Welcome to the Rain of Arrows Rogue Endgame Guide! This build unleashes devastating AoE attacks that destroy entire screens of monsters at once while staying mobile and offering solid single target damage against bosses. Note that the main combo gets enabled by Word of Hakan and before acquiring the amulet using the Ultimate Skill is not recommended (luckily it's a common unique drop and target-farmable from various endgame bosses).
Rapid Fire is an attack skill that unleashes a hail of arrows in a straight line sequentially. This naturally produces high damage output against bosses but makes dealing with packs of enemies difficult.
In order to solve this problem, the build puts a strong focus on Shadow Imbuement, which can be combined with either Rapid Fire itself or Dash to apply the debuff to an entire group of enemies at once. For the really big packs, a well-placed Rain of Arrows is going to take care of it, which we beef up with lots of damage modifiers to ensure total destruction. Through Preparation and the Flickerstep unique we can reduce its cooldown to mere seconds and have it ready for every major engagement.
A great perk of the build is that you never run out of Energy as long as enemies are Vulnerable thanks to Improved Rapid Fire, mainly achieved via the Exploit Glyph and various other triggers.
With this build you can do it all and enjoy a fast-paced, simple-to-play Rogue variation. Let's jump in and see what it's all about!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50+ Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Barrage Leveling Guide or Penetrating Shot Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Rogue playstyle, check out all of our Rogue Guides.
It's recommended to activate the Exploit Glyph (requires level 55-60) and acquire Word of Hakan + Repeating Aspect before starting out with this build.
Season 3 - Season of the Construct
In Season 3, you obtain the Seneschal Construct through the Season Questline, then collect Governing Stones or Tuning Stones to add attacks and augment them to support your build. Only certain Tuning Stones work with a particular Governing Stone. Look at the bottom of any Tuning Stone tooltip to see if it is compatible with your Construct's currently equipped Stones. Lastly, they can be leveled up by getting duplicates to max out their power. Check out our full Season 3 guide for more information.
Recommended Stones
- Tempest - This ability hits at a fast rate and can apply buffs at range reliably.
- Slowing Support - Helps us to trigger damage to crowd controlled enemies and the Wiles Paragon node.
- Efficiency Support - Critical Strike Chance is paramount.
- Safeguard Support - Provides free extra damage reduction.
- Flash of Adrenaline - A free damage buff to boost our character further.
- Duration Support - To improve the uptime of the buff.
- Tactical Support - To improve the uptime of the buff.
- Fortify Support - Rogues have no other access to Fortify so this adds free damage reduction.
Alternative Stones
Many other options are possible to support this build, including different Governing Stones to apply the effects. Feel free to experiment!
Governing Stones
- Autodefense - Great to increase survivability.
- Reconstruct - To recover health more reliably.
Tuning Stones
- Poison Support - Can be combined with Debilitating Toxins for additional defense.
- Frigid Support - Can be combined with Frigid Finesse for additional damage and stagger.
- Breaking Support - Helps to keep up Vulnerable and remove Barrier from enemies in Nightmare Dungeons or monsters like Knights and the Butcher.
- Resource Support - Helps to keep the setup smooth to play.
If you are lucky enough to get either Evernight or Genesis from Uber Malphas, you want to swap them in on your Construct for their powerful effects.
Eternal Realm
The build doesn't change in a significant way between Seasonal and Eternal game modes. You may be a bit weaker, slower, squishier or your Construct may not deal some additional damage, but the build is designed to work without it.
Skill Tree & Gameplay
- Rapid Fire is our main attack skill. It deals high single target damage and refills its own Energy cost thanks to Improved Rapid Fire as long as the target is Vulnerable, making Basic Skills unnecessary once the core setup is complete. More often than not, you'll end up finishing your main target before the final arrow, so try to line up your enemies to hit more behind them.
- Rain of Arrows is our Ultimate Skill. Due to Preparation and Flickerstep we are able to activate it frequently.
- Use it whenever you are fighting large packs that Shadow Imbuement can't clear on its own. If necessary, use Evade (with Flickerstep) to reset the skill, otherwise keep it ready for the right moment.
- Before firing, position yourself to hit the most enemies possible but beware of the long casting animation when in danger.
