Twisting Blades, while powerful especially with the Aspect, did not really captivate us as mentioned. It felt relatively squishy, slow, and had little sustain. Our D4 build is centered around ultra-fast close attacks with Blade Shift with Combo Point activation through Flurry, Vulnerability, Crit, Crowd Control (CC), Stuns and Traps, Lucky Hit, Knock-Downs, high mobility uptime, and tackiness. It uses no Ultimates. We were able to beat the Butcher solo without potions in a minute and Ashava's haymakers dealt less than half of the HP Bar. Mobility is highly valuable in this game in order to avoid projectiles and evade boss haymakers, ground effects, and other such hazards.

Skills

Active Skills

1. Blade Shift - 7 points

Blade Shift here is more of a personal choice since it is faster than Invigorating Strike and Puncture, the latter of which we do not like since it does not really fit in the style of being melee. Depending on the attack speed ceiling, if any, we're sticking to Blade Shift for now. For now, we're ignoring any animation-canceling mechanics since we surmise they will be addressed. Can you substitute them for Blade Shift? Absolutely! Here are some considerations:

• Blade Shift

While the fastest, it understandably has the lowest Lucky Hit chance which we will try to improve with gear/stats. We adore Blade Shift because of the nodes that add up to 20% movement speed and the damage reduction (DR) node that might come in handy in the endgame. We have other sources of Daze so we skipped the other node.

• Invigorating Strike

This might be my main damaging ability in endgame actually if attack speed breakpoints will mean the innate difference between Blade Shift and Invigorating Strike becomes meaningless. We will have to see. The trade-off will be that you lose the movement speed and DR of Blade Shift.

• Puncture

It is thematically unappealing for us so we did not build around it. But the node that provides guaranteed Vulnerability will be very appealing to many so you can replace the build with this.

3. Shadow Step - 3 points

This is a very useful skill when you need to extricate yourself from nasty situations and times when you get stunned or held down—its Unstoppable effect lets you break out of CC even stuff like the Blood Bishop's grab. The nodes increase your crit chance on key targets and reduce the cooldown for added mobility. The other node that stuns is not necessary since you have stunned with Flurry and Grenades but may be a valuable early game. We use the Ravager's Aspect on boots for the additional charge.

4. Caltrops - 3 points

We love this skill. It slows, increases your damage, and increases your crit chance (double additional chance if Vulnerable) and helps proc Vulnerable with the Blast-Trapper's Aspect.

5. Dash - 3 points

Another mobility and damage amplification skill, Dash helps you position well, increases your crit damage, and is a source of Daze aside from Smoke Bomb. Early on, you might be able to obtain the Aspect of the Quickening Fog which drops a Smoke Bomb at the end of Dash. If you get this, you can shift around some points due to the free skill slot on the bar for Smoke Bomb, and replace it with Dark Shroud for the added 10%, Crit Chance. Due to your mobility and high dodge, you can sustain at least two shadows.

6. Smoke Bomb - 2 points

We just use this for added CC through Daze and the node amplifies your damage by 15%. It can proc off of Quickening Cloud as discussed and frees up a slot. It's a great source to Daze enemies and procs the Trick Attacks and Concussive passives for more crit and CC.

Passive Skills

These passives are self-explanatory.

• Siphoning Strikes in conjunction with Enhanced Flurry means that we are going to sustain a lot. Since they work on a percentage basis, we plan to increase my max health and health% as much as we can.

• Sturdy is good for close-range DR since we plan to go close-range exclusively. Agile increases your dodge chance by 9% for every cooldown used. With Shadow Step, Caltrops, Dash, and Smoke Bomb (with two charges on the first three even), you will greatly benefit from Agile and will in turn benefit Dark Shroud should you take it with or without Smoke Bomb or Quickening Fog.

• Weapon Mastery, Exploit, and Malice are straight-up damage buffs so we just had to get them.

• Trick Attacks and Concussive knockdown crit'd dazed enemies for added CC and crit chance.

• Second Wind allows me to have a higher Lucky Hit chance after spamming some Flurries which is good. Haste provides me with additional attack speed below 50% energy and synergizes with Second Wind.

• Momentum is the Key Passive since it is what fits with the build. 20% DR, 30% energy regen, and more movement speed? Yes, please.

• Lastly, we're saving 4 points for Deadly Venom and Alchemical Advantage. But you can see that we have no Poison Trap or Poison Imbue. This is for a Unique: Andariel's Visage.

It gives all stats, attack speed, sustain, and poison res. The stats are incredibly juicy. But look at its power: Lucky Hit: Up to an X% chance to trigger a poison nova that applies Y Poisoning damage over Z seconds to enemies in the area. If poison nova procs, this will add 3% to 45% attack speed. Brutal. You can shift around some points depending on your Paragon path and gear rolls to get stuff like Rugged and Reactive Defense to protect against DoTs and CC'd damage.

Aspects

We have thirteen (13) Aspects/Powers selected as you can see in the planner. There are only eleven (11) gear slots. The disparity is because two come from Uniques, which we think as it stands, are Best-in-Slot for us. We will simply replace one or two Aspects (on the helm and dagger) once we get the Uniques. Aspects may be moved around if they are offensive or defensive but we locked in the Crossbow and Amulet Aspects below.

• Andariel's Visage has been discussed earlier under passives, especially its interaction with Alchemical Advantage.

