Build Introduction
This Spiritborn leveling build focuses on using the Jaguar Spirit Guardian and its abilities, bringing high mobility and heavy damage together to create an efficient and fast-paced playstyle. Thrash allows you to dash to targets and slash through enemies with strong attacks like
Rake and
Rushing Claw. With the added
Soar Eagle movement ability and
The Hunter Ultimate, you will have enough movement and escape possibilities to take on larger groups of enemies and deal punishing damage. To find out more general information about leveling as a Spiritborn in Diablo 4, you can check out our main Spiritborn Leveling Guide.
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Check our Leveling Tier List to see how this build compares to others.
Quick Navigation
Want to skip ahead? Use the table below to jump to the sections you are looking for.
Allocation of Skill Points
Below is the optimal order for spending your points as you level up. If you are missing skill points, complete Renown Tier 1-3 in every zone.
Order | Skill | Cluster |
---|---|---|
1 | ![]() | Basic Skill |
2 | ![]() | Basic Skill |
3 | ![]() | Core Skill |
4 | ![]() | Core Skill |
5 | ![]() | Core Skill |
6 | ![]() | Core Skill |
7 | ![]() | Core Skill |
8 | ![]() | Core Skill |
9 | ![]() | Core Skill |
10 | ![]() | Basic Skill |
11 | ![]() | Focus Skill |
12 | ![]() | Focus Skill |
13 | ![]() | Focus Skill |
14 | ![]() | Focus Skill |
15 | ![]() | Core Passive |
16 | ![]() | Defensive Skill |
17 | ![]() | Defensive Skill |
18 | ![]() | Defensive Skill |
19 | ![]() | Core Passive |
20 | ![]() | Potency Skill |
21 | ![]() | Potency Skill |
22 | ![]() | Potency Skill |
23 | ![]() | Potency Skill |
24 | ![]() | Ultimate Skill |
25 | ![]() | Ultimate Skill |
26 | ![]() | Ultimate Skill |
27 | ![]() | Potency Skill |
28 | ![]() | Potency Skill |
29 | ![]() | Potency Skill |
30 | ![]() | Ultimate Skill |
31 | ![]() | Ultimate Skill |
32 | ![]() | Ultimate Skill |
33 | ![]() | Ultimate Skill |
34 | ![]() | Key Passive |
35 | ![]() | Core Passive |
36 | ![]() | Core Passive |
37 | ![]() | Core Passive |
38 | ![]() | Core Passive |
39 | ![]() | Focus Passive |
40 | ![]() | Focus Passive |
41 | ![]() | Focus Passive |
42 | ![]() | Focus Passive |
43 | ![]() | Focus Passive |
44 | ![]() | Focus Passive |
45 | ![]() | Focus Passive |
46 | ![]() | Focus Passive |
47 | ![]() | Focus Passive |
48 | ![]() | Potency Passive |
49 | ![]() | Potency Passive |
50 | ![]() | Potency Passive |
51 | ![]() | Potency Passive |
52 | ![]() | Potency Passive |
53 | ![]() | Potency Passive |
54 | ![]() | Defensive Passive |
55 | ![]() | Defensive Passive |
56 | ![]() | Defensive Passive |
57 | ![]() | Defensive Passive |
58 | ![]() | Defensive Passive |
59 | ![]() | Defensive Passive |
60 | ![]() | Potency Passive |
61 | ![]() | Potency Passive |
62 | ![]() | Potency Passive |
63 | ![]() | Ultimate Passive |
64 | ![]() | Ultimate Passive |
65 | ![]() | Ultimate Passive |
66 | ![]() | Ultimate Passive |
67 | ![]() | Ultimate Passive |
68 | ![]() | Ultimate Passive |
69 | ![]() | Ultimate Passive |
70 | ![]() | Ultimate Passive |
71 | ![]() | Ultimate Passive |
Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points
If you are unsure how to use these skills, read the Build Mechanics section after setting up your skill bar.
Wondering what comes after Level 60 or which Paragon boards to pick? Head to the Spiritborn Builds page and choose an endgame build to continue progressing your character even further.
Spiritborn Class Mechanic — Spirit Hall
The Specialization of the Spiritborn Class becomes available at Level 15. It is recommended to complete the “Sacred Hunt“ questline in Kehjistan as soon as possible. The quest is given by Tarka.
The Spirit Hall system allows you to choose two animal spirits as protective guardians to receive powerful passive bonuses. The first, primary Spirit Guardian can be selected at Level 15, after completing the quest. Followed by the secondary Spirit Guardian at Level 30. Each Guardian has a different primary and secondary bonus ability, and you do not have to pick the same Guardian twice!
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 150% 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.
For this leveling build, we choose the Gorilla as the primary and Jaguar as secondary Spirit Guardian. The Gorilla as primary guardian is great for leveling, as it provides extra survivability as well as a Barrier. For our secondary guardian, we pick the Jaguar spirit to increase maximum Ferocity stacks by 1, which means even more attack speed.
