Are you looking for a ranged, "nuke the entire screen"-playstyle for Rogue? Well, this is it! The Penetrating Shot Rogue is a relatively easy to understand, powerful build which scales really well into the endgame. There are many different tools and strategies you can use to assist keeping you safe as you unleash hell from many angles.
Penetrating Shot is a Core Skill that fires one massive, piercing arrow. Pretty straight forward, literally, and while this doesn't sound exciting at first, when you spice it up with Imbuements and the Trickshot Aspect, your nuke comes to life. As with most Rogue skills, maximizing its potential requires good positioning because you deal increased damage the more enemies you hit in a line.
We use Penetrating Shot as a damage enabling ability to proc Victimize explosions all over the battlefield. Therefore, we need a lot of Lucky Hit Chance through gear and passives to guarantee the explosions! Due to hitting many targets at once, you will still see many Victimize Explosions, even though you may not have hit the breakpoints yet.
This is a very satisfying and rewarding build that requires some planning ahead to maximize its potential. This guide teaches you the best way to tackle endgame with Penetrating Shot Rogue! Ultimately, this build transitions excellently into the Specialized Shadow Step Rogue Build.
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Penetrating Shot Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Rogue playstyle, check out all of our Rogue Guides.
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
- Puncture isn't used for DPS, but for its utility. It stacks Combo Points and replenishes Energy. It also applies Slow and Vulnerable.
- Penetrating Shot is our main ability to proc Victimize. It's a great AoE clear skill when combined with the Trickshot Aspect. Make sure to line up enemies to use this effectively.
- Use Dash to reposition in battle to prevent backing yourself into a corner. It is also very effective in helping you relocate to better line up Penetrating Shot.
- Enhanced Dash can increase your damage, but do sacrifice your positioning for it when you are already lined up for a good shot.
- Shadow Step can also be used to reposition. Although it should mainly be used to become Unstoppable. Use it only for traversal whenever you are not anticipating to be incapacitated.
- Caltrops is a massive damage multiplier, especially when enabling Ambush and Deadly Ambush. Use it only when facing tough elites or bosses, as the backflip takes a bit of time and can mess with your positioning. It can also freeze enemies through Methodical Caltrops and thus activate the stronger bonuses from Mixed Cold Imbuement and Frigid Finesse.
- Cold Imbuement buffs Penetrating Shot by converting it to Cold damage. Its primary use is to blow up frozen elite packs efficiently. It is also used to activate Eldritch Bounty.
- Dark Shroud is essentially our 7th Skill due to Umbrous. It provides us with necessary defense and some utility as well.
Passives
Innervation is crucial to maintaining our Energy and procs very often due to our high Lucky Hit Chance. We also pick important damage multipliers like Frigid Finesse, Weapon Mastery, Exploit and Malice.
We also use Alchemist's Fortune and Second Wind to ensure reaching the Lucky Hit Chance breakpoint of +122.22% to guarantee Victimize on every Penetrating Shot.
Key Passive
- Victimize is our key passive of choice. It provides us with massive explosions whenever we score a Lucky Hit on a Vulnerable Enemy. With Penetrating Shot having a high innate Lucky Hit Chance it creates a lot of explosions. Ensure to hit as many targets in a line as possible. For more information on how Victimize and Lucky Hit Chance work, refer to the FAQ & Mechanics section of this guide.
Gameplay
Our main goal is to hit as many targets as possible with Penetrating Shot to proc Victimize as often as possible. The more successful you are at lining up your shots for Advanced Penetrating Shot, the quicker you clear enemies. Practice using your Agility Skills wisely. Mastering their timing and learning their mechanics is key to playing an efficient Penetrating Shot Rogue.
Optimal Damage Rotation
- Your general gameplay rotation will feel very rhythmic and should be as follows:
- Build 3 Combo Points with Puncture.
- Optional: Drop Caltrops on tough elites.
- Use Shadow Step or Dash to activate Tricks of the Trade.
