Touch of Death – Spiritborn Build for Diablo 4 (Season 10)

Build Introduction

This Poised Touch of Death endgame build focuses on turning the ability into a Core skill, with the Rod of Kepeleke making it free to cast and more powerful at maximum Vigor. This build excels in mobility, damage, and tankiness, making it a top contender.

Starting new? Begin with our Quill Volley or Stinger Leveling Build and then 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

Rod of Kepeleke

Harmony of Ebewaka

Ring of the Midnight Sun

Required Aspects

Insatiable Aspect

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

Quick Navigation

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Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

RavagerVortexArmored HideThe HunterScourgeTouch of Death

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

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

Gear Slot	Gems/Runes	Aspect / Unique	Legendary Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Poc Que	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{x}% increased damage per Spirit type they have.
Chest	Grand Amethyst	Shroud of False Death	If you haven’t dealt damage in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and +40% Movement Speed.
Gloves		Aspect of the Moonrise	Damaging an enemy with a Basic SKill grants you a 4% Attack Speed for 10 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Upon reaching maximum stacks, you enter a Vampiric Bloodrage, gainin x{x}% Basic Skill damage and 15% Movement Speed for 10 seconds.
Pants	Grand Amethyst	Aspect of Interdiction	Gain {x}% Block Chance per Resolve stack.
Boots		Rakanoth’s Wake (Alternative: Duelist’s Aspect)	When you cast a Skill with a Cooldown, you explode, dealing {x} Fire Damage.
Amulets(50% bonus)	Grand Skull	Insatiable Aspect	Kills extend the duration of your active Touch of Death swarms by 0.2 seconds. When a swarm is replaced early it bursts for {x}% of the damage it would have done.
Ring	Grand Skull	Aspect of Infestation	Lucky hit: Centipede Skills have up to a 35% chance to spawn a Pestilent Swarm from the target which deals {x} Poison damage per hit. Pestilent Swarms now also deal 100% of their Base damage as Poisoning damage over 6 seconds.
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)	Xol Tal	Rod of Kepeleke	Your core skills are now additionally basic skills, 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 spent this way.

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

If you get lucky and find Chaos Armor, make sure to check the Season 10 section below with our list of recommended Chaos Uniques.

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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 Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. All Stats 2. Movement Speed 3. Damage Reduction 4. Ranks to Velocity	N/A
Chest	All Stats Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth Maximum Life Resource Generation	N/A
Gloves	1. Attack Speed 2. Ranks to Core Skills 3. Dexterity	Worldly Finesse (Offensive): Critical Strike Damage Centipede Innovation (Utility): Scourge Size
Pants	1. Ranks to Basic Skills 2. Maximum Life 3. Armor	Centipede Innovation (Utility): Scourge Size Worldly Endurance (Defensive): Maximum Life
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Resistance to All Elements 4. Non-Physical Damage	N/A
Amulet	1. Dexterity 2. Total Armor 3. Attack Speed or Ranks to Follow Through	Worldly Finesse (Offensive): Critical Strike Damage Spiritborn Resolve (Defensive): Total Armor
Ring 1	1. Dexterity 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Critical Strike Damage 4. Ranks to Mirage	N/A
Ring 2	1. Maximum Life 2. Lucky Hit: Up to a {x} Chance to make enemies Vulnerable for 2 seconds 3. Attack Speed	Sharpened Finesse (Offensive): Basic Skill Damage Worldly Stability (Resource): Resource Generation
Weapon	1. Critical Strike Damage 2. Maximum Resource 3. Ranks to Vigorous 4. Change 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, remember that in higher difficulties there will be a penalty to armor and resistance, so you will need a higher amount to compensate for the loss. Furthermore, builds that scale with armor (such as those that use the Aspect of Unyielding Hits) will want to focus on getting more armor than just the cap.

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

• Rod of Kepeleke (Required): Your core skills are now additionally basic skills, free to cast, and deal up to 30% less damage based on their vigor cost. 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 spent this way.
• Harmony of Ebewaka (Required): Your Skills are all additionally Jaguar, Eagle, Gorilla, or Centipede Skills based on your secondary Spirit Hall choice. Each Spirit type on a skill increases its damage by 50%.
• 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.
• Rakanoth’s Wake (Highly Recommended): When you cast a Skill with a Cooldown, you explode, dealing {x} Fire Damage.

The Unique Rakanoth’s Wake boots are great for early endgame, but as you progress and gear up, you can swap them out for the Duelist’s Aspect.

Mythic Uniques

• Shroud of False Death (Highly Recommended): If you haven’t dealt damage in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and +40% Movement Speed.
• 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].

The Mythic Unique Chest, Shroud of False Death, is a great fit for this build, but Mythic Uniques are not as easy to come by. Until you obtain this item, you can use the Duelist’s Aspect or Aspect of Binding Morass as a substitute.

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 Emerald For increased Critical Strike Damage	Grand Amethyst For more Barrier Generation.	Grand Skull or required resistances Gems For more Armor/Resistance.

