Diablo 4 Alchemist Flurry Rogue Build Guide

This Diablo IV build for the Rogue class uses Concealment to be able to fire Shadow-Imbued Flurries for a ton of AoE damage.

This Rogue build guide assumes you’re at least level 50 and have completed enough of your Renown to have gained the 10 additional Skill Points available.

If you want a great leveling build to reach this point with, try our Shadow Flurry Rogue Leveling Build – This build uses many of the same concepts but pushes them to their maximum.

If you want to level up as Rogue, at the end of this guide, we have a leveling section showing you how to develop a new character from level 1 using this exact build.

Build Overview

To round off our defenses, we’ll make use of the Momentum Key Passive in combination with the Aspect of Stolen Vigor. These give us a huge chunk of Damage Reduction as well as a lot of extra damage.

Skill and Passive Breakdown

In this section, we’ll be talking about each skill we use. This is the whys and hows of how the build works, and then we’ll cover the skill point distribution.

Skills

These are the main skills for the build. We’ll explain what purpose each serves and how they fit the build

Invigorating Strike

Since this build uses Momentum as it’s Key passive, we’re forced to use a melee Basic Skill to avoid losing stacks. We use Invigorating strike because it can also boost our Energy Generation as well as our Lucky Hit Chance.

Flurry

Flurry is a great skill, as with the Aspect of Encircling Blades, we’ll hit the entire area around us multiple times. While this has a lower Lucky Hit Chance, the sheer number of enemies we can hit and number of hits more than make up for this. This allows it to frequently trigger our Lucky Hit Effects, which grant us a ton of damage and utility.

Shadow Step

We primarily use Shadow Step for mobility. Its short cooldown, which only get shorter as we stack Cooldown Reduction, makes it very reliable. Its high Lucky hit Chance can also make it a good tool for triggering an initial Alchemist proc, as with 34% increased Lucky Hit Chance, it can always trigger them. The only downside is that Shadow Step is single target, so you only get one set of explosions.

Smoke Grenade

Smoke Grenade is a fantastic skill, not only does it deal damage, but it dazes enemies for us. It also debuffs them to take even more damage, which helps Flurry’s often less than stellar damage. We’re able to run this thanks to the Lethal Dusk Aspect, allowing us to trigger Stealth by evading through enemies affected by Shadow Imbuement.

Shadow Imbuement

Shadow Imbuement itself adds to Flurry’s AoE potential, as any enemy afflicted by its Shadow Infection will explode when defeated. Adding the Icy and Toxic Alchemist Aspects on top of this is just the icing on the cake.

Shadow Clone

Shadow Clone is our Ultimate Skill of choice. With Aspect of Imitated Imbuement, it’ll not only echo our Shadow-Imbued Flurry casts but also grant more chances to trigger Icy and Toxic Alchemist.

Dark Shroud*

Dark Shroud is being exclusively used through the Umbrous Aspect, but we can still swap it onto our bar to prepare it for harder content. It offers us a ton of extra mobility and Damage Reduction, which makes it far easier to stay alive.

Passives

Here we’re only going to talk about the main passives we want as well as our Key passive. Unfortunately, there are a couple we will need to take to get access to these.

Momentum – Key Passive

Momentum helps to bolster our Defenses a good bit. In addition to the base Damage Reduction it offers, the Aspect of Stolen Vigor will grant us Life every second and additional Damage Reduction per stack we get. This combination provides Rogue with the highest Damage Reduction you can get for a single passive and Aspect.

Trick Attacks

We’ll use the Aspect of Concussive Strikes to reliably gain this huge boost to Critical Strike Chance.

Weapon Mastery

This will improve our damage regardless of our weapon choice, though we’re not going to want to use daggers if we can help it. A combination of two Swords (for increased damage) and a Crossbow (for Critical Strike Damage) would be ideal.

Exploit

This gives us a nice boost of damage at the start and end of an enemy’s Life bar, giving us a high chance to trigger Shadow Imbument’s explosions.

Malice

We’ll keep enemies Vulnerable with ease, so this is a reliable damage boost for us.

Precision Imbuement

We’ll have Shadow Imbuement up frequently, so this becomes a pretty consistent increase in Critical Strike Chance.

