Crushing Hand – Spiritborn Build for Diablo 4 (Season 9)

Build Introduction

The Crushing Hand build offers great mobility and tankiness, with solid damage output. Its simple playstyle revolves around using skills as they come off cooldown, making it a good choice for speed farming endgame content like Helltides or Pit runs.

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

Harmony of Ebewaka

Rod of Kepeleke

Ring of the Midnight Sun

Yen’s Blessing

Required Aspects

Aspect of Unyielding Hits

Aspect of Redirected Force

Additionally, it is recommended to use Heir of Perdition Helm, Shroud of False Death, and Ring of Starless Skies, once you have access to Mythic Uniques.
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

RavagerScourgeVortexThe HunterArmored HideCrushing Hand

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. 

• 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: Jaguar
  • Maximum Ferocity is increased by 1. Gain 1 stack of Ferocity whenever you kill an enemy or damage a Boss.

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

Gear Slot	Gems/Runes	Aspect / Unique	Legendary Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Poc Xan	Harmony of Ebewaka or Heir of Perdition	According to your secondary Spirit Hall choice, your skills are all additionally Jaguar, Eagle, Gorilla, or centipede skills. Your skills deal x{x}% increased damage per spirit type they have.
Chest	Neo Jah	Aspect of Layered Wards or Shroud of False Death	Your Block Reduction is increased by {x}% while you have a Barrier.
Gloves		Aspect of Unyielding Hits	Casting a Gorilla SKill increases your Weapon Damage by {x}% of your Armor for 3 seconds. Maximum 1500 bonus Weapon Damage.
Pants	Grand Emerald	Duelist’s Aspect	Maximum Ferocity increased by 1-5.
Boots		Yen’s Blessing	Casting a Skill has a {x}% chance to cast a Non-Mobility, Non-Ultimate skill that is currently on cooldown. Can only occur once every 8 seconds.
Amulets(50% bonus)	Grand Skull or Seal of Power	Aspect of Redirected Force	Gain increased critical strike damage equal {x}% of your block chance. Blocking doubles this bonus for 10 seconds.
Ring	Grand Skull or Luminate Eye	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{x}% Basic Skill damage and 15% Movement Speed for 10 seconds.
Ring	Grand Skull or Idol From Below	Ring of the Midnight Sun or Ring of Starless Skies	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)	Grand Topaz	Rod of Kepeleke	Your Core Skill are now additionally Basic Skills and free to cast. When cast at Maximum Vigor, your Core Skills Consume all Vigor to return to full damage, cast at their largest Size, and become guaranteed Critical Strikes, with x{x}% increased Critical Strike Damage for each point of Vigor Consumed this way.

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	All Stats Movement Speed Damage Reduction Ranks to Velocity	N/A
Chest	1. Armor 2. Dexterity 3. Maximum Life	Natural Schemes (Utility): Barrier Generation Spiritborn Recovery (Defensive): Ranks to Resilient
Gloves	1. Ranks to Crushing Hand 2. Attack Speed 3. Maximum Life	Worldly Fortune (Utility): Crowd Control Duration Sharpened Finesse (Offensive): Basic Skill Damage
Pants	1. Ranks to Basic Skills 2. Armor 3. Maximum Life	Eagle Innovation (Utility): Vortex Size Spiritborn Resolve (Defensive): Armored Hide Resolve Generation Rate
Boots	Movement Speed All Stats Resource Generation Resistance to All Elements	N/A
Amulet	1. Total Armor 2. Ranks to Potent 3. % Dexterity	Spiritborn Recovery (Defensive): Ranks to Resilient Worldly Stability (Resource): Resource Cost Reduction
Ring	1. Lucky Hit: Up to a chance to make enemies vulnerable for 2 seconds 2. Attack Speed 3. Maximum Life	Sharpened Finesse (Offensive): Basic Skill Damage Worldly Stability (Resource): Resource Cost Reduction
Ring	Dexterity Cooldown Reduction Critical Strike Dmaage Ranks to Mirage	N/A
Weapon	Critical Strike Damage Maximum Resource Ranks to Vigorous Chance for Core Skills to hit Twice	N/A

Prioritize capping all of your Resistances, and make sure to reach the Armor Cap of 1,000. However, certain builds that scale with armor, such as this one, benefit from having more armor in general. 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. 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.