- Thus, be careful not to mess up your positioning. If you miss half of the elites doing this, it is not worth it.
- Activate Cold Imbuement.
- Fire Penetrating Shot to proc Victimize on multiple targets.
- Since Dash and Shadow Step can be Imbued, be careful to not waste charges on them. If you have a lot of +Cold Imbue Tempers, you can also use Dash to potentially freeze enemies through Enhanced Cold Imbuement.
Rogue Specializations
The Rogue's Class Specialization allows you to choose one out of three powerful passive effects to boost your build. Our Specialization of choice for this build is Combo Points.
Use your Basic Skills to boost the subsequent Core Skill for more damage and other effects. We choose Combo Points for high burst damage which scales really well with Penetrating Shot per point. Furthermore, Combo Points provide us with additional Lucky Hit Chance for Penetrating Shot. This effect is increased to +40% through Cunning Stratagem.
Basic Skills (Puncture) are required to build Combo Points, which are spent by Core Skills (Penetrating Shot). For the best damage per Energy ratio you always want to build up 3 Combo Points before using Penetrating Shot. This is also massively important to get the maximum Lucky Hit Chance bonus to guarantee Victimize procs with proper itemization. The Rapid Aspect and attack speed rolls work well in building Combo Points quicker for faster burst.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Rogue Specialization Guide.
Resource & Cooldown Management
As with all Combo Point builds, resource management is rather easy as you're naturally regenerating Energy when you're not using Penetrating Shot. You also regain a lot of Energy through Puncture and Innervation. As for Cooldown, you only have to keep up with Cold Imbuement. With Cooldown reduction on the helmet and +Cold Imbue Count on Jewelry, you are all set.
Mobility
Feel free to use Dash whenever necessary to go faster. Usually it's best to use the first charge between elite packs. Enhanced Dash can increase your damage, but do not mess up your positioning when you are already lined up to shoot. When you see elites or mob types that have lots of crowd control, do not engage with Shadow Step. Consequently, use it to break out of crowd control when necessary instead.
Paragon Board
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation and board order. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 when they reach level 15!
Level the Paragon Board by Scrolling. Each step optimized progression.
Glyphs
We need to level up our Glyphs to increase their power and activate their Additional Bonus with surrounding nodes. Glyphs have a radius of 3 by default, this increases to 4 at Glyph level 15. Complete Nightmare Dungeons to obtain Glyph experience.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Exploit
- Control
- Canny
- Ambush
- Efficacy
Level 21
- Exploit
- Control
- Canny
- Ambush
- Efficacy
Other useful Glyphs to level
As a result of finishing your main setup, leveling up the following can be useful:
- Versatility - if you plan to transition into Shadow Step Rogue.
- Combat - if you want to play a Precision build later on.
- Ranger, Closer and Turf - if you want more defensive options.
Also check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Endgame Gear & Skill Progression
When you start diving into the Endgame, you don't have all the tools available to achieve the final build versions. Let us guide you through different progression points to give you a smooth transition from our Leveling Guides to the final build version.
Progression Goals
Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. While we can guarantee that everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the exact progression is different for everyone.
- Unlock the following Aspects in your Codex of Power:
- Trickshot in Bastion of Faith (Hawezar)
- Rapid in Buried Halls (Dry Stepps)
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones (Scosglen)
- Might in Dark Ravine (Dry Steppes)
- Expectant in Underroot (Scosglen)
- Energizing in Sanguine Chapel (Fractured Peaks)
- Protector in Lost Archives (Fractured Peaks)
- Wind Striker in Shivta Ruins (Khejistan)
- Unstable Imbuements in Whispering Vault (Dry Steppes)
- Enshrouding in Ghoa Ruins (Hawezar)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects by farming in Dungeons, Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, through the Tree of Whispers, or gambling with Obols:
- Umbrous - Gamble for Pants. This replaces Enshrouding.
- Crowded Sage - This replaces Protector.
- Concussive Strikes - This replaces Wind Striker.
- Accelerating - This replaces Energizing.