Innervation

Innervation is a great passive to help manage our Energy. The more enemies we hit with Flurry, the higher the chances we can maintain our energy with very little work.

Alchemist’s Fortune

Alchemist Fortune grants us additional Lucky Hit Chance for our Non-physical Damage. This means our frequently Shadow-Imbued skills will have a higher chance of triggering our important Lucky Hit effects.

Skill Point Distribution

This is an easy-to-reference table for where we’ll be placing all of our Skill points. These are listed in the order they appear on the skill tree.

Icon	Skill Name	Skill Tree	Points
	Invigorating Strike	Basic	1
	Enhanced Invigorating Strike	Basic	1
	Primary Invigorating Strike	Basic	1
	Flurry	Core	5
	Enhanced Flurry	Core	1
	Advanced Flurry	Core	1
	Sturdy	Core	2
	Shadow Step	Agility	1
	Enhanced Shadow Step	Agility	1
	Disciplined Shadow Step	Agility	1
	Rapid Gambits	Agility	1
	Trick Attacks	Agility	3
	Weapon Mastery	Agility	3
	Smoke Grenade	Subterfuge	3
	Enhanced Smoke Grenade	Subterfuge	1
	Countering Smoke Grenade	Subterfuge	1
	Dark Shroud	Subterfuge	5
	Enhanced Dark Shroud	Subterfuge	1
	Subverting Dark Shroud	Subterfuge	1
	Exploit	Subterfuge	3
	Malice	Subterfuge	3
	Shadow Imbuement	Imbuement	1
	Enhanced Shadow Imbuement	Imbuement	1
	Mixed Shadow Imbuement	Imbuement	1
	Shadow Crash	Imbuement	1
	Consuming Shadows	Imbuement	1
	Precision Imbuement	Imbuement	3
	Shadow Clone	Ultimate	1
	Prime Shadow Clone	Ultimate	1
	Supreme Shadow Clone	Ultimate	1
	Innervation	Ultimate	3
	Second Wind	Ultimate	2
	Alchemist’s Fortune	Ultimate	3
	Momentum	Key Passive	1

Gearing and Stats

In this section, we’ll cover all the things you’d want to keep an eye out for to enhance the final build. This includes our Recommended Weapons, Specialization, Aspects, and of course, Uniques.

Recommended Weapons

This build prefers a pair of Swords as its main weapon, and the ones you want to have the highest item level for. Which ranged option we pair with the swords is our preference, as the damage difference tends to be minimal due to how the build operates. Crossbows offer the highest burst damage of the two options, while Bows offer consistent damage.

Ideal Stats

The table below details the ideal stats for our gear, be on the lookout for gear that matches at least two of the three rolls below. We’ve also included Aspects here for easier viewing, refer to the Aspects section for additional details why these are selected.

Affixes that are CAPITALIZED are the Ideal Affixes to get as a Greater Affix. These are not required but are a good way to push the build further. Affixes in Bold are the ideal Affixes to boost with Masterworking.

Recommended Gems

This build uses Emeralds in our Weapons, Rubies in our Armor, and Diamonds in Jewelry.

We opt for Emeralds in our Weapons as we’re stacking up Critical Strike Chance and damage across our gear.

We use Rubies in our Armor, as they provide us with more Maximum Life. Maximum Life is one of the most important stats we can get.

We go with Diamonds for Our Jewelry as our Resistances are worth capping out on, giving us an effective 70%+ damage reduction to all elemental damage. We can swap these to specific resistance gems as we cap them with gear or paragon passives.

Specialization

This build uses Preparation as its Specialization. This gives us higher uptime on Shadow Clone, which provides both more damage and more importantly more Lucky Hits. Flurry doesn’t consume a ton of energy, but we’re also not lowering its cost.

Aspects

We’ll cover the Aspects that are recommended for maximizing the potential of the build. We’ll also suggest which gear slot you should look to place them in.

All Aspects listed with an asterisk (*) next to them are temporary options until recommended uniques are available.

Aspect of Encircling Blades

Encircling Blade makes Flurry enjoyable as a skill, making it a 360-degree AoE around you, rather than a cone in front of us. It provides a small damage boost as well, but that’s pretty minor all things considered.

