PoE Deadeye build - guide to the Path of Exile archer

If you want to play the Path of Exile Ranger as the type of archer with a barrage of bow attacks, Deadeye is a perfect choice for your Ascendancy class. It has plenty of ways to empower the amount of ranged damage with various projectile-related passives. Deadeyes can fire additional shots and make their attacks chain and pierce enemies.

In this guide, we’re going to discuss a build that’s focused on very high single target damage that’s provided by Elemental Hit. It scales incredibly well into the endgame and later parts of the league, because of the serious critical strike multiplayer. The mechanics of critical strike multiplier determine how much total damage will your attacks deal to the enemy. Besides a quick clear, it excels at killing various bosses, including the Uber Elder. On the other hand, it utilizes two Elemental Hit bows with different support gems – one for clearing hordes of enemies and one for destroying bosses. Unfortunately, it’s a necessary step to optimize for both types of encounters. It makes the build a bit expensive. 

It’s a strong and engaging build that requires a lot of player skills expression and constant movement, not only the correct skill tree or sockets layout. It’s based on tons of ranged damage and staying safe by kiting your opponents. It all combines into an enjoyable and satisfying gameplay experience.

Deadeye passives

Powerful Precision – makes your projectiles that pierce enemies guaranteed Critical Hits. It lets your projectiles pierce additional targets – especially in close range.

Fast and Deadly – provides +30% Projectile Damage, 10% increased Attack Speed, 50% Accuracy, and decreases the cooldowns of Mirror Arrow and Blink Arrow, if you’re using them.

Far Shot – it provides additional travel speed of your projectiles and grants increased projectile damage, the further they go. Recently, patch 3.2.0 added 30% increased projectile speed.

Endless Munitions – makes your ranged skills fire an additional projectile, increases the Area of Effect of your actions and provides +200 Accuracy Rating. Far Shot is required to unlock this passive.

Ricochet – lets your skills chain one extra time and gives your projectiles additional damage, based on the remaining chains. It requires Far Shot as well.

Rupture – your actions have increased effect when you’re attacking bleeding enemies. It provides increased Critical Strike Chance, Critical Damage, and Life Steal against opponents suffering from that ailment. Moreover, your attacks will have a 25% chance of inflicting bleeding onto their targets.

Gathering Winds – using skills will give you and your nearby allies the Tailwind buff (+10% action speed for 4 seconds). Moreover, while you’re under the effect of Tailwind – you receive 1000 bonus Evasion Rating to dodge easier.

Gems

Elemental Hit Link – AoE clearing

You’re going to use a bow with this gem setup for clearing maps, delves, and going through any other content that requires destroying large numbers of enemies at the same time.

Elemental Hit – a basic attack that converts into random elemental damage (fire, cold, or lightning). If your target is affected by the ailment of the corresponding element, this skill will have an additional AoE damage effect and hit 10% harder. Each attack only uses a single element. Moreover, it has a chance of applying the specific elemental ailment. 

Elemental Damage with Attacks Support – increases the Elemental Damage done by the supported skill. In this case, it’s the entire damage of this skill.

Greater Multiple Projectiles Support – makes the supported skill fire four additional projectiles that deal less damage. It’s the crucial supportive tool for AoE clearing with this build.

Mirage Archer Support - summons a Mirage Archer that performs a weaker and slower version of the supported skill. It has a great synergy with Elemental Hit and gets a ton of value from the extra projectiles.

Combustion Support – increases the fire damage of the supported skill and provides it with a chance to ignite enemies on hit.

The sixth slot should contain a gem that will further increase the Elemental Hit’s damage. Some of the best choices are to Empower Support or Fire Penetration Support. If you’re confident in staying at 100% HP while clearing, you can consider the Damage on Full Life Support too, although we don’t recommend it because it’s really easy to have long downtimes with this gem. If you are afraid or not confident yet, you can go for a Life Leech Support gem or any other leech mechanics gem for enhanced resources management. As you progress, you can successfully drop these gems, because you will be able to sustain on your own. You can try to go for the Increased Area of Effect Support, as it gives almost 50% increased area of effect on your attacks, but the DPS loss would be too much. 

Elemental Hit – bosses (single target)

This variant is really similar to the AoE one, but the small differences go a long way to make you even stronger against bosses. There will be some time when you don’t need this second bow – some earlier bosses can easily be beaten with the previous one. That being said, if you’re starting to struggle during the boss fights, it might be a good idea to take the single target version.

Elemental Hit

Elemental Damage with Attacks Support

Mirage Archer Support – it still is valuable, even without the extra projectiles.

Combustion Support - ditto.

Fire Penetration Support – even more valuable against bosses, because they have higher resistances than regular mobs.

For the last slot, you can choose between Increased Critical Strikes Support (this build heavily relies on crits) or Empower Support.

