Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Guide - D4 Maxroll.gg (2024)

Patch 2.0.2

Live S6 Findings:

Inner Sight does no longer give unlimited Charges, keep moving to regain them.
Shadow Clone + Inner Sight Interaction is fixed.

The guide has been thoroughly updated to focus more on Momentum.

Always keep moving, max your movement speed (200%) to not run out of Charges.

  1. Start the channel with at least 4 Stacks
  2. Move in fluid circles, don't take sharp turns
  3. Don't linger on mobs, never stop moving

If you do it correctly, you will never run out of charges with at least 190% Movespeed.
If you are having a lot of trouble, but already have Star Shards Aspect, spec into Combo Points to increase you stacks by hitting 3 times with Blade Shift.

  • Qax Rune keeps its buff for the entire duration of Dance of Knives. Use the Yax+Qax Combo before using Concealment and starting the Dance of Knives Channel.
The guide has recently been updated, if you catch some errors, they might be gone upon refreshing.

Welcome to the Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Guide, THE fastest leveling build in Diablo 4! Do you want to easily Spin2Win to Torment 1 and beyond? Then this is the build for you. Dance of Knives does not need to manage Energy and does not rely on any aspects. Therefore, it has an explosive start and scales outstandingly well into the endgame.

You utilize the power of snapshotting Concealment and Shadow Imbuement for Dance of Knives. Aspect of Star Shards is available early, as it drops from the Season 6 Journey Caches. This allows you to decimate anything in your path with ease.

While you are already laying waste spinning, you unleash hell with Arrow Storms from two aspects, Arrow Storms and Vengeful. Dance of Knives has a very high innate Lucky Hit Chance, so these will proc very often. Luckily, both of these are unlockable from Dungeons.

Your defense is being handled by Dark Shroud during leveling. It also provides you with a nice Movement Speed bonus.

You can utilize the power of Shadow Clone + Inner Sight, gaining unlimited Dance of Knives charges as early as level 20.

After getting to leveling 60 you can smoothly transition from leveling into the currently strongest Rogue Build, the Dance of Knives Endgame Rogue.

This guide teaches you all about how to reach the endgame in Diablo 4 with the Dance of Knives Rogue.

Let's get started with the Spin2Win Rogue!

Note

This build guide takes you up to level 60 and gets you started for the early Endgame on Torment 1 difficulty. If you're looking for Endgame guides, check out our Rogue Guides section!

Pros

  • THE Fastest Leveling Build
  • Aspect from Season Cache
  • Excellent Endgame Transition

Cons

  • Is not the shiny new class

Check out our Leveling Builds Tier List to see how this build compares to others.

Season Theme

Season 6 - Season of Hatred

Dance of Knives Rogue

Season 6 is the Season of Hatred Rising. It features the Zakarum Remnants faction which hunts Realmwalkers, massive behemoths that roam outdoor zones and beckon Mephisto's hellspawn. Participate in these zone events and take down the Realmwalkers to spawn a portal to a Seething Realm. There you can acquire Seething Opals, new consumables that stack with Elixirs for a XP buff and the chance to gather extra rewards when defeating enemies. The types of Opals are:

  • Seething Opal of Equipment
  • Seething Opal of Gold
  • Seething Opal of Materials
  • Seething Opal of Torment
  • Seething Opal of Socketables

Use these Opals at all times to earn reputation with the Zakarum Remnants faction and unlock further rewards.

Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.

Skills & Gameplay

Season 6 - Season of Hatred

Dance of Knives Rogue

Getting Started

To start off we have to put points into Basic Skills to unlock the other sections. Blade Shift is our choice because it has a fast attack animation, high lucky hit chance and it's damage boost when using it after casting another ability. This is quite useful if you ran out of Charges with Dance of Knives. We pick up one point in Sturdy and three in Stutter Step to boost our Movement Speed.

Movement Speed is especially important to sustain our Dance of Knives Charges through the Enhanced Dance of Knives upgrade. 30 meters is around 1 and a half screens worth of distance. You need around 190% Movement Speed to keep spinning indefinitely. Focus on reaching it as soon as you can through various buffs and passives.

Essentials

Next you pick up Dark Shroud for more defense and Movement Speed. Concealment is used to snapshot its guaranteed Critical Strike and Vulnerable bonus from Subverting Concealment. If you break Stealth with Dance of Knives, you will retain these bonuses for the entire duration of the channel.

The same is true for Imbuements. You can use Shadow Imbuement to improve your Area of Effect Damage. Once a monster dies, it explodes and deals Shadow Damage to surrounding enemies, while also afflicting them with Shadow and Vulnerable. This can create some satisfying chain reactions! You can buff Skills with the Imbueable Tag like Dance of Knives with Shadow Imbuement. Dance of Knives retains the imbued effect until you stop the channel.