- It's best to make sure that the cooldown reset of Preparation hits most of your other skills before you activate your Ultimate.
- Against Suppressor elites, you can pre-fire the skill and then jump into the bubble to deal damage to them. If it's not safe to do so immediately, the first wave will still knock down everything even while you're outside so you can do it on the second wave. If there are overlapping Suppressor bubbles, try to stay right in the middle of them.
- Rain of Arrows can go through many walls in Dungeons. You can use this to your advantage to deal with monster packs without giving them a way to retaliate.
- Shadow Step is your mobility tool. It's great to engage a pack, in particular against Suppressor Elites and Champion monsters.
- When there are monsters and elites with crowd control nearby, keep Shadow Step ready for a situation where you may need to get out.
- The only way to keep up Close Quarters Combat in this build is with Shadow Step. Use this skill frequently (at least once every 8sec) to activate the melee portion of the passive for a massive damage multiplier.
- Against monster packs, activate Shadow Imbuement to infect them and trigger on-death explosions as you mow through your foes.
- Against bosses, you can also activate it to increase your Critical Strike Chance towards the end of the fight thanks to Enhanced Shadow Imbuement.
- Poison Imbuement is a single target DPS boost. Keep it ready to combine with Rapid Fire against elites and bosses.
Note: This demo is not the exact build but shows a similar playstyle without the Ultimate - will be updated.
Rogue Specialization
Preparation - Spend Energy to reset your Ultimate which resets all other skills.
Since we spam Rapid Fire all the time, we spend tons of Energy which is immediately recovered through the skill itself. Like this we can reset our Ultimate Skill very quickly. Preferably you should have everything on cooldown when you fire Rain of Arrows to get the most value out of this effect.
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.
Infinite Energy Recovery
Rapid Fire automatically restores almost all of its cost by hitting a Vulnerable target. Any remaining Energy required comes from the natural regeneration of Rogues and Resource Generation rolls on Rings. This means our top priority is making sure that we always hit at least one Vulnerable enemy each time we use Rapid Fire.
Before you acquire the Exploit Glyph, you may not reliably refill your Energy between packs, so it may be better to replace Concealment with Puncture to help with that.
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 until we drop the Aspect later once we have permanent Vulnerable uptime on most enemies.
Exploit Glyph
For regular farming content, this Glyph is the number one source of Vulnerable. For short fights it guarantees the effect after the first hit against a target, given that you finish them within 3 seconds. You can simply spam Rapid Fire into a pack and trigger it to gain resources back automatically before moving on to the next.
Concealment
Another way of triggering Vulnerable, you can use Subverting Stealth to trigger the effect. With Resistant Assailant's you are able to reset the skill frequently to keep it up in long fights.
Paragon Board
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 when they reach level 15!
Rain of Arrows Rogue 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
To Level 15
- Control
- Diminish
- Exploit
- Efficacy
- Versatility
To Level 21
- Control
- Diminish
- Efficacy
- Versatility
- Exploit
Note: Don't level Ranger as it's only used as a progression placeholder until later.
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 Gear & Skill Progression
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:
- Resistant Assailant's from the Season Journey
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones (Scosglen)
- Ravenous in Shifting City (Dry Steppes)
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
- Rapid in Buried Halls (Dry Steppes)
- Arrow Storms in Howling Warren (Scosglen)
- Protector in Lost Archives (Fractured Peaks)
- Might in Dark Ravine (Dry Steppes)
- Wind Striker in Shivta Ruins (Kehjistan)
- Expectant in Underrot (Scosglen)
- Corruption in Renegade's Retreat (Kehjistan)
- Shadowslicer in Twisted Hollow (Scosglen)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
- Repeating: Gamble Swords. This is our main Aspect and for most of the progression goes on our ranged weapon for the boosted effect. Make sure you only imprint this on a weapon you're going to use for a while, as it may not drop again soon. This replaces Edgemaster’s.
- Accelerating: Gamble Swords. Grants lots of extra Attack Speed for more damage output, healing and lucky hit effects. This replaces Shadowslicer.
- Ravager: Gamble Boots. The second charge on Shadow Step gives great quality of life and speeds up your runs. This replaces Wind Striker until you find Flickerstep.
