Welcome to the Andariels Rogue Specialized Guide! This is a build centered around the Mythic Unique Andariel's Visage to create devastating poison explosions. The build focuses around buffing the proc damage from Andariel's Visage using abilities, passives and multiplicative aspects while building around the Close Quarters Combat key passive. The main skill Barrage combined with the updated Fists of Fate do an excellent job with fast attacks and high lucky hit chance to dish out all the procs necessary for this build. The new Rogue Unique The Umbracrux allows you to always have a target to ricochet Barrage from.
We use the Preparation specialization to reset our cooldowns with Death Trap which has its own cooldown reduced by casting Barrage quickly. This setup does require getting used to weaving in a Cutthroat skill like Shadow Step or Dash to keep up Close Quarters Combat, but after some practice, you should be slaying in no time! Learn everything you need to know on how to make the most out of this build below!
Our Specialized Builds are Endgame builds with specific requirements and purposes. In order to play them, you are expected to already have specific items and effects available. To get there, we recommend you use one of our existing lvl 50-100 Endgame Build Guides.
Requirements for this build to function:
Andariel's Visage
50%+ Lucky Hit Chance
Gear and Skill Variants
Click through the tabs below to see the Andariels Rogue Build Variants.
Starter Gear
Mythics Speedfarming
T8 Horde
T150 Push
This is the starter setup without further Mythic Uniques. Transition to the variant in the Mythics Speedfarming tab as soon as you have Tyrael's Might and Ring of Starless Skies.
You can play this variant as soon as you have the Andariel's Visage and the aspects shown. Fists of Fate and The Umbracrux are recommended, but you can play the build without them. Refer to the FAQ section to find out about possible replacements.
Starlight can help you recover Energy before having access to Ring of Starless Skies.
Gear and Skills
Paragon
This is the recommended Setup for all Endgame activities. If you do not have all of the shown gear, use the Starter Gear Setup.
The setup is min-maxed for farming The Pit Tier 101, Helltides, Tormented Bosses and Infernal Hordes as efficiently as possible. Versus Tormented Bosses, you can choose Caltrops instead of Dash if you need more damage at the cost of mobility.
Gear and Skills
Paragon
This is a DPS-focused Setup, optimized to clear T8 Horde.
You need to level a Necromancer to get the Ultimate Cooldown Reduction Temper.
We trade all mobility and most defense for more damage. Most notably is the inclusion of Smoke Grenade over Dash, Shadow Clone instead of Death Trap and Emeralds instead of Rubies.
During T8 Infernal Hordes, keep a legendary Conceited Dagger with the same stats as the other one on swap. Swap out The Umbracrux until you face the bosses, where you swap it in again to utilize the totem for optimized single target DPS.
Gear and Skills
Paragon
This is the Maximized DPS Setup, optimized to push high Pit Tiers.
You need to level a Necromancer to get the Ultimate Cooldown Reduction Temper.
We trade most mobility and Tyraels for more damage. With permanent Clone uptime, we also gain permanent Damage Reduction and Damage from Tibault's Will.
You need Chorus of War, Soothing Spices and Song of the Mountain to cap resists and armor!
Gear and Skills
Paragon
Paragon
Look below for the selected Paragon Boards, Paragon point allocation, and the correct Glyphs you should use for the Andariels Rogue. Note: The Paragon Boards below are the final setup with no steps.
In Season 5, the Season Theme brings your hero back into the bowels of Hell, in the Infernal Hordes endgame activity. You're first introduced to Hellbreach Dungeons, miniature Horde-like micro-dungeons that teach you the new mechanics and rewards systems. As you slay more powerful Demons and Bosses, you're rewarded with the new Reputation progression that comes with amazing rewards. These include Crafting Materials, unlocking Season's Journey tiers and even the coveted Resplendent Spark, needed to craft a Mythic Unique.
The Andariels Rogue is very straight forward to play, given that you mostly spam Barrage with Poison Imbuement. Given the high poison damage you will be dealing with this build, do not stick around and wait for things to die. The poison will finish off the mobs a few seconds later. This is especially useful for you in speedfarming content quickly.
Rotation
Below explains how to best get the most out of each skill on your bar.
Even though Barrage is a ranged skill, you want to move close to your targets to reduce the spread.
In all cases, you want to spam Barrage with Poison Imbuement at close range to proc Andariel's Visage and Bursting Venoms.
This also activates the Marksman part of Close Quarters Combat and Eldritch Bounty.
Spamming with such a high attack speed and lucky hit chance activates all the crowd control effects from Fists of Fate. With this, you will stagger bosses insanely fast.