We’ll place this in our Gloves, one of our Swords, or one of our Rings as we don’t need to boost its effect.

Icy Alchemist’s Aspect

Any time we use a Shadow-Imbued Flurry, we’ll have a chance to trigger Icy Alchemist. This will deal AoE Cold Damage in an area around the hit that triggers it while also Chilling enemies. This will enable Frigid Finesse and make any subsequent triggers on the same enemies stronger while the Chill lasts.

We’ll place this in our Gloves, one of our Swords, or one of our Rings as we don’t need to boost its effect.

Toxic Alchemist’s Aspect

Any time we use a Shadow-Imbued Flurry, we’ll have a chance to trigger Toxic Alchemist. This will deal AoE Poison Damage in an area around the hit that triggers it while also Poisoning enemies. This will enable Debilitating Toxins and make any subsequent triggers on the same enemies stronger while the Poison lasts.

We’ll place this in our Gloves, one of our Swords, or one of our Rings as we don’t need to boost its effect.

Breakneck Bandit’s Aspect

Breakneck Bandit’s Aspect is an aspect added with Season 5 which provides a huge damage increase to Flurry and a chance to Stun. In combination with our Tempered Affixes, this will help Stagger bosses faster.

We’ll place this in our Amulet, as it provides a good damage bonus for Flurry but nothing else.

Aspect of Imitated Imbuement

Imitated imbuement allows our Shadow Clone to apply and trigger all the same effects we do Shadow Imbuement. This allows us to deal extra damage and trigger Lucky Hit effects more often.

We’ll place this in one of our Swords or Rings as we don’t need to boost its effect.

Aspect of Concussive Strikes

Concussive Strikes contribute to our defenses, allowing us to Daze enemies that we hit while also increasing damage toward them. This will also improve the Trick Attack and Concussive setup, making it easier to apply Daze.

We’ll place this in our Boots, as we don’t have much use for a Mobility Aspect.

Aspect of Lethal Dusk

Lethal Dusk allows us to enter Stealth by Evading through enemies that have Shadow Imbuement applied to them. This helps us to reduce Shadow Imbuement’s cooldown by simply evading and immediately breaking Stealth. Any time we break Stealth, we’ll recover a portion of our Maximum Life as well, helping top us off.

We’ll place this in our Chest or Helmet, as we need it to be able to trigger the Nightstalker Glyph.

Aspect of Stolen Vigor

With Momentum as our Key passive, the Aspect of Stolen Vigor is a very nice defensive upgrade for us. As long as we keep Momentumfully stacked, we’ll gain an additional 15% Damage Reduction as well as a ton of flat Life recovery per Second, which often totals about 10% of our Maximum Life at max stacks.

We’ll place this in our Ranged to boost its power. Unlike Breakneck bandit, this will affect all of our Skills so it’s generally more beneficial here.

Umbrous Aspect

Umbrous Aspect allows our Flurry to generate Dark Shrouds via Lucky Hit. Combined with the subvertign upgrade for Dark Shroud, it provides great damage reduction and a bit of sustain.

We’ll opt to place this in our Pants as we don’t have anywhere else to place it.

Unique Items

We’re only going to talk about the few that offer the strongest effects on the build. While there are others that help, these are the ones you really want to slot into your build if you get the chance. These will drop starting in Tier 3 content, but decent upgrades for the build once you get them.

Cowl of the Nameless

Cowl of the Nameless is a Unique Helmet that offers us easy access to Lucky Hit Chance. It also boost a bunch of Passives that grant us additional Damage, Critical Strike Chance, and Critical Strike Damage.

Asheara’s Khanjar

Asheara’s Khanjar is a Unique Dagger that provides us with a lot of the stats we’re after; Life, Critical Strike Chance, Lucky Hit, and Attack Speed. It even comes with Ranks of Weapon Mastery, making it powerful enough to justify using it over an extra Offensive Aspect.

Paragon Boards and Glyphs

These two endgame options are part of the Paragon System which is available starting at level 50.

Paragon Boards

Paragon Boards are a feature that becomes available at level 50. These boards allow us to spend the Paragon points we earn for leveling and Renown to strengthen our character. Each of these has a single Glyph Slot to place a glyph of our Choice.

