Diablo 4: Diablo 4: Endgame guide for Death Trap Rogue

The Death Trap Rogue in Diablo 4 is a specialized build focused on the Ultimate Skill damage. By utilizing synergies with the Preparation specialization, Beastfall Boots, and multiple cooldown reductions, players can rapidly cast Death Trap — potentially lowering its cooldown to just ten seconds.

Players with a higher Critical rate and Critical damage chance will deal significantly more damage. Additionally, equipping more aspects and higher-tier gear can further enhance the abilities of the Death Trap build.

To unlock the full potential of this build, you must farm gears and aspects. While this can be a bit challenging, this guide will help you find the items required to dominate the battlefield across the map of Diablo 4.

Note: This article contains the personal and subjective opinions of the writer.

Build requirements for Death Trap Build (Level 60+)

If you are checking out this article, chances are you have hit the Level 60 cap and unlocked all 12 skills from the Renown system (you get these by finding waypoints, interacting with the altars of Lilith, finishing side objectives, completing dungeons, and going through the strongholds). In total, you will have 72 skill points to spend within the skill tree.

Check out our Diablo 4 Best Death Trap Rogue leveling guide to learn more about this build and what are the requirements to make it work.

Death Trap Rogue skill tree (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Basic Skill Node:

The basic node is where it all begins. Since we are primarily going to focus on our Ultimate, pick any basic skill you like. We picked Forceful Shot, which makes targets vulnerable on every third hit and grants an additional 15% critical strike chance.

Core Skill Node:

At level 4, you will get access to the Core Skill tree; again pick the one you want to use. Check out the damage increase you will get from using Combo Points with Core Skills. We picked Rapid Fire, gaining a damage boost of up to 145% and up to eight arrows fired each time (base is eight arrows).

Rapid fire has the chance to increase the crit. Strike rate to 60% on the eighth hit. If the enemies are Vulnerable, gain 15 energy per cast.

Agility Skill Node:

When it comes to the Rogue class of Diablo 4, mobility is the key. No doubt that with proper build and careful implementation of Aspects and Tempering stats, you can easily destroy hordes of monsters in a matter of seconds, but it’s much easier to get stuck in a crowd of enemies and take unnecessary damage leading to a very unsatisfying playthrough.

Having high movement speed and evade rate is essential for constantly dealing damage to enemies. Upgrade to Enhanced Dash (increases Critical Strike Chance by 10% for 5 seconds) and Disciplined Dash (at the end of Dash, Knock Down surrounding enemies for two seconds and deal up to 350% increased damage).

In the Sub-Nodes, we will fully upgrade Weapon Mastery to get 12% increased damage to Vulnerable ( enemies inflicted with Vulnerable take 20% increased damage) enemies since we will be using marksman skills like Forceful Arrow (Basic skill) and Rapid Fire (Core Skill).

Subterfuge Skill Node:

Rogue in Diablo 4 is a high-damage dealing class, with the downside of having weak defenses and resistance, low armor, and life. It is important to have specific skills that will increase your survivability on the battlefield, especially in the endgame section of Diablo 4.

In Subterfuge skills, we will pick Smoke Bomb to escape enemies in the heat of battle while dealing up to 4283 (162%) increased damage and dazes the enemies for four seconds. Next, we will upgrade it to Enhanced Smoke Grenade (enemies take 25% increased damage for five seconds) and Subverting Smoke Grenades (deals Poison Damage and applies an additional 2379 (90%) Poisoning damage over five seconds.

Furthermore, we will fully upgrade Malice (deal up to 9% increased damage to Vulnerable enemies and Knocked Down enemies) and Exploit (deal up to 24% increased damage to Healthy and Injured enemies).

Imbuement Skill Node:

Imbue skills infuse your attacks with powerful elemental effects dealing an extra amount of damage. For this build, we will be using Shadow Imbuement, which allows imbued skills to deal shadow damage and infect enemies for six seconds. Infected enemies explode dealing up to 1900 (72%) damage to surrounding enemies. If the infarction expires before the death of the enemy, the enemy takes an additional 2855 (108% damage), perfect to deal damage to bosses.

