Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred Quill Volley Spiritborn Build Guide

In general, Spiritborn builds soar above other classes and there are few builds that aren’t competitive at the highest tier of Difficulty in Diablo 4. But above all others is the Quill Volley build, especially after nerfs to the Eagle Evade Spiritborn build that fixed a bug causing Evade to be able to be cast faster than it should have.

The Quill Volley Spiritborn build in Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred relies on a few Uniques and Aspects to really take off, but it’s perfectly viable as a leveling build as you put together the pieces. This guide explains the ins and outs of this best Spiritborn build including the skills, Aspects, uniques, Runewords, Mercenaries, Gear, and other tips to keep in mind as you create the Spiritborn Quill Volley build.

Updated October 28, 2024 by Erik Petrovich: The D4 Quill Volley Spiritborn build is still the reigning champion of the best builds currently available in Diablo 4, especially when it comes to deep endgame content in high Torments. It’s got survivability, immense damage output, high mobility, and everything else you could want on the best D4 Spiritborn Build, but you won’t get far without knowing how to spend your Paragon Points. This guide to the best Quill Volley build Spiritborn Diablo 4 players can make has been updated with information to get you on the right foot in the endgame with suggestions for Paragon boards and Glyphs. Refer to this new section when you reach Max Level to figure out where you should focus your Paragon Points as a D4 Spiritborn Quill Volley build and to figure out which Glyphs you should use on each recommended Board.

Quill Volley Spiritborn Skill Tree & Spirit Hall

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Skills For Quill Volley Spiritborn Build

The Quill Volley build Diablo 4 Spiritborn players can work towards is based on the eponymous Quill Volley Core Skill. When cast the Spiritborn will launch out Feathers in front of them in a cone, which will inflict Vulnerable and receive more Feathers per cast with the upgrade nodes recommended above.

With the right backup skills and abilities, it turns from a relatively good Core Skill to a life-melting shotgun-like ability that you will be able to cast at near-max Attack Speed.

• First, put 1x points into the Rock Splitter Basic Skill and 1x point in the Enhanced Rock Splitter node to get passive Vigor regeneration when you Block. You do not actually need to slot this ability to gain this passive benefit.
• In the Core Skills area, take the Quill Volley Skill and fully upgrade it. Choose the Enhanced and Replenishing Quill Volley nodes to trigger Vulnerable and gain more Feathers.
  • You should also pick up Balanced Exertion and Vigorous in this area of the skill tree.
• For Focus Skills, fully level up your Ravager Skill, but only put one point into Vortex. Ravager is essential for increasing Attack Speed and mobility as a Spiritborn, while Vortex ensures that all of your enemies are grouped together for optimal speed farming, so you only need 1 point.
  • Pick the Mirage, Unrestrained Power, Focal Point, and Apex passive skills in this area.
• There are three Defensive Skills that you should put 1x Skill Point into for the Quill Volley build, but you only need to slot two of them into your skill bar.
  • Armored Hide and Scourge are used as your main Defensive Cooldown and a source of Healing and burst DPS, respectively. But Counterattack is used just for the passive Dodge chance. You should still upgrade this as you can double dip on the Counterattack dodge passive with one of the unique options for this build.
  • Pick up the Endurance, Perseverance, Auspicious, and Patient Guard passives in the Defensive area.
• You should choose the Resilient, Brilliance, Furnace, and Potent passive skills in the Potency area of the Spiritborn Skill Tree. But we don’t need any Active skills from this zone.
• For your Ultimate choice, go with The Hunter. With the Jacinth Shell equipped, and with the Key Passive recommended below, you will be able to cast The Hunter as often as – if not more often than – your other regular Cooldowns.
  • The Hunter boosts your damage astronomically and has its own passive Cooldown reduction, and has up to 3x Charges, allowing us to gain the full benefits of the Ultimate passive skills like Supremacy.

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Quill Volley Spiritborn Key Passive: Prodigy’s Tempo

Prodigy’s Tempo is the best Quill Volley Key Passive skill because it both increases the outright effectiveness of your Skills and reduces Cooldowns incredibly fast. With this, every 3rd consecutive cast of the same Basic Skill will increase all of your Skill Ranks by 2 for 5 seconds.

Additionally, every 3rd cast of the same Core Skill reduces all cooldowns by 10%. With the Uniques recommended for this build (which turns your Core Skills into Basic Skills), you gain both of these benefits with every 3rd cast of Quill Volley, significantly boosting your damage and significantly reducing Cooldowns to counteract the Jacinth Shell effect.

Best Spirit Hall Choice: Jaguar & Gorilla

With the Jaguar Spirit Hall, we turn all of our skills into Jaguar skills, and gain a massive damage boost with every 15th hit on an enemy. This should be your primary Spirit Hall choice for the Quill Volley Diablo 4 build as it triggers a lot more often than you would think, especially when you get Attack Speed high with Ferocity stacks.

Your secondary Spirit Hall choice should be the Gorilla. The Gorilla Spirit Hall, as a Secondary choice, increases your Max Resolve stacks by 2 and grants Unstoppable while above 5 Resolve.

