In Diablo 4, the Rogue is a versatile class that can excel in both ranged and close-quarters combat. There are several builds available for the Rogue, each with its own unique playstyle and set of skills. Here are some of the most popular Rogue builds:
- Poison Flurry Build: The Poison Flurry Rogue is a melee build that focuses on delivering a rapid flurry of attacks to afflict multiple targets with vulnerability. This build is relatively straightforward to execute and adds a unique flavor to the Rogue class. In addition to dealing continuous poison damage over time, it incorporates various crowd control techniques to debilitate enemies and maximize critical damage output. Although it may not possess the same explosive nature as some other skills, it excels at steadily chipping away at the health of adversaries. This build combines the burst damage potential of Flurry with the lingering damage-over-time effect of Poison Imbuement, resulting in a methodical playstyle that rewards patience and strategic planning.
Look Through- Class: Rogue
- Primary Stats: Dexterity & Intelligence
- Specialization: Combo Points
- Active Skills: Puncture, Flurry, Dash, Caltrops, Poison Imbuement, Death Trap
- Passive Skills: Exploit, Malice
- Weapons: Prioritize Dual Wielded Weapons
- Armor: Prioritize Armor with desired Bonuses
- Bonuses Wanted: Dexterity, Intelligence, Poison Damage, Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Damage, Damage to Close Enemies, Damage to Slowed Enemies, Core Skill Damage, Cooldown Reduction, Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
- Legendary Aspects: Aspect of Encircling Blades, Aspect of Bursting Venoms, Cheat’s Aspect
The strategy behind this build involves engaging in fights by swiftly charging towards multiple targets using Dash. By utilizing Puncture three times, you can inflict the Slow and Vulnerable debuff, while also gaining sufficient energy. This skill also allows you to accumulate 3 Combo Points, enhancing the overall damage of Flurry. Prior to unleashing your main attack, it is recommended to imbue your dual-wielded weapon with poison, ensuring the destruction of the majority of your foes. Afterward, it is the perfect time to activate Flurry, which serves as both your major source of damage and a skill that restores a portion of your HP when hitting Vulnerable enemies. This standard rotation works effectively against mobs. Another approach is to start by running toward them and activating Caltrops, which not only sends you backward but also deals damage and inflicts Slow. Then, rush toward your enemies with Dash, followed by executing Puncture, applying Poison Imbuement, and finally unleashing Flurry. Alternatively, you can use Caltrops near the end of the encounter. If the need arises to disengage, you can opt for Caltrops instead of Dash, preventing enemies from reaching you. When dealing with elites and bosses, utilizing Death Trap is recommended. This skill pulls them within the AoE dealing massive damage even before unleashing Flurry and providing a distinct advantage from the start. Moreover, Death Trap has a faster cooldown compared to Shadow Clone.
Active Skills- Puncture: This skill is a valuable asset for the Poison Flurry Rogue Build, allowing you to damage enemies from a shorter range by throwing blades at them. Additionally, triggering Puncture three times ensures that your targets are consistently slowed down. Consider investing in Enhanced Puncture to gain energy and Fundamental Puncture to render targets Vulnerable for a few seconds. This Vulnerable status synergizes well with your other skills, enabling you to inflict greater damage.
- Flurry: This is the skill that will gain the damage boost provided by Puncture. It allows you to heavily strike enemies in front of you. Aside from maximizing Flurry, you’ll also want to unlock Enhanced Flurry and Improved Flurry. Enhanced Flurry will make it so that your HP is restored upon attacking Vulnerable targets. This becomes more effective with Improved Flurry, which then turns all nearby enemies Vulnerable, making them weak and susceptible to taking massive damage.
- Caltrops: This is a good engage and disengage skill for this Diablo IV Build that not only deals enough damage but also slows down enemies. With Enhanced Caltrops and Disciplined Caltrops, the chances of dealing Critical Damage become higher, especially when they’re Vulnerable.