Combo Points and Preparation

At level 15, we unlock the Rogue's Specialization class mechanic. After finishing the Priority Quest for it, you pick up Combo Points. Star Shards allows us to increase our Charges for Dance of Knives when we use Blade Shift to gain Combo Points.

Preparation unlocks at level 30. By the time you have acquired sufficient Movespeed to not run out of Charges while spinning with Dance of Knives, swap Combo Points out for it.

Dark Shroud

A key defensive layer for any Rogue build is Dark Shroud. Use it often and try your best to keep up the stacks for Damage Reduction, Movement Speed and Critical Strike Chance buffs. Luckily, there are a few good ways to automate this effect: Umbrous and the Mot rune. Alternative, Enshrouding also works fine, especially because of Yax. Dark Shroud also provides us with Movement Speed to keep our Charges more easily.

Shadow Clone

You pick up Shadow Clone to have a reliable source of Unstoppable other than Concealment or when you are fighting dangerous Elites and Bosses. While leveling, the damage your clone deals is also non-negligible. If you get stopped while Channeling Dance of Knives and your Concealment or Imbuements are on Cooldown, you can reset those through Preparation.

Key Passive

Your Key Passive for the Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Build is Momentum. You gain a stack that increases you Movement Speed, Damage Reduction and Damage dealt by a significant margin whenever you cast a Cutthroat Skill. [id=391681]Momentum[/d4-skill] is an excellent choice for leveling and allows you to have an explosive start.

Final Journey to Level 60

At this point, most of the key synergies are unlocked and the gameplay loop is almost complete. As you level up, you unlock a lot of extra points that go into various offensive and defensive passives or max out certain skills. Check out the skills progression above to see where to put your points as you go, but feel free to deviate from the order displayed as necessary. For example, if you need extra defense or healing, you may pick up Sturdy or Siphoning Strikes earlier or if you haven't acquired a source of Chill or Freeze such as an utility temper mod on your armor, there's no reason to include Frigid Finesse yet.

How to not run out of Charges with Dance of Knives

  • Start the channel with at least 4 Charges
  • Move in fluid circles or a straight line, do not take sharp turns
  • Do not linger on mobs and never stop moving
  • You need around 190%+ Movement Speed to infinitely keep spinning.

Still trouble sustaining the channel?

  • Combo Points + Star Shards allows you to gain more total Charges. If you attack up to three times with Blade Shift, you gain 1 additional Charge per Combo Point.
  • Once you have sufficient Movement Speed (190%+) to infinitely spin, swap it out for Preparation.

Optimal Rotation

The order and situation in which you use your Skills is very important to allow you to perform well with any given build. As a Dance of Knives Rogue this is even more important, because Dance of Knives snapshots certain buffs for the entire duration of your channel, irrespective of their regular duration. Therefore, the optimal order of execution is as follows:

  1. Drink 2 Healing Potions to activate your Yax + Qax runeword.
    • You can only drink a Healing Potion at full Health if you have at least 1 Point in Unstable Elixirs.
  2. Enshroud yourself with Dark Shroud.
  3. Cast Concealment.
  4. Activate Shadow Imbuement for clearing or Poison Imbuement for Bosses.
    • You can pick up Poison Imbuement as soon as you have dropped Combo Points for Preparation.
  5. Start spinning with Dance of Knives.
  6. If you get interrupted or run out of Charges, you need to begin at Step 1 again.
    • If any of your Skills are on Cooldown or you have no Imbuements left, use Shadow Clone to reset all your Cooldowns through Preparation.

Check out our Renown Guide to unlock all your additional Skill Points efficiently.

Rogue Specialization

Preparation

Preparation reduces your Ultimate Cooldown by 5 seconds for every 75 Energy that you spend.

The Runeword Yax + Qax allows you to spend Energy.

This allows you to reduce the Cooldown of Shadow Clone significantly for better uptime and gives us damage reduction.

Unlocking Specializations

Once you reach level 15, you have to complete a short questline starting in Menestad, Fractured Peaks. A Priority Quest leads you there to help out Leyrana. After a few stops outside of town you have to enter the Forsaken Quarry Dungeon and finish the questline there, unlocking Combo Points. After that, the other two Specializations unlock automatically once you reach their minimum level (Inner Sight at 20, Preparation at 30) and can be freely assigned at any time.

Learn more details in our full Rogue Specialization Guide.