- Elements - This replaces Unstable Imbuements.
- Acquire the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops.
- Beastfall Boots (For Boss one shot variant)
- In case you're lucky enough to obtain one of the following Uber Uniques, you may utilize them for this build:
- Ring of Starless Skies - This can replace Accelerating. Allows you to have better energy economy but introduces another buff to manage. You also lose out on one +Cold Imbue Temper.
- Doombringer - If you feel extremely squishy and want a bit more of a laid back experience. Keep in mind Doombringer is a very significant damage loss as you give up an offensive aspect and a lot of stats. You need to make up the missing Chance to Cast Penetrating Shot Twice Temper with Masterworking. Doombringer can replace Accelerating, subsequently move either Elements or Expectant to a ring.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Steps
After completing the leveling guide, only the Codex of Power Aspects are guaranteed. With this setup, you can farm the Legendary Aspects and Unique items you need for the next progression point.
Gear & Strategy
- This variant only includes Aspects you can acquire without them needing to drop from monsters.
- Unlock Trickshot Aspect, Edgemaster’s Aspect, Rapid Aspect, and Aspect of the Expectant in the Codex of Power.
- If you followed the Penetrating Shot Rogue Leveling Guide, keep Dark Shroud on your skill bar until you find Umbrous. Once acquired, use Caltrops and drop Dark Shroud as shown in the original skills section of this guide.
In this setup, you have access to all Legendary Aspects, allowing you to pilot a much stronger version of this build. Additional Legendary Aspects are used to fill slots that may be replaced with Unique items later on.
Gear & Strategy
- Work on acquiring Umbrous Aspect as quickly as possible by gambling Chest or Pants with Obols. A good roll gives you nice uptime on Dark Shroud shadows giving you essentially a 7th Skill.
- Try to gamble for Crowded Sage to get your healing going.
- Acquire Elements for more power during Cold Imbuement.
- Accelerating grants lots of extra Attack Speed for more Damage, Healing and Lucky Hit Effects.
- Get Concussive Strikes for your boots to increase your overall damage output.
- Look out for better rolls on Aspects that you may store in your Codex.
In this setup, you have access to all Unique items and Legendary Aspects. This allows you to pilot this build at its peak efficiency. Let's take a look at the changes you need to make to implement them.
Gear & Strategy
- Once you have all of your gear together, start working towards reaching +122.22% Lucky Hit Chance on gear.
- Reaching this breakpoint allows you to proc Victimize on every single cast of Penetrating Shot combined with 3 Combo Points and Cunning Stratagem.
- This will massively amplify all of your damage, as every single enemy hit by Penetrating Shot can proc a Victimize explosion.
- Also try to get the +Cold Imbuement Tempers as fast as possible. The feel and fluidity of this build will benefit greatly from it!
With Uber Uniques
You can replace your Ring with Retribution for Ring of Starless Skies allowing you to have better energy economy for more efficiency with Edgemaster's. You do lose out on the +Cold Imbuement Count Temper, so it is not always better to use Starless Skies.
Be aware that you may need to compensate for the missing Lucky Hit Chance if your previous Ring had a Greater Affix on it.
Skills
No changes are needed to skills.
The Speedfarming setup makes you more efficient in farming the Open World, Helltide zones, Tree of Whispers, regular Dungeons, and low level Nightmare Dungeons and Pits.
Gear
- This setup does not differ much from the Endgame Variant. You can opt to drop Concussive Strikes for Ravager's on your boots for more mobility.
In this section we talk about taking down bosses with a dedicated setup for higher boss damage. While not particularly useful in other content, this variant performs decently against Tormented Bosses. The variant below is user friendly requiring the least amount of changes possible. If you do not mind respeccing entirely for long sessions of boss runs, refer to our Specialized One Shot Rogue Guide.
Gear
- You want a different Helm with +Energy, Gloves with Hectic instead of Trickshot and Beastfall Boots.
- Hectic is important to push down Shadow Clone's Cooldown efficiently to be able to go for a second or third big shot on a staggered boss.
