything else. First glyph: whichever one reads your damage type or Guardian tag.

Ignore stray Willpower nodes and "+3% damage" filler until the Legendary node and glyph are in. Fill those walking back.

Attach requirements rise the further a board sits from the Starter, so place the board you care most about early.

ADVANCED PARAGON & GLYPHS

Order of operations per board: Legendary node → glyph socket → rare nodes inside the glyph radius → filler. A board with no glyph in it is worth roughly half of one with.

Level Glyphs by clearing The Pit. Radius grows with rank and a Legendary Bonus unlocks near the top; upgrade attempts can fail, so bring a tier you clear comfortably rather than your record.

Tag and damage-type glyphs before generic damage glyphs, always — a poison-detonation build and a max-Vigor nova build want genuinely different nodes, which is why each chapter lists its own.

On the melee chapters (III especially) take the defensive board earlier than a diver would. The damage you lose is smaller than the damage you lose by dying.

TALISMAN · TEMPER · MASTERWORK

Talisman: a Seal holding Charms, with set bonuses when they match. For the Spiritborn: Kwatli's Grace (Eagle — Build I's endgame), Rezoka's Rage (Jaguar — the reason Build III works), and Protean Heart, the unique charm that reads your full Vigor bar.

Tempering: the class staples are Worldly Endurance (Maximum Resolve, every armour slot) and Worldly Stability (resource generation) — then your build's damage tempers per its gear card. A spirit-changing variant can invalidate a tag temper you already paid for; read before you spend.

Masterworking: +ranks to everything with a large bonus hit every fourth step. Aim that bonus at the affix your build's gear card lists first, and only on pieces you intend to keep.

SEASON 14 NOTES — WHAT CHANGED FOR SPIRITBORN

Poison IS the meta — Soar Swarm the strongest current Spiritborn, Withering Fist S-tier beside it

Evade nerfed — Evade Counterswarm, last season's best build, is gone from the lists

Patch 3.1 fix — spirit-modified variants now correctly trigger the Gorilla Primary and Ebewaka's multiplier

Patch 3.1.1 — Stinger trimmed (it dealt more than intended); Touch of Death aspects toned down, skill still on top

Rushing Claw mobility trimmed — no Jaguar build tops the lists, but Loyalty's Mantle keeps the matched Hall A-tier

Harmony of Ebewaka — the triple-tag helm is the quiet engine of both S-tier builds

Charm sets settled — Kwatli's Grace and Rezoka's Rage healthy; no Gorilla or Centipede set carries a build

Mythic Unique 3.0 — 2 guaranteed + 2 random affixes, one rerollable; key uniques are craftable-toward

Deeper history matters for this class more than most: the Spiritborn arrived with Vessel of Hatred famously overtuned, was normalized across the following seasons, and then the Lord of Hatred rework removed Key Passives and raised the cap to 70. A guide that races to a Key Passive, assumes launch-era damage, or builds around Evade spam is describing a class that no longer exists. This codex is dated 3.1.3 and says so out loud.

▶ PART VII Research & Sources WHAT'S VERIFIED, WHAT ISN'T

Everything here targets Season 14 · Death Awakening · patch 3.1.3, checked against live sources on August 17, 2026. The Spiritborn is the class the internet is most wrong about, because its launch was the loudest thing that ever happened to it.

THE BIGGEST STALENESS RISK · Three eras of dead advice are still in circulation: the Vessel of Hatred launch, when an overtuned Spiritborn broke the game and produced thousands of guides describing damage that was patched away; the Evade-spam era, whose signature Evade Counterswarm build was nerfed out of the meta this season; and the pre-rework tree, whose Key Passives no longer exist. A guide built on any of the three — which is most of what a search returns — describes a class that is gone.

OFFICIAL / PATCH-LEVEL · Season and patch baseline (Season 14 · Death Awakening · 3.1.3, live August 12); the 3.1 fix that made spirit-modified skill variants correctly trigger the Gorilla Primary and Harmony of Ebewaka; 3.1.1's Stinger correction and Touch of Death aspect adjustments; this season's Evade changes; and Mythic Unique 3.0 crafting.

CURRENT BUILD SOURCES · Icy Veins' Season 14 Spiritborn set — the tier list (Soar Swarm the strongest current Spiritborn, Withering Fist S-tier, the matched-Jaguar archetype A, the Kepeleke build B, Evade Counterswarm delisted) and the per-build guides beneath it — used for tier placements, archetype framing, bar composition, Hall picks and gear direction on all four chapters.

MECHANICS REFERENCE · Spirit Hall rules (the level-15 priority quest, the Secondary at 30, free re-picks, same-Guardian legality, the Primary's whole-kit re-tag); the four Hall bonuses; Vigor generation and spending; the Resolve, Ferocity and Barrier economies; Rod of Kepeleke's free-cast / max-Vigor consumption behaviour; and the Dexterity / Willpower / Intelligence / Strength attribute effects.

MINE, NOT TRANSCRIBED · The level-by-level point orders, priority labels, star ratings, engine diagrams, stat priorities, Hall-swap timing, the Combination Room's sixteen verdicts, troubleshooting trees and the "until then" fallbacks. No published guide gives a per-level order; each of the four here totals 69 levelling points plus 14 bonus points and lands on the same final tree.

UNCERTAIN · FOUR HONEST GAPS · (1) Hall bonus figures (150% Thorns, 43% Beat Strike, the 15-hit counter, feather counts) are printed at commonly reported values; post-rework numbers are not consistently republished — treat them as close, not gospel. (2) Several aspects are described by effect rather than named, where the effect verified and a current name did not. (3) Charm-set bonus wording is paraphrased from list-site summaries, not tooltips. (4) The War-Drum's A-tier rests on one list's judgment of one item interaction (Loyalty's Mantle doubling); if that interaction changes, Build III drops a tier and its chapter says which links break first.

{{tipWhyLabel}} · {{tipWhy}}

ADVANCED · {{tipAdv}}

THE CLASS IN FIVE IDEAS

SPIRITBORN, ROGUE OR DRUID?

THE QUESTIONS EVERYONE ASKS FIRST

QUARTERSTAFF, POLEARM OR GLAIVE?

READING THE SKILL TREE

WHAT DOES THIS WORD MEAN?

THE FOUR, SIDE BY SIDE

DO I HAVE TO PICK ONE?

THE CLASS QUEST — DO NOT SKIP IT

TAGS — HOW ONE PICK CHANGES EVERY SKILL

THE COMBINATION ROOM — TRY ALL SIXTEEN

UNDERSTANDING VIGOR

THE STATES YOU MAINTAIN

SLOWED, FEARED, PULLED — AND WHAT ISN'T CONTROL

HOW TO NOT DIE AS A SPIRITBORN

FOUR SPIRITBORN

{{bd.nameCaps}}

EVERY POINT, LEVEL BY LEVEL

LEVELLING → TRANSITION → ENDGAME

YOUR VIGOR ENGINE

HOW THIS BUILD SURVIVES

STAT PRIORITY

GEAR — AND WHAT TO DO UNTIL IT DROPS

Legendary Aspects

Uniques — With & Without

“I don't have that”

WHAT DO I ACTUALLY PRESS?

WHY IS THIS BUILD GOOD?

TROUBLESHOOTING

{{pb.name}}