Diablo 4 Twisting Blades Rogue Endgame Build Guide

Many dub the Rogue as one of the toughest classes in Diablo 4 and it’s easy to see why. Its gameplay is focused more on head-to-head engagements but the defenses of the Rogue are weak. If you’re up for a challenge, then you might want to check out this build that makes you the fastest and deadliest Rogue in the game, at the expense of being very vulnerable.

It will be tough to master and understand how this build works. However, once you do master it, your enemies will never see your Rogue coming, and all that will be left in your wake are pools of loot and blood.

The Blade Twister Build

This build is very simple and it relies heavily on the Twisting Blades Skill for the Rogue. The end result is a build that moves faster than anything in the game. The downside of this is that your Rogue is going to be as fragile as they come. Even if you follow this guide right to the core, you could still run into vulnerability problems for your Rogue. 

Regardless, this build is actually very fun and exciting to use. If you’re one of those looking for an exciting gameplay style that rewards pure skills with unmatched damage output, then the Blade Twister build is for you.

Caged Hearts

To begin with, let’s first talk about the Caged Hearts you’re going to be using for this build. These are going to help with crowd control and even up your defenses a bit.

1. Caged Heart of the Barber

Effect: Critical Strikes and all subsequent damage within [2.0 - 4.0] seconds is absorbed by your target. Then, the absorbed damage erupts onto surrounding enemies. Stored damage is increased by 11%[x] per second.

Although this build is good for repositioning and escaping, there will still be lots of times when you’ll be overwhelmed by enemies in the endgame as mobs can be relentless. Caged Heart of the Barber is your best bet against thinning out enemy hordes as a Rogue so make sure to get this. With the way this build works, it’s actually easy to destroy enemy mobs in an instant.

2. Caged Heart of Revenge

Effect: [10.0 - 20.0]% of incoming damage is instead suppressed. When you use a Defensive, Subterfuge, or a Macabre skill, all suppressed damage is amplified by 250%[x] and explodes, dealing up to [200 - 42,340] Fire damage to nearby enemies.

Caged Heart of Revenge is going to be one of the best ways for us to mitigate damage. It’s an amazing defensive Caged Heart that can also do wonders offensively. Since this build leaves you very vulnerable, Revenge is a must to at least give you better chances at surviving.

3. Caged Heart of the Dark Dance

Effect: Every 5 seconds while above 60% Life, Core Skills cost [6 - 1,210] Life instead of your Primary Resource. Skills that consume Life deal [12 - 22]% increased damage.

This is one of the reasons why you’re going to be struggling for your life mostly. Spamming Twisting Blades is literally going to drain your life but that comes at the expense of having your Skill deal even more damage to enemies. To avoid dying again and again, we highly suggest mastering the way this build works.

Skill Point Allocation

1. Puncture - 3 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Puncture, Fundamental Puncture

Puncture’s primary means for this build is to give you a good source of Energy generation. It might not be as strong as other Basic Skllls of the Rogue but it’s the one that’s at the top when it comes to attack speed. With that, you can generate more Energy when you need to.

2. Twisting Blades - 7 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Twisting Blades, Improved Twisting Blades

This is going to be the heart and soul of this build. Twisting Blades is a good attack that can damage enemies on its way.  This ability becomes even deadlier when used with Bladedancer’s Aspect as it lets your blades circle around you for a few seconds once it returns. This is a great way to damage enemies around you if they get too near. These can also proc most of the stat bonuses that we’re getting with this build.

3. Sturdy - 3 Skill Points

This gives you the necessary defense bonuses you need to survive against enemies up close. Unlike most endgame Rogue builds, this one is going to put you right in front of enemies so you’ll need Sturdy as a means to negate at least a huge chunk of the incoming damage.

4. Shadow Step - 3 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Shadow Step, Disciplined Shadow Step

To help with your squishiness, we’re going to get a few mobility skills, the first of which is going to be Shadow Step. What’s great about Shadow Step is that it can help you out on the offensive end as well. The problem with Shadow Step however is that you need targets to use it so it’s more situational.

