Diablo 4: best Rogue build guide

Use these skills to make the most of the Rogue's versatile skill set

Contents

1. Diablo 4: best Rogue skills
2. Diablo 4: best Rogue passive skills
3. Diablo 4: best Rogue specialization

The Rogue class is one of the most difficult classes to play, as we said in our guide to the best starting class in Diablo 4, but it’s also packed with potential for exciting combos and is versatile as heck. With enough time and patience, the Rogue becomes one of the most powerful and satisfying classes in the game.

In this guide, we’ll take you through what we think is a pretty solid build for Rogues in Diablo 4, including the best level-up skills in each skill cluster, which class specialization to use, and more.

Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 tips and tricks for more handy pointers to make your time in Sanctuary a little bit easier, and read our Diablo 4 review if you’re still on the fence about jumping in. If you haven’t settled on a class yet, you can also check out or guide for the best starting class in Diablo 4.

Other build guides:

• Diablo 4: best Druid build guide
• Diablo 4: best Sorcerer build guide
• Diablo 4: best Barbarian build guide
• Diablo 4: best Necromancer build guide
  

Diablo 4: best Rogue skills

The Rogue, as mentioned above, is an extremely versatile class, with the ability to excel in both close-range and long-range combat. Because of the nature of some of the bosses in Diablo 4, however, long-range combat is almost always the right way to go. Getting up close and personal in boss fights is very dangerous, and the Rogue is very squishy so you definitely won’t want to be getting hit.

Basic skill - Heartseeker

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Heartseeker is a double-edged blade — it’s essentially a heat-seeking missile, which means missing enemies is unlikely, but also means you might not always hit the target you want, especially if you’re playing with a controller. Still, it increases your critical hit chance with each hit, stacking up to 15%, and with the Primary Heartseeker upgrade, it’ll even ricochet to other nearby enemies to deal a bit of extra damage.

Core skill - Rapid Fire

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This is a skill that’s pretty similar to one of the Demon Hunter skills in Diablo 3, and it’s just as worth picking up as that one was. It’s pretty straightforward: it’ll fire five quick arrows at an enemy. That’s it. Advanced Rapid Fire means you’ll do more crit damage right after evading, and you’ll be evading a lot, so combined with Heartseeker’s increased crit chance, you should be doing pretty good damage.

Agility skill - Caltrops

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The Rogue gets a few different utility skills, and Caltrops is one that can get you out of a pinch. You’ll do a fancy backflip and chuck down some caltrops where you stood, and when enemies stand on those caltrops they’ll take a bit of damage and be slowed by 50%, letting you put some distance between you and some baddies. Disciplined Caltrops also increases your crit chance for enemies affected by them, so it stacks well with Heartseeker and Rapid Fire.

Subterfuge skill - Concealment

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This is one of the most useful defensive skills in the game, making you invisible for 4 seconds even if you take damage, giving you the unstoppable buff, granting you movement speed, and letting you move freely through enemies. You can upgrade it with Countering Concealment too, which guarantees a skill breaking Concealment will hit for critical damage. You probably don’t need an explainer as to why that works well with this set.

Imbuement skill - Shadow Imbuement

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This is a tough one, because all three imbuements are very good. Shadow Imbuement takes the cake though, primarily because it increases your damage output by a pretty significant amount. After imbuing your weapon, your next two skills will deal shadow damage, and they’ll be infected for six seconds. If they die in that time, they’ll explode and deal damage to surrounding enemies, and if they don’t die, they’ll still take a chunk of damage at the end of that six seconds.

Ultimate Skill - Shadow Clone

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This is probably the most difficult choice to make in terms of skills in Diablo 4. We really like Death Trap, since it does a big burst of damage to a huge group of enemies, but Shadow Clone is only barely above it. It summons a shadow that mimics all your actions for 15 seconds, effectively creating a second, only slightly weaker version of yourself, capable of doing all the things you can. It’s such a versatile skill that we’d recommend it in almost any Rogue build you could imagine. But man, Death Trap sure is cool…

Key Passive - Precision

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There’s only one choice here, since we’ve gone with a marksman set. Precision increases your critical hit chance incrementally up to 20% with each critical hit, and if you hit that cap your next attack is guaranteed to be a critical hit. As with all the other skills in this set, more crits is the key, and this will provide plenty of crits.

Diablo 4: best Rogue passive skills

Throughout the skill tree, there are a number of passive skills that are worth picking up, and if you’re waiting to unlock the next branch of the tree, it’s worth picking up some of them to round out your skills a bit.

Here are the passives we suggest picking up when you can, along with brief descriptions:

• Stutter Step - gain movement speed when you get a critical hit
• Weapon Mastery - for bows, you’ll do more damage to vulnerable enemies, for crossbows you’ll do more crit damage
• Mending Obscurity - you’ll gain health while stealthed, such as when using Concealment
• Precision Imbuement - imbued skills have a higher crit chance
• Consuming Shadows - enemies that die to shadow damage give you 10 energy
• Aftermath - gain energy when using an Ultimate skill
• Haste - gain movement speed when above 50% energy, and attack speed when below 50% energy

Diablo 4: best Rogue specialization

The Rogue’s unique class skill is class specializations, which are essentially passives that change the way you engage with enemies. You’ll start with Combo Points, which has you building up points that then get expended with certain skills like Rapid Fire, making them stronger. After you hit level 20, you’ll unlock the Inner Sight specialization, and that’s what you’ll want to use for the rest of the game. You’ll get an Inner Sight gauge that increases when you hit marked enemies, and once that gauge is full you’ll get unlimited Energy for a few seconds, letting you spam your abilities with little care for running out.