Rouge is a super-versatile class specializing in laying traps, ranged combat, and melee combat. Being able to build her in multiple ways makes it a very fun class to use. However, regardless of what type of playstyle you are going with, it is important to assign Rouge the best skills in Diablo 4 in order to use her effectively and efficiently in combat situations.
Related: Diablo 4 Rogue Build
Rouge’s skills are divided into 7 categories.
The Basic Skills category is unlocked from the start, while the rest can be unlocked by spending skill points.
Basic Skills are low-damage skills that don’t cost any energy, and the skills recommended for this tree are Heartseeker, Forceful Arrow, and Invigorating Strike.
Core Skills are the meat of your playstyle, and the skills recommended for it are Twisting Blades, Barrage, and Rapid Fire.
Agility Skills enhance the movement and dodging capabilities of your character, and the skills worth investing in this tree are Dash, Weapon Mastery, and Caltropes.
Subterfuge Skills buffs up Rouge’s offensive and defensive capabilities, and the best skills for this category are Concealment, Poison Trap, Exploit, and Malice.
Imbuement Skills add special ailments to Rouge’s weaponry, and the skills recommended for it are Shadow Imbuement, Poison Imbuement, and Deadly Venom.
Ultimate Skills are game-changing attacks that can turn tides of battles in seconds, and the best ultimate skills for Rouge Class are Rain of Arrows and Shadow Clone.
Capstone or Ultimate Passives are a set of passive skills that enhances the overall skillset of Rouge, and the passives recommended for Rouge are Momentum, Close Quarter Combat, and Precision.
Basic Skills
Core Skills
Agility Skills
Imbuement Skills
Subterfuge Skills
Ultimate Skills
Capstone/Passive Skills
Additionally, each skill in the game (except for passives) can be further upgraded to an enhanced, or advanced form to add further effects or buffs to the equipped skill.
Basic Skills
Rouge Basic Skills| Image Using The Diablo 4 Build Calculator
Basic Skills are low-damage attacks that don’t cost any Energy and are typically used to deal with low-level enemies or at least help you keep engaged in combat, allowing you to deal minute but overtime damage.
Basic Skills are unlocked from the start.
Heartseeker
Lucky Hit Chance: 50%
Damage: 22%
Critical Strike Chance: 3%
Time Duration for Critical Strike Chance: 4 seconds
Stacks Up to 15%
Heartseeker allows you to fire an arrow that seeks the enemy and then increases your critical strike chance against that enemy for 4 seconds. This effect stacks up to five times.
Additionally, Heartseeker can be upgraded to enhanced, fundamental or primary forms as well, which raises its attack speed for a short duration, increases critical strike damage, and fires an additional arrow that deals 30% of the original damage to another enemy, respectively.
Forceful Arrow
Lucky Hit Chance: 50%
Damage: 20%
Time Duration for Vulnerability: 2 seconds
Forceful arrow is another ranged attack that deals high single-target damage and makes the enemy vulnerable for 2 seconds after every 3rd cast.
Upgrading Forceful Arrow increases its critical strike damage, piercing ability against vulnerable enemies, and knockback effect against close enemies.
Invigorating Strike
Lucky Hit Chance: 50%
Damage: 23%
Energy Regeneration rate: x20%
Invigorating Strike is Rouge’s melee skill commonly used against a huge group of enemies. It deals higher base damage than normal attacks and increases the energy regeneration by x20 for a short duration of time.
Invigorating Strike can be further enhanced to increase its Lucky Hit Chance against injured or crowd-controlled enemies, energy regeneration against injured enemies, and base damage while the overall health is below 50%.
Core Skills
Rouge Core Skills| Image Using The Diablo 4 Build Calculator
Unlock Requirement: 2 skill points
Core Skills are the ones that will heavily affect your playstyle as they consume a high amount of Energy and deal high AoE damage to sabotage a large group of enemies.
Twisting Blades
Energy Cost: 30
Lucky Hit Chance: 35%
Damage: 57%
x8% increased damage to impaled enemy
Time: 1.5 seconds
Piercing Damage: 72%
Twisting Blades allow you to impale enemies with your blade, dealing extreme damage, and while they are impaled, the enemies take x8 increased damage from your attacks. After 1.5 seconds, the blades return to the user dealing 72% piercing damage on the way back. High piercing damage combined with a damage debuff makes Twisting Blades one of the best Core Skills for Rouge in Diablo 4,
Twisting Blades can be upgraded to increase their piercing damage upon return, reduce active cooldowns per enemy hit and apply the dazed effect to impaled enemies.
