The Rogue is one of the trickiest classes to play in Dark and Darker, but also one of the best if you learn how to make most of its unique strengths.
Rogues trade away defense for much higher overall speed than other classes. On top of that, they get access to sneaky skills such as the ability to cloak themselves, letting them set ambushes with ease. These ambushes can quickly finish off enemies too, thanks to the Rogue’s ability to apply high Damage Over Time.
In this guide, we’ll give you a recommended Rogue build and explain how to play it effectively in Dark and Darker. It’s time to be sneaky and tricky!
How to Play Rogue in Dark and Darker | Best Build Guide and Playstyle Tips
Perk Selection
For our Rogue build, we will be going with a Perk setup that focuses on bolstering the Hide Skill and providing Damage Over Time. This will enable you to play using hit and run strats which make the most out of the Rogue’s innately high Agility. As such, here are our recommended Perks:
- Stealth – Allows you to move while using the Hide Skill, which we’ll explain in more detail soon. You can move up to 10 steps while crouching or slow walking without revealing yourself.
- Jokester – Gives you +2 to All Attributes, which is great at making up for the Rogue’s innately low stats. This buff is also extended to any party members within 4.5 meters.
- Poisoned Weapon – Applies a Poison effect to all your Daggers, Crossbows, and Swords. Hitting an enemy with those weapons will make them take 4 Magical Damage over 4 seconds. This damage scales with your Magical Damage stats! Poison can stack up to 5 times at once, as well.
- Ambush – This gives you a couple of buffs after exiting the Hide skill. First, you’ll get +50% Physical Power Bonus to your next melee physical attack within 3 seconds. Additionally, you’ll get +10% Move Speed Bonus for 3 seconds or until you perform a successful action, such as landing an attack.
Now, two out of the four perks we selected are all about using the Hide Skill. So, it’s time to go over our recommended Skills and explain what they do!
Recommended Skills for This Build
As we mentioned in our Perk selection, the best skill for this Rogue build is Hide. It’s one of the best skills in Dark and Darker currently, as it allows you to easily set up ambushes and surprise foes. If you learn how to properly use it, nobody will ever lay eyes on you! Now, let’s explain our Skills for this build:
- Hide – Turns you invisible, concealing yourself from mobs and other players. This buff lasts for 20 seconds by default, but its affected by the Rogue’s innate -30% to Buff Duration. You reveal yourself whenever you make any action, including moving, but you can swap your equipment while hidden. Great for surprising other players and protecting yourself from mobs!
- Thanks to the Stealth Perk we chose previously, you can move up to 10 steps while Hide is in effect. You just need to walk slowly or crouch! Plus, you get massive buffs on exiting Hide thanks to the Ambush Perk.
- Rupture – Buffs your next attack with a Dagger, Crossbow, or Sword. Successfully hitting an enemy will apply a Bleed effect on them, causing them to take 20 Physical Damage over the next 5 seconds.
Hide has excellent synergy with the Ambush and Stealth Perks. Rupture has excellent synergy with the Poisoned Weapon Perk, too. It allows you to stack both Bleed and Poison on enemies, which results in extremely high Damage Over Time.
Use Hide to ambush foes, then hit them with Rupture while buffed by the Ambush Perk to deal massive burst damage. Aside from the initial hit dealing good damage, you will apply an overwhelming amount of Damage Over Time, which can make unprepared players panic. It also works great against mobs!
Next up, let’s go over the gear and stats you want to focus on.
Gear and Stats to Look Out For
Overall, the Rogue has rather poor armor selection. All of your armor options are either leather or cloth armor, so you’ll always have low defense. On the other hand, these light armors don’t impair your movement speed. Fast movement and interaction speeds are the most important tool in the Rogue’s kit, after all!
As for weapons, your best bet is the Rapier for melee. It has solid damage and speed, while also offering much better range than Daggers do. Accompany that with a Hand Crossbow to give you some ranged options, as well.
Overall, our recommended gear setup looks like this:
- Head – Shadow Mask
- Chest – Wanderer Attire
- Legs – Padded Leggings or Loose Trousers
- Hands – Riveted Gloves or Reinforced Gloves
- Weapon Set 1 – Rapier
- Weapon Set 2 – Hand Crossbow
Now, with the gear itself covered, these are the stats you want to focus on:
- All Attributes – This is generally always a good stat to have on your gear, but it’s even better for Rogues. This class has naturally low stats across the board, so every bit helps.
- Strength – While this build primarily relies on Damage Over Time, you’ll still want to increase your Strength. This will make your attacks stronger and works great alongside the Ambush Perk and Hide Skill.
- Agility – Rogues are all about speed. They have the highest movement and interaction speed in the game, thanks to their innately high Agility. So, to make your best strength even better, boost your Agility with gear!
- Additional Magic Damage – A good chunk of your damage with this build will come from the Poisoned Weapon Perk. Since Poison damage is categorized as Magical, this stat will allow your Poison Damage Over Time to be even higher.
Lastly, it’s time to learn how to put this Rogue build to use!
Silent But Deadly | How to Play Rogue in Dark and Darker
As always, make sure to check out our top 10 tips and tricks for new Dark and Darker players. It’s good to have a general idea of the game before diving into a specific playstyle!
Anyway, this Rogue build primarily focuses on using the Hide Skill to trick foes. You can basically disappear on a whim and use your Ambush and Stealth Perks to surprise foes, especially other players. You can also apply very high Damage Over Time using the Poisoned Weapon Perk and Rupture Skill, stacking Bleed and Poison status effects on foes.
Overall, you’ll ideally play this Rogue build using full advantage of your stealth and movement options. Use hit-and-run strats to apply massive Damage Over Time on foes, then run and hide before they can retaliate! It’s a somewhat dirty playstyle, but that’s what being a Rogue is about in Dark and Darker.
When out of combat, you can make good use of your high Agility to move across the map quickly. Since you also much higher interaction speed than most other classes, you can also loot chests quickly before other players even get a chance to look at them. If you want, this also allows you to quickly get a lot of loot and extract early!
That said, extracting in Dark and Darker can be quite tricky in general. If you need help on that front, check out our guide on how to extract and descend in the game’s current version!
Rogue’s Biggest Flaws
Now, the biggest issue you will face as a Rogue in Dark and Darker is your extremely low defense. You have low Health and you’re limited to light armor which provides very low defenses. Your best bet is to learn how to play extremely carefully and rely heavily on your movement to stay alive because you can’t take many hits. No build can change that for this class, sadly!
If you want to be a big bulky tank, we recommend checking out our guide on a Barbarian build. It’s a much bulkier class, capable of tanking damage relatively easily.
Additionally, you have very low attack range overall. While this build goes for the Rapier and Hand Crossbow for the best range, you’ll still be easily outranged by a lot of other classes. Warlocks, Wizards, and Rangers can all keep you at bay with ease. Combined with your low health and defense, your only option against these classes is to be sneaky and ambush them.
Overall, you need to play extremely carefully. If you don’t master the Hide Skill and your overall mobility, you’re unlikely to find any success as a Rogue. Consider yourself a glass cannon, capable of killing foes easily with high Damage Over Time but unable to take more than a couple of hits. It’s a challenging playstyle to master, but it can be extremely rewarding.
That said, we hope we helped you get your feet wet learning how to play as the Rogue in Dark and Darker. Now you just need to practice with this build and become the best Rogue in those dark dungeons!
