The Assassin is one of the well-known and best dps classes in Diablo. Known for having strong close-quarter abilities and being heavily reliant on traps, the class is great for those players that don’t want to rely on magic. Although the Assassin class was replaced in Diablo 4, you can still recreate the same playstyle by using the strongest Diablo 4 best Assassin build.
The strongest Diablo 4 Rogue Assassin Build is based on the Rogue class and replicates the now-replaced Assassin class from the previous Diablo entries.
For the Basic Skills, it is recommended to use Invigorating Strike, as it is great for regenerating energy.
Flurry and Twisting Blades are both good options for Core Skills as they offer an increase in damage through the Combo Point specialization.
Shadow Step is a great skill from the Agility Tree as it offers an increased Movement Speed, allowing you to get around your enemies with ease.
Concealment, Smoke Grenade, and Poison Trap are useful skills from the Subterfuge Skill tree as they replicate the trap abilities that the typical Assassin class possessed.
Shadow Imbuement is a powerful ability from the Imbuement Skill as it lets you deal Shadow Damage to all enemies.
Following the Shadow Damage and Critical Damage theme, the Shadow Clone is an appropriate option as the Ultimate Skill for the build.
Consider using Combo Points as your specialization, as well as targeting stats like Dexterity, Intelligence, and Strength for optimizing the build.
Before we get started, here is a quick summary of the strongest Diablo 4 Assassin Build.
Skill TreeSuggested Skill
Basic Skills-Invigorating Strike
Core Skills-Flurry
-Twisting Blades
-Siphoning Strikes
Agility Skills-Shadow Step
-Concussive
-Weapon Mastery
Subterfuge Skills-Concealment
-Poison Trap
-Smoke Grenade
-Mending Obscurity
-Exploit
Imbuement Skills-Shadow Imbuement
-Precision Imbuement
Ultimate Skills-Shadow Clone
-Trap Mastery
-Adrenaline Rush
Aspects-Cheat’s Aspect
-Bladedancer’s Aspect
-Aspect of Unstable Imbuements
Specialization-Combo Points
Important Stats-Dexterity
-Intelligence
-Strength
Best Rogue Assassin Skills
There are mainly six different skill trees for the Rogue Assassin build. Considering that the Rogue class is quite diverse and can have a mixed playstyle ranging from melee to ranged and trap-based, it is vital to choose the relevant skills needed to depict Assassin-styled gameplay.
Basic Skills
Basic Skill tree | image using the Diablo 4 Build Calculator
The first tree that you’ll get to mess around with is the Basic Skills tree. The skills in the tree can be majorly split between Marksman and Cutthroat skills (essentially ranged and melee skills). For our Rogue Assassin build, we will mainly be interested in the melee skills. Here are the two possible options that you can opt for, though we mainly recommend using Invigorating Strike.
Invigorating Strike
Invigorating Strike is a Basic Cutthroat skill that necessitates dual-wielded weapons and delivers Physical Damage. With a Lucky Hit Chance of 50%, it enables a melee attack against an enemy, dealing 23% damage and simultaneously enhancing Energy Regeneration by x20% for a duration of 3 seconds.
The skill incorporates various modifiers that amplify its utility and impact:
Enhanced Invigorating Strike: increases the energy regeneration bonus of Invigorating Strike to x30% when damaging a Crowd Controlled or Injured enemy, providing a more substantial energy boost under certain combat conditions.
Two choice modifiers offer further customization:
Primary Invigorating Strike: augments Invigorating Strike to also grant +8% Lucky Hit Chance. The Lucky Hit Chance bonus elevates to +16% when hitting a Crowd Controlled or Injured enemy, increasing your chances of dealing higher damage.
Fundamental Invigorating Strike: It offers a defensive strategy. If you hit an enemy with Invigorating Strike while your energy is below 50%, the enemy becomes Vulnerable for 3 seconds, receiving more damage from all sources.
Core Skills
Rogue Assassin Core Skills | Image using the Diablo 4 Build Calculator
The core skills mainly dictate what kind of playstyle you’ll have. For the Rogue class, the Core skills offer both ranged options, such as Penetrating Shot and Rapid Fire, and melee options, such as Flurry and Twisting Blades. For our Rogue Assassin build, we mostly recommend the melee options.
Flurry
Flurry is a dynamic and fast-paced combat ability that is primarily designed for characters who can handle dual-wielded weapons. The ability requires an energy cost of 25 to execute and comes with a base lucky hit chance of 10%. Flurry deals physical damage to enemies.
