Diablo 4 Rogue Shadow Imbuement Build

Introduction

Welcome to our Diablo 4 Rogue Shadow Imbuement Build. In this guide we’ll take you through everything you need to know to create and play this powerful build for yourself. The guide covers Skill Tree, Paragon Board choices, Glyphs, Aspects and more! This particular build is able to be transitioned to from our Diablo 4 Rogue Leveling Guide.

Skill Tree and Paragon Board

Glyph Leveling Priority

For our Diablo 4 Rogue Shadow Imbuement Build we are using the 5 Rare Glyphs to complement our damage and survivability. Below we will put them in order of which one to level first to last.

1 – Exploit: We will need the extra radius to reach the required stats. Granting us Damage to Vulnerable targets and the ability to apply Vulnerable to all Targets on first hit.
2 – Combat: We will need the extra radius to reach the required stats. Granting us Core Skill Damage and Energy Cost Reduction.
3 – Closer: We will need the extra radius to reach the required stats. Granting us Cutthroat Skill Damage and Damage Reduction while using melee weapons.
4 – Turf: We will need the extra radius to reach the required stats. Granting us increased Damage to Close targets and granting us Damage Reduction against Close enemies.
5 – Control: We will need the extra radius to reach the required stats. Granting us increased Damage to Crowd Controlled targets and granting us increased Damage to Slowed or Chilled enemies. This Damage increase is doubled to Stunned or Frozen enemies.

Class Mechanic: Specializations (Preparation)

Preparation is our Specialization of choice in this end-game build. This is due to the usage of Death Trap, allowing you to make very big burst windows. It is also very easy to lower the Cooldown of Death Trap with Preparation and other sources of our kit.

An alternative, mainly something you should swap to for single-target boss fights is Inner Sight. Inner Sight provides you with a lot more single-target damage on a longer fight than Preparation will. As a result we suggest switching between the two Specializations to match the content you are doing.

Legendary Aspects

Legendary Aspects are one of the most powerful parts of any build. Below we list the ones used for this Diablo 4 Rogue Shadow Imbuement Build. Each build has a limited amount of Offensive, Defensive, and Utility Aspects that it can use. Here is a reminder of the slot limitations for Legendary Aspects:

Offensive – Amulets, Gloves, Ring, Weapons
Defensive – Amulets, Chest, Helm, Legs, Shield
Mobility – Amulets, Boots
Resource – Rings
Utility – Amulets, Boots, Chest, Gloves, Helm, Shield

Aspect Priority

Below you will find the list of Aspects we use and recommend for this build. The Aspects are in order starting from most important to the least. However all the Aspects are worthwhile. You can also check the build planner above for these Aspects:

Bladedancer’s Aspect (Offensive)
Edgemaster’s Aspect (Offensive)
Aspect of the Umbral (Resource)
Aspect of Disobedience (Defensive)
Ravager’s Aspect (Mobility)
Aspect of Might (Defensive)
Accelerating Aspect (Offensive)
Aspect of the Protector (Defensive)
Aspect of Corruption (Offensive)
Mangler’s Aspect (Utility)
Ghostwalker’s Aspect (Mobility)

Unique Items

Penitent Greaves (Boots) – These boots provide decent stats such as Movement Speed. Penitent Greaves also provides a chilling trail that increases your damage to Chilled enemies and Slows them. Replace Ghostwalker’s with these when possible.
Harlequin’s Crest (Helm) – The Harlequin’s Crest is the undisupted best in slot Helm for every build in Diablo 4. The helmet provides you with Maximum Life, Cooldown Reduction, Energy Generation and All Stats. On top of this, the Helm provides +4 Ranks to ALL Skills. Replace Mangler’s with this as soon as possible.
Doombringer (1-Handed Sword) – Doombringer is the ultimate push weapon for high tier Nightmare Dungeons. This unique weapon has it all, Core Skill Damage, flat Damage increases, Life on Lucky Hit and a huge 39% increase to Max Life. The unique effect of Doombringer also provides a Shadow Damage AoE explosion that reduces damage done by 20% too! As a result, for the highest tiers of end-game, this weapon is a must for pushing.

Malignant Hearts

Malignant Hearts, a new addition to Diablo 4 through the first Seasonal experience act as a huge boost to your build capabilities. As a result, we recommend using the following Malignant Hearts for this build:

The Malignant Pact (Wrathful, Super): Cycle through a Malignant bonus every 20 kills:
- Vicious: Gain 20% Attack Speed.
- Devious: Core and Basic Skills have a 15% chance to fully restore your Primary Resource.
- Brutal: Every 21 seconds, gain a Barrier absorbing 85-102 damage.
The Calculated (Devious, Utility-World Tier III): After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resource, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds.
Trickery (Brutal, Defensive): When you use a Subterfuge Skill, leave behind an unstable Shadow Decoy Trap that Taunts enemies. The Shadow Decoy Trap will explode after 6.0 seconds dealing 680-1020 Shadow damage. Cannot occur more than once every 5 seconds.