Gear & Stat Priorities

Season 6 - Season of Hatred

Dance of Knives Rogue

To get started as a Dance of Knives Rogue, always use your highest DPS Melee Weapon available for more damage. Your Ranged Weapon is simply a stat stick to fuel your power, so its DPS is secondary. Otherwise, follow the priority list below. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage, Damage to Close, Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life, Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful.

Tempering Tip:

For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you are twinking. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.

1-60 Leveling

T1 Starter

Read more about itemization in our Beginner Articles about Damage, Defense and Stats.

Legendaries & Uniques

Season 6 - Season of Hatred

Dance of Knives Rogue

The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist. They unlock after completing specificDungeonslocated around Sanctuary or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.

For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.

Season Journey Drops
  • Star Shards

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

  1. Enshrouding (Ghoa Ruins - Hawezar)
  2. Volatile Shadows (Ancient's Lament - Dry Steppes)
  3. Protector (Lost Archives - Fractured Peaks)
  4. Wind Striker (Shivta Ruins - Kehjistan)
  5. Arrow Storms (Howling Warren - Scosglen)
  6. Vengeful (Inferno - Kehjistan)
  7. Retribution (Abandoned Mineworks - Khejistan)

Other useful Aspects (drop/gamble)

  1. Synergy
  2. Stolen Vigor
  3. Umbrous
  4. Clandestine
  5. Elements
  6. Accursed Touch
  7. Concussive Strikes

What to Gamble

Offensive1h Weapon, Offhand
DefensiveHelm, Chest, Pants
Utility, MobilityBoots
ResourceRings

Great Uniques for this build

  1. Cowl of the Nameless
  2. Fists of Fate (also used in the Dance of Knives Endgame Rogue)
  3. Penitent Greaves

Jackpot Drops

If you already have Aspect of Star Shards, you're all set. However, as you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can increase your power temporarily or if you are interested in trying another build archetype. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:

Build-defining Aspects

  • Bladedancer's (enables the Endgame Twisting Blades Rogue)
  • High Velocity (enables the Endgame Barrage Rogue)
  • Encircling Blades (enables the Endgame Flurry Rogue)

Build-defining Uniques

  1. Saboteur's Signet (enables the Endgame Grenade Rogue)
  2. Eyes in the Dark (enables the Endgame Death Trap Rogue)
  3. Scoundrel's Kiss (enables the Endgame Rapid Fire Rogue)
  4. Skyhunter (enhances the Endgame Rapid Fire Rogue)
  5. Andariel's Visage (enables the Endgame Andariels Rogue)
  6. Shard of Verathiel (enables Endgame Heartseeker Rogue)

Learn more details in our articles covering the Codex of Power and Unique Items.

Runes

Season 6 - Season of Hatred

Dance of Knives Rogue

You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Dance of Knives Rogue focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot
  • Bac + Yom - Invokes Petrify after traversing. With our high mobility, we keep this all the time and use it to proc No Witnesses and Preparation.
  • Yax+Qax - Qax Rune keeps its buff for the entire duration of Dance of Knives. Use the Yax+Qax Combo before using Concealment and starting the Dance of Knives Channel.
Alternative Choices

If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:

  • Bac - Slight damage boost for when you do not have Yom yet.
  • Cem - We evade frequently so that is a good alternative to Noc.
  • Yax - We drink a potion frequently to keep Unstable Elixirs up, so this rune can also be beneficial.
  • Lac - Invokes Challenging Shout for more defense.
  • Kry - To group up enemies before having access to Shroud of Khanduras.
  • Wat - Decrepify helps with stagger, defense and allows an execute at 10% HP, can be combined with Xol in your other Runeword to generate large amounts of offering.
  • Mot - You can use this before you have access to Umbrous in addition to taking Dark Shroud on your skill bar.

Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.

Mercenaries

Season 6 - Season of Hatred

Dance of Knives Rogue

Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.

Hired: Varyana

sdf Hysteria, Bloodthirst and Bloodlust are all excellent early tools to increase our Attack Speed and therefor our Base Damage of Dance of Knives.

Reinforcement: Raheir

We choose Bastion for extra defense when having our main damaging window active through Shadow Clone.

Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.

How To Level

Season 6 - Season of Hatred

Dance of Knives Rogue

In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.

Campaign Leveling

Seasonal / Alt Leveling

Tips & Tricks

Speedrun Route

Campaign Leveling

  • For your first character in Diablo 4, completing the base Campaign provides all the background lore information but is not necessary.
    • The base Campaign is the slowest way to level, but it's worth experiencing the Campaign and Diablo 4's storyline at least once.
    • To play Seasonal Content you need to have completed or skipped the Campaign.
    • If your account is below Rank 4 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
      • This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
    • After finishing the campaign, you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
    • Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.
  • If you have already completed the base Campaign you can dive straight into the Vessel of Hatred Campaign. This is a decent way to level up as completing these quests provides a lot of experience.

