If you want to use the Rogue class in Diablo 4, you shouldn’t forget about these important passive skills.
When making a rogue build in Diablo 4, players need to think about how the class as a whole works. By thinking about this, players will be able to choose which active and passive skills to take, since both are needed to make a good build. Even though active skills will always get the most attention because they have a clear effect on enemies, it would be silly to think that passive skills don’t have much or any effect on the game. In fact, a lot of active skills work best with the right set of idle skills.
Each build will have different needs, so it’s likely that different skills will be best for each character. Still, some skills are more useful for a wider range of builds than others. Here are some examples of the best and most useful passive skills for the rogue class in Diablo 4.
Sturdy
It’s not very exciting, but it will help people stay alive. This passive skill lowers all the damage that close enemies do to a player. In particular, this means that enemies closer to the player do less damage to them.
This makes enemies less powerful when close-combat rogues fight them, and it can also help protect distance rogues from enemies who get too close.
Siphoning Strikes
Siphoning Strikes is a passive skill that heals players a little bit when they hit an enemy in close range with a critical hit. This skill is a great way to turn their pain into your gain. It works well with the rogue’s many critical strike boosts. Also, this bonus will never become useless because the amount healed is based on the player’s full health.
This passive skill is a must-have for melee builds that want to stay alive. It is less useful for long builds.
Aftermath
This passive restores 25 energy when the rogue’s ultimate ability is used. Players who use their ultimate ability as a last option will find this especially useful. This passive only helps characters who have both an ultimate ability and a core ability equipped, so it’s not for everyone.
This skill works well when paired with the shadow clone ultimate or the death trap and the consuming shadows passive. This passive is a great addition to the rogue’s preparation specialization for builds that put a lot of stress on resources.
Weapon Mastery
Even though this passive isn’t as specialized as some others, it is a very flexible choice that can help any build and will still be useful if a player changes their build later. This passive gives a different bonus for each type of rogue weapon, so players can focus in their own way and learn more about how the class’s weapons work in general.
Weapon Mastery makes knives do more damage to healthy enemies, swords do more damage straight up, bows do more damage to weak enemies, and crossbows do more damage on critical hits.
Rapid Gambits
When a player stuns an enemy, Rapid Gambits lower the time it takes for the player to be able to evade. This passive is great for players who rely on skills like Dash and Smoke Grenade to help them get out of trouble.
This is not just to keep distance rogues safe, though. The cooldown reduction that stacks is a great feature for melee rogues who put a lot of value on movement and positioning.
Stutter Step
The Stutter Step skill makes the rogue move faster every time they hit an enemy with a critical hit. This effect doesn’t stack on its own, but it adds to other speed-boosting effects and is great for ranged players who like to deal damage from a distance while staying mobile.
The bad thing about this passive is that it only works if a critical hit is made. Many rogue builds, especially those that use long attacks and crossbows, are good at getting high critical strike chances.
Malice
The rogue class is very good at making holes for attacks and leaving enemies weak and open to attack. The Malice passive improves the total damage that players do to weak enemies, making the most of enemies who are already weak.
The best thing about this skill is that many rogue powers work well with it, whether or not they make the target vulnerable. Puncture and Flurry are two skills that work well with this passive.
Alchemical Advantage
This passive will be a great fit for rogues who use poison skills. Alchemical Advantage speeds up the player’s attacks a little bit for each poisoned enemy, up to a certain point. This bonus works well for builds that focus on making strikes quickly.
Of course, one will also need skills that let them harm others. Because of this, it is strongly suggested that Drive Mad players use this skill with Poison Imbuement or Poison Trap.
Frigid Finesse
Even though many frost rogue builds focus on slowing their targets from a safe distance, some players may still want to get up close and personal. Frigid Finesse makes the player do more damage to enemies that have been chilled, and it also makes attacks against enemies that the player has frozen work better.
This effect is useful for both shooting and melee players who use Frost Imbuement. It helps make up for some damage bonuses that frost users might pass up for debuff effects.
Shadow Crash
Shadow damage turns foes it affects into walking bombs that are ready to infect other enemies. With Shadow Crash, players can give enemies a chance to be stunned when they take damage from shadows. This does require a lucky hit, but shadow bombs’ area-of-effect makes it much more likely than one might think.
Shadow Crash is a great way to add shadow damage to your build, and it works well with Shadow Imbuement and Death Trap.
Right now, you can play Diablo 4 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.