Welcome to the Death Trap Rogue Endgame guide! This build combines extraordinary crowd control, utility and raw power into one package to deal with anything the game has to offer. While Poison Trap or Death Trap may be included in any Rogue build, this one specializes in them by combining both with the trap-themed Exposure Key Passive. Pairing this with the high lucky hit chances of Twisting Blades, it allows you to reset your traps in a matter of seconds to unleash hell on your foes at all times!
Overall the build has a lot of similarities with the Twisting Blades Rogue in both setup and playstyle. The main differences are lower movement speed, stronger nukes, and the ability to pull enemies together with Prime Death Trap which make the build stand out. Pulling enemies offers great group utility, but even in solo play it's useful to knock enemies into your Poison Trap and Bladedancer AoE effects to make quick work of them.
While usually you need to jump around the battlefield to maximize the potential of Twisting Blades and hit most targets possible, the Trapper playstyle is more relaxed. Running this build, you'll be toying with your enemies effortlessly instead. Let's get started!
Disclaimer: Currently the "Maximum Resource" stat on Tibault's Will adds extra maximum Combo Points that scale your Core Skill damage through the roof. It can be combined with Condemnation to immediately fill up all of your Combo Points (up to 22) with a single proc and deal extreme burst damage. This is a bug that we expect to get fixed any moment but if you have both of these items available you can use this combination to your advantage for now.
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Twisting Blades Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Rogue playstyle, check out all of our Rogue Guides.
Season 2 - Season of Blood
Completing the seasonal questline, partaking in the seasonal Blood Harvest event and collecting Potent Blood are the main ways of obtaining and empowering these abilities. Check out the full Season 2 Guide from Chewingnom to learn more! Helms & Boots can have up to 3 Pacts, Pants can have up to 4, Chests & Gloves can have up to 5 giving you 20 Pacts to empower.
Recommended Vampiric Powers
- Accursed Touch (Major) - Triggers and spreads the Vampiric Curse for extra effects.
- Prey on the Weak (Minor) - Ensures high Vulnerable uptime and buffs our damage more.
- Moonrise (Major) - Adds extra Attack and Movement Speed.
- Undying (Minor) - Provides massive healing at all times.
- Ravenous (Minor) - Regularly gives us a massive Attack Speed boost.
Alternative Vampiric Powers
- Hemomancy (Minor) - Can replace Undying or Ravenous to sometimes deal AoE damage and heal you.
- Infection (Minor) - Can replace Undying or Ravenous for more random damage procs.
- Anticipation (Minor) - Can replace Undying or Ravenous for lower cooldown and higher damage of Death Trap.
- Resilience (Minor) - Can replace Undying or Ravenous for extra damage reduction.
Eternal Realm
If you're playing on the Eternal Realm without access to Vampiric Powers, there are two notable differences:
- Some setups may use Metamorphosis to trigger Unstoppable and/or Tibault's Will. The same can be done with Shadow Step or Concealment.
- Some setups may use Metamorphosis or Accursed Touch together with Prey on the Weak to apply Vulnerable. The same can be done with Puncture, Exploit, Blast-Trapper's or Blended Shadow Imbuement.
Skill Tree & Gameplay
- Twisting Blades is our main damage skill. In order to use it effectively against monster packs, you have to utilize the returning blades to hit as many targets as possible.
- Against multiple enemies, the idea is to attack a target 1-3 times, then run, Evade or Shadow Step away so that the returning blades can do their job.
- Combining this with Death Trap and Bladedancer makes it's easy to hit most targets in one go and decimate large packs.
- On single targets, you simply spam this skill as much as possible if you have enough resources, otherwise build Combo Points before attacking to increase its damage.
- Once you allocate Tricks of the Trade, a good middle ground between DPS and resource efficiency is to play a 1:1 rotation between Puncture and Twisting Blades.
- Puncture is our Basic Skill that we use whenever we don't have Energy, it can also be used to apply extra chip damage and debuffs (Slow, Vulnerable) to the target. Use it at least once every few seconds to activate the Might buff and to generate Combo Points.
