Diablo 4 Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Build – Shadowfrost Dancer Guide: In this Diablo 4 Rogue Class Build, I’ll be showing you how to play the Shadowfrost Dancer Leveling build, using the new skill Dance of Knives as 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 this Dance of Knives build guide is perfect for you!
Diablo 4 Dance of Knives Rogue Leveling Build Season 6 – Shadowfrost Dancer
The way this build works is by taking advantage of the special properties of the new skill Dance of Knives. This ability is absolutely broken when paired with its brand new Aspect, the Aspect of Star Shards, which effectively turns Dance of Knives into 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 broken builds.
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 of Twisting Blades. When you use an imbuement on Dance 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 using Dance of Knives to sustain our damage output for longer.
For the second modification, we are running Disciplined Dance 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 the build which 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, the build I created uses a mixture of Subterfuge skills with Imbuements along with Dance 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 or Shadow Imbuement to 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.
Diablo 4 Dance of Knives Rogue Build – Skill Distribution
Basic Cluster
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 since Dance of Knives costs no energy, so we don’t need basic skills to generate any.
Core Cluster
In the core cluster, we are picking up a few passives. Firstly, Target Practice to increase our critical chance by 9% with Cutthroat Skills, which includes Dance of Knives.
We also want Stutter Step to 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 is Sturdy, which gives you 18% close damage reduction. I wouldn’t say you absolutely need this skill to survive with this build, but it does help quite a bit later on once you reach Torment difficulty.
Agility Cluster
For the agility cluster, we want to put max points into Dance of Knives for 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 is Shadow Step, which serves as more of a utility skill for this build. The main weakness of Dance of Knives is getting CC’d, as it immediately stops Dance of Knives and leaves you very vulnerable. Shadow step is 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 for Shadow Step to 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, namely Rugged and Reactive Defense. Rugged is 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 is Weapon Mastery. The innate Critical Damage affix from Swords is much better for our build than Close Damage from Daggers, so I chose to dual wield swords. Weapon mastery will give a multiplicative 9% damage increase to Dance of Knives at 3 ranks for weapon mastery, so its a pretty good passive to amp our damage a bit.
Subterfuge Cluster
Moving onto the Subterfuge cluster, we first have Smoke Grenade. Smoke Grenade is essential for this build since 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 of Dance 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 is Dark Shroud, which is another essential skill in this build. 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 our build.
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.
Imbuement Cluster
In our imbuement cluster, the first skill you should probably get is Shadow Imbuement. This imbuement will make enemies explode upon death, since imbuements apply to every knife thrown when you cast Dance of Knives, every knife thrown will infect enemies to explode upon death. Enhanced Shadow Imbuement adds 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 of Dance of Knives is 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 from Dance 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 the build feel 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 with Shadow Imbuement to 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 Knives will always be imbued, so this is a buff that will be on all the time.
Ultimate Cluster
In the Ultimate Cluster, there arent really any ultimate skills with super high synergy on Dance 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.
Key Passive Cluster
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 chanelling Dance of Knives for 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.
Specialisation
As for the Specialization, I chose Inner Sight since it seems to be the only option that can work with this build. 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 this build.
Diablo 4 Dance of Knives Rogue Build – Equipment, Gems and Aspects
The best aspects in this build are unfortunately all found from salvaging, but you can expect good damage even if you just have the decent dungeon aspects.
The Best Aspects
- Aspect of Star Shards: This is the best aspect for the build, giving your Knives from Dance of Knives a 50% chance to split into 6 projectiles dealing around 550 physical damage. The reason why this works so well is because the 6 projectiles are also imbued, creating chain reactions and absolute chaos when paired with the Cold Imbuement, and especially the explosive Shadow Imbuement. I recommend putting this on one of your Swords.
- Edgemaster’s Aspect: This is the 3rd best multiplicative buff for this build. Skills will deal up to 25% extra damage based on how much energy you have, which will always be maxed. This makes the aspect a flat 25% damage boost to Dance of Knives at all times, which I chose to put on gloves since the other 2 aspects give an even higher bonus that I put onto the Crossbow and Amulet. This actually drops from a Dungeon, so you can get this without having to look for a drop.
