Penetrating Shot Rogue Leveling Guide

Season 6 is the Season of Hatred Rising. It features the Zakarum Remnants faction which hunts Realmwalkers, massive behemoths that roam outdoor zones and beckon Mephisto's hellspawn. Participate in these zone events and take down the Realmwalkers to spawn a portal to a Seething Realm. There you can acquire Seething Opals, new consumables that stack with Elixirs for a XP buff and the chance to gather extra rewards when defeating enemies. The types of Opals are:

Use these Opals at all times to earn reputation with the Zakarum Remnants faction and unlock further rewards.

Subterfuge

Here you want to pick up Dark Shroud for the toughness and the movement speed so that we can quickly move through content and also reposition well for our Penetrating Shot Skill.

Imbuements

The Shadow Imbuement Skill augments our Penetrating Shot skill for various effects to make us more powerful. It allows for shadow explosions that apply Vulnerable. Shadow Imbuement also gives us back Energy upon explosion with the Consuming Shadows passive, making this a great Imbuement to pick up early on. Be careful not to use Dash or Shadow Step after activating Shadow Imbuement, as these can also consume charges of it. We also pick up Poison Imbuement for better damage against Bosses.

Finalizing the Skill Tree

We round out our build with some more Utility through Innervation. We also pick important damage multipliers like Exploit and Malice.

Key Passive

Precision

We choose the Precision Key Passive to help with the lack of early game Critical Strikes. Upon building maximum stacks (4), your next Marksman Skill is a guaranteed Critical Strike and deals increased damage based on your total Critical Strike Damage. You gain a stack of Precision whenever you attack with a Marksman Skill. Whenever you deal a Critical Strike with a Marksman Skill, you gain an additional stack of Precision.

Rogue Specializations

The Rogue's Class Specialization allows you to choose one out of three powerful passive effects to boost your build. Our Specialization of choice for this build is Combo Points.

Unlocking Specializations

Once you reach level 15, you have to complete a short questline starting in Menestad, Fractured Peaks. A Priority Quest leads you there to help out Leyrana. After a few stops outside of town you enter the Forsaken Quarry Dungeon and finish the questline there, unlocking Combo Points. After that, the other two Specializations unlock automatically once you reach their minimum level.

How to use Combo Points

Hit enemies with any Basic Skill (Puncture) three times to build 3 Combo Points, then use a Core Skill (Penetrating Shot) to finish. Combo Points are displayed above the XP bar in the UI. Avoid simply spamming Penetrating Shot without any Combo Points due to its high resource cost and lower damage output without 3 Combo Points.

Playing around Combo Points will feel like a natural rhythm to you once you have a bit of practice with it. Due to using Precision in this build, you may need to extend your rotation to 4 Basic Skills. This is done to ensure you have 4 stacks of Precision before firing your Core Skill, even when you do not Crit even once with your Basic Skills.

To get started as a Penetrating Shot Rogue, always use your highest DPS Ranged Weapon available for more damage. Your Melee Weapons are simply stat sticks to fuel your power, so its DPS is secondary. Otherwise, follow the priority list below. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage, Damage to Close, Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life, Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful.

Tempering Tip:

For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you are twinking. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.

The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist. They unlock after completing specific Dungeons located around Sanctuary or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.

For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.

Must have Dungeon Unlocks

1. Trickshot (Bastion of Faith - Hawezar)
2. Arrow Storms (Howling Warren - Scosglen)
3. Vengeful (Inferno - Kehjistan)

Nice to have Dungeon unlocks

1. Rapid (Buried Halls - Dry Steppes)
2. Might (Dark Ravine - Dry Steppes)
3. Shared Misery (Oblivion - Hawezar)

Great Uniques for this build

1. Cowl of the Nameless
2. Fists of Fate
3. Penitent Greaves

Jackpot Drops

As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can increase your power temporarily or if you are interested in trying another build archetype. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:

Build-defining Aspects

• Star Shards (enables the Endgame Dance of Knives Rogue)
• High Velocity (enables the Endgame Barrage Rogue)
• Encircling Blades (enables the Endgame Flurry Rogue)

Build-defining Uniques

1. Saboteur's Signet (enables the Endgame Grenade Rogue)
2. Eyes in the Dark (enables the Endgame Death Trap Rogue)
3. Scoundrel's Kiss (enables the Endgame Rapid Fire Rogue)
4. Skyhunter (enhances the Endgame Rapid Fire Rogue)
5. Andariel's Visage (enables the Endgame Andariels Rogue)
6. Shard of Verathiel (enables Endgame Heartseeker Rogue)

You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Penetrating Shot Rogue focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

• Lith + Ohm - Invokes War Cry after being stationary. We stand still a lot to shoot, so this activates quite frequently.
• Poc + Lac - Invokes Challenging Shout for more defense. We spend a lot of Resource while shooting, so this activates reliably.

Alternative Choices

If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:

• Cem - We evade frequently so that is a good alternative to Noc.
• Yax - We drink a potion frequently to keep Unstable Elixirs up, so this rune can also be beneficial.
• Lac - Invokes Challenging Shout for more defense.
• Kry - Helps with grouping up mobs.
• Wat - Decrepify helps with stagger, defense and allows an execute at 10% HP, can be combined with Xol in your other Runeword to generate large amounts of offering.
• Mot - You can use this before you have access to Umbrous in addition to taking Dark Shroud on your skill bar.

Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.

Hired: Subo

He reveals all enemies and materials on the minimap, allowing you to farm Iron Chunks and Bundled Herbs easily. The highlighting is very useful to spot out Elites in Dungeons, as you will recognize the pattern for elites quickly after getting used to it.

You gain a multiplicative increase to your Lucky Hit Chance whenever Subo attacks an enemy through his Ambusher passive. This greatly benefits your Arrow Storms procs.

With how frequently we want to drink Potions for Unstable Elixirs, Share a Drink helps us to generate more.

Reinforcement: Raheir

We choose Bastion for extra defense when having our main damaging window active through Shadow Clone.

In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.

Into the Endgame

This step marks the end of the leveling guide. Below is the Paragon setup to get you started in Torment difficulty, but ideally, you should now transition towards the endgame version of this build or choose another of your liking.

Paragon & Glyphs

Use the slider to see progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.

Glyph Leveling Priorities

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• The Penetrating Shot Rogue is a great all-round build, combining mobility, great AoE and decent single target damage into one complete package.
• Stack Energy recovery where possible such as Consuming Shadows, Innervation and resource aspects.
• Activate Shadow Imbuement whenever possible but do not use Dash or Shadow Step with it, as they consume a charge.
• Always build 3 Combo Points before firing Penetrating Shot for the best results.
• Focus on improving your Ranged Weapon more than any other item.
• Look out for helpful Legendary Powers in the Codex of Power, especially those that generate Energy and buff your damage or damage reduction.
• Consider getting the Trickshot Aspect early from the Bastion of Faith in Hawezar.

Written by M1PY