Rogue Class Overview

The Rogue is one of the 5 classes available in Diablo 4. Learn all about their Strengths, Weaknesses, Skills, Items and Tips & Tricks in our overview!

Class Identity

The Rogue is a fast, agile fighter relying on a combination of melee and ranged attacks as well as various tricks up their sleeves such as grenades and traps. They are fun to play with fast-paced action and many customization options. Their combat style can range from very methodical to lightning-fast zapping around the battlefield. Their skills are fueled by Energy, a resource that slowly recovers on its own or can be filled up quickly through various effects. Most skills deal Physical damage by default but there are various mechanics also delving into Cold, Poison and Shadow damage types.

Strengths

• Rogues deal high damage. All Core Skills are impactful and you have access to a range of passives that further boost your damage in many situations. While Energy is a scarce resource to fuel your Core Skills, you have many ways to recover it quickly and allow for spamming of your most powerful abilities.
• Rogues are fast. They have multiple movement skills on a short cooldown and various ways to boost their base Movement Speed through active skills and passives. In addition, Rogues have many ways of applying various Crowd Control effects such as Slow, Chill, Frozen and Stun. They also have access to the special Daze mechanic.
• Rogues are versatile. You can combine melee and ranged abilities, imbue your attacks, move around and lay traps. A lot of combinations are possible to customize your build and adjust to your playstyle.

Weaknesses

• Rogues rely on positioning. Skills like Penetrating Shot or Twisting Blades are particularly sensitive to where you and your enemies are located but the same applies to all archetypes including melee and trap-based builds. Ranged builds in general need to pay attention to where they tread to maximize their output without dying.
• Rogues are squishy. Especially with melee builds you need to be very careful as the class doesn't have access to a lot of strong defensive mechanics. Dark Shroud is the only really powerful source of damage reduction but has a long cooldown and requires you to dodge most attacks, something that is not easily achievable in the midst of combat.
• Rogues have many conditional effects. While the vast toolkit available to you allow many exciting ways to build your character, you are also bound by their limitations. When you don't get to apply your Crowd Control or Vulnerable effects, your damage done might suffer and you open yourself up for retaliation from your enemies.

Equipment

A Rogue specialty is their ability to equip two one-handed melee weapons (Swords/Daggers) and a ranged weapon (Bow/Crossbow) at the same time and swap between depending on the ability used. Certain abilities require a specific weapon to be equipped and unlike the Barbarians with their Arsenal System, you cannot choose which weapon to use for which ability.

The stats of each weapon are always applied, meaning even with a full melee or full ranged build, you still benefit from equipping the other weapon types.

Skills & Passives

Skill points are unlocked by level-ups and the Renown system. As you spend more points, you unlock more and more categories of skills. Each active skill can be leveled up to 5 times or more with items, increasing their power (usually +10% of the base value) or reducing their cooldown by 5% with each additional rank. After unlocking a skill, you can enhance it with another point and then choose one out of two upgrades to specialize it further.

In addition, there are passives found all over the tree, attached as optional choices to certain skill clusters. They grant small bonuses to damage, defense or utility under certain conditions and help to round out your build by shifting it further in the direction you want to take. All passives have 3 ranks and usually scale linearly.

Basic Skills

The Rogue's Basic Skills are weak and mostly utility skills used to apply various debuffs, recover Energy or build Combo Points in most fights. However, when you run out of resources, they are useful to finish off small enemies or to add extra chip damage against an Elite while you prepare for a stronger attack later.

Puncture

Enhanced Puncture

Fundamental Puncture

Primary Puncture

Notes:
This skill is particularly useful in later stages when near permanent Critical Strikes both apply a slow and recover Energy from various targets. Otherwise it can be a consistent source of the Vulnerable debuff against single targets to boost DPS even early on. Note that this skill scales with your melee weapons despite attacking at range.

Heartseeker

Enhanced Heartseeker

Fundamental Heartseeker

Primary Heartseeker

Notes:
This skill is great for ranged combat against one or two enemies, but only shines with a high Critical Strike Chance. The arrow seeks out enemies automatically and rarely misses even against moving targets.

Forceful Arrow

Enhanced Forceful Arrow

Fundamental Forceful Arrow

Primary Forceful Arrow

Notes:
This skill is useful for ranged combat at all stages and a great source of Vulnerable against single targets. With constant knockbacks you are well protected against melee enemies.

Invigorating Strike

Enhanced Invigorating Strike

Primary Invigorating Strike

Fundamental Invigorating Strike

Notes:
Hitting an enemy while below 50% Energy makes them Vulnerable for 3 seconds.
This skill helps a lot with keeping up Energy, especially in the early levels where regeneration is the only source of recovery. It also helps to apply Vulnerable on single targets. Other than that, it may be useful for its Lucky Hit Chance bonus for certain builds.

Blade Shift

Enhanced Blade Shift

Fundamental Blade Shift

Primary Blade Shift

Notes:
This skill seems relatively weak on paper but attacks really fast compared to other Basic Skills. It also adds lots of extra defense which is useful for a melee playstyle.

