5 Powerful D2R Act 1 Rogue Build Variants - Best Crowd Control Rogues In Diablo 2 Resurrected

5 Powerful D2R Act 1 Rogue Build Variants - Best Crowd Control Rogues In Diablo 2 Resurrected

5/28/2022 3:29:08 PM

Tag: Items Guide Beginner Guide

Today we are going to be breaking down multiple iterations of the act 1 rogue mercenary in Diablo 2 Resurrected. There's a lot of different viable variants for the act 1 rogue mercenary, so everything from budget caster support to movement speed support to hardcore like dps, crowd control and there is actually a cold dps variant as well. So let’s go through these different iterations, everything from the budget end of the spectrum to very high end geared, but really powerful act 1 rogue mercenaries.

BEST POWERFUL ACT 1 ROGUE BUILD VARIANTS & MERCENARIES

Best Crowd Control Rogues - 5 Powerful Diablo 2 Resurrected Act 1 Rogue Build Variants

There are 3 key changes they made to the actual rogue mercenary, they did get minor defense, life and dps bumps, but it's not too much of a difference from lod. But the 3 biggest changes is they can now use amazon specific bows and they benefit from those plus bow and crossbow skills. So we should be on the lookout for plus 3 to bone cross with skills from a matriarchal bow because you can attack quicker. So whether you're procking a freezing arrow or a curse or a chance to cast something on, striking makes more sense to go with a quicker bow just because they're not really dps sources. There was originally a fire arrow and a cold air mercenary so they built upon that so the cold arrow variant now shoots freezing arrow. This is definitely the most powerful choice, it literally freezes monsters in their tracks, it's very powerful for crowd control and the fire arrow variant now shoots an explosion arrow. The only kind of upside to the fire variant is you're trying to avoid that freezing for you want monsters to hit you to rock a curse or something. But for the most part 9out of 10 times you're gonna be wanting to go with the freezing air of variants.

Now let's first jump into a couple really powerful Diablo 2 budget act 1 rogue variants:

1. Budget Insight Rogue

The first budget act 1 mercenary is the freezing arrow insight rumored variant. So for those that don't know, you can now roll the rumored inside and bow. So it makes for a very viable mercenary especially if you don't have a cta, the biggest difference between akbar and rogue mercenary and act 2 is the ai. Rogues tend to stay back and attack from range and they have freezing aero support, so if you don't have big cta buff or you don't have life leech helmet, these mercenaries actually stay alive a lot better than the act 2 counterpart. So if you're looking for an easy source like meditation or from intercovery for a caster, this is a great mercenary. So this is the freezing arrow variant, using a garbage goldskin body armor to cap the resistance undead crown for life stolen per hit.

2. Budget Harmony Rogue

The second iteration is with the same fire druid character, the only difference is switchout the insight bow to the runeword harmony, so it's again a 3 to bone cross with skills matriarchal bull base with harmony for that vigor. You can see how much a non-teleporting character does benefit from having the vigor aurora. If you're running around without enigma on a character whether it's a foh paladin, fire druid, poison javazon and you want to get around quicker, slapping harmony on a mercenary is a really good option. The summons get around quicker, it's gonna significantly speed up runs just from making the difference of the switch out to harmony instead of insight. You do lose the meditation or you're gonna have to pot, but that's not really the end of the world. You want a really lazy afk build insights, like just running around armageddon is much better in 2.4, just imagine doing like 100 sony trim runs without enigma, having harmony would help out a time. If you really wanted an after kill, silk leaves or something, that's gonna help but. Using the freezing arrow crowd control support with harmony can be a really good option to get around a lot faster.

3. Melee Support Rogue

The next variant is an expensive option to substitute a melee character, so that might sound weird, melee character, low dps rogue, how are you pulling it off? We're taking advantage of brand for the chance to cast amplified damage when struck. It has a 33% chance to cast level 14 amplified damage when struck, so that is a huge damage buff compared to reaper's toll. This is probably not a better option than an act 2 might aura reaper's toll mercenary for melee character, but it's definitely something cool, a different alternative.

Two things to note about this build is we do not go with the freezing arrow option because we don't want stuff to be frozen, we want her to get hit, so it's a really weird build choice. Also not using shout because we want to make sure she has the lowest defense possible. So very low defense 2266, but we wanted to have life leech and very high damage reduction to absorb hits. So she has 30 dr with shafstop and 20 dr with vampire gaze. So 50 dr life leech, the lowest possible defense, so she has a very high percent chance to get hit to proc amplified damage. You could use this on a variety of different melee builds although it's very expensive gear because you want to have teleport the telestomp into a monster pack, you want her to get hit raw camp damage and then you take advantage of the extra damage for your physical character, but if you want to try out something fun and different, highly recommend trying it out.

4. Crowd Control Rogue

The next mercenary is using the rumored ice and delirium for an ultimate crowd control effect. You can use this same mercenary on fist of heavens paladin when you can obtain the wealth to roll the rumored ice on ladder, because the combination of holy freeze aura with chance to cast confusion striking and also having that freezing arrow. It's just insane crowd control, it's well beyond what you can achieve with an actual mercenary and using redemption on a fist heavens paladin you don't have to worry about life or mana, you are not forced to use a redemption orb. So the rumored ice and a matriarchal ball or that holy freeze when equipped paired that with treachery, so she can attack really quickly, the helmet is delirium for chance to cast confusion striking. Combination of all those factors can literally just bring entire mobs of cows, just stop in their tracks.

5. Cold DPS Rogue

The final mercenary variant is a full-on cold dps build. There was no dps with these rogue mercenaries, but you can kind of get around with one unique build, so the gear is very expensive but it's interesting too. The runeword to use is mist, so this is a brand new runeword that was introduced into patch 2.4, so cham shell gul thulith, and if it has +3 to skills including the +3 to skills on the base but has a 100% piercing attack. So this really helps with their dps over ice. Pair this with a faceted 15 cold damage warmest robes and a faceted 15 cold damage nightwing, so she gets an additional 40% cold damage.

What you're gonna find interesting though with the dps and this is because she doesn't receive the same cold skill synergies that a traditional ice amazon does, but she does 1674 max damage with mist, if you equip ice, 1642 or 1674, so it's more damage using mist, but it actually caters to being a better build because of the 100% pierce. When she shoots an arrow, everything she shoots through is just being massive damage, but it's transferring through monsters and freezing everything. So it's actually a better choice, you do lose out on the holy freezer but pairing that with a tesla and mercenary that has a high level conviction aura. So the idea here is bringing every single monster down to negative 100 cold res, and then she's going to be attacking them with 1600 cool damage like you can actually clear stuff with very expensive like one-off high-level conviction, but she can definitely hold her own, she'll pierce through and just shatter everything.