Diablo 4 Touch of Death Spiritborn Build Guide

Spiritborn’s Touch of Death skill offers great offensive capabilities with many options for scaling while not lacking in defenses.

This Spiritborn build guide assumes you’re level 60 and have completed enough of your Renown to have gained the 12 additional Skill Points available.

If you want a great leveling build to reach this point with, try our Centipede Spiritborn Leveling Build – A centipede build that plays off Vulnerable to deal high AoE damage. due to this build’s reliance on multiple Unique Items and easy transition from our Leveling Build, we will not be including a leveling path.

Build Overview

This Spiritborn build relies on a handful of Unique Items to get the most out of its damage, but only requires The Rod of Kepleke to start dishing out consistent damage.

Early on we can make use of the Craze of the Dead God to bolster our defenses heavily if we get them. They do come with the heavy side effect of converting all of our direct damage taken into a Poison DoT. Note that direct damage does not include AoE damage or other Damage over time effects.

Skill and Passive Breakdown

In this section, we’ll be talking about each skill we use. This is the whys and hows of how the build works, and then we’ll cover the skill point distribution.

Skills

These are the main skills for the build. We’ll explain what purpose each serves and how they fit the build

Passives

This section covers our Key Passive as well as others that are core to the build. These are what make the build a cohesive package.

Key Passive – Noxious Resonance

Noxious Resonance often demands stacking of Critical Strike Chance across our gear and allows us to detonate the DoT effect from Touch of Death. However, with the Rod of Kepeleke, we’re able to consistently trigger this. As we get better gear, we’ll eventually reach a point where we’re triggering it with every attack.

Vigorous

Vigorous boost our Vigor Generation after using a Core Skill. Since Poised Touch of Death is considered a Core Skill, we’ll have this constantly active.

Balanced Exertion

Balanced Exertion is a considerable damage boost that we get entirely free. The Rod of Kepeleke will make Touch of Death cost 0 Vigor, negating the downside of this passive.

Unrestrained Power

Unrestrained Power is one of many ways we’ll be making use of Resolve to gain damage. In this case, granting us damage for just maintaining at least 5 stacks of Resolve with the Gorilla Secondary Spirit Hall’s effect.

Perseverance

Perseverance gives us a massive defensive boost based on our Resolve Stacks. Since we’re aiming for a high amount of Resolves, this becomes an excellent passive to grab.

Vehemence

Vehemence boosts the damage of our Potency Skills, which is Touch of Death’s initial skill tag. Normally this has a trade-off of Increasing its Cooldown, but this is negated by Poised Touch of Death.

Potent

Potent gives us a stacking damage boost for dealing damage with Jaguar Skills. Since we’ll be using the Jaguar as our Primary Spirit, we’ll stack this very quickly against bosses where it’s needed.

Oppressive

This boosts the damage of our Centipede Skills against Crowd Controlled targets, while also increasing our Crowd Control Duration. While this will only boost Touch of Death, this is perfectly fine.

Resolution

Resolution gives us a considerable damage boost against Elites and Bosses when we use our Ultimate Skill. We’ll take advantage of The Hunter’s low cooldown and reset potential to make excellent use of this.

Supremacy

Supremacy gives us even more damage for using our Ultimate. In this case, we’ll stack it up as we defeat enemies while The Hunter is active and when it ends. This will fluctuate a lot as the stacks will decay while the Hunter is on cooldown.

Skill Point Distribution

This is an easy-to-reference table for where we’ll be placing all of our Skill points. These are listed in the order they appear on the skill tree.