Auras Link

Herald of Ash – grants additional Fire Damage and makes your attacks burn the nearby enemies on kill. It helps a lot with clearing, but the extra damage makes it a worthy addition during boss fights.

Precision – increases Accuracy and Critical Strike Chance of you and nearby allies.

Vaal Grace or Vaal Haste – the former provides some survivability thanks to extra Evasion, and the latter gives you increased Movement Speed and Action Speed.

Enlighten Support – decreases the Mana cost of the supported skill.

Blink Arrow Link

It’s one of the possible utility-focused links. It’s used for mobility and some buffs.

Blink Arrow – shoots an arrow in the target location. When it reaches its destination, you will be teleported there, and a clone spawns in your old location. The clone will aid you in combat, shooting arrows at enemies.

Faster Attacks Support - increases the attack speed of the supported skill.

Summon Ice Golem – conjures a minion that increases your Accuracy and Critical Strike Chance (crit damage is based upon the Critical Strike Multiplayer). It will also fight the enemies, dealing ice damage and applying the Chill effect.

Blood Rage – a buff that makes you slowly lose HP, but also provides Life Steal on your attacks. Combined with Life Leech may give you a decent life recovery.

Cast when Damage Taken Support Link

A worthy alternative to Blink Arrow, especially if you don’t feel that you need the mobility.

Cast when Damage Taken Support – link it to Ice Golem (for more uptime) or Immortal Call (for extra survivability). It will trigger the specific spell when your Life goes below a certain threshold.

Immortal Call – temporarily reduces the amount of physical and elemental damage that you take.  

Summon Ice Golem – the golem tends to die pretty fast, so having it re-summon automatically can be useful and result in an overall damage gain.

Blood Rage - ditto.

Armageddon Brand Link

This link provides a significant boost of damage in long fights against a single opponent. It accelerates your boss DPS even further.

Armageddon Brand – attaches a brand to a nearby enemy. When it’s attached, it will frequently activate to summon a meteor that hits the target’s location. It detaches after 5 seconds or when the enemy dies. The meteors deal Fire Damage and have a chance of igniting the opponents hit.

Curse on Hit Support – allows you to proc the linked curse with your attacks.

Projectile Weakness – a curse that lets your projectiles pierce and knock back the target enemy, as well as increases the damage that they take from ranged attacks.

Power Charge on Critical Support – makes the supported skill generate Power Charges on Critical Hits. It also increases the Critical Chance of the supported skill and makes it deal extra damage per charge. Moreover, each Power Charge further increases your Critical Chance on its own.

Gear

Weapon

Chin Sol is a great option for a single target since it provides Dexterity, Fire Damage, Critical Chance, and Attack Speed. However, if you want to min-max, you should craft your own bow. The most important stat to have is +3 Gem Level (Elemental Hit scales incredibly well with levels). Besides, you should prioritize Elemental Damage, Elemental Penetration, Attack Speed, Critical Chance, and Critical Damage. If you have an excellent combination of these statistics, you should be good to go.

Quiver

You should look for a rare quiver that will provide the most valuable stats. Maximum Life, Elemental Damage, Critical Chance, Attack Speed, and resistances are the ones to prioritize.

Helmet  

Sarkonja’s Head is a great option that provides a ton of Maximum Life, Evasion, Dexterity, and Critical Chance as well as some Attack Speed. While at low life, it will vastly increase your Evasion, but at the same time, it will cut the amount of your damage dealt in half.

Devoto’s Devotion is an option that’s slightly better for clearing maps, but it lacks Life and damage boosts, which makes it much weaker against bosses. Finally, there’s a variant of this build that utilizes the Frostferno Leather Hood. If you decided to use it, you would place your Elemental Hit link in it. This option is not optimal for the endgame, but it’s a decent transition as you keep collecting items for your final build. Elemental Hit on the helmet is cheaper since it allows you to use a single bow instead of swapping between two.

Chest

Queen of the Forest is a perfect choice that provides additional scaling with Evasion – you’re going to need a lot of it if you decide to go with this item. Furthermore, it gives Maximum Life, Elemental Resistances, and a ton of Movement Speed (if you have enough Evasion). It’s probably the best choice for relatively early game (it’s pretty cheap) and AoE clearing.

Loreweave is another interesting option. It doesn’t provide all the stats that you might want, but it brings a lot of Critical Chance and Elemental Damage. These stats are extremely useful for shredding through bosses.

You could also go with Farrul’s Fur or Kaom’s Heart, but they will require certain adjustments to the build and gem setup.

Gloves

We recommend going for rare gloves with Elemental Resistances, Evasion, Maximum Life, and Attack Speed. Accuracy might also be a good idea if you don’t feel like you have enough (97% is a reasonable threshold, but it comes down to personal preference).