5. Dash - 3 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Dash, Disciplined Dash

Dash is going to be your primary means of escape. You can use it as is. When partnered with Dodge it can help you create huge distances between you and your enemies very quickly. You’ll need to manage your mobility skills very well. Just make sure to reserve Dash for emergency scenarios and you’ll be good to go.

6. Weapon Mastery - 3 Skill Points

With this build, you’re going to want to use daggers as your main weapon. That said, Weapon Mastery gives you damage bonuses for using daggers. This means that your other abilities are going to be powerful as well. 

7. Concussive - 3 Skill Points

You’ll have a few means of Knocking Back and Knocking Down enemies with this build. What this only means is that Concussive is going to give you a ton of opportunities for extra Critical Strike Chance which you’ll need a lot if you want to deal with Elites and bosses quickly.

8. Trick Attacks - 1 Skill Point

This passive works wonders with Concussive. While helpful, we’ll only need 1 level of it as that’s more than enough to debilitate single targets.

9. Rapid Gambits -  2 Skill Points

You’re going to need all of the mobility that you need with this build. With the help of Rapid Gambits you have a lot of opportunities to reset the cooldown of your evade. The more cooldowns you trigger, the more chance for mobility.

10. Exploit - 3 Skill Points

This passive ability gives you bonuses on both ends of the health of an enemy. You can drain the life of enemies pretty quickly with this build so you can get damage bonuses almost always when going up against huge mobs. For bosses and Elites, this damage bonus is a good way to drain their lives quickly.

11. Malice - 3 Skill Points

For more damage bonuses you’ll need Malice to kill off Vulnerable enemies a lot more quickly. You have a lot of skills that can inflict this status effect on enemies so Malice triggers quickly.

12. Shadow Imbuement - 7 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Shadow Imbuement,  Mixed Shadow Imbuement

You’re going to need even more crowd clearing abilities aside from the bonus you get from Caged Heart of the Barber. Shadow Imbuement works well with the rest of your abilities. Once you use Shadow Imbuement, you can clear out trash mobs very quickly with the effects of this ability.

13. Cold Imbuement - 3 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Cold Imbuement,  Mixed Cold Imbuement

When it comes to your Imbuement abilities, you’ll then need to use Cold Imbuement to crowd control enemies. With the Chilled, it will take way longer for enemies to actually overwhelm you. Getting surrounded is one of the last things you want to happen when you have this build so Cold Imbuement is a good way to prevent that from happening.

14. Shadow Crush - 1 Skill Point

We only need this to gain access to the next passive.

15. Consuming Shadows - 2 Skill Points

For extra Energy generation, you’ll need this passive. You can kill a lot of enemies using Shadow Imbuement so this means Consuming Shadows can fill up your Energy quickly.

16. Precision Imbuement - 3 Skill Points

With a lot of opportunities for imbuing your skills, you’ll need to use Precision Imbuements to get extra Critical bonuses whenever you use Cold or Shadow Imbuement. Twisted Blades can strike at enemies multiple times so the chances for critical strikes are plenty.

17. Frigid Finesse - 3 Skill Points

Cold Imbuement can quickly spread Chill and Freeze to surrounding enemies. If you have the Penitent Greaves, you can apply the status effect even more. Frigid Finesse gives you damage bonuses for enemies that are controlled by Chill and Freeze.

18. Adrenaline Rush - 1 Skill Point

We’re only getting this to gain access to the next passive ability.

19. Haste - 3 Skill Points

This is an amazing passive to have as it gives you the Energy you need while at full health. When you’re low on health, you can then use the Movement Speed bonus to reposition yourself or to escape.

20. Momentum - 1 Skill Point

For this build, we’re going to use Momentum to round up the entire build. This grants you offensive and defensive bonuses when using Cutthroat Skills, which Twisted Blades is a part of. In terms of survivability and offensiveness, this is the best Key Passive to get.