- Noxious Ice: Gamble Boots. A massive damage buff for a fully imbued Rain of Arrows because you Freeze enemies instantaneously once you have the full setup. This replaces Arrow Storms.
- Synergy: Gamble Swords. While the extra damage portion is irrelevant, this item helps us with more Concealment uptime. This replaces Expectant.
- Elements: Gamble Swords. Grants a cycling damage buff that increases our burst in the right moment. This replaces Shadowslicer.
- Acquire the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops. Note: You cannot gamble Unique items with obols!
- Flickerstep: Replacing Ghostwalker or Ravager, these Boots offer a powerful cooldown reduction effect for your Ultimate Skill and great stats.
- Tibault's Will: Replacing Protector, this item grants us a powerful damage buff and extra resources.
- If you get lucky with Uber Unique drops, consider the following adjustments:
- Harlequin Crest: Replace Resistant Assailant's for a massive damage & toughness upgrade.
- Doombringer: Replace Synergy or Elements to survive high end content more easily.
- Ring of Starless Skies: Replace Synergy or Elements for a massive damage and resource cost reduction buff.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Steps
Endgame
Speedfarming
Once you have completed the leveling process to 50, 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 until later.
- Edgemaster’s goes on the ranged weapon until we acquire Repeating, then we move it to a regular slot.
- Ravenous can only go on a Ring and is used until the Exploit Glyph is online.
- Focus on + Skill ranks, Movement Speed, Cooldown Reduction and Maximum Life on your gear.
- As soon as you acquire Word of Hakan and have consistent Vulnerable uptime, you can move to the next step in the progression.
Skills
- This is the base setup with only Codex Powers. The goal is to progress our Energy recovery enough until we reach a point where we don't need a Basic Skill anymore.
- Puncture is a useful tool early on to help with Energy recovery in two separate ways: It regenerates some on its own and applies Vulnerable, which we can use to refill by attacking with Rapid Fire.
Gameplay
Compared to the full Rain of Arrows setup, this plays a bit more straightforward and similar to other Rogue builds. Note that this setup uses Combo Points so you can attack with Puncture to deal extra damage. Use your Basic Skill at least once every few seconds to apply Vulnerable when at low Energy. Other than that, follow the general skill rotation described in the Gameplay section above.
In this setup, you have access to all Legendary Aspects, allowing you to pilot a much stronger version of this build. Additional Legendary Aspects are used to fill slots that may be replaced with Unique items later on.
Gear
- This build has a few drop-only aspects and Word of Hakan. Focus on gambling the aspects with Obols and farm endgame bosses for the unique to complete the setup.
- Repeating aspect is crucial for this build's AoE clear and the first priority. If you only have one of these, you can also put it on a Ring that you wear until you find a replacement.
- Synergy: Grants us more frequent uses of Concealment for Energy and Vulnerable uptime.
- Accelerating: The extra Attack Speed is great to smooth out the gameplay and provide more Preparation procs.
- Ravager: The second charge on Shadow Step gives great quality of life and speeds up your runs.
- Various other adjustments round out the build.
- At this point, try to gather items that have Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies and Ultimate Skill Damage stats and run with Diamonds in your weapon sockets to boost the No Witnesses legendary Paragon node.
- Start working on capping your resists up to 70% each and stack Armor where you can.
Skills
- At this stage you should have the Exploit Glyph already activated (around level 55-60 depending on your Renown progress). This means that you make all enemies Vulnerable for 3 seconds by default, which should be enough for most fights on its own.
- This removes the need to run Puncture because hitting Vulnerable targets with Rapid Fire refills our Energy.
- If you still have trouble, you can keep Puncture in the setup and keep Ravenous on your Ring for extra Energy recovery until later.
Gameplay
At this point, you should start seeing the fruits of your labor with better passive Energy recovery. Follow the general skill rotation described in the section above.
In this setup, you have access to all Unique items and Legendary Aspects. This allows you to pilot this build at its peak efficiency. Let's take a look at the changes you need to make to implement them.
Gear
- Once you acquire Flickerstep, you no longer have the luxury of running Ravager's but now you can use Evade to reset your Ultimate's cooldown.
- Like this you don't fire Rapid Fire so much anymore and we move Repeating to a regular slot to make space for Corruption on the ranged weapon slot.
