This Penetrating Shot Rogue build in Diablo 4 will help you delete bosses

Rogue's Penetrating Shot is one of Diablo 4’s best builds in terms of damage. Some builds have hit the highest numbers in the game. They melt regular foes, elites, and bosses with complete impunity. There are many ways to set up this build, but I feel the strongest about the below design. We’ll briefly cover how to play the class, what you need to know about important skills, the paragon board, and more.

This Penetrating Shot build for Diablo 4 assumes you’re already at level 50 or higher, so it’s not a leveling build. Therefore, we will not review every point you must spend and where/when to do so. However, this Rogue build is for you if you want to delete foes without much effort.

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How to use Penetrating Shot build for Rogues in Diablo 4

What makes Penetrating Shot builds for Rogues so fun in Diablo 4 is how powerful they are. Your ideal game plan is to keep as far away from foes as possible, using skills like Shadowstep and Dash. You should line up your shot since it’s a straight line. It takes some work and practice, but once you get into the habit, enemies will disappear as fast as you pull the trigger.

You build combo points with Puncture, trigger Poison Imbuement, and then use your Penetrating Shot. You need Poison Imbuement for the major Critical Strike/Poison damage. That’s when the second charge of Penetrating Shot fires and eliminates the remaining foes. If you prefer, Shadow Imbuement is also a solid choice.

Make sure you have Trickshot Aspect as well. This gives you two extra arrows whenever you damage an enemy with this skill. It’s incredibly important to increase the range of your destruction in Diablo 4.

This is a class that’s going to see a lot of Lucky Hit triggers, too, thanks to the combo points. It will be around 80%, so gear and abilities that depend on Lucky Hit will be very satisfying for the Penetrating Shot build, courtesy of Lexyu.

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How do you build the best Penetrating Shot build in Diablo 4?

This is an incredibly easy build, to be honest. The challenge comes in learning to move efficiently and set enemies up to be melted in your rain of arrows. I’m a big fan of poison damage, and this build has plenty to go around.

Main abilities

• Puncture Level 1 (Enhanced, Fundamental): Gain 2 Energy on CC enemies, now throws 3 blades in a spread
• Penetrating Shot Level 5 (Enhanced, Advanced): 10% increased damage/slow, 50% more damage when cast with Full Energy
• Dash Level 1 (Enhanced Dash, Disciplined Dash): Enemies damaged take 15% increased Crit Strike for 5s, slows enemies it hits by 30% for 3s. Sowed enemies are now Dazed for 2s instead
• Smoke Grenade Level 1 (Enhanced, Countering): Enemies affected take 15% increased damage from you; Lucky Hit - Dealing direct damage to enemies affected has a 25% chance to reduce CD by 1s or by 3s if the enemy is Vulnerable
• Poison Trap Level 1 (Enhanced, Countering): Knocks down enemies, 30% chance to reset Imbuement
• Poison Imbuement Level 1 (Enhanced, Blended): Duration increases by 1s; Critical Strikes with this deal 75% more Poison damage

Our passives for this Rogue build also aid our ability to get around and deal more damage. It’s all about being agile and dealing as much Critical Strike damage as we can humanly get on this Diablo 4 character.

Passive abilities

• Stutter Step (3): Critical Strikes grant 5% Move Speed for 4s
• Exploit (3): 6% increased damage to Healthy and Injured enemies
• Malice (3): 3% increased damage to Vulnerable enemies
• Agile (3): Using a CD increases Dodge Chance by 4% for 3s
• Innervation (3): Lucky Hit - Up to 10% chance to gain 8 Energy
• Second Wind (3): Every 100 Energy spent grants 5% increased Lucky Hit for 5s
• Adrenaline Rush (1): While moving, gain 5% increased Energy Regeneration
• Haste (3): While at/above 50% maximum Energy, gain 5% increased Move Speed. While under, gain 5% more Attack Speed
• Exposure (Key Passive): Lucky Hit - Dealing direct damage to an enemy affected by a Trap has up to 25% to reduce CD of Trap Skills by 20% and drop a cluster of Stun Grenades that deal 40% Physical damage and Stun enemies for 0.4s

Since this Diablo 4 build doesn’t need many abilities, we dump most of our points into the passive abilities. When you have Renown Points, consider using them on Alchemic Advantage (3), Concussive (3), Trick Attacks (1), and Weapon Mastery (2).

Some of the below Legendary Aspects are on gear as you travel the game. However, you can take the easy way and simply complete dungeons and unlock the best legendary aspects that way.

Desired Legendary Aspects

• Ranged Weapon: Trickshot Aspect
• Dual-Wield Weapons/Rings/Gloves: Edgemaster’s Aspect, Aspect of the Expectant, Rapid Aspect, Accelerating Aspect
• Rings: Aspect of the Umbral
• Amulet: Smiting Aspect
• Helm/Chest/Boots: Aspect of Explosive Verve, Exploiter’s Aspect, Aspect of Quickening Fog
• Pants: Aspect of Might

Finally, your Paragon Board. As you build this, you want to focus on Damage, Dexterity, Resistance, and Life for your Normal/Magic nodes. You can also increase their radius as they level up, as you need.

Paragon Boards

• Starting Board
• Deadly Ambush (second)
• Exploit Weakness (third)
• Cunning Strategem (fourth)

You can see a full layout of the Paragon Board you want to use for this build on Lexyu’s Penetrating Shot Rogue build on D4Builds. This is easily one of the strongest ways to play a Rogue in Diablo 4, so don’t miss out on this build.

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While you can play Rogue in a variety of ways in Diablo 4, Penetrating Shot may be the most powerful in the game right now. This is the way to go if you want to completely eradicate enemy packs and bosses.