Rushing Claw – Spiritborn Build for Diablo 4 (Season 8)

Build Introduction

This Rushing Claw Spiritborn build is a fast, powerful, and resilient pick, which is great for players looking for a reliable endgame speed farming option. This build does not require a big amount of required gear to be playable. Great for beginners or anyone farming until their best drops arrive.

Starting new? Begin with our Quill Volley Leveling Build and switch to this one at Level 60.
Have questions or feedback about this guide? Join Ghazzy’s livestream and ask him!

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Wound Drinker

Required Aspects

Aspect of Temporal Incisions

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

CounterattackArmored HideScourgeThe HunterToxic SkinRushing Claw

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

• Primary Spirit Guardian: Gorilla
  • Casting a Gorilla Skill deals 100% Thorns to enemies you hit and grants a Barrier for 5% of Maximum Life, up to 30%, for 3 seconds. All Skills are now also Gorilla Skills.
• Secondary Spirit Guardian: Jaguar
  • Maximum Ferocity is increased by 1. Gain 1 stack of Ferocity whenever you kill an enemy or damage a Boss.

↑ Back to Navigation Table

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. For best results, combine these Aspects with the right stat priorities.

Gear Slot	Gems/Runes	Aspect / Unique	Legendary Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Moni Kry	Menacing Aspect	Scourge continuously affects enemies around you for x seconds.
Chest	Grand Emerald	Aspect of Disobedience	You gain x%[+] increased Armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to x%[+].
Gloves	N/A	Fell Soothsayer’s Aspect	When you cast an incarnate skill enemies around you become Vulnerable for 5 seconds. Killing a Vulnerable enemy echoes x% of the killing blow’s base damage to another nearby enemy.
Pants	Grand Emerald	Aspect of Temporal Incisions	Casting Rushing Claw extends the duration of your active incarnate skill effects by x seconds, up to x seconds
Boots		Duelist’s Aspect	Once an enemy is Slowed by at least 80%, they also become Feared for 3 seconds. You deal x x% increased damage to Feared enemies.
Amulets(50% bonus)	Grand Skull	Aspect of Unyielding Hits	Maximum Ferocity increased by x.
Ring	Grand Skull	Aspect of Plains Power	Lucky Hit: Up to a 25% chance to create a Mystic Circle for 10 seconds. Casting a Jaguar Skill in Mystic Circles empowers them to keep your Ferocity at Maximum and increase your damage by x% per stack while you remain within.
Ring	Grand Skull	Wound Drinker	Every time you deal thorns damage, you gain 1-7 vigor. Gain toxic skins’s passive effect.
Weapon (200% bonus)	Yul Vex	Aspect of Redirected Force	Gain increased Critical Strike Damage equal x% of Block Chance. Blocking doubles this bonus for 10 seconds.

You can swap out the Helm and Chest Aspects for the Mythic Uniques Shroud of False Death and Harlequin Crest. Both are direct upgrades and make for easy replacements if you are lucky enough to get them.

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

↑ Back to Navigation Table

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. Cooldown Reduction	Eagle Innovation (Utility): Vortex Size Spiritborn Resolve (Defensive): Total Armor
Chest	1. Dexterity 2. Maximum Life 3. Resistance to All Elements	Natural Schemes (Utility): Barrier Generation Spiritborn Endurance (Defensive): 1-2 to Auspicious
Gloves	1. Attack Speed 2. Crititical Strike Damage 3. Critical Strike Chance	Natural Schemes (Utility): Barrier Generation Worldly Finesse (Offensive): Critical Strike Damage
Pants	1. Armor 2. Maximum Life 3. Dextirity	Natural Schemes (Utility): Barrier Generation Spiritborn Endurance (Defensive): 1-2 to Auspicious
Boots	1. Attacks Reduce Evade’s Cooldown by 1.5 Seconds 2. Movmeent Speed 3. Maximum Life 4. Ranks to Toxic Skin	Spiritborn Motion (Mobility): Rushing Claw Charges Centipede Innovation (Utility): Scourge Size
Amulet	1. Total Armor 2. Dexterity 3. Ranks to Potent	Spiritborn Endurance (Defensive): 1-2 to Auspicious Spiritborn Motion (Mobility): Rushing Claw Charges
Ring	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Attack Speed 3. Dexterity	Fitness Efficiency (Resource): 1-2 to Endurance Worldly Finesse (Offensive): Critical Strike Damage
Ring	Thorns Damage Reduction from Poisoned Enemies Damate to Poisoned Enemies Ranks to Toxic Skin	N/A
Weapon	1. Polearm: Vulnerable Damage 2. Dexterity 3. Maximum Life 4. Critical Strike Damage	Worldly Finesse (Offensive): Critical Strike Damage Soil Augments (Weapons): 1-2 Ravenous

Prioritize capping all of your Resistances, and make sure to reach the Armor Cap of 1,000. Certain builds that scale with armor may benefit from having more of it. For instance, those that make 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.

↑ Back to Navigation Table

Uniques and Mythic Uniques

Below, you will find information on Uniques and Mythic Uniques that are useful and recommended for this build. 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

This Rushing Claw Spiritborn build requires one unique to be efficient:

• Wound Drinker (Required): Every time you deal thorns damage, you gain 1-7 vigor. Gain toxic skins’ passive effect.

Mythic Uniques

This Rushing Claw Spiritborn Spiritborn build does not require any Mythic Uniques to work! However, you can swap out the Helm and Chest Aspects for the Mythic Uniques Shroud of False Death and Harlequin Crest. Both are direct upgrades and make for easy replacements if you are lucky enough to get them.

