Barrage Rogue Leveling Guide

Season 7 is the Season of Witchcraft. It features two separate borrowed power mechanics in the forms of Witchcraft Powers and Occult Gems. Both Seasonal mechanics are unlocked and improved by new NPCs found at the Tree of Whispers after collecting resources from Headhunt Zones, Seasonal areas similar to Helltide that appear across Sanctuary.

There are 25 Witchcraft Powers, 6 of which can be equipped at a time. Each Power belongs to one of four Schools (Eldritch, Growth & Decay, Psyche, and Lost), tags that promote synergies within themselves and with Occult Gems. Each School has a single Unique Witchcraft Power, only one of which can be equipped at a time. These Unique Powers max out and gain an additional effect at rank 5, while the other Powers max at rank 21 and gain their bonus effects at various levels. To unlock and improve Witchcraft Powers, defeat Headrotten or complete Whispers within the Headhunt Zones to collect Restless Rot. Lost Powers are an exception, requiring you to randomly encounter a Forgotten Altar in Dungeons to unlock them.

Best-in-Slot Witchcraft Powers

Alternate Witchcraft Powers

Piranhado - This power can be used as an alternative way to group mobs.
Aura of Misfortune - A viable alternative to Aura of Siphoning, this Power mitigates some incoming damage while boosting your Movement Speed.

Rarely, Headrotten Bosses appear with a still-attached Fugitive Head stolen from the Tree of Whispers. Slay these enemies and return the Heads to Gelena to unlock and upgrade Occult Gems. These Gems are socketable in Jewelry and each provide +160 Armor and +8% Resistance to All Elements. More importantly, each Occult Gem grants a unique effect that synergizes with your equipped Witchcraft Powers to provide a variety of Offensive, Defensive, and Utility-based bonuses.

Best-in-Slot Occult Gems

• Hungering Void - This Gem allows your aura to pull in enemies, which is great for Soul Harvest and Victimize procs
• Friend of the Bog - Extra Core Stats multiplier and Maximum Life. Becoming Unhindered helps you move through groups of mobs.
• Toadling's Wish - We use a number of Growth & Decay Powers in this build, and bolstering the effects of Soul Harvest is extremely powerful.

Alternate Occult Gems

• Moonlight Ward - Extra defense. Great pick for Hardcore.
• Raging Enigma - Allows your Doom Orb to deal extra damage.

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 more damage.

Final

Here you spend your final points picking up the remaining passives to buff your character.

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.

To get started as a Barrage Rogue, always use your highest DPS Ranged Weapon available for more damage. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage, Vulnerable Damage, Critical Strike Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life, Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful.

Tip: For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you are twinking. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.

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 or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.

For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.

Must-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Branching Volleys

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Rapid
2. Might
3. Expectant

Great Uniques for this build

1. Cowl of the Nameless
2. Fists of Fate
3. Penitent Greaves

Jackpot Drops

As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can massively amplify your power and speed up the leveling by switching to another build. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:

Build-defining Aspects

• Moonrise + Adaptability (enables the Endgame Heartseeker Rogue)

Build-defining Uniques

1. Saboteur's Signet (enables the Endgame Grenade Rogue)
2. Eyes in the Dark (enables the Endgame Death Trap Rogue)
3. Scoundrel's Kiss (enables the Endgame Rapid Fire Rogue)
4. Star Shards (enables the Endgame Dance of Knives Rogue)
5. Andariel's Visage (enables the Endgame Andariel Rogue)

You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Barrage Rogue focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

• Poc + Mot - This is our way of getting free Dark Shroud shadows while freeing up an aspect slot for more damage.
• Tam + Ohm - War Cry buffs us with 15% extra damage.

Alternative choices

If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:

• Vex - The extra skill ranks help with increasing damage, damage reduction (Dark Shroud) and overall quality of life.
• Xal - For extra defense.
• Yax - Good amount of offering for just drinking a potion.
• Lith - Great choice for plant and fire players.
• Bac - Excellent choice for mobile players.
• Moni - A mini Bac. Decent for those who like to stutter step.
• Yul - Build uses a lot of cooldown skills, so this is a decent activator.

In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.

Paragon & Glyphs

Use the slider to see progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.

Glyph Leveling Priorities

Coming soon.

• 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.

Written by DiEoxidE
Reviewed by wudijo