Development đŸč new Uniques for the Rogue class

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Introduction click on it

In this post I will share a selection of ideas I started to collect after finishing season 7 with my Rogue. They are a bit older and not up to date with later changes.

Last year I made a similar post, where considerable effort went into reimagening all general unique items. What started as culmination of feedback out of unhappiness with Diablo 4’s item designs, turned out to be a pleasant pastime.

Now I tried myself on class specific stuff with concentrating on entirely new abilities. I ended up with a large list after a few weeks that might be fun to read or valuable as feedback to some viewers.

If you’re wondering, a script helped to put this post together, and AI assisted in creating some serious and some not so serious names (naming was surprisingly difficult to do by myself).


20 new Unique Item ability ideas for the Rogue class

These ideas are not meant to balance the game. This list presents a study of what can be done beyond simply placing a lazy multiplier in a tooltip, which unfortunately happens far too often in Diablo 4’s seasonal additions.

Skill names are marked green. Click on the ability description area to spawn some personal notes for the design.

Smooth Criminals :boot: Boots

Shadow Step is no longer executed by the player. Instead, a cast will spawn 3 Clones doing Shadow Steps (could look a bit like Death trap). Shadow Step is now also a Marksman Ability with increased range, and able to ignore line of sight.
  • The thinking behind is that you can stay safe while your gang of clones does the dirty work.
  • Perhaps it would fit the theme by giving each clone a different type of crowd control: stun, knockdown, blind.
  • Those enemies you see around the corner are targetable. But to not make this exploitable with locked doors, I suggest there should exist a path between player and enemy for the ability to work.

Thornmarch :boot: Boots

Arrow Storm now always also spawns Caltrops at its impact area. If you cast Caltrops by yourself, it will spawn the maximum number of Arrow Storms in its center.
While Arrow Storm hits Caltrops areas, it will deal Thorns damage instead of physical damage.
Your Arrow Storm maximum is increased by +1.
  • This ability gives passive access to Arrow Storm and to Caltrops, one of my favorite skills.
  • Caltrops slows enemies, so it helps Arrow Storm to deal damage during its whole duration.
  • The condition for dealing Thorns seems unnecessary, but it will have an effect on Rain of Arrows.

Sandworm Ring :ring: Ring

Enemies standing in your traps get slowly drawn to the center and suffer frequent damage that increases exponentially with overlapping traps.
If you trigger the key passive Exposure, there is a chance to spawn a giant sandworm that mauls all trapped enemies, while tearing all non-healthy ones into the depth (executes).
  • This ability fixates enemies in your traps for Exposure. The draw effect is no pull, it just slowly moves an enemies position. To be fair, enemies should be able to run against the force of a single trap.
  • I imagined the Hell Tide sandworm that spits out enemies when thinking about the animation. Multiple worms can spawn at the same time in a pool of overlapping traps.
  • I think it gets more interesting to increase a trap’s radius and duration with this ring.

Dark Wealth :ring: Ring

Your Combo Point maximum is increased by +1.
Each attempt to add a sphere of Dark Shroud beyond the limit will give you a Combo Point instead. But:
* you lose a sphere each second
* and once you spend combo points, all spheres will vanish.
  • This is intended to be an alternative Combo Point generator, that also works without using Basic skills.
  • Because most core skills end up being spamable at some point, the need for resource generators vanishes.
  • Spheres can overflow by reusing Dark Shroud in time, or better through the Umbrous Aspect
  • But in order to not trivialise the specialization, I added some negatives. Using Combo Points will reset the spheres + defense while forcing the player to stack up again.

Pain Trader :raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed: Gloves

While Dark Shroud is active, enemies hitting you suffer from added Thorns damage, based on the number of spheres of Dark Shroud.
Removed spheres will stick to the responsible enemy, which leads it to suffer 100% of your Thorns from any damage source. Sticky spheres can stack.
Your sphere maximum is increased by +1.
  • Thorns fits with Dark Shroud’s behaviour so I combined these two.
  • Lets assume a player has 5 active spheres. That could give a 5 times bigger damage bonus to Thorns.
  • The sticking mechanic is intended to provide a different & offensive damage boost, especially against boss encounters, as they normaly last a bit longer and are likely to remove and stack most of a players spheres. So if a boss manages to remove a theoretical maximum of 5 spheres, every hit you deal against the boss deals 5 times your Thorns damage.
  • I imagine this effect on the enemy to look similar to the player visual for Dark Shroud, with the same limit of max spheres.
  • Basically, this sticking mechanic will make you stronger for not avoiding hits. And since you are protected by Dark Shroud, the whole thing synergizes well.
  • It would add to the fun if the sphere maximum is upgradable.

