Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Guide

Season 6 is the Season of Hatred Rising. It features the Zakarum Remnants faction which hunts Realmwalkers, massive behemoths that roam outdoor zones and beckon Mephisto's hellspawn. Participate in these zone events and take down the Realmwalkers to spawn a portal to a Seething Realm. There you can acquire Seething Opals, new consumables that stack with Elixirs for a XP buff and the chance to gather extra rewards when defeating enemies. The types of Opals are:

Use these Opals at all times to earn reputation with the Zakarum Remnants faction and unlock further rewards.

Inner Sight

At level 15, we unlock the Rogue's Specialization class mechanic. Finish this Priority Quest when you are about to hit level 20 to get Inner Sight unlocked. When your gauge is full, you gain unlimited Charges for Dance of Knives and +25% Critical Strike Chance.

Dark Shroud

A key defensive layer for any Rogue build is Dark Shroud. Use it often and try your best to keep up the stacks for Damage Reduction, Movement Speed and Critical Strike Chance buffs. Luckily, there are two good ways to automate this effect: Umbrous and the Mot rune. In our case, aim for the aspect and once you find it, you can remove this skill from your bar and pick up Smoke Grenade to improve your damage output.

Shadow Clone

You pick up Shadow Clone to have a reliable source of Unstoppable other than Concealment during the uptime of Inner Sight or when you are fighting dangerous Elites and Bosses. While leveling, the damage your clone deals is also non-negligible. Watch out for a specific interaction with Inner Sight once you unlock it as explained below.

Specific Interaction with Shadow Clone and Inner Sight

When Inner Sight is full and Shadow Clone is active, you start spinning significantly faster with Dance of Knives. This interaction increases your Attacks per Second to around 6/s and therefore lets you throw more knives. Whether this interaction is intended is unclear as of Patch 2.0.2. The game thinks you are essentially casting Dance of Knives every 0.16 seconds. So when Inner Sight's Gauge is full, and your Clone is ready, unleash havoc upon even the mightiest foes!

Key Passive

Your Key Passive for the Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Build is Momentum. You gain a stack that increases you Movement Speed, Damage Reduction and Damage dealt by a significant margin whenever you cast a Cutthroat Skill. Both Dance of Knives and Dash have the Cutthroat Tag. While not scaling well into the Endgame where we swap it for Victimize, Momentum is an excellent choice for leveling and allows you to have an explosive start.

Final Journey to Level 60

At this point, most of the key synergies are unlocked and the gameplay loop is almost complete. As you level up, you unlock a lot of extra points that go into various offensive and defensive passives or max out certain skills. Check out the skills progression above to see where to put your points as you go, but feel free to deviate from the order displayed as necessary. For example, if you need extra defense or healing, you may pick up Sturdy or Siphoning Strikes earlier or if you haven't acquired a source of Chill or Freeze such as an utility temper mod on your armor, there's no reason to include Frigid Finesse yet.

Rogue Specialization

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 have to 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 (Inner Sight at 20, Preparation at 30) and can be freely assigned at any time.

To get started as a Dance of Knives Rogue, always use your highest DPS Melee Weapon available for more damage. Your Ranged Weapon is simply a stat stick to fuel your power, so its DPS is secondary. Otherwise, follow the priority list below. 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, Damage to Close, Vulnerable 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.

Tempering 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.

Season Journey Drops

• Star Shards

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Enshrouding (Ghoa Ruins - Hawezar)
2. Volatile Shadows (Ancient's Lament - Dry Steppes)
3. Protector (Lost Archives - Fractured Peaks)
4. Wind Striker (Shivta Ruins - Kehjistan)
5. Arrow Storms (Howling Warren - Scosglen)
6. Vengeful (Inferno - Kehjistan)
7. Retribution (Abandoned Mineworks - Khejistan)

Great Uniques for this build

1. Cowl of the Nameless
2. Fists of Fate (also used in the Dance of Knives Endgame Rogue)
3. Penitent Greaves

Jackpot Drops

If you already have Aspect of Star Shards, you're all set. However, as you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can increase your power temporarily or if you are interested in trying another build archetype. 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

• Bladedancer's (enables the Endgame Twisting Blades Rogue)
• High Velocity (enables the Endgame Barrage Rogue)
• Encircling Blades (enables the Endgame Flurry 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. Skyhunter (enhances the Endgame Rapid Fire Rogue)
5. Andariel's Visage (enables the Endgame Andariels Rogue)
6. Shard of Verathiel (enables Endgame Heartseeker Rogue)

You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Dance of Knives Rogue focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

• Bac + Ohm - Invokes War Cry after traversing. With our high mobility, we keep this up nearly all the time.
• Noc + Tzic - Whenever we inflict a hard crowd-control, which happens even more frequently with Fists of Fate, we invoke Concussive Stomp. This stomp knocks down enemies and also can trigger Lucky Hit Effects like Victimize.

Alternative Choices

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

• Cem - We evade frequently so that is a good alternative to Noc.
• Yax - We drink a potion frequently to keep Unstable Elixirs up, so this rune can also be beneficial.
• Lac - Invokes Challenging Shout for more defense.
• Kry - To group up enemies before having access to Shroud of Khanduras.
• Wat - Decrepify helps with stagger, defense and allows an execute at 10% HP, can be combined with Xol in your other Runeword to generate large amounts of offering.
• Mot - You can use this before you have access to Umbrous in addition to taking Dark Shroud on your skill bar.

Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.

Hired: Subo

He reveals all enemies and materials on the minimap, allowing you to farm Iron Chunks and Bundled Herbs easily. The highlighting is very useful to spot out Elites in Dungeons, as you will recognize the pattern for elites quickly after getting used to it.

You gain a multiplicative increase to your Lucky Hit Chance whenever Subo attacks an enemy through his Ambusher passive. This greatly benefits your Arrow Storms procs.

With how frequently we want to drink Potions for Unstable Elixirs, Share a Drink helps us to generate more.

Reinforcement: Raheir

We choose Bastion for extra defense when having our main damaging window active through Shadow Clone.

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.

Into the Endgame

This step marks the end of the leveling guide. Below is the Paragon setup to get you started in Torment difficulty, but ideally, you should now transition towards the endgame version of this build or choose another of your liking.

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

The Dance of Knives Rogue is a super fast, fun to play leveling build that scales very well into the lategame.

• Progress the Season Journey to get the Aspect Cache for Star Shards and start blasting!
• Use Shadow Imbuement and Concealment to buff you up before starting your Dance of Knives spin.
• Master the timing of your Inner Sight Gauge and Shadow Clone uptime for optimal damage output.
• Keep attacking to stay alive with Siphoning Strikes and Dark Shroud triggered from Umbrous.
• Focus on gathering your defenses first, then expand your offensive repertoire.
• Keep moving while channeling Dance of Knives to not run out of Charges. Spin2win!

Written by M1PY