Rushing Claw – Spiritborn Build for Diablo 4 (Season 9)

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.

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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	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 or Luminate Eye	Aspect of Unyielding Hits	Maximum Ferocity increased by x.
Ring	Grand Skull or Idol From Below	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 or Seal of Denial	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.

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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	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.

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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

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.

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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 Emerald For more Dexterity	Horadric Jewel orGrand 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!

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.

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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 Rushing Claw	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	Fractured Core	Your Catalyst deactivates monster Damage Resistance Aura effects for 2.5 seconds, but you take 10% more stacking damage for the same time (+0.5 each rank).
Arcana	Potent Alloy	Your Catalyst destroys enemy Barriers and Knocks them Down for 1.0 seconds after the removal (+0.8 each rank).

Horadric Jewels

Horadric Jewels can be crafted at the Wayfinder using Horadric Phials and Gem Fragments, once you 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 Denial	While you have two or more Arcana from the School of Denial equipped, gain 30%[x] more Barrier, Fortify and Thorns.
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 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

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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 

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Season 9 Updates

For a full overview of what is new in Season 9, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub.

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.
• Noxious Resonance:
  • Previous: Your Critical Strikes cause your Poisoning on an enemy to burst, dealing 100% of the total Poisoning instantly to them and 20% of it to surrounding enemies before removing the Poisoning effect from the primary target. This damage is increased by 30% of your Critical Strike Damage bonus.
  • Now: Your Critical Strikes cause your Poisoning on an enemy to burst, dealing 180% of the total Poisoning instantly to them and 20% of the burst to surrounding enemies before removing the Poisoning effect from the primary target.
• 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: Added Horadric Spell and Jewels for Season 9.
• 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.