• Asheara's Khanjar will definitely be my hunt item every time we build this/Season. "Hits with this weapon increase your Attack Speed by X% for Y seconds, up to Z." We will be oozing dopamine if we get this. The dagger also provides damage to CC'd enemies and Basic Skill damage. Definitely BiS.

• Accelerating Aspect is what we will put on the Amulet for the 50% bonus; it grants attack speed when Flurry crits.

• Aspect of Retribution stuns distant enemies which are nifty but its main power comes from the increased damage to stunned enemies: and you will be stunning a lot with Flurry and Aspect of Surprise.

• Aspect of Surprise leaves behind stun grenades when you Evade and Shadow step, which stuns a lot of enemies and synergizes with the boot implicit that reduces evade cooldown by 0.5 (can be higher with blacksmith upgrades) for every attack. And you will be attacking very fast with this build. Evade cooldown will be 0 almost always making you survivable and a grenade machine if ever. You heard of it here first.

• Blast-Trapper's Aspect is my main source of Vulnerable. While under the effect of your Caltrops and Grenades (Aspect of Explosive Verve for the latter), and with your fast attack speed, you always make enemies Vulnerable. If you want mass Vulnerability more than you want stuns, since you stun with your Grenades anyway, you can select Improved Flurry to spread it.

• Rapid Aspect is my main Aspect so we will place it on my Crossbow. It increases Basic Skill attack speed by a ton.

• Vengeful Aspect with Blast-Trapper's Aspect increases your crit chance.

• Aspect of Disobedience increases your Armor for every form of damage that you deal with, with your multitude of hits, grenade pops, and Flurry strikes, you will rack up bonus Armor.

• Aspect of Might provides 25% DR for Basic Skill use. This will have permanent uptime.

• Aspect of Explosive Verve applies to your Grenades and makes them count as traps for increased Vulnerability chances and synergy elsewhere like Deadly Ambush in the Paragon Board.

• Aspect of Quickening Fog, as explained earlier, drops a free Smoke Grenade and can free up a skill slot on the Bar for something like Dark Shroud.

• Ravager's Aspect is excellent for that second charge on Shadow Step for extra mobility (and PvP?).

Gear

We plan to get Asheara's Khanjar for one dagger and Andariel's Visage for the helm. Cowl of the Nameless (You gain X% increased Lucky Hit Chance against Crowd Controlled enemies) or the classic Harlequin Crest (Gain X% Damage Reduction. In addition, gain Y Ranks to all Skills) are excellent choices as well for the helm. Depending on attack speed breakpoints and ceilings, I will determine by endgame what helm we will hunt for.

• For the 2-hander, a crossbow (Vulnerable damage implicit) with Basic Skill damage and socketed Topazes for more Basic Skill damage is preferred. Daggers (higher base attack speed and close-range damage) with the same attributes and gems are preferred. Other rolls can be stuff like close damage, vulnerable damage, damage to CC'd, and crit damage. Min-maxing in endgame would depend on what damage roll provides more.

• For the amulet and boots, we got movement speed to cap off 125%. This will get higher with skills and effects. We socketed a Diamond for my amulet but this can be swapped out for whatever is lacking.

• Always get the boots with the implicit that reduces evade cooldown per attack. This ensures you have perma-grenades with your high attack speed and can evade whenever you want.

• For rings and gloves, get as high a crit chance as you can. Lucky hit chance and other damage rolls are good. We socketed sapphires for the cold res which we lacked. The beta attack speed rolls were low, so we will see if we need to roll them in the endgame. 

• For the other slots, we tried to get whatever health roll we could increase the effect of my percentage healing. Then we got resistances and DR. Socket every armor item with rubies for more health.

Stats

As for what stats to prioritize, we do not know at this point since we have to see what stats will be like in the endgame. Int is good for the crit chance, Dex is good for dodge, and Willpower is nice for healing. Strength is useful for armor.

Paragon Boards

In the Paragon Boards in the linked planner, you will see that we're only a level 87 Rogue. We still have 55 points left to allocate. This is still a question to be answered once we get more data-mined information. The tiles do not contain any deeper information. We're really curious about what the Rare tiles will provide. But we made a sample mock-up of the envisioned path— we beelined into Cunning Stratagem, Exploit Weakness, Deadly Ambush, and Cheap Shot.

• Cunning Stratagem will amplify the attack speed bonus off of Flurry's Combo points. Here, we also took tiles labeled Fundamentals and had Basic Skills buffs.

• Exploit Weakness increases the damage done to Vulnerable targets.

• Deadly Ambush increases the damage done to those affected by your Caltrops and Grenades. 

• Lastly, Cheap Shot is good because it increases your damage for each nearby CC'd enemy which will be most if not all of them. We took this last because it has the least utility to singular bosses.

Gameplay

The build plays simply. Depending on your set up if you have Quickening Fog or replaced a skill, pre-cast Dark Shroud. Once you approach a pack, elite, or boss, identify your kill zone. Drop Caltrops to slow and increase crit chance, Dash back in for crit damage and daze (with or without the free dazing Smoke Bomb), Shadow Step your main target for added crit chance, Flurry to proc Accelerating Aspect and Vulnerability, cast Flurry more if need be to proc Haste, then whack away with Blade Shift. Feel free to throw in a Smoke Bomb to amplify damage as the need arises. We usually do this once the daze of Dash wears off or if the other Smoke Bomb off of dash wears off. While whacking away, evade when necessary to drop grenades to stun enemies. Your next Flurry will stun because you evaded.