- You can also drop Retribution instead of Trickshot and move Trickshot to a Ring instead.
Skills
- Instead of Shadow Step you add Shadow Clone to your skill bar allowing you to utilize Beastfall Boots.
Gameplay
The gameplay remains mostly the same. You only want to weave in Shadow Clone right when you stagger a boss to make your Penetrating Shot hit even harder.
This type of Bossing setup works best with swapping to the items when needed.
There are many different variants of a Bossing setup that may even be able to One Shot. Remember: We're trying to keep it simple with the least changes and requirements possible.
Build Scaling & Stat Priority
- Combo Points: Use Puncture 3 times to boost your next Penetrating Shot, further enhanced by Aspect of the Expectant. Use Rapid to build Combo Points faster.
- Critical Strike Chance: To keep high uptime on Umbrous and trapped enemies for Deadly Ambush.
- Vulnerable Damage: The key passive Victimize scales with Vulnerable Damage. As a rule of thumb, it's good to get as much of it on gear and paragon as possible.
- Freezing: Cold Imbuement, Control and Frigid Finesse benefit from the enemy being frozen.
- Lucky Hit Chance (LHC): Stack as much as possible until you reach the +122.22% breakpoint. With Alchemist's Fortune and Second Wind you reach the breakpoint guaranteeing a Victimize explosion on every hit of a 3 Combo Point Penetrating Shot.
- Staggering: Staggering a boss is mandatory for optimal damage output. Utilize your high Attack Speed from Puncture bundled with it's high Lucky Hit Chance. This allows you to proc many Lucky Hit Chance to: Stun/Freeze/Daze/etc. tempering effects for a quick stagger.
- Don't get hit: Snipe enemies from a distance and use Evade to stay out of danger.
- Defensive Legendaries: Aspect of Might and Crowded Sage are both great defensive aspects as you're always attacking and have high dodge chance. Umbrous Aspect is an excellent choice as it gives you free Dark Shroud shadows just for attacking.
- Movement Speed: The faster you are, the easier it is to manually dodge attacks and not get hit. Stack as much of it as you can using Haste, Subverting Dark Shroud and movement speed stats on boots and with tempering.
- Dodge Chance: A crucial defensive stat, providing you with a chance to entirely negate incoming damage. Stacking it will greatly increase your overall survivability and allows you to maintain your Dark Shroud stacks more easily.
Our Damage Explained article explains how to scale your Offense.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Stat Priorities
To enable your build to perform optimally, you need to reach certain Stat "Breakpoints". Since there are many values of these stats on different pieces of gear, read the checklist below and refer to the recommended Tempered Affixes ⚒️ and Masterwork Crits ↑. Desirable Greater Affixes will always be the top three recommended Affixes.
Recommended Stat Breakpoints:
- +40% Critical Strike Chance
- +92.22% Lucky Hit Chance
- 1400 Dexterity
- >28,000 Life
- 12+ Total Ranks of Penetrating Shot
- 12+ Total Ranks of Dark Shroud
- 700%+ Vulnerable Damage
- Armor Capped 9230
- Resistance Capped 70%
- 80%+ Attack Speed
- 6+ Cold Imbuement Count
- 250%+ Damage per Combo Point Spent
- 60%+ Dodge Chance
- 160%+ Total Movement Speed
Recommended Stat Priorities:
Helm: Might
- Lucky Hit Chance ↑↑
- Resistance to All Elements ↑
- Cooldown Reduction
- Maximum Life
- Dexterity
- ⚒️ Lightning Resistance
- ⚒️ Chance to Freeze/Stun/Immobilize/Daze
Chest Armor: Crowded Sage
- Ranks to Dark Shroud ↑↑↑
