The rouge during the early access beta for Diablo IV ended up being my second favorite class so far to play. He was nimble yet did decent damage. While he did not have the clearing speed in that the sorcerer had he sure tried his hardest.

Like the sorcerer I played I also started this character off with a bank full of items. Since this was now my third character he had even better stuff than my last one. Even more so since I found an amazing dagger that he could use right away.

However, unlike the sorcerer, I could tell it was the higher-level gear and armor that was pushing a lot of the weight around. Once I got to higher levels, kills slowed down and the rogue started to feel a bit less nimble.

By the time I got to the rouge, I was getting fatigued from running all the same missions and storylines over and over again. So while I had a blast playing him I also spent the least amount of time on one.

So I wanted to go fast and it turns out this was the perfect class for doing so. There were several options in terms of skills that increased my ability to move around or even my base moment speed. Anytime I saw that option for a skill I went for it.

This more or less meant every time I was out of energy to use for a bigger attack that did area damage I just had to do some quick stabby stab with an invigorating strike and I had enough energy to do whatever I wanted.

While I had options to also go for ranged damage later on with traps and using my bow. I wanted to see if melee was going to be at a huge disadvantage or if it was just the barbarian that I was having a hard time feeling. So I ended up focusing just on melee damage.

I can say after playing the rogue that it makes the barbarian feel like a tank. The rogue was like wet paper if it was not for its nice damage output it would have been the worst of all the classes I played. Thankfully it was not and could kill the barbarian in Its sleep.

For my next damage type, I went for Flurry. It allowed me to damage the creatures in front of me. While it was not as great as the sorcerer's fireballs. It was quick enough to almost make up for it.

I moved around the battle with some other skills I picked up quickly taking out small groups of creatures. This is where the rogue if feel with the skills I picked were at their best. Since I could quickly get energy the 25 energy cost for flurry was no big deal.

It also helps that the rouge ended up generating energy over time. He also did not lose any for standing in one area for a while doing nothing. So most of the time went into every combat situation with at least some energy.

Perhaps the biggest thing for me was when I picked up the dash. I was missing having a decent moment speed skill to get around with. While it has a 10-second cool down I ended up having 2 uses of the skill before having to wait for one to fully recharge.

At this point, I was also just in utter shock at how fast I was able to get through the part of the game we had access to in early beta. At one point I had to stop and go clear a random dungeon as I was starting to enter areas I was below the level of.

Since the rouge is a bit weak on the deference side of things. Staying on level par with the areas I was in helped migrate getting hit too hard. Despite that, I don’t think I even got killed once playing one.

While I almost ran out of healing potions a couple of times fighting dungeon bosses. In the end, the rouge won out every single time. He was not as quick at killing the bosses as the sorcerer was. It was however swiftly ahead of the barbarian and that is all that counts.

I’m sure if I had gone traps and other ranged damage types such encounters would have been a lot easier. Since I was pure melee I had to go in to deal the damage. This also made things more thrilling in my eyes.

I could have made things a bit easier on myself. There were times when upgrading my skills in their branches that I could have either gone for further damage or a little bit of defense. I however was always picking anything that increased moment speed.

That sounds quite OP if you ask me. That might mean I could just stand at a boss and face tank as long as I was getting enough health potion drops. I however never tested these pants much. While I did end up taking the rouge to level 18 at this point I had been on quite a Diablo IV weekend binge and needed to rest.

Being able to imbuement weapons also helped me pick up that damage and feeling nimble again that was starting to fade the higher level I went and the slower the kills got. For me, the rouge was all about going fast.

I also feel since I went with the exploding skill this helped solve another issue I ran into while playing the rouge. The set of skills I had was rather great at dealing with creatures attacking in a small pack from one side.

If I was in a situation where attacks were coming from all sides. That was an issue. Thankfully the rouge between its quick attacks and almost as quick regeneration of energy could at least put up a fight when that happened. It was however a bit exhausting and I dare say the barbarian with whirlwind would do a better job in those situations.

Final Thoughts

It gave me the movement speed I wish I could have had on other characters. Granted once we have the use of mounts I feel that moment speed to get around will not be as important. It’s also not like we could not teleport to a few different towns that were not that far away from things. The little bit of walking I had to do was not that bad.

Other Content

• Diablo IV Early Access Beta | The Sorcerer Of Fiery Death
• Diablo IV Early Access Beta | Starting As A Barbarian
• Diablo IV Early Access Beta | Taking A Look At Different Systems

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Diablo IV. This was during the early access beta. Things are subject to change.