This is a nice little bonus on its own, but with the Harmony of Ebewaka unique (and the Unyielding Hits Aspect), having this as your secondary choice makes it so that all of your Skills grant a massive Weapon Damage bonus when cast – and you will be using cooldowns a lot with this build.

Quill Volley Spiritborn Build Aspects & Uniques

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Quill Volley Spiritborn Unique Options

• Jacinth Shell
  • Reduces cooldowns rapidly at the cost of draining Life rapidly. Also heals when you spend Vigor, which the Rod of Kepeleke triggers a lot when spending Max Vigor on a cast.
• Rod of Kepeleke
  • Adds the Basic tag to all Core Skills and makes them completely free to cast, allowing us to spam Quill Volley. Damage is slightly reduced, but when cast at Max Vigor, you get extra Crit Damage based on each point spent. This is an essential part of the Quill Volley build as without it you wouldn’t be able to spam the namesake ability.
• Ring of the Midnight Sun
  • When you Crit an enemy, you regain a chunk of Vigor spent in the last two seconds, and gain Counterattack’s passive (Dodge). This is essential for this build because, in conjunction with Crit Chance boosting effects to offset the Rod of Kepeleke it allows the Spiritborn to maintain 100% Vigor and the maximum damage buff from the Rod of Kepeleke at all times
• Harmony of Ebewaka
  • All skills gain your secondary Spirit Hall choice type, which deal extra damage based on how many different types of Spirit are assigned to it. With the Jaguar and Gorilla, this means you have at least 3x Spirit Halls associated for every skill tripling the listed boost.

Quill Volley Spiritborn Paragon Boards & Glyphs

Best Quill Volley Spiritborn Paragon Board Choices & Legendary Nodes

Best Quill Volley Spiritborn Glyphs

• Fulminate Glyph Basic Effects: Increases Lightning Damage for every 5x Intelligence in range.
  • Additional Bonus: (Requires 25 Dexterity in range). Deal bonus Lightning damage to Healthy and Injured enemies.
  • Legendary Bonus: Increases Lightning damage.
• Menagerist Glyph Basic Effects: Boosts Magic Nodes in range.
  • Additional Bonus: (Requires 40 Dexterity in range). Increases damage by 4% for each of the four Spirit Hall skills, once per spirit.
  • Legendary Bonus: Increases Incarnate Skill damage.
• Fitness Glyph Basic Effects: Increases Crit Damage for every 5x Dexterity in range.
  • Additional Bonus: (Requires 40 Dexterity in range). Critical Hits with Skills generate 3 Vigor.
  • Legendary Bonus: Increases Crit Damage further.
• Colossal Glyph Basic Effects: Increases damage with Gorilla Skills for every 5x Strength in range.
  • Additional Bonus: (Requires 25 Strength in range). Boosts Damage for every stack of Resolve.
  • Legendary Bonus: Increases damage to Close enemies
• Talon Glyph Basic Effects: Boosts damage with Eagle Skills for every 5x Dexterity in range.
  • Additional Bonus: (Requires 40 Dexterity in range). Deal increased Crit Damage with Eagle Skills.
  • Legendary Bonus: Boosts Lightning Damage further.

Quill Volley Spiritborn Runewords & Mercenaries

Best Quill Volley Spiritborn Runewords

• Runeword 1: PocQue
  • Requires Poc and Que Legendary Runes
  • Place into Head sockets instead of Gems
  • Effect: Spent 5% Resources to generate 5 Offering (Overflow generates more). At 300 Offering, the Druid’s Earthen Bulwark is cast for free.
• Runeword 2: CirGar
  • Requires Cir and Gar Runes
  • Place into Pants sockets instead of Gems
  • Effect: Cast the same spell 3x in a row to boost Crit Chance

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Best Mercenaries for Quill Volley Spiritborn

• Primary Hired Mercenary: Raheir
  • Armor and Fortify boost, Stun abilities, and enormous damage negation every 30 seconds
• Best Reinforcement Mercenary: Varyana
  • Set to cast Earth Breaker every time you cast a Skill

Quill Volley Spiritborn Stats, Affixes, & Gems

Primary Stats: Dexterity & Strength

Almost all Spiritborn builds focus primarily on stacking as much Dexterity as possible. For Spiritborn, the Dexterity stat increases your Skill Damage and Dodge Chance, essential to make this build work.

By Torment 4 you want to be pushing the 3000 to 4000 Dexterity range, but as long as you have affixes on your gear (and Paragon points) to boost this while pushing lower Tiers, you should do fine.

For your second main stat, Strength is a good contender as every point in Strength translates to Armor and Critical Strike Chance. But you can gain Armor other ways, and your Critical Strike chance is better improved via gear and Spiritborn Skills. It’s worth re-rolling affixes and hunting for new gear if you have more Strength bonuses than Dex on your gear.

Quill Volley Spiritborn Affix Priority

• Crit Chance
• Resource Generation
• Max Resource
• Attack Speed
• Movement Speed
• Damage Reduction
• Ranks for Quill Volley
• Basic/Core Damage

Best Gems For Quill Volley Spiritborn

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Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred

Released

October 8, 2024

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Genre

Action RPG

ESRB

Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language

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