- Maximum Life
- Dexterity
- Energy per Second
- ⚒️ Dodge Chance
- ⚒️ Chance to Freeze/Stun/Immobilize/Daze
Gloves: Trickshot
- Ranks to Penetrating Shot ↑↑↑
- Lucky Hit Chance
- Critical Strike Chance
- Vulnerable Damage
- Dexterity
- ⚒️ Damage per Combo Point Spent
- ⚒️ Chance to Freeze/Stun/Immobilize/Daze
Pants: Umbrous
- Armor ↑↑↑
- Dodge Chance
- Dexterity
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Dodge Chance
- ⚒️ Chance to Freeze/Stun/Immobilize/Daze
Boots: Concussive Strikes
- Movement Speed ↑
- *Dodge Chance ↑
- Dexterity ↑
- ⚒️ Movement Speed
- ⚒️ Chance to Freeze/Stun/Immobilize/Daze
Crossbow: Edgemaster's
- *Attack Speed ↑
- Vulnerable Damage ↑↑
- Dexterity
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Chance for Penetrating Shot Twice
- ⚒️ Damage per Combo Point Spent
Dagger 1: Elements
- *Attack Speed ↑
- Vulnerable Damage ↑↑
- Dexterity
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Chance for Penetrating Shot to Cast Twice
- ⚒️ Damage per Combo Point Spent
Dagger 2: Expectant
- Vulnerable Damage ↑↑↑
- Dexterity
- Maximum Life
- Lucky Hit: Chance to Restore Resource
- ⚒️ Chance for Penetrating Shot Twice
- ⚒️ Damage per Combo Point Spent
Amulet: Rapid
- Lucky Hit Chance ↑↑
- Ranks to Exploit
- Ranks to Malice
- Ranks to Frigid Finesse
- Ranks to Weapon Mastery
- Cooldown Reduction
- Movement Speed
- ⚒️ Movement Speed
- ⚒️ Cold Imbuement Count ↑
Ring 1: Accelerating
- Shadow Resistance
- Lucky Hit Chance ↑↑↑
- Vulnerable Damage
- Critical Strike Chance
- ⚒️ Damage per Combo Point Spent
- ⚒️ Cold Imbuement Count
Ring 2: Retribution
- Shadow Resistance
- Lucky Hit Chance ↑↑
- Vulnerable Damage
- Critical Strike Chance
- ⚒️ Damage per Combo Point Spent
- ⚒️ Cold Imbuement Count ↑
FAQ & Mechanics
Once a guide is released, many players have questions on why and how we are approaching certain choices. In this section you can find the answers to the questions that have been asked the most.
I feel like I'm not doing a lot of damage. What am I doing wrong?
I'm dying a lot, what can I do?
I'm not getting Victimize explosions on every Penetrating Shot, why?
What are the pros and cons of Daggers and Swords?
Are any Uniques useful for this build?
How are Dark Shroud stacks generated in this build?
Why Rubies instead of Emeralds in gem sockets?
Isn't Penetrating Shot bad on single target?
Mechanics
Dark Shroud Scaling
Attack Speed Caps
Victimize Damage Scaling
Damage Multiplier Scaling
Cooldown Reduction Scaling
Lucky Hit Chance Mechanics
Dodge Mechanics
Beastfall Boots Mechanics for Bossing Variant
Stagger Mechanics
Video Guide
Summary
The Penetrating Shot Rogue is a ranged powerhouse that excels at destroying packs of monsters with impactful explosions rewarding good timing and positioning. Due to its safe ranged playstyle it is also able to push high tiers without much trouble. It is also fun to play!
- Build 3 Combo Points with Puncture.
- Optional: Drop Caltrops on tough elites.
- Use Shadow Step or Dash to activate Tricks of the Trade.
- Be careful not to mess up your positioning in doing so. If you miss half of the elites doing this, it is not worth it.
- Activate Cold Imbuement.
- Fire Penetrating Shot to proc Victimize on multiple targets.
Penetrating Shot Rogue initially is a tough to manage build. Depending precise positioning and active buffs that must be maintained to deal damage, it can put you in danger if you are not careful. Patience in learning is required to master the rotations. Once you do, you shall unleash its true power!
Credits
Written by: M1PY
Reviewed by: Wudijo