Rogues in Diablo 4 have a number of elemental imbuements to choose from when making their builds, and each of the three options has something different to offer. Cold Imbuement, in particular, is capable of both impressive Crowd Control and damage against all targets. The Rogue class in Diablo 4 is capable of having builds like Frost Rogue centered on skill combinations like Cold Imbuement and Flurry.
Usually, a build from any D4 class revolves around one core skill having remaining skills as a support factor. However, the Diablo 4 Frost Rogue Build does things differently and specializes in two instead of one skill, that too from different skill trees.
You can easily achieve all the Cold and Frost-related effects the Rogue class has in its arsenal to get a practical Diablo 4 Rogue endgame build that can slow, freeze, and ultimately wipe out everything they come across, even in high-tier Nightmare Dungeons
Jump To:
- Skills and unlock order
- Rogue Specialization
- Playstyle and skill rotation
- Gear, Gems and Stats priority
- Paragon Board
- Unique Items
- Legendary Aspects
- Elixir choices
Frost Rogue skill progression and unlock order
Cold Imbuement and Flurry both skills belong to different Rogue skill trees, where the former falls in the Imbuement category while the latter is a Core skill. Flurry is a potent skill that deals explosive damage to close enemies. The problem with this skill is that it cannot properly target multiple enemies until they are either Crowd Controlled or Vulnerable. That is where Cold Imbuement comes in.
Cold Imbuement not only freezes enemies instantly but also provides that CC for enhancing the effectiveness of Flurry damage.
We shall be using the following list of Active skills for our Diablo 4 Frost Rogue build.
- Puncture (Basic skill)
- Flurry (Core skill)
- Cold Imbuement (Imbuement skill)
- Shadow Step (Agility skill)
- Shadow Imbuement (Imbuement skill)
- Smoke Grenade (Subterfuge)
As this is an endgame build, we expect you already have gathered those 48+10 skill points from leveling up and Renown-related tasks. So, it is time to invest these points into the following skills. There is no hard and fast order to be followed and you can unlock in whichever order you wish.
However, our preferred skill unlock order for Frost Rogue in D4 is below
| Unlock Order | Skill Name |
| 1 | Puncture (Rank 1) |
| 2 | Enhanced Puncture |
| 3 | Fundamental Puncture |
| 4 | Flurry (Rank 5) |
| 5 | Enhanced Flurry |
| 6 | Improved Flurry |
| 7 | Sturdy (Rank 3) |
| 8 | Siphoning Strikes (Rank 3) |
| 9 | Shutter Step (Rank 3) |
| 10 | Shadow Step (Rank 1) |
| 11 | Enhanced Shadow Step |
| 12 | Disciplined Shadow Step |
| 13 | Exploit |
| 14 | Malice (Rank 2) |
| 15 | Cold Imbuement (Rank 1) |
| 16 | Enhanced Cold Imbuement |
| 17 | Mixed Cold Imbuement |
| 18 | Shadow Imbuement (Rank 1) |
| 19 | Enhanced Shadow Imbuement |
| 20 | Mixed Shadow Imbuement |
| 21 | Shadow Crash |
| 22 | Consuming Shadows (Rank 2) |
| 23 | Frigid Finesse (Rank 3) |
| 24 | Precision Imbuement (Rank 3) |
| 25 | Innervation (Rank 1) |
| 26 | Second Wind (Rank 3) |
| 27 | Alchemist’s Fortune (Rank 3) |
| 28 | Momentum |
| 29 | Weapon Mastery (Rank 3) |
| 30 | Concussive |
| 31 | Trick Attacks |
| 32 | Adrenaline Rush |
| 33 | Reactive Defense (Rank 3) |
| 34 | Rugged |
The Frost Rogue build relies on Aspects that affect frozen targets to increase your Vulnerable and Critical Strike Damage against them. Flurry with Cold Imbuement will be the primary offensive source of this. Cold Imbuement will make targets Vulnerable, while Flurry will take advantage of it and makes even more enemies Vulnerable with its Improved version.
We shall batch up enemies and Daze them using Smoke Grenades, and then Puncture them to make them Vulnerable along with dealing heavy damage. Enhanced Puncture helps to generate energy for your character.
Shadow Step ability allows the Rogue in Diablo 4 to stab the enemies from behind undetected for a great amount of damage. The character becomes Unstoppable during this stage and his speed increases for a few seconds.
Shadow Imbuement infuses Rogue’s weapons with shadows, allowing them to deal Shadow Damage to the enemies upon using the Shadow Skills. Enemies inflicted with Shadow damage explode after dying, dealing minor damage to their surrounding fellows too.
Innervation helps increase the energy generation of your character when it performs a Lucky Hit. It is part of the Ultimate Passive Skills cluster.
The majority of the passives for this build involve boosting damage against Crowd-Controlled enemies. All the Slowed, Chilled, Frozen, Stunned, and Dazed targets come in this category.