- Dash: This is another gap closer that allows the Poison Flurry Rogue D4 Build to deal damage as you’re surging from one point to the next. You can also use it in dangerous situations when you need enough breathing room between you and your foes. For this build, you’ll want to invest in Enhanced Dash to deal Critical Damage together with Methodical Dash to reduce the skill’s cooldown when used against Crowd Controlled targets.
- Poison Imbuement: This allows you to convert this D4 Build’s damage into Poison Damage to deal DoT. With Enhanced Poison Imbuement and Blended Poison Imbuement, you not only raise the duration of Poison but also further increase the Poison Damage you deal with Critical Strikes.
- Death Trap: This ultimate deals a whopping 250% damage each against affected enemies, and is made all the more potent thanks to Prime Death Trap and Supreme Death Trap. Prime Death Trap creates a vacuum in the AoE to pull more foes whereas Supreme Death Trap rewards you by decreasing the skill’s cooldown from 50 seconds to 40 seconds as long as it slays a target. The more Death Trap kills, the faster you can trigger it again.
Passive Skills - Exploit: This skill increases the damage the Poison Flurry Rogue Diablo 4 Build deals against healthy and injured targets.
- Malice: This skill further amplifies your damage against Vulnerable enemies.
Aspects & Combos - Aspect of Encircling Blades: This aspect enhances the range of Flurry, enabling the build to inflict greater damage to nearby enemies, including those positioned at the side or behind you.
- Aspect of Bursting Venoms: This aspect increases the probability of creating a poisonous pool that deals damage over time to enemies standing on it, as long as you land critical hits using Poison Imbuement. Furthermore, when within the area of effect, Poison Imbuement’s cooldown is reduced to zero, allowing you to effectively activate the skill again sooner.
- Cheat’s Aspect: This defensive aspect reduces the damage taken by the Poison Flurry Rogue build from enemies affected by crowd control. Additionally, it grants an increase in movement speed when these enemies attack you.
- Shadow Sniper Build: The Shadow Sniper is a Rogue Build that emphasizes long-range combat and excels at taking down large packs of enemies using a Bow.
Look Through- Class: Rogue
- Primary Stats: Dexterity & Intelligence
- Specialization: Combo Points
- Active Skills: Forceful Arrow, Penetrating Shot, Dash, Dark Shroud, Shadow Imbuement, and either Death Trap or Rain of Arrows
- Passive Skills: Weapon Mastery, Shadow Crash, Consuming Shadows, Precision Imbuement
- Weapons: Serpent’s Bone Bow (Legendary) & Ghoul King’s Blade x2 (Legendary)
- Armor: Highest Armor with best bonuses
- Bonuses Wanted: Critical Strike Chance, Shadow Damage, Core Skill Damage, Dexterity, Energy Cost Reduction, Cooldown Reduction, Critical Strike Damage
- Legendary Aspects: Trickshot Aspect, Aspect of Volatile Shadows, Enshrouding Aspect, Aspect of the Adventurer, Edgemaster’s Aspect, Rapid Aspect, Aspect of Arrow Storms
The Shadow Sniper Build focuses on long-range combat and excels at dispatching groups of enemies using a Bow. The key aspect of this Build is utilizing the Trickshot ability, which causes Penetrating Shot to split into additional arrows on both sides upon hitting an enemy. These additional arrows deal a portion of the original arrow’s damage. It is highly recommended to have Trickshot on your Bow for maximum effectiveness. Dark Shroud plays a vital role in this Build, providing damage mitigation and survivability. It is advisable to refresh Dark Shroud before engaging in combat to ensure maximum protection. The Aspect of Volatile Shadows augments Dark Shroud by dealing damage around you when hit, especially useful when facing hordes of enemies and Shadow Imbuement is on cooldown. Dash serves both as an escape mechanism and a source of damage. Whenever possible, dash through enemies to inflict damage. While Dash can also be Shadow Imbued, Penetrating Shot is generally a more effective choice. For the Ultimate ability, you have two options. Rain of Arrows synergizes exceptionally well with Shadow Imbuement, resulting in devastating damage. However, it may be considered overkill since Rain of Arrows is already powerful even without imbuing it. Alternatively, you can choose Death Trap, which has a shorter cooldown and is more suitable for boss fights, which can be a weakness of this Build. The decision ultimately depends on your personal preference. To further enhance your performance, invest in the Precision Imbuement passive to increase