Upgrade it to Enhanced Shadow Imbuement (15% increased Critical Strike Chance against enemies infected with Shadow Imbuement) and Blended Shadow Imbuement (inflict enemies with Vulnerable for three seconds).

In the Sub-Nodes, we will fully upgrade Shadow Crash (up to 30% chance for Shadow Damage to Stun enemies for 1.5 seconds) and Consuming Shadows (get 30 energy for every enemy killed by Shadow Damage).

Ultimate Skill Node:

This build relies solely on the high damage dealing Death Note. Trap arms after 0.25 seconds of placing. Once enemies are in range, it activates and pulls them in dealing up to 234230 (1350%) of total damage in the inflicted area. The cooldown is reduced by ten seconds when Death Trap kills an enemy.

Upgrade Death Trap to Prime Death Trap (slow all surrounding enemies by 85% for five seconds on activation) and Supreme Death Trap (if enemies manage to evade the initial pull-in of Death Trap, they take 180% of Death Trap’s total damage).

In the Sub-Nodes, we will upgrade Aftermath (while Ultimate Skill is in the Action Bar, you have up to 4% max. life every second. Restore 200 energy when Ultimate is cast) and Unto Dawn (Ultimate Skill deals 45% increased damage).

Key Passive Skill Node:

Since this skill relies on Death Trap (Ultimate “Trap” Skill), we will be selecting Exposure. Dealing damage to enemies affected with the trap skill has a 40% chance to reduce the cooldown to trap skills by 30% and drop a cluster of exploding stun grenades dealing up to 2115 (80%) phys. damage and stuns enemies for one second.

Rogue Class specialization guide for Death Trap

In Diablo 4 you unlock specialization skills at level 15. For this build, we will be focusing on two different specialization skills: using Combo Points until level 30, where we gain access to Preparation.

Combo Points (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Combo points are accumulated when a basic attack (in this case Forceful Arrow) is used on an enemy; these points are then used by the core skill for extra effects (increasing arrows shot by Rapid Fire from five to eight for every Combo point gathered up to three).

Preparation (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

While using Preparation, reduce the cooldown of the Ultimate Skill by five seconds by spending 75 energy. Also, using Ultimate Skills resets the cooldowns of other skills and gives a 15% damage reduction for ten seconds.

Gear: Ancestral/Mythic

Farming for better gear is the best way to level up your skills and stats, when you have reached the endgame of Diablo 4. Switching to Torment difficulty is a surefire way of getting Ancestral and Mythic loot drops. With the massive number of equipment options for Death Trap Rogue in Diablo 4’s endgame, it’s possible to mix and match items and gears to your liking.

Here's the min-maxed endgame setup of ancestral gear we use:

Mythic and Ancestral Gears (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Weapon:

Doombringer is another fantastic weapon option, as it reduces your enemies’ damage and provides you with a ton of additional HP.
Ghoul King's Blade increases crit strike damage as well as damage per hit.
Condemnation is a fantastic choice for a weapon since it gives a major boost to the damage output of the Core Skill when three combo points are used.

Helm:

Harlequin Crest provides you with an amazing affix, allowing you to live longer while increasing all your skills’ ranks.
Heir of Perdition which gives you 200% damage against Angels and Demons. Furthermore, you gain Mother’s favor and deal 60% extra damage to enemies.
Andariel’s Visage, a mythic unique helm that applies poison nova deals over 24,000 poisoning damage over five seconds in the area.

Ring:

Ring of Starless Skies - It gives a +10% resistance to all elements plus another 10% resistance to all elements. Also, spending resources reduces your resource costs and increases your damage by 10% for three seconds up to 50%.
Scoundrel’s Kiss is a unique ring that turns Rapid Fire into exploding arrows that deal 35% to 55% increased shadow damage.
Mother’s Embrace - If a Core Skill hits 4 or more enemies, 60% of the Resource cost is refunded.

Greaves:

Beastfall Boots - When you cast an Ultimate Skill, your next Core skill consumes all of your energy and deals 0.5–1.5% increased damage per Energy consumed.
Flickerstep is a unique boot that lowers Ultimate Skill cooldown by 2- 4 seconds with every enemy you Evade.
Assassin’s Stride - Damaging an elite or a boss with a mobility skill has a 40-80% chance to cause a Shadow Imbuement explosion.

