The Barrage Rogue is a simple to play, short to mid-range archer build that is great for leveling in Diablo 4. It combines a good mix of AoE and single target damage with high movement speed and solid defenses for an overall smooth experience.
Barrage is a Core Skill that fires multiple arrows spread out in a cone in front of you. While it's a ranged skill, it can only deal with large packs of monsters from a distance and you need to get close to hit individual targets with multiple arrows (shotgun), making it a very active playstyle that requires constant maneuvering.
Over time you unlock multiple ways of recovering Energy which allow you to spam Barrage all the time. This includes Consuming Shadows from Shadow Imbuement, and most importantly the Combo Points Specialization.
Once you have the main setup together, it's all smooth sailing until the endgame. We include Shadow Imbuement to improve the build's otherwise mediocre AoE clear and blow up packs of monsters easily while applying Vulnerable debuff pretty much all the time.
This guide teaches you all about how to reach the endgame in Diablo 4 with the Barrage Rogue. Let's get started!
This build guide takes you through the Campaign up to Level 50. If you're looking for Endgame guides, check out our Rogue Guides section.
- High Mobility
- Great All-rounder
- Arrows Can Shotgun
- Blows Up Monster Packs
- Easily Misses Shots
- Frequent Repositioning
- Low Single Target Damage at Range
Season 4 - Loot Reborn
In Season 4, the Season Theme revolves around helping out the Iron Wolves. Compared to past themes, this one does not offer any borrowed power as the entire game has been redesigned with new itemization and crafting options, increasing player power substantially across the board. Instead, you can gather reputation similar to the Vampire Bounty Board from Season 2 to unlock rewards that supercharge your leveling journey to 100 with extra items, crafting materials and eventually even a Resplendent Spark to craft an uber unique.
We recommend to follow the seasonal questline until you unlock the reputation system, check which rewards suit you most and then follow your regular leveling path. To learn more, check out our full Season 4 guide for more information.
Skill Tree & Gameplay
Generators
Puncture is a great choice here because it applies Vulnerable, and slow which are important damage multipliers. It also has fast attack speed, so it feels good in the earlier levels.
Barrage
Barrage is the centerpiece of this build. It fires multiple arrows in increasingly larger angles in a frontal cone. We use it as much as possible to deal damage and apply the Vulnerable debuff with Improved Barrage. Against monster packs, you can simply spray'n'pray from a distance while on bigger targets like Elites and Bosses you have to get almost in melee range to hit them with more arrows. Always position yourself so that all of your arrows hit something.
Defense and Mobility
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 Barrage Skill. We pick up Dash for more mobility to get around the world quickly.
Imbuements
Both Shadow Imbuement and Poison Imbuement augment our Barrage skill for various effects to make us more powerful. Shadow Imbuement allows for additional explosions when you kill an enemy that has shadow damage on them. Shadow Imbuement also gives us back Energy upon explosion with the Consuming Shadows passive, making this a great Imbuement to pick up early on. Poison Imbuement adds additional poisoning damage to help with the bigger, more stubborn mobs with higher health pools. Use this after using both charges of Shadow Imbuement for cleaning up whatever is left.
Key Passive
We take Precision Key Passive to help with the lack of early game critical strikes. Upon building max stacks, our next attack is guaranteed to crit and do 40% more damage.
Rogue Specializations
The Rogue's Class Specialization allows you to choose one out of three powerful passive effects to boost your build. The three available choices are:
- Combo Points (lvl 15) - Use Basic Skills to boost your subsequent Core Skill for more damage and various other effects.
- Inner Sight (lvl 20) - Fuel the mark with attacks until full, then unlimited Energy for 4 seconds
- Preparation (lvl 30) - Every 100 Energy used reduces the cooldown of your Ultimate Skills by 4 seconds. Casting an Ultimate Skill resets all other cooldowns.
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 the Specializations
Each Specialization is very powerful and caters to specific styles of play. Pick one that suits your style and build around it. The one we're after in this build is Combo Points, which is the first to unlock. In order to use it, hit enemies with any Basic Skill (Puncture) three times to build Combo Points, then use a Core Skill (Barrage) to finish. Combo Points are displayed above the XP bar in the UI. Avoid simply spamming Barrage without any Combo Points due to its high resource cost.
Learn more details in our full Rogue Specialization Guide.
Gear Progression & Stat Priorities
Always use your highest DPS Ranged Weapon available for more damage. Your Melee Weapons are simply stat sticks to fuel its power. The stats to look for on these are:
- 1-H Weapons: Pref. Sword, Critical Strike Damage, Dexterity, Maximum Life, Socket
- Ranged Weapons: High DPS, Critical Strike Damage, Dexterity, Maximum Life, Socket
Armor
Armor pieces typically grant us Defense and Utility stats, except the Gloves which offer a tidal wave of Offense. Here are the important stats to look for:
- Helm: Dexterity, Maximum Life, All Resistance, Socket
- Armor: Dark Shroud, Armor, All Resistance, Sockets
- Gloves: Critical Strike Damage, Critical Strike Chance, Dexterity or Attack Speed
- Pants: Armor, All Resistance, Maximum Life, Sockets
- Boots: Movement Speed, All Resistance, Maximum Life
Jewelry
Jewelry provides powerful Offensive stats that help us on our leveling journey. Pay close attention to the rolls as higher leveled pieces aren't always better:
- Amulet: Critical Strike Chance, Armor %, Movement Speed
- Rings: Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Damage, Attack Speed
Read more about itemization in our Damage Explained, Defense Explained, and Stats Explained articles.
