Okay, so Diablo 4 Season 10 PTR is out, and the Spiritborn—one of the class favorites—is getting some pretty neat buffs. Now, full disclosure: patch notes in PTRs can shift before the official release, but the buffs on the table right now are worth chatting about. They touch on some of the skills at the core of what makes Spiritborn feel so unique and powerful.
First off, Crushing Hand. This skill has long been a staple but it always felt like it was holding back because of how the shockwaves dealt damage. Before, you got two shockwaves each doing 50% damage that overlapped, which kind of felt like overkill but underpowered at the same time. The new change doubles that damage per shockwave to a full 100%. So basically, if you loved the idea of Crushing Hand, now it might actually hit like the thunderclap it’s supposed to. I wasn’t super hyped at first, but after trying a few tests, it feels like a solid damage boost without being game-breaking.
Then there’s Rake, which is less flashy but no less important. The claw attacks you send out now do more damage both before and after the explosion. Increasing from 30% to 40% damage before explosion and from 45% to 60% damage after—that’s a nice bump all around. I saw a few Reddit posts where players shared how this skill suddenly feels less like a sideshow and more like a reliable DPS tool. So if you were sleeping on Rake, maybe time to reconsider Diablo 4 Items.
But the real game-changer seems to be the rework of the key passive, Noxious Resonance. This bit took me a minute to wrap my head around. So now, when you critical strike, it triggers an instant poison burst dealing 300% of the poison damage on that enemy, up from 180%. That’s a massive increase for single-target damage, especially against bosses. Sounds awesome, right? Well, here’s the catch: the damage it deals to enemies around your target—basically splash damage—was cut from 20% down to 10%. So your cleave gets weaker, but your punch against big foes gets stronger. It kind of forces you to think about what kind of fight you’re in and adapt your playstyle accordingly.
Another thing the PTR fiddled with is the Quill Volley’s Rebounding Aspect, buffing its damage from a range of 35-55% up to 50-70%. This makes the Quill Volley builds definitely stronger and more appealing. But here’s the kicker—Quill Volley’s base damage went down a bit (26% to 20%), which made me raise an eyebrow. Luckily, since it fires five quills, the overall damage hit feels pretty minor. It’s one of those “meh” nerfs that feels a lot less bad than it looks on paper Diablo 4 gold.
Looking at the bigger picture here, the balance tweaks feel kind of like Blizzard wanting Spiritborn to keep its top-tier vibe without letting it become overbearing. I get the sense they want to keep the class fun, powerful, but fair. So far, they seem on point, but it’s still PTR, and things can change.
