Penetrating Shot Rogue Leveling Guide

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

Alternate Boss Powers

• Avarice's Explosive Ore - Good for wide AoE.
• Lilith's Wind of Hate - Good way to add additional AoE as a sub power.

Subterfuge

Here you want to pick up Dark Shroud for the toughness and the movement speed so that we can quickly move through content and also reposition well for our Penetrating Shot Skill.

Imbuements

The Shadow Imbuement Skill augments our Penetrating Shot skill for various effects to make us more powerful. It allows for shadow explosions that apply Vulnerable. Shadow Imbuement also gives us back Energy upon explosion with the Consuming Shadows passive, making this a great Imbuement to pick up early on. Be careful not to use Dash or Shadow Step after activating Shadow Imbuement, as these can also consume charges of it. We also pick up Poison Imbuement for better damage against Bosses.

Finalizing the Skill Tree

We round out our build with some more Utility through Innervation. We also pick important damage multipliers like Exploit and Malice.

Key Passive

Precision

We choose the Precision Key Passive to help with the lack of early game Critical Strikes. Upon building maximum stacks (4), your next Marksman Skill is a guaranteed Critical Strike and deals increased damage based on your total Critical Strike Damage. You gain a stack of Precision whenever you attack with a Marksman Skill. Whenever you deal a Critical Strike with a Marksman Skill, you gain an additional stack of Precision.

Rogue Specializations

The Rogue's Class Specialization allows you to choose one out of three powerful passive effects to boost your build. Our Specialization of choice for this build is Combo Points.

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.

How to use Combo Points

Hit enemies with any Basic Skill (Puncture) three times to build 3 Combo Points, then use a Core Skill (Penetrating Shot) to finish. Combo Points are displayed above the XP bar in the UI. Avoid simply spamming Penetrating Shot without any Combo Points due to its high resource cost and lower damage output without 3 Combo Points.

Playing around Combo Points will feel like a natural rhythm to you once you have a bit of practice with it. Due to using Precision in this build, you may need to extend your rotation to 4 Basic Skills. This is done to ensure you have 4 stacks of Precision before firing your Core Skill, even when you do not Crit even once with your Basic Skills.

To get started as a Penetrating Shot Rogue, always use your highest DPS Ranged Weapon available for more damage. Your Melee Weapons are simply stat sticks 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.

Must have Dungeon Unlocks

1. Trickshot (Bastion of Faith - Hawezar)
2. Arrow Storms (Howling Warren - Scosglen)
3. Vengeful (Inferno - Kehjistan)

Nice to have Dungeon unlocks

1. Rapid (Buried Halls - Dry Steppes)
2. Might (Dark Ravine - Dry Steppes)
3. Shared Misery (Oblivion - Hawezar)

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 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

• Star Shards (enables the Endgame Dance of Knives 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 Penetrating Shot Rogue focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

• Cir + Lum - Great for resource as we're usually started for energy early game.
• Yax + Qua - Gives us a ton of movement speed early on.

Alternative Choices

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

• Ceh Summons wolves for extra damage and aggro to keep you safe.
• Gar Grants critical strike chance.

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

Soon...

• The Penetrating Shot Rogue is a great all-round build, combining mobility, great AoE and decent single target damage into one complete package.
• Stack Energy recovery where possible such as Consuming Shadows, Innervation and resource aspects.
• Activate Shadow Imbuement whenever possible but do not use Dash or Shadow Step with it, as they consume a charge.
• Always build 3 Combo Points before firing Penetrating Shot 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 or damage reduction.
• Consider getting the Trickshot Aspect early from the Bastion of Faith in Hawezar.

Written by DiEoxidE