Icon	Skill Name	Skill Tree	Points
	Withering Fist	Basic	2
	Vigorous	Core	3
	Balanced Exertion	Core	3
	Follow Through	Core	3
	Vortex	Focus	1
	Enhanced Vortex	Focus	1
	Measured Vortex	Focus	1
	Ravager	Focus	1
	Enhanced Ravager	Focus	1
	Measured Ravager	Focus	1
	Mirage	Focus	1
	Unrestrained Power	Focus	3
	Scourge	Defensive	1
	Enhanced Scourge	Defensive	1
	Adaptable Scourge	Defensive	1
	Armored Hide	Defensive	1
	Enhanced Armored Hide	Defensive	1
	Antivenom	Defensive	1
	Nourishment	Defensive	3
	Endurance	Defensive	1
	Perseverance	Defensive	3
	Touch of Death	Potency	5
	Enhanced Touch of Death	Potency	1
	Poised Touch of Death	Potency	1
	Vehemence	Potency	3
	Potent	Potency	3
	Ravenous	Potency	3
	Oppressive	Potency	3
	The Hunter	Ultimate	5
	Harmonious The Hunter	Ultimate	1
	Exalted the Hunter	Ultimate	1
	Resolution	Ultimate	3
	Spiritual Attunement	Ultimate	3
	Supremacy	Ultimate	3
	Sustenance	Ultimate	1
	Noxious Resonance	Key Passive	1

Gearing and Stats

In this section, we’ll cover all the things you’d want to keep an eye out for to enhance the final build. This includes our Recommended Weapons, Spirit Hall, Aspects, Runewords, and of course, Uniques.

Recommended Weapons

This build uses a Unique Quarterstaff, the Rod of Kepeleke. Before acquiring this Unique, we’ll still want to use a Quarterstaff to not lose part of our offensive and defensive scaling.

Ideal Stats

The table below details the ideal stats for our gear, be on the lookout for gear that matches at least two of the three rolls below. We’ve also included Aspects here for easier viewing, refer to the Aspects section for additional details on why these are selected.

Affixes that are CAPITALIZED are the Ideal Affixes to get as a Greater Affix. These are not required but are a good way to push the build further. Affixes in Bold are the ideal Affixes to boost with Masterworking.

In cases where multiple Affixes are listed, the secondary option is for when another stat reaches its cap. This is most common with Armor, where you’d take Maximum Life after reaching the Armor cap.

Scroll the top row horizontally
to see more gear tabs.

Gems and Runewords

This build uses Emeralds in our Weapons, Emeralds in our Armor, and Skulls in Jewelry.

We opt for Emeralds in our Weapons as we’ll be Critically Striking often thanks to Rod of Kepeleke. Late game, we can replace this with one of our Runewords instead.

We use Amethysts in our Armor, as Barrier Generation helps us get more value from Auspicious as well as one of our Runewords. This grants us more overall damage from Viscious Shield

We go with Skulls for Our Jewelry as our Armor, as Paragon should take care of most of our resistance. With the Aspect of Unyielding Hits, we’ll want to overcap on Armor as much as we can, at least up to 4,000 Armor.

For Runewords, there are multiple great combinations we can use, below are our recommended Runewords for Different stages of the builds.

For additional information regarding Runewords, check out our Runewords Guide, which covers all the available runes as well as common and useful combinations.

Stage	Ritual | Invocation	Result
Leveling	Yax | Qua	Drinking a Healing Potion grants 40% Movement Speed for 5 seconds.
Leveling	Cir | Lum	Casting 5 Skills restores 60 Resource.
Midgame	Cir | Gar	Casting 5 Skills grants 25% Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds.
Midgame	Cir | Kry	Casting 5 Skills casts Spiritborn’s Vortex
Endgame	Tam | Kry	Casting 6 Non-Channeled Core Skills casts Spiritborn’s Vortex
Endgame	Poc | Que	Spending 300% of Maximum Resource casts Druid’s Earthen Bulwark.
Endgame	Tam | Xal	Casting 6 Non-Channeled Core Skills grants 20% Maximum Life for 6 seconds.

Spirit Hall

This build uses Jaguar as its Primary Spirit and Gorilla as its Secondary Spirit of choice.

Jaguar is our Primary Spirit, this gives Touch of Death the Jaguar Skill Tag so it can stack Potent. The extra burst damage this provides can also be crazy when everything lines up just right.