Chest Piece:

Scoundrel's Leathers - While you have unlimited Energy from Inner Sight, casting a Core Skill has a 60 - 80% chance to spawn Caltrops, Poison Trap, or Death Trap.
Tyrael’s Might - mythic unique chest armor that gives massive 60% resistance from elements and 20% damage reduction. When with a full life, skills unleash a divine barrage dealing up to 810 damage.

Pants:

Tibault’s Will - You deal 20% increased damage while Unstoppable and for five seconds after. When you become Unstoppable, gain 50 of your Primary Resources.
Tassets of the Dawning Sky - When you take damage from a Non-Physical damage type, you gain 15.0% Maximum Resistance to that damage type for six seconds. This effect can only apply to one damage type at a time.

Gloves:

Eyes in the dark - gives an additional 155% to 300% Ultimate Skill damage. Death Trap deals an additional 50% to 150% damage and rearms once after activating.
Grasp of Shadow - Casting a Marksman or Cutthroat Skill has a 50% chance to summon a Shadow Clone that mimics that Skill.
Fists of Fate - Your attacks randomly deal 1% to 300% of their normal damage.

Amulet:

Ocelot's Eye of Quickening Fog - 30% resistance from all elements. Drop a smoke grenade at the end of Dash and reduce Dash’s cooldown up to 3.15 seconds.
Ring of Starless Skies - Spending your Primary Resource reduces the Resource cost of your Skills and increases your damage by 10% for three seconds, up to 50%.

Tempering:

We will still be looking into upgrading Dexterity and Critical Strike chances as high as possible while tempering the gears.

For gear stats, we will be prioritizing the following:

Critical Strike Chance
Critical Strike Damage
Ultimate Skill Damage
Ultimate Skill Cooldown
Trap Skill cooldown
Maximum Health
Maximum Resources
Total Armor
Vulnerable Damage

For more information, check the complete guide on twisting blades.

Aspects:

For aspects, we will be using the same ones we have used in our Twisting Blade Guide.

Smiting Aspect (Legendary aspect): You have a 19% - 34% increased critical strike chance against injured enemies. While you are healthy, you gain (38% - 68%) increased crowd control duration.
Aspect of Quickening Fog - Randomly on Legendary item drops: Drop a smoke grenade at the end of Dash, which reduces the cooldown of Dash up to 2.10 seconds.
Vehement Brawler’s Aspect - Haunted Refuge dungeon: Casting an Ultimate skill increases damage up to 30% for eight seconds. Gain +2 ranks to Ultimate Skill.
Aspect of Apogeic Furor - Randomly on Legendary item drops: Casting An Ultimate Skill increases ultimate damage by 10% up to 100%. At ten stacks, the cooldown and bonus are reset.
Ravenous Aspect - Shifting City in Dry Steppes: Killing a Vulnerable enemy grants you up to 112% increased Energy Regen for four seconds.
Shadowslicer Aspect - Twisted Hollow in Scosglen: Sadh summons a Shadow Clone that casts dash, dealing damage up to 350% of base damage.
The aspect of the Umbral from Champion’s Demise – Dry Steppes: Restore (1.0 - 8.0) of your Primary Resources when you Crowd Control an Enemy.
Aspect of Corruption from the Renegade's Retreat – Kehjistan: Your Imbuement Skill effect has (25% - 45%) increased potency against Vulnerable enemies (Rogue Only).
Cheat’s Aspect from Luban’s Rest—Scosglen: You take (10% - 30%) less damage from crowd-controlled enemies that deal direct damage to you and gain 15% movement speed for two seconds (Rogue Only).
Edgemaster’s Aspect from Oldstones—Scosglen: Skills deal up to (5% - 25%) increased damage based on your available primary resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full primary resource.
Mangler’s Aspect: Lucky Hit - Dealing direct damage to a Vulnerable enemy has up to a (25% - 75%) chance to daze them for two seconds (Rogue Only).

