The Diablo 4 Dance of Knives build is all about the speed, precision, and deadly efficiency of Rogues. It grants a player the capability to gracefully dance through enemies in close combat with maximum damage. Master key abilities and optimize the right gear in our guide to turn your Rogue into a whirling storm of blades that will cut through elites and bosses alike without cessation.
In Diablo IV Season 9, Dance of Knives build makes Rogue a fast, unstoppable machine for fun destruction of mobs, which rightly takes its high place in tier-lists. This Rogue build is based on the Dance of Knives skill, Dash, and Concealment, which increase your movement speed. With their help, you get a character that is ready to go through all the Diablo 4 content.
Currently, the Dance of Knives build is the top choice for leveling. It can be a bit underperforming in the endgame activities, but it is perfect for fast and easy clearings on your way to the level cap.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Dance of Knives Rogue build is overall good, but to be fully prepared to play, you need to know all of its pros and cons:
Strengths
Weaknesses
✅Massive AoE damage
⛔️Not Spiritborn
✅Mobility
⛔️Not massive damage for single-target
✅Easy gameplay
⛔️Need to move to deal lots of damage
Build Requirements
For the Dance of Knives Rogue build, you don’t need any specific Unique or Legendary items. The only thing we advise you to get is the Star Shards, as this aspect empowers your core skill and allows for more maneuvers. All in all, you can choose any item or Legendary Aspect from the Best Gear section of this guide — they all will work perfectly fine.
Dance of Knives Horadric Spell
Disintegrate is the best Catalyst choice for Dance of Knives Rogues due to its long uptime and reliability. Here’s what to focus on when working on your Dance of Knives Horadric Spell:
In Arcana, Fractured Core cancels enemy damage reduction, Gleaming Conduit spreads your beam for better targeting, and Bloody Charm offers an elite finish for a massive damage spike.
Optional Arcana like Sapping Crux can increase Vulnerable uptime if acquired early.
In this section, you can find the Dance of Knives Skill Tree. Anchored by fast, close-quarters combat, this tree gives you a devastating opportunity to deal damage as you are nimbly and with no effort avoid the enemy’s attack.
There are 71 skill points distributed in the skill tree, and you can get the missing points from Althars of Lilith that our team can find and activate for you. There’s no need to place the Puncture skill on a skill bar because we take it for skill tree progression. Also, you can choose Disciplined Shadow Step instead of Dash for Unstoppable buff, to dodge Crowd Control.
You can try our recommended skill bar, but you can swap any buttons as you want:
To unlock the Specialization feature, you need to complete the “True Potential” questline. You need a minimum level 15, to get started on this questline. Inner Sight is a good specialization for Dance of Knives Rogue, which increases your crit damage. Anyway, you can choose any specialization you want.
Read more about Rogue specializations and class mechanics in our Diablo 4 Rogue Guide.
Active Skills
In this table, you can find all active spells for the Dance of Knives build:
Passive skills are skills that improve your base damage, give you damage buffs, and enhance gameplay. You can find them for Dance of Knives in the table below:
For explosive damage against groups use Shadow Imbuement, or Cold Imbuement for handling tough elites and staggered bosses.
Activate the damage buff from Unstable Elixirs by using a potion near elites to Stun or bosses to Stagger.
To set up temporary buffs for snapshotting apply Concealment.
Maintain uninterrupted Dance of Knives to keep the temporary buffs active.
Paragon Boards for Dance of Knives
Paragon Boards were reworked in the Diablo 4 Sins of the Horadrim expansion. Now they unlock on level 60, and you get one paragon point from one level (instead of 3). You have 300 levels and 328 total paragon points (adding 24 from renown and 4 from Althars of Lilith). Also, Paragon levels are shared across the characters.
Paragon nodes are endgame mechanic that allows you to empower your character and build more restructureable. And we can help you get the desired number of skill points with our Paragon Level service.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
When you level up the Paragon Board, you open Normal Nodes and Legendary Nodes. And some of these nodes have slots for glyphs. Here’s a Glyph priority order:
You can always upgrade your glyphs in dungeons, but this is quite a tough task, as you’ll need to grind, like, a lot. However, our team is ready to help and can assist you with the Glyph Leveling anytime.
Best Gear Dance of Knives
In this table, we have the best gear for Dance of Knives build with all the aspects you need to perform well:
Knives from Dance of Knives have a 50% chance to shatter into 6 shards of metal on hit, dealing [X] Physical damage. Dance of Knives now spends Combo Points, granting up to 3 additional Charges that can exceed the Maximum.
Using an Agility Skill reduces the Cooldown of your next Subterfuge Skill by 20%. Using a Subterfuge Skill increases the damage of your next Agility Skill by x [35 – 55%].
While at maximum stacks of the Momentum Key Passive, your Cutthroat Skills deal [30 – 50%] increased damage and you become Unstoppable for 3 seconds every 8 seconds.
Distant enemies have a 10% chance to be Stunned for 2 seconds when they hit you. You deal x [15 – 35%] increased damage to Stunned and Knocked Down enemies.
Your Basic Skills are always Cold Imbued. You deal x [5 – 20%] increased damage to enemies who are Chilled or Frozen. Note: Only used for the increased damage, not the Basic Skill effect.
