Diablo 4: Endgame Rake Spiritborn Build

Diablo 4 introduces the Spiritborn class with its latest expansion, Vessel of Hatred, bringing fresh builds into the spotlight. Among these, the Endgame Rake Spiritborn build stands out for its rapid AoE capabilities. This build is crafted deliberately to maximize efficiency in high-paced scenarios, focusing on boosting Critical Strike Damage, Overpower Damage, and Dodge Chance for superior performance.

In this guide, we’ll delve into a comprehensive setup for the Endgame Rake Spiritborn build, covering everything from selecting the optimal Paragon Glyphs and Best in Slot Gear to effective Ability Point Distribution. Additionally, we’ll explore strategic Mercenary choices that synergize well with this build to enhance your gameplay in Diablo 4.

Why This Rake Spiritborn Build Is Viable

The Endgame Rake Spiritborn build shines primarily because of its effective use of the Rake ability, which stands out due to its potent damage output and reduced Vigor cost with each stack of Ferocity. This build emphasizes optimizing these traits through careful gearing, notably with the Duelist’s Aspect, allowing Rake to be cast frequently at little to no cost. This setup excels in AoE situations, making it perfect for quickly dispatching groups of enemies in dense scenarios like Infernal Hordes or the Pit.

While the Rake Spiritborn build delivers exceptional offensive capabilities, it does trade off some defensive strengths compared to other Spiritborn builds, lacking the Eagle’s mobility and the Gorilla’s robustness. To compensate, strategic use of Defensive Aspects and Elixirs is crucial to bolster survivability, especially during late-game content. Tailoring these defensive tools to fit specific encounters is essential to maximize this build’s effectiveness.

Ability Point Distribution For The Rake Spiritborn Build

Basic Abilities:
Start by allocating a minimal point into Thrash as your Basic ability, primarily for initial Vigor generation. Enhance it to unlock subsequent abilities but focus sparingly here as its use diminishes once your core mechanics are active.

• Thrash 1/5
• Enhanced Thrash

Core Abilities:
Invest heavily in Rake, the centerpiece of this build. Maximize Rake and its enhancements to fully leverage its damage potential and efficiency.

• Rake 5/5
• Enhanced Rake
• Rampant Rake
Further support your Vigor management and Rake’s efficiency with:
• Vigorous 3/3
• Balanced Exertion 3/3
• Velocity 3/3

Focus Abilities:
Utilize Vortex for crowd control, gathering enemies for effective Rake hits. Pair it with Ravager to boost Rake’s damage output.

• Vortex 1/5
• Enhanced Vortex
• Replenishing Vortex
• Ravage 5/5
• Enhanced Ravager
• Replenishing Ravager

Defensive Abilities:
Employ Counterattack not just for its defensive utility but also for its potent active effect in critical scenarios.

• Counter Attack 5/5
• Enhanced Counter Attack
• Reinforced Counter Attack
Enhance your resilience further with:
• Endurance 3/3
• Perseverance 3/3
• Fueled 3/3

Potency and Ultimate Abilities:
Though the Potency Node isn’t directly utilized for skills, its passives significantly amplify overall damage output.

• Brilliance 3/3
• Acceleration 3/3
• Potent 3/3
• Furnace 3/3
Choose Hunter as the Ultimate, maximizing all upgrades for optimal performance.
• Hunter 5/5
• Harmonious Hunter
• Exalted Hunter

Key Passive Abilities:
Select Vital Strikes if pairing with Aldkin for enhanced effects from Vulnerable conditions, or Prodigy’s Tempo with Subo for a rhythmic damage cadence.

• Depending on Mercenary: Vital Strikes or Prodigy’s Tempo

This strategic distribution of Ability Points harnesses the Jaguar skills’ potential while balancing defense and vigor management, ensuring the Rake Spiritborn build excels in AoE efficiency and high-paced combat scenarios.