• Harmony of Ebewaka (Required): According to your secondary Spirit Hall choice, your skills are all additionally Jaguar, Eagle, Gorilla, or centipede skills. Your skills deal x{x}% increased damage per spirit type they have.
• Yen’s Blessing (Required): Casting a Skill has a {x}% chance to cast a Non-Mobility, Non-Ultimate skill that is currently on cooldown. Can only occur once every 8 seconds.
• Ring of the Midnight Sun (Required): When you Critically Strike, you regain {x}% of Vigor you’ve spent in the last 2 seconds. Gain Counterattack’s Passive Effect.
• Rod of Kepeleke (Required): Your Core Skill are now additionally Basic Skills and free to cast. When cast at Maximum Vigor, your Core Skills Consume all Vigor to return to full damage, cast at their largest Size, and become guaranteed Critical Strikes, with x{x}% increased Critical Strike Damage for each point of Vigor Consumed this way.

Mythic Uniques

In this Crushing Hand Spiritborn build, we strongly recommend using at least 2 Mythic Uniques. You can probably play without, but it will be much smoother with the Mythic Uniques.

• Heir of Perdition (Recommended): Succumb to hatred and earn Mother’s Favor, increasing your damage dealt by 60%[x]. Slaughter enemies to briefly steal Mother’s Favor from Nearby allies.
• Ring of Starless Skies (Recommended): Spending your Primary Resource reduces the Resource cost of your Skills and increases your damage by 10%[x] for 3 seconds, up to 50%[x].
• Shroud of False Death (Recommended): If you haven’t dealt damage in the last 2 seconds, gain stealth and +40% Movement Speed.

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
Grand Topaz For more Basic Skill Damage	Grand Emerald For more Dexterity	Horadric Jewels OR Grand Diamond For Resistance OR Grand Skull For more Armor

In Season 9, you should rather socket Horadric Jewels in your Jewerly. These gems will give you +120 Armor, +6% Resistance to All Elements and a unique power to boost your Horadric Powers. Check out more information in this section.

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 Crushing Hand endgame build of the Spiritborn:

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Poc Xan	Poc – Gain: 5 Offering. Spend 5% of your Maximum Resource Xan – Requires: 300 Offering. Cooldown: 1 second. (Overflow: Increased Duration) Your Next attack will cause your hits to be a guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower for 0.35 seconds.
Neo Jah	Neo – Gain: 200 Offering. Deal damage after not taking any within 2 seconds. Jah – Requires: 250 Offering. Cooldown: 2 seconds. (Overflow: Store Excess Offering). Replace your next Evade with the Sorcerer’s Teleport, blinking further, dealing damage, and becoming Unstoppable.

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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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Horadric Spell (Season 9)

During Season 9, you will unlock Horadric Spellcraft, letting you build and bind your own spell to one of your active skills. You can upgrade your spell’s power using Horadric Phials, increasing its impact on your build.

Slot	Power	Effect
Catalyst	Celestial Surge pair it with Crushing Hand	Awaken an Oracular Rune that Pulls In all surrounding enemies. A torrent of stars follow that randomly strike the area 20 times for damage each. Rank 10: Stars periodically fall around you and are guaranteed to crash around a Nearby enemy for the same damage.
Infusion	Corrosive Vapor	Enemies damaged by it take 320% Poisoning damage over 4 seconds. This effect can only happen on each enemy every 3 seconds. While equipped, your Poison Damage Bonus is equal to that of your highest Damage Type Bonus. Rank 5: Deactivates monster Vampiric effects for 8 seconds.
Arcana	Bottled Wind	Invoking your Catalyst grants a Barrier equal to 30% of your Maximum Life for 4 seconds. After it dissipates, its essence is bottled back up (+4% each rank).
Arcana	Shifting Powder	Your Catalyst increases your Movement Speed by 30% during its effect and for 5 more seconds after it ends (+8% each rank).
Arcana	Reactive Ooze	After your Catalyst activates, you gain 5% Maximum Resource Generation per second for the next 10 seconds (+3% each rank).