Barrage
Energy Cost: 30
Lucky Hit Chance: 20%
Damage: 21%
Ricochet Chance: 20%
Ricochet Damage: 40%
Rouge fires a barrage of 5 arrows that travel outward and deal 21% damage to each enemy. Moreover, each arrow has a chance to ricochet off an enemy, which deals damage equivalent to 40% of the base attack.
Upon spending some extra skill points to upgrade the barrage to an improved, advanced, or enhanced version, your Barrage skill will have an increased ricochet chance and critical strike chance against vulnerable enemies.
Rapid Fire
Energy Cost: 30
Lucky Hit Chance: 20%
Damage: 24%
As the name suggests, this skill allows you to fire 5 arrows in succession. However, the number of arrows fired can be increased up to 8 arrows based on combo points.
Upgrading this skill will increase its critical strike chance, which stacks up to 25%, energy gain rate after hitting a vulnerable enemy, and critical strike damage upon using this skill after an evasion.
Agility Skills
Rouge Agility Skills| Image Using The Diablo 4 Build Calculator
Unlock Requirement: 6 skill points
Agility Skills, as the name suggests, basically enhance your movement and dodging speed in order to avoid attacks, run, or gain an advantage against enemies or bosses.
Dash
Charges: 2 seconds
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Lucky Hit Chance: 25%
Damage: 37%
Dash skills are a more lethal version of the normal dash which allows you to dash forward and strike enemies 2 times, dealing 37% damage to struck enemies.
Its damage and stats can be increased by upgrading it to an enhanced, methodical or disciplined dash. The most noticeable changes these upgrades bring are cooldown against crowd-controlled enemies, critical strike damage against struck enemies, and slowing down enemies by 30% for 3 seconds.
Weapon Mastery
Weapon Mastery is a passive skill attached to the Agility Skill tree. This skill grants you increased bonus damage depending on the weapon you are using.
Daggers deal 5% increased damage, Swords 3%, Bows 4% to Vulnerable enemies, and Crossbows deal 5% increased critical strike damage to enemy units.
Caltrops
Charges: 2
Charge Cooldown: 12 seconds
Lucky Hit Chance: 25%
Damage: 30%
Slow-down Effect: 50%
Effect Duration: 6 seconds
Caltrop is a trap-type attack where Rouge leaps backwards and throws caltrops on the ground, which deals decent damage to enemies and slows them down in the process. The effect last for 6 seconds.
Upgrading increases its critical strike chance, gives a cold status effect, and raises the enemy damage intake as long as they are trapped.
Subterfuge Skills
Rouge Subterfuge Skills| Image Using The Diablo 4 Build Calculator
Unlock Requirement: 11 skill points
Subterfuge Skills are a special set of skills exclusive to the Rouge class. These skills add various offensive and defensive buffs to your build, which in turn shape your playstyle during the game.
Concealment
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Time Duration: 4 seconds
Movement Speed Increase: 25%
Concealment allows you to vanish during the encounters and remain invisible for 4 seconds, allowing you to become unstoppable and gain an increased movement speed. This effect breaks upon using an attack or taking damage.
Upgraded concealment allows you to gain 40 energy upon activation, makes enemies vulnerable for 3 seconds after concealment breaks, and guarantees a critical skill strike.
Poison Trap
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Lucky Hit Chance: 20%
Activation Time: 1.25 seconds
Poison Damage: 344%
Time Duration: 9 seconds
Place a Poison Trap on the ground, which upon activation, deals 344% poisoning damage. The effect lasts for 9 seconds. Further upgrading Poison Trap allows you to Knock Down enemies for 1.5 seconds, deal increased poison damage to trapped enemies, and reset Imbuement Skill cooldown timer.
Exploit
Exploit is a passive skill that raises your damage by 6% against injured and healthy enemies.
Malice
Malice is another passive skill attached to the Subterfuge skill tree which increases your damage by 3% against vulnerable enemies.
Imbuement Skills
Rouge Imbuement Skills| Image Using The Diablo 4 Build Calculator
Unlock Requirement: 16 skill points
Imbuement Skills basically imbue your next two attacks or skills with an effect. The list of effects includes poison, cold, and shadow effects which deal damage equivalent to 40 – 70% of base damage.