It is critical that you weave Shadow Step or Dashin every 8 seconds to keep the Cutthroat part of Close Quarters Combat active.
Using either Agility Skill also activates Fluidity.
Be careful when engaging with Shadow Step too recklessly through, as it is your only way of obtaining Unstoppable.
Against tough elite packs and bosses, you should drop Poison Trap for more damage and knockdown.
When you use Poison Trap you also activate Deadly Ambush which is currently bugged and works even without Critical Strikes.
This also spawns the totem from The Umbracrux to further amplify your damage through more ricochets from Barrage with High Velocity and Branching Volleys.
Use Death Trap whenever it is ready to reset your cooldowns through Preparation and activate No Witnesses.
Drink a potion every 10 seconds during combat to activate Unstable Elixirs . The passive allows you to drink potions while full HP although it is not noted on it.
The Life per Hit from Andariels and the Dark Shroud you generate from Umbrous are your primary way of staying alive.
It is mandatory to Stagger Bosses quickly. To maximize Boss Damage, shotgun all of your arrows into the totem from as close range as possible.
Gear and Stat Requirements
The Andariels Rogue requires specific Aspects, Affixes, Masterworks and Tempers on your gear to perform well. See below:
Legendary Aspects:
Branching Volleys
High Velocity
Noxious Ice
Umbrous
Bursting Venoms
Creeping Death
Uniques:
Andariel's Visage
Tyrael's Might
Ring of Starless Skies
The Umbracrux
Fists of Fate
Elixirs: Elixir of Advantage II is the recommended Elixir to have an easier time reaching the 203.33% Lucky Hit Chance Breakpoint. If you are above it already, use Elixir of Fortitude II. If you find yourself struggling with Energy, drink an Elixir of Resourcefulness II.
Recommended Stat Thresholds
20%+ Critical Strike Chance
100% Gear Attack Speed (Cap 1)*
82.5% Aspect Attack Speed (Cap 2)**
500%+ Damage per Dark Shroud
80%+ Chance to Cast Barrage Twice
203.33%+ Lucky Hit Chance
385%+ Ultimate Skill Damage
Armor Capped 9,230
Resistance Capped 70%
30,000+ Life
15%+ Chance to Freeze/Stun/Daze
150%+ Movement Speed
6 Total Ranks of Alchemical Advantage
* You can reach 100% Attack Speed from in Cap 1 just by having Close Quarters Combat's first 15% and Masterworking Andariel's Visage, Fists of Fate and Ring of Starless Skies to 12/12 without needing crits on them.
** You can reach 83% Attack Speed from Aspects in Cap 2 with High Velocity on Amulet, Close Quarters Combat 2nd part and 6 total Ranks in Alchemical Advantage.
Both of these for a total of 182.5% Attack Speed will put you at the desired 11 Frames per Attack Breakpoint for Barrage.
Starlight can help you recover Energy before having access to Ring of Starless Skies. Other than that, drink an Elixir of Resourcefulness II and roll Resource Cost Reduction or Lucky Hit Chance to Restore Resource on your weapon(s) or temper it on your Rings & Amulet.
Which Elixirs can I use?
Elixir of Advantage II is the recommended Elixir to have an easier time reaching the 203.33% Lucky Hit Chance Breakpoint. If you are above it already, use Elixir of Fortitude II. If you find yourself struggling with Energy, drink an Elixir of Resourcefulness II.
What do I put on my Amulet until I find the three recommended passives?
Remember: Alchemical Advantage is mandatory to reaching breakpoints as explained below.
Alternatives for the other passives include:
% Dexterity
Lucky Hit Chance
Deadly Venom
Exploit
Movement Speed if you like to go fast
Any of these stats will get you by until you can upgrade later on.
I don't have all the recommended Mythics or Uniques, what do I do?
Remember Andariels Visage is a must for the build to function.
Fists of Fate and The Umbracrux and the Mythic Uniques are recommended, but you can play the build without them. If you do not have the Mythic Uniques, refer to the Starter Setup.
If you do not have Fists of Fate, you can use Gloves with Attack Speed, Lucky Hit Chance and Critical Strike Chance. Temper Damage to Crowd Controlled and Lucky Hit: Chance to Freeze and use Noxious Ice.
To replace Umbracrux, use a Dagger with Dexterity, Maximum Life and Lucky Hit: Chance to Restore Resource. Temper Damage to Crowd Controlled, the 2nd Temper does not matter. Use Elements for this Dagger.
How are Dark Shroud stacks generated for this build?
