Thunderspike - Spiritborn Build for Diablo 4 (Season 7)

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Great Mobility
Fast Attacks
Easy to Play

Weaknesses

Gear Reliant
Does not work without Sepazontec Unique Weapon

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Follow the points allocated in the Skill Tree above for the completed build. If you are missing skill points, complete Renown Tier 1-4 in every zone to get the missing additional points.

Spirit Hall Choice

The Spirit Hall allows you to combine two different Spirit Guardians or stick with just one.

Primary Spirit Guardian: Gorilla
- Casting a Gorilla Skill deals 100% Thorns to enemies you hit and grants a Barrier for 10% of Maximum Life, up to 40%, 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.

Gear, Stats, Gems, Runes, and Elixirs

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.

Gear Slot	Gems/Runes	Aspect / Unique	Legendary Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	XolKry	Harmony of Ebewaka	According to your secondary Spirit Hall choice, your Skills are all additionally Jaguar, Eagle, Gorilla, or Centipede Skills. Your skills deal {x}% increased damage per Spirit type they have.
Chest	LithOhm	Aspect of Disobedience Replace with Tyrael’s Might	You gain x%[+] increased Armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to x%[+].
Gloves		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.
Pants	Grand Emerald	Aspect of Might	Basic Skills grant 20.0% Damage Reduction for {x} seconds.
Boots		Duelist’s Aspect	Maximum Ferocity increased by 1-5.
Amulets(50% bonus)	Grand Skull or Occult Gem	Aspect of Unyielding Hits	Casting a gorilla skill adds x% of your armor to all attacks for 3 seconds.
Ring	Grand Skull or Occult Gem	Aspect of Adaptability	When cast below 50% Maximum resource, Basic Skills generate 3 of your Primary Resource, once per cast. When cast at or above 50% Maximum Resource, Basic Skills deal x% increased damage.
Ring	Grand Skull or Occult Gem	Aspect of the Moonrise	Damaging an enemy with a Basic Skill grants you 4% Attack Speed for 10 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Upon reaching maximum stacks, you enter a Vampiric Bloodrage, gaining {x}% Basic Skill damage and 15% Movement Speed for 10 seconds.
Weapon (200% bonus)	Grand Emerald	Sepazontec	Your Basic Skills deal x% increased damage and always use their 3rd attack. Every 3rd cast of a Basic Skill strikes three times.

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

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.

Slot	Targeted Gear Affix	Tempering Affixes
Helm	All Stats Movement Speed Damage Reduction Ranks to Velocity	N/A
Chest	1. Ranks to Armored Hide 2. Resistances 3. Armor	Spiritborn Resolve (Defensive): Resolve Generated Eagle Innovation (Utility): Thunderspike Size
Gloves	1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Critical Strike Damage	Sharpened Finesse (Offensive): Basic Skill Damage Eagle Innovation (Utility): Thunderspike Size
Pants	1. Ranks to Basic Skills 2. Ranks to Thunderspike 3. Resistances	Eagle Innovation (Utility): Thunderspike Size Natural Resistance (Defensive): Any Needed Resistance
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Armor 3. Dexterity	Natural Motion (Mobility): Movement Speed Eagle Innovation (Utility): Thunderspike Size
Amulet	1. Attack Speed 2. Ranks to Follow Through 3. Needed Resistance	Eagle Innovation (Utility): Thunderspike Size Sharpened Finesse (Offensive): Basic Skill Damage
Rings	1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Strike Damage / Lucky Hit: Up to a % Chance to Make Enemies Vulnerable 3. Critical Strike Chance	Sharpened Finesse (Offensive): Basic Skill Damage Jaguar Efficiency (Resource): + Counterattack Charges
Weapon	Chance for Basic Skills to Deal Double Damage Ranks to Follow Through Dexterity Basic Lucky Hit Chance	N/A

Recommended Stat Goals

The priority order of Resistances is Lightning > Poison > Fire > Cold > Shadow.

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.

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

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

Paragon Board

Note that each Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 46 version.

Witchcraft Powers

During Season 7, you can equip and rank up 6 Witchcraft Powers as you progress. These powers can be acquired at the Coven’s Altars near the Tree of Whispers. To purchase them, you will need Restless Rot, a currency earned naturally through doing Headhunts.

