Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Guide
Last Updated:April 28, 2025|Changelog
Welcome to the Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Guide, the fastest leveling build in Diablo 4! Do you want to easily Spin2Win to Torment 1 and beyond? Then this is the build for you. Dance of Knives does not need to manage Energy and does not rely on any aspects. Therefore, it has an explosive start and scales outstandingly well into the endgame.
You utilize some simple snapshots with Concealment and Shadow Imbuement for Dance of Knives. Aspect of Star Shards is very powerful so try to gamble for it with your Obols early on. This allows you to decimate anything in your path with ease.
While you are already laying waste spinning, you unleash hell with Arrow Storms from two aspects, Arrow Storms and Vengeful. Dance of Knives has a very high innate Lucky Hit Chance, so these will proc very often. Luckily, both of these are unlockable from Dungeons.
Your defense is being handled by Dark Shroud during leveling. It also provides you with a useful Movement Speed bonus to keep your Charges.
After getting to leveling 60 you can smoothly transition from leveling into one of the fastest Rogue Builds, the Dance of Knives Endgame Rogue.
This guide teaches you all about playing efficiently and reaching the endgame in Diablo 4 with the Dance of Knives Rogue.
Let's get started with the Spin2Win Rogue!
If you use Force Interact (Default: F) to interact with things while spinning, you won't break the channel. You need to be directly on top of what you want to interact with. This is extremely useful in the Undercity.
This build guide takes you up to level 60 and gets you started for the early Endgame on Torment 1 difficulty. If you're looking for Endgame guides, check out our Rogue Guides section!
Check out our Leveling Builds Tier List to see how this build compares to others.
Boss Powers
Season 8 is the Season of Belial's Return. It allows you to tap into Boss Powers obtained from World, Event, and Lair Bosses throughout Sanctuary. The new seasonal mechanic, Apparition Incursions, is available at any difficulty level and gives you the opportunity to unlock a subset of these powers very early on. Various Apparition Monsters appear in these special timed events throughout Sanctuary. Defeating these monsters spawns 1 of 10 Apparition Bosses to hunt you down and defeating them grants you their Boss Power. After defeating the first Boss, continue the event for a chance to fight a second Apparition Boss, after which Belial himself joins the fray.
There are 24 Boss Powers available and the first time you defeat one of these Bosses, you claim their power for yourself. Boss Powers each have Main and Modifier effects to boost your build. 13 are available in all difficulties (from Apparition Incursions and World Bosses), while 11 can only be acquired in Torment 1 difficulty or higher from Lair Bosses and Lilith. You can equip 1 Main Power and 3 Modifiers, and all powers can be upgraded up to Rank 20, increasing the potency of both the Main and Modifier effect. You use Spectral Ash to upgrade these powers, dropped from Apparition Incursions and by defeating any Bosses. Boss Powers also scale with your Paragon Level, growing stronger as you progress.
Leveling Boss Powers
Main Power
Wandering Death's Chest Beam is an excellent choice because Dance of Knives is a channeling skill. The damage amplification is very strong, but keeping the beam on target can be tricky. Look out for World Bosses to claim this power as early as you can!
Modifiers
- Beastmaster's Training - The top choice for summons, and Shadow Clone is classified as one.
- Sinerat's Flames - A simple yet effective damage increase for elemental damage, which we deal through our Imbuements.
- Torusk's Rage - While leveling, you do not have access to any of the legendary boss powers, so Torusk's is a decent stop-gap until you can access Harbinger of Hatred's Volley later on.
Alternate Boss Powers
- Harbinger of Hatred's Volley - Once you get access to Torment.
- Hatred's Embrace's Haste - Is a solid replacement until you get Wandering Death's Chest Beam. None of the blue main powers significantly effect this build, so this choice here is not as important.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
Getting Started
To start off we have to put points into Basic Skills to unlock the other sections. Blade Shift is our choice because it has a fast attack animation, high lucky hit chance and it's damage boost when using it after casting another ability. This is quite useful if you ran out of Charges with Dance of Knives. We pick up one point in Sturdy and three in Stutter Step to boost our Movement Speed.
Movement Speed is especially important to sustain our Dance of Knives Charges through the Enhanced Dance of Knives upgrade. 30 meters is around 1 and a half screens worth of distance. You need around 190% Movement Speed to keep spinning indefinitely. Focus on reaching it as soon as you can through various buffs and passives.
Essentials
Next you pick up Dark Shroud for more defense and Movement Speed. Concealment is used to snapshot its guaranteed Critical Strike and Vulnerable bonus from Subverting Concealment. If you break Stealth with Dance of Knives, you will retain these bonuses for the entire duration of the channel.
The same is true for Imbuements. You can use Shadow Imbuement to improve your Area of Effect Damage. Once a monster dies, it explodes and deals Shadow Damage to surrounding enemies, while also afflicting them with Shadow and Vulnerable. This can create some satisfying chain reactions! You can buff Skills with the Imbueable Tag like Dance of Knives with Shadow Imbuement. Dance of Knives retains the imbued effect until you stop the channel.
