Best Diablo 4 Rogue builds: Penetrating Shot and Twisting Blades AOE damage

These are the skills and aspects you’ll need for the best rogue build in early Diablo 4.

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The bestDiablo 4Rogue build that will sweep through demons and bosses on your way to the endgame depends on your playstyle. Bow lovers will want to take a look at the Penetrating Shot build we’ve put together, but stabby Rogues can just as easily pick up Twisting Blades and see a similar amount of success.

Diablo 4 classes start out very versatile and start to narrow down as you get closer to level 50. As you spend points in the skill tree, it gets more expensive and more of a hassle to swap them around. You don’t need to fully commit to the builds here, but if you want to feel confident that you won’t have to waste too much gold perfecting your build, we’ve got you covered.

Best Rogue ranged build guide: Penetrating Shot

Rogue rating:🗡️🗡️🗡️Pros:Quickly carving through large groups of enemies in dungeons.Cons:Suffers in single-target and can feel slow under level 30.

The best Diablo 4 Rogue ranged build only sort of feels like playing a Rogue. Penetrating Shot is certaintly shot from a bow but it acts like a magical bolt of energy rather than a powerful arrow. But what this build lacks in classic Rogue fantasy, it makes up for in sheer power when it comes to obliterating weak enemies.

Think of this build as a bunch of tools to apply Vulnerable to enemies and to fill time between your Penetrating Shots. Vulnerable is a status effect that makes enemies take 20% extra damage and it’s the primary reason your Penetrating Shots will nearly insta-kill weak enemies.

Like many Diablo 4 builds, think of this one as a framework for your Rogue. Don’t be afraid to tweak it if you pick up a particularly powerful piece of gear orLegendary Aspect.

Skills

You can pick up Poison Imbuement, but it’s mostly only useful on bosses for its damage over time effect. Boss fights in Diablo 4 don’t give you a lot of time to stand still and shoot, so having ticking poison on a boss while you dodge attacks can help a ton.

For this build you don’t actually need an ultimate skill, so save your skill points for investing in passives instead.

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🗡Apply Dark Shroudat the start of a fight.🗡Use Shadow Imbuementto imbue your next skills.🗡 Use onePenetrating Shotfollowed by aDashto spread your shadow imbuement to the group of enemies.🗡 Weave together three basic skillPuncturesfollowed byPenetrating Shotto take advantage of combo points and repeat.🗡 Reapply Shadow Imbuement and Dark Shroud as available off cooldown.

Passives and Specialization

At level 15, specialize inCombo Points. As noted in the playstyle above, you’ll stack Combo Points with your basic skill puncture and deal increased damage with your core skill Penetrating Shot.

Here are the passives you’ll want to pick to synergize with all the vulnerability application in this build:

As with the melee build below, the Key Passive at the end of your skill treeVictimizewill causes Vulnerable enemies to explode.

Aspects

Best Rogue melee build guide: Twisting Blades

Rogue rating:🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️🗡️Pros:A defensive melee build with loads of movement.Cons:Suffers in single-target fights where movement is limited.

Say what you will about glass cannon classes, but the melee rogue build can help you actually survive at close range while dealing all the intense damage that scoundrels with daggers are known for. Twisting Blades is the highly powerful damage skill that you’ll be buffing up with Shadow Imbuement for infection damage and the Bladedancer’s Aspect to turn it into an area-of-effect skill. Who says a knife’s only good at close range?

Skills

There are a few variations on this build going around the Diablo 4 community, but the four core skills are Twisting Blades, Shadow Step, Shadow Imbuement, and Dash. You can take either Blade Shift (melee) or Puncture (ranged) as a basic skill—I’d recommend the former but Puncture can upgrade into making enemies Vulnerable instead or if you just want the Slow debuff every third cast. Some versions suggest taking Concealment from the subterfuge category as your sixth skill but I’d wait for the ultimate skill Shadow Clone instead.

Use Shadow Imbuementto deal shadow damage with your next two skills.🗡Use Twisting Bladeson a high priority target like an elite or boss.🗡Immediately move across the fightwith either Shadow Step or Dash so that the return flight of your twisting blades will pierce and apply shadow damage to enemies between you and your initial target.🗡 If there’s a large group or elite enemy,use Shadow Clonefor extra damage assist.🗡 Stack a combo of your basic skillBlade Shiftand when at combo stack 3, begin again withTwisting Blades.🗡Reapply Shadow Imbuementas available off cooldown.

Passives and Specialization

You can take eitherCombo PointsorInner Sightas a specialization at level 15. Inner Sight grants four seconds of unlimited energy after filling its gauge by attacking randomly marked enemies. Combo Points synergizes basic and core skills, granting extra damage to your Twisting Blades for each combo of Blade Shift.

You can adjust this build for single targets like dungeon bosses or world bosses by using the Inner Sight specialization instead of Combo Points. With Inner Sight, attacking marked enemies fills your gauge which, when full, gives unlimited energy for four seconds. Along with the cooldown reduction you’ll get from Advanced Twisting Blades, you’ll stay mobile and fire off serious burst damage with the same Shadow Imbuement > Twisting Blades > Dash rotation.

Here are the passives to prioritize for this build:

For a key passive at the end of your ability tree, takeVictimizewhich has the chance to cause an explosion when damaging a vulnerable enemy. That’s even more explosive potential than you’re getting from Shadow Imbuement. You’ll be applying a lot of vulnerability through the explosions that Shadow Imbuement causes after you get the Blended Shadow Imbuement upgrade.

Aspects

This build has one primary legendary aspect and several other nice-to-have aspect choices:

Lauren has been writing for PC Gamer since she went hunting for the cryptid Dark Souls fashion police in 2017. She accepted her role as Associate Editor in 2021, now serving as self-appointed chief cozy games and farmlife sim enjoyer. Her career originally began in game development and she remains fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long fantasy books, longer RPGs, can’t stop playing co-op survival crafting games, and has spent a number of hours she refuses to count building houses in The Sims games for over 20 years.

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