These Witchcraft Powers provide unique ways to strengthen your build. As you progress through the above leveling journey, consider prioritizing the following powers:

Witchcraft Power & Type	Effect
Piranhado (Unique, Lost Power)	When an enemy is afflicted by both Hex and an Aura Effect, a Piranhado is summoned, pulling enemies towards it and dealing x physical damage over 12 seconds. May occur once every 20 seconds. At Rank 5 and above: Piranhado moves itself towards nearby enemies.
Soul Harvest (Growth & Decay)	Feed upon the life force of nearby enemies whenever you use a skill with a cooldown, increasing your primary stat by 3% per monster for x seconds. At Rank 9 and above: Soul Harvest does not lose duration so long as enemies are nearby.
Aura of Misfortune (Psyche)	Enemies near you have a x% chance for their attacks to be interrupted. Does not work on bosses. At Rank 5 and above: Auro of Misfortune increases your Movement Speed by 5% and Slows enemies by 30%.
Hex of Shattering (Psyche)	Damage done by your Witchcraft Effects afflicts enemies with Hex of Shattering causing them to deal x% reduced damage for 5 seconds. At Rank 8 and above: When a Hex effect is applied to Headrotten, all damage will be guaranteed critical strikes for 5 seconds.
Wave of Woe (Eldritch)	Release a Wave of Woe when damaging an enemy with your skills. Wave of Woe deals an additional x Shadow damage and echoes this damage to all other nearby enemies of the same type. At Rank 5 and above: Damage is increased by 15% each time damage is echoed and is guaranteed to echo at least 5 times. May strike the same target multiple times.
Hex of Flames (Eldritch)	Lucky Hit: You have up to a x% chance to apply Hex of Flames. Hex of Flames deals 40% additional Fire damage each time you deal damage to the target. At Rank 7 and above: Hex of Flames explodes dealing damage to all nearby enemies when you land a critical strike.

Occult Gems

For your Jewelry sockets, you can also equip Occult Gems in Season 7. Here are some recommended Occult Gems for this build:

Cornucopia: While you have three or more Growth and Decay Witch Powers slotted, you generate 30% more Barrier, gain 30% more Fortify and have 30% more Thorns.
Dust Stone: For each of your Auras and Hexes an enemy is afflicted by, they take 2.5% increased damage from you.
Hungering Void: While you have an Aura active, pull Nearby enemies toward you every 8 seconds.

Mercenaries

During the Vessel of Hatred campaign, you will unlock different NPC Mercenaries who join you on your travels. We would advise selecting Subo as your main companion, for the added survivability he provides, and Raheir as Reinforcement.

Subo Skill Tree choices:

Core Skill: Wire Trap
Core Passive: Ready At Hand
Iconic Skill: Trip Mines
Iconic Passive: Mastermind

Raheir Reinforcement choices:

Opportunity Skill: Pick “Injured” as opportunity skill (it will automatically trigger when you become Injured).
Reinforcement Skill: Provoke

Rotation and Playstyle

This build is straightforward and easy to play, especially for beginners or anyone who does not want to worry too much about resource management, thanks to the use of a powerful basic skill (Thunderspike). Counterattack and The Hunter will increase your damage dealt. During the fight, Armored Hide will provide good protection, especially since we are using the Gorilla as primary guardian. Lastly, Soar is either used for movement or to get out of dangerous situations.

Generally, you will want to use Ravager before and again one time after The Hunter for the interaction between Intricacy:

Soar to jump into the action.
Armored Hide for survivability, and to gain Unstoppable for more damage (Unrestrained Power).
Cast Ravager for increased damage as well as Ferocity and before using the Ultimate (due to Intricacy).
Use The Hunter for increased damage against Injured targets.
Ravager again to interact with Intricacy.
Spam Thunderspike!
Counterattack to dodge incoming attacks whenever necessary.

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

When you stand still while fighting for 0.3 seconds, you gain 25 Offering from Lith. Once you reach 600 Offering, Ohm automatically evokes the Barbarian’s War Cry, increasing your Movement Speed and damage dealt. This action will trigger Xol, which activates when another class power is used. Xol grants 150 Offering, and Kry then evokes the Spiritborn’s Vortex at 600 Offering, pulling in enemies and dealing damage.

This combination lets you repeatedly pull in enemies so you can continuously deal damage to them with minimal effort.

Changelog

April 2nd, 2025: Updated guide to reflect new, shorter page structure to test readabilty.
January 18th, 2025: Added Witchcraft Powers and Occult Gems for Season 7.
November 10th, 2024: Added Lucky Hit: Up to a % Chance to Make Enemies Vulnerable – Ring Affix recommendation.
October 5th, 2024: Updated Skills, Mercenary Skills, Tempers, Runes, and Gear.
October 3rd, 2024: Guide theorycrafted and created for Vessel of Hatred, Season 6.

Thunderspike – Spiritborn Build for Diablo 4 (Season 7)