Critical Chance for your imbued Penetrating Shots, increasing the likelihood of killing enemies and triggering explosions. Consuming Shadows is also recommended to assist with Energy management, particularly because Penetrating Shot consumes a significant amount of Energy. Even a single point in Consuming Shadows can refund the Energy cost of two imbued Penetrating Shots when used efficiently. To maximize damage output, you’ll utilize the Combo Point Specialization. By landing three Forceful Arrow shots, your Combo Point meter will be fully charged. Following this, activate Shadow Imbuement and unleash a Penetrating Shot into a crowd of enemies. The explosive effect of Shadow Imbuement triggers chain reactions, obliterating everything on the screen. Any remaining enemies can be dealt with using another Penetrating Shot. Shadow Imbuement doesn’t need to be used before every Penetrating Shot. If it’s on cooldown or there aren’t enough enemies, you can still use the skill effectively. However, keep in mind that having a full Combo Point meter boosts the damage of Penetrating Shot, so try to fill up your meter before firing. The Rapid Aspect can help increase the speed of Forceful Arrow, making it easier to achieve a full Combo Point meter.
- Cold Archer Build: The Cold Archer is a beginner Diablo 4 Rogue Build that you can use during the Diablo IV Beta to play as a pure archer that Freezes enemies, dealing increased damage to Frozen enemies. The primary objective of this Build is to apply Chill to enemies and eventually Freeze them. Each time an enemy is Chilled, they receive a certain percentage of Chill, and once it reaches 100%, they become Frozen, rendering them immobile until the Freeze effect wears off. The key to achieving this is to maximize the amount of Chill inflicted per second with skills like Methodical Caltrops or per hit with Cold Imbuement. By applying multiple sources of Chill to enemies, you can Freeze them at a faster rate. It’s important to note that this Build offers more than just crowd control. With the Frigid Finesse passive skill fully upgraded, you gain a 15% damage increase against Chilled enemies, which further rises to 30% if they are Frozen. Thus, Chilling and Freezing enemies not only provide crowd control but also enable you to dispatch them more swiftly. This emphasizes the need to apply Chill as quickly as possible.
Look Through- Class: Rogue
- Primary Stats: Dexterity & Intelligence
- Specialization: Combo Points
- Active Skills: Forceful Arrow, Rapid Fire, Caltrops, Dash, Cold Imbuement, Rain of Arrows
- Passive Skills: Weapon Mastery, Frigid Finesse, Chilling Weight, Precision Imbuement
- Weapons: Serpent’s Bone Bow (Legendary) & Ghoul King’s Blade x2 (Legendary)
- Armor: Highest Armor with best bonuses
- Bonuses Wanted: Critical Strike Chance, Damage to Slowed Enemies, Cold Damage, Core Skill Damage, Crowd Control Duration, Dexterity, Energy Cost Reduction, Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies, Cooldown Reduction
- Legendary Aspects: Aspect of the Protector, Aspect of Arrow Storms, Aspect of the Expectant, Aspect of the Umbral, Blast-Trappers Aspect, Aspect of Corruption, Ravenous Aspect, Rapid Aspect, Aspect of Shared Misery, Exploiter’s Aspect
This Build focuses on utilizing Dexterity to increase Skill Damage and Dodge Chance, as well as Intelligence to enhance Critical Strike Chance. Critical Strikes play a crucial role in the effectiveness of this Build .To initiate encounters with groups of enemies, start by deploying Caltrops with Methodical Caltrops. This skill not only inflicts Chill on enemies, slowing them down, but also deals Cold Damage. The longer enemies remain within the Caltrops, the closer they get to being Frozen, which is our ultimate objective. The Chill effect also prevents them from reaching you while preparing them for increased damage. Next, enhance your attacks with Cold Imbuement, causing your subsequent strikes to deal Cold Damage and Chill enemies upon impact. The Frigid Finesse skill is essential in this Build as it amplifies your damage against Chilled enemies, and this damage is doubled if they are Frozen. This allows you to aid in Freezing enemies who are not fully Frozen yet or eliminate those who are already Frozen. The choice of which skill to use next depends on the situation:- Dash: Use Dash to Freeze enemies or reposition yourself as needed. While it is more advantageous for repositioning, if Rapid Fire alone cannot achieve the Freezing effect, Dash can be utilized. Consider acquiring Methodical Dash to reduce its cooldown for more frequent usage.
