Speedy, combo-heavy, and versatile, Rogues slink through the background in Diablo IV while unleashing a storm of poisons and shadow magic. Rogues are universal in their gameplay, able to get up close and personal or maintain a fair distance using bows or crossbows instead. But what’s the best path to take when building your Rogue in Diablo IV?
Diablo IV has a branching skill tree that allows you to experiment with different builds, and Rogues have a versatile gameplay style that lets you play a ranged or close-ranged playstyle. This guide will go over three different builds for your Rogue: the Penetrating Shot ranged build, the Flurry build, and the Death Trap build.
1: Penetrating Shot Rogue Build - Levels 1 - 15
Your Penetrating Shot build will always start with your “Basic” skill, essentially, what you’ll use in between the cooldowns of your “Core” skill. Start by leveling up the Forceful Arrow skill. Every 3 shots with a Forceful Arrow will leave enemies Vulnerable, and you can enhance this ability with Enhanced Forceful Arrow and Fundamental Forceful Arrow for extra damage.
After that, you can start building your “Core” skill, and the skill your entire build will revolve around. Penetrating Shot fires an arrow that pierces through enemies in a line. When fighting huge groups of mobs, this can equate to a heck-ton of AoE damage. After spending five points here, we’ll get the Enhanced Penetrating Shot and Improved Penetrating Shot.
Don’t neglect the Weapon Mastery passive, which can increase your damage immensely.
Penetrating Shot Rogue Build: Levels 16 - 50
After clearing the Rogue Class quest, be sure to invest one point in Dash, followed by Enhanced Dash (increases Crit DMG taken by enemies hit by this ability) and one of Methodical Dash or Disciplined Dash. Dash is our movement ability, which increases our movement and applies some debuffs. Get the passives Concussive, Exploit, and Malice.
The Rogue specializes in imbued skills, which allows you to add an effect to your Core skill. The most important imbuement is Poison Imbuement, followed by Shadow Imbuement. Upgrade Poison Imbuement up to Blended Poison Imbuement. We also want the Precision Imbuement passive here.
We’ll actually ignore the Ultimate ability, but we want to pick up some passives here. Grab Adrenaline, Haste, Innveration, and Impetus. For your Key Passive, get Precision.
2: Flurry Rogue Build: Levels 1 - 15
Flurry is a reliable Melee build for the Rogue, allowing you to slash with a flurry of blades and daggers at nearby enemies. We’ll start with Invigorating Strike for the energy regen and grab up to Fundamental Invigorating Strike.
Grab our “Core” skill here, the Flurry, and put five points here. From here, we will take the upgrade path that leads to Improved Flurry. As this is a melee build, we’ll want to invest in some defensive and movement speed passives. All the passives here, Sturdy, Siphoning Strikes, and Stutter Step are important to grab.
Like with Penetrating Shot, we’ll also want the Weapon Mastery passive for extra damage.
Flurry Rogue Build: Levels 16 - 50
After finishing the Rogue class quest, we’ll want to start getting our imbuements ready to buff up Flurry’s potential. However, let’s grab our movement ability, first. Instead of Dash, we’ll get Shadow Step and work up to Methodical Shadow Step for some crowd control. Don’t forget to upgrade Weapon Mastery here, and consider also getting Concussive.
The Subterfuge skills were not as useful on the Penetrating Shot rogue, but it’s a necessity for the Flurry rogue. Dark Shroud is preferred, as it also provides some damage reduction, but you can also opt for Concealment. Pick up Exploit and Malice here.
For your imbuements, Poison skill remains supreme, up to Poison Imbuement. Be sure to pick up the passives here that improve Poison damage, Deadly Venom, Debilitating Toxins, and Alchemical Advantage. We will want Precision Imbuement if possible.
In the Ultimate skill tree, grab Adrenaline, Haste, Innveration, and Impetus. Pick Momentum for your key passive.
3: Poison Trap Rogue Build: Levels 1 - 15
The idea of the Poison Trap build is to turn your enemies into goo, investing in traps as your main source of damage. This is a fun Rogue build that leans into the trapper fantasy. We want to start with Puncture and build into Fundamental Puncture for our basic skill.
Now, because we are relying on traps for the majority of our damage, we still need a Core Skill to use while traps are on cooldown. Building Penetrating Shot can lean into the group potential of Poison Trap. Build into Improved Penetrating Shot. We can skip Weapon Mastery since most of our damage comes from traps.
Poison Trap Rogue Build: Levels 16 - 50
The best movement ability to pick up here is Dash, up to Disciplined Dash. The next tree is where our build begins to shine. Level up Poison Trap and build up to Subverting Poison Trap. Build either Smoke Grenade or Concealment, up to Subverting Grenade or Concealment. Pick up Exploit, Malice, and Agile like usual. Put three points in Deadly Venom.
Get the Death Trap ultimate up to Supreme Death Trap. From here, be sure to max out Trap Mastery and also pick up Innervation. Our key passive will be Exposure. For your remaining points, you can opt to imbue Penetrating Shot with a Poison Imbuement to add up some more poison damage.
Rogue class quest and Combo Points
After hitting Level 15, you’ll have access to the Rogue class quest: “Rogue: True Potential.” This is a notably shorter class quest than some of the other ones in the game, tasking you with finding an NPC named Bakira in a faraway dungeon. You’ll have to fight the ghost of Bakira in this dungeon. Following the conclusion of this quest, you’ll gain access to Combo Points.
Combo Points are a unique Specialization that allows you to earn points after using your Basic Skill. After you gain points, your Core Skill will then consume these points to trigger bonus effects. For instance, consuming three Combo Points with your Penetrating Shot will improve its damage and Lucky Hit chance.
Diablo IV builds are infinite in possibilities and playstyles, and the Rogue is no exception. These builds are just one of many and are just a small peek into the many different possible builds you can make for Rogues. There are plenty of other Core Skills the Rogue has that you can build into, so be sure to experiment and find the best build that suits you and your play style.