- Shadow Step is our mobility skill. It requires a target and should primarily be used to engage new packs. It can also be used to teleport up or down cliffs in outdoor content.
- Poison Trap is our crowd control and utility skill. It helps to keep incoming damage low while buffing our damage against affected targets. The best way to use this skill is right after a Shadow Step into the middle of the pack.
- Death Trap is our Ultimate Skill and can be used frequently because we reset its cooldown with Exposure. Use it in large monster packs to pull them in, lock them down, and decimate them.
- Poison Imbuement is our single target tool. Use it to boost Twisting Blades against bosses and elites, preferably using 3 Combo Points for maximum value.
Rogue Specialization
Combo Points - Use Basic Skills to boost your subsequent Core Skills.
Whenever you fight bigger enemies, use this effect to boost your Energy efficiency so you don't run out of resources. Against weaker foes, this may not be necessary. Combo Points are displayed above your XP bar near the bottom of the screen.
Building up Combo Points with your Basic Skill gives you more damage and added Movement Speed after using Twisting Blades. This allows for high damage output with low Energy consumption.
Learn more details and how to unlock this system in our full Rogue Specialization Guide.
Resource & Cooldown Management
Managing your Resources and Cooldowns is crucial to the success of this build.
Poison Trap
This is the heart of your build. You can reset your trap cooldowns with Exposure but only if they have been poisoned by Poison Trap. Avoid wasting this cooldown in small pulls so that you can use it when it matters.
Death Trap
Use this whenever ready in big pulls. With enough targets, it's possible to immediately reset its cooldown and keep pulling in additional monsters thanks to Exposure. This ability is mainly used for AoE combat and doesn't do much on bosses.
Ravenous Aspect
This is a great resource tool and can be acquired early from the Codex of Power. Even the minimum roll has great value and smooths out the Energy recovery from the start.
Aspect of the Umbral
While this Aspect is usually better than Ravenous, it's a very rare find and thus not included in the standard setup as the Codex version has a low value. However, it allows us to generate tons of Energy with multiple ways to trigger it:
- Daze from Twisting Blades
- Stuns from Exposure
- Slow from Puncture
- Slow from Lucky Hit: Chance to Slow stat on Gloves
- Knockdown from Trick Attacks
All in all, this resource aspect is a big enabler for the build and almost single-handedly allows you to spam your Core Skill without downtime. If you happen to get a good roll of Umbral, you can replace Ravenous with it for even better Energy recovery (gamble Rings).
Aftermath
This passive refills your Energy when you use Death Trap. If you run into resource issues, you can take some points out of other passives to include this.
Energy Cost Reduction
Your amulet can roll a good amount of Energy Cost Reduction that helps with resource management. Prioritize getting a high roll there.
Paragon Boards
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 when they reach level 15!
Death Trap Rogue Endgame Paragon
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes 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.
Note that there are some Glyph position swaps and a few adjustments to surrounding Paragon nodes once they reach level 15. See the last two steps in the Paragon progression above for details. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Closer
- Ambush
- Control
- Turf
- Exploit
Level 21
- Turf
- Closer
- Ambush
- Control
- Exploit
Note that there are some Glyph swaps during the progression:
- Versatility is used as a placeholder on the Tricks of the Trade board until Ambush hits level 15 because none of our other Glyphs can be activated there.
- Control takes the spot of Ambush on the Cheap Shot board once the above swap has been completed.
Glyphs for Level 100 Endgame Variants
After finishing your main setup, also level the following Glyph:
- Diminish
There are a total of 225 Paragon Points. Starting with level 50 you gain 4 Paragon Points per level, including 20 from Renown, and 4 from Altars of Lilith. Also check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Endgame Progression & Variants
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:
- Bladedancer in Jalal's Vigil (Scosglen)
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones (Scosglen)
- Ravenous in Shifting City (Dry Steppes)
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
- Rapid in Buried Halls (Dry Steppes)
- Protector in Lost Archives (Fractured Peaks)
- Might in Dark Ravine (Dry Steppes)
- Shared Misery in Oblivion (Hawezar)
- Cheat's in Luban's Rest (Scosglen)
- Retribution in Abandoned Mineworks (Kehjistan)
- Ghostwalker in Broken Bulwark (Scosglen)
- Explosive Verve in Derelict Lodge (Fractured Peaks)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
- Accelerating: Grants lots of extra Attack Speed for more damage output, healing and lucky hit effects. This replaces Rapid. Gamble Daggers.