Rear Guard of the Sneak Attack :shorts: Pants

Death Trap itself does no longer deal damage. Instead, each clone appearing around your Death Trap casts Shadow Step or Dash (if equipped) directed to the trap center. One iteration for all clones consumes a single charge of Shadow Step \ Dash.
  • I was looking for a way to have investments in skill charges count more and was lucky with finding this synergy-powerhouse. It is a perfect example of how synergies to other skills can replace big numbers.
  • With this ability + Imbuements + Aspect to have clones benefit from imbuements, you are also able to make Death Trap deal Poison & Cold damage.
  • So if you have Dash ready imbued with Poison Imbuement, and trigger Death Trap, then each of these clones casts a poison imbued Dash.
  • Perhaps it would be cooler if clones attack as long as charges are left? This would also give another synergy with my Momentum unique.

Diaper of the Madman :shorts: Pants

Dance of Knives becomes a Grenade ability and now throws Stun Grenades instead of Knives. This is also compatible with Imbuements. In addition, you periodically drop a Smoke Grenade on your position while channeling.
  • This ability offers a variant for Stun Grenades, where they dont just drop dead on the floor and instead fly like a Smoke Grenade. This could look quite crazy.
  • Due to the explosions, big groups or enemies are likely to catch more damage compared to knives.
  • The additional Smoke Grenade can be useful for frequent stealth damage bonuses provided by Saboteur’s Signet.

Balrog Belt :shorts: Pants

Spheres of Dark Shroud are consumed if you cast Smoke Grenades.
This way Smoke Grenade is imbued with fire:
* It now applies Fear instead of Daze.
* It ignites its targets to leave a trail of fire that can ignite other unaffected enemies.
  • Rogues cant use fire so far, but it feels like they should, with all of their grenades and explosions.
  • Dark Shroud spheres can be quickly restored through various sorces. Any number works, but consuming more spheres will obviously grant Smoke Grenade a better effect.
  • The fear is essential for the ability, as it leads enemies to move so they can spread the trail of fire or ignite other enemies. It could be fun to watch enemies panic.
  • Ignited enemies will ‘share’ their debuff to other nearby enemies they touch. This effect should stack to become a meaningful source of damage.

Hideout of the Gambler :ribbon: Helm

Your Agility Skills can consume 3 stacks of Momentum to gain back 1 (or more?) charge(s) if they would run out otherwise.
Agility skill maximum charges are up by +1.
  • The ability lets you keep your momentum, quite literally. It also allows to spam Agility skills while you have enough stacks.
  • For example: This would remove a personal pain point of mine when playing with Dance of Knives: it provides a safety net to not run out of charges and suddenly lose damage buffs when casting instant skills while channeling. Because some instant skills cause the channeling to restart and consume a charge.

Amazonian Visor :ribbon: Helm

Key passive Precision grants a chance to have Marksman skills fire twice, increased for each meter of distance to all enemies you have. If you consume stacks of Precision, your cast will push enemies away.
  • Here I looked into making a pure ranged gameplay benefitial, emphasizing the class fantasy. The push back helps with keeping distance.
  • Imagine a Rogue standing 10 meters from all enemies, which then could grant a 20% chance to fire twice. At 30 meters it sums up to 60%. And 50 meters a Rogue will sniper with double projectiles 100% of the time.
  • I think this is a nice alternative to the tempering affixes, which allows more leeway for equipment combinations.

Gaze of the Gargoyle :ribbon: Helm

Twisting Blades' will detour before flying back to hit another target marked by Inner Sight, or a random target if Inner Sight is filled. If it is the same you impaled (e.g. boss encounter), then blades will fly a short distance behind the target and come back like a boomerang.
Damage of Twisting Blades is increased by a blade's traveled distance.
  • The idea is to emphasize Twisting Blades’ originaly intended gameplay. But here you can better manipulate the flying-back-route with the created distance, and you dont need to move as much.
  • Multiple enemies: The blades’ initial hit will impale the enemy in front of you for the usual time, then flies to the next\marked enemy to repeat this. This maneuver increases the fly distance for more damage, and it helps to fill the Inner Sight bar.
  • Single enemy: Imagine this to look a bit like the Spirit Born’s Razor Wings. The inital hit of Twisting Blades works as usual, followed by flying in the opposite direction for to gain a distance for increased damage, and finally to come back to the player like a boomerang.
  • Phew! Yeah, this one is better to see and test in action in order to find out whether it works or not.

Infernal Quiver :shirt: Chest

Your Cold Imbuement is now Fire Imbuement with no longer being able to chill or freeze. Fire imbued skills apply increased fire damage over time dependent on your chill rate.
Furthermore, Mobility skills or projectiles coming from Fire imbued skills leave a trail of fire. Its DoT-Damage and duration is increased by a projectile's own trail length.
  • Fire imbued skills benefit more if a player stays away from melee range, or if arrows and projectile are able to pierce or rebounce.
  • I think this could have synergies with Penetrating Shot (and Eaglehorn) because the bad single target capability is compensated by very long fire trails + damage.
  • ‘Coldclip’ aspect can even move this to the basic skills.
  • But what I like the most with this idea is the visual transformation into something different.

