In the chaotic, bug-ridden history of Diablo 4, few things are more consistent than its tendency to let broken mechanics make it into live servers. Despite Blizzard introducing a Public Test Realm (PTR) to catch these issues early, some of the more insidious bugs still manage to slip through the cracks, wreaking havoc on the game's balance, economy, and server performance. And right now Diablo 4 Items, one class is at the center of it all: the Spiritborn.
Once considered the weakest option in the Season 9 meta, Spiritborn has been thrust into the spotlight-but not for the right reasons. Thanks to a wild combination of DOTs, server lag, and broken interactions, some players have discovered a way to literally bend time in high-tier content, allowing them to complete dungeons faster in-game than they do in real life. Let's break down what's happening, how it works, and why this might be the most broken exploit since the Vessel of Hatred fiasco.
The Spiritborn Bug: How Time Is Being Broken in Pit Runs
It starts with a pit run-a level 13 to 116 endgame dungeon designed to test both your damage and survivability under pressure. A player pulls a large pack of enemies around the 11-minute mark on the dungeon timer. Normally, you've got 15 minutes of in-game time to complete a pit run. But in this exploit scenario, despite the timer reading 11:00, real time drags on for over a minute while the player spams DOTs and poison attacks.
The result? The enemies take massive damage while the game appears to completely freeze, and the in-game timer barely ticks forward-dropping maybe 10 seconds while real-world time lapses for well over a minute. By the time the lag subsides, the enemies are dead, progress has jumped significantly, and the player still has nearly full in-game time to finish the rest of the dungeon. It's not just time-efficient; it's leaderboard breaking.
What's Causing This Time-Lag Exploit?
The core of this exploit lies in a few key elements:
Why This Is a Problem for the Game's Health
This isn't just a one-off curiosity. As of this writing, the player who used this mechanic has the second-highest Pit clear in the world at tier 116, and the only class ahead of them is a Sorcerer abusing another snapshot exploit.
These broken clears throw the leaderboards into chaos and completely invalidate any sense of fair progression for other players. Classes like Druid, Barbarian, and Necromancer-which can't abuse lag to stretch their dungeon timers-are falling behind.
It also reintroduces a familiar issue from Diablo 3 days: server lag used as a progression tool. In D3, area damage and group synergy would lag out servers so badly that players intentionally sought that behavior for higher clears. Now, we're seeing the same thing happen in D4, except with new mechanics like Touch of Death and poison-based Overpowering.
Double-Dipping Bugs and Item Duplication Concerns
Players are also using Mystic Circles, Jack Hall, and other season-based powers to double-dip on effects-something that's been flagged before but remains unpatched as of the latest PTR. There's a real concern this lag exploit could pave the way for:
With Season 9 live and a campfire chat scheduled for this Friday, there's still a chance Blizzard might hotfix the Spiritborn exploit-or at least acknowledge it. But history hasn't always been kind to swift responses. As Rob mentions, the exploit is still active in the PTR, meaning even internal testing hasn't identified it as a top priority.
The specific bug revolves around game logic failing to keep time when the server is overburdened. Fixing that requires significant backend work-not just a numerical rebalance or a stat nerf.
The Build Behind the Chaos
For those curious, here's what powers the so-called "Lagborn" build:
The full build allows the player to "stand still and win" while the server melts under the weight of its own calculations.
Final Thoughts: Fun or Fatal?
Watching a class "bend time" and melt bosses in real-time while the in-game clock barely moves is undeniably entertaining. It's the kind of wild, broken gameplay that draws clicks, laughs, and amazement from the community. But long-term? It's a disaster.
As fun as it is to see Spiritborn rise from the ashes, it's a rise tainted by technical flaws. Let's hope Blizzard puts a stop to it before the leaderboards, the economy cheap Diablo IV Items, and the integrity of the game collapse under the weight of another "fun but fatal" exploit.