Weapon Mastery increases the damage based on the type of weapon you are using. Trick Attacks passive knocks down enemies for 0.5 seconds and forces them to be critically struck by Concussive.
This combination allows you to deal extra damage as concussive works more efficiently when it is used against knocked-down enemies.
Adrenaline Rush gives you free energy regeneration, simply by moving on the battlefield. Exploit, just like its name, will abuse and damage the enemies no matter if they’re Healthy or Injured. As the build is continuously focusing on inflicting targets with Vulnerable, Malice will come in handy for damaging these targets.
Frost Rogue Specialization
Each class in Diablo 4 has a powerful unique mechanism that contributes to its identity and the build-making process. For Rogues, it’s simply called Specialization.
The Rogue Specialization system essentially allows the Rogue class to choose or “specialize” using three passive bonuses that you can swap between at any time, even during combat. This system unlocks at level 15 after doing a special Rogue-only questline.
Combo Points is our favorite specialization for the Diablo 4 Frost Rogue build, which unlocks at level 15. Whenever you stack three Combo Points using basic skills, your core skill, Flurry will deal increased damage as well as your character gets an Attack Speed bonus.
Diablo 4 Frost Rogue playstyle and skill rotation
Now, let’s head to understand the way to play the Frost Rogue build in Diablo 4 and be a formidable force to reckon with.
Vulnerable
The Vulnerable status in D4 has quite a similar effect to what it sounds. Enemies with this status effect are prone to getting high damage from specific skills. In our build, we will be focusing on applying this effect on enemies by means of the following skills.
- Enhanced Cold Imbuement: This skill allows you to make enemies Vulnerable for a short period when using imbued skills.
- Fundamental Puncture: This upgraded skill makes an enemy Vulnerable if two of the blades hit him at once.
Increased DPS
As you progress further in the game, the enemies not only become tougher but also more in numbers. Being an endgame build, Frost Rogue build won’t be considered a successful one if it does not make you capable of wiping out whole areas in a few seconds.
Some of the Rogue skills that maximize the damage you deal on the battlefield are given below
- Weapon Mastery: This passive skill increases the damage of each weapon based on its type.
- Malice: This passive skill deals extra damage to enemies, without discriminating between Healthy and Injured ones.
- Fundamental Puncture: With this skill, your basic Puncture tosses three blades in one throw, each of which deals 35% of the base damage.
Critical Strike
In Diablo 4, Critical Strikes deal 50% bonus damage to the enemies, making it faster to clear an entire screen of enemies. Landing Critical Strikes is not that easy without the use of special hacks in terms of skills.
Fortunately, the Rogue class has the following set of skills and aspects that give you more Critical Strike chances
- Enhanced Shadow Step: This agility skill enhances the Critical Strike chance whenever an enemy gets Shadow damage from you.
- Concussive: This passive skill gains you a Critical Strike chance once you successfully knock down an enemy.
- Vengeful Aspect: Vengeful Aspect in Diablo 4 is an offensive legendary aspect that increases the chance for Critical Strike after making an enemy Vulnerable.
Energy Generation
The Rogue class uses energy to utilize powerful skills. However, you’re not supposed to just spam energy costing skills, you need to rotate them in with basic skills. For energy generation, a couple of skills below will be quite helpful on the battlefield.
- Enhanced Puncture: The upgraded basic skill is good to use because you gain 2 Energy every time Puncture damages a Crowd Controlled enemy.
- Innervation: This passive skill in its Lucky Hit has a chance to generate energy for your character.
Frost Rogue Damage Rotation (Playstyle)
In this section of the guide, we will discuss the functional battle strategy for Frost Rogue build in D4 to get maximum benefits from it. The build will not be worth spending so much time and effort if we do not know how to utilize the skills we just allocated to it.
We shall follow the order of the skills given below for using them against Monsters and Elites.
- Cold Imbuement
- Smoke Grenade
- Shadow Step
- Flurry
- Shadow Imbuement
Before starting a fight, the first thing you always should do is apply the Cold Imbuement. There should be two stacks of it so that when we engage in an encounter, we will have another one ready to be used.
Now for the actual rotation, we are going to toss out Smoke Grenades at range to daze the enemies. Now use Shadow Step to get in the middle of the enemy troops, and apply Puncture to make them Vulnerable.
It’s time to spam your Flurry attacks powered with Cold Imbuement and cleanse the area of enemies including Elites in a matter of seconds. By this stage, you should also apply the Shadow Imbuement, allowing your weapons to deal Shadow damage on top of the base damage.
After all that, it will be just a matter of rinse and repeat once you learn this damage rotation. It doesn’t really matter how many enemies you are engaging. As long as you hit all of them with Smoke Grenade, Shadow Step inside them and deal damage by core+imbuement combo, everyone just dies.
Note that this build is only stronger when all of the skills embedded in it are ready to use. You will find yourself pretty weak if you are unable to utilize some of the skills in the middle of a fight and won’t see the expected results. Hence, always play on your own terms, while having all the required skills active in your arsenal.
