Poison Quill Volley – Spiritborn Build for Diablo 4 (Season 8)

Build Introduction

This endgame build for the Spiritborn focuses on Quill Volley as your primary source of damage in combination with Poison Damage Over Time. This build is a good option to fight bosses and bigger groups of enemies. You benefit from the Gorilla’s Armored Hide skill, giving you the survivability to withstand hits while also maintaining good damage output. This combination allows you to tackle tough challenges with speed.

Starting new? Begin with our Quill Volley Leveling Build and switch to this one at Level 60.
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Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Ring of the Midnight Sun

Ring of the Midday Hunt

Fists of Fate

Tibault’s Will

Want to know more about the Uniques supporting this setup? Jump to the Uniques section.

Quick Navigation

Want to skip ahead? Use the table below to jump to the sections you are looking for.

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

The HunterRavagerScourgeVortexArmored HideQuill Volley

Wondering what comes after Level 60? Head to the Paragon Board section to power up the build even further.

And if you want to see how everything plays out in combat, check out the Rotation and Playstyle section for a quick breakdown. If you are missing skill points, complete Renown Tier 1-3 in every zone.

Spiritborn Class Mechanic – Spirit Hall Choice

The Spirit Hall allows you to combine two different Spirit Guardians or stick with just one. For this build, we go with a mix of guardians that balance survivability and damage.

• Primary Spirit Guardian: Centipede
  • Hitting an enemy with a Centipede Skill reduces their Damage by 2%, Slows them by 10%, and deals 70% Poisoning damage over 6 seconds, stacking up to a maximum of 8 times. All Skills are now also Centipede Skills.
• Secondary Spirit Guardian: Gorilla
  • Maximum Resolve increased by 2. When you have at least 5 stacks of Resolve, you are Unstoppable.

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

The following sections cover all systems that are important if you want to improve the power of your character in the endgame of Diablo 4. 

Legendary Aspects

Each Aspect is listed with its matching gear slot. Do your best to keep each Aspect in the assigned slot. Remember to salvage Legendary Items with higher Aspect values to unlock them in the Codex of Power, and then imprint them onto gear pieces with the preferred affixes.

Additionally, if you are trying to farm a specific item, we recommend using your Obols to target farm them!

Gear Slot	Gems/Runes	Aspect / Unique	Legendary Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Grand Amethyst	Aspect of Interdiction	Gain {x}% Block Chance per Resolve stack
Chest	Poc Ohm	Aspect of Disobedience	You gain {x}% increased Armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to {x}%.
Gloves		Fists of Fate	Your attacks randomly deal 1% to {x}% of their normal damage.
Pants	Grand Amethyst	Tibault’s Will	You deal {x}% increased damage while Unstoppable and for 5 seconds after; When you become Unstoppable, gain 50 of your Primary Resource.
Boots		Duelist’s Aspect	Maximum Ferocity increased by {x}.
Amulets(50% bonus)	Grand Skull	Aspect of Unyielding Hits	Casting a Gorilla Skill increases your Weapon Damage by {x}% of your Armor for 3 seconds. Maximum 1,500 bonus Weapon Damage.
Ring	Grand Skull	Ring of the Midday Hunt	Your maximum Vigor is increased by 50% and every kill grants you {x} vigor. While you have any Ferocity, your poisoning effects deal their damage across 33% of the normal duration.
Ring	Grand Skull	Ring of the Midnight Sun	When you critically strike, you regain {x}% of the vigor you’ve spent in the last 2 seconds. Gain Counterattack’s passive effect.
Weapon (200% bonus)	Tam Tzic	Aspect of Redirected Force	Gain increased critical strike damage equal {x}% of your block chance. Blocking doubles this bonus for 10 seconds.

Curious how this build compares to other endgame options? Take a look at our Endgame Build Tier List.

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Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Affixes on the same line are considered to be equally important. Bolded affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades. Be sure to check our Tempering and Masterworking guides for more details about these topics. Want to jump back up to the gear table?