Alternative Choices

The Dark Dance (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier III): Every 5 seconds while above 60% Life, Core Skills cost 68-51 Life instead of your Primary Resource. Skills that consume Life deal 10-20% increased damage.
Prudent Heart (Brutal, Defensive-World Tier III): You become Immune for 2.0-4.0 seconds after you lose more than 20% Life in a single hit. This effect can only occur once every 110 seconds.

Item Affix Priority

Item	1	2	3	4	5
Helm	Ranks to Shadow Imbuement	Cooldown Reduction	Max Life	Total Armor	All Stats
Chest	Damage Reduction	Close Damage Reduction	Max Life.	Total Armor	Dexterity
Gloves	Ranks to Twisted Blades	Critical Strike Damage	Attack Speed	Critical Strike Chance	Critical Strike Damage with Imbued Skills
Pants	Damage Reduction	Close Damage Reduction	Max Life	Total Armor	Dexterity
Boots	Movement Speed	Energy Cost Reduction	Damage Reduction while Injured	Dodge Chance	All Stats
Amulet	Movement Speed	Damage Reduction	Cooldown Reduction	Ranks to Malice	Ranks to Weapon Mastery
Ring x 2	Critical Strike Chance	Critical Strike Damage	Vulnerable Damage	Max Life	Critical Strike Damage with Imbued Skills
Weapon 1H / 2H	Vulnerable Damage	Critical Strike Damage	Core Skill Damage	Dexterity	Critical Strike Damage with Imbued Skills

How To Play Shadow Imbuement Rogue

The Shadow Imbuement Rogue is a hyper mobile farming machine at almost all stages of the game. As a somewhat squishy class in melee, risk versus reward is there and may take a bit of time to get used to in high tier Nightmare Dungeons.

Manage your Energy usage and play around Preparation to ensure you receive efficiency on Cooldown resets and Energy return from the Aftermath passive.
The general idea is to get in close with a Shadow Step that preferably stuns a priority mob to start clearing a pack of mobs
The overall rotation after using Shadow Step is: weave in a couple of Puncture’s and apply Vulnerable to targets, activate Shadow Imbuement and begin to spam your Imbued Twisting Blades. Once your Energy has been dropped to about 30%, use Death Trap to reset your Shadow Imbuement and give yourself 75 Energy back with Aftermath. Finally, re-activate your Shadow Imbuement that is fresh off of a reset and continue farming! It is important to note that all of the rotation and the speed of mob clear can be different based on the content, you may not need to do more than one rotation.
Use Dash and Shadow Step as a means of re-positioning. Dash can also be used aggressively as an Imbued Skill and to Slow or Daze enemies.

How to Play vs Mob Packs, Elites and Bosses

When approaching single-target fights such as World Bosses or high tier Nightmare Dungeon bosses, switch your Specialization to Inner Sight. With the boss as the only target, it ensures high Inner Sight up-time.
To get the most out of your damage in large packs of mobs, find moments between a few stabs of Twisting Blades to start moving through enemies. This allows you to hit as many enemies as possible with the returning blade, adding to your Cooldown Reduction and damage.
Against Elites, entering the fight by Crowd Controlling the most dangerous target is advised. To achieve this efficiently, use Shadow Step as an engage tool.

Additional Tips

This particular Rogue build that plays around Shadow Imbuement excels in pretty much all content within Diablo 4. However, there is a few important things to note throughout each end-game activity and tweaks to the Skill Tree and Aspects:

With a +4 Ranks to Shadow Imbuement Helm, you can take 4 points out of Shadow Imbuement to keep it 5/5 and apply 1 point to Concussive and Trick Attacks, putting the remaining 2 points into Precision Imbuement.
While Exposure is our Key Passive of choice, Close Quarters Combat and Momentum both are fine choice to use too. This varies depending on the amount of damage or utility buffs you are looking for.
In the PVP Fields of Hatred, the Rogue is a formidable and high-speed opponent. For PVP content we recommend switching out Death Trap to Shadow Clone. Shadow Clone serves as both burst DPS and a source of Unstoppable to prevent chained Crowd Control. Poison Imbuement is also a potential choice over Shadow.
Survivability is key if you are pushing higher tier Nightmare Dungeons. If you are struggling to survive, focus on improving positioning or adding more Damage Reduction sources to your gear and Paragon.
In the PVP Fields of Hatred, switching out or hot-swapping gear to have access to the Eluding Aspect to break out of stun-lock, Exploiter’s Aspect to fight Barbarians, Aspect of the Protector to gain a shield vs an opponent and Escape Artist to guarantee Dodge on several attacks – is recommended. Some Aspects gain far less value while fighting in PVP.

Conclusion

This concludes our guide for the Rogue Shadow Imbuement build in Diablo 4! For more information on Diablo 4, including Class Builds and Guides, be sure to check out our Diablo 4 home page!

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