Horadric Jewels

Horadric Jewels can be crafted at the Wayfinder using Horadric Phials and Gem Fragments, once you have collected the Horadric Tome for this specific jewel. You can collect these recipes by doing Horadric Strongrooms in Nightmare Dungeons.

Horadric Jewel	Effect
Idol From Below	You gain 6%[x] primary stat, 8%[x] maximum life and you are always Unhindered. However, you will be hunted in Sanctuary’s darkest places by Jewel Guardians who were entombed to protect this relic.
Seal of Power	While you have two or more Arcana from the School of Power equipped, gain 25%[+] Movement Speed and 15%[+] Critical Strike Chance.
Luminate Eye	Your Catalytic Skill gains 25%[+] Cooldown Reduction.

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, for the added survivability he provides, 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: Scourge
• Reinforcement Skill: Shockwave, then switch Bloodthirst as soon as you unlock it, for increased Attack Speed.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

This build is all about stacking Poison damage and triggering it through Critical Strikes. Your Crushing Hand skill itself is not what is doing the heavy lifting, it is the poison damage that follow. Many of your other skills and gear will increase your Crushing Hand damage like Enhanced Vortex and Rod of Kepeleke. Therefore, stacking Poison damage with Scourge, and then hitting Crushing Hand will give you the best damage.

Start fights with Ravager to build Vigor and ramp up your damage. Keep Armored Hide up for block and defense, especially in melee-heavy fights. Activate The Hunter right before spamming Crushing Hand to push your burst even further.

In essence, the build works on maintaining high uptime on mobility, damage, and survivability through simple, fast-paced rotation:

1. Ravager, keep Ravager up at all times for increased damage.
2. Scourge to poison your enemies.
3. Armored Hide for increased survivability.
4. The Hunter for additional damage.
5. Vortex to gather enemies before your Crushing Hand attack, boosting its damage.
6. Spam Crushing Hand

Runeword Synergy

• Poc Xan: This combo is built for great openers. Poc lets you steadily build Offering by spending a portion of your resource, and once you have stacked up to 300, Xan gives your next attack guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower for a short burst window (0.35s). Use it to take down elites or burn through priority targets right at the beginning.
• Neo Jah: This pair rewards clean movement and smart positioning. Neo charges up as long as you don not take damage. Once you have 250 Offering, Jah turns your next Evade into a Sorcerer’s Teleport. This will help you with movement speed outside of fights, and jumping between packs.

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 the Crushing Hand Spiritborn build:

• Elixir of Advantage increases your attack speed
• Elixir of Fortitude for additional survivability 

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Season 9 Updates

For a complete overview of Season 9, its mechanics and theme, new leveling activity, and other changes coming with this season, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub here.

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

• Harmonious Hunter:
  • Damage bonus to Injured decreased from 100%[x] to 50%[x].
  • Reduced maximum Ferocity gained from 4 to 2.
• Exalted Hunter:
  • Previous (on PTR): Killing an enemy while The Hunter is present reduces this cooldown by 5 seconds. Hitting a boss reduces its cooldown by 1 second.
  • Now: Killing an enemy while The Hunter is present has a 40% chance to instantly reset its Cooldown. This chance is halved after each consecutive reset.
• Paragon Board – Convergence:
  • Previous: You deal bonus damage equal to 20%[x] of your 2 highest bonuses to Damage with Physical, Fire, Lightning, Cold, Poison, and Shadow combined, up to 30% total.
  • Now: You deal bonus damage equal to 3.5%[x] of all your bonuses to Damage with Physical, Fire, Lightning, Cold, Poison, and Shadow combined, up to 30% total.

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

• June 28th, 2025: Skill and Skill Tree, Gear and Runewords were updated for Season 9. Also added Horadric Spells and Jewels to the build.
• April 25th, 2025: Skills and Skill Tree, Gear, Runewords, Paragon Board, Mercenaries and Rotation were updated for Season 8. Also added Boss Powers.
• January 18th, 2025: Updated Tempers and added Witchcraft Powers and Occult Gems for Season 7.
• October 22nd, 2024: Guide created for Vessel of Hatred, Season 6.