When you activate Flurry, your character performs a quick series of attacks in rapid succession, landing four strikes on enemies within range.
Each attack deals a total of 60% of your usual damage output to each enemy hit, making Flurry particularly useful when facing multiple foes at once.
There are several modifiers available that can enhance Flurry’s performance and effectiveness:
Enhanced Flurry: The modifier grants you the ability to heal whenever you deal damage to an enemy who is either under crowd control effects or vulnerable. Each time Flurry deals damage in such a way, you are healed for 1% of your maximum life, up to a total of 12% maximum life per Flurry cast.
Improved Flurry: With the modifier, if Flurry hits a vulnerable enemy, it has the added effect of making all enemies hit by that particular cast vulnerable for a period of 3 seconds.
Advanced Flurry: The modifier adds a tactical element to your use of Flurry. If you evade through an enemy, your next Flurry will stun enemies for a duration of 2 seconds, disrupting their actions and providing you with a tactical advantage.
Additionally, Flurry can be further specialized using Combo Points. Combo Points enhance Flurry by increasing damage output and granting an attack speed bonus.
With 1 Point, Flurry deals 75% damage and grants a +15% Attack Speed.
With 2 Points, Flurry deals 90% damage and grants a +30% Attack Speed.
With 3 Points, Flurry deals 105% damage and grants a +45% Attack Speed.
Twisting Blades
Another option that you can opt for while trying to create an Assassin Build is the Twisting Blades. Twisting Blades is an energy-intensive, high-damage ability ideal for cutthroat characters who favor dual-wielded weapons. It requires an energy cost of 30 to utilize and carries a lucky hit chance of 33%. The ability deals physical damage.
Upon activation, Twisting Blades lets your character impale an enemy with your blades, dealing 45% of your total damage and causing the impaled enemy to take an additional x8% increased damage from your character while impaled.
After one second, the blades return to you, piercing enemies along their path for 72% damage.
Twisting Blades also offers a range of modifiers that can augment the ability’s potency and effectiveness:
Enhanced Twisting Blades: It increases the returning damage of Twisting Blades, dealing x30% increased damage when the blades return to you.
Improved Twisting Blades: enemies are Dazed while impaled with Twisting Blades, disrupting their combat capabilities and creating an opening for further attacks.
Advanced Twisting Blades: It provides a strategic advantage by reducing your active cooldowns. When your Twisting Blades return, your active cooldowns are reduced by 0.25 seconds per enemy they passed through, up to a maximum of 3 seconds.
In addition, the Combo Point Specialization system further amplifies Twisting Blades’ potential. Combo Points can be used to increase damage and grant a Movement Speed bonus:
With 1 Point, Twisting Blades deals 58% damage and grants a +20% Movement Speed.
With 2 Points, Twisting Blades deals 72% damage and grants a +40% Movement Speed.
With 3 Points, Twisting Blades deals 86% damage and grants a +60% Movement Speed.
Agility Skills
Agility Skill tree for the strongest Diablo 4 Assassin Build | captured using Diablo 4 Build Calculator
The Agility tree is quite important for making the Rogue Assassin build work in Diablo 4. It offers abilities that allow you to remain in the dark while dealing more damage and also another ability that resembles the trap abilities that the original Assassin possessed.
Shadow Step
Shadow Step is an agility-based combat ability particularly tailored for cutthroat characters who prefer dual-wielded weapons. Shadow Step has a cooldown of 9 seconds and a lucky hit chance of 100%. It inflicts physical damage upon enemies.
When Shadow Step is activated, your character becomes Unstoppable and swiftly moves through the shadows to strike the enemy from behind, dealing 72% damage.
Following the attack, your character enjoys a 50% increase in Movement Speed for a duration of 2 seconds.
Shadow Step also offers modifiers that can enhance its performance:
Enhanced Shadow Step: raises your Critical Strike Chance against enemies damaged by Shadow Step by +8% for a duration of 3 seconds.
Methodical Shadow Step: inflicts a Stun on enemies damaged by Shadow Step, immobilizing them for 2 seconds.
Disciplined Shadow Step: the cooldown of Shadow Step is reduced by 3 seconds when it damages an enemy you haven’t hit with Shadow Step in the previous 4 seconds.
Alternatively, you can also get Dash which lets you perform more Critical Strike Damage. But when talking about an Assassin-specific build, the Shadow Step outperforms it.
