Action RPG Diablo 4 brings new classes to experiment with, and Rogue has some new tricks up its sleeve with the ability to use both melee and ranged attacks. While Rogues are weaker than Barbarians in terms of health and armor, they make up for this with multiple ways to attack and destroy enemies in relative safety. If you’re flying, these are the best abilities to get first to make sure you deal damage without taking too much in return.
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Best early thief abilities in Diablo 4
The Rogue is squishy, which means you’ll want to play it ranged first until you find some melee fixes. The first levels leave little freedom to explore the Rogue class, but that doesn’t matter: your starting abilities will be able to destroy enemies from a distance. Much like with Demon Hunter in Diablo 3, you’ll be building your class with the intention of building up your energy with a basic attack and then spending it with a separate ability.
Diablo 4 Rogue Energy Generator
We recommend blunt arrow as Rogue’s first ability, as every third arrow fired makes the enemy hit vulnerable, increasing all follow-up damage while active. Heartseeker can be useful with its increased critical chance, but its proc chance seems low, while Vulnerable’s proc chance is guaranteed every third hit.
Gamepur screenshot
For the second skill, Improved blunt arrow you can get a bit more DPS with a 15% increased critical hit chance. This second skill point will unlock the base skills of your build, also being the energy spenders of the Rogue class.
Diablo 4 Rogue energy spender
We recommend rapid fire as its first energy spending ability, or basic ability. This ability allows us to hit enemies multiple times and hit multiple enemies in a pack with a single spray. Piercing Shot can also be used, but is less effective against individual targets like bosses, and has a higher energy cost. Against a single enemy, Rapid Fire deals 40 damage if all arrows hit versus Piercing Shot’s 24 damage.
We recommend expanding your selection of rapid fire abilities with improved rapid fire and next Improved rapid fire, which restores 15 energy when Rapid Fire hits a vulnerable enemy. Alternating between Energy Generation up to Vulnerable Procs, then Rapid Fire for Energy Return, allows you to maximize your damage availability while dealing plenty of damage.
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