In this Diablo 4 guide, I’ll be showing you a Cold Rapid Fire build for Rogues, which I recently used to complete a Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeon. It’s designed specifically for a high nightmare pushing and will look different from other Diablo 4 Rogue guides that you may be used to seeing.
Build Overview
Before officially starting to introduce this build, I want to briefly introduce the weapon, armor and jewelry required for this build.
Note that you’ll need to buy Diablo 4 Gold to upgrade these items to get the most out of them.
Weapon:
- Rapid Obsidian Blade (Sword)
- Condemnation (Dagger)
- Warcaster Repeating (Crossbow)
Armor:
- Penitent Greaves (Boots)
- Runic Leggings of Disobedience (Pants)
- Umbrous Runic Skullcap (Helm)
- Runic Mail of Might (Chest Armor)
- Frostburn (Gloves)
Jewelry:
- Accelerating Ring (Ring)
- Ring of the Expectant (Ring)
- Enshrouding Necklace (Amulet)
Dealing Damage
For dealing damage, this build is all about bursting. A cold build Rogue does high damage to frozen targets due to various multiplicative D4 Items for sale against Frozen enemies but will do very little against turrets that are not frozen or Crowd Controlled.
Skills like Frigid Finesse, Mixed Cold Imbuement and Control glyph and Penitent Greaves all multiply the bonuses together. A cold imbued rapid fire will always chill enemies enough to freeze them and Frostburn gauntlets will freeze enemies when Cold Imbuement is on cooldown.
An Elite enemy can be frozen twice before becoming Unstoppable. And when an Elite becomes Unstoppable, it’s best to play defensively and kite until they can be frozen again.
Pushing high nightmare as a ranged Rogue is all about survival and defense. This mindset should be included both in your gear as well as play style.
This build has defensive options wherever it can get them. The helmet, chest, and legs all have defensive aspects and stats. The Amulet also has an aspect to greatly buff the Dark Shroud shadows. The Penitent Greaves and Frostburn gloves also play a defensive role to slow and freeze enemies.
Play Style
For play style, you should avoid getting hit as much as possible even if it means the run will be slower.
Ranged Rogues aren’t meant to absorb hits when mobs become Unstoppable. It’s best to kite out temporarily instead of continuing to deal damage, hoping for a faster run. When your Dark Shroud shadows start to run out, you’re dead.
Choice of Skills
For the choice of skills, I’ll explain why I chose each option as the build looks a lot different from the builds that are made for clearing mid-tier Nightmare Dungeons and leveling.
In this build, I run two generators. Puncture is the Rogue’s best generator, but it can only apply Vulnerable when mobs are close. I use Forceful Arrow to apply Vulnerable on the outside of this range. It is also used to build Combo Points from range to prepare for a cold imbued rapid fire.
For Rogues, it is important to have at least one skill that makes you Unstoppable to break Crowd Control. Most Rogues use Shadow Step as it has a low cooldown. I recently switched using concealment instead once I was pushing 90 plus nightmare.
After testing both, I noticed I was dying more often Shadows Stepping into mobs than I did waiting for Concealments cooldown to finish. Concealment is also a great counter to walling Elites, who would otherwise cause issues for ranged Rogues.
I use Poison Imbuement primarily for the 15% damage reaction skill passive, which I try to apply when enemies become Unstoppable. It is also helpful to slowly chip down foes since the cold build is more for burst instead of consistent damage.
For Dark Shroud, the aspect on the helmet automatically procs Dark Shroud shadows. So, it does not need to be on your skill bar to take effect. These shadows give a ton of damage reaction because of the aspect we run on the amulet. I put two extra skill points into Dark Shroud and I have four skill points from the pants I use as well.
If you want to get a lot of skill points quickly, the most direct way is to quickly level up your character. This involves completing various quests, dungeons, world boss events, etc. If you don’t have much time and energy, you might as well take a look at IGGM.com Diablo 4 Boosting Service. No matter what kind of difficulties you encounter during the leveling process, there will be professional players to help you solve them.
For Rapid Fire, it can be canceled at the beginning of the animation by evading in the shot still fire. This gives you the 30% increased critical damage after evading from the skill passive for your next Rapid Fires.
However, this build runs Penitent Greaves, which don’t have the implicit evade cooldown reaction effect. If it should be used mostly for defensive purposes when pushing high nightmare with this build, it can be worth it to evade offensively for bursts if you’re sure you won’t need it for defense.
For Nightmare Dungeons, this build works best against melee enemies due to the slow from the Chilling Weight passive and Penitent Greaves. Some sigils will be almost impossible for a ranged Rogue, so you’ll need to do some searching.
Outro
Although it might not clear every dungeon on tier 90 plus, I believe that this build is one of the best options for a ranged Rogue if the goal is to push high nightmare.
Although this specific build is made for a high nightmare, it can also be great for leveling and farming with a few changes. Any Elite will die in a freeze due to cold imbuement high burst. And you won’t have to worry about the enemies becoming Unstoppable because they’ll already be dead.
For farming, I’ll choose Shadow Step instead of Concealment, Shadow Imbuement instead of Poison Imbuement and Penetrating Shot instead of Forceful Arrow. But you can run whatever you enjoy playing as many builds are great for farming.
This Diablo 4 guide was made to show a play style for cold build Rogues, wanting to push Nightmare Dungeons as well as the reasoning for my gear and skill choices.
