Stinger Spiritborn Leveling Guide for Diablo IV Season 12 - Slaughter

The Season 10 theme is Infernal Chaos. Infernal portals have sprung up in Helltides, Nightmare Dungeons and Infernal Hordes. Killing the enemies that spring forth grants Infernal Warp (Seasonal Currency) and progresses the Seasonal Questline, where you unlock Chaos Perks. You can equip any combination of 3 Magic, Rare and Legendary Perks. You can also have one Unique Perk, unlocked by killing Bartuc in the Infernal Hordes starting in Torment 1.

• Alacrity is great for extra speed.
• Invigorating Attacks instantly fills our resources regularly.
• Accelerating Chaos adds free damage and a little bit of cooldown recovery to keep up buffs.

• During leveling, you most likely won't have access to any unique perks, but if you do, go for Chaos Unleashed to get even more random explosions for better AoE clear.

• Erupting Chaos can give even more Chaotic Burst synergies for random extra damage.
• Crazy Brew can be included for a big damage cooldown.

To get started as a Stinger Spiritborn, focus the most on upgrading your weapon as its damage is the base for all further damage calculations. Otherwise, follow the priority list below. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage, Damage to Close, Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life, Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful.

Tip: For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you are twinking. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.

The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist. They unlock after completing specific Dungeons located around Sanctuary or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.

For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.

Must-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Pestilence (Hallowed Stones - Nahantu)

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Haste (Seething Underpass - Nahantu)
2. Turbulence (Ruined Wild - Nahantu)

Other useful Aspects (drop/gamble)

1. Infestation
2. Starlight
3. Unyielding Hits
4. Layered Wards
5. Interdiction
6. Duelist's
7. Raider's

What to Gamble

Great Uniques for this build

1. Rod of Kepeleke
2. Harmony of Ebewaka
3. Ring of the Midnight Sun
4. Peacemonger's Signet
5. Mother's Embrace

As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can massively amplify your power and speed up the leveling by switching to another build. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:

Build-defining Uniques

1. Sepazontec (enables Rock Splitter Endgame Builds)
2. Loyalty's Mantle (greatly enhances multiple Endgame Builds)
3. Jacinth Shell (greatly amplifies multiple Endgame Builds)
4. Balazan's Maxtlatl (enables powerful Thorns/Poison Endgame Builds)

You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Stinger Spiritborn focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

• Cem + Lum - An easy solve for resources that you can just refill when evading
• Cir + Tal - Spawns more swarms to synergize with the build

Alternative choices

If you have access to higher level runes, you can also explore the following options:

• Tam - Great source of offering
• Que - Earthen Bulwark helps with defense and later synergy with Viscous Shield
• Poc - Another way of generating offering
• Xal - For extra defense
• Ohm - War Cry provides a damage buff
• Thul - The Freeze adds more defense and an extra damage buff
• Wat - It's a good combo to trigger the cheap Decrepify to then trigger another rune with Xol
• Jah - Allows us to go faster with free Teleport

Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.

She grants extra attack speed (cap 1) with Hysteria but more importantly a ton of healing via Taste of Flesh. In addition to keeping us alive, it also fuels Replenishing Ravager to keep going effectively permanently.

We choose Field of Languish for extra damage reduction.

In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.

As you approach level 60 with the Stinger Spiritborn, you unlock higher item power gear that represents a massive jump in character power. This is a good time to refresh your setup with new tempers and imprints.

At level 60, Paragon Levels and The Pit unlock. Work towards Tier 10 to enter Torment 1, where the Endgame begins. Focus on overcapping your Armor (1000+) and Resistances (75%+) as you receive some penalties to your character's stats:

• -250 Armor per Torment difficulty
• -25% All Resistances per Torment difficulty

At this point, your setup should look roughly like this before you dive into min/maxing with Uniques, Mythics & Masterworking. With better gear, more levels and Glyphs, you can push further and eventually unlock higher difficulties for increased rewards.

This step marks the end of the leveling guide. Below is the Paragon setup to get you started in Torment difficulty, but ideally, you should now transition towards the endgame version of this build or choose another of your liking.

Use the slider to see progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.

To Level 15

1. Wildfire*
2. Fitness
3. Spirit
4. Hubris
5. Colossal

To Level 46

1. Spirit
2. Hubris
3. Fitness
4. Colossal
5. Wildfire

* While we don't benefit from the Fire damage for this build, the cooldown reduction effect triggered with Ravager is so strong that we give up this Glyph slot for it.

This video is still largely the same as the written guide, but different for the endgame version.