Diablo 4 Touch of Death Spiritborn Build Guide (2025)

Spiritborn’s Touch of Death skill offers great offensive capabilities with many options for scaling while not lacking in defenses.

This guide is updated for Diablo IV Season 6 and Patch 2.0.
Check our Diablo IV Builds List of uniquely crafted builds for each class.

This Spiritborn build guide assumes you’re level 60 and have completed enough of your Renown to have gained the 12 additional Skill Points available.

If you want a great leveling build to reach this point with, try our Centipede Spiritborn Leveling Build – A centipede build that plays off Vulnerable to deal high AoE damage. due to this build’s reliance on multiple Unique Items and easy transition from our Leveling Build, we will not be including a leveling path.

Build Overview

This Spiritborn build relies on a handful of Unique Items to get the most out of its damage, but only requires one (The Rod of Kepleke) to start dishing out consistent damage.

The bulk of our damage will be provided by Touch of Death and the Insatiable Aspect that goes with it. This allows us to quickly create swarms that will detonate when we make new ones for consistent bursts of damage.

On top of Touch of Death, we’ll also use The Hunter as our Ultimate which not only deals fantastic damage and grants Ferocity Stacks itself but enables many of our passives for even more damage potential.

On the Defensive side, we’ll mostly be relying on Resolve stacks for a ton of damage reduction. We’ll also be able to convert this to additional damage later on using Aspects, making it a very strong defensive mechanic.

Early on we can make use of the Craze of the Dead God to bolster our defenses heavily if we get them. They do come with the heavy side effect of converting all of our direct damage taken into a Poison DoT. Note that direct damage does not include AoE damage or other Damage over time effects.

Skill and Passive Breakdown

In this section, we’ll be talking about each skill we use. This is the whys and hows of how the build works, and then we’ll cover the skill point distribution.

Skills

These are the main skills for the build. We’ll explain what purpose each serves and how they fit the build

Touch of Death

This is our main DPS skill, dealing consistent damage with its DoT component being popped for instant damage with Noxious Resonance. This enables us to spawn swarms with each attack that we also pop for bursts of damage.

Vortex

Vortex is a utility skill we use to help keep enemies grouped. Since we have no control offer the Touch of Death swarms or their AoE, we want to keep things grouped for maximum damage.

Ravager

Ravager adds a bit of extra damage, but the main reason we use it is for Measured Ravager’s dash and Vigor Generation bonuses. The dash keeps us very mobile so long as we have enemies to hit.

Scourge

Scourge we use for a consistent source of Crowd Control and a boost of damage from that crowd control. It’s built-in Life Steal effect also greatly helps to offset the damage we’ll end up taking from our Uniques as well. It’s also great early for the Vigor Generation it provides.

Armored Hide

We have this in our hotbar skills primarily for the passive Resolve Generation. We’ll be making use of Resolve as well as the active portion of this skill for more damage with Aspects. It’s active will also instantly refill our Resolve Stacks, making it incredibly useful.

The Hunter

The main reason we use The Hunter is for its lower Cooldown and shorter duration compared to the other Ultimates. The Short Duration allows for easier upkeep of Resolution once we’re able to use it more frequently.

Passives

This section covers our Key Passive as well as others that are core to the build. These are what make the build a cohesive package.

Key Passive – Noxious Resonance

Noxious Resonance often demands stacking of Critical Strike Chance across our gear and allows us to detonate the DoT effect from Touch of Death. However, with the Rod of Kepeleke, we’re able to consistently trigger this. As we get better gear, we’ll eventually reach a point where we’re triggering it with every attack.

Vigorous

Vigorous boost our Vigor Generation after using a Core Skill. Since Poised Touch of Death is considered a Core Skill, we’ll have this constantly active.

Balanced Exertion

Balanced Exertion is a considerable damage boost that we get entirely free. The Rod of Kepeleke will make Touch of Death cost 0 Vigor, negating the downside of this passive.

Unrestrained Power

Unrestrained Power is one of many ways we’ll be making use of Resolve to gain damage. In this case, granting us damage for just maintaining at least 5 stacks of Resolve with the Gorilla Secondary Spirit Hall’s effect.

Perseverance

Perseverance gives us a massive defensive boost based on our Resolve Stacks. Since we’re aiming for a high amount of Resolves, this becomes an excellent passive to grab.