Shadow Imbuement
Cooldown: 9 seconds
Lucky Hit Chance: 33%
Time Duration: 6 seconds
Damage: 40%
Shadow Imbuement imbues your weapon with “shadow effect” and allows you to deal shadow damage for the next two strikes, which inflicts a shadow status effect on enemies for a time duration of 6 seconds. The enemies infected with shadow explode on death, dealing 40% damage to surrounding enemies.
Further investing and upgrading Shadow Imbuement will allow you to increase your critical chance by 25%, make enemies vulnerable to shadow explosion, and deal increased non-physical damage to enemies afflicted with shadow effect.
Poisoned Imbuement
Cooldown: 9 seconds
Lucky Hit Chance: 33%
Time Duration: 5 seconds
Damage: 70%
Poison Imbuement imbues your weapon with poison and allows you to deal poison damage equivalent to 70% of base damage for 2 attacks and inflicts the enemy with poison debuff for 5 seconds.
Upon further enhancement, the damage via poisoning, the chance to deal double poison damage, and the critical strike chance using poison-imbued weapons are significantly raised.
Deadly Venom
Deadly Venom is a passive skill you can unlock using the Imbuement Skill tree. It raises your poisoning damage by x3%.
Ultimate Skills
Rouge Ultimate Skills| Image Using The Diablo 4 Build Calculator
Unlock Requirement: 23 skill points
Ultimate Skills are extremely powerful skills that deal heaps of damage to an enemy unit and can essentially turn the tide of battles. These skills have a huge cooldown, so it is wise to save them only for the most decisive and critical moments. Contrary to the aforementioned skills, only one ultimate can be chosen at a time.
Shadow Clone
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Time Duration: 60 seconds
Damage: 60%
Upon using your ultimate, Rouge summons a shadow of herself that mimics her actions and deals damage equivalent to 60% of your base attack. The shadow lasts for a duration of 15 seconds.
The damage of Shadow Clone can be further raised by upgrading it to Supreme Shadow Clone.
Rain of Arrows
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Lucky Hit Chance: 20%
Damage: 100%
Upon casting this ultimate, arrows will rain down over enemies twice, with each wave dealing damage equivalent to 100% of your base damage.
Upgrading this skill will increase its attack potency and will apply a knockdown effect to its second wave.
Ultimate Passive Skills/Capstone
Rouge Passive Skills | Image Using The Diablo 4 Build Calculator
Unlock Requirement: 33 skill points
Ultimate Passive Skills essentially enhance your stats or already equipped skills by raising the damage of skills or by giving you certain bonuses while utilizing specific attacks/skills. Ultimate Passive is one of the key skill trees that define your playstyle and complement the ultimate you have equipped. Likewise, only one Passive Ultimate skill can be equipped at a time.
Momentum
You gain a stack of momentum upon an enemy with a Cutthroat Skill for 8 seconds. At 3 stacks of momentum, your character will gain 20% increased damage reduction, 30% energy regeneration, and 15% increased movement speed.
The condition applies only if the enemy is stunned, dazed, or hit from behind.
Close Quarter Combat
Dealing damage to nearby enemies with Cutthroat or Marksman skill gives you a 10% increase in attack speed for a duration of 8 seconds. While the attack speed buff is active, your base damage against crowd-controlled enemies is raised by x20%.
If you are going for a hybrid build that utilizes both ranged and melee attacks, Close Quarter Combat is the recommended passive for you.
Precision
Upon using Marksman Skills, your character gains a stack of Precision, which increases your critical strike damage by 4% and stacks up to 20%.
After reaching maximum Precision, your next strike with a Marksman Skill is guaranteed to be a Critical Strike which deals damage equal to 40%. The stacks of Precision reset after the critical strike.
This passive is recommended for players with a playstyle centred around the ranged abilities of Rouge.
Final Remarks
Keep in mind that the skills and their stats/percentages listed here are subject to change. Meaning, the skills that are OP in right now may be nerfed in a later update and vice versa. Additionally, it is important to have basic info about Rouge Class regarding what weapons it has and what kind of playstyle works with her if you are going to main her,
Diablo 4 doesn’t have a shortage of builds and is filled with a wide variety of them for each class. For detailed guides on the best builds in Diablo 4, consider going through our pieces on the best Barbarian build, best Druid Build, best Necromancer build, and best Sorceress build.
This concludes our guide on the best skills you can assign Rouge in Diablo 4. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Next:
Diablo 4 Class Tier List
Diablo 4: How To Get Murmuring Obols
Diablo 4: How To Respec & Reset Individual Skills
Diablo 4: All Waypoint Locations To Fast Travel
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