Subterfuge Node Skills
Subterfuge Skill tree | image using the Diablo 4 Build Calculator
The Subterfuge Node Skills contain many skills that you can use in your Diablo 4 best Assassin Build to remain stealthy and also use many traps, something that the Assassin tends to excel in. There are two main skills in the node that are worth investing in.
Concealment
Concealment is a subterfuge ability that excels in providing strategic advantage and escape mechanisms. The ability comes with a cooldown of 20 seconds.
When activated, Concealment makes your character vanish from sight, giving you an advanced form of Stealth that lasts for 4 seconds.
The Stealth will not be removed even when your character takes damage.
During this period, you also gain Unstoppable status, a +30% Movement Speed increase, and the capacity to move freely through enemies. However, note that using an attack Skill during Concealment will break the Stealth.
Concealment also offers various modifiers to customize the ability to your preferred playstyle:
Enhanced Stealth: awards you with an extra 40 Energy when you enter Concealment, allowing for more frequent use of your abilities.
The choice modifiers provide additional strategic options:
Countering Stealth: guarantees that the Skill used to break Concealment will always result in a Critical Strike, maximizing the damage output upon re-engaging.
Subverting Stealth: the Skill that breaks Concealment will render enemies Vulnerable for 6 seconds, increasing the damage they take from subsequent attacks.
Poison Trap
Traps are a big part of the Assassin build, therefore, the Poison Trap is a must-pick. Poison Trap is a subterfuge and trap-based combat ability that delivers poison damage. It has a cooldown of 10 seconds and a lucky hit chance of 20%.
Upon activation, your character places a trap that arms after 1 second.
When an enemy moves within range, the trap activates and applies a substantial 344% poisoning damage over a span of 9 seconds to enemies in the area.
Importantly, you can have up to 4 armed traps out simultaneously, allowing for strategic placement and area denial.
Several modifiers can further enhance Poison Trap:
Enhanced Poison Trap: adds a knockdown effect to the trap, causing enemies to be knocked down for 1 second when the trap activates.
The choice modifiers provide additional customization for the ability:
Countering Poison Trap: Poison Trap gets a 30% chance to reset your Imbuement Skill Cooldowns when activated. It allows you to potentially use your imbued skills more frequently during combat.
Subverting Poison Trap: enables you to deal x10% increased Poison Damage to enemies who are standing inside your Poison Trap’s area of effect.
Smoke Grenade
A good alternative to the Poison Trap and the Concealment is the Smoke Grenade. It is quite effective for those players that want to get close and personal against their enemies and deal extra damage while doing so. Smoke Grenade is a strategic ability, falling under the Subterfuge and Grenade categories. It has a cooldown of 15 seconds.
On activation, your character throws a smoky concoction toward enemies, resulting in a Daze effect that lasts for 4 seconds.
This effect temporarily confuses and slows the actions of affected enemies, providing a tactical advantage in combat.
Smoke Grenade comes with several modifiers for added functionality:
Enhanced Smoke Grenade: ensures that enemies affected by Smoke Grenade take x15% increased damage from you, enhancing your damage output against dazed foes.
Choice modifiers offer more customization options:
Countering Smoke Grenade: introduces a Lucky Hit feature. Dealing direct damage to enemies affected by Smoke Grenade has up to a 25% chance to reduce its Cooldown by 1 second. If the enemy is Vulnerable, this cooldown reduction is increased to 3 seconds, allowing you to use Smoke Grenade more frequently.
Subverting Smoke Grenade: if an enemy is Vulnerable, Slowed, or Chilled, then Smoke Grenade will Daze them for x20% longer. It extends the control effect on enemies already suffering from certain debuffs.
Imbuement Skills
Imbuement Skill Tree | captured using Diablo 4 Build Calculator
The Imbuement node focuses on applying elemental damage to the enemies. You have options between Poison, Cold, and Shadow Damage. Although our traps are more focused on Poison damage, it is actually more beneficial to opt for Shadow damage in terms of your weapons.
Shadow Imbuement
Shadow Imbuement is a unique Imbuement ability that brings a distinctive flavor of damage and crowd control to your repertoire. The ability has a cooldown of 13 seconds and a lucky hit chance of 33%, dealing Shadow Damage.
When activated, Shadow Imbuement imbues your weapons with festering shadows.
Your next 2 Imbueable Skills will then deal Shadow Damage and infect enemies for 6 seconds.
The infection has two potential outcomes: if the infected enemy dies, it explodes, dealing 40% damage to all surrounding enemies. However, if the infection expires before the enemy’s death, it inflicts 40% damage solely to that enemy.
