In Season 7, some changes are coming for the overpowered Spiritborn in Diablo 4. This also affects a powerful weapon that is recommended for nearly all of their builds. Many players feel that this was long overdue.
With overpowered items and skills, the Spiritborn is far ahead of the “old classes” in Diablo 4. However, bugs also play a role. For example, one could spam a skill, creating a crazy OP build. Blizzard quickly fixed the bug. Currently, however, the Spiritborn can still deal absurdly high damage that makes players wonder how the numbers are even possible.
The community has been debating since the release of the new class whether it needs to be nerfed. In Season 7, Blizzard is making some changes – and many players believe that the nerf of the powerful weapon is necessary.
This is what a Spiritborn build looks like in gameplay:
Which weapon is it about? It is the Staff of Kepeleke of the Spiritborn, which is fundamentally recommended for all powerful builds for the endgame in Season 6 of Diablo 4. The Staff of Kepeleke has the effect of making all your core skills behave like base skills and modifies their mechanics.
These are the changes: In the “Campfire Chat” livestream, the developers presented the change with a comparison image. It shows that the staff no longer provides ranks for “Speed” after the change, but for “Energetic”. Additionally, the damage from core skills has decreased from 1-3% to 0.1-0.5%.
“Time to bring them to the level of the other classes”
This is what players say about it: In a Reddit post, users are discussing the nerf of the powerful weapon. The top comment comes from KnowMatter. He writes: “Necessary. If a single item is used in every build of a class, that should be a warning, especially for a weapon slot.” Over 600 users agree with him through upvotes.
Others note that there are Mythic Uniques for the slot that are completely ignored. Besides the Staff of Kepeleke, there are the mythic Uniques “Nesekem, the Herald” and “Broken Oath”, which players apparently rarely use. Additionally, jermany755 writes that a rework of the Nesekem glaive would be good. “I don’t think it’s even good in a nerfed Kepeleke world,” he remarks.
Individual users point out that the damage after the rework of the staff is no longer reduced based on the life force costs. At least that’s a positive change, and SerMid thinks: “Therefore, I believe that the [Staff of Kepeleke] is still quite solid.”
Most seem to agree that the overpowered Spiritborn could generally use a few nerfs:
- RedSkyNL writes: “Yes, playing the Spiritborn and being ‘OP’ was fun, but for me: only for one season. I’m looking forward to the other classes becoming relevant again.”
- plzdonatemoneystome writes: “Now it’s time to bring [the Spiritborn] to the level of the other classes. I must say, though, this season has been immensely fun for me.”
- Epimolophant thinks: “I actually believe that it will still be the strongest class (though not as much as in this season) because of its versatility. Too much mobility, AoE, and crowd control combined, even if the damage output is reduced.”
This is what Blizzard says about it: The goal of the developers is to create better class balance in the long term. It should not feel “wrong” to play a class other than the Spiritborn, explains game designer Charles Dunn in a YouTube livestream on November 21.
The developers don’t want to buff every class so much that they can effortlessly clear the pit at level 150+, adds design director Colin Finer. They want to “make smaller improvements to the weaker builds while bringing the Spiritborn back to a healthier level,” says Dunn. You can learn more about the general nerfs of the class and the developers’ goals here: Blizzard nerfs the strongest class in Diablo 4 hard, saying: “It’s better for the health of the game”
