The Twisting Blades Core Skill for the Rogue is by far the highest damage skill for the class, thanks to its incredible power, both up-front and with even stronger damage on its return. This makes the skill by far the best single target skill available to the Rogue, and can even make it a very competent AOE clear too. While this skill is primarily used melee, then modified with Agility skills to create ranged AOE scenarios, you will opt for a !Marksman skill to assist with your Basic Skills to grant a fluid hybrid playstyle, that comes with its own benefits. Here’s a look at the Diablo 4 Twisted Blades Rogue Build, which will likely be the best build for the Rogue, at least for launch.

Diablo 4 Twisted Blades Rogue Build¶

Note that this Diablo 4 Rogue Twisted Blades Build is both a leveling build, and one that works end of game. You will likely be swapping talents around through the course of the leveling stages, and some talent points you won’t grab until much later on. So, keep in mind as you go through this page that some things are situational, and we’ll mention those situations as they arise. So, don’t blindly follow talent placements; otherwise, you may make the build unnoptimal at certain stages thanks to insufficient talents.

Moreso, some aspects of this build require much harder legendries to get, which don’t come from the aspects book. So, our legendary list will range from things you can get while leveling and from aspects to make the build functional early on.

With that out of the way, below is the table of contents to skip to a relevant section

Table of Contents:

• Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Build: Skills
• Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Build: Skill Point Placement
• Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Build: Legendaries & Unique Items
• Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Build: Stat Priority
• Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Build: Paragon & Glyphs

Twisting Blades Build: Skills and Talents¶

The main features of this Rogue build are as follows: Note, that if you want an explanation of why we are using these skills, and general gameplay interactions and synergies, we have those mentioned in their appropriate explanations further down this build area. Skill investment will come later on in a different heading.

• Basic Skill: Puncture
• Core Skill: Twisting Blades
• Skill 1: Dash
• Skill 2: Shadow Step
• Skill 3: Poison Imbuement - occasionally hot swap with Shadow Imbuement for AOE trash clears early game, but Poison is where you will default at around late level 40 when you get to spend more skill points on poison imbuement and passives.
• Skill 4: Shadow Clone
• Specialization: Inner Sight
• Capstone: Close Quarters Combat

Basic and Core Skills: The main skills you use here all synergize for several reasons. Puncture is a solid skill that grants some versatility with range, and is used to generate Vulnerable fairly effectively, especially since you are close ranged to use Twisting Blades. This Core Skill is then used as both a very strong single target nuke, and to combine with your agility skills to nuke down packs.

Agility Skills Explained: The Agility skills you want to use are both Dash and Shadow Step. Dash makes it easier to spread a lot of your imbuements, grant escape opportunities, and apply slow and Dazed to targets, which is important for your multiplicative scalings. Meanwhile, Shadow Step is a great skill for stunning targets for another form of crit against cc targets, but you can also use it to come off cooldown sooner while leveling.

Imbuements: Meanwhile, you kind of want to use both the Shadow Imbuement, and Poison Imbuement. Shadow Imbuement is great early on, and makes clearing packs. As you progress through World Tier 3 and 4, the Shadow Imbuement so you want to completely remove that from your build by the level 52 range, as poison trap and death trap start carrying more. Meanwhile, Poison still does decent AOE damage consistently if you can spread it with the Twisting Blades return, including via the Bladedancer’s Aspect application or via Dash, and is by far the skill you need for your incredible boss-killing speeds, and later on, attack speed and defensive buffs.

Ultimate: Shadow Clone is a great ultimate, especially if you’re going to a deep Shadow Clone / Poison Imbue playstyle. Death Trap is a decent alternative for pack survivability, and grouping mobs together, similar to how Corpse Tendrils work for Necromancer. This can help your survivability later game, ant its sync very well with Poison Trap.

Specilization: As for the Specialization, you want to use Inner Sight. When you fill the purple eye meter, you can cast your core skill, Twisting Blades, without it costing energy. This is good for your nuking potential with Twisting Blades. This grants a specific window for nuking the boss, elite or packs when it pops. You can also use your Dash or Shadow Step to get to the marked target quickly too.