Gear, Gems, and Stats priority
Every class in Diablo 4 makes use of the Core Stats differently from the others. The Rogue class benefits from all these stats, so increasing each of them is important for a better gameplay experience.
The following stats should be your top priority when building a Frost Rogue character in Diablo 4:
- Dexterity
- Strength
- Intelligence
- Willpower
Dexterity increases the damage and improves dodge probability. Strength will improve energy recovery. While Intelligence increases the Critical Strike chance on your hits.
Apart from these stats, you can always look for increasing your base damage and damage reduction.
For the Frost Rogue build in D4, we recommend the following Gems to have on each of the gear slots:
| Type | Gemstone | Effect |
| Weapon | Sapphire | This attractive and mystical gem increases the Critical Strike Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies |
| Armor | Topaz | Reduce the damage received when you’re Control Impaired. As a Rogue, you’ll find yourself in such situations many times. |
| Jewelry | Skull | If you’re struggling to survive tough bosses or swarms of enemies, place Skulls in your Jewelry to boost the healing you receive from potions. |
You can make your Diablo IV Frost Rogue build even stronger by applying the gear affixes mentioned below.
- Increased Chance for Critical Strikes
- Increased Damaged from Critical Strikes
- Damage to Crowd-Controlled Enemies
- Crowd Controlled Duration
- Cooldown Reduction for skills
- Increased Energy Generation
Paragon Boards for Diablo 4 Frost Rogue
Once you reach level 50 in Diablo 4, you will unlock the first Paragon Board for your class. You will start receiving Paragon Points instead of skill points for leveling up. Paragon Boards expand character customization beyond a character’s skills.
Glyphs, on the other hand, are endgame perks that can be slotted into a Paragon Board to grant the character additional bonuses.
Below is our recommended list of Rogue Paragon nodes and glyphs that you should prioritize to maximize the efficiency of the Frost Rogue build.
- Cheap Shot: With this legendary node, you get increased damage against Crowd Controlled enemies.
- Eldritch Bounty: This legendary node is here for dealing that massive Imbuement damage against your enemies.
- Exploit Weakness: This legendary node will help enhance the damage against vulnerable enemies.
As for the glyphs, you can consider purchasing these:
- Control: This rare glyph is very useful against Crowd Controlled enemies. Additionally, it provides increased damage against Chilled or Slowed enemies.
- Canny: This rare glyph is useful for Flurry-imbuement damage.
- Closer: With this rare glyph, you not only deal higher damage to enemies but also take reduced damage from them.
- Infusion: With this rare glyph on, when you cast an imbuement skill, another imbuement skill gets reduced cooldown time
Unique Items
Unique items are the rarest and most powerful gear pieces in the game and drop as loot on Nightmare and Torment world levels. With unique effects and designs, Uniques rank above the five other rarity levels of Normal, Magic, Rare, Legendary, Sacred, and Ancestral items.
We recommend the following Diablo 4 Rogue Unique items to be used for being extremely compatible with our Frost Rogue build.
Penitent Greaves: These Unique boots grant 30% movement speed when you successfully Evade. With these, you also leave behind a trail of frost that Chills enemies. You deal an enhanced amount of damage against Chilled enemies.
Cowl of the Nameless: With this unique helm on, you gain a 24% increased Lucky Hit chance against Crowd Controlled enemies.
Legendary Aspects for Frost Rogue
Legendary Aspects in Diablo 4 are unique modifiers that can transform rare items into legendary ones. These aspects stand as coveted enhancements that can significantly augment your character’s abilities.
By carefully selecting and fixing these Diablo 4 Rogue Aspects, you can shape your character’s destiny and become a force to be reckoned with.
Icy Alchemist’s Aspect: Lucky Hit: Damaging a Chilled or Frozen enemy with a Shadow Imbued Skill has up to a 75% chance to release an explosion that deals Cold damage to the target and surrounding enemies, Chilling them for 15%.
Aspect of the Might: This aspect increases your defense by 20% for a few seconds after applying basic skills.
Aspect of Encircling Blades: This legendary aspect allows the Rogue’s Flurry skill to damage enemies in a circle around the player, dealing increased damage.
Aspect of Unstable Imbuements: This aspect is an offensive enhancement that causes a Skill imbued with elemental damage to explode, dealing damage to enemies around the player.
Elixir and Potion choices
The Rogue class in Diablo 4 is not the best in terms of endurance, meaning you can lose chunks of your health while in battle. While the main source of our health regeneration will be from enemies, having some potion and Elixir upgrades is also useful. You can visit any Alchemist in a town to upgrade your health potions with the required items.
The Elixirs to keep for the Frost Rogue Build in D4 are completely dependent on your personal preference. However, having the following can prove to be helpful in your fights.
- Weak/ Strong Assault Elixir
- Iron Barb (Strong/ Potent)
- Elixir of Man-slaying/ Demon-slaying