Poison Imbuement
Poison Imbuement is exclusively used while leveling to have an easier time dealing with Bosses. If you are struggling a lot with those, fetching Corruption from Renegade's Retreat in Kehjistan is a good idea. Only activate Poison Imbuement when facing a tough enemy, as you can not imbue a skill with more than one Imbuement at a time.
Alternative Pick
If you are not struggling with single target damage, you may pick Dash instead of Poison Imbuement to go even faster. Be careful not to use Dash while you are stealthed by Concealment or imbued by Shadow Imbuement though, else your Dance of Knives will not benefit from it.
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. Enshrouding allows you to gain a charge here and there as well.
Shadow Clone
You pick up Shadow Clone to have a reliable source of Unstoppable other than Concealment or when you are fighting dangerous Elites and Bosses. If you get stopped while Channeling Dance of Knives and your Concealment or Imbuements are on Cooldown, you can reset those through Preparation.
Prime Shadow Clone grants you Stealth when activating Clone. It's beneficial to leave this unallocated otherwise you need to do a small spin with Dance of Knives to break Stealth before activating Concealment. The Stealth from Clone prevents the Stealth from Concealment to apply, therefore you lose out on the guaranteed Critical Strike and Vulnerable application, significantly reducing your damage. In the Endgame variant of this guide, with better stats and gear, Concealment is dropped for Caltrops and this bug becomes irrelevant.
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. 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 Thul, there's no reason to include Frigid Finesse yet.
How to not run out of Charges with Dance of Knives
- Start the channel with at least 4 Charges
- Move in fluid circles or a straight line, do not take many sharp turns
- Do not linger on mobs and never stop moving
- You need around 160%+ Movement Speed after buffs to infinitely keep spinning.
Still trouble sustaining the channel?
- Combo Points + Star Shards allows you to gain more total Charges. If you attack up to three times with Blade Shift, you gain 1 additional Charge per Combo Point. You can put Blade Shift on your bar in place of Poison Imbuement.
- Once you have sufficient Movement Speed to infinitely spin, swap it out for Preparation.
Optimal Rotation
The order and situation in which you use your Skills is very important to allow you to perform well with any given build. As a Dance of Knives Rogue this is even more important, because Dance of Knives snapshots certain buffs for the entire duration of your channel, irrespective of their regular duration.
Doing this exact rotation is not required, but significantly increases your damage output while leveling. Later on in the endgame variants, this becomes less important due to not relying on Concealment for Critical Strikes anymore. Therefore, the optimal order of execution while leveling is as follows:
- Enshroud yourself with Dark Shroud.
- Cast Shadow Clone.
- If you have Prime Shadow Clone allocated, do a small spin with Dance of Knives to break Stealth as explained in the disclaimer above.
- Cast Concealment.
- Activate Shadow Imbuement for clearing or Poison Imbuement for Bosses.
- You can pick up Poison Imbuement as soon as you have dropped Combo Points for Preparation.
- Start spinning with Dance of Knives.
- If you get interrupted or run out of Charges, you need to begin at Step 1 again.
- If any of your Skills are on Cooldown or you have no Imbuements left, use Shadow Clone to reset all your Cooldowns through Preparation.
Check out our Renown Guide to unlock all your additional Skill Points efficiently.
Rogue Specialization
Preparation
Preparation refreshes all of your Cooldowns after using your Ultimate.
Using Shadow Clone to do so allows you to keep moving fast and your buffs stacked. The damage reduction is also a nice bonus.
Combo Points and Preparation
At level 15, we unlock the Rogue's Specialization class mechanic. After finishing the Priority Quest for it, you pick up Combo Points. Star Shards allows us to increase our Charges for Dance of Knives when we use Blade Shift to gain Combo Points.
Preparation unlocks at level 30. By the time you have acquired sufficient Movespeed to not run out of Charges while spinning with Dance of Knives, swap Combo Points out for it.
Learn more details and how to unlock this system in our full Rogue Class Overview.
Gear & Stat Priorities
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.
Legendaries & Uniques
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.
Most important Drop
- Star Shards
Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks
- Enshrouding (Ghoa Ruins - Hawezar)
- Volatile Shadows (Ancient's Lament - Dry Steppes)
- Protector (Lost Archives - Fractured Peaks)
- Wind Striker (Shivta Ruins - Kehjistan)
- Arrow Storms (Howling Warren - Scosglen)
- Vengeful (Inferno - Kehjistan)
- Retribution (Abandoned Mineworks - Khejistan)
Other useful Aspects (drop/gamble)
- Synergy
- Stolen Vigor
- Umbrous
- Clandestine
- Elements
- Accursed Touch
What to Gamble
Offensive | 1h Weapon, Offhand |
Defensive | Chest, Pants |
Utility, Mobility | Boots |
Resource | Rings |
Great Uniques for this build
- Cowl of the Nameless
- Grasp of Shadow
- 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
- Eyes in the Dark (enables the Endgame Death Trap Rogue)
- Scoundrel's Kiss (enables the Endgame Rapid Fire Rogue)
- Skyhunter (enhances the Endgame Rapid Fire Rogue)
- Shard of Verathiel (enables Endgame Heartseeker Rogue)
Learn more details in our articles covering the Codex of Power and Unique Items.