Phantom Aegis :shirt: Chest

Shadow Clone is replaced by a new effect: A ghostly Ballista follows you for its duration. If an enemy triggers your key passive Victimize then the Ballista will shoot a Rapid Fire salve in addition to this enemy, but each salve still consumes resource cost of Rapid Fire.
  • I like pet builds and I always loved the possibility to build self-firing cannons in games. Shadow Clone didnt feel like a real pet build option so far, so I decided to change it up a bit.
  • This ability halts the usual copy anything mechanic of Shadow Clone and focuses on Rapid Fire.
  • And here it only works with the equipped key passive Victimize, but the trigger could be just as well anything else.
  • I believe Rapid Fire is thematically a good choice for the Ballista, with its exploding arrows synergy coming from Scoundrel’s Kiss.
  • I also think it would be nice to have Imbuements work with this. Perhaps for the whole duration of the Ballista.
  • Imagine the movement to be similar to the flying ‘stone’ you can encounter in Nightmare Dungeons.

Damnation Cage :shirt: Chest

Your key passive Close Quarters Combat will enable an automatic & neverending cascade of free Flurry attacks in the direction of close enemies, as long as they\you stay in range. These attacks also benefit from your Thorns damage.
  • Flurry seems like a fitting skill to give Thorns. Due to its limited range, it could also serve as a nice visual for Thorns in general.
  • Imagine this effect like a Thorns aura, that will detect near enemies and spike in that direction. Not only once, but constantly, like you would hold the button for Flurry casts.
  • But you dont need to stop moving or suffer from damage, it happens automatically (Lets assume this comes from a curse).
  • Obviously this works best with other melee skills (Close Quarters Combat required), but it could be fun to channel Dance of Knives where you can perforate enemies while moving.
  • By using Improved Flurry modification it could be used as automatic healing while in close combat.

Hell Catapult :bow_and_arrow: Crossbow

Stun Grenades can no longer spawn, but you gain a stackable 'Grenade' buff instead.
Rain of Arrows on the other hand can no longer shoot arrows, and instead rains grenades from the sky. This rain's density is dependend on stacks of the buff.
  • Here I want to give grenades further spotlight. They are underused in the tree and across abilities.
  • This new ability essentialy benefits from spawning a high number of Stun Grenades. There are countless options to create Stun Grenades, even with a rune.
  • But instead of dropping them on the floor, the Rogue collects all of them, to send them flying with Rain of Arrows. This also means that if the buff isnt stacked high enough, the rain will be thin.
  • A notable effect this ability has for Rain of Arrows, is that grenade explosions have a bigger hitbox than single arrows. For that matter, the Imbuement feature should be kept as additional damage dealer.
  • Since Rain of Arrows is already very graphical, I think it is better to replace arrows with grenades completely. Both would be too much effects.

Medusa :bow_and_arrow: Crossbow

Your Basic Marksman skills (Heartseeker,Forceful Arrow,Puncture) simultanously shoot additional arrows or blades in a fan shape. Number of additional arrows or blades: skill level divided by 2.
  • The ability puts some basic skills visually on a level with other (core) skills.
  • Arrow count example: Heartseeker rank 10 will shoot 1+5 arrows. Rank 15 will shoot 1+7 arrows. Rank 20 shoots 1+10 arrows. I like this idea as it gives skill points a way more interesting effect.

Pyrebound :bow_and_arrow: Crossbow

Heartseeker arrows seek up multiple enemies or a single one multiple times (think of Sorcerer's 'Lightning Spear') to attach an explosive with each hit, up to 5 (+1 every 2 skill points) times. All explosives detonate in a chain as soon as the last one is attached.
Heartseeker now has a cooldown of 6 seconds and is considered a Grenade Ability.
  • Lets enable grenades a bit more. I think the chain reaction could look interesting.
  • Imagine Heartseeker arrows to fly curves and pierce through targets in order to reach maximum explosive number.
  • The ability also allows curious players to work with this number by having skill points increase it further.
  • The cooldown is added for two reasons: To limit the visual spam, and to emphasize the explosive power. Think of it as high enough to compensate the cooldown.
  • This reminds of Starfall Coronet (Sorcerer helmet). I am not a fan of long cooldowns, but instant skills getting a short cooldown to pump up their visuals is cool.