Seasonal / Alt Leveling

  • Complete the Seasonal Questline in order to progress your Seasonal Journey to unlock additional Legendary Aspects and work on your Seasonal Powers.
  • If your account is below Rank 4 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
    • This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
  • Complete the Dungeons needed for any Legendary Aspects from your Codex of Power.
  • From level 1-60 you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
  • Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.
  • If you're playing an Alt, make sure to use Tempers and Leveling Caches crafted from the Alchemist to speed up your progression.
  • Find the most efficient way of leveling your character in detail with our Speed Leveling Guide.

Tips and Tricks

  • Don't Imprint Your Weapon
    • It is a better idea to put your best Offensive Aspect on your Amulet, which will usually not be replaced as often as your Weapon.
  • Compare Your Items
    • Press Shift to activate item comparison. Use this build guide's Stat Priorities section to identify potential upgrades.
  • Choose an Easy Difficulty
    • Ideally, start on Hard difficulty for the extra XP modifier, then try to go higher when it's way too easy. If that slows you down noticeably, it's better to stay on a lower difficulty.
  • Use Your Materials
    • There's no point in holding on to your gold or materials for later. Use everything to speed up your journey to 60. If you're twinking, make sure to craft the Allowance Caches from the Alchemist at level 20 and if available, equip your Mythic Uniques at level 35 to make the leveling a breeze.

Speedrun Route

  • If you're looking to min/max your time spent on the way to 60 instead of following a generic guideline, you need to use a specific strategy.
  • This usually includes farming certain activities up to a specified level and then switching to other tasks while gathering XP in high density areas and pushing the difficulty as high as you can.
  • We update this strategy seasonally in our Speed Leveling Guide.

Endgame Transition

Season 6 - Season of Hatred

Dance of Knives Rogue

As you approach level 60 with the Dance of Knives Rogue, you unlock higher item power gear that represents a massive jump in character power. This is a good time to refresh your setup with new tempers and imprints.

Level 60

At level 60, Paragon Levels and The Pit unlock. Work towards Tier 20 to enter Torment 1, where the Endgame begins. Focus on overcapping your Armor (1000+) and Resistances (70%+) as you receive some penalties to your character's stats:

  • -250 Armor per Torment difficulty
  • -25% All Resistances per Torment difficulty

At this point, your setup should look roughly like this before you dive into min/maxing with Uniques, Mythics & Masterworking. With better gear, more levels and Glyphs, you can push further and eventually unlock higher difficulties for increased rewards.

Into the Endgame

This step marks the end of the leveling guide. Below is the Paragon setup to get you started in Torment difficulty, but ideally, you should now transition towards the endgame version of this build or choose another of your liking.

Paragon & Glyphs

!

Important

Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 at level 15 and from 4 to 5 at level 46. Some of them cannot be activated before reaching these thresholds! Progress through The Pit to rank up your Glyphs.

Use the slider to see progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.

Tip

Some Glyph position swaps, board changes and other pathing adjustments may occur as you unlock your full potential. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build before spending additional points that do not significantly impact your character's power.

Glyph Leveling Priorities

To Level 15

  1. Versatility
  2. Canny
  3. Headhunter
  4. Devious
  5. Control

To Level 46

  1. Versatility
  2. Control
  3. Devious
  4. Headhunter
  5. Canny

There are a total of 328 Paragon Points. After reaching level 60, you gain up to 300 Paragon Levels, 24 fromRenown and 4 from Altars of Lilith. Check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.

Video Guide

Season 6 - Season of Hatred

Dance of Knives Rogue

Summary

Season 6 - Season of Hatred

Dance of Knives Rogue

The Dance of Knives Rogue is a super fast, fun to play leveling build that scales very well into the lategame.

  • Progress the Season Journey to get the Aspect Cache for Star Shards and start blasting!
  • Use Shadow Imbuement and Concealment to buff you up before starting your Dance of Knives spin.
  • Master the timing of your Inner Sight Gauge and Shadow Clone uptime for optimal damage output.
  • Keep attacking to stay alive with Siphoning Strikes and Dark Shroud triggered from Umbrous.
  • Focus on gathering your defenses first, then expand your offensive repertoire.
  • Keep moving while channeling Dance of Knives to not run out of Charges. Spin2win!

Credits

Season 6 - Season of Hatred

Dance of Knives Rogue

Written by M1PY

Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Guide - D4 Maxroll.gg (2024)

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