- Elements: This aspect grants a cycling damage buff and some of our attacks are always going to profit from one or the other. It's not worth trying to play around the timer. This replaces The Umbral from the Codex. Gamble Daggers.
- Ravager: The second charge on Shadow Step gives great quality of life and speeds up your runs. This replaces Ghostwalker on the Boots, which then moves to the Amulet. Gamble Boots.
- The Umbral: While this power exists in the codex, it's simply very weak at its minimum value. With a high roll you get tons of Energy back all the time to fully enable spamming Twisting Blades. This replaces Ravenous. Gamble Rings.
- Acquire the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops. Note: You cannot gamble Unique items with obols!
- Tibault's Will: Replacing Protector or Cheat's, this item offers lots of extra damage on an otherwise defensive slot. If you feel too squishy, you can run with a legendary item instead.
- Condemnation: Replacing Accelerating, this weapon goes hand in hand with Tibault's Will to trigger a full Combo Points fill from time to time.
- If you get lucky with Uber Unique drops, consider the following adjustments:
- Harlequin Crest or Andariel's Visage: Replace Might but make sure you still have enough Armor from other sources (e.g. by also adding Disobedience if necessary).
- Doombringer: You can use this sword instead of Retribution, Accelerating, Elements or X'Fal's Corroded Signet. This sword has amazing stats and a damage reduction proc to survive high end content more easily.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Steps
Once you have completed 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
- Unlock all the Codex Powers mentioned above. Some of them are used only temporarily as a filler.
- Bladedancer is your most important aspect so it goes on the ranged weapon, but if you're low on mats you can also put it on the Amulet to get started as this gets replaced less often.
- Ravenous and The Umbral can only go on Rings.
- Start working towards capping your Resistances and Armor.
Skills
- The skill tree stays the same throughout the progression steps.
- If your damage is fine and you want to go faster, you can replace Poison Imbuement with Dash and include Stutter Step for more Movement Speed. Alternatively you can just take out a few points from Poison Imbuement to pick up the passive.
- Another option is to replace Poison Imbuement with Shadow Imbuement and include Consuming Shadows for more consistent Energy recovery early on.
Gameplay
Follow the general skill rotation described in the section above. While you're still starting out with this build, you may be resource starved occasionally until you unlock your final form. Use your Basic Skill to build Combo Points when you run low on Energy and to apply Vulnerable.
Hardcore Adjustments
Hardcore requires you to build into more defenses. Here are some tips to successfull in this game mode:
- Focus more on your Chest & Pants while gearing up. Make sure to have only defensive stats on these two slots as they provide a ton of survivability. Tibault's Will is an optional unique that can be replaced with a defensive legendary item.
- Add extra Armor & Maximum Life instead of damage nodes on your Paragon Boards.
- Be more conservative with Shadow Step and keep a charge ready when you engage enemies that can crowd control you, for example Cold Enchanted elites or Snakes mob types.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
Read on to learn all about how to scale this build into endgame:
- Ultimate Skill Damage: No Witnesses allows this stat to scale all of your damage multiplicatively when you use your Ultimate, so we stack it wherever we can.
- Critical Strikes: We stack a good amount of Critical Strike Chance on our items and combine it with Deadly Ambush and Blended Poison Imbuement for more damage output.
- Energy: While continuous spamming of Twisting Blades all the time may not be possible, it gets better as we progress, especially through Resource Generation rolls on Rings and Ravenous Aspect + The Umbral.
- Vulnerable: We apply this debuff easily with the Exploit Glyph and Puncture for more damage.