Strings of the Puppeteer :medal_sports: Amulet

Your Preparation specialization now increases the duration for Shadow Clone ultimate instead of reducing the cooldown.
In addition, you can now have up to 3 active Shadow Clones, with each using a different Imbuement for its whole duration, but also decreasing the ultimates duration faster.
  • Here I wanted to create something that includes ‘Preparation’ as it has no mention in any other aspect or ability. I also wanted to create something unique for the Shadow Clone ultimate that has the permanent minion feel to it.
  • Visually, I imagine this ability to transform Shadow Clones into 3 different colored clones, depending on their Imbuement element (purple, green, blue).
  • Having 3 active clones basically means that using imbuable skills will always result in 3 replications, with one being shadow imbued, another being poison imbued, and the third with Cold Imbuement.
  • You mostly lose out on Preparation’s other effects, but that is a cost for an ability that is quite strong. I guess it also wouldnt be a bad idea to split overall damage of all three clones. In any case, I think it is good that this ability requires some build up time.
  • Additionally, keeping up 3 clones should be too hard without using Preparation, and it should not be too easy with Preparation. If 3 clones modify duration 3 times, a player will need spending 75 resource every 1.666 seconds to keep them indefinitely.

Flesh Lockpick :medal_sports: Amulet

Hits with your Dash ability stick Twisting Blades into your enemies.
You now receive 1 Combo Point for returned blades if a blade's fly distance was over 20 meters.
  • Since Dash is very good to build some distance to your targets, it made sense to combine it with Twisting Blades, that benefits from piercing through multiple enemies.
  • This makes using Twisting Blades feel a lot cooler and not so clunky.
  • In theory you can hit a lot of enemies and will be followed by a good amount of blades. Fun to think about this.
  • The Combo Point effect was added because I wanted to bring back the distance mechanic from the early days. It may be more effort, but that will be rewarded.

Chimera’s Bite :medal_sports: Amulet

Key passive Alchemical Admixture allows you to activate all three Imbuements on your skills at the same time, so a single hit releases each imbued element.
Charges of different Imbuements are added together.
You get +1 maximum charges to all Imbuements.
  • This ability should make playing with more than one Imbuement possible, or at least easier to manage.
  • If you have all 3 Imbuement skills equipped and press them at the same time, individual charges of Cold, Poison, Shadow will be added together. In this case it means you have at least 9 charges on your skills, so you dont need to spam Imbuements all the time.



Overview: sorted by skills click on it
Invigorating Strike:
Blade Shift:
Puncture:
Your Basic Marksman skills (Heartseeker,Forceful Arrow,Puncture) simultanously shoot additional arrows or blades in a fan shape. Number of additional arrows or blades: skill level divided by 2.
Heartseeker:
Your Basic Marksman skills (Heartseeker,Forceful Arrow,Puncture) simultanously shoot additional arrows or blades in a fan shape. Number of additional arrows or blades: skill level divided by 2.
Heartseeker arrows seek up multiple enemies or a single one multiple times (think of Sorcerer's 'Lightning Spear') to attach an explosive with each hit, up to 5 (+1 every 2 skill points) times. All explosives detonate in a chain as soon as the last one is attached.
Heartseeker now has a cooldown of 6 seconds and is considered a Grenade Ability.
Forceful Arrow:
Your Basic Marksman skills (Heartseeker,Forceful Arrow,Puncture) simultanously shoot additional arrows or blades in a fan shape. Number of additional arrows or blades: skill level divided by 2.

Barrage:
Twisting Blades:
Twisting Blades' will detour before flying back to hit another target marked by Inner Sight, or a random target if Inner Sight is filled. If it is the same you impaled (e.g. boss encounter), then blades will fly a short distance behind the target and come back like a boomerang.
Damage of Twisting Blades is increased by a blade's traveled distance.
Hits with your Dash ability stick Twisting Blades into your enemies.
You now receive 1 Combo Point for returned blades if a blade's fly distance was over 20 meters.
Flurry:
Your key passive Close Quarters Combat will enable an automatic & neverending cascade of free Flurry attacks in the direction of close enemies, as long as they\you stay in range. These attacks also benefit from your Thorns damage.
Penetrating Shot:
Rapid Fire:
Shadow Clone is replaced by a new effect: A ghostly Ballista follows you for its duration. If an enemy triggers your key passive Victimize then the Ballista will shoot a Rapid Fire salve in addition to this enemy, but each salve still consumes resource cost of Rapid Fire.

Shadow Step:
Shadow Step is no longer executed by the player. Instead, a cast will spawn 3 Clones doing Shadow Steps (could look a bit like Death trap). Shadow Step is now also a Marksman Ability with increased range, and able to ignore line of sight.
Death Trap itself does no longer deal damage. Instead, each clone appearing around your Death Trap casts Shadow Step or Dash (if equipped) directed to the trap center. One iteration for all clones consumes a single charge of Shadow Step \ Dash.
Your Agility Skills can consume 3 stacks of Momentum to gain back 1 (or more?) charge(s) if they would run out otherwise.
Agility skill maximum charges are up by +1.
Caltrops:
Arrow Storm now always also spawns Caltrops at its impact area. If you cast Caltrops by yourself, it will spawn the maximum number of Arrow Storms in its center.
While Arrow Storm hits Caltrops areas, it will deal Thorns damage instead of physical damage.
Your Arrow Storm maximum is increased by +1.
Your Agility Skills can consume 3 stacks of Momentum to gain back 1 (or more?) charge(s) if they would run out otherwise.
Agility skill maximum charges are up by +1.
Dash:
Death Trap itself does no longer deal damage. Instead, each clone appearing around your Death Trap casts Shadow Step or Dash (if equipped) directed to the trap center. One iteration for all clones consumes a single charge of Shadow Step \ Dash.
Your Agility Skills can consume 3 stacks of Momentum to gain back 1 (or more?) charge(s) if they would run out otherwise.
Agility skill maximum charges are up by +1.
Hits with your Dash ability stick Twisting Blades into your enemies.
You now receive 1 Combo Point for returned blades if a blade's fly distance was over 20 meters.
Dance of Knives:
Dance of Knives becomes a Grenade ability and now throws Stun Grenades instead of Knives. This is also compatible with Imbuements. In addition, you periodically drop a Smoke Grenade on your position while channeling.
Your Agility Skills can consume 3 stacks of Momentum to gain back 1 (or more?) charge(s) if they would run out otherwise.
Agility skill maximum charges are up by +1.