Key Passive: As for the Capstone, you want Close Quarters Combat. This works very well, granting 10% Attack Speed while using a Cutthroat, and a further 10% for a !Marksman Skill. Since Puncture is a !Marksman Skill, and Twisting Blades is Cutthroat, you will always have a 20% attack speed bonus near enough in combat. Meanwhile, you also get bonus damage against Crowd Controlled targets, which helps you deal bonus damage to enemies Dazed, Stunned, Frozen, or Knocked Down. This is another important part, since this class, and later skill point talents will award more CC effects to increase your damage further.

via GIPHY

Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Build: Skill Points¶

In general, you must invest your skill points using the below order. You can probably change some of the structuring of the talents around when you please, but it is just a general rule of thumb for synergy with your build as and when certain parts of the build identity unlocks, or when difficulty begins to spike. You can use this as a Rogue leveling build, too, if you really want to.

1. Puncture,
2. Enhanced Puncture
3. Twisting Blades (TB)
4. Enhanced TB
5. Improved TB - Advanced TB is also worthwhile for leveling purposes.
6. Fundamental Puncture
7. Dash
8. Shadow Step (SS)
9. Enhanced SS
10. Disciplined SS - You can swap this out for Methodical SS when you get the legendary that grants two charges of Shadow Step.
11. Enhanced Dash
12. Twisting Blades
13. Twisting Blades
14. Twisting Blades
15. Twisting Blades
16. Puncture
17. Poison Imbuement (PI)
18. Shadow Imbuement (SI)
19. Enhanced SI
20. Blended SI - General decent for AOE clear speed and spreading Vulnerability. However, this can be swapped to Mixed SI when packs won’t die from Shadow explosions. Worth noting depending on the content you are doing.
21. Enhanced PI
22. Blended PI
23. Puncture
24. Shadow Clone (SC)
25. Prime SC
26. Supreme Shadow Clone
27. Precision Imbluement (Imbuement Passive)
28. Precision Imbluement
29. Precision Imbluement - Brings your Crit Strike Chance to 9% while using Imbuement skills.
30. Exploit (Subterfurge Passive)
31. Malice (Subterfurge Passive)
32. Malice
33. Malice - 9% increased damage to Vuln targets ( pretty much a 9% damage increase thanks to Puncture for single target DPS, or Sahdow Imbue detonations if you picked its Vuln talent for leveling)
34. Close Quarters Combat - Capstone for your attack speed, then double damage against Crowd Controlled enemies, while both effects are active.
35. Disciplined Dash - the final node for your Dash skill that grants slow, then daze to already slowed enemies. - Easy to apply with two charges of Dash in combat, if you’ve not used it for map movement.
36. Rapid Gambits (Agility Passive) - 0.5-second cooldown knocked off your Evade after Dazing an enemy - See your Improved TB talent, or assign that talent if it is not already selected.
37. Trick Attacks (Agility Passive) - Critical Strikes against a Dazed opponent are knocked down - useful for multiplicative damage against CC’d enemies.
38. Concussive (Agility Passive) - When you knock an enemy down, you get increased grit damage against them.
39. Trick Attacks
40. Trick Attacks
41. Concussive
42. Concussive
43. Sturdy (Core Passive) - Decreases Close Range Damage by 4% per talent incested
44. Sturdy
45. Sturdy - These talent are worth it here thanks to the upcoming end campaign boss content, and the soon approach world tier 2 capstone dungeon and world tier 3 adventure, where enemies get much tougher as soon as you enter.
46. Puncture
47. Puncture
48. Poison Imbuement
49. Poison Imbuement
50. Poison Imbuement
51. Poison Imbuement
52. Deadly Venom - 3% increased poison damage per talent
53. Debilitating Toxins - 5% damage reduction from poisoned enemies per point.
54. Debilitating Toxins
55. Debilitating Toxins
56. Deadly Venom
57. Deadly Venom
58. Alchemical Advantage

Also, when you get to World Tier 3, your Shadow Imbuement is rather ineffective, with Poison damage taking over their greatly increased health buffs and damage resistance. Not to mention that poisoned enemies deal reduced damage, making it a much-needed survivability bonus since the Rogue has a few decent ones worth picking up in its tree. So, you can drop all talents from the Poison Imbuement and fast-track the poison passives in the Imbuement section instead.

If you find you have three spare talents at some point, you can allocate them to either Siphoning Strikes, since you will crit a lot for health restoration in harder content,. Alternatively, you can take passives like Adrenaline Rush for Energy Regen, or Impetus for a damage increase, which you nearly get enough whenever you use Dash. Go with whatever you prefer here, as these just compliment your build, and are not actually parts that make it function.

Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Build: Legendary & Uniques¶

Below is a list of all legendaries you may want to use at end game and for leveling, We have listed 8 offense types, as you will likely stop using two as you get into the end game, as you get more access to drop only legendary powers, which will be part of your core build. So, consider the offensive list a priority you can adapt for yourself. We have also mentioned a unique Glove item you want for this build, as it is amazing for this playstyle, but, it’s not defining. If you get this, you will use this gear over any other glove item in the game. Be aware you will lose one slot to apply aspects or extracted aspects when you get gloves, meaning you have to be mindful of the choices of legendary items you have on your equipment slots.

Offensive Legendaries:

1. Imitated Imbuement - Your Shadow Clone mimics the Imbuement applied to your skills. Casting an Imbuement skill grants your active Shadow Clone increased damage for 5 seconds
2. Bursting Venoms - Lucky Hit: Critical Strikes with Poison Imbued Skills have up to 10% Chance to create a toxic pool that deals poisoning damage over 3 seconds to enemies within. While standing in the pool, your Poison Imbuement Skill has no cooldown or charge limit. - scales very well with your general DPS profile and your Imitated Imbuement legendary. These two are end-game core legendaries when you get them.
3. Aspect of Corruption: Imbuement Skill effects have increased potency against Vulnerable enemies. - Largely a legendary for single target, thanks to Puncture’s easy to apply Vuln to a single enemy,
4. Bladedancer’s Aspect - Your Twisting Blades orbit around you for roughly two orbits before disappearing, dealing around 10-20% of the return damage when they hit an enemy while orbiting. This damage increases to a cap, depending on the distance traveled by the Twisting Blade’s return. - General single target DPS output, which can also carry the Imbue effect on it, too.
5. Aspect of Arrow Storms: !Marksman skills have a chance per Lucky hit to cause an arrow storm above the target, dealing x damage over several seconds. You can have 5 active at any one time. - Nice additional damage when you use Puncture no matter the stage of your build, especially while you don’t have your Imbuement core legendary effects yet.
6. Edgemaster’s Aspect: Skills deal between 10%-20% more damage based on the amount of available Primary Resource (Energy) you have, with the damage bonus capping at full Energy. This basically places a potential 10-20% flat damage bonus on your Twisting Blades when you are in the Prep window, which your Shadow Clone also mimics, since it does at minimum 80% of your total damage with skills. So, it makes for an all-around great use in nuke windows, or just general damage output on packs too. This is something you want, especially if you manage to roll its damage bonus towards 20% on a piece of gear.
7. Aspect of Unstable Imbuements: When you cast an Imbuement Skill, you deal a small explosion of the type to enemies around you. - A nice addition to pack AOE damage.
8. Vengeful Aspect: Lucky Hit: Making an enemy Vulnerable has up to a 30% chance to grant 3% critical strike chance for three seconds, stacking up to 9%. - This is good for general leveling and getting more crit, but it falls off the more you get Intelligence and crit strike chance gear, and skill points that grant bonus crit.

Other slots¶

• Boots: Quickening Fog - Drop Smoke Grenades automatically at the end of Dash, which Daze enemies . Dash cooldown is reduced slightly for each enemy affected by the Daze this way. Or Ravagers - Grants an additional charge of Shadow Step and killing an enemy with it grants a refund, and bonus damage for the additional Shadow Step for two second. - You only really want it for the extra charge. Ghostwalker Aspect is okay too for the movement speed bonus and Unstoppable

• Grasp of Shadows Unique Gloves: Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy with a !Marksman or Cutthroat Skill has a chance to summon a Shadow Clone that mimics your attack. This unique is what you want to complete your build, since this has too much synergy with your basic and core skill, and then the Imitated Imbuement and Bursting Venoms legendary effects. This is a unique, so be aware getting this one is going to be a very low chance, but it’s your long-term goal to acquire for world tier 3 and 4.

Chest Helm and Legs:

• Aspect of Disobedience: Increased armor regen while in combat. The number fluctuates while combat lasts, but, the armor scales rather well post level 50, since 2.9k armor blacks about 29% damage against goes your level, while 4.4k blocks around 58% damage against foes your level. So, this legendary is wroth acquiring for defensive purposes for tier 3 and 4 content, as its values is very limited while leveling.
• Aspect of Might: Basic Skills grants 20% damage reduction for two seconds. - You get near enough 80% uptime with this outside of your nuke windows with preparation specialization, making this a very hand survivability legendary to place on your gear.
• Aspect of the Protector: When hit while not Healthy, a barrier forms around you, making you immune for x seconds, while stood inside the barrier. - This aspect only drops from gear, and cannot be found via the Codex of Power. The purpose of this is to make those swarmed moments much better to handle, and also provide a window where you can laugh at the boss in Preparation nuke windows and not have to think about mechanics while you and your clone maximize DPS.

Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Build: Stat Priority¶

In general, your Stat Priority is as follows:

1. Vulnerable Damage - Highest Damage Bucket in the game.
2. Core Skill Damage
3. Poison Damage
4. Crit Chance
5. Crit Damage
6. Cooldown Reduction
7. Energy reduction
8. Defensive stats like armor

As for the gems, you want:

• Emerald for weapons, since you get really easy to apply Vulnerability.
• Topaz into armor for better defensives against CC enemies, which are you biggest risk.
• Skull into Jewelry for better Armor padding, as you are a melee class.

With Season 1, you now get access to Malignant Hearts, which offer a variety of bonuses. For the Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Build, you will want at least one of the following, depending on your needs at the time:

• Trickery - Great to use alongside Poison Trap, if you add that you your build, as it grants a taunt, making it easier to line enemies up for TB, keep them inside PT, or to stay alive in clutch moments. This is likely the best option if you use Poison Trap or other Subterfuge skill.
• The Clipshot - Easy to apply both as Puncture and TB grant both Cutthroat and !Marksman defensive utility benefits. - A generally easy to use and great choice for defensive assistance.
• Revenge - Another Poison Trap option for generating more AOE damage and survivability options, but less valuable than others above the list.
• Prudent Heart- A decent option for surviving big hits or when you are CC’d and big hit.

Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Build: Paragon Board¶

The Paragon board is kinda difficult to assess what’s best, as the level of your paragon board progression and glyphs will change what’s most efficient at different times, making it hard to optimize for. Below we’ll offer some suggestions based on good combinations of board and glyphs, and then a second option for when you progress onto other boards, and can find other utility elsewhere.

1. Starter Board: Closer first, then Tracker. Tracker: For every 5 Intelligence purchased within range, you gain 3% increased Poison Damage. Note that the Closer Glyph gets more value from this board but can also get equal value from the Tricks board. You want to use Closer until you get the Tricks board unlocked, and then you want to swap out Closer for Tracker.
2. Board 1 - Tricks of the Trade: Your !Marksman Skills grant your Next Cutthroat Skills 25% increased damage and vice versa. Closer Glyph: For every 5 Dextertiry Purchased within range, you gain 2% increased damage to Cutthroat skills.
3. Board 2 - Eldritch: When you attack with an Imbued Skill, you gain 20% Resistance and 20% Increased Damage for that Imbuement’s element for 6 seconds. Chip: Glyph that increases your physical damage by 2% for every 5 Dex in the glyph node’s range. Eldritch offers some of the better places to get Dex, making it more optimal when you get max range increase.
4. Board 3 - No Witness: Your Ultimate Skills deal 30% increased damage and grant you 10% increases damage for 20 seconds when cast. Combat Glyph. For every 5 Intelligence within the glyphs range, your Core Skills gain 6% increased Critical Strike Damage, Note that when you get Leyrenne’s Instinct unlocked, you want to use Efficiency here, since Leyrenne’s scales equal to Combat on this board, while this board gets better use out of Efficiency then Leyrenna’s
5. Board 4 - Leyrenna: When Inner Sight gauge becomes full, you gain 100% dodge chance for 1.5 seconds. Take the combat glyph out of No Witness and place it here.
6. Board 5 - Exploit Weakness: Whenever you damage a Vulnerable enemy, they take 1% increased damage from you for 6 seconds, up to 15%/ Efficacy Glyph: Grants 50% bonus to rare nodes. (two within 3 tiles of the node), when you get 15 intelligence, you get 20% increased potency to Imbuement skills.
7. Possible 6th Board - Cunning Strategem. You don’t want the legendary node from this, but, you want the glyph socket for the strength, to improve your Exploit Glyph, which does better damage to Vuln target. This is your last board, since you get no direct benefits from your legendary.

This concludes this Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Rogue build. Now you now have an idea how this build plays from leveling, all the way to end-game Tier 4 content and maxing out your character to level 100. If you want to get the most out of this class, you now have an idea of general playstyle, important legendaries, uniques, rotations, and other important aspects. Good luck playing this build, and enjoy it, as it is by far one of the most dominant launch builds for Diablo 4, and perhaps one of the class’s most fun and interesting builds.