It's a good idea to experiment with different aspects that match your playstyle.

Paragon Boards for Death Trap Rogue Build in Diablo 4

How to get Paragon Points

You can earn a total of 328 Paragon points throughout Diablo 4; these can be allocated in the Paragon Board system.

You can get a total of 300 Paragon points at Paragon Level 300.
24 Paragon points can be gained through Renown from each region in Diablo 4.
4 Paragon points can be obtained from interacting with the Altars of Lilith.

Key things for Paragon Board

Paragon Boards adds another layer of depth while upgrading, offering the ultimate endgame customization to your character's stats. Paragon points are used on the Paragon Board system, allowing players to unlock specific nodes and gain targeted buffs. This gives players the freedom to increase whichever stats they want to improve and gain some passive skill buffs.

There are nine Paragon Boards available, but players can attach and use up to five, including the starting board. Here is the list of all the Paragon Boards we will use for our Rogue class build:

Rogue Basic Board - Starting board.
Cheap Shot - you deal 5% increased damage for each nearby enemy that is Crowd Controlled, up to 25%. A nearby Staggered Boss provides the maximum bonus.
Danse Macabre - Casting a Mobility or Subterfuge Skill increases the damage of your next Skill by 50%.
Deadly Ambush - you deal 22% increased Crit, Strike Damage to enemies affected by your Trap Skill by 75%.
No Witness - Your Ultimate Skills gain an additional 20% damage from your damage up to 60%. Additionally, casting an Ultimate grants this bonus to all skills for 10 seconds.

Paragon Boards (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Best glyphs to level with Death Trap Rogue in Diablo 4 Season 7

Every Paragon Board comes with an empty socket, where you can place a glyph of your choice. This glyph will further boost your character’s passive skills if the parameters of the used glyphs are met.

There are multiple glyphs available to choose from; here are the ones we will be using to augment our build:

Ambush
Snare
Explosive
Ranger
Versatility

Leveling up the Paragon Boards will help fortify your build. Using this stack of boards and these particular glyphs will help with raising the resistance stats as well as the crit rates.

Best Witch Power synergy to use with Death Trap in Diablo 4 Season 7

Diablo 4 Season 7 Season of Witchcraft introduces two new mechanics — Witchcraft Powers and Occult Gems. Players have 25 choices of Witchcraft Powers, divided into four schools (Eldritch, Growth & Decay, Psyche, and Lost), and can equip up to six at a time.

These powers can be unlocked and upgraded by collecting Restless Rot by doing Headhunt Zones or discovering Forgotten Altars, adding a new layer of depth to Diablo4’s gameplay.

Witchcraft Powers (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Best Witchcraft Powers to slot in:

Vengeful Spirit - Every 19 seconds, a Vengeful Spirit is Summoned for six seconds. While active any damage you take is redirected to the spirit. At rank 5, when the spirit’s life is depleted it rushes towards enemies and explodes for 4600 shadow Damage.
Decay Augmentation - Witchcraft Effects deal an additional 21% of their base damage over five Seconds. (damage type Bleeding, Burning, Poisoning, or Shadow Damage over time). At level 10, if the DoT increases by 85% of the target's total health, the target is executed.
Purging Touch - Your Eldritch Effects deal 21% increased damage to Headrotten. At rank 10 this bonus applies to all monsters.
Twilight Warding - Generate a barrier for 30% of your max health for five seconds. At rank 12 it can reflect incoming enemy projectiles.
Aura Specialization - Your Auras gain 84% size. At rank 10, you deal 35% increased Crit. strike damage to the enemies with your Auras.
Aura of Siphoning - An Aura of Siphoning surrounds you, dealing 548 Poison Damage Every Second. At rank 10, heals you for 1% each time enemies are damaged by Aura of Siphoning.

Occult Gems in Diablo 4 Season 7:

In Diablo 4 Season 7, defeating rare Headrotten Bosses, which carry Fugitive Heads, gives players a chance to obtain and upgrade Occult Gems. These Gems can boost stats and give unique effects that synergize with Witchcraft Powers, giving various bonuses for offensive, defensive, and utility skills.