Slot	Targeted Gear Affix	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Armor 2. Maximum Life 3. Dexterity	Spiritborn Resolve (Defensive) – Total Armor Eagle Innovation (Utility) – Vortex Size
Chest	1. Armor 2. Maximum Life 3. Dexterity	Spiritborn Resolve (Defensive) – Total Armor Gorilla Innovation (Utility) – Concussive Stomp Size
Gloves	Lucky Hit Chance Critical Strike Chance Attack Speed Lucky Hit: Up to a x% Chance to Make Enemies Vulnerable for 3 seconds.	N/A
Pants	All Stats Maximum Life Maximum Resource Damage Reduction while Unstoppable	N/A
Boots	1. Max Evade Charges 2. Amor 3. Dexterity 4. Movement Speed	Natural Motion (Mobility) – Movement Speed Eagle Innovation (Utility) – Vortex Size
Amulet	1. Ranks Nourishment 2. % Dexterity 3. Total Armor	Worldly Finesse (Offensive) – Critical Strike Damage Jaguar Efficiency (Resource) – The Hunder Cooldown Reduction
Ring 1	Dexterity Cooldown Reduction Critical Strike Damage Ranks to Mirage	N/A
Ring 2	Movement Speed for 2 Seconds After Killing an Enemy Life On Kill Attack Speed Ranks to Nourishment	N/A
Weapon	1. Quaterstaff: 45% Block Change 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Dexterity 4. Maximum Life	Worldly Finesse (Offensive) – Critical Strike Damage Eagle Augments (Weapon) – Chance for Quill Volley Projectiles to cast twice

Prioritize capping all of your Resistances, and make sure to reach the Armor Cap of 1,000. Certain builds that scale with armor, such as this one, may benefit from having more of it. For instance, any build that makes use of the Aspect of Unyielding Hits. Furthermore, in higher difficulties, there will be a penalty to armor and resistance, so you will need a higher amount to compensate for the loss.

Looking for progression beyond gear? See our Paragon recommendations or Runewords Synergy next.

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Uniques and Mythic Uniques

Below you will find information on Uniques and Mythic Uniques that are useful and recommended for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.

If a Unique or Mythic Unique is not listed here, it is NOT recommended and won’t benefit this specific build in any way.

Uniques

Listed below are the recommended and optional Unique Items for this build.

• Fists of Fate (Required): Your attacks randomly deal 1% to {x}% of their normal damage.
• Tibault’s Will (Required): You deal {x}% increased damage while Unstoppable and for 5 seconds after; When you become Unstoppable, gain 50 of your Primary Resource.
• Ring of the Midday Hunt (Required): Your maximum Vigor is increased by 50% and every kill grants you {x} vigor. While you have any Ferocity, your poisoning effects deal their damage across 33% of the normal duration.
• Ring of the Midnight Sun (Required): When you critically strike, you regain {x}% of the vigor you’ve spent in the last 2 seconds. Gain Counterattack’s passive effect.

Mythic Uniques

This Quill Volley build does not require any specific Mythic Uniques.

If you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide. Or you can return to the Build Requirements.

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Gems and Runewords

Listed below are the recommended Gems and Runewords to socket into your gear.

Gems

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Tam Tzic	Grand Amethyst For more Barrier Generation	Grand Skull or Grand Diamond For more Armor or Resistance to All Elements

Runewords

Runewords are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and replace gems in gear. Improve your build by combining a trigger Rune of Ritual and an effect Rune of Invocation. You can equip up to two Runeword pairs (four Runes) at a time. For a detailed guide on Runewords, check out our Runewords Guide!

The following are recommended Runeword combination options for the Quill Volley endgame build of the Spiritborn:

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Poc Ohm	Poc – Gain: 5 Offering. Spend 5% of your Maximum Resource. Ohm – Requires: 600 Offering (Overflow: Increased Duration). Cooldown: 2 Seconds. Evoke the Barbarian’s War Cry, increasing your Movement Speed and damage dealt.
Tam Tzic	Tam – Gain: 25 Offering. Cast a non-Channeled Core Skill. Tzic – Requires: 200 Offering (Overflow: Increase damage by 1% per Offering). Cooldown: 1 Seconds. Evoke the Spiritborn’s Concussive Stomp, dealing damage and Knocking Down enemies.

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Paragon Board

Paragon unlocks at Level 60 and plays a big role in endgame progression. The following Legendary Nodes and Glyphs are recommended for this build. Keep in mind that each Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 46 version.

Need a refresher on how the skills are set up? Click here to return to the Skill Tree section.

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Boss Powers (Season 8)

During Season 8, you can unlock and rank up Boss Powers using Spectral Ash earned from Apparition Incursions, which provide powerful bonuses to support your build as you level.

