The Shadow Flurry build has always been a thrilling choice for swift enemy clearing, but in Diablo 4 Season 3, it gains substantial additional clearing power through the Icy Alchemist and Toxic Alchemist Aspects. These Aspects now activate with Shadow Imbued Skills alone, eliminating the need for specific ailments on enemies. Paired with the Aspect of Elements, this setup allows for massive damage output.
On the defensive side, our strategy relies heavily on incapacitating enemies with Daze and Knockdown effects. Additionally, we leverage Concealment and the Lethal Dusk Aspect for Stealth, providing passive healing with Mending Obscurity and ensuring increased uptime on Shadow Imbuement through the Nightstalker Paragon Glyph.
To bolster our defenses further, we incorporate the Momentum Key Passive alongside the Aspect of Stolen Vigor. This combination grants significant Damage Reduction and substantial in-combat healing, particularly when we consistently apply Daze effects, ensuring its effectiveness remains high throughout encounters.
To embark on constructing this build, it’s essential to possess a substantial amount of Diablo 4 Gold.
Main Skills
These are the primary skills for the build:
Puncture serves as a reliable Basic Skill for Rogue, providing an effortless means to apply Vulnerable. Depending on our luck, we may only need to use it sparingly in most encounters.
Flurry proves to be an exceptional skill, especially when paired with the Aspect of Encircling Blades, allowing us to strike multiple enemies in the surrounding area multiple times. Despite its low Lucky Hit Chance, the sheer volume of enemies we can hit compensates for this limitation. Consequently, it frequently activates our Lucky Hit Effects, granting us significant damage and utility.
Shadow Step is primarily utilized for mobility. Its short cooldown, which decreases further as we accumulate Cooldown Reduction, renders it highly dependable. Moreover, its elevated Lucky Hit Chance makes it an effective tool for triggering initial Alchemist procs. With a 34% increased Lucky Hit Chance, it consistently activates them. However, Shadow Step’s single-target nature means we only experience one set of explosions.
Concealment may not always be the optimal choice, but its on-demand Stealth offers valuable defensive capabilities. We primarily employ it to reduce the cooldown of Shadow Imbuement through the Nightstalker Paragon Glyph and ensure guaranteed Crits Daze enemies. Additionally, thanks to the Resistant Assailant’s Aspect, we receive a substantial defensive boost and can frequently reduce its cooldown.
Shadow Imbuement enhances Flurry’s area-of-effect potential, causing enemies affected by its Shadow Infection to explode upon defeat. Integrating the Icy and Toxic Alchemist Aspects further enhances this aspect of the build.
Shadow Clone serves as our Ultimate Skill of choice. With the Aspect of Imitated Imbuement, it not only replicates our Shadow-Imbued Flurry casts but also increases the chances of triggering Icy and Toxic Alchemist effects.
Primary Passives
Next, we’ll focus solely on the primary passives we aim for, along with our key passive.
Momentum significantly strengthens our defenses, offering both base Damage Reduction and continuous Life regeneration from the Aspect of Stolen Vigor. This combination provides Rogue with the highest possible Damage Reduction from a single passive and Aspect.
We heavily rely on the Mangler’s Aspect and Trick Attack to consistently increase our Critical Strike Chance. Concussive enhances this synergy by ensuring Daze and Knockdown effects are reliable.
Weapon Mastery boosts our damage output regardless of the weapon choice, although we prefer avoiding daggers. Optimal setup involves dual Swords for increased damage and a Crossbow for Critical Strike Damage.
Exploit provides a substantial damage boost at both the beginning and end of an enemy’s Life bar, effectively triggering Shadow Imbument’s explosions.
Maintaining Vulnerability on enemies is effortless, making Malice a dependable damage enhancer.
With frequent Shadow Imbuement uptime, Precision Imbuement consistently boosts Critical Strike Chance.
Debilitating Toxins fortifies our defense by reducing damage from poisoned enemies whenever Toxic Alchemist triggers, adding a defensive layer to this otherwise offensive Aspect.