Starter Board

Like all starter boards, this one offers generic damage and defenses.

As usual, we’ll path up the left side through Resilience and follow the Intelligence to our Glyph Node, then continue up the left side through Skillful and head to the next board. We’ll also want to come back later to grab Lawless and the other nearby Strength for our Glyph. We can also grab Prime for the extra Life and Damage later.

Exploit Weakness

Exploit Weakness allows us to apply a stacking damage bonus when we hit Vulnerable enemies. Since this will affect every enemy near us almost all the time, this is a great pickup. Additionally, this board offers some Vulnerable Damage and Elite Damage.

We’ll rotate this board so that the Glyph Node is in the lower left. Start by pathing to the Glyph Node, picking up the Intelligence along the way to the Glyph Node. We’ll grab a couple more Intelligence on our way up to the left gate. near the start, we’ll wrap through Exploit to grab Exploit Weakness. Then we’ll also grab the Damage Reduction nodes from the Unassailable Cluster and connect to the right gate for later.

Eldritch Bounty

Eldritch Bounty will increase our Shadow Resistance and Shadow Damage when we use Shadow Imbuement, though only the damage is important for us. This board also offers a lot of Non-elemental Damage, Imbued Skill Damage, and Imbuement Skill Cooldown.

We’ll rotate this board so that the Glyph Node is in the upper right. Path up to the Glyph Node first, grabbing a couple of points of Intelligence along the way. Then we’ll quickly grab the Imbued Skill Damage from the Potent cluster and connect to the upper gate. Then from our Glyph node, we’ll path left and down through Ready Supply to grab Eldritch Bounty before heading to the next board.

Cheap Shot

Cheap Shot gives us a damage bonus for each nearby crowd-controlled enemy, and we’ll constantly be Dazing enemies so this helps our mobbing greatly. This board also offers a lot of bonuses to Elites and crowd-controlled enemies.

We’ll rotate this board so that Cheap Shot is nearest to the bottom. We’ll path up the right side through Safeguard before wrapping around to Cheap Shot. Then we’ll path up from Safeguard, we’ll go to the Glyph Node taking Dexterity for our Glyph including Devious and Wiles before pathing to the left gate.

Tricks of the Trade

Tricks of the Trade is another board we’re using purely for the Glyph socket. It does come with some Armor along the way too.

We’ll Rotate this board so the Glyph Socket is in the lower right. We’ll take a straight line all the way to the Armor and the Lawless node. Then we’ll grab our Glyph Socket, followed by Focused and its nearby Intelligence Nodes for our Glyph. Then we’ll head toward the bottom gate taking the last bit of intelligence on our way down.

Cunning Stratagem

Cunning Stratagem we’re mainly taking for the Glyph Node. It does however offer some conveniently placed Armor that is also useful.

Rotate the board so the Glyph Node is in the upper right. We’ll path directly to the Glyph Node, pathing through the Armor of the Lawless cluster. Then we’ll grab our Glyph Node, and the nearby Strength for our glyph.

Deadly Ambush

Deadly Ambush we’re taking for the Glyph node. However we end up with enough extra points at the end of this where we could opt to take Dealy Ambush and Activate it by using the Umbracrux Unique Dagger.

We’ll connect this board to Exploit Weakness’ sight gate and rotate this board so that the Glyph Node is closest to where we enter. We’ll path to the Glyph Node, grabbing the Strength nodes as we path over as well as those near the Glyph for our Glyph.

Glyphs

Each of our Paragon Boards has a Glyph Slot, where we can socket one of our Glyphs. These Glyphs provide powerful bonuses that can be leveled up by completing Nightmare Dungeons to increase their power. Below are the Glyphs we recommend and what board to place them on.

Control

Control grants increased Damage against Crowd Controlled enemies for every 5 Intelligence allocated in Range. With 25 Intelligence allocated in range, we’ll get a multiplicative damage bonus against Slowed, Stunned, Chilled, or Frozen enemies.

We’ll place this in our Starter Board, as it offers a good amount of Intelligence.

Nightstalker

Night Stalker increases our Shadow Damage for every 5 Intelligence allocated in range. With 25 Intelligence allocated in range, entering Stealth will reduce the Cooldown of Shadow Imbuement.