Concealment:
Smoke Grenade:
Dance of Knives becomes a Grenade ability and now throws Stun Grenades instead of Knives. This is also compatible with Imbuements. In addition, you periodically drop a Smoke Grenade on your position while channeling.
Spheres of Dark Shroud are consumed if you cast Smoke Grenades.
This way Smoke Grenade is imbued with fire:
* It now applies Fear instead of Daze.
* It ignites its targets to leave a trail of fire that can ignite other unaffected enemies.
Poison Trap:
Dark Shroud:
Your Combo Point maximum is increased by +1.
Each attempt to add a sphere of Dark Shroud beyond the limit will give you a Combo Point instead. But:
* you lose a sphere each second
* and once you spend combo points, all spheres will vanish.
While Dark Shroud is active, enemies hitting you suffer from added Thorns damage, based on the number of spheres of Dark Shroud.
Removed spheres will stick to the responsible enemy, which leads it to suffer 100% of your Thorns from any damage source. Sticky spheres can stack.
Your sphere maximum is increased by +1.
Spheres of Dark Shroud are consumed if you cast Smoke Grenades.
This way Smoke Grenade is imbued with fire:
* It now applies Fear instead of Daze.
* It ignites its targets to leave a trail of fire that can ignite other unaffected enemies.

Shadow Imbuement:
Your key passive Close Quarters Combat will enable an automatic & neverending cascade of free Flurry attacks in the direction of close enemies, as long as they\you stay in range. These attacks also benefit from your Thorns damage.
Your Preparation specialization now increases the duration for Shadow Clone ultimate instead of reducing the cooldown.
In addition, you can now have up to 3 active Shadow Clones, with each using a different Imbuement for its whole duration, but also decreasing the ultimates duration faster.
Key passive Alchemical Admixture allows you to activate all three Imbuements on your skills at the same time, so a single hit releases each imbued element.
Charges of different Imbuements are added together.
You get +1 maximum charges to all Imbuements.
Poison Imbuement:
Your key passive Close Quarters Combat will enable an automatic & neverending cascade of free Flurry attacks in the direction of close enemies, as long as they\you stay in range. These attacks also benefit from your Thorns damage.
Your Preparation specialization now increases the duration for Shadow Clone ultimate instead of reducing the cooldown.
In addition, you can now have up to 3 active Shadow Clones, with each using a different Imbuement for its whole duration, but also decreasing the ultimates duration faster.
Key passive Alchemical Admixture allows you to activate all three Imbuements on your skills at the same time, so a single hit releases each imbued element.
Charges of different Imbuements are added together.
You get +1 maximum charges to all Imbuements.
Cold Imbuement:
Your Cold Imbuement is now Fire Imbuement with no longer being able to chill or freeze. Fire imbued skills apply increased fire damage over time dependent on your chill rate.
Furthermore, Mobility skills or projectiles coming from Fire imbued skills leave a trail of fire. Its DoT-Damage and duration is increased by a projectile's own trail length.
Your key passive Close Quarters Combat will enable an automatic & neverending cascade of free Flurry attacks in the direction of close enemies, as long as they\you stay in range. These attacks also benefit from your Thorns damage.
Your Preparation specialization now increases the duration for Shadow Clone ultimate instead of reducing the cooldown.
In addition, you can now have up to 3 active Shadow Clones, with each using a different Imbuement for its whole duration, but also decreasing the ultimates duration faster.
Key passive Alchemical Admixture allows you to activate all three Imbuements on your skills at the same time, so a single hit releases each imbued element.
Charges of different Imbuements are added together.
You get +1 maximum charges to all Imbuements.