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 combination options for this endgame build of the Spiritborn:

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Poc Que	Poc – Gain: 5 Offering. Spend 5% of your Maximum Resource. Que – Requires: 300 Offering (Overflow: Increased Duration). Cooldown: 1 Second. Evoke the Druid’s Base Earthen Bulwark, granting yourself a Barrier.
Xol Tal	Xol – Gain: 150 Offering. Evoke power from another Class. Tal – Requires: 30 Offering (Overflow: Increased Swarms Spawned). Cooldown: 1 Second. Evoke one Spiritborn‘s Pestilent Swarm, dealing damage to 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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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 its impact on your build.

Power	Effect
A Beast Cornered	For every 10% Life you are missing, you gain 10-20% [x] increased damage and 5% damage reduction. Spending Resources also drains a percentage of your Life equal to 30% the Resources spent, refunding those Resources. This cannot reduce you to below 10% Life.
Crazy Brew	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.
Marred Guard	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.
Alacrity	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.

Chaos Armor

Chaos Amor is a new type of Unique in Season 10. These items are more powerful versions of existing Uniques, breaking normal slot restrictions and opening up completely new ways to build your character.

We recommend looking for the following Chaos Uniques during endgame (these are example items! Slot does not matter):

• Rod of Kepeleke (Boots): Once you acquire Rod of Kepeleke Chaos Armor (for any slot), replace your weapon with a Polearm (Resource Cost Reduction, Dexterity, Critical Strike Damage, Touch of Death Duration, and Aspect of Adaptability.
• Sunstained War-Crozier (Chest Armor)
• Harmony of Ebewaka (Gloves)
• Banished Lord’s Talisman (Pants)
• Sepazontec (Helm)

Please make sure to keep wearing all aspects and uniques listed in the build requirements.

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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: Scourge
• Reinforcement Skill: Bloodthirst

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

This build revolves around efficient Vigor management and Pestilent Swarm multiplicator, letting you cast Touch of Death as often as possible. Thanks to the Rod of Kepeleke, you can use Touch of Death for free because Poised Touch of Death turns it into a core and basic skill, with a high chance of critical strikes. Paired with the Ring of the Midnight Sun, this ensures you maintain Vigor, making your rotation feel good and efficient. Touch of Death also benefits from Insatiable Aspect, further boosting its damage.

For defense, Armored Hide provides solid protection, while the Ring of the Midnight Sun will also increase dodge chance by granting the Counterattack passive, allowing you to add Vortex to the skill bar to bring enemies to you. Scourge further helps with crowd control and spawning additional Pestilent Swarms. And lastly, your Ultimate, The Hunter, amplifies your damage even more!

Let’s see how this build will look in action:

1. Vortex to engage the enemy.
2. Use Ravager to boost Ferocity and gain additional damage over 6 seconds.
3. Armored Hide for increased protection.
4. The Hunter Ultimate for even more damage.
5. Scourge to benefit from the increased Vigor regeneration rate for 6 seconds.
6. Spam Touch of Death as much as possible!

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Runeword Synergy

Another interesting interaction worth mentioning within this section comes from the Runewords we use in this build to trigger powerful effects. We use PocQue in our Armor and Xol Tal in our Weapon.

When you spend 5% of your Maximum Resource, you gain 5 Offering from Poc. Once you reach 300 Offering, Que automatically evokes the Druid’s Earthen Bulwark, granting a Barrier. Xol will trigger whenever you invoke a power from another class (like Earthen Bulwark), granting 150 Offering, and Tal then evokes additional Pestilent Swarms, for additional damage.

This combination lets you repeatedly spawn Pestilent Swarms and deal damage with minimal effort.

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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Gameplay Video

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 Centipede Hall: Damage reduction now capped at 80%.
• 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.
• Noxious Resonance:
  • Single-target damage bonus increased from 180% to 300%.
  • Area-of-effect damage bonus decreased from 20% to 10%.
• Harmony of Ebewaka: Damage per Spirit type increased from 10-30% to 20-40%.
• Rod of Kepeleke: Damage bonus per point of Vigor increased from 0.10-0.50% to 0.15-0.75%.

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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

• September 20th, 2025: Merged the build back to one page. Added Chaos Perks and Chaos Armor for Season 10.
• July 31, 2025: Removed mention of alternative Duelist’s Aspect on Chest.
• June 28th, 2025: Added Horadric Spell and Jewels for Season 9.
• April 20th, 2025: Added Boss Powers for Season 8. Adjusted Skill Tree and Spirit Hall choices.
• January 15th, 2025: Adjusted the build for Season 7:
  • Added Occult Gems and Witchcraft Powers recommendations.
  • Removed Tyrael’s Might for Shroud of False Death on the chest.
  • Switched Soar for Vortex.
  • Changed gems and runewords.
• October 13th, 2024: Added Video Guide.
• October 11, 2024: Updated Paragon Board and changed Runewords from Weapon to Armor.
• October 9th, 2024: Updated Skills, Paragon, Gear, and exchanged Xol for Tam Rune.
• October 5th, 2024: Guide theorycrafted and created for Vessel of Hatred, Season 6.