Most new Diablo 4 seasons add new unique items with different effects to each class when they are launched, so that the class can get more benefits based on the existing skills, and it is also more playable in the new season.
Although the new unique items seems are not necessary to be compared due to different applicability, they can also be compared to determine the “best item” in the current season based on the degree of benefit they provide to their class.
For Diablo 4 Season 9, the best unique item is likely to be Balazan’s Maxtlatl, which belongs to Spiritborn class, and this judgment is based on many aspects. We will introduce you to it below.
What Is Balazan’s Maxtlatl?
This item is a new Ancestral Unique Pants added for Spiritborn in Season 9. After adjustments in the PTR and subsequent patches, its affixes and unique power effects now include:
- + 309 - 430 Thorns.
- + 489 - 526 Maximum Life.
- + 107 - 121 Dexterity.
- + 2 - 3 to Bastion.
- Each attack will cause damage equal to 100 - 150% of your number of thorns to close enemies, and cause a poison effect equal to 100% of this damage within 3 seconds.
- Each time you use thorns to counterattack, the poison damage will increase by 100% within 5 seconds, up to 300%.
Although its unique power effect has been weakened to ensure the balance of the class experience, this still cannot stop Balazan’s Maxtlatl from making Spiritborn the dominant class in Season 9.
Additionally, if you want to get this item, you need to farm the bosses Varshan and Urivar in Torment difficulty. Although getting this item may be a long process, you can also earn more Diablo 4 gold during this period.
Suitable For Most Spiritborn Builds
For any piece of gear, no matter how powerful or rare it is, its single effect alone cannot change anything. Only when it is combined with relevant builds can it play a real role.
Take Balazan’s Maxtlatl as an example. In Season 9, its power lies in the perfect combination of Toxic Skin and Noxious Resistance, which amplifies the poison damage to the extreme.
In this way, enemies affected by the poison effect in combat will burst when they hit critically, taking 180% poison damage, and also dealing 20% poison damage to nearby enemies.
In general, Balazan’s Maxtlatl pants are designed to maximize your poison damage output by converting thorn damage in addition to increasing basic attributes.
From there, you can further combine Season 9’s seasonal power Horadric Spells to craft your own Spiritborn builds, or continue to utilize these reliable classic builds:
- Quill Volley Spiritborn
- Rake Spiritborn
- Crushing Hand Spiritborn
- Poison Thorns Spiritborn
- Thrash Spiritborn
By contrast, while Quill Volley has been around since the beginning of Spiritborn, the benefits of Balazan’s Maxtlatl make this build still the most worthwhile class to play in the new season.
The Old And New Best Items Are Changing Roles
From a seasonal perspective, Balazan’s Maxtlatl is the new best unique item, but for Spiritborn, Kepeleke Rod of Core was the key to helping the class dominate the game before Balazan’s Maxtlatl appeared.
Kepeleke Rod of Core is a unique item added by Vessel of Hatred for Spiritborn, and its main buff is to increase your damage output based on Vigor’s release and conume.
This allows powerful Spiritborn builds like Quill Volley to maximize their damage output by converting core skills into basic skills, making them free to cast and converting any unconsumed Vigor into guaranteed critical damage.
With the release of Balazan’s Maxtlatl, it further enriches the richness of Spiritborn builds with thorns and converted poison damage, and allows you to swap core skills and basic skills according to your preferences.
While these marks the end of Kepeleke Rod of Core era, the emergence of new powerful items also means that as the youngest class in the game, Spiritborn will not disappear due to the loss of novelty, but will be favored by players in Diablo 4 for a long time.
Impact On Other Unique Items
Perhaps the prominence of Balazan’s Maxtlatl makes you wonder if this has disrupted the balance of the game, but the effects of the existing 6 new unique items have been adjusted, and if there are still problems, it is not a defect of the items themselves.
In fact, the class balance experience of Diablo 4 has been questioned by players since Season 6. I believe you have also found that the old classes represented by Druid are always weakened unnecessarily. Although various optimizations have been made to restore it, it has to be said that the effect is not obvious.
There is no doubt that in the long run, the atmosphere of Diablo 4 game community and the game experience of players of weak classes will be negatively affected. Even for players of dominant classes, this imbalance is terrible.
Therefore, while you are happy about the reliability of Balazan’s Maxtlatl, you can also make suggestions to the game development team through various channels with other players to jointly maintain Diablo 4 better.