Slot	Boss Power & Drop Location	Effect
Main Power	Ashava’s Poison Breath  (World Boss)	Hitting an enemy affected by Damage over Time spawns a wave of acid that deals 1200% Poisoning damage over 4 seconds. Applies 10% more Poisoning for each 1% of the target’s current Life affected by Damage over Time.
Modifier	Andariel’s Flaming Skull (Andariel)	Enemies take 10% more damage from your damage over time effects
Modifier	Avarice’s Explosive Ore (World Boss)	Activating your Main Boss Power spends all your Primary Resource to increase its damage by 0.01%[x] per Resource point spent.
Modifier	Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste (Incursion)	Gain +5% Critical Strike Chance, increased by +0.5% for each 1% of Shadow Resistance you have, up to a maximum of +70%.

Mercenaries

During the Vessel of Hatred campaign, you will unlock Mercenaries to assist you. While you can choose freely early on, we recommend Raheir as your main companion, and Varyana as Reinforcement.

Raheir Skill Tree choices:

• Core Skill: Ground Slam
• Core Passive: Raheir’s Aegis
• Iconic Skill: Bastion
• Iconic Passive: Inspiration

Varyana Reinforcement choices:

• Opportunity Skill: Any Skill
• Reinforcement Skill: Bloodthirst

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

This build is straightforward and easy to play as you heavily focus on your primary damage-dealing skill Quill Volley, combined with poison damage over time from your Boss Powers. Quill Volley allows you to do massive AoE Damage while making enemies Vulnerable. On top of that, Ravager increases your Ferocity and will passively stock up any healing you receive to deal additional damage upon activation of the skill. 

Furthermore, Vortex is a great skill to quickly get into the fight, gather enemies around you, and let Scourge poison them, while Armored Hide provides more survivability. Last but not least, The Hunter is a great ultimate skill that is calling the Jaguar spirit guardian to your help for additional damage.

1. Enter the fight with Vortex.
2. Scourge to poison the enemies.
3. Armored Hide for protection.
4. Ravager for additional damage over 6 seconds.
5. The Hunter to immediately gain more Ferocity and to deal increased damage to Injured targets.
6. Spam Quill Volley!

Runewords Synergy

• Poc Ohm: This combo rewards you for spending resources. Poc grants small chunks of Offering every time you spend 5% of your max resource, stacking up over time. Once you reach 600 Offering, you can trigger Ohm to unleash War Cry, boosting your Movement Speed and Damage for a short burst. Great for fast, aggressive builds that are always spending resources.
• Tam Tzic: A perfect fit for Core Skill-focused builds. Tam gives Offering each time you cast a non-Channeled Core Skill. Once you gather enough Offering, Tzic lets you stomp the ground with a Concussive Stomp, dealing damage and Knocking Down enemies. Great for crowd control.

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the Assault Elixir to increase Attack Speed. Some Elixirs cannot be crafted and only drop from activities like Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons. Additionally, make sure to keep your health potion upgraded! 

The following Elixirs are useful for most Spiritborn builds:

• Elixir of Precision provides the highest damage output increase.
• Elixir of Advantage increases your attack speed
• Elixir of Resourcefulness helps with resource issues, if you struggle with resource management
• Elixir of Fortitude for additional survivability 

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Season 8 Updates

For a full overview of what is new in Season 8, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub.

Here is a quick overview of seasonal changes relevant to this build:

• Fixed an issue where the Intricacy Passive would not correctly remember which Skill was last used after transferring to a new Zone.
• Fixed an issue that allowed for snapshotting of the Resilient Passive.
• Fixed an issue where Resource Generation stats for other classes would display in character stats for Spiritborn Players.
• Fixed an issue where casting The Hunter could cause the Wanderer to get partially stuck under the ground.

Obol Gambling

Similar to Kadala in Diablo 3, the Purveyor of Curiosities lets you gamble your Obols for 750 item power gear at Level 60, making them a great way to fill in missing affixes, Aspects, or upgrades. There is also a small chance to receive an Ancestral piece with item power 800.

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Changelog

• April 26th, 2025: Removed Overpower variant. Revamped build as Poison Quill Volley build for Season 8. Updated requirements, gear, skill tree, paragon and added boss powers.
• January 18th, 2025: Updated Tempers and added Witchcraft Powers and Occult Gems for Season 7.
• November 18th, 2024: Fixed recommended Overpower variant Ring affixes.
• November 11th, 2024: Changed recommended affixes for Rings.
• October 30th, 2024: Fixed Ring affixes and tempers for Overpower Quill Volley.
• October 22nd, 2024: Updated Skill Changes information and added Paragon Board images.
• October 19th, 2024: Overpower endgame variant, Orange Qull Volley, added for Season 6.
• October 5th, 2024: Guide theorycrafted and created for Vessel of Hatred, Season 6.