Diablo 4 Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Build Season 6 – Shadowfrost Dancer
Oct. 7, 2024Diablo 4 Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Build Season 6 – Shadowfrost Dancer
Diablo 4Dance of KnivesRogueLevelingBuild– Shadowfrost Dancer Guide: In this Diablo 4Rogue ClassBuild, I’ll be showing you how to play the Shadowfrost Dancer Leveling build, using the new skillDance of Knivesas well as the Shadow and Cold imbuements. If you enjoy a build where you can enter a room, hold a button down and watch everything explode, then thisDance of Knivesbuild guide is perfect for you!
The way thisbuildworks is by taking advantage of the special properties of the new skillDance of Knives. This ability is absolutely broken when paired with its brand new Aspect, the Aspect of Star Shards, which effectively turnsDance of Knivesinto a “hold down to nuke” skill. With this shadow-cold build, I managed to blast through the game all the way to torment incredibly fast; I had over 10 minutes left on the Tier 20 Pit with just the base 60 levels and no paragon points invested, and all while holding down 1 button.
The way this new skill works is that you hold it down, and it throws knives at the nearest enemy moving. Its the first channeling skill for Rogues, costing no energy and instead consuming 6 charges over time. This means that it’s the only rogue skill in the game where you cast it once then hold it down for a prolonged period of time, giving the skill some unique properties that opens the flood gates for some very brokenbuilds.
The first property we can take advantage of is imbuements. Casting an Imbuements will apply extra elemental effects on the next two skills casted, such as the next 2 uses ofTwisting Blades. When you use an imbuement onDance of Knives, you apply the imbuement to every single knife thrown while holding the skill down, since it technically only counts as 1 skill use. This also means that any effects we can find that increase the damage of our next agility or cutthroat skill will also apply to every single knife thrown while you hold that button down.
The first modification upgrade on the skill gives 4 charges back for every 30 meters you travel while channeling the skill. This essentially means that the faster you are while casting, the longer you can keep casting the ability. So on top of the damage buffs, we also want some movement speed built in to make sure we are hitting the 200% movement speed cap while usingDance of Knivesto sustain our damage output for longer.
For the second modification, we are running DisciplinedDance of Knives, which adds a 25% slow to enemies hit for 3 seconds, and also gives the knives a 20% chance to pierce. This adds some crowd control to thebuildwhich we can use to reduce incoming damage while also increasing our output damage with some aspects and skills.
So with all of that in mind, thebuildI created uses a mixture of Subterfuge skills with Imbuements along withDance of Knives. The gameplan is to cast Smoke Grenade and Dark Shroud to get damage buffs for our next cast of Dance of Knives, cast either Cold orShadow Imbuementto make it cause vulnerable, then cast Dance of Knives while landing a bunch of crits and moving at 200% move speed. So lets delve into the main skills I used to make this build.
In the Basic cluster, I put 2 points into puncture, but you can just put 2 points into any basic skill you like at the start of the game. We won’t be using any of them later on sinceDance of Knivescosts no energy, so we don’t need basic skills to generate any.
In the core cluster, we are picking up a few passives. Firstly,Target Practiceto increase our critical chance by 9% with Cutthroat Skills, which includesDance of Knives.
We also wantStutter Stepto increase our movement speed by 15% for 4 seconds after landing a critical strike, which will be one of our sources of movement speed to try to get to 200% while casting.
The last passive in this cluster isSturdy, which gives you 18% close damage reduction. I wouldn’t say you absolutely need this skill to survive with thisbuild, but it does help quite a bit later on once you reach Torment difficulty.
For the agility cluster, we want to put max points intoDance of Knivesfor maximum damage output. Then as I mentioned before, get the Disciplined modifier to generate Crowd Control on enemies which we can use to boost our damage, and get some damage reduction as well.