Frigid Finesse amplifies damage against Chilled enemies triggered by Icy Alchemist, further augmenting its offensive potential alongside its defensive Chill effect.
Innervation effectively manages our Energy, particularly when hitting numerous enemies with Flurry.
Alchemist Fortune increases Lucky Hit Chance for Non-physical Damage, enhancing the likelihood of triggering crucial Lucky Hit effects with our frequently Shadow-Imbued skills.
Gearing & Stats
This build favors dual Swords as its primary weapons, prioritizing the highest item level for optimal performance.
Ensuring you have an ample supply of Diablo 4 Gold for sale is crucial as upgrading equipment can be quite resource-intensive.
The choice of ranged option to complement the swords is flexible, with minimal damage discrepancies due to the build’s operational nature. Crossbows excel in burst damage, while Bows offer consistent damage output.
For gear optimization, aim for Diablo 4 Items that possess 3 out of the following 4 desirable stats:
- Weapons: Dexterity/Core Skill Damage/Critical Strike Damage/Vulnerable Damage
- Helm: Cooldown Reduction/Maximum Life/Total Armor/Ranks to Shadow Imbuement
- Chest: Maximum Life/Damage Reduction/Total Armor/Resistance
- Gloves: Critical Strike Chance/Ranks to Flurry/Lucky Hit Chance/Attack Speed
- Pants: Maximum Life/Damage Reduction/Total Armor/Resistance
- Boots: Movement Speed/Resource Cost Reduction/Resistance/Resistance
- Amulet: Ranks to Weapon Mastery/Ranks to All Subterfuge Skills/Imbuement Skill Cooldown Reduction/Cooldown Reduction
- Rings: Critical Strike Chance/Vulnerable Damage/Lucky Hit Chance/Critical Strike Damage (Or Maximum Life)
This setup utilizes Emeralds in Weapons, Rubies in Armor, and Diamonds in Jewelry. Emeralds enhance weapon performance with high Critical Strike Chance and Vulnerable uptime, maximizing the bonus effect.
Rubies in Armor boost Maximum Life, scaling Healing from Mending Obscurity and any additional effects like Barrier or Fortify from seasonal content.
Diamonds in Jewelry prioritize Resistance, ensuring a capped resistance level for effective damage reduction against elemental damage. Specific resistance gems can replace Diamonds as caps are met through gear or paragon passives.
Seneschal Companion
Throughout the Diablo 4 Season of the Construct, our endeavors will be complemented by a Seneschal Companion.
This construct boasts an array of beneficial utilities, spanning from potent offensive capabilities to valuable supportive functions. Presented below are our recommended configurations for Governing and Tuning Stones that effectively bolster this build:
- Flash of Adrenaline with Duration, Tactical & Safeguard
- Lightning Bolt with Arcing, Poison & Frigid
- Protect with Tactical, Safeguard & Fortify
- Bushwhack with Swift, Breaking & Evernight
Specialization – Preparation
In this build, we opt for the Preparation specialization. This choice enhances the uptime of Shadow Clone, resulting in increased damage output and, importantly, more opportunities for Lucky Hits. While Flurry doesn’t heavily drain our energy, we also don’t significantly reduce its cost.
Aspects
Below are Aspects that are recommended for maximizing the potential of the build:
- Aspect of Encircling Blades
- Icy Alchemist’s Aspect
- Toxic Alchemist’s Aspect
- Aspects of Elements
- Aspect of Initated Imbuement
- Mangler’s Aspect
- Aspect of Shared Misery
- Exploiter’s Aspect
- Aspect of Lethal Dusk
- Aspect of Stolen Vigor
- Resistant Assailant’s Aspect
Unique Items
The following 2 D4 Items are the key unique pieces that significantly impact this build:
Cowl of the Nameless is a Unique Helmet providing essential stats such as Cooldown Reduction and Ranks to Shadow Imbuement. Although it lacks Maximum Life and Armor compared to an ideal Rare Helmet, it compensates with Damage Reduction from Close encounters, reduced Crowd Control Duration, and increased Lucky Hit Chance against Crowd Controlled enemies, which more than offset the loss of other stats.