Gorilla is our Secondary Spirit for the free Unstoppable. This lets us ignore all Crowd Control, just not any damage applied along with it. This ensures we almost always have Unrestrained Power active.

Boss Powers

Boss Powers are exclusive to Season 8, and offer us a wide variety of options. But we’ve narrowed down the best choices for all stages of the game.

For more information on Boss Powers, check out our Boss Powers Explained guide, which details how to get and upgrade each power, and potential uses for them.

Stage	Power	Reason
Leveling	Allek’s Talons (Main)	Adds a ton of damage to our Basic Skill, applying Damage over Time to a wide area. Can hold up into the endgame with the Rod of Kepeleke.
Midgame	Varshan’s Lifesteal (Main)	Decent damage and consistent healing, which can offset the drawback of Jacinth Shell.
Endgame	Ashava’s Poison Breath (Main)	Contributes towards Noxious Resonance’s bonus damage.
All	Sinerat’s Flames (Modifier)	A huge boost to our overall damage, just from building resistances which we already want to do.
Early Game	Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste (Modifier)	Free Critical Strike Chance for keeping our Shadow Resistance capped. Almost caps us alongside Grasping Veins
Midgame	Andariel’s Flaming Skull (Modifier)	Increased Damage over Time allows for bigger Noxious Resonance and Insatiable triggers.
Endgame	Torusk’s Rage (Modifier)	A huge boost of Attack Speed, but relies on the Control Paragon Glyph to get anywhere near its full value. Takes a lot of pressure of getting Attack Speed on Gear

Aspects

We’ll cover the Aspects recommended for maximizing the build’s potential. The Ideal Stats section above lists the recommended slots for these, but they can be arranged however necessary except for ones placed in 2H Weapons or Amulets, as those specifically need to be boosted.

Unique Items

The Unique items listed below are beneficial to the build, but not required for the build to function unless stated otherwise. Unique Items can drop in any difficulty but are more common in Torment Difficulties.

Rod of Kepeleke

This Unique Quarterstaff is not only required for this build but also absurdly powerful for this build. It makes Touch of Death cost nothing to cast, while also granting it the Basic Skill Tag, allowing our main skill to be able to scale with Basic, Core, and Potency bonuses.

Harmony of Ebewaka

The Harmony of Ebewaka is a Unique Helmet that does what the Rod of Kepeleke does for Skill Tags, but this time for the Spirit Tags and boosting its damage for each Spirit tag it has. By adding the Gorilla tag to the skill as well, we’ll be able to trigger effects like the Aspect of Unyielding Hits or similar effects that require Gorilla Skills.

Ring of the Midnight Sun

The Ring of the Midnight Sun restores a significant portion of our Vigor spent when we Critically Strike. THis is absurdly strong paired with the Rod Of Kepeleke, as it will consume all of our Vigor to guarantee a Critical Strike and this will refund a portion of that Vigor. With a high roll and good gear, it can instantly refill our Vigor.

Jacinth Shell

Jacinth Shell is a Unique Body Armor that consumes our Life to lower our Cooldowns. This solves one of the biggest issues this build has naturally, Cooldown Reduction. This makes us highly dependent on Scourge’s Life Steal and Touch of Death’s healing to stay topped up.

It is highly recommended to not use this alongside Craze of the Dead God. Having two effects chipping away at your Life is a good way to die easily.

Craze of the Dead God

The craze of the Dead God is a pair of Unique Gloves that turn all direct damage into Poison Damage Over Time. These will prevent the majority of one-shots from instantly killing you, but the downside is that Damage Over Time is much harder to mitigate. The big upside to using these however is that we’ll rarely lose Resolve Stacks, as direct damage is no longer considered a “hit” and therefore no longer consumes Resolve.

It is highly recommended to not use this alongside Jacinth Shell. Having two effects chipping away at your Life is a good way to die easily.

