The Poison Centipede build stands out as a top-tier endgame option for the Spiritborn class in Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred. This build effectively combines Thorns, poison, and crowd control techniques while significantly reducing dependency on the class’s main resource. By leveraging certain unique items and legendary aspects, players can convert core abilities into basic skills, which enables continuous casting without incurring resource costs. It excels at amplifying damage through poison and thorns, consistently applying these effects to foes with various skills and weapons.
At the heart of this build is the Stinger skill, which generates pestilence swarms around the player, inflicting substantial poison damage over time. The focus lies in maximizing the output of these swarms while enhancing thorns application. Through a strategic mix of abilities, passive enhancements, and Paragon board selections, the build increases damage from poison, vulnerability, and thorns. This targeted approach results in impressive performance, making it one of the standout builds in Diablo 4.
Best Weapons & Gear for the Poison Centipede Build
Key Items to Equip
To optimize your endgame Poison Centipede Spiritborn build in Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, focus on acquiring gear that enhances poison damage, Thorns, and vulnerability damage. The Rod of Kepeleke is vital because it enables core skills to function without using resources, maximizing your overall damage output. For armor, prioritize pieces that boost Thorns, poison damage, and vulnerability bonuses.
The Razorplate chest piece is indispensable due to its significant increase in thorn damage and its ability to deal over 100% of its base damage in certain situations. Additionally, the Wound Drinker ring is essential, as it allows you to poison enemies on hit and enhances Thorns damage.
Another option for rings is the Ring of the Midnight Sun, obtainable from Grigoire, The Galvanic Saint. This ring improves your critical strike probability and gradually restores vigor. When paired with the Rod of Kepeleke, it ensures a steady replenishment of your resource bar while delivering impressive damage across the board.
You might also consider the Jacinth Shell Unique chest armor from Lord Zir, which increases max life and provides damage reduction. However, this unique item does have a drawback: every second of an active cooldown will drain 10% of your maximum life to reduce its duration by 3 seconds. Fortunately, there are strategies to mitigate this effect, which we’ll cover next.
For anyone utilizing a Legendary Aspect, emphasize enhancing Thorns and poison damage. The Bristleback Aspect, for instance, can significantly boost Thorns damage whenever you dodge or block an attack. The Pestilence and Infestation aspects will further amplify the effectiveness of your Centipede swarms. Additionally, the Menacing aspect will enhance your Scourge skill, extending its active duration. It’s critical to include the Apex passive for boosting vulnerability damage, along with the Exploit glyph from the Spiny Skin board. By combining the right equipment and enhancements, you will unleash a formidable Poison Centipede onslaught.
Essential Skills for the Poison Centipede Build
Key Skills to Focus On
As you prepare for the endgame in Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, prioritize augmenting poison damage and Thorns, while ensuring you have sufficient sustain. Skills you should focus on include Stinger, Touch of Death, Scourge, Armored Hide, and Rushing Claw. The Stinger skill is crucial and should be fully upgraded to enhance its poison damage, swarm spawning ability, and vulnerability application. This is your primary damage source, and reducing its cooldown is vital for benefiting from the Prodigy’s Tempo passive.
The defensive skill Scourge can be synergized with the Jacinth Shell chest armor to provide a significant damage boost while counteracting the life-draining drawbacks of the unique item.
Touch of Death becomes a formidable skill, enabling you to unleash a powerful poison attack. When paired with the Rod of Kepeleke, it becomes a free-casting nuke that generates potent swarms. Emphasizing this skill will maximize offensive and defensive capabilities.
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Scourge provides essential crowd control while applying poison effectively. Focus on extending its duration using the Menacing aspect and investing skill points for nearly constant uptime. The Adaptability aspect, which promotes life steal, adds another layer of sustain, further enhancing its overall effectiveness.
Armored Hide serves as your main source for Thorns and damage reduction. Fully upgrading it offers nearly 100% block chance, ensuring frequent thorn procs and substantial survivability. Coupled with the Bristleback aspect and enhanced Armored Hide abilities, you can deal devastating thorn damage. Additionally, Rushing Claw is vital for your mobility, helping you maneuver and evade attacks. While it isn’t a primary damage source, it maintains distance, activates Drive for damage, and keeps your Ferocity stacks elevated.
One vital component of this poison-centric build is the Noxious Resonance key passive, which enhances damage by up to 30% of your critical strike damage bonus. This passive also allows poisons to be applied instantly upon critical hits, dealing 100% damage immediately. These rapid swarm bursts can inflict serious damage quickly without waiting for the Touch of Death cooldown.
Endgame Poison Centipede Paragon Board
Optimal Paragon Board Selections
The Endgame Poison Centipede Paragon board emphasizes maximizing damage through Thorns, poison effects, and vulnerability damage. The initial board, Turf Glyph, prioritizes close-combat damage and reduction capabilities, aligning with the aggressive nature of this build.
Spiny Skin, the second board, focuses on enhancing Thorns damage linked to cooldowns, complemented by the Exploit glyph, which further amplifies damage against vulnerable foes. These aspects are critical to the overall effectiveness of your build in Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred.
The third board, Infighter, builds damage during dodges and blocks, which is essential for the defensive and offensive strategies of the build. The Vicious Shield, the fourth board, excels at utilizing barriers to enhance damage output via the Gorilla Spirit. Finally, the Drive board boosts damage through movement, complementing the high mobility afforded by your skills. This build relies heavily on stacking damage from multiple sources, making Paragon board choices crucial for achieving maximum damage potential. It’s builds like this that truly showcase Spiritborn as a leading class in Diablo 4.