Grasp of Shadow, a pair of Unique Gloves, offers crucial attributes like Attack Speed and Ranks to Flurry. Despite a reduction in Lucky Hit Chance and Critical Strike Chance compared to perfect Rare Gloves, they provide Shadow Clone Damage and Dexterity instead. The Unique Effect grants a chance for our Skills to be echoed by a Shadow Clone, resulting in additional Lucky Hits and more AoE explosions on average.
Paragon Boards
These specialized boards, accessible at level 50, allow us to invest earned Paragon points and Renown to fortify our character. Each board features a single Glyph Slot for personalized enhancement.
Starter Board
This foundational board, typical of all starter options, provides basic enhancements to both damage and defenses. Our progression involves navigating up the left side through Resilience and Intelligence toward the Glyph Node. Subsequently, we pursue the Skillful path and advance to the subsequent board. A later return to acquire Lawless and other nearby Strength nodes for our Glyph is advisable, along with potentially accessing Prime for additional Life and Damage.
Exploit Weakness
This selection empowers us to apply a stacking damage bonus against Vulnerable enemies, significantly boosting overall damage output. The board also offers bonuses to Vulnerable Damage and Elite Damage. Our strategic approach involves navigating toward the Glyph Node, securing Intelligence en route, and acquiring Vulnerable damage enhancements before ascending to Exploit Weakness. Optional detours to access Cold Resilience for Cold Resistance and Life are feasible before transitioning to the next board.
Eldritch Bounty
This board amplifies Shadow Damage upon activating Shadow Imbuement, focusing on augmenting damage output. Additionally, it provides substantial Non-elemental Damage, Imbued Skill Damage, and Imbuement Skill Cooldown. Our progression entails navigating toward the Glyph Node, accruing Intelligence points along the way, and efficiently acquiring the Imbued Skill Damage cluster before advancing to Eldritch Bounty. Optional acquisition of Suffused Resilience for Elemental Resistance and Damage over Time (DoT) mitigation is viable before proceeding to the subsequent board.
Cheap Shot
This selection amplifies damage against nearby crowd-controlled enemies, enhancing mobbing efficacy. Furthermore, it offers notable bonuses against Elites and crowd-controlled enemies. Our approach involves strategically positioning Cheap Shot at the bottom for optimized efficiency. We navigate through Safeguard toward Cheap Shot, securing additional Critical Strike Damage against Crowd Controlled nodes from the Oppress cluster. Subsequently, we proceed to the Glyph Node via the Safeguard path, prioritizing Dexterity acquisition for the Glyph, including Devious and Wiles clusters, before accessing the Calculated cluster and departing via the left gate.
Cunning Stratagem
Primarily selected for its Glyph Node, this option also provides strategically placed Armor and Core Skill damage enhancements. Our strategy involves positioning the Glyph Node in the upper right quadrant and navigating directly toward it, securing the Finisher and Lawless clusters en route. Optionally, we may acquire additional Intelligence nodes to augment the Glyph before concluding the path.
Glyphs
Each Paragon Board features a designated Glyph Slot, allowing for the insertion of powerful Glyphs that can be enhanced through Nightmare Dungeons. Below, we outline the recommended Glyphs and their corresponding boards:
- Infusion: Placed in the Starter Board, this Glyph provides increased Imbued Skill Damage, complementing its substantial Intelligence allocation.
- Nightstalker: Positioned in Exploit Weakness, this Glyph augments Shadow Damage and reduces the Cooldown of Shadow Imbuement, aligning with the board’s intelligence-oriented path.
- Efficacy: Implemented in Eldritch Bounty, this Glyph enhances Rare Nodes within range, providing additional Imbued Skill Damage and Dexterity.
- Closer: Installed in Cheap Shot, this Glyph amplifies the damage of Cutthroat Skills and reduces damage taken with a melee weapon, capitalizing on the board’s high Dexterity allocation.
- Exploit: Deployed in Cunning Stratagem, this Glyph boosts Vulnerable Damage, aligning with the board’s significant Strength allocation for optimal effectiveness.