Paragon Boards and Glyphs

Paragon Boards and Glyphs are a feature that becomes available at level 60. Below are our recommended Paragon Boards and Glyph Choices. These are listed in the order we recommend them as well as their pathing.

With the abundance of Paragon Points we can earn, we’ve split the pathing into Initial Pathing and Additional Pathing. Initial Pathing is the clusters we pick up while pathing through the board, while Additional Pathing are ones we come back for later for additional stats once we’ve gotten all of our Glyphs socketed.

Starter Board

Starter Boards offer a lot of generic offensive and defensive stats. In this case, Damage, Elite Damage, Armor, and Maximum Life are worth picking up.

This board offers a lot of accessible Dexterity, so we’ll socket Fitness here to take advantage of this.

This Glyph grants Critical Strike Damage Per 5 Dexterity allocated in range. With 40 Dexterity allocated in range, Skill that Critically Strike restore 3 Vigor. At Glyph Level 45, it also grants a multiplicative bonus to Critical Strike Damage.

Sapping

Sapping Restores a portion of our maximum Vigor for casting three skills of the same spirit in a row while granting a bonus to our damage. Additionally, this Paragon Board offers a lot of useful nodes for Attack Speed, Defenses, and Resources.

This Paragon Board is rotated so that the Glyph Socket is in the Lower Right of the paragon Board.

This board offers a lot of accessible Intelligence, so we’ll socket Canny here to take advantage of this.

This Glyph grants Non-Physical Damage Per 5 Intelligence allocated in range. With 25 Intelligence allocated, it grants a stacking damage bonus each time an enemy is hit with Non-Physical Damage. At Glyph Level 45, it also grants a multiplicative bonus to Non-Physical Damage.

In-Fighter

In-Fighter grants us stacking damage and an Attack Speed bonus for each attack we Dodge or Block, and we’ll be blocking every attack that hits us. Additionally, this Paragon Board grants us a good amount of generic offenses and defenses.

This Paragon Board is Rotated so that the Glyph Socket is in the Lower Right of the Paragon Board.

This board offers a lot of accessible Dexterity, so we’ll socket Spirit here to take advantage of this.

This Glyph grants Critical Strike Damage Per 5 Dexterity allocated in range. With 40 Dexterity allocated, it grants a stacking Damage bonus to enemies when we Critically Strike them. At Glyph Level 45, it also grants a multiplicative bonus to Critical Strike Damage.

Convergence

Convergence grants us Bonus damage equal to our two highest damage bonuses, up to a cap. Additionally, this Paragon Board offers us a lot of generic Offenses and Defenses.

This Paragon Board is rotated so that the Glyph Socket is in the Lower Left of the Pragaon Board.

This board offers a lot of accessible strength, so we’ll socket Colossal here to take advantage of this.

This Glyph grants Gorilla Skill Damage Per 5 Strength allocated in range. With 25 Strength allocated, it grants increased damage per Resolve we have. At Glyph Level 45, it also grants a multiplicative bonus to Close Damage.

Viscous Shield

Viscous Shield provides grants us Increased damage for every 3% of Maximum Life we have as a Barrier. In addition to this, this Paragon Board offers us a lot of Offensive and Defensive power related to Barrier.

This Paragon Board is rotated so that Vicious Shield is closest to the bottom of the Paragon Board.

This board offers a lot of accessible Dexterity, so we’ll socket Menagerist here to take advantage of this.

This Glyph boosts all Magic Nodes allocated in range. With 40 Dexterity allocated, it grants a bonus for each Spirit that deals damage to an enemy. At Glyph Level 45, it also grants a multiplicative bonus to Incarnate Skills.

This concludes our Diablo 4 Spiritborn Build focusing on the Touch of Death skill. You can find more leveling and endgame Diablo 4 builds here on VULKK.com to try new things with your characters and spice up your gameplay.

To learn how to maximize your damage in Diablo 4, consult with our guide on that topic. Learning how to deal the highest possible damage with your build is crucial to succeeding in the Endgame and highest tiers.