With its dualwielding potential for ranged and melee combat, the Rogue in Diablo 4 stands as a versatile class capable of swift attacks and agility. Despite being overshadowed by heavyhitting classes like Sorcerer and Necromancer, Season 6, titled the "Season of Hatred Rising," has empowered Rogues with improved mobility and survivability, making them increasingly popular. Here, we’ll explore the best Rogue builds for different ingame scenarios—leveling, endgame, and PvP. Each build is designed to optimize Rogue abilities based on various challenges and objectives in Diablo 4 Season 6.

 Best Leveling Builds: Barrage Rogue

In the leveling phase, speed and survivability are crucial. This phase is focused on getting through content quickly, and the Barrage Rogue is ideal for this purpose. Barrage is a skill that fires multiple arrows in a cone, allowing the Rogue to clear groups of enemies efficiently, which speeds up the leveling process significantly.

Benefits of Barrage Rogue:

 Cone Damage: Barrage is great for clearing clustered mobs, making it a perfect skill for the dense enemy packs often encountered while leveling.

 Arrow Bounce: The arrows fired by Barrage bounce off targets, dealing damage to additional enemies and amplifying the areaofeffect (AOE) capability of the skill.

 High Mobility: With increased movement and attack speed, the Barrage Rogue can navigate fights quickly, which improves both survivability and the ability to evade enemy attacks.

Skill Imbuements:

1. Shadow Imbuement: Grants the Barrage skill additional burst damage and recovery, allowing for a smooth flow in clearing enemies without frequently pausing for health recovery.

2. Poison Imbuement: Adds poison damage to targets, especially effective against tougher, highhealth monsters, ensuring continuous damage over time even after the Rogue moves away.

Optional Melee Option:

For players who prefer closecombat, skills like Flurry and Twisting Blades can transform the Barrage Rogue into a melee powerhouse. However, the melee route requires heavy investment in defensive gear due to Rogue’s lower durability in melee combat, so be prepared to invest some Diablo 4 Gold for survivability enhancements.

 Best Endgame Builds: Dance of Knives Rogue

Once you reach level 60 and gain access to the Paragon Board, it’s time to switch to an endgamespecific build. The Dance of Knives build, introduced in Season 6, capitalizes on the Rogue’s high mobility and steady, reliable damage output. This build is particularly strong for the endgame, where enemies are tougher and require more precise damage strategies.

Advantages of Dance of Knives:

 Consistent Damage Output: Dance of Knives constantly throws knives at enemies, dealing steady damage regardless of attack speed. Attack speed increases, however, will raise the base damage of the knives, creating a satisfying balance between consistency and strength.

 Movement Speed Benefits: High movement speed synergizes well with this build, allowing Rogues to continually attack while evading, making them elusive and difficult to target.

Defensive Tactics:

1. Dark Shroud: A powerful defensive skill that surrounds the Rogue in shadows, reducing incoming damage and occasionally avoiding damage entirely. This also provides a bonus to attack speed, which boosts overall damage output.

2. Imbuement Options:

    Shadow Imbuement: Useful for AOE and mobclearing.

    Cold Imbuement: Provides added utility in boss fights, inflicting cold damage and slowing bosses, which makes them easier to avoid and control.

Endgame Goal: With sufficient movement speed, the Dance of Knives Rogue becomes a “perpetual motion machine,” capable of clearing enemies while continuously collecting Diablo 4 Gold and valuable loot.

 Best PvP Builds: Rapid Fire Rogue

In PvP, the Rogue must be built to swiftly take down opponents with minimal time spent in open combat. Rapid Fire Rogue is designed for high burst damage, enabling players to stand in safer positions and target enemies effectively. This build shines in situations where you must maintain control, react to threats, and optimize damage bursts for quick takedowns.

Key Strengths of Rapid Fire Rogue:

 High Burst Damage: Rapid Fire sends multiple highdamage arrows toward a single target, perfect for isolating and defeating opponents with minimal time in danger.

 SingleTarget Precision: By adding Precision to passive skills, this build amplifies critical strike damage after consuming the maximum Precision stacks, leading to explosive singletarget attacks that can quickly eliminate other players.

Alternative PvP Options:

1. Shadow Step Rogue: This build focuses on agility and burst, allowing the Rogue to strike opponents from behind with Shadow Step. However, the cooldown time on this skill requires careful planning, so it’s wise to use items that reduce cooldown times for consistent effectiveness.

2. Andariel’s Rogue: For those interested in a mix of poison and rapid attacks, Andariel’s Rogue offers high mobility and continuous poisonbased damage, ideal for PvP engagements. However, this build requires Andariel’s Visage or Andariel’s Visage Aspect for maximum effectiveness, so it’s more resourceintensive.

 Advanced Tips for Rogue Builds

 Skill Imbuements and Gear Synergy: Imbuement skills (Shadow, Poison, Cold) allow Rogues to customize damage based on enemy type. Pairing gear with relevant Imbuements will amplify damage, especially when focusing on specific enemy weaknesses.

 Gear Biasing: Equip a weapon or item that reflects the desired attribute for upcoming battles, such as Strength for melee or Intelligence for magical boosts. This can help create builds more efficiently tailored to player needs.

 Heart Rune Upgrade: For all builds, investing in a Heart Rune, like Stone Form, enhances durability and flexibility in highrisk situations, giving you seconds of invulnerability to strategize.

 Legendary Aspects and Paragon Board: After level 60, focus on optimizing your Paragon Board for the attributes that amplify your main build. Legendary Aspects will give you the edge in specific abilities, allowing you to customize Rogue's strengths in damage, mobility, or defense.

 Preparation for Mutations: In endgame, aim to complete nonmutated versions of key Expeditions to gather essential artifacts for later use in Mutated Expeditions. Preparation with the right gear, artifacts, and build setup will help ensure that you’re fully geared for these more challenging adventures.

 Conclusion: The Path of the Rogue in Season of Hatred Rising

The Rogue in Diablo 4 Season of Hatred Rising presents a wealth of potential, transforming into an agile powerhouse when equipped with the right build for the right situation. Whether you’re leveling up quickly with the Barrage Rogue, grinding through endgame content with Dance of Knives, or taking down rivals in PvP as a Rapid Fire Rogue, there is a build to suit every need.

Final Tips for Season 6:

 Stay flexible: The ability to swap between builds as needed is key to keeping up with the season's everevolving challenges.

 Farm Gold: Rogues with optimized builds have numerous opportunities to collect Diablo 4 gold, which is crucial for upgrading gear and purchasing rare items.

 Join the Community: Collaborate with other players to learn the latest strategies. MMOEXP's Discord, for example, offers a supportive environment for questions and event information.

With these strategies in place, the Rogue can step out from the shadow of other classes and hold its own in the toughest challenges Diablo 4 has to offer. Embrace the power and versatility of Rogue in Season of Hatred Rising, and enjoy the journey through Avernus.