Keep in mind that if you select the Gorilla as your primary guardian, all of your skills will be considered Gorilla skills as well. This means that any + Rank to Gorilla skills on your gear or items will increase the rank of all of your skills, which now also count as Gorilla skills.
Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes
When picking your gear, higher Item Power generally indicates stronger gear, but you should also consider the affixes and effects that are relevant to your class and build. When making gear decisions, keep an eye on both Item Power and the specific attributes that complement the build.
Legendary Aspects
For general information on how to unlock the Codex of Power, head to our dedicated Aspects and Codex of Power guide. You can imprint Aspects onto items by visiting the Occultist.
Listed below are all the Aspects that are important for this Jaguar focused Rake Spiritborn leveling build. You can equip any aspect from this list in the slot it drops for, as they are all useful while leveling.
If you want a recommendation regarding which Aspect to get first, the Aspect of Wild Claws will be the most useful while leveling because it synergizes greatly with
Rake. You can unlock this aspect through finding it naturally, as a random drop.
For best results, combine these Aspects with the right stat/affix priorities.
Aspect Name | Legendary Aspect Power | Source |
---|---|---|
![]() | Lucky hit: up to 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. | Random Drop |
![]() | Soar casts Vortex at its landing location and deals x% increased damage | Ruined Wild, Nahantu |
![]() | Gain increased critical strike damage equal x% of your block chance. Blocking doubles this bonus for 10 seconds. | Random Drop |
![]() | Rake manifests a Spirit Jaguar which also casts Rake at a random enemy, dealing x% base damage. | Random Drop |
![]() | Critical strikes with core skills increase your attack speed by x% for 5 seconds. | Random Drop |
![]() | Gain x% Block chance per resolve stack | Random Drop |
![]() | Your Resolve has a x% chance to not be lost when you are hit for each stack of ferocity you have | Random Drop |
![]() | Every 5 seconds, your next core skill costs life instead of primary resource. Will only occur if you have at least 60% of your maximum life. Skills that spend life deal x% bonus damage. | Random Drop |
![]() | Every second while moving gain x%[+] Bonus Movement Speed for 1.5 seconds, up to x%[+]. | Seething Underpass, Nahantu |
Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes
During your leveling journey, you may stumble across items with very good affixes. Tempering these items can provide you with a significant boost in character power, so make sure you understand how it works.
Tempering is only possible if you have already found a few Tempering Manuals while leveling!
Keep an eye out for the following stats and modifiers that are particularly beneficial for this build (listed in order of importance):
Gear Slot | Important Affixes (ranked by priority) | Tempering Recipes and Affixes |
---|---|---|
Helm | 1. Ranks to Rushing Claw 2. Dexterity 3. Armor | ![]() ![]() |
Chest | 1. Ranks to Armored Hide 2. Resistances 3. Dexterity | ![]() ![]() |
Gloves | 1. Ranks to Rake 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Attack Speed | ![]() ![]() |
Pants | 1. Dexterity 2. Ranks to Trash 3. Resistances | ![]() ![]() |
Boots | 1. Dexterity 2. Movement Speed 3. Ranks to Focus Skills | ![]() ![]() |
Amulet | 1. Attack Speed 2. Movement Speed 3. Critical Strike Chance | ![]() ![]() |
Rings | 1. Critical Strike Damage 2. Attack Speed 3. Resistance Needed | ![]() ![]() |
Weapon | 1. Damage 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Dexterity | ![]() ![]() |
Want to jump back up to the gear table?
Gems and Runewords
Listed below are the best Gems to socket into gear for each item type.
Gems
Weapon Gems | Armor Gems | Jewelry Gems |
---|---|---|
![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
Runewords
If you find one of the Runes listed below, you can equip them as a Runeword on your Chest or Pants.
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!
Runeword Combination | Runeword Effects |
---|---|
Zan Tzic | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Poc Wat | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Paragon starts at Level 60. So, once you reach this level, switch to one of our Endgame Builds here.
Season 10 Mechanics
Chaos Perks
Season 10 replaces the seasonal powers with Chaos Perks, which alter how your skills work by giving strong bonuses balanced by drawbacks. You can equip three non-Unique perks plus one Unique. Most perks are unlocked via the Seasonal Reputation board, but Unique perks become available only after defeating Bartuc in Infernal Hordes on Torment I or higher. You can upgrade your Chaos Perks with the seasonal currency Infernal Warps, increasing their impact on your build.