Spirit Hall Configuration for the Rake Spiritborn Build

The Rake Spiritborn build capitalizes on the unique advantages offered by specific Spirit Hall choices, optimizing for speed and power:

Primary Spirit Choice: Eagle
The Eagle Spirit as the primary choice significantly enhances mobility and clear speed, which are crucial for high-paced gameplay. This choice ensures that all skills, including Jaguar skills, benefit from the Eagle’s movement speed boosts and interact favorably with key passive abilities such as Acceleration and Brilliance. This universal application of Eagle skills accelerates the build’s efficiency across multiple encounters.

Secondary Spirit Choice: Jaguar
Opting for the Jaguar Spirit in the secondary slot is strategic for this build, enhancing its core mechanics. The Jaguar Spirit boosts Ferocity generation on kills and, crucially, increases the maximum stacks of Ferocity. Maximizing Ferocity is central to unleashing the full potential of the Rake skill, amplifying its damage output and making each strike more lethal. This synergy between the primary Eagle and secondary Jaguar spirits melds mobility with raw power, making the Rake Spiritborn build formidable in both solo and group play.

Together, these Spirit Hall choices weave a dynamic playstyle that leverages swift movement and potent strikes, ideal for players looking to dominate with agility and strength.

Optimal Gear for the Rake Spiritborn Build

The Rake Spiritborn build in Diablo 4 requires specific gear to maximize its effectiveness. One particular Aspect is critical to the build’s functionality, while additional gear can further enhance both survivability and clearing speed. Here’s what you should aim for to fully optimize this build:

Essential Aspect
There is one indispensable Aspect that this build depends on to function at its peak. Ensuring this Aspect is part of your setup is crucial for the success of the Rake Spiritborn build.

Supportive Gear
While the core Aspect is vital, the build’s efficiency can be significantly increased with the right combination of supportive gear. These items should enhance your defensive capabilities and increase your ability to clear areas swiftly.

Uniques for Enhanced Performance
Although not mandatory, certain Unique items can bring substantial benefits to the Rake Spiritborn build. These Uniques should be targeted as they become available to augment your build’s power, particularly in terms of increasing damage output and improving resilience against tough enemies.

By strategically assembling the best-in-slot gear, you can fine-tune the Rake Spiritborn build to excel in the most challenging scenarios Diablo 4 has to offer, making it a powerhouse in both offense and defense.

Optimal Gear Setup for the Rake Spiritborn Build in Diablo 4

Essential Gear and Aspects

For the Rake Spiritborn build, certain equipment pieces are indispensable for maximizing effectiveness:

• Banished Lord’s Talisman: This unique amulet enhances core skills and boosts Overpower and Critical Strike damage, crucial for leveraging the build’s frequent ability usage.
• Mother’s Embrace: Vital for sustaining Rake’s use through resource refunds, while also improving key stats such as Attack Speed and Critical Strike Chance.
• Peacemonger’s Signet: Essential for generating Resolve with every Ferocity gain, significantly boosting survivability.

Mythic Uniques

• Nesekem, the Herald: Often overlooked, this Mythic Unique synergizes well with the build by enhancing Overpower and Critical Strike impacts, substantially increasing boss damage without sacrificing a Legendary slot.

Key Aspects

• Duelist’s Aspect: Increases Ferocity cap, crucial for this build’s damage output.
• Aspect of the Crowded Sage and Aspect of Assimilation: Both enhance dodge chance and provide benefits like Fortify and Healing on successful dodges, increasing tankiness.

Secondary Gear Choices

• Wind Striker’s Aspect: Boosts dungeon clearing efficiency.
• Aspect of Wild Claws: Random extra Rake casts enhance AoE capability.
• Blood Boiling Aspect and Aspect of Potent Exchange: These options bolster Overpower effects and resolve generation, respectively.

Stat Priorities
When selecting gear, focus on enhancing the following stats, listed in order of importance:

• Increase Rake and Counterattack skill ranks.
• Aim for high Armor and Resistance to bolster defenses.
• Boost Dexterity, Dodge Chance, and Maximum Life for agility and survivability.
• Enhance Attack Speed, Critical Strike Damage, and Overpower Damage for offensive capabilities.