Death Trap:
Death Trap itself does no longer deal damage. Instead, each clone appearing around your Death Trap casts Shadow Step or Dash (if equipped) directed to the trap center. One iteration for all clones consumes a single charge of Shadow Step \ Dash.
Rain of Arrows:
Stun Grenades can no longer spawn, but you gain a stackable 'Grenade' buff instead.
Rain of Arrows on the other hand can no longer shoot arrows, and instead rains grenades from the sky. This rain's density is dependend on stacks of the buff.
Shadow Clone:
Shadow Clone is replaced by a new effect: A ghostly Ballista follows you for its duration. If an enemy triggers your key passive Victimize then the Ballista will shoot a Rapid Fire salve in addition to this enemy, but each salve still consumes resource cost of Rapid Fire.
Your Preparation specialization now increases the duration for Shadow Clone ultimate instead of reducing the cooldown.
In addition, you can now have up to 3 active Shadow Clones, with each using a different Imbuement for its whole duration, but also decreasing the ultimates duration faster.

Alchemical Admixture:
Key passive Alchemical Admixture allows you to activate all three Imbuements on your skills at the same time, so a single hit releases each imbued element.
Charges of different Imbuements are added together.
You get +1 maximum charges to all Imbuements.
Exposure:
Enemies standing in your traps get slowly drawn to the center and suffer frequent damage that increases exponentially with overlapping traps.
If you trigger the key passive Exposure, there is a chance to spawn a giant sandworm that mauls all trapped enemies, while tearing all non-healthy ones into the depth (executes).
Victimize:
Shadow Clone is replaced by a new effect: A ghostly Ballista follows you for its duration. If an enemy triggers your key passive Victimize then the Ballista will shoot a Rapid Fire salve in addition to this enemy, but each salve still consumes resource cost of Rapid Fire.
Precision:
Key passive Precision grants a chance to have Marksman skills fire twice, increased for each meter of distance to all enemies you have. If you consume stacks of Precision, your cast will push enemies away.
Close Quarters Combat:
Your key passive Close Quarters Combat will enable an automatic & neverending cascade of free Flurry attacks in the direction of close enemies, as long as they\you stay in range. These attacks also benefit from your Thorns damage.
Momentum:
Your Agility Skills can consume 3 stacks of Momentum to gain back 1 (or more?) charge(s) if they would run out otherwise.
Agility skill maximum charges are up by +1.

Stun Grenade:
Dance of Knives becomes a Grenade ability and now throws Stun Grenades instead of Knives. This is also compatible with Imbuements. In addition, you periodically drop a Smoke Grenade on your position while channeling.
Stun Grenades can no longer spawn, but you gain a stackable 'Grenade' buff instead.
Rain of Arrows on the other hand can no longer shoot arrows, and instead rains grenades from the sky. This rain's density is dependend on stacks of the buff.
Heartseeker arrows seek up multiple enemies or a single one multiple times (think of Sorcerer's 'Lightning Spear') to attach an explosive with each hit, up to 5 (+1 every 2 skill points) times. All explosives detonate in a chain as soon as the last one is attached.
Heartseeker now has a cooldown of 6 seconds and is considered a Grenade Ability.
Arrow Storm:
Arrow Storm now always also spawns Caltrops at its impact area. If you cast Caltrops by yourself, it will spawn the maximum number of Arrow Storms in its center.
While Arrow Storm hits Caltrops areas, it will deal Thorns damage instead of physical damage.
Your Arrow Storm maximum is increased by +1.
Clone:
Shadow Step is no longer executed by the player. Instead, a cast will spawn 3 Clones doing Shadow Steps (could look a bit like Death trap). Shadow Step is now also a Marksman Ability with increased range, and able to ignore line of sight.
Death Trap itself does no longer deal damage. Instead, each clone appearing around your Death Trap casts Shadow Step or Dash (if equipped) directed to the trap center. One iteration for all clones consumes a single charge of Shadow Step \ Dash.
Combo Point:
Your Combo Point maximum is increased by +1.
Each attempt to add a sphere of Dark Shroud beyond the limit will give you a Combo Point instead. But:
* you lose a sphere each second
* and once you spend combo points, all spheres will vanish.
Hits with your Dash ability stick Twisting Blades into your enemies.
You now receive 1 Combo Point for returned blades if a blade's fly distance was over 20 meters.
Inner Sight:
Twisting Blades' will detour before flying back to hit another target marked by Inner Sight, or a random target if Inner Sight is filled. If it is the same you impaled (e.g. boss encounter), then blades will fly a short distance behind the target and come back like a boomerang.
Damage of Twisting Blades is increased by a blade's traveled distance.
Preparation:
Your Preparation specialization now increases the duration for Shadow Clone ultimate instead of reducing the cooldown.
In addition, you can now have up to 3 active Shadow Clones, with each using a different Imbuement for its whole duration, but also decreasing the ultimates duration faster.