Vehemence

Vehemence boosts the damage of our Potency Skills, which is Touch of Death’s initial skill tag. Normally this has a trade-off of Increasing its Cooldown, but this is negated by Poised Touch of Death.

Potent

Potent gives us a stacking damage boost for dealing damage with Jaguar Skills. Since we’ll be using the Jaguar as our Primary Spirit, we’ll stack this very quickly against bosses where it’s needed.

Oppressive

This boosts the damage of our Centipede Skills against Crowd Controlled targets, while also increasing our Crowd Control Duration. While this will only boost Touch of Death, this is perfectly fine.

Resolution

Resolution gives us a considerable damage boost against Elites and Bosses when we use our Ultimate Skill. We’ll take advantage of The Hunter’s low cooldown and reset potential to make excellent use of this.

Supremacy

Supremacy gives us even more damage for using our Ultimate. In this case, we’ll stack it up as we defeat enemies while The Hunter is active and when it ends. This will fluctuate a lot as the stacks will decay while the Hunter is on cooldown.

Skill Point Distribution

This is an easy-to-reference table for where we’ll be placing all of our Skill points. These are listed in the order they appear on the skill tree.

Icon	Skill Name	Skill Tree	Points
	Withering Fist	Basic	2
	Vigorous	Core	3
	Balanced Exertion	Core	3
	Follow Through	Core	3
	Vortex	Focus	1
	Enhanced Vortex	Focus	1
	Measured Vortex	Focus	1
	Ravager	Focus	1
	Enhanced Ravager	Focus	1
	Measured Ravager	Focus	1
	Mirage	Focus	1
	Unrestrained Power	Focus	3
	Scourge	Defensive	1
	Enhanced Scourge	Defensive	1
	Adaptable Scourge	Defensive	1
	Armored Hide	Defensive	1
	Enhanced Armored Hide	Defensive	1
	Antivenom	Defensive	1
	Nourishment	Defensive	3
	Endurance	Defensive	1
	Perseverance	Defensive	3
	Touch of Death	Potency	5
	Enhanced Touch of Death	Potency	1
	Poised Touch of Death	Potency	1
	Vehemence	Potency	3
	Potent	Potency	3
	Ravenous	Potency	3
	Oppressive	Potency	3
	The Hunter	Ultimate	5
	Harmonious The Hunter	Ultimate	1
	Exalted the Hunter	Ultimate	1
	Resolution	Ultimate	3
	Spiritual Attunement	Ultimate	3
	Supremacy	Ultimate	3
	Sustenance	Ultimate	1
	Noxious Resonance	Key Passive	1

Gearing and Stats

In this section, we’ll cover all the things you’d want to keep an eye out for to enhance the final build. This includes our Recommended Weapons, Spirit Hall, Aspects, Runewords, and of course, Uniques.

Recommended Weapons

This build uses a Unique Quarterstaff, the Rod of Kepeleke. Before acquiring this Unique, we’ll still want to use a Quarterstaff to not lose part of our offensive and defensive scaling.

Ideal Stats

The table below details the ideal stats for our gear, be on the lookout for gear that matches at least two of the three rolls below. We’ve also included Aspects here for easier viewing, refer to the Aspects section for additional details on why these are selected.

Scroll the top row horizontally
to see more gear tabs.

Gems and Runewords

This build uses Emeralds in our Weapons, Emeralds in our Armor, and Skulls in Jewelry.

We opt for Emeralds in our Weapons as we’ll be Critically Striking often thanks to Rod of Kepeleke. Late game, we can replace this with one of our Runewords instead.

We use Amethysts in our Armor, as Barrier Generation helps us get more value from Auspicious as well as one of our Runewords. This grants us more overall damage from Viscious Shield

We go with Skulls for Our Jewelry as our Armor and Paragon should take care of most of our resistance. With the Aspect of Unyielding Hits, we’ll want to overcap on Armor as much as we can, at least up to 4,000 Armor.

Spirit Hall

Gorilla is our Secondary Spirit for the free Unstoppable. This lets us ignore all Crowd Control, just not any damage applied along with it. This ensures we almost always have Unrestrained Power active.

Aspects

We’ll cover the Aspects recommended for maximizing the build’s potential. The Ideal Stats section above lists the recommended slots for these, but they can be arranged however necessary except for ones placed in 2H Weapons or Amulets, as those specifically need to be boosted.