Core Skills

These skills are the bread and butter of most Rogue builds. They spend lots of Energy but deal much higher damage and hit more targets than Basic skills. In addition, Core Skills can be amplified by Combo Points generated with Basic Skills if the appropriate Specialization is chosen, allowing more tactical gameplay and better use of your resources.

Barrage

Enhanced Barrage

Advanced Barrage

Improved Barrage

Notes:
This is a great ranged Core Skill, combining both pack clear with good single target damage. The first arrow always fires exactly in front of you and further arrows at an increasing angle slightly towards the left and right in front of you, up to ~30°. Multiple arrows can hit the same enemy to increase single target damage at close range.

Rapid Fire

Enhanced Rapid Fire

Advanced Rapid Fire

Improved Rapid Fire

Notes:
This is a more single target oriented ranged skill. Multiple arrows can hit the same enemy to allow safe long-distance boss killing, but the skill struggles in dealing with big packs of enemies.

Penetrating Shot

Enhanced Penetrating Shot

Advanced Penetrating Shot

Improved Penetrating Shot

Notes:
This is a powerful pack clearing skill with a high cost. With proper positioning you can mow through enemies quickly, then finish the remaining with another shot or skill.

Flurry

Enhanced Flurry

Advanced Flurry

Improved Flurry

Notes:
This skill is the primary melee Core skill. Simple to use and nearly spammable with some investment in Energy recovery. This skill hits 4 times for one quarter of its tooltip value per use, making it great combined with Imbuement skills and for lucky hit chance effects.

Twisting Blades

Enhanced Twisting Blades

Advanced Twisting Blades

Improved Twisting Blades

Notes:
This skill opens up an advanced, fast-paced way of playing Rogue. You need to hit the right target, then Evade, Dash or Shadow Step in position for the returning blades to follow you through a pack. The returning blades home in on you from the original location with very high speed, but you can outrun them briefly to increase their distance covered and hit more enemies with a single attack. Difficult to use but incredibly fun once it all comes together.

Sturdy
Siphoning Strikes
Stutter Step

Agility Skills

These skills move you around the battlefield, allowing quick repositioning or engaging of enemies. Almost every build should have at least one of these, with Dash being a great universal skill for fast-paced Rogue action.

Shadow Step

Enhanced Shadow Step

Disciplined Shadow Step

Methodical Shadow Step

Notes:
This skill is great for a melee playstyle revolving around Twisting Blades because it allows quick repositioning in combat. Additionally, you can use it to teleport through impassable terrain such as cliffs to potentially skip a long walk if no direct path is available, making it a great choice for any outdoor farming build.

Dash

Enhanced Dash

Disciplined Dash

Methodical Dash

Notes:
This skill is amazing for mobility and the heart of what it means to play a Rogue. It's ineffective for dealing damage but allows you to zoom around the battlefield at a glance to either engage, reposition or escape if needed. With more points invested and some Cooldown Reduction this skill can be used frequently to increase overall mobility

Caltrops

Enhanced Caltrops

Disciplined Caltrops

Methodical Caltrops

Notes:
This skill is useful for a defensive ranged playstyle to keep enemies away and kite them. Additionally, it synergizes with a Trap-based playstyle by constantly applying a Trap and Crowd Control effect to enemies, enabling other procs and the Exposure ultimate passive.

Weapon Mastery
Concussive
Rapid Gambits
Trick Attacks
Rugged
Reactive Defense

Subterfuge Skills

This cluster of skills adds various utility choices to your setup. Generally you want to choose one of these depending on your build and playstyle to assist you either offensively, defensively or both. They massively add to the Rogue's class identity by giving you a little box of tricks to choose from.

Dark Shroud

Enhanced Dark Shroud

Countering Dark Shroud

Subverting Dark Shroud

Notes:
This skill is amazing for any build, especially ranged builds. The damage reduction is significant when you can avoid most small hits and keep the stack count high. This might not always be possible for melee builds where you constantly take chip damage, but it can still help against elites and bosses. Additionally, it allows faster travel with increased Movement Speed.

Smoke Grenade

Enhanced Smoke Grenade

Countering Smoke Grenade

Subverting Smoke Grenade

Notes:
This skill is extremely useful when fighting powerful or high level enemies. Even with little investment the Daze effect feels like an eternity. Against NPCs it works almost like a ranged stun on demand that also amplifies anyone's damage done to them.

Poison Trap

Enhanced Poison Trap

Countering Poison Trap

Subverting Poison Trap

Notes:
This skill is mostly useful for a full Trap-based playstyle combined with Caltrops and Exposure. The activation delay and long duration makes it difficult to get full value out of it, but if you do, it deals considerable damage and speeds up elite and boss kills significantly. In addition, it deals Poison damage, enabling further synergies with some passives and Poison Imbuement.