Another skill we will be getting isShadow Step, which serves as more of a utility skill for thisbuild. The main weakness ofDance of Knivesis getting CC’d, as it immediately stopsDance of Knivesand leaves you very vulnerable.Shadow stepis an unstoppable skill which teleports us onto an enemy, meaning we can use it while CC’d to break out of it before we get exploded. We also want to get the Methodical modifier forShadow Stepto gain damage reduction for 3 seconds after using it, since we will only be using this for survival.
I also put points into a few more damage reduction passives, namelyRuggedandReactive Defense.Ruggedis somewhat situational, reducing Damage over Time effects like poison pools, but Reactive Defense is incredibly useful, giving you damage reduction while you are CC’d.
One more good passive in this cluster isWeapon Mastery. The innate Critical Damage affix from Swords is much better for ourbuildthan Close Damage from Daggers, so I chose to dual wield swords. Weapon mastery will give a multiplicative 9% damage increase toDance of Knivesat 3 ranks for weapon mastery, so its a pretty good passive to amp our damage a bit.
Moving onto the Subterfuge cluster, we first haveSmoke Grenade. Smoke Grenade is essential for thisbuildsince it gives you great single-target damage and dazes enemies. With the Enhanced Modifier, it makes enemies take 25% extra damage for 5 seconds after being hit, and with the Countering modifier, it refunds 5 seconds of cooldown if you hit an elite or boss. This skill is also necessary for one of our aspects,The Aspect of Synergy. The Synergy Aspect will increase the damage of your next agility skill by up to 100% after using a Subterfuge skill. As we mentioned before, that will apply to every single knife thrown in the next cast ofDance of Knives. So we want to be throwing a smoke grenade out before casting the skill to get a straight double damage boost for the next 10-20 seconds, not including the extra 25% damage for 5 seconds after hitting enemies with the grenade.
The other skill I chose in this cluster isDark Shroud, which is another essential skill in thisbuild. Its base effect gives you 5 protective shadows each giving you 10% damage reduction, and whenever you take direct damage, you lose a shadow. The base effect is already great on its own for survivability, but its modifiers also add quite alot to our build. The enhanced modifier gives us 5% movement speed per shadow, so we can get 25% extra movement speed just from casting it. Then, the Countering modifier will add a flat 10% crit chance when at least one shadow is up, which will basically be all the time. So this skill gives us survivability, movement speed and crit rate all in one package, making it perfect for ourbuild.
There are also some minor damaging passives I chose in this cluster, namely Exploit and Malice. Exploit gives a multiplicative 18% damage increase to healthy and injured enemies, and Malice gives 9% increased damage to vulnerable enemies. We will be applying vulnerable from both of our Imbuement skills, Cold and Shadow.
In our imbuement cluster, the first skill you should probably get isShadow Imbuement. This imbuement will make enemies explode upon death, since imbuements apply to every knife thrown when you castDance of Knives, every knife thrown will infect enemies to explode upon death. EnhancedShadow Imbuementadds more crit chance against infected enemies close to death, and the Blended modifier makes enemies vulnerable, so we can stack vulnerable damage on our gear. However, since the vulnerable effect only applies once you manage to explode an enemy, it can be hard to get damage on bosses and elite groups, which is why we also run Cold Imbuement.
Cold Imbuement’s first modifier makes it so that enemies have a 40% chance of becoming vulnerable on Lucky Hit. The innate Lucky Hit Chance ofDance of Knivesis 20%, but with the rapidfire nature of the knives you can proc the vulnerable quite easily. The Mixed modifier will add a further 20% damage to Crowd Controlled enemies, which works with the Slow applied on every hit fromDance of Knives. I found this setup of 2 imbuements to be really helpful, since sometimes you get CCd and have to wait for the cooldown on an imbuement, and they make thebuildfeel complete for dungeon rushing and boss slaughtering.
For passives, we also get the Frigid Finesse passive to have a 15% damage bonus against chilled enemies, and 30% against frozen enemies. You can also run the Icy Alchemist aspect to proc chill withShadow Imbuementto get even more value out of this passive.
The last passive for this section is Precision Imbuement, which gives 9% crit chance with Imbued skills. As we know,Dance of Kniveswill always be imbued, so this is a buff that will be on all the time.