- Aspect of Stolen Vigor: The 2nd best multiplicative buff. This aspect was actually changed this patch from its previous lifesteal effect to a new effect centered around the momentum key passive. While you are at 10 stacks of momentum, you get up to 50% increased damage with Cutthroat skills. You also gain unstoppable for 3 seconds every 8 seconds. Given that you never lose momentum stacks, once you stack 10 up in a dungeon that’s another flat 50% extra damage to Dance of Knives. Also, the unstoppable effect is great for countering the CC effects that this build suffers from, so that’s a nice added bonus. I imprinted this onto my amulet for the 50% buff.
- Aspect of Synergy: Lastly, the best multiplicative buff is the aforementioned Aspect of Synergy. With this aspect, you’ll deal up to 55% extra damage with the next cast of Dance of Knives after using any Subterfuge skill, which is either Smoke Grenade or Dark Shroud. Since its the largest multiplicative buff you can get for Dance of Knives, I recommend putting this on your crossbow to get that double effect, and make this a 2.1x damage bonus. You will need to be mindful of your ability rotation to get the most out of this aspect, but if you can do it right, the results are insane.
Great Aspects
- True Sight Aspect: You deal 70-100% increased Critical Strike Damage to enemies marked by Inner Sight. While Inner Sight is full, you also gain 21-30% increased damage.
- Icy Alchemist’s Aspect: Lucky Hit: Shadow Imbued Skills have up to a 75% chance to release an explosion that deals Cold damage to the target and surrounding enemies, Chilling them for 25%. If they were already Chilled or Frozen, the damage is increased by 100%.
- Cheat’s Aspect: Reduces damage taken from Crowd Controlled enemies, and gives 15% move speed for 2 seconds when hit by a crowd controlled enemy
- Aspect of Concussive Strikes: Damaging an enemy has an up to 20% chance to daze for 2 seconds, and overall damage to dazed enemies increased by 10%
- Mangler’s Aspect: Dealing direct damage to a Vulnerable enemy has up to a [30-50%] chance to Daze them for 2 seconds
- Umbrous Aspect: Critical Strikes have a 45-65% chance to give a free Dark Shroud shadow
- Wind Striker Aspect: Critical Strikes grant 8.5 Movement Speed for 1 second, up to 6 seconds.
- Aspect of Corruption: Imbuement skill effects have increased potency against vulnerable enemies
- Clandestine Aspect: +1 to agility and subterfuge skills
- Ghostwalker Aspect: While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain 10- 25% increased Movement Speed and are Unhindered
- Disobedience Aspect: You gain 0.4-0.8% increased Armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to 25.00 – 46.00%
Equipment Affixes
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. This build also 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:
- Helm, Chest, Legs: Armor, Max Life, Resistances
- Gloves: Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Damage and Dexterity
- Boots: Dexterity, Ranks to Dance of Knives, Movement Speed
- Crossbow: Dexterity, Vulnerable Damage, Critical Strike Damage
- Amulet: Critical Chance, Movement Speed – You can also try Armor and Resistances to focus on survivability
- Rings: Critical Strike Chance, Dexterity, Maximum Life
Gems
When it comes to gems, you’ll want to have the following:
- Weapon: Emerald or Sapphire for bonus Critical Strike Damage or Vulnerable Damage
- Armor: Emeralds to add more Dexterity
- Jewelry: You’ll want to add the Elemental Resistances that you are lacking, or armor you are missing from skull gems to get to the 1000 cap.
Tempering
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, since Dance of Knives has 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 the Agile Augments manual to get the Chance for Dance of Knives to deal double damage. You can also look for movement speed from the Rogue Motion manual, with ranks to Stutter Step and Movement Speed per Dark Shadow being the best affixes.
Besides that, you can also get Subterfuge Expertise’s “Damage Per Dark Shroud Shadow”, anything from the Cutthroat Finesse manual, and anything from Worldly Endurance and Natural Resistance for armor and resistances.
Final Tips
To close off this guide , I just want to summarise the thought process while running this build. You want to use Dark Shroud when 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 with Dance of Knives as long as you can, while keeping Dark Shroud stacks 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 down Dance of Knives and the mouse button without having to click on an enemy.
There really isnt alot to playing the build, 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 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 if you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!
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