Today, I have some exciting news for the Rogue players in Diablo 4 Season 4: Loot Reborn. Turns out, they're even more powerful than we expected. Specifically, there are new Tempering options that give Rogues a slight edge compared to other classes and builds.

It turns out there were some options that Blizzard added in the Season 4 launch that weren't possible before on the PTR, namely vulnerable damage and crit damage on Tempering. Get enough Diablo 4 Gold ready and let's get started!

Cutthroat Finesse

On the offensive slot, there is the Cutthroat Finesse recipe that has vulnerable damage, and vulnerable damage is the most important stat for Victimized builds, which is one of the strongest archetypes in the class right now with the Heartseeker build, possibly the Shadow Step build, and Penetrating Shot build. This used to be just Cutthroat damage or something like that, and for some reason, they converted this to vulnerable damage.

Marksman Finesse

Likewise, we have the Marksman Finesse, which has critical strike damage and is great for Precision Rogues. Any Ranged Rogue that is not already a Victimized build can also run this instead and benefit from this critical strike damage. So, we have 2 of the main Rogue archetypes buffed by those stats directly because we have this that scales with vulnerable damage and Precision that scales with crit damage, and now you can get a lot more of it.

Previously, we had to rely on things like damage per combo points spent or something like that, which wasn't really all that great for the Rogues. But now, you can also move your stats around a bit to roll other stats on your gear instead of trying to get as much vulnerable damage as you can. You just temper the vulnerable damage and get something else instead.

Natural Finesse

After doing some rough calculations, it seems that the new Tempering options have significantly boosted the DPS of Victimized or Precision builds by around 20 to 30%. This is great news for Rogues. However, these changes don't particularly benefit melee builds, as damage to crowd-controlled enemies was already an option, especially evident in Close Quarters Combat with the Natural Finesse key passive remaining unchanged.

While melee Rogues like Twisting Blades and Close Quarters Combat benefit from increased damage against crowd-controlled enemies, they don't gain any additional advantage compared to what was expected from the PTR. Ranged builds, particularly Victimized and Precision build, seem to be the more favorable choice. The exception may be the Shadow Step Rogue, but its effectiveness remains to be seen.

With Momentum becoming obsolete because of other easily accessible options for energy regeneration and movement speed, and Exposure mainly relevant for specific builds like the Poison Barrage Death Trap or Flurry Grenade build, the focus shifts more towards the dominance of the Victimized and Precision key passives in Rogue gameplay, further amplified by the recent Tempering changes.

Final Thought

It's my hope that Blizzard will take note of the current state of melee Rogues, which are clearly not on par with their ranged counterparts. Perhaps in the next season or mid-season update, there could be some rebalancing to elevate them a bit. Hope you enjoy this breakdown and good luck with your Rogue. Hope you enjoy your journey in Diablo 4 Season 4. See you next time!

Today, we are doing a short and sweet overview of the Rogue class to help you better make a decision on what class to play.

Intro

What makes a Rogue stand out against the other classes?

Firstly, their maneuverability has absolutely no match with abilities like “Blade Shift” that moves you through enemies granting movement speed, “Shadow Step” to teleport you behind enemies, and “Dash”.

A rogue is usually squishier than other classes, but you make up for it for your ability to evade damage quickly. As long as you keep on top of your evasive maneuvers, it can be very difficult for enemies to damage you. And when you get a higher level in the game, you will also get really good self-healing.

Abilities

Now, there are six types of abilities that the Rogue has. 

First of all, you have your basic ones like Heart Seeker that shoots an arrow and increases the crit chance against the target by a certain percent. 

Your core abilities, like Rapid Fire, can quickly shoot 5 arrows in a row. 

Agility abilities are like the ones I mentioned earlier. These are your evasive maneuvers. 

You have immune abilities, which are similar to how a Shaman of World of WarCraft imbues their weapons by adding effects to your weapon hits. 

You have your ultimate skills, which are normally long cooldowns with very powerful effects.

Then, your Subterfuge abilities versus things like Traps, Stealth and Damage Reduction abilities.

Playstyle

Next, let’s talk about the playstyle for a Rogue. You have the option to either have a melee or range build depending on your preference and you can use one-handed weapons dual wielding and also range weapons.

Now, range builds focus on evading enemies by slowing them down or dazing them with abilities like Smoke Grenade whereas melee builds are more about burst damage windows between your defensive abilities, like Concealment, if I put you under stealth of eventually from taking damage for 4 seconds.

Basically, when you’re playing a melee version of a Rogue, it’s all about jumping in there doing loads and loads of damage, even jumping out and then rinse and repeat. 

The Rogue has builds which are about a great bow for AOE grinding and single target boss fights. They mainly excel better than the other classes at your single target boss fights. 

They have different weapon immune abilities like Shadow Imbuement that affects enemies with a debuff that explodes when the mob dies, dealing damage to all surrounding enemies. So, this is your AOE damage imbuement.

Cold Imbuement. You’re most likely going to be using this one when you’re using a ranged weapon because your attacks will begin to slow enemies. 

Then, you have your Poison Imbuement that causes your next two skills to apply an additional 70% of their damage as poison damage and this is great obviously for single target boss fights. 

They also have some really cool ultimate abilities, like Shadow Clone, that create a Shadow of yourself to mimic your actions for 15 seconds or Death Trap that deals huge AOE damage and will pull people into it.

Uniqueness Of Rogue

Now, what is unique to the Rogue is the Specialization System, adding another layer of customizability to the class. Your options are Combo Points, Inner Sight and Preparation and you can only choose one. 

With Combo Points, your basic abilities generate obviously Combo Points with your skills and then you will consume assume these Combo Points with other abilities for more powerful effects.

Inner Sight marks enemies and this will eventually fill up your Inner Sight gauge or when it’s full, you will have unlimited energy for a certain amount of seconds.

And lastly, we have Preparation, which wasn’t available on the beta, so we don’t really know what’s going to look like just yet.

Another unique ability only Rogues have is the dismountability. Other classes get automatically dismounted when attacked on a mount, but Rogues have a little of a trick up their sleeves. They shoot a reign of arrows in mid-air whenever they dismount.

Related: Diablo 4: Surprise Third Server Slam Beta Is Coming!

Summary

To sum the Rogue, up your damage is insane because you get crit chance. How you deal percentile based damage to enemies affected by debuffs or CC. You will heal yourself whenever you create a melee range, so builds focused on correct trance make you deal insane damage and that damage turns into insane self-healing.

When you’re in danger, you will have many buttons that prevent you from taking damage or help you easily escape your enemies. With your weapon immune, you can adapt to different situations, like AOE damage, boss damage or kiting. 

But the biggest question of them all is how powerful and how viable are they while most people seem to be rating a Rogue in their Tier List as a mid to top tier class. But it’s important to understand that this is a rating of how they are low level because of what we got on the beta. I think every class is overpowered in their own little way, and Rogue is currently very overpowered at taking on bosses.

That’s all for Rogue. If you like this class, you can prepare lots of Diablo 4 Gold in advance so that you can make more powerful builds for this class.