In the Ultimate Cluster, there arent really any ultimate skills with super high synergy onDance of Knives. Shadow Clone could be a contender if you get the aspect to make it copy imbuements, but me personally, i’d rather press 1 button and spin 2 win.
However, there are some passives that are useful here; Impetus will increase the damage of Agility skills by 15% after moving 15 meters until you use a core or ultimate skill. We have neither of those, so this is a permanent buff. We also want to get to the Haste passive on the bottom, which gives 15% bonus move speed while above 50 energy, so this is another permanent buff. You do have to get 1 rank into a passive energy skill to get to this, but its still very worthwile for the much needed movement speed.
Lastly for skills, our key passive cluster. The most obvious choice here is Momentum, which grants us 3% damage reduction, movement speed and damage while chanellingDance of Knivesfor up to 10 stacks. You could also try using Victimise since we apply a lot of vulnerable damage, but I like momentum primarily because it gives movement speed, and has a good aspect to go with it, which I will explain later.
As for the Specialization, I chose Inner Sight since it seems to be the only option that can work with thisbuild. When you fill the gauge up, you temporarily get infinite knives which is very helpful for the overall uptime, and you also get a big crit chance bonus which fits well with thisbuild.
The best aspects in thisbuildare unfortunately all found from salvaging, but you can expect good damage even if you just have the decent dungeon aspects.
For affixes, you will want to generally focus on Dexterity, Crit/Vulnerable Damage, Crit Chance, Movement Speed and Armor, Resistances or Life. You generally want to get more armor and resistances as you get further into the game, since torment difficulties will lower your armor and resistances by an ungodly amount, and it gets to a point where survivability becomes more important than damage. Thisbuildalso doesnt have any form of reliable lifesteal, so we are relying on potions which you may want to experiment with in terms of aspects, like the aspect that drops a potion every 20 meters travelled. There are a few specific affixes I recommend on armor pieces:
When it comes to gems, you’ll want to have the following:
In the early game, you should be able to add an Elemental Surge temper to your weapons very early. These are great for a small boost in damage while in that level 1-40 range, sinceDance of Kniveshas a high lucky hit chance and can easily proc the chance to deal extra damage.
For the late game, you want to look out for theAgile Augmentsmanual to get the Chance forDance of Knivesto deal double damage. You can also look for movement speed from the Rogue Motion manual, with ranks toStutter Stepand Movement Speed per Dark Shadow being the best affixes.
Besides that, you can also get Subterfuge Expertise’s “Damage PerDark ShroudShadow”, anything from the Cutthroat Finesse manual, and anything from Worldly Endurance and Natural Resistance for armor and resistances.
To close off this guide , I just want to summarise the thought process while running thisbuild. You want to useDark Shroudwhen entering a dungeon to get damage reduction, movement speed and critical strike chance. When you see enemies, use Smoke Grenade to get 25% extra damage against them and the Synergy bonus, and activate either the Shadow Imbuement if they are weak, grouped enemies or the Cold Imbuement for strong elite groups and bosses. Then, spin to win withDance of Knivesas long as you can, while keepingDark Shroudstacks up and making sure your next cast of Dance of Knives is after a subterfuge skill.
Another small but useful tip is that you can bind “Hold Position” in controls to a mouse button, so you can hold downDance of Knivesand the mouse button without having to click on an enemy.
There really isnt alot to playing thebuild, so most of your trouble will be trying to find the aspects, and balancing damage and survivability in your affixes. From my experience, the aspects and skills carry enough that its worthwile to stay on the survivability side, but while leveling feel free to go crazy on the damage.
Be sure to check out ourDiablo 4 Wikifor any other questions you have about the game and theBuildspage if you are looking for more Diablo IVBuilds, as well as ourGetting Started Guideif you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!
Castielle
Senior Editor at Fextralife. I enjoy gaming, playing and watching sports, cooking yummy food, watching a good movie and hanging out with Fex.