Concealment

Enhanced Stealth

Countering Stealth

Subverting Stealth

Notes:
This skill covers a lot of all-round utility. The whole package of faster movement, Energy recovery and a strong ambush attack makes it a great pick-up for almost any build, melee or ranged. Other players can still see you if they pay attention to their surroundings as you are not 100% transparent.

Agile
Mending Obscurity
Exploit
Malice

Imbuement Skills

These skills allow you to imbue your next two attacks with extra effects. Since they have a cooldown, they are effective for very methodical, slow-paced playstyles for example revolving around Combo Points. Imbueable skills are all Core Skills, Dash, Shadow Step and the Rain of Arrows ultimate. Attacks that hit enemies multiple times such as Flurry, Barrage or Rapid Fire apply the imbuement effects on every hit without consuming additional charges, making them particularly effective.

Poison Imbuement

Enhanced Poison Imbuement

Blended Poison Imbuement

Mixed Poison Imbuement

Notes:
This skill almost single-handedly enables a whole DoT build archetype for the Rogue. Combined with damage over time effects and the Poison Trap that can reset Poison Imbuement's cooldown you watch enemies melt after a coordinated attack, balanced out by long cooldowns that might leave you without any tools to deal with remaining enemies that you didn't hit. This skill works best when paired with Flurry which hits 4 times per use, applying a stack each time to multiple enemies.

Shadow Imbuement

Enhanced Shadow Imbuement

Blended Shadow Imbuement

Mixed Shadow Imbuement

Notes:
This skill is great to enable some AoE clear for otherwise mostly single-target skills such as Barrage. You can apply the debuff to multiple enemies and then blow up a whole pack once the first small targets start dying, unleashing a chain reaction.

Cold Imbuement

Enhanced Cold Imbuement

Blended Cold Imbuement

Mixed Cold Imbuement

Notes:
This skill allows to add Crowd Control effects to any build, making combat safer and enabling extra damage modifiers.

Shadow Crash
Consuming Shadows
Deadly Venom
Alchemical Advantage
Debilitating Toxins
Precision Imbuement

Ultimate Skills

Ultimates are high-impact abilities with a long cooldown and need to be built around to be very effective, so not every build runs with one of them. Only one can be chosen and other than regular skills they have a single rank with a two-step linear upgrade path that offers no extra choices.

Shadow Clone

Prime Shadow Clone

Supreme Shadow Clone

Notes:
This ultimate seems good but in practice performs very poorly due to lack of interaction with lots of endgame damage modifiers. The clone stays close to you and generally aims in the same direction towards enemies.

Rain of Arrows

Prime Rain of Arrows

Supreme Rain of Arrows

Notes:
This ultimate looks and feels amazing when used, allowing a huge burst that also crowd controls an entire room at once. While it deals a good amount of damage, it's not spectacular in light of its long cooldown and mostly a bonus and utility skill for dangerous fights.

Death Trap

Prime Death Trap

Supreme Death Trap

Notes:
This ultimate is great for a Trap-based playstyle paired with lots of cooldown reduction effects and procs from the ultimate passive Exposure. On its own without synergistic effects it's not particularly noteworthy but it does allow for a great extra burst on demand.

Trap Mastery
Aftermath
Adrenaline Rush
Haste
Impetus
Innervation
Alchemist's Fortune
Second Wind

Key Passives

These passives are located at the very bottom of the Skill Tree and couldn't be reached in the preview version. They are extremely powerful and define the overall playstyle of your build. Similar to Ultimate Skills, only one of them can be chosen. For the Rogue, they greatly amplify existing core playstyles or open up the gate for completely new ones.

Unique Class Mechanic - Specialization

The Rogue has the option to choose 1 out of 3 Specializations. These can be swapped freely at any time and open up further build customization options. The three options are:

• Combo Points
• Inner Sight
• Preparation

Attributes

The four core attributes provide the following to the Rogue:

• Strength: Resource Generation (3% per 100), Armor (1 each)
• Intelligence: Critical Strike Chance (2% per 100), All Resistances (5% per 100)
• Willpower: Healing Received (10% per 100), Overpower Damage (25% per 100)
• Dexterity: Skill Damage (11.1% per 100), Dodge Chance (1% per 100)

Dexterity is considered the main attribute as it multiplies all your damage done. Strength and Intelligence are also useful for their offensive and defensive bonuses while Willpower does next to nothing. Some items can roll bonuses to attributes and later on Paragon boards allow stacking the right stats for your character. In addition, you may find hidden Altars of Lilith in the open world that unlock a permanent bonus for all of your characters.

Video Guide

This video goes over the details of this article and shows some gameplay and skill clips.

Summary

• Rogues are agile fighters based mostly on dealing Physical damage with melee and ranged attacks.
• They have the option to enhance their damage with Cold, Shadow and Poison effects.
• Positioning and quick decision-making play a huge role in combat.
• They have many tools for build customization to fit your preferred playstyle.
• Energy is their primary resource. It recovers slowly on its own but can be refilled with various effects.

Credits

Written by wudijo
Reviewed by Northwar, Echohack, ehtoka