Diablo 4 Best Rogue Build – Shadow Sniper (Bow Build) – In this Diablo 4 Rogue Class Build I’ll show you how to play the Shadow Sniper Build, which is a pure ranged Diablo IV Rogue Build that focuses on using the Shadow Imbuement Skill to make everything on the screen explode in one fell shot. If you’ve been looking for a Diablo 4 Best Rogue Build that focuses on the use of a Bow or Crossbow then this guide is for you!

Diablo 4 Best Rogue Build – Shadow Sniper (Bow Build)

The general strategy of this Diablo 4Best Rogue Build is to use Penetrating Shot (or some other Core Skill) to kill enemies and cause them to explode for damage around them because of the Shadow Imbuement Skill. Shadow Imbuement infects enemies for 6 seconds and if they die in that time then they explode for more damage. This results in a chain reaction of explosions that usually clears the screen or most of it. But, if it doesn’t you can follow up with a second Penetrating Shot that should do the trick.

What makes this combination even more deadly is the Trickshot Aspect which sends out more arrows when your Penetrating Shot strikes an enemy. This makes it even easier to kill enemies on the screen, and increases the chances of you causing this chain reaction of explosions significantly. It’s this one Legendary Aspect alone that makes this Build the meta at the moment for Rogue Bow Builds.

Diablo 4 Rogue Build –  Shadow Sniper Skill Distribution

Each Diablo 4 Rogue Build is made up of the 6 Active Skills they have equipped and changing these Skills can drastically change the way the Rogue Class in Diablo IV plays. In this section we’ll take a look at what Skills you should slot for the Shadow Sniper Diablo 4 Build. Your Skill distribution should look something like this:

LEVEL 25 ROGUE SKILLS
Skill	Points Spent
Forceful Arrow	1
Enhanced Forceful Arrow	1
Penetrating Shot	3
Enhanced Penetrating Shot	1
Improved Penetrating Shot	1
Primary Forceful Arrow	1
Dash	1
Rapid Fire	1
Enhanced Rapid Fire	1
Shadow Imbuement	1
Enhanced Shadow Imbuement	1
Blended Shadow Imbuement	1
Weapon Mastery	3
Shadow Crash	1
Consuming Shadows	1
Precision Imbuement	3
Death Trap	1
Prime Death Trap	1
Supreme Death Trap	1

The above list gives you the general order to invest in Skills, but keep in mind that you should prioritize picking up new Skills over investing in passives, so pick up passives later if you can get new Skills when you level up.

How to Handle Packs of Enemies

There are really two different strategies to employ with this Diablo 4 Best Rogue Build, and these change depending on whether or not you’re facing a large group of enemies or a Boss. Let’s start with a group of enemies first, and we’ll cover how to handle Bosses in the next section.

Penetrating Shot

This is the prime ability of this Diablo 4 Rogue Build, and it’s what pulls the whole thing together (besides Shadow Imbuement). What’s great about this Skill is that it fires through the first target and keeps going through enemies, allowing you to hit many enemies in a single shot depending on your positioning. Additionally, if you have the Combo Points Specialization, which you should for this Build, then this skill will deal much more damage if you have Combo Points to spend on it.

What makes this Skill particularly deadly though, as I mentioned above, is the Trickshot Legendary Aspect. This makes two arrows that fire outward at a 90 degree angle on either side of your Penetrating Shot when it strikes an enemy. This means you can get multiple triggers of this if you fire it through a huge group of enemies. Now the damage of these “side” arrows is reduced, but, you can increase this damage significantly by making sure this Legendary Aspect is slotted on your Bow. I’ve seen as high as 74% damage of the initial shot, which means 75% is likely the highest this damage will go. So that’s the original Arrows + 75% * 2 on each side * the number of enemies it hits, and that’s not factoring in the explosive damage from Shadow Imbuement. That’s a LOT of damage!

Note that you can use this Skill without Shadow Imbuement and you should, as it’s still a great source of damage with this Legendary Aspect, and not all enemies will need Shadow Imbuement to take down, or Shadow Imbuement may be on cooldown.