Tempering Choices

• Prioritize increasing Rake’s area of effect and Ravager’s duration upon kills.
• Maximize Dodge Chance and consider gear modifications that trigger additional Rake applications.

Gems & Runewords

• YulXan - Pugilist’s Extinction: A runeword that ensures Critical Strikes and Overpowers on cooldown-based abilities, ideal for maximizing damage output.
• Diamonds and Skulls: Use these in armor and jewelry to enhance defensive stats or cap resistances.

This comprehensive guide provides a detailed overview of the necessary gear and modifications to excel with the Rake Spiritborn build in Diablo 4, offering a balanced approach to offense and defense for high-level play.

Optimizing Paragon Boards for the Rake Spiritborn Build

Setting up the Paragon Boards for the Rake Spiritborn is crucial for enhancing the build’s effectiveness. Here’s how to strategically select and order your nodes for optimal performance:

Paragon Board Node Prioritization:

• Fitness: Start here to enhance basic survivability and resource management.
• In Fighter - Exploit: Focus next on this node to maximize damage output through exploitation of enemy weaknesses.
• Revealing - Spirit: Improves spiritual abilities, enhancing core skills like Rake for better performance.
• Bitter Medicine - Hone: Sharpens defensive tactics, providing resilience in prolonged battles.
• Sapping - Turf: Increases control over the battlefield, essential for positioning and crowd management.

Glyph Progression Strategy:
To maximize your build’s potential, level up your glyphs by focusing first on expanding their influence to their initial radius, then proceed to enhance them fully in this order:

1. Fitness - for a strong foundation in health and recovery.
2. Spirit - to boost the effectiveness of spirit-based abilities.
3. Hone - to refine your defensive maneuvers.
4. Exploit - to increase damage against vulnerable foes.
5. Turf - for better area control and tactical advantages.

This methodical approach ensures each aspect of your Rake Spiritborn build is progressively enhanced, maintaining a balance between offense, defense, and utility as you advance in Diablo 4. For a visual guide or more detailed configuration, refer to the Diablo 4 Build Planner’s Paragon Section linked in the article above.

Choosing Mercenaries and Reinforcements for the Rake Spiritborn Build

For the Rake Spiritborn build, selecting the right Mercenary and Reinforcement is essential to maximize effectiveness and survivability.

Mercenary Selection:
The choice of Mercenary can significantly influence your combat strategy:

• Aldkin: Ideal for enhancing direct combat capabilities, choose key passives like Paranoia or Condemned to augment your offensive tactics.
• Subo: Offers versatility in engagements. Depending on your play style, opt for Pin Cushion for enhanced Core skill damage or Bargaining Chip for tactical advantages.

Reinforcement Strategy:
Raheir stands out as the preferred Reinforcement for this build due to his crucial battlefield roles:

• Provoke Ability: Configure Raheir’s Provoke to activate when you are injured, drawing enemy attention away from you and reducing incoming damage. This not only enhances your survivability but allows you to maintain offensive pressure without interruption.

This combination of Mercenary and Reinforcement aligns perfectly with the Rake Spiritborn’s requirements, providing a balanced mix of offense and defense to thrive in Diablo 4’s challenging encounters.

Conclusion

The Endgame Rake Spiritborn build in Diablo 4 offers a dynamic and powerful approach to gameplay, focusing on maximizing damage output through effective use of the Rake ability and strategic stat allocation. This build excels in AoE scenarios, making it perfect for clearing dense packs of enemies and thriving in high-level content. By carefully selecting equipment, Aspects, and Mercenary support, players can optimize this build to suit both their play style and the challenges of the endgame. Whether you’re navigating through Infernal Hordes or tackling the depths of the Pit, the Rake Spiritborn build provides the tools necessary for success, combining survivability with devastating attack capabilities.