The Rogue is for those that want to specialize in speed and maneuverability. The Rogue is the speediest and deadliest boss killer in the game. You can attack from afar with bows and crossbows or get up close and personal with daggers or swords. If this sounds like your type of combat, then let’s break down the best builds for Rogues in Diablo IV.
Having a hard time deciding which character class to choose? Go ahead and check out our ranking of all the classes in Diablo IV.
Key Takeaways for Rogue Builds:
- Shadow Imbuement and Penetrating Shot will be the bread and butter for the Dark Archer build.
- The Frigid Sniper uses cold abilities to slow enemies down.
- The melee build for The Twisted Blade relies on Shadow Step and the Twisting Blades abilities.
- The Bladedancer’s Aspect pairs nicely with the Twisted Blade build.
- Don’t forget to share your own build on the Z League app.
The Dark Archer
For this build, we will be focusing on the Penetrating Shot for the archer’s main attack and the Shadow Imbuement skill for some insane synergy. The Penetrating Shot will pierce all enemies in a line, and if at least 3 are hit, then the next Penetrating Shot will have a percentage chance to score a critical hit. Combine this with Shadow Imbuement, which infects enemies with festering shadows and your next imbueable skills will also inflict shadow damage. Infected enemies will explode upon death and deal damage to surrounding enemies, creating quite the blood bath. There is a nice satisfying chain reaction when combining both Penetrating Shot’s critical hits and Shadow Imbuement’s explosions. Adding the Trickshot Aspect on a bow for higher damage will allow the Penetrating Shot to shoot 2 arrows that split off on either side. You will be doing constant damage to surrounding enemies with this combination. When things get a little too chaotic, the Dash skill can come in handy so that the Rogue is not left vulnerable. For your Ultimate skill, both Rain of Arrows and Death Trap can be especially helpful. Death Trap will be useful for small groups of enemies as well as bosses. Rain of Arrows will add to the amount of AOE chaos that you are currently administering with this build.
The Frigid Sniper
For the second Rogue Archer build, we are going to focus on cold attacks and slowing down enemies so you can more easily annihilate them. Remember that cold damage will cause enemies to come chilled, slowing them down and also making them vulnerable to becoming frozen. Frozen enemies will take massive amounts of damage. Forceful Arrow is a good go-to basic attack and will make an enemy Vulnerable after every 3rd shot. Be sure to invest in Cold Imbuement so that the next 2 imbueable skills will deal cold damage and also chill enemies. Combine this with Methodical Caltrops, an upgraded form of Caltrops, and you will be able to lay an area of traps that will also deal cold damage and chill enemies. The idea is to first lay your Caltrops and have many enemies chilled or frozen, follow this up with Cold Imbuement, and unleash your Rapid Fire skill to freeze and chill even more enemies. Grab the Rain of Arrows Ultimate skill to decimate your foes and add insult to injury. Dash is always a good ability to have on hand when you need to get out of danger in a pinch. Mixing Frigid Finesse into the build is also recommended since it will increase damage dealt to chilled and frozen enemies.
The Twisted Blade
For our melee build, we are going for the Twisting Blades skill that pairs very nicely with the Bladedancer’s Aspect and Shadow Step. Twisting Blades allows the Rogue to impale enemies, which will take increased damage. When you upgrade to Advanced Twisting Blades the cooldown is reduced when the blades return to the Rogue depending on how many enemies the blades pass through. This is creating a boomerang effect. The Bladedancer’s Aspect will allow the blades to orbit around you while also dealing damage to enemies and pairs with the Advanced Twisting Blades cooldown perk. You will be constantly speeding up your cooldowns with this build. We recommend pairing this with Shadow Step which allows you to instantly move behind an enemy and stab them from behind. It also increases movement speed which will help you evade those pesky incoming attacks. You could pair this build easily with either Shadow Imbuement, which we discussed previously, or Poison Imbuement. Poison Imbuement allows your next two imbueable skills to deal poison damage and can stack nicely with Mixed Poison Imbuement. The Ultimate Skill Shadow Clone is a nice way to cap off the build, creating a clone that does a certain percentage of your normal damage.
Be sure to check out our other build guides for the Barbarian, Necromancer, Sorceress, and Druid.