Specialization

The majority of Rogue builds rely on Combo Points as a Specialization for the Rogue. Unfortunately, Twisting Blades doesn’t get any benefit out of Combo Points.

We’re going to take a different route and will be using Inner Sight instead. This helps you attack marked enemies and gain bonuses from them. Once your Inner Sight gauge is full after attacking the said enemies, you’ll get unlimited Energy for 4 seconds.

When Inner Sight activates, that would be the perfect time to start spamming Twisting Blades. With this build, your attack speed remains relatively high so you can easily activate the effects of Inner Sight with your Rogue. This makes it the perfect specialization for this build.

Gameplay

When it comes to gameplay, you need to be very careful and precise with this build. Twisting Blades is going to be our main source of damage. Your goal is to make sure that the skill hits as many enemies on the way forward and on the way back, for maximum damage.

That’s easier said than done so you’ll need to learn how to maneuver areas well so that you can get in and out of trouble easily.

Your Dash and Shadow Step are your main mobility skills. While they’re going to be used as an escape card, you’re also going to use them to engage enemies. Don’t use both skills in succession as you don’t want both of them in cooldown during emergency scenarios.

Your Imbuement skills are going to be used for specific cases. Use Shadow Imbuement whenever you’re dealing with large packs so you can take out low-HP enemies easily. For crowd control, you’ll need to use Cold Imbuement to Chill and Freeze enemies.

When you’re fighting single-target foes like Elites or bosses, make sure to move around them and get hits from behind using Twisted Blades. This is to ensure that Momentum activates and you can then get maximum damage.

The key to this build is to move as constantly as possible. The movement speed bonuses from this build will make mobility a lot easier.

Aspects

To maximize the efficiency of this build, you’re going to want to collect all of the Codex of Powers below. Just complete their corresponding dungeon, and you’ll be good to go.

• ‍Aspect of Corruption in Renegade's Retreat (Kehjistan)

• Aspect of ‍Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)

• Aspect of ‍Inner Calm in Raethwind Wilds (Scosglen)

• Aspect of ‍Might in Dark Ravine (Dry Steppes)

• ‍Aspect of the Protector in Lost Archives (Fractured Peaks)

• ‍Bladedancer’s Aspect in Jalal's Vigil (Scosglen)

• ‍Cheat's Aspect in Luban's Rest (Scosglen)

• ‍Edgemaster’s Aspect in Oldstones (Scosglen)

• ‍Ghostwalker’s Aspect in Broken Bulwark (Scosglen)

• ‍Ravenous Aspect in Shifting City (Dry Steppes)

• ‍Shadowslicer Aspect in Twisted Hollow (Scosglen)

Though not necessary, you want to get two specific Unique gear too. Namely, the Penitent Greaves and Asheara’s Khanjar.

1. Penitent Greaves

Effect: You leave behind a trail of frost that Chills enemies. You deal X% more damage to Chilled enemies.

This will replace Ghostwalker’s Aspect. This gives your Rogue even more crowd control, making it easy to make a quick escape or to hunt enemies down. With this, you have a high chance of Freezing and Chilling enemies. With that, mobs will find it way harder to overwhelm you with their numbers.

2. Asheara’s Khanjar

Effect: Hits with this weapon increase your Attack Speed by X% for 4 seconds, up to X%

One of the challenges with this build is Energy generation. There are a few sources for it but you mostly have to rely on your Basic Skill to start getting enough Energy for your next bout. This dagger will make it easier for you to generate Energy thanks to its massive attack speed boost.

Farming for Unique loot is tough, especially if you’re looking for specific ones. In the endgame, we’ve found that the best way to farm for Unique loot is to go on Helltide runs and World Event runs. Just give it a little time and patience and you’ll get there eventually.

Swift Like A Ninja

This Diablo 4 Rogue endgame build might just be the closest we’ll get to getting a ninja build in the game. It’s a powerful build that presents a lot of risks but at the end of the day, it is still one of the highest damage builds out there. Give it some time and practice, and enemies won’t see you coming.