Best Occult gem for Death Trap build:

Voice of the stars - While you have an Aura active, your Ultimate Skills are also treated as Eldritch, Growth, Decay, and Psyche. Ultimate Skills Deal up to 30% additional damage for eight seconds. Gain +2 ranks to Ultimate Skill.

How to use Ritual Runes and Invocation Runes in Diablo 4

Diablo 4 introduced us to the Runeword System with the release of the Vessel of Hatred expansion, allowing players to have deeper customization options. This system rotates around two types of runes — ritual runes and invocation runes. Ritual runes set the conditions to generate offerings, while invocation runes unleash powerful effects once the required offering amount is met. So how do we use them?

Ritual Runes can be put into a gem socket of a gear (said gear must have two gem sockets); these runes generate a resource called Offering when you meet the condition specified in the Ritual Rune.

This generated resource is then used by Invocation Runes to unleash powerful effects on the battlefield. The more powerful the effect is, the higher the offerings required.

The Runes can be used to craft other Runes or upgraded to higher rarities. Also, you can craft Mythic Runes using specific combinations of Magic, Rare, and Legendary Runes at the Jeweler.

Best in slot Runewords for Death Trap Rogue in Diablo 4

You can use any rune you like for your Death Trap Rogue Build; here are a few that I prefer using:

Ritual Rune:

Zan (Magic): Gain 150 Offering when you cast an Ultimate Skill.
Bac (Legendary): Gain 50 Offering when you travel 5 meters.
Poc (Rare): Gain 2 Offering when you spend 5% of your Maximum Resource.
Cem (Magic): Gain 75 Offering when you cast Evade.

Invocation Rune:

1. Lac (Rare)

Requires: 800 Offering
Effect: Evoke the Barbarian’s Challenging Shout, reducing your damage taken.
Overflow: Increased Duration
Cooldown: 1 Second

2. Ton (Magic)

Requires: 25 Offering
Effect: Evoke the Sorcerer’s Meteorites, dealing damage to enemies.
Overflow: Increased Meteorites Spawned
Cooldown: 1 Second

3. Ono (Magic)

Requires: 25 Offering
Effect: Evoke the Druid’s Dancing Bolts, seeking and dealing damage to enemies.
Overflow: Increased Bolts Spawned
Cooldown: 1 Second

4. Ceh (Magic)

Requires: 100 Offering
Effect: Summon a Spirit Wolf to attack enemies for 8 seconds.
Overflow: Summon Multiple Wolves
Cooldown: 1 Second

Experiment with the Runeword system and figure out which rune combination works for your playstyle and build.

Mercenaries and reinforcements:

Early on in the Vessel of Hatred expansion of Diablo 4, you can unlock Rahir as the first mercenary by doing a priority quest called “The Hand Remembers the Blade.” Once done, you can talk to Rahir and hire him as a mercenary.

There are four mercenaries available in Diablo 4; each of them can be unlocked after finishing their quests.

Mercenaries

Subo is by far the most useful mercenary to have in Diablo 4. He can mark enemies for ten seconds, allowing you to deal extra damage to them. Furthermore, Subo reveals all enemies and materials in the area. You can customize his skill stats to suit your playstyle. For his core skill, we recommend choosing Wire Trap, followed by Trip Mine to crowd-control enemies and get the most benefits from trap damage, increasing bonuses from the paragon board.

Subo's Skill Tree (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Reinforcement

For our reinforcement, we will pick Rahir, as he enhances the player's defenses while taunting and dealing damage to enemies. Reinforcements always stay with the character but can use only one skill. For that you can pick anyone you like; we chose Provoke whenever the character casts Smoke Grenade, getting a 5% incoming damage reduction from each enemy it hits up to 20%.

Rahir (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Conclusion

Overall, the endgame of Diablo 4 can be dominated with a properly built Death trap Rogue. And now with all the different customization options available in the game, it’s easy to make a unique version of any build, giving you complete control as well as understanding of your character’s capabilities.

I hope this guide has helped understand the mechanisms of Diablo 4’s endgame. Happy hunting.

Check out our other guides to Diablo 4:

Edited by Ashmita Bhatt