Shadow Imbuement also includes various modifiers:
Enhanced Shadow Imbuement: increases your Critical Strike Chance by +15% against injured enemies infected by Shadow Imbuement, heightening your damage potential.
Two choice modifiers offer additional strategic adaptations:
Blended Shadow Imbuement: it allows Shadow Imbuement’s primary explosion to make enemies Vulnerable for 2 seconds, increasing the damage they receive.
Mixed Shadow Imbuement: enemies infected by Shadow Imbuement take x12% increased Non-Physical damage from you for 8 seconds, further amplifying your damage output.
Ultimate Skills
Ultimate skill tree for Rogue Assassin | image using the Diablo 4 build calculator
Picking the right Ultimate Skill is quite important for the Diablo 4 best Assassin Build as the skills vary quite heavily from each other. There are three main options which are focused on Physical Damage, Ranged Damage, or Shadow Damage using a trap. Our main recommendation is to go with the Physical Damage ultimate (Shadow Clone). However, if you want to replicate a Trap-focused Assassin, you can opt for Death Trap as well.
Shadow Clone
Shadow Clone is an Ultimate ability that employs a unique form of combat duplication. With a cooldown of 60 seconds, Shadow Clone creates a mimic of your actions for a 15-second duration. This Shadow Clone deals 60% of your damage, effectively increasing your offensive output in combat.
The skill also comes with additional modifiers:
Prime Shadow Clone: grants you the status of Unstoppable for 5 seconds after casting Shadow Clone. During this period, you cannot be controlled or affected by any enemy crowd control abilities, offering a tactical advantage in battle.
Supreme Shadow Clone: the modifier empowers your Shadow Clone further, enabling it to deal an additional 20% of your damage. It raises the damage contribution of your clone to 80% of your total damage, significantly enhancing your damage output during its active duration.
Shadow Clone is a powerful Ultimate ability designed for characters that value high damage output and self-protection. With its unique mimicry mechanic and the potential to drastically increase damage, the ability offers a unique strategic layer to any combat encounter. It is especially beneficial in high-stakes battles where a burst of damage and temporary invulnerability can turn the tide.
Best Passive Skills
Passive skill tree for Rogue Assassin
Besides just the Active Skills from each tree, there are lots of Passive Skills that are worth considering while creating your Diablo 4 Best Assassin Build. Here are the best Passive Skills that you can use for the Rogue Assassin build.
Siphoning Strikes
Belonging to the Core Node, Siphoning Strikes is a great passive ability that lets you remain on the offensive while also being able to regenerate your health in the process. Siphoning Strikes offers:
Get a maximum of 3% health regeneration (based on your max life) whenever you land Critical Strikes on Close enemies.
Considering the Assassin build is focused on Critical Strikes due to the Twisting Blades or Flurry, you’ll be able to make good use of the skill.
You will need to get Sturdy in order to reach Siphoning Strikes. But Sturdy is also a great defensive passive skill that you should use until you can unlock Siphoning Strikes.
Concussive
The thing about the Rogue Assassin Build is that you will be relying on traps, such as the Poison Trap, and it will often Knock Back or Knock Down multiple enemies. You can use the Concussive passive ability from the Agility Tree to take advantage of the Knock Back:
You will gain a +15% increased Critical Strike Chance against an enemy that has been knocked down.
The effect will last for 5 seconds.
Poison Trap is a great active ability that can knock down a large group of enemies. Applying the passive against the whole group will make it handy for crowd control.
Weapon Mastery
Another passive from the same tree, Agility Tree, is the Weapon Mastery. Mostly because it can offer increased damage to multiple weapons:
+15% increase in damage for all Daggers against Healthy enemies.
+9% increased damage for all Swords.
+12% increased damage for all Bows against Vulnerable enemies.
+15% increased Critical Strike Damage for Crossbows.
Our main focus is the sword, and considering there is a flat-out +9% increase in damage makes it a great passive skill to have.
Mending Obscurity
If you’re using Concealment as your main skill from the Subterfuge tree, then Mending Obscurity is a no-brainer.
You get 9% health recovery every second that you’re in Stealth.
Considering Concealment offers 4 seconds of stealth, you can potentially recover 36% of your health each time you use it.
Exploit
If you’re looking for a more offensive passive buff instead, then Exploit is a good option in the Subterfuge tree.
You will get a +18% increase in damage to Healthy and Injured enemies (at rank 3 of the skill).