Evade:
Thorns:
While Dark Shroud is active, enemies hitting you suffer from added Thorns damage, based on the number of spheres of Dark Shroud.
Removed spheres will stick to the responsible enemy, which leads it to suffer 100% of your Thorns from any damage source. Sticky spheres can stack.
Your sphere maximum is increased by +1.
Your key passive Close Quarters Combat will enable an automatic & neverending cascade of free Flurry attacks in the direction of close enemies, as long as they\you stay in range. These attacks also benefit from your Thorns damage.
Feedback @Blizzard click on it

While creating all of this, I developed a liking for a handful of approaches, as they make skills a lot more interesting or promising for the player to explore, at least in my mind.

So for the following section I tried to put categories together, in where I pick a few unique ability ideas out of my list that were exemplary to illustrate why they are noteworthy cooler in comparison.

There is some overlap between categories and most of these abilities have cross-overs between multiple skills, instead of focusing on just a single skill or a skill tag. I highlight this here because the benefit of covering multiple skills with one item is superb. Often this allows one skill to tap into an existing synergy spectrum of a different skill, which greatly improves build variety. That would compensate for the rather disappointing pace of unique item additions.

1 Unique abilities that grow along if you invest in skill points click on it

Medusa :bow_and_arrow: Crossbow

Your Basic Marksman skills (Heartseeker,Forceful Arrow,Puncture) simultanously shoot additional arrows or blades in a fan shape. Number of additional arrows or blades: skill level divided by 2.
  • The ability puts some basic skills visually on a level with other (core) skills.
  • Arrow count example: Heartseeker rank 10 will shoot 1+5 arrows. Rank 15 will shoot 1+7 arrows. Rank 20 shoots 1+10 arrows. I like this idea as it gives skill points a way more interesting effect.

Pyrebound :bow_and_arrow: Crossbow

Heartseeker arrows seek up multiple enemies or a single one multiple times (think of Sorcerer's 'Lightning Spear') to attach an explosive with each hit, up to 5 (+1 every 2 skill points) times. All explosives detonate in a chain as soon as the last one is attached.
Heartseeker now has a cooldown of 6 seconds and is considered a Grenade Ability.
  • Lets enable grenades a bit more. I think the chain reaction could look interesting.
  • Imagine Heartseeker arrows to fly curves and pierce through targets in order to reach maximum explosive number.
  • The ability also allows curious players to work with this number by having skill points increase it further.
  • The cooldown is added for two reasons: To limit the visual spam, and to emphasize the explosive power. Think of it as high enough to compensate the cooldown.
  • This reminds of Starfall Coronet (Sorcerer helmet). I am not a fan of long cooldowns, but instant skills getting a short cooldown to pump up their visuals is cool.


Noticable here is that the abilities & values are not static: if you invest a skill point in the tree it shows on this ability. Especially if different visuals are resulting of it, a player’s curiosity is triggered to see what a maxed skill investment will look like.

2 Unique abilities that replace a skills appearance with another skill click on it

Rear Guard of the Sneak Attack :shorts: Pants

Death Trap itself does no longer deal damage. Instead, each clone appearing around your Death Trap casts Shadow Step or Dash (if equipped) directed to the trap center. One iteration for all clones consumes a single charge of Shadow Step \ Dash.
  • I was looking for a way to have investments in skill charges count more and was lucky with finding this synergy-powerhouse. It is a perfect example of how synergies to other skills can replace big numbers.
  • With this ability + Imbuements + Aspect to have clones benefit from imbuements, you are also able to make Death Trap deal Poison & Cold damage.
  • So if you have Dash ready imbued with Poison Imbuement, and trigger Death Trap, then each of these clones casts a poison imbued Dash.
  • Perhaps it would be cooler if clones attack as long as charges are left? This would also give another synergy with my Momentum unique.

Diaper of the Madman :shorts: Pants

Dance of Knives becomes a Grenade ability and now throws Stun Grenades instead of Knives. This is also compatible with Imbuements. In addition, you periodically drop a Smoke Grenade on your position while channeling.
  • This ability offers a variant for Stun Grenades, where they dont just drop dead on the floor and instead fly like a Smoke Grenade. This could look quite crazy.
  • Due to the explosions, big groups or enemies are likely to catch more damage compared to knives.
  • The additional Smoke Grenade can be useful for frequent stealth damage bonuses provided by Saboteur’s Signet.

Hell Catapult :bow_and_arrow: Crossbow

Stun Grenades can no longer spawn, but you gain a stackable 'Grenade' buff instead.
Rain of Arrows on the other hand can no longer shoot arrows, and instead rains grenades from the sky. This rain's density is dependend on stacks of the buff.
  • Here I want to give grenades further spotlight. They are underused in the tree and across abilities.
  • This new ability essentialy benefits from spawning a high number of Stun Grenades. There are countless options to create Stun Grenades, even with a rune.
  • But instead of dropping them on the floor, the Rogue collects all of them, to send them flying with Rain of Arrows. This also means that if the buff isnt stacked high enough, the rain will be thin.
  • A notable effect this ability has for Rain of Arrows, is that grenade explosions have a bigger hitbox than single arrows. For that matter, the Imbuement feature should be kept as additional damage dealer.
  • Since Rain of Arrows is already very graphical, I think it is better to replace arrows with grenades completely. Both would be too much effects.