Power | Effect |
---|---|
![]() | Your Healing Potion is infused with the power of Chaos, granting you 100% Resource Cost Reduction, 40-80%[+] increased Attack Speed and 40-80[+] increased Movement Speed for 4 seconds. Your Healing Potion has a 15 second Cooldown and you can drink it at full Life. Cooldown is now affects by Cooldown Reduction. |
![]() | You can no longer be healed above 50% Life. You gain 5-10% Maximum Resistance to All Elements, +10-20% Armor, and 50-100% increased Barrier and Fortify Generation. |
![]() | Your Basic Skills gain 10-30%[+] increased Attack Speed, their dash range is increased by 50% and their 3rd attack now happens every 2nd attack. |
The key perk in this setup is Crazy Brew, which is extremely powerful but requires using your Life Flask actively as a damage tool. For players with less gear or those who feel unsafe, Crazy Brew can be swapped out for
Accelerating Chaos to gain passive cooldown reduction, or
Back Off! for more reliable damage without relying on flask usage.
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:
Shield Charge
- Core Passive:
Raheir’s Guard
- Iconic Skill:
Crater
- Iconic Passive:
Iron Wolf’s Call
Varyana Reinforcement choices:
- Opportunity Skill:
Rake
- Reinforcement Skill:
Shockwave, then switch
Bloodthirst as soon as you unlock it, for increased Attack Speed.
Build Mechanics
Rotation and Playstyle
The main skill of this build is Rake. It is important to build stacks of Ferocity in order to reduce the resource cost of Rake, allowing you to spam this skill as much as possible. To increase Rake damage, we pair up the skill with the
Aspect of Wild Claws which will manifest an additional Jaguar guardian casting Rake to your target.
Thrash is present to support our damage, mobility, and vigor generation. In the same way, Rushing Claw is a great skill to reach your targets faster and inflict damage. Use
Armored Hide as a defensive to boost your survivability.
To get around quickly, we make use of 2 Eagle skills from the Focus cluster: Soar provides great mobility and makes your enemies Vulnerable, and when combined with the
Aspect of Turbulence, will automatically cast
Vortex, so no enemy can escape you! If you do not have this aspect yet, put Vortex on your skill bar instead of Soar, and use it whenever you want to group up enemies.
- Use
Soar to engage enemies and make them Vulnerable.
- With the
Aspect of Turbulence, you will automatically cast a
Vortex at the same time.
- With the
Armored Hide to protect yourself.
Rushing Claw to move through the enemy group and increase dodge chances.
- Cast
The Hunter for increased damage and additional stacks of Ferocity.
- Spam
Rake.
Thrash to recover Vigor.
Which Elixirs Should You Use?
Head to the Alchemist in any main town and craft Elixirs to boost your stats and experience gain for 30 minutes! Remember to gather the necessary crafting materials by foraging plants (to get Bundled Herbs).
Listed below are Elixirs that will be useful for you while leveling as a Spiritborn:
Elixir of Resourcefulness for better Resource Management.
Elixir of Advantage to boost Attack Speed.
Elixir of Iron Barbs or
Elixir of Fortitude for a small defensive boost until other options become available.
Return to the Alchemist again when you reach Level 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60, to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival! You can upgrade your potion at Level 60 multiple times, depending on whether you have the required materials or not.
Season 10 Updates
For a complete overview of Season 10, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub here.
Here is a quick overview of seasonal changes relevant to this build:
- Primary Gorilla Hall: Thorns damage increased from 100% to 150%.
Rake: Initial damage increased from 30% to 40%. Second hit damage increased from 45% to 60%.
The Hunter Rank 5 Bonus:
- Previous: The Hunter’s initial damage will Execute Injured Non-Boss enemies.
- Now: After The Hunter pounces, your first hits have a 10% chance to Execute non-Boss enemies for 8 seconds.
Aspect of Plains Power: Damage per stack of Ferocity reduced from 2.0-5.0% to 1.0-2.5%.
Aspect of Wild Claws: Additional Rake damage increased from 65-85% to 100-120%.
Adaptive Stances: Core stats bonus increased from 75% to 100%.
Resilient:
- Previous: Casting a Gorilla Skill grants 5/10/15% increased Maximum Life for 10 seconds.
- Now: For each Base Gorilla Skill on your Action Bar, gain 1.5/3/4.5% Maximum Life, Knock Down Duration, and Barrier Generation.
Difficulty and Endgame
Once you hit Level 60 with this build, you will be ready to tackle harder difficulties as you transition into more challenging endgame content. Make sure to pick one of our recommended endgame builds to continue your journey! Additionally, keep your Obols until you reach maximum Level (60), then spend them on a weapon to kickstart your preferred endgame build.
Changelog
- September 20th, 2025: Added Chaos Perks for Season 10.
- June 28th, 2025: Added Horadric Spell for Season 9.
- April 26th, 2025: Switched Duelist’s Aspect with Aspect of Haste. Added Boss Powers for Season 8.
- January 23rd, 2025: Removed Lost Witchcraft Powers and replaced them with Vengeful Spirit and Hex of Shattering.
- January 18th, 2025: Added Witchcraft Powers and Occult Gems for Season 7.
- October 2nd, 2024: Guide created and theorycrafted for Season 6.