Considering an enemy type is likely to have either of those effects, you’ll almost always have increased damage.
Precision Imbuement
There are many useful passives in the Imbuement tree, but they all depend on what kind of build you’ve created. We recommend taking Shadow Crash and Consuming Shadows, as they’ll synergize with the Shadow damage that you’ll be dishing out with your other abilities. But, the safest option that can go with any setup is definitely Precision Imbuement.
Precision Imbuement can go with any other skill from the Imbuement Skill tree.
It offers a +15% increase in Critical Hit chance.
Trap Mastery
Traps are an important part of an Assassin build, and considering that we’ll be using the Poison Trap, opting for the Trap Mastery passive ability just makes sense. It offers:
+12% increase in Critical Strike Chance against Vulnerable and Crowd Controlled enemies for 4 seconds.
The effect takes place whenever Poison Trap or Death Trap is activated.
Adrenaline Rush
Adrenaline Rush is great, especially if you later acquire the Combo Points specialization that we’ll discuss in a bit. It allows you to:
Gain x15% increased Energy Regeneration while moving.
The energy is useful for making your regular attacks more powerful.
Best Assassin Build Items & Stats
Besides just choosing the best active and passive skills for the Rogue Assassin, there are other stats and items you can choose in Diablo 4 to create a powerful build. These contain things like Aspects, choosing the right stats, and much more.
Aspects
Code of Aspect for Rogue Assassin
Aspects are crafted through the Codex of Power and can provide useful enhancements to your equipment. Here are some Aspects that you can consider using with the Diablo 4 best Assassin build.
Cheat’s Aspect: A defensive Aspect that will allow you to take less damage from crowd-controlled enemies. Additionally, you will get an increase in movement speed each time a crowd-controlled enemy damages you.
Bladedancer’s Aspect: An offensive aspect that allows the Twisting Blades to orbit around you for a short duration and deal damage to nearby enemies.
Aspect of Unstable Imbuements: Cause an Imbued Explosion each time you use an Imbuement Skill, causing enemies around you to be affected by the Imbuement effects.
Specialization
Specializations for Rogue Assassin
Your first specialization will be unlocked at level 15. After that, you’ll be able to unlock two more as you level up, but the first available specialization is all that you’ll need for the Rogue Assassin build.
To unlock the Rogue’s Specialization system in Diablo 4, you need to reach level 15.
Once you do, you’ll automatically begin the Priority Quest called “True Potential,” which, upon completion, will unlock the Specialization ability.
After that, you can opt for Combo Points. It essentially gives your Core Skills more power.
You build up combo points by using your basic skills.
At a time, you can have a maximum of three combo points.
Once you’ve built up combo points, they can be used alongside your Core Skills to give them more power. Although we discussed the possible effects of the Combo Points in the Core Skills section, here is a general summary of how they can help out in our Diablo 4 best Assassin build:
Flurry: Combo Points increase damage and grant a +30% Attack Speed bonus: +25%/+50%/+75% damage, 1.5/3.0/4.5-second bonus (depending on your rank of the skill).
Twisting Blades: Combo Points increase damage and grant a Movement Speed bonus: +30%/+60%/+90% damage, 20%/40%/60% bonus (depending on your rank of the skill).
Stats
Stats for the Rogue Assassin
For any class, it is important to upgrade all stats as you level up and progress through the game. But for our Diablo 4 best Assassin build, there are certain attributes and stats that you’re going to want to favor more than others while leveling up.
Dexterity: The Rogue class is quite low on health, so it is important that you have high dexterity such that you can remain clear of danger. Additionally, dexterity helps increase your skill damage and dodge chance.
Intelligence: Critical hits are quite an important part of the build, which is why Intelligence is a good attribute to invest in. It helps increase your Critical Strike chance as well as offering resistance to all elements.
Strength: Lastly, as you’ll be relying heavily on melee for damage output, it is important to invest in strength as well. It increases your resource generation, meaning the energy that is used to make your attacks more powerful.
With that, you know everything about the strongest Diablo 4 Assassin Build. Although the Assassin class itself has been removed from the game, you can replicate it quite well using the Rogue class in the game and choosing the appropriate skills and specializations.
While you’re already here, consider checking out our different builds, such as the Barbarian Build and the best Twisting Blades Build. Perhaps you might be interested in checking out all the dungeon locations or best farming spots to look for better loot as well.
Up Next:
Diablo 4 Dungeon Locations
BEST Diablo 4 Sorceress Class Build
Diablo 4: How To Get Murmuring Obols
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