Legendary Aspects
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. For leveling, there are a few Aspects that are particularly impactful on this build and should be obtained as soon as possible:
Top Codex Legendary Aspects
| Aspect | Dungeon |
| 1. Offensive Aspect of Branching Volleys | Shadowed Plunge Hawezar |
| Offensive Aspect of the Expectant | Underroot Scosglen |
| Rapid Offensive Aspect | Buried Halls Dry Steppes |
Learn everything about the Codex of Power here.
Helpful Legendary Aspects
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. For leveling, there are a few Aspects that can significantly help you if you have the funds to imprint them:
- Defensive Aspect of the Protector Early access to good defense that can be found very early in the game in Fractured Peaks. Can later be used to add damage in combination with Conceited Offensive Aspect.
- Edgemaster’s Offensive Aspect. Small bump in damage the more Energy you have which works well with this build. Can be found in the Dungeon Oldstones in Scosglen.
- Energizing Resource Aspect. A great way to generate resources on single target when you're out of demons to explode for Energy. Can be found in the Dungeon Sanguine Chapel in Fractured Peaks.
- Defensive Aspect of Might. Free defense for just using your basic attack in rotation. Can be found in the Dungeon Dark Ravine in Dry Steppes.
- Wind Striker Mobility Aspect More speed helps surviving and moving around the open world efficiently between encounters. Can be found in the Dungeon Shivta Ruins in Kehjistan.
How To Level
In Diablo 4 you level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, or interacting with the Seasonal mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are made equal.
Campaign Leveling
- For your first character in Diablo 4, completing the Campaign provides the best gameplay experience and gives you access to key unlocks like your Mount.
- If you don't have your Mount, you MUST progress the Campaign until you complete the quest Donan's Favor at the start of Act 4.
- After obtaining your Mount you can skip the remainder of the campaign at any time.
- The Campaign is the slowest way to level, but it's worth experiencing the Campaign and Diablo 4's storyline at least once.
- To play Seasonal Content you need to have completed or skipped the Campaign.
Seasonal / Alt Leveling
- Complete the Seasonal questline, progress your Seasonal Journey to unlock Legendary Aspects and work on your Seasonal powers.
- If your account is below Rank 5 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
- This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
- Complete the Dungeons needed for any Legendary Aspects from your Codex of Power.
- From level 1-50 you should focus on getting experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or complete Gathering Legion Events.
- After level 50 you need to balance leveling up, Glyph Experience and participating in Endgame activities like Helltide, Tree of Whispers and Bosses. The fastest experience possible after reaching World Tier 3 is completing Nightmare dungeons with monsters exactly 10 levels above your current level. Check out our Nightmare Dungeon Tier List for the best Nightmare Dungeon layouts!
- Around level 30-45 you should move to World Tier 3.
- Around level 50-65 you should move to World Tier 4.
- Alternatively: Get boosted by a friend to World Tier 4 then leech experience/loot and Glyph exp (post 50), in Nightmare dungeons.
- Find the most efficient way of leveling your character in detail in our Speed Leveling Guide.
Leveling Tips and Tricks
Let's look at some tips and tricks to remember when leveling up!
- Level Up Your Potion. You need to farm materials to upgrade your character's potion.
- Make sure you collect all materials as you explore Sanctuary, especially Gallowvine which is used in many Elixir recipes!
- Compare your Items... Literally. Press Shift over an item in your inventory to compare it to what you're wearing.
- This makes it easy to determine what is and isn't an upgrade.
- Don't Imprint Your Best Aspect Onto Your Weapon. The most critical piece of gear while leveling up is your weapon, which gets replaced constantly.
- It is a better idea to put your best Offensive Aspect on your Amulet, which can be used for a long time.
- Sacred is just better. Between level 30 and 50 you're able to beat the Capstone Dungeon and enter World Tier 3, you gain access to powerful Sacred items which have higher item power and better stats. Getting a Sacred weapon significantly improves your farming speed.
- The same happens with World Tier 4 and Ancestral gear.
Video Guide
Coming soon.
Summary
- The Barrage Rogue is a great all-round build, combining mobility, great AoE and good single target damage up-close into one complete package.
- Stack Energy recovery where possible such as Consuming Shadows and Energy Cost Reduction.
- Activate Poison Imbuement and Shadow Imbuement whenever possible without overwriting each other.
- Always build 3 Combo Points before firing Barrage 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/damage reduction.
- Read the Next Steps above to continue your journey.
Credits
Written by DiEoxidE
Reviewed by wudijo