Even without Dark Shroud on your skill bar, you can gain shrouds through the Umbrous Aspect. It is used in this build to profit from the enormous damage reduction especially when you get hit infrequently. You gain stacks by hitting enemies with Barrage greatly benefitting from our high Lucky Hit Chance.
What are the Attack Speed breakpoints for this build?
The Attack Speed Breakpoint is 182.5% Attack Speed (11 Frames per Attack for Barrage) We can comfortably reach this by utilizing the following:
100% Attack Speed from Gear
82.5% Attack Speed from Aspects / Passives
You can reach 100% Attack Speed from in Cap 1 just by having Close Quarters Combat's first 15% and Masterworking Andariel's Visage, Fists of Fate and Ring of Starless Skies to 12/12 without needing crits on them.
You can reach 82.5% Attack Speed from Aspects in Cap 2 with High Velocity on Amulet, Close Quarters Combat 2nd part and 6 total Ranks in Alchemical Advantage.
If you can not reach the 11 Frames per Attack Breakpoint at 182.5% Attack Speed, the next Breakpoint is 12 Frames per Attack at 157% Attack Speed.
That means, any Attack Speed gained between 157% and 182.5% does not decrease your time between Barrage attacks at all.
Thus, if you can not reach 6 Total Ranks of Alchemical Advantage, stick with 3 Total Ranks instead. Doing so means you need to compensate the missing Lucky Hit Chance otherwise though.
What are the Lucky Hit Chance breakpoints for this build?
The recommended Lucky Hit Chance for the Andariel Rogue Build is at least 203.33%. This ensures each Bursting Venoms damage tick is a guaranteed Lucky Hit.
Further, more Lucky Hit Chance also means faster staggers through Fists of Fate, more energy gained from Innervation and more Bursting Venom procs from Poison Imbuement with Barrage.
It also helps resetting your Poison Imbuement Cooldown faster through Mixed Poison Imbuement in case Bursting Venoms does not proc.
You can reach this breakpoint through:Ring of Starless Skies 24.375% without Greater Affix (GA) and 2x Masterworks (MW)
Fists of Fate - 126.91% with GA and 2x MW
An affix on your second ring - 8.7% without GA and no MW crits
Alchemical Advantage - 45% with 9 ranks
Alchemist's Fortune - 15% with 3 ranks
The Lucky Hit Chance Total is as follows:126.91% + 24.375% + 8.7% + 45% + 15% = 220% (rounded).
The damage from Barrage itself does not matter, we only use it to proc Andariels Visage through Poison Imbuement.
Therefore, a Bow is significantly better due to attacking faster than a Crossbow.
Further, Weapon Mastery does not work for Andariels damage, so we do not get any downsides from using a Bow.
Dagger vs Sword comes down to slightly faster animations for Shadow Step and a better implicit on the Daggers.
Critical Strike Damage does not benefit Andariels so we try replace it with better stats.
Why Tyrael's Might?
Tyraels Might provides a bigger defensive boost than using a Chest with +Ranks of Dark Shroud. Especially increasing the maximum possible resistances to 85% is a significant damage reduction boost and the most dangerous things to this build are sources of elemental damage.
Increasing the Maximum Resistance from 70% to 85% (with two masterworking crits for example) provides a total of: (1-0.85) / (1-0.7) = 0.5 => 50% increased effective HP against elemental damage without even considering the additional 34% damage reduction against all sources from the other affix with one masterworking crit. Combined, this is significantly higher than even +8 ranks of Dark Shroud would provide.
Why are we using Royal Diamonds?
We want to maximize our damage from the No Witnesses legendary node, providing us with a maximum possible bonus of 45%[x].
We can reach 385% Ultimate Skill damage without major drawbacks.
We get 140% from the gems in our weapons.
The remaining 245% are exactly reached through the paragon.
Why no Windforce?
The main portion of our damage in the Andariels Rogue Build comes from Andariel's Visage. Therefore, we do not want to buff Barrage damage, as it is only used to proc things through Poison Imbuement, which is also why we only have 1/5 Skill Points in Barrage. Additionally, we'd lose the very valueable Two-Handed Aspect slot to something that does not benefit us.
Why Deadly Ambush?
As of Patch 1.5.0, Deadly Ambush is bugged and increases any damage against trapped enemies, regardless of the attack being a Critical Strike or not. Therefore, it works to increase the damage of Andariel's Visage.
Why Damage per Dark Shroud over Damage to Crowd Controlled Tempers?