- Mobility: With our high Movement Speed we are able to get more out of each individual Twisting Blades use because we can prolong their flight.
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 & Gear Options
Choosing the right stats for your gear can make or break your build. You won't always find perfect stats (also known as affixes or modifiers) though, and you may need to make a tough choice between two good pieces of equipment. Use the following list of priorities to compare your gear and pick the best.
- Helm: Might
- Any Resistance
- % Total Armor
- Ranks to Poison Imbuement
- Cooldown Reduction
- Maximum Life
- Chest Armor: Shared Misery
- % Total Armor
- Damage Reduction
- Close Damage Reduction
- Damage Reduction from Poisoned
- Distant Damage Reduction
- Maximum Life
- Gloves: Retribution
- Ranks to Twisting Blades
- Lucky Hit: Chance to Slow
- Critical Strike Chance
- Attack Speed
- All Stats
- Dexterity
- Pants: Tibault's Will, look for high Maximum Resource & effect rolls
- Otherwise Look For: Cheat's
- % Total Armor
- Damage Reduction
- Close Damage Reduction
- Damage Reduction from Poisoned
- Distant Damage Reduction
- Maximum Life
- Boots: Ravager's
- Implicit: Maximum Evade Charges
- Movement Speed
- Any Resistance
- Any Resistance
- Any Resistance
- Movement Speed on Elite Kill
- Amulet: Ghostwalker
- Movement Speed
- Energy Cost Reduction
- Cooldown Reduction
- Ranks to Weapon Mastery*
- Ranks to Malice*
- Ranks to Exploit*
- Damage Reduction
- % Total Armor
- Close Damage Reduction
- Distant Damage Reduction
* Cannot appear on the same item together.
- Rings: Elements & Ravenous
- Resource Generation
- Critical Strike Chance
- Maximum Life
- Lucky Hit Chance
- Damage to Close Enemies
- Vulnerable Damage
- Ranged (Crossbow): Bladedancer's
- All Stats
- Dexterity
- Ultimate Skill Damage
- Damage to Close Enemies
- Core Skill Damage
- Vulnerable Damage
- Melee 1 (Dagger): Condemnation, look for high DPS & effect rolls
- Otherwise Look For: Accelerating
- Melee 2 (Dagger): Edgemaster’s
- High DPS (Item Power)
- All Stats
- Dexterity
- Ultimate Skill Damage
- Damage to Close Enemies
- Core Skill Damage
- Vulnerable Damage
Fill your item's sockets with the following:
- Royal Diamond into Weapons to scale No Witnesses.
- Royal Ruby into Armor for more survivability.
- Any gem type of Resistances you are missing into Jewelry, prioritizing Fire and Lightning first. If you are capped on all of them, add Royal Skull for more Armor.
This build benefits the most from the following consumables:
- Elixirs: Elixir of Cruelty, Iron Skin Elixir, Heady Assault Elixir & Heady Precision Elixir
- Incenses: Song of the Mountain, Reddamine Buzz & Chorus of War
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.
What can I do to improve survivability?
How do Swords and Daggers compare?
Why Rubies instead of Topazes in Armor sockets?
How can I trigger Unstoppable?
Mechanics
Dark Shroud Scaling
Twisting Blades
Twisting Blades + Poison Imbuement Bugs
Penitent Greaves
X'Fal's Corroded Signet
Video Guide
Summary
The Death Trap Rogue is a fun to play, fast-paced tactical genius that performs well in almost any scenario. With a range of tricks and devices up your sleeve, you can be sure to have all you need to start a fresh season with.
- Invest into Energy recovery as much as possible early on so you can spam Twisting Blades.
- Attack a few times, then start dancing around enemies to hit them with returning blades.
- Use Evade and Shadow Step to reposition in combat.
- Combine Death Trap with Poison Trap to pull in and crowd control all nearby enemies before decimating them with Twisting Blades.
Hungry for more Guides?
Rogue Guides
General Guides
Credits
Written by wudijo
Reviewed by DiEoxidE