- Tibault's Will replaces Protector for a big damage buff. If you feel too squishy, you can run with a defensive legendary item instead.
- Be aware that equipping unique items may require to shift Resistances to other slots to stay capped.
- Work towards at least 9200 Armor to be capped against level 100 monsters, or more if you're aiming to farm higher tier Dungeons.
Gear with Uber Uniques
- Harlequin Crest: Replace Resistant Assailant's for a massive damage & toughness upgrade.
- Doombringer: Replace Synergy or Elements to survive high end content more easily.
- Ring of Starless Skies: Replace Synergy or Elements for a massive damage and resource cost reduction buff.
Skills
- The setup stays exactly the same as before.
- For easy outdoor content, you can swap Frigid Finesse with Stutter Step.
Gameplay
The gameplay doesn't change greatly from the previous version, but we put a bigger focus on Rain of Arrows because now you can Evade to reduce your Ultimate's cooldown much more quickly thanks to Flickerstep and don't have to focus on Rapid Fire as much. For a detailed description, check out the Gameplay section above.
The Nightmare Dungeon Push setup optimizes damage and survivability to allow you to dive much deeper into Nightmare Dungeons where the difficulty increases significantly.
AVOID THESE Nightmare Dungeon Affixes
Before we go into what you should change on your build, take a look at Nightmare Dungeon Affixes that you need to avoid for a successful push:
- Lightning Storm
- Stormbane's Wrath
- Death Pulse
- Suppressor
- Poison Resist
- Monster Barrier
- Evade knocks back enemies (positive affix)
To make it easier, you are looking for a Nightmare Dungeon that contains mostly melee enemies. It's recommended to use defensive consumables such as Iron Skin Elixir, Song of the Mountain and Reddamine Buzz to survive.
Gear
- This setup is very similar to the typical endgame setup. The main difference is that Armor plays a much bigger role, so try to add more % Armor rolls on your items. Ideally aim for ~9000-10000 Armor before Disobedience to reach the cap of ~13300 against level 154 monsters reliably when in combat.
Gear with Uber Uniques
- Harlequin Crest: Replace Resistant Assailant's for a massive damage & toughness upgrade.
- Doombringer: Replace Synergy or Elements to survive high end content more easily.
- Ring of Starless Skies: Replace Synergy or Elements for a massive damage and resource cost reduction buff.
Skill Tree
- We remove a few passive points to pick up Smoke Grenade and Dark Shroud for enhanced survivability. These skills replace both Imbuements on our skill bar but we still keep points in them for the Word of Hakan combo with Rain of Arrows.
Paragon
This setup makes a few defensive adjustments for higher tiers.
Gameplay
- Focus more than usual on the right positioning and timing with your Rain of Arrows as the damage of Rapid Fire becomes less impactful on higher tiers.
- Play a lot more defensively in a high tier Nightmare Dungeon. Use your range to your advantage and kite enemies around when necessary. You have high single target damage and a massive AoE nuke, so focus on defeating enemies in small packs and with your cooldowns ready whenever possible.
- Avoid getting hit by anything if possible. Dark Shroud is there to protect you from one-shots but if you take multiple hits at once you may immediately die.
- Keep in mind that Elites become Unstoppable after being crowd controlled for 5 seconds and you have to wait some time before you can disable them again. If they're not close to death yet, you may have to kite them until the effect passes.
Hardcore Adjustments
Hardcore requires you to build into more defenses. Here are some tips to successful 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.
- Add extra Armor & Maximum Life instead of damage nodes on your Paragon Boards.
- For even more protection, include Eluding instead of Arrow Storms to get out of crowd controls.
- 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.
- Replace Tibault's Will with a defensive legendary item in the lategame.
Build Scaling, FAQ & Mechanics
Read on to learn all about how to scale this build into endgame:
- Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies: Thanks to Close Quarters Combat this stat adds an extra damage multiplier to the build.
- Critical Strikes: We stack Critical Strike Chance which helps us deal more damage and apply bigger poisons via Blended Poison Imbuement.
- Vulnerable: For this build to work, we need high Vulnerable uptime, achieved with the Exploit Glyph and Subverting Stealth.