Boots

In this slot, you should go for at least 25% of the bonus Movement Speed. Beyond that, we recommend the same defensive stats as in the other armor pieces (Elemental Resistances, Evasion, etc.). Additionally, an Abyssal socket would be great. Bubonic Trail is a viable unique option for this slot, but a lot of its value comes from using the Abyssal Jewels, so it’s more of an endgame item.

Accessories

Similar to many other builds, Stygian Vise is our belt of choice. The Abyssal Socket is extremely valuable if you have the right jewel. The remaining accessories should provide Elemental Resistances, Maximum Life, Elemental Damage, Critical Chance, and other stats that we already established as important.

Xoph’s Blood is a great unique amulet, as it provides 10% penetration of your enemies’ Fire Resistance. Moreover, it provides the Avatar of Fire passive that converts half of your non-Chaos damage into Fire Damage. It also covers the attackers in ash, making them more vulnerable to Fire Damage. Yoke of Suffering is a slightly weaker, but more defensive choice, as it provides a lot of Elemental Resistances.

As for the unique ring, Pyre is a decent option that’s easy to obtain. It provides Cold and Fire Resistances. Moreover, it increases the damage that you deal with the Burning ailment and converts some of your Cold Damage into Fire Damage. However, The Taming is by far the best in slot here. It provides a ton of Elemental Damage and Resistances. You should strive to include it in your final build, but it’s an expensive item, so it might take a while.

Jewels and Flasks

The jewel setup is not set in stone - you can tweak it a little bit, to fit the rest of your build or your preferences. However, the stats that we recommend are Maximum Life, Critical Chance with Elemental Skills, Attack Speed with Bows, Fire Damage, and other valuable offensive statistics.

In Abyss Jewels, you can go for Maximum Life, Critical Chance, and Critical Damage. In terms of flasks, the unique one that we recommend is The Wise Oak (just make sure that your Fire Resistance is the highest out of all Elemental Resistances because otherwise, you won’t gain the Fire Penetration that you need.

Bandits

You can either help Alira (extra resistances are useful) or kill all three Bandits (extra passive points are more important for the endgame optimization). You have to decide which one of these two options is more valuable to you.

Pantheon

Major God (we’re talking about fully upgraded bonus effects). Choose one of these two:

Soul of Lunaris – great for clearing maps due to extra Evasion, Movement Speed, and stat boosts when surrounded by multiple enemies.

Soul of Solaris – optimal for killing bosses, thanks to high damage reductions, as well as resistance to Critical Strikes and ailments.

Minor God

Soul of Shakari is an efficient, versatile option, thanks to the reduction Chaos Damage taken and the immunity to poison.

You can also consider Soul of Yugul (optimal for Uber Elder) or Soul of Gruthkul (great for AoE clearing, against enemies who deal physical damage).

Ascendancy Points

We recommend spending the Ascendancy Points in this succession: first - Gathering Winds (great for leveling, even greater if you’re using Queen of the Forest). Powerful Precision and its pierce buff can help a lot with clearing. Far Shot allows you to deal extra damage from long range – it’s helpful against bosses that are more threatening if you come too close to them.

Progression

Progression with this build is rather smooth and easy. Bows, in general, are potent weapons for the early levels. As a Ranger and later Deadeye, you will quickly obtain some tools to make them even stronger. The best gem for leveling is Rain of Arrows. Try to boost it with some support gems that provide additional damage, and you should have no problems with the early progression.

You should be able to transition into Elemental Hit when you have wdGreater Multiple Projectiles Support and Mirage Archer Support. The Auras link is quite important as well – especially the Herald of Ash. The Armageddon Brand link will be important when you approach some more difficult bosses.

As we already mentioned, you will eventually have to run two Elemental Hit bows, but it’s not necessary for the early game. There might be a point when you transition out of Queen of the Forest into another chest armor – more suited for the endgame and boss fights. At this point, you should replace some other items, as Evasion becomes less of a priority. 

Other modifiers like Cold Resistance, 5% Increased Duration of Flask Effect, Increased Global Critical Strike Chance, Added Cold Damage, etc. are not worth it, especially with Ice Bite and Herald of Ice being less potent recently. In some situations, these mods can be partially viable, but if you are not 100% on par with PoE skill tree - don't. 

Path of Exile Deadeye Guide

Elemental Hit Deadeye is a fantastic build that, with the right itemization, can excel at both clearing maps and slaying bosses. Its massive amounts of ranged single target damage, make it a safe and powerful boss killer. We believe that it currently is the best and most satisfying Deadeye (or maybe even PoE Ranger) build in the meta. If dealing tons of damage while constantly moving around in this active playstyle sound fun to you, we recommend that you give it a shot! Make sure to browse our site if you’re interested in other PoE builds