These abilities do not add visual effects per se, instead they swap a skill or parts of it with another skill. Such theme transformations are able to make skills feel like a brand new one. In comparison to Diablo 3, D4 is lacking quite a bit in this area.

3 Unique abilities that make use of underused affixes or mechanics click on it

Pain Trader :raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed: Gloves

While Dark Shroud is active, enemies hitting you suffer from added Thorns damage, based on the number of spheres of Dark Shroud.
Removed spheres will stick to the responsible enemy, which leads it to suffer 100% of your Thorns from any damage source. Sticky spheres can stack.
Your sphere maximum is increased by +1.
  • Thorns fits with Dark Shroud’s behaviour so I combined these two.
  • Lets assume a player has 5 active spheres. That could give a 5 times bigger damage bonus to Thorns.
  • The sticking mechanic is intended to provide a different & offensive damage boost, especially against boss encounters, as they normaly last a bit longer and are likely to remove and stack most of a players spheres. So if a boss manages to remove a theoretical maximum of 5 spheres, every hit you deal against the boss deals 5 times your Thorns damage.
  • I imagine this effect on the enemy to look similar to the player visual for Dark Shroud, with the same limit of max spheres.
  • Basically, this sticking mechanic will make you stronger for not avoiding hits. And since you are protected by Dark Shroud, the whole thing synergizes well.
  • It would add to the fun if the sphere maximum is upgradable.


Thorns are quite common as affixes, only to have very limited use cases for most classes. Life per Second is another example. But unique abilities can use this circumstance in a creative way to create new options for equipment building. Few instances exist, like for max resource, but I want to see it more often.

4 Unique abilities that improve specializations and other systems click on it

Dark Wealth :ring: Ring

Your Combo Point maximum is increased by +1.
Each attempt to add a sphere of Dark Shroud beyond the limit will give you a Combo Point instead. But:
* you lose a sphere each second
* and once you spend combo points, all spheres will vanish.
  • This is intended to be an alternative Combo Point generator, that also works without using Basic skills.
  • Because most core skills end up being spamable at some point, the need for resource generators vanishes.
  • Spheres can overflow by reusing Dark Shroud in time, or better through the Umbrous Aspect
  • But in order to not trivialise the specialization, I added some negatives. Using Combo Points will reset the spheres + defense while forcing the player to stack up again.

Strings of the Puppeteer :medal_sports: Amulet

Your Preparation specialization now increases the duration for Shadow Clone ultimate instead of reducing the cooldown.
In addition, you can now have up to 3 active Shadow Clones, with each using a different Imbuement for its whole duration, but also decreasing the ultimates duration faster.
  • Here I wanted to create something that includes ‘Preparation’ as it has no mention in any other aspect or ability. I also wanted to create something unique for the Shadow Clone ultimate that has the permanent minion feel to it.
  • Visually, I imagine this ability to transform Shadow Clones into 3 different colored clones, depending on their Imbuement element (purple, green, blue).
  • Having 3 active clones basically means that using imbuable skills will always result in 3 replications, with one being shadow imbued, another being poison imbued, and the third with Cold Imbuement.
  • You mostly lose out on Preparation’s other effects, but that is a cost for an ability that is quite strong. I guess it also wouldnt be a bad idea to split overall damage of all three clones. In any case, I think it is good that this ability requires some build up time.
  • Additionally, keeping up 3 clones should be too hard without using Preparation, and it should not be too easy with Preparation. If 3 clones modify duration 3 times, a player will need spending 75 resource every 1.666 seconds to keep them indefinitely.

Gaze of the Gargoyle :ribbon: Helm

Twisting Blades' will detour before flying back to hit another target marked by Inner Sight, or a random target if Inner Sight is filled. If it is the same you impaled (e.g. boss encounter), then blades will fly a short distance behind the target and come back like a boomerang.
Damage of Twisting Blades is increased by a blade's traveled distance.
  • The idea is to emphasize Twisting Blades’ originaly intended gameplay. But here you can better manipulate the flying-back-route with the created distance, and you dont need to move as much.
  • Multiple enemies: The blades’ initial hit will impale the enemy in front of you for the usual time, then flies to the next\marked enemy to repeat this. This maneuver increases the fly distance for more damage, and it helps to fill the Inner Sight bar.
  • Single enemy: Imagine this to look a bit like the Spirit Born’s Razor Wings. The inital hit of Twisting Blades works as usual, followed by flying in the opposite direction for to gain a distance for increased damage, and finally to come back to the player like a boomerang.
  • Phew! Yeah, this one is better to see and test in action in order to find out whether it works or not.


Rogue specilizations could need an update. Season 8’s Band of Ichor Rose tried to involve items for that. Whether this was successful or not, I like that idea of benefiting other systems besides the tree.



Relevant links:
  • General unique items rework: Link