Insatiable Aspect

The Insatiable Aspect is the bulk of our damage, allowing us to detonate Touch of Death Swarms for massive damage. We’ll even scale this through Touch of Death Swarm Duration Tempered Affixes. We want this to be as strong as it possibly can.

Aspect of Redirected Force

The Aspect of Redirected Force works with the Aspect of Interdiction and our Resolves stacks to grant us a massive boost of Critical Strike Damage. This bonus is even doubled when we get hit, making it very effective despite not being boosted.

Aspect of Unyielding Hits

Aspect of Interdiction

Interdiction grants us Block Chance for every stack of Resolve we have, making it a great defensive boost. As a Defensive bonus, we cannot go above 100% Block Chance. However, the Aspect of Redirected Force will count all Block Chance over the cap allowing for very high scaling.

Undying Aspect*

Undying is a great defensive Aspect for open slots when using Jacinth Shell or Craze of the Dead God. While we have Scourge to mitigate any damage dealt by these items, Undying is a nice bit of extra healing making it easy to stay topped off.

Aspect of Binding Morass*

The Aspect of Binding Morass is mostly filler, but a great Utility Aspect. Any enemy that gets Close or that we deal Damage over Time to will be heavily Slowed. In addition we’ll deal extra damage to enemies slowed by any means.

Aspect of Apprehension*

Similar to Binding Morass, this is a great filler Aspect. This makes it so that when enemies are slowed beyond a certain point, they also become Feared. In addition, we deal extra damage to Feared enemies.

Aspect of Starlight*

The Aspect of Starlight works exceptionally well alongside Scourge and Touch of Death to help quickly fill our Vigor. This helps to rapidly refill our Vigor before we ultimately replace it with the Ring of the Midnight Sun.

Aspect of Haste

The Aspect of Haste takes care of most of our mobility needs, granting us a ton of Movement Speed just for moving. The only downside is that it may occasionally fall off if we get hung up on an enemy, thankfully Ravager covers that in combat for the most part.

Unique Items

The Unique items listed below are beneficial to the build, but not required for the build to function unless stated otherwise. Unique Items can drop in any difficulty but are more common in Torment Difficulties.

Rod of Kepeleke

This Unique Quarterstaff is not only required for this build but also absurdly powerful for this build. It makes Touch of Death cost nothing to cast, while also granting it the Basic SKill Tag, allowing our main skill to be able to scale with Basic, Core, and Potency bonuses.

Harmony of Ebewaka

The Harmony of Ebewaka is a Unique Helmet that does what the Rod of Kepeleke does for Skill Tags, but this time for the Spirit Tags and boosting its damage for each Spirit tag it has. By adding the Gorilla tag to the skill as well, we’ll be able to trigger effects like the Aspect of Unyielding Hits or similar effects that require Gorilla Skills.

Ring of the Midnight Sun

The Ring of the Midnight Sun restores a significant portion of our Vigor spent when we Critically Strike. THis is absurdly strong paired with the Rod Of Kepeleke, as it will consume all of our Vigor to guarantee a Critical Strike and this will refund a portion of that Vigor. With a high roll and good gear, it can instantly refill our Vigor.

Jacinth Shell

Craze of the Dead God

Paragon Boards and Glyphs

Paragon Boards and Glyphs are a feature that becomes available at level 60. Below are our recommended Paragon Boards and Glyph Choices. These are listed in the order we recommend them as well as their pathing.

With the abundance of Paragon Points we can earn, we’ve split the pathing into Initial Pathing and Additional Pathing. Initial Pathing is the clusters we pick up while pathing through the board, while Additional Pathing are ones we come back for later for additional stats once we’ve gotten all of our Glyphs socketed.

Starter Board

Starter Boards offer a lot of generic offensive and defensive stats. In this case, Damage, Elite Damage, Armor, and Maximum Life are worth picking up.

Sapping

In-Fighter

Convergence

Viscous Shield

This concludes our Diablo 4 Spiritborn Build focusing on the Touch of Death skill. You can find moreleveling and endgame Diablo 4 buildshere on VULKK.com to try new things with your characters and spice up your gameplay.

To learnhow to maximize your damage in Diablo 4, consult with our guide on that topic. Learning how to deal the highest possible damage with your build is crucial to succeeding in the Endgame and highest tiers.