There are rumors of a Paladin or ‘sword and shield’ class Diablo4 since before it was released. Of the original five classes, the “holy warrior” archetype is the one that the acclaimed ARPG was sorely missing.
As a huge Crusader fan in Diablo3and a fan of Paladin archetypes, I was hoping for a Paladin-esque character with Diablo4‘s first expansion. Instead, Blizzard announced that the brand new Spiritborn Diablo4‘s first new class, which in the Ship of hate extension on October 8.
At first I have to admit my reaction was, “What a disappointment.” After all, this means I have to wait at least another year before I can embody an updated version of a Crusader in Diablo4‘s open-world Sanctuary. But on July 11th, I was able to visit Blizzard and preview the Spiritborn to learn what it is, how it plays, and perhaps most importantly, why it’s not a Paladin. And after speaking with one of Blizzard’s game designers, Bjorn Mikkelson, and associate class designer Stephen Stewart, I’ve changed my mind. I’m glad the Spiritborn is the first new class in Diablo4 instead of a holy warrior.
The pitch for the Spiritborn is that they are agile warriors who use melee attacks to defeat their enemies. During attacks, they can also call upon their Spirit Guardians to decimate their enemies. There are four Spirit Guardians to choose from, and each has their own identity: Gorilla, Jaguar, Eagle, and Centipede.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Each Spirit Guardian has their own set of abilities in the skill tree—usually one per primary, core, ultimate, etc.—that fit their theme. Jaguar abilities are all about speed and fire, while Gorilla abilities focus on protecting themselves and others while dealing physical damage. Eagle abilities have a much longer range than the other Spirit Guardians, focusing on precision and lightning damage. The most visually stark and flashy of the four is the Centipede, which is all about poison and earth.
The Spiritborn’s main class mechanic allows you to essentially commit to two Spirit Guardians at once—or the same Spirit Guardian twice. From there, you can mix and match the classes’ abilities to create new synergies. Your primary Spirit Guardian gives you a unique passive and changes all of your abilities to use that Guardian’s keyword (i.e. if you commit to the Jaguar, all abilities in your tree become Jaguar abilities). Your second Spirit Guardian gives you their secondary passive, which is another unique effect that can change up your build.
When I first heard how the class works, I compared it to the Druid. Both classes swear by animal spirits and call upon that power to deal damage. But when I tried to compare the two classes halfway through the interview, Mikkelson and Stewart gave me a kind of “uh, not really” look, which I understood after just a few minutes of playing. The Spiritborn doesn’t feel like the Druid at all. No, the Spiritborn feels like the Monk from Diablo3.
As someone who always wanted to enjoy Monk but could never get into their heavy support builds, I was immediately enamored with the Spiritborn. It felt like I always wanted Monk to feel. Each of my primary abilities got me where I wanted to go, and each had a three-hit combo. I had abilities to help me control the battlefield—like one that let me suck in all the enemies around me—and others that gave me interesting ways to deal damage. For example, I had a Gorilla ability that let me punch the ground, creating two fist prints on either side of me. Each circle did a decent amount of damage, but if I could trap an enemy in the Venn diagram-like overlap of the circles, I’d deal even more damage. Within minutes, I was able to both control the battlefield and move through it unhindered.
Blizzard gave me four different versions of the Spiritborn, each set at level 30 and centered around a specific Spirit Guardian. In my brief session, I was struck by how different they all felt – like four distinct classes rolled into one. And these were just the purified forms, builds meant to accentuate the speed of Jaguar or the sluggish tankiness of Gorilla. Spiritborn feels like a quick, simplistic treat in the hands of a player who just wants to focus on one style. But it’s easy to imagine Spiritborn being the perfect class for theorycrafters, too.
Even with the developer’s excitement about the Spiritborn, the shadow of the Paladin hung over my journey. Press colleagues brought it up quite candidly in our group interview, and Mikkelson mentioned it spontaneously in my conversation with him and Stewart. But all of these mentions served a purpose. Not to explain why there is no holy class, but to make it clear that this alternative is better in the long run.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
“When we sit down and make Paladin, it’s a very specific question that has a very specific history in our game with different expectations,” Mikkelson said. “If I tell you it’s the Spiritborn, what are your expectations for that? Right? If you’ve never heard that name before, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything to you. And so it’s a slightly different brainstorming process of almost like, ‘What would someone want from this? And how can I try to make that a reality?’ And there are endless possibilities.”
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Stewart said. “Because when the world is completely open, you can do whatever you want. But then you’re trying to distill ‘well, what would make the class sing the most?’ And you have no boundaries, right? Sometimes boundaries help, because it keeps you creatively in a certain box, where you know these are the things that are expected. And then how do we innovate on top of that? Even if we decide we want to do something that pays more homage to classes that have come before, it’s going to be from this new perspective.”
Paladins or Crusaders come with a lot of baggage. People have been playing these characters for over a decade, so players expect them to have certain builds to suit everyone’s favorites. In the same way that you can’t imagine a Barbarian shipping without a Whirlwind build, a Paladin has to spam Blessed Hammer, Captain America shield throws, and so on. But the Spiritborn is so unique and creative that he’s clearly the Diablo4 developers a chance to experiment with something new. And that gives me hope that these devs will come to their hallowed classroom with a fresh perspective when it inevitably arrives.
And so, until Blizzard announces a Paladin-like, I’ll have the Spiritborn to tide me over. And if what I’ve seen is any indication, I’ll have plenty of interesting builds to try while I wait.
Disclosure: This article is based on a preview event held on July 11 at Blizzard Entertainment Studios in Irvine, California. Blizzard provided Polygon with travel and accommodations for the event. You can additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.