Damage per Dark Shroud Shadow is a very strong additive damage increase, that does not scale our Close Quarters Combat passive directly, yet still comes out on top mathematically. With our high Attack Speed and Lucky Hit Chance, we are constantly maintaining 4-5 Stacks of Dark Shroud as long as we keep attacking. Further, damage per Dark Shroud also helps us against Bosses that are not staggered, where Damage to Crowd Controlled would not benefit us. Overall, this results in a significant DPS gain.
Mechanics
Learn about the mechanical details that make the build tick.
Dark Shroud Scaling
Dark Shroud stacks damage reduction additively for each active shadow. Due to the additive stacking, each increase in the skill's rank and active shadows boosts your survivability exponentially.
At maximum stacks, increasing your total Ranks of Dark Shroud affects your effective hit points (eHP) against one-shots as follows:
Increasing Dark Shroud from:
Rank 1 to Rank 5: 15.3% more eHP
Rank 1 to Rank 11: 50% more eHP
Rank 1 to Rank 15: 87.5% more eHP
Rank 5 to Rank 11: 30.1% more eHP
Rank 5 to Rank 15: 62.5% more eHP
Rank 11 to Rank 15: 25% more eHP
Andariel's Visage Damage Scaling
Things that work to scale Andariel's Damage:
Everything that is not listed below.
Things that do not scale Andariel's Damage:
Barrage or Poison Imbuement Ranks (therefore only 1/5 Skill Points in each)
Critical Strike Damage (does not work with any Damage over Time effects)
+%Damage vs poisoned
Weapon Mastery
Caltrops (5% dmg only).
Trick Attacks
Fists of Fate's Aspect
But why are we using the Gloves then? Simply because of the absurd lucky hit chance and all the different forms of crowd control it applies.
These lists only verified interactions which have been last tested on Season 5 PTR by the Rogue Game Mechanics Specialists (GMS) from the Sanctuary Discord.
So what scales the damage in this particular build?
Dexterity
+% Damage
+% Damage over Time
+% Damage to Crowd Controlled
Ring of Starless Skies
Creeping Death
Concussive Strikes
Frigid Finesse
Unstable Elixirs
Exploit
Malice
Exploit Weakness
No Witnesses
Deadly Ambush
Cheap Shot
Eldritch Bounty
Control
Fluidity
Canny
Bane
Tracker
Close Quarters Combat
The Umbracrux Mechanics
The Umbracrux was nerfed so you do not utilize it for its damage echo anymore. The primary use case is to have an additional target to ricochet Barrage arrows from.
When facing the Infernal Hordes in Tier 8, you can swap out Umbracrux for a regular Dagger with Conceited to not have our totem eat all the arrows. Swap it back in, once you are facing the Council Bosses after the last wave to optimize your single target DPS. This swap is a pure min-maxing strategy and is not required to clear Tier 8. It simply is a bit more efficient for you to do so.
The totem eating arrows gives you more Andariel's Visage procs, but there are enough mobs around to gain those anyway. Further it also reduces your uptime on Creeping Death, due to being immune to any Crowd Control effects. The affixes of a legendary Dagger are better than those of the Umbracrux, especially when tempered. The aspect is also a non-negligible damage boost.
Due to the abundance of mobs in T8, energy recovery is not a concern even without the Ranks to Innervation from the Umbracrux.
Attack Speed Caps
While all the exact mechanics are much more nuanced, there are two separate Attack Speed Bonus caps of +100% that apply to all builds for a total potential of +200%. For Rogues, these two caps are distributed in the following way:
This would grant you 44.35% Dodge Chance, instead of 16.6+15+15 = 46.6 if it was additive.
Stagger Mechanics
Bosses are immune to Crowd Control (CC) and instead take Stagger Damage when hit by one. The amount of Stagger Damage dealt depends on the type of CC and is proportional to its duration. After being hit by a CC effect, the Boss will temporarily take less Stagger Damage from CC of the same type.
Effectively, spamming just one type of CC is not very efficient. Instead use as many different types of CC as possible to stagger the Boss quickly. The types of CC we have in the Penetrating Shot Rogue are:
Slow, Stun, Immobilize and Freeze from tempered affixes on our gear.
Daze from Concussive Strikes.
After the Boss is staggered it gains a certain amount of stacking Stagger Damage Reduction for the rest of the fight:
After 1st Stagger: 20%
After 2nd Stagger: 40%
After 3rd Stagger: 60%
After 4th Stagger: 90%
Bosses naturally regain 1% of their Stagger HP every second and when that regeneration is combined with 90% Stagger Damage Reduction it becomes borderline impossible to Stagger the Boss again.