Shadow Imbuement

You’ll use Shadow Imbuement to Imbue Penetrating Shot 99% of the time, but if you happen to run Rain of Arrows with this Diablo 4 Best Rogue Build you can also use it on that, but it’s a bit of overkill in my opinion. You get two uses of Shadow Imbuement before you will need to wait for it to come off cooldown, so make sure you make the most of it.

This means you should fill up your Combo Points before using Shadow Imbuement so your Penetrating Shot hits for the highest possible damage, giving you the best chance to trigger explosions. You should have enough time to strike with Forceful Arrow 3x, filling up your Combo Points again, before using a second Penetrating Shot, but you don’t need to if there are only a few enemies left or they are weak. Cooldown Reduction is great for this build as it means more use of this Skill.

Forceful Arrow

Forceful Arrow is used to charge up your Combo Points in order to get the max damage from your Penetrating Shot. Having higher Attack Speed makes this faster, so you may wan to to look out for this bonus on your gear to help make this happen more easily. Additionally, you can use this to set Vulnerable on Bosses and Elites, helping you to kill them faster.

Dash

Dash is primarily used as a mobility skill in this Diablo 4 Best Rogue Build to get out of sticky situations or into a better position to fire your Penetrating Shot. We don’t use it for damage, though it can be Imbued with Shadow, and you should be mindful not to waste one of your Imbuements on its use if possible. Try to use this ability when not Imbued and then use Shadow Imbuement if possible.

Boss Fights

Boss Fights are handled a bit differently than packs of enemies, and are more challenging for this build because it relies on large groups of enemies in order to pull off many explosions. Without these, things get a bit more difficult.

Rapid Fire

For Boss fights you’ll still fire Rapid Fire as much as you can, but it’s a good idea to keep applying Vulnerable with Forceful Arrow, as well as filling up your Combo Points which adds Arrows, before firing to get the most from them if you can. Additionally, if you take the Improved Rapid Fire upgrade you will refund 15 Energy when striking enemies with the Vulnerable Status, allowing you to Rapid Fire more before needing to swap back to Forceful Arrow.

Shadow Imbuement is still useful here because of the Precision Imbuement passive which will give you +15% Critical Strike Chance with Imbued Skills at max rank, even if nothing explodes. This will compound with Enhanced Rapid Fire, that gives you an increased Critical Strike Chance per arrow fired.

Death Trap

Death Trap should be dropped on the Boss every time it’s off cooldown in order to keep up some damage with this Diablo 4 Rogue Build. It can also be used effectively on packs of enemies, but it has a faster cooldown than Rain of Arrows and deals more damage, so it’s better suited in Boss scenarios.

Final Tips

You should be on the look out for gear that gives bonuses to both Injured and Healthy enemies, as this will increase the damage of your Penetrating Shot and Shadow Imbuement explosions to enemies that are at high health and at low health, allowing you to one shot them more easily, or finish them off more easily. Shadow Damage is also a good pick up, as is Dexterity for general Skill Damage.

Cosuming Shadows is a great passive for this Build because it refunds Energy when you kill an enemy with Shadow Damage. 1 Point in this can refund the cost of both Imbued Penetrating Shots if they kill a few enemies, and also allows Death Trap to give you quick Energy if you need some in a pinch.

Aspect of Arrow Storms can also really help out your DPS with this Build, especially against Bosses where every little bit helps. It’ll trigger when using your Skills every so often, which is always nice. It’s good against packs too, but you generally don’t need any help there.

Lastly, Edgemaster’s Aspect is great for this Build because it’ll boost the damage of your Skills the higher Energy you have. So if you fire your first Penetrating Shot it will deal even more damage since you’ll likely have full Energy when doing so, further allowing you to one shot many enemies, triggering even more explosions.

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Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki for any other questions you have about the game and the Builds page if you are looking for more Diablo IV Builds, as well as our Getting Started Guide and Best Class to Play in the Beta Guide if you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!