- Energy: Rapid Fire restores its own Energy cost almost entirely when hitting a Vulnerable target. This allows us to freely spam our main attack and benefit from other perks such as the Preparation cooldown resets.
- Attack Speed: Since we don't have to worry about resources, we can get as much AS as possible for more damage output and to trigger Preparation more often.
- Ultimate Skill Damage: No Witnesses allows this stat to scale all of our damage multiplicatively by using an Ultimate, so we stack it wherever we can.
- Resistances: As we approach lategame, we focus on capping all of our elemental resists at 70% through rolls on Armor pieces, Paragon nodes and Jewelry sockets.
- Armor: Similar to resistances, we aim to hit the 85% damage reduction armor cap (~9200 vs. lvl 100 monsters, ~13500 vs. lvl 154 monsters) to be well protected against any damage type.
- Don't Get Hit: Since this build can play completely at range while offering crowd controls and high mobility, you can avoid most incoming attacks.
- Damage Reduction Stats: Especially our Chest & Pants offer tons of defensive rolls which helps us to survive.
- Crowd Controls: Rain of Arrows can immediately defuse any danger when you engage a pack.
- Defensive Legendaries: Disobedience is one of the most powerful defensive aspects and has a high uptime in this build.
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
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 to compare your gear and pick the best (green = priority).
- Helm: Disobedience
- Any Resistance
- Cooldown Reduction
- Total Armor %
- Ranks to Poison Imbuement
- Maximum Life
- Chest Armor: Escape Artist's
- Any 3 Resistances (with Flickerstep)
- Total Armor %
- Damage Reduction
- Damage Reduction from Close
- Damage Reduction from Distant
- Maximum Life
- Gloves: Noxious Ice
- Ranks to Rapid Fire
- Attack Speed
- Critical Strike Chance
- Lucky Hit Chance
- All Stats
- Dexterity
- Pants: Tibault's Will, look for a high roll of the effect
- Otherwise Look For: The Protector
- Damage Reduction
- Damage Reduction from Close
- Total Armor %
- Damage Reduction From Distant
- Maximum Life
- Damage Reduction Something
- Boots: Flickerstep, look for high rolls to Ultimate Cooldown or Movement Speed.
- Otherwise Look For: Ravager's
- Movement Speed
- Any 3 Resistances
- Movement Speed on Elite Kill
- Dodge Chance
- Amulet: Word of Hakan look for Rain of Arrows Cooldown Reduction, and Ultimate Skill Damage.
- Rings: Elements & Repeating
- Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
- Resource Generation
- Critical Strike Chance
- Maximum Life
- Vulnerable Damage
- Bow: Corruption
- High DPS (Item Power)
- Ultimate Skill Damage
- All Stats
- Dexterity
- Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
- Vulnerable Damage
- Core Skill Damage
- Main Hand (Sword): Accelerating
- Ultimate Skill Damage
- All Stats
- Dexterity
- Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
- Vulnerable Damage
- Core Skill Damage
- Off-Hand (Sword): Synergy
- Ultimate Skill Damage
- All Stats
- Dexterity
- Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
- Vulnerable Damage
- Core Skill 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, Elixir of Fortitude, 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.
I feel squishy, how can I increase survivability?
My damage is too low, how can I improve it?
I'm running out of Energy all the time, what's wrong?
My AoE damage is low, what can I do?
What are the pros and cons of Bows and Crossbows?
How to deal with Champions and Suppressor elites?
Are Windforce or Skyhunter great uniques for this build?
Why Rubies instead of Topazes in Armor sockets?
Mechanics
Dark Shroud Scaling
Eldritch Bounty
Imbuement Potency
Video Guide
Summary
The Rain of Arrows Rogue is fun to play build that rewards good timing and positioning with a massive, satisfying AoE nuke that destroys everything in its path.
- Focus on acquiring Word of Hakan, Repeating and activating the Exploit as early as possible.
- Make sure to always apply Vulnerable for Energy recovery from Rapid Fire.
- Activate Shadow Imbuement to mow through large packs when you can't use your ultimate.
- Reset Rain of Arrows using Flickerstep and Preparation to use it more frequently.
- Pick up Eldritch Bounty early on and respec your Paragons near level 100 to attach it as the last board instead.
Hungry for more Guides?
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Written by wudijo