• Shroud of False Death (Recommended): If you haven’t dealt damage in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and +40% Movement Speed.
• Harlequin Crest (Recommended): Gain 20% Damage Reduction. In addition, gain +4 Ranks to all Skills

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.

↑ Back to Navigation Table

Gems and Runewords

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

Gems

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Emerald For increased Critical Strike Damage	Grand Emerald For more Dexterity	Grand Skull For more Armor

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!

Here are the recommended Runeword combinations for the Rushing Claw Spiritborn endgame build:

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Yul Vex	Yul – Gain: 50 Offering. Cast a Skill with a Cooldown. Vex – Requires: 100 Offering (Overflow: More Skill Ranks, up to 3). Cooldown: 5 Seconds. Gain +1 to skills for 10 seconds.
Moni Kry	Moni – Gain: 100 Offering. Cast 2 Mobility or Macabre Skills Kry – Requires: 300 Offering (Overflow: Increased size). Cooldown: 3 Seconds. Evoke the Spiritborn’s Vortex, dealing damage and Pulling In enemies.

↑ Back to Navigation Table

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.

↑ Back to Navigation Table

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	Lilith’s Wind of Hate (Lilith)	When you Cast a skill, attack enemies with a wave of spikes that lasts 2 seconds and deals 1750% Physical damage. Enemies take x60% increased damage from Wind of Hate each time it hits them, up to x300%.
Modifier	Andariel’s Flaming Skull (Andariel)	Enemies take 10.5% more damage from your Damage over Time effects.
Modifier	Sinerat’s Flames (Incursion)	Gain x 5% increased damage to all Elements. For each 1% of an Element’s Resistance from bonuses, gain x0.2% increased damage for that Element, up to a maximum of x25%.
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 Merc, and Varyana as a Reinforcement once you reach endgame.

Raheir Skill Tree choices:

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

Varyana Reinforcement choices:

• Opportunity Skill: Pick “Rushing Claw” as opportunity skill (it will automatically trigger when you use the skill).
• Reinforcement Skill: Bloodthirst

↑ Back to Navigation Table

Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

The Rushing Claw Spiritborn build is fast-paced and high-damage, perfect for speed farming. Your Spirit Guardians will keep you permanently Unstoppable and will allow you to take advantage of the Centipede Slow to scale your skills and aspects.

Toxic Skin should have 100% uptime, providing constant poisoning damage. Combined to the unique ring Wound Drinker, it allows you to deal more damage to poisoned enemies. This way you can deal massive damage by spamming Rushing Claw on poisoned enemies.

Your general combat flow looks like this:

1. The Hunter gives you more mobility and buffs your skills.
2. Rushing Claw as your main damage and mobility skill.
3. Counterattack, keep this active at all times, to dodge incoming attacks whenever necessary.
4. Armored Hide, grants Unstoppable and solid defense, especially with Gorilla Guardian. (Unrestrained Power).
5. Scourge, use it on big packs to enable Fear and increase your damage.
6. Toxic Skin, keep it active to poison your enemies.

Runeword Synergy

Another interesting interaction worth mentioning within this section comes from the Runewords we use in this build to trigger powerful effects.

• Yul / Vex : This combo gives a temporary skill boost for cooldown-based builds. Yul generates Offering each time you cast a Skill with a cooldown. Once you hit 100 Offering, Vex activates and grants +1 to all Skills for 10 seconds. With overflow, this can go up to +3 ranks, making it a great power spike window. Perfect for cooldown-heavy builds that rely on skill rank scaling for damage or utility.
• Moni / Kry: A strong option for mobility-focused builds. Moni gives Offering after casting 2 Mobility or Macabre Skills, which you will likely trigger often in faster-paced playstyle. Once you hit 300 Offering, Kry lets you unleash a Vortex, pulling enemies in and allowing you to deal AoE damage.

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist to craft a Resistance Elixir based on what you need most, or pick from the recommended options below. Some Elixirs only drop from Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons. Also, do not forget to keep your health potion upgraded.

• 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 

↑ Back to Navigation Table

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:

• New Rip and Tear Aspect (Offensive Aspect): Rushing Claw deals 10-30%[x] increased damage and is empowered based on how many Charges it has when you Cast it:
  • 1: Heals for 15% of your Maximum Life
  • 2: Guaranteed to Overpower
  • 3: Guaranteed to Critically Strike
  • 4+: Strikes an additional time
• Rushing Claw: Base Damage increased from 50% to 80%.
• Poised Rushing Claw:
  • Previous: When Rushing Claw hits an Elite enemy you gain 10% increased Dodge chance for 6 seconds.
  • Now: Rushing Claw now has 20 Maximum Charges. Casting it consumes all of its Charges to increase its damage by 25%[x] per Charge and it hits a larger area.
• Qax:
  • Previous: Your next non-Basic skill spends all your Primary Resource to deal up to 100% increased damage based on the percentage of Resource spent.
  • Now: Casting a Skill other than a Basic or Defensive spends all your Primary Resource to increase your damage up to 100% for 1 second.
• Fixed an issue that allowed for snapshotting of Resilient.
• 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.
• Fixed an issue where some of the text on the Que rune was displaying in the incorrect font style.

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.

↑ Back to Navigation Table

Changelog

• May 6th, 2025: Adapted the build to do poison damage. New Requirements, Skill Tree, Gear, Paragon boards, Boss Powers and Runewords.
• May 3rd, 2025: Replaced the Aspect of Apprehension with Duelist’s Aspect on Boots.
• April 26th, 2025: Build created for Season 8.