We’ll place this in Exploit Weakness, as we can path through enough intelligence to active the bonus without going too far out of the way to taking low-value nodes.

Combat

Combat increases our Critical Strike Damage for every 5 Intelligence allocated in range. With 25 Intelligence allocated in range, Out Skills that Critically Strike will recover a portion of their Energy Cost.

We’ll place this in Eldritch Bounty, as it has very conveniently placed Intellgence for this glyph.

Closer

Closer increases the damage of Cutthroat Skills for every 5 Dexterity allocated in range. With 40 Dexterity allocated in range, we take reduced damage while using a melee weapon.

We’ll place this in Cheap Shot, as it has the highest Dexterity available among out boards allowing for the maximum bonus from the primary effect and easier activation of the bonus effect.

Canny

Canny increases our Non-Physical Damage for every 5 Intelligence in range. With 25 Intelligence allocated in range, Non-Physical Damage will grant a multiplicative bonus to all Non-Physical Damage dealt to that enemy.

We’ll place this in Tricks of the Trade, as it has enough Intelligence to be able to easily activate this node.

Exploit

Exploit grants increased Vulnerable Damage for every 5 Strength allocated in range. with 25 Strength allocated in range, we’ll apply Vulnerable when we deal damage to an enemy, with a 20-second cooldown per enemy.

This is placed in Cunning Stratagem, as it has plenty of Strength to grab with out remaining points to get more value from it.

Turf

Turf Increases our damage to Close enemies for every 5 Strength allocated in range. With 25 Strength allocated in range, we’ll gain additional Damage Reduction against Close Enemies.

We’ll place this in Deadly Ambush, as it has plenty of Strength to make use of this glyph.

Leveling Order

If you want to play this build from level 1, the next segment of this build guide is for you. Below you will see the exact leveling order in which you should acquire your skills and passives to maximize damage and overall performance.

Levels	Icon	Skill	Purpose
2-4		Puncture	Upgrade to Fundamental Puncture for Vulnerable.
5-7		Flurry	Upgrade to Advanced Flurry for extra damage.
8-10		Shadow Step	Upgrade to Disciplied Shadow Step for more frequent use.
11-13		Weapon Mastery	Great damage-boosting passive.
14-16		Concealment	Upgrade to Countering Concealment for Energy recovery and guaranteed Critical Strikes.
17-19		Exploit	More damage to help early on.
20-22		Shadow Imbuement	Upgrade to Mixed Shadow Imbuement to boost Alchemist Aspects.
23-25		Dark Shroud	Upgrade to Subverting for Damage Reduction and a bit of sustain.
26-28		Shadow Clone	Ultimate Skill which provides a ton of damage.
29-31		Malice	More damage against Vulnerable enemies.
32		Rapid Gambits	Allows us to Daze enemies by evading through them and lowers our Evade Cooldown when we Daze enemies.
33-35		Trick Attacks	Critical Strike Chance from Dazing enemies.
36		Momentum	Key passive, huge defensive boost if we have access to the Aspect for it.
Respec		Invigorating Strike	Take Primary Invigorating Strike over Puncture.
37-39		Innervation	Easier Energy management.
40-43		Flurry	Max level for main DPS Skill
44-45		Alchemist’s Fortune	Extra Lucky Hit Chance when Shadow Imbuement is active.
Respec		Smoke Grenade	Replace Concealment if you’ve acquired Aspect of Lethal Dusk
46-48		Precision Imbuement	Added Critical Strike Chance while Shadow Imbuement is active.
49		Shadow Crash	Taken to reach Consuming Shadows
R1		Consuming Shadows	Extra Energy Sustain from enemies we defeat with Shadow Imbuement.
R3-R6		Dark Shroud	Max Rank for more Damage Reduction.
R7-R8		Second Wind	Barrier for Spending Energy.
R9-R10		Sturdy	Damage Reduction from Close

To learn how to maximize your damage in Diablo 4, consult with our guide on that topic. Learning how to deal the highest possible damage with your build is crucial to succeeding in the Endgame and highest tiers.

This concludes our Diablo 4 Rogue Build focusing on the Flurry skill. You can find more leveling and endgame Diablo 4 builds here on VULKK.com to try new things with your characters and spice up your gameplay.