- Caltrops: If Rain of Arrows is on cooldown or if the enemy group is not significant enough to justify its use, you can opt to throw a second set of Caltrops. This can help create distance or aid in finishing the Freezing process if necessary.
- Rapid Fire: This skill is ideal for thinning out a moderate number of enemies. It is most effective after enemies have been Frozen, as it excels at dealing damage to single targets rather than spreading Chill and Frozen effects.
- Rain of Arrows: If you are faced with a large group of enemies, employ Rain of Arrows to either freeze or eliminate the entire group. Consider obtaining the Prime Rain of Arrows skill as it enhances this ability. Keep in mind that Rain of Arrows has a long cooldown, so reserve it for substantial enemy groups.
When facing Elite or Boss enemies, a specific strategy comes into play. Start by attacking them three times with Forceful Arrow to build Combo Points and apply the Vulnerable condition, which increases the damage they receive. Then, activate Cold Imbuement and unleash Rapid Fire to quickly Freeze the Elite or Boss. Follow up with continuous Rapid Fire until the target is defeated. Mixed Cold Imbuement will enhance the damage of your second Imbued Rapid Fire, and the Elite or Boss should be significantly weakened at this point.It’s important to note that some Bosses are immune to Freezing and being Chilled, presenting a challenge for this Build. In such cases, the same combo can be employed, but Cold Imbuement becomes unnecessary. The Exploiter’s Aspect becomes valuable here, as it increases your damage against these Bosses to a similar extent as Freezing would. This allows you to still utilize this Build effectively in those situations.
- Twisting Blades Build: The Twisting Blades Rogue is an incredibly potent melee build that specializes in maximizing damage output through the devastating Twisting Blades skill. This build allows you to impale enemies, inflicting substantial initial damage, and then delivers additional piercing damage as the blades return to you. By activating this skill and maneuvering around the area, you can effectively target multiple nearby enemies. To further amplify both your protection and damage, the inclusion of the Bladedancer’s Aspect is recommended. With this aspect, Twisting Blades will orbit around you, offering enhanced defensive capabilities while simultaneously dealing even greater damage. This build stands out as an exceptionally powerful and burst-oriented choice for the Rogue class.