Gain x [15 – 35%] increased damage to a set of damage types for 7 seconds. This effect alternates between 2 sets: • Fire, Lightning, and Physical. • Cold, Poison, and Shadow.
Enemies hit by your Grenade Skills have a chance equal to your Critical Strike Chance to be Frozen for 2 seconds. You deal x [10 – 25%] increased Critical Strike Damage against Frozen or Stunned enemies.
Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy has up to a 20% chance to Daze them for 2 seconds. You deal x [5 – 20%] increased damage to Dazed enemies.
Gear Stats
To unleash the maximum potential, you need to prioritize Gear Stats for Dance of Knives Rogue. And here you can find the items for each slot and their priority stats:
Slot
Gear Affixes
Tempering Affixes
Ranged Weapon
1. Maximum Life; 2. Dexterity; 3. Critical Strike Damage.
Agile Augments (Weapon): Chance for Dance of Knives to Deal Double Damage (cap at 100%) Subterfuge Expertise (Offensive): Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth
Dual-Wielded Weapons
1. Maximum Life; 2. Dexterity; 3. Critical Strike Damage.
Agile Augments (Weapon): Chance for Dance of Knives to Deal Double Damage (cap at 100%) Subterfuge Expertise (Offensive): Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth
Helm
1. Cooldown Reduction; 2. Any uncapped Resistances or Armor; 3. Maximum Life, Dexterity.
Worldly Fortune (Utility): Lucky Hit Chance to Slow Worldly Endurance (Defensive): Armor up to 1,000 cap, otherwise Dodge Chance
Chest
1. Cooldown Reduction; 2. Any uncapped Resistances or Armor; 3. Maximum Life, Dexterity.
Worldly Fortune (Utility): Lucky Hit Chance to Immobilize Worldly Endurance (Defensive): Armor up to 1,000 cap, otherwise Dodge Chance
Gloves
1. Cooldown Reduction; 2. Any uncapped Resistances or Armor; 3. Maximum Life, Dexterity.
Unique items for Dance of Knives are the items that do the most damage in a build. There are no required items in this build, but there are recommended ones, which we will show below:
Fists of Fate — Obvious choice, highly recommended for this build, because of their passive. This unique effect offers up to a 50% overall damage boost. Lucky Hit Chance: apply a Random Crowd Control Effect affix is particularly effective for quickly staggering bosses. Priority stat: Attack Speed.
Mythic Items for Dance of Knives
We can recommend more Dance of Knives Rogue Best Mythic Items than Unique with a list below:
Heir of Perdition — Excellent choice, item increases damage output. Highly recommended item. Priority stat: Lucky Hit Chance
Tyrael’s Might — This is the best defensive option for the chest gear slot. Priority stat: Damage Reduction.
All of those items are optional; we just recommend them for this build. However, we can get you any item you want, even ones that might be very hard to obtain, like Tyrael’s Might.
Best Gems for Dance of Knives
Gems are inserted into items and give stats for you. You can craft them or get them from the mobs or bosses. Here we have a list of Gems for the Dance of Knives Build:
Weapon gems: Grand Emerald for increased Critical Strike Damage.
Runewords, unlocked during the Sins of the Horadrim campaign, can reinforce the build’s strength or fix its weaknesses. Runewords occupy the socket slots of equipment. Keep in mind that you can only equip two Runewords at a time. In this table, we have the best Runewords for Dance of Knives Build:
Gain: 150 Offering — Evoke power from another Class. Requires: 600 Offering, Cooldown: 2 Seconds — Evoke the Barbarian’s Enhanced War Cry, increasing your Movement Speed and damage dealt.
Gain: 50 Offering — Travel 5 meters. Requires: 100 Offering, Cooldown: 1 Second — Evoke the Necromancer’s Horrid Decrepify, Slowing enemies, reducing their damage, and letting you Execute them.
Runewords are a new mechanic in the Diablo 4 Sins of the Horadrim addon, and it could be hard to obtain them. But you can use our Runewords services and get any Rune you want in no time.
Dance of Knives Best Mercenaries
Another mechanic relevant for the new Season of Diablo IV is Mercenaries. You need to complete the Mercenary key quests to unlock them. We recommended two Mercenaries for Dance of Knives:
📌 Note: You can choose any Mercenaries that you like, just make sure to adjust their skills to your needs.
Elixirs for Dance of Knives
Elixirs give your Dance of Knives Rogue stats and survivability. You can craft them with Alchemy or loot from mobs. We have a list of the best Dance of Knives Build Elixirs:
Elixir of Advantage — a very helpful elixir that increases your damage output;
With these elixirs, you can make your gameplay easier.
Dance of Knives Aspects
In this section, you can find Aspects for Dance of Knives which you can unlock from dungeons. Here we have a list with aspect values of core Dance of Knives Aspects:
Umbrous Aspect — allows us to completely ignore Dark Shroud management, as it handles everything for us with Lucky Hits.
Frostbitten Aspect — will have its damage boost permanently active due to our Fists of Fate constantly CCing enemies.
In this guide, you’ve learned how to turn your Rogue with Dance of Knives build into a deadly, quick-moving assassin capable of handling everything that Diablo 4 throws their way. Perfect this build and watch enemies fall before the unstoppable dance of your blades. Good luck in conquering the world of Diablo IV.
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