Starting Out with My Sad Gear
Today I loaded up Diablo 4 for Season 8. My Rogue looked kinda weak, wearing basically rags. First thing? Went straight to the skill tree, felt overwhelmed. Too many icons! Scrolled through, looking for anything that screamed “damage”. Found Puncture and Twisting Blades. Said “screw it” and dumped my first points there. Didn’t know any better.
Finding My Playstyle Stumble
Got out into the first zone, stabbed a few goats. Felt slow. Really slow. Died twice to some angry shaman guy. Annoying. Thought, “Need something faster.” Remembered seeing Shadow Step. Threw a point into that. Big difference! Suddenly I could zip around, stab things from behind. Felt sneaky. Fun started kicking in.
Kept grinding, feeling a bit better. But my damage was still meh. Gear dropped, mostly junk. Checked my skills again. Noticed Poison Imbuement. Tried it. Pfft. Weak sauce. Felt frustrated. Looked closer. Saw I needed points in passive stuff boosting poison. Slapped some points into Weapon Mastery and the poison node under Imbuements. Oh! Okay, poison started eating through health bars faster. Big “aha” moment. Double-dipping damage!
Hitting a Wall & Fumbling Through
Got cocky. Ran into a dungeon boss around level 20. Got wrecked. Smashed into paste. Respawned, tail between my legs. My basic stuff felt useless against that big health pool. Needed more juice. Dug through the tree again. Found Inner Sight core passive. Sounded confusing at first. Tried it anyway. Basically: stab fast, fill a bar, get free big damage burst. Slotted that sucker in. Practice run? Boss health melted way quicker during the free burst phase. Relief!
Gear was still dragging me down. Kept anything with +Vulnerable damage, crit strike chance, and anything boosting my core skills or poison. Ignored defense stats mostly early on. Just wanted things dead before they touched me. Found some basic Legendary aspects:
- One that dropped Puncture knives around me – made clearing little guys smoother.
- One that made Twisting Blades spin back faster – huge!
Slapped those suckers onto some yellow rings/amulets using the Occultist. Instant power spike. Felt like I actually had a build now.
Smoothing Out the Kinks
The big pain point? Managing buffs and cooldowns. Running Shadow Step, Poison Imbuement, Dash (had to grab that for escape), and trying to trigger Inner Sight. My fingers felt clumsy. Had to force myself to keep spamming Puncture to generate energy and proc Vulnerable. Kept Shadow Step ready for elites or getting surrounded. Saved Poison Imbuement for big packs or bosses. It took practice. Lots of deaths because I forgot to dodge or blew my cooldowns all at once. Learned the hard way: spacing and timing matter more than button mashing.
Where It Landed for Leveling
By mid-40s, the basic flow finally clicked:
- Open with Puncture to poke and apply Vulnerable.
- Zip into a pack with Shadow Step, stab main target.
- Slap on Poison Imbuement.
- HIT Twisting Blades hard.
- Watch blades fly out and spin back, chunking everything with poison.
- Dash out if things get hairy.
- Keep grinding that Inner Sight bar for free Twisting Blades spam.
Still felt squishy. Had to rely on killing fast and dodging like mad. But damn, it melted packs fast once everything lined up. Leveling speed picked up significantly compared to my flailing start. Definitely recommend this messy journey – stumble, tweak, die, repeat, but feel powerful getting it figured out!