Runes
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
- Cir + Zec - This allows you to reduce the cooldown of Shadow Clone. Ideally activate Shadow Clone first.
- Neo + Thul - Mystical Frost Nova is very strong, it freezes, amplifies damage and applies vulnerable. The activation is very consistent with Neo as you do not get hit very often.
Alternative Choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Lac - Invokes Challenging Shout for more defense.
- Tam - If you get lucky and drop this, you can use it instead of Neo.
- 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.
- Yax - Great way to generate offering that synergizes with Unstable Elixirs.
- Gar - To reach 100% Critical Strike Chance more reliably.
- Lum - Helps restore Energy in the early game when you may be resource starved.
- Qua - A massive Movement Speed boost while leveling.
Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.
Mercenaries
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
Allows you to see enemies and materials on the Minimap. Ambusher helps you to stagger faster and to have an easier time applying Crowd Control effects.
Reinforcement: Varyana
Bloodthirst is excellent to increase your Attack Speed and consequently your Base Damage of Dance of Knives.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
How To Level
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.
Campaign Leveling
- For your first character in Diablo 4, completing the base Campaign provides all the background lore information but is not necessary.
- The base 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.
- If your account is below Rank 4 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
- This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
- After finishing the campaign, you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
- Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.
- If you have already completed the base Campaign you can dive straight into the Vessel of Hatred Campaign. This is a decent way to level up as completing these quests provides a lot of experience.
Seasonal / Alt Leveling
- Complete the Seasonal Questline in order to progress your Seasonal Journey to unlock additional Legendary Aspects and work on your Seasonal Powers.
- If your account is below Rank 4 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 1-60 you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
- Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.
- If you're playing an Alt, make sure to use Tempers and Leveling Caches crafted from the Alchemist to speed up your progression.
- Find the most efficient way of leveling your character in detail with our Speed Leveling Guide.
Tips and Tricks
- Imprint Important Aspects on Amulet
- It is a good idea to put your best Offensive Aspect on your Amulet, since it is usually not replaced as often as your Weapon.
- Compare Your Items
- Press Shift to activate item comparison. Use this build guide's Stat Priorities section to identify potential upgrades.
- Choose an Easy Difficulty
- Ideally, start on Hard difficulty for the extra XP modifier, then try to go higher when it's way too easy. If that slows you down noticeably, it's better to stay on a lower difficulty.
- Use Your Materials
- There's no point in holding on to your gold or materials for later. Use everything to speed up your journey to 60. If you're twinking, make sure to craft the Allowance Caches from the Alchemist at level 20 and if available, equip your Mythic Uniques at level 35 to make the leveling a breeze.
Speedrun Route
- If you're looking to min/max your time spent on the way to 60 instead of following a generic guideline, you need to use a specific strategy.
- This usually includes farming certain activities up to a specified level and then switching to other tasks while gathering XP in high density areas and pushing the difficulty as high as you can.
- We update this strategy seasonally in our Speed Leveling Guide.
Endgame Transition
As you approach level 60 with the Dance of Knives Rogue, you unlock higher item power gear that represents a massive jump in character power. This is a good time to refresh your setup with new tempers and imprints.
Level 60
At level 60, Paragon Levels and The Pit unlock. Work towards Tier 10 to enter Torment 1, where the Endgame begins. Focus on overcapping your Armor (1000+) and Resistances (70%+) as you receive some penalties to your character's stats:
- -250 Armor per Torment difficulty
- -25% All Resistances per Torment difficulty
At this point, your setup should look roughly like this before you dive into min/maxing with Uniques, Mythics & Masterworking. With better gear, more levels and Glyphs, you can push further and eventually unlock higher difficulties for increased rewards.
Changes for Torment 1
We remove all the Arrow Storms aspects to focus more on Dance of Knives itself. We also gain more Cooldown Reduction through higher Masterworks and thus better Clone uptime.
Drop Concealment for Caltrops.
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
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 at level 15 and from 4 to 5 at level 46. Some of them cannot be activated before reaching these thresholds! Progress through The Pit to rank up your 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.
Some Glyph position swaps, board changes and other pathing adjustments may occur as you unlock your full potential. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build before spending additional points that do not significantly impact your character's power.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
To Level 15
- Versatility
- Canny
- Headhunter
- Devious
- Control
To Level 46
- Versatility
- Control
- Devious
- Headhunter
- Canny
Learn more about the Paragon System in our in-depth Paragon Boards and Glyphs guide.
Video Guide
Updated Video Guide is coming soon.
Summary
The Dance of Knives Rogue is a super fast, fun to play leveling build that scales very well into the lategame.
- Try to get Star Shards as early as you can from gambling and start blasting!
- Use Shadow Imbuement and Concealment to buff you up before starting your Dance of Knives spin.
- Use Shadow Clone whenever it is available.
- 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!
Credits
Written by M1PY