Look Through- Class: Rogue
- Primary Stats: Dexterity & Intelligence
- Specialization: Combo Points or Inner Sight
- Active Skills: Puncture, Twisting Blades, Shadow Step, Dash, Shadow Imbuement, Shadow Clone
- Passive Skills: Exploit, Shadow Crash, Consuming Shadows
- Weapons: Prioritize Dual Wielded Weapons
- Armor: Prioritize Armor with desired Bonuses
- Bonuses Wanted: Dexterity, Intelligence, Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Damage Bonus, Damage to Close Enemies, Damage to Slowed Enemies, Core Skill Damage, Energy Cost Reduction, Damage Reduction, Cooldown Reduction
- Legendary Aspects: Bladedancer’s Aspect, Aspect of Surprise, Ravenous Aspect
The core mechanics of this powerful build remain consistent regardless of the game you’re playing. To initiate combat, utilize Shadow Step to swiftly close the distance while attacking from a stealthy vantage point. By combining this with Shadow Imbuement, your damage is both enhanced and converted to potent Shadow Damage, effectively infecting your targets. Additionally, employing Puncture allows you to accumulate Combo Points for increased efficiency. Once you have successfully unleashed Puncture three times, activating Twisting Blades will deliver a devastating blow, boosting your damage output by nearly 90%. Lastly, the inclusion of Dash grants you the agility to swiftly navigate between groups of enemies, optimizing your positioning for maximum effectiveness. When facing formidable foes, employing the Inner Sight specialization enables you to forgo the repeated use of Puncture. Instead, focus on maintaining close proximity to your target to exploit their vulnerability and deliver punishing strikes. The overall skill rotation remains consistent, beginning with Shadow Imbuement followed by the relentless spamming of Twisting Blades until your energy is depleted. It is crucial to allocate skill points to the Shadow Clone ultimate, allowing you to summon a formidable shadow companion who mirrors your actions and aids you in battle.
Active Skills- Puncture: This skill enables you to hurl blades at your targets, inflicting damage and applying the Slow condition. In this Diablo IV Build, casting Puncture three times not only grants you additional energy through Enhanced Puncture but also enhances its effectiveness. Investing in Fundamental Puncture increases the number of blades thrown and amplifies the damage taken by enemies.
- Twisting Blades: This skill synergizes perfectly with Fundamental Puncture. By impaling Vulnerable enemies, you unleash significantly higher damage. As the blades return to you, they pierce through nearby targets, making it a devastating attack. Maximize this skill and unlock Enhanced Twisting Blades and Advanced Twisting Blades. Enhanced Twisting Blades boosts the damage while the blades are in transit, while Advanced Twisting Blades reduces the cooldown based on the number of enemies hit.
- Shadow Step: This skill grants you the agility of an assassin, increasing your Movement Speed and providing Unstoppable, allowing you to swiftly navigate between enemies without interruption. Allocate points to Enhanced Shadow Step for increased Critical Strike Chance and Methodical Shadow Step for stunning your foes.
- Dash: This skill serves as a gap closer, enabling you to swiftly move from one point to another while dealing damage. It can also be used for disengaging from fights. Enhancements for Dash are not necessary in this build.
- Shadow Imbuement: This skill converts your damage into potent Shadow Damage, infecting your targets. If an infected enemy dies, they explode, dealing AoE Damage to nearby foes. Investing in Blended Shadow Imbuement amplifies this damage. Additionally, if the infection ends without the target’s demise, they receive additional damage. Enhanced Shadow Imbuement is desirable for its increased chance to deal Critical Damage against affected enemies with reduced HP.
- Shadow Clone: This ultimate summons a shadow companion that replicates your actions, providing valuable assistance in battle. While their damage output may not be as powerful as yours, they prove beneficial, particularly when facing formidable opponents. Consider investing in Prime Shadow Clone, which grants Unstoppable each time the ultimate is activated.
Passive Skills- Shadow Crash: This skill raises the chances to potentially stun your targets when they take Shadow Damage.
- Consuming Shadows: This skill lets you generate considerable energy upon slaying enemies with Shadow Damage or Shadow Imbuement.
- Exploit: This skill increases the damage the Twisting Blades Rogue D4 Build deals against healthy and injured targets.
Aspects & Combos- Aspect of Surprise: This is a crowd control aspect that leaves behind grenades to stun clusters of enemies upon triggering Shadow Step.
- Bladedancer’s Aspect: This aspect makes it so that the blades, which have returned, orbit around you to deal extra damage. The new Orbit Damage is amplified further based on the enemies pierced by the boomerang effect.
- Ravenous Aspect: This aspect rewards this Diablo 4 Rogue Build with increased energy regeneration when a Vulnerable enemy is slain, which works hand-in-hand with Puncture.
It’s important to note that these builds are not set in stone and can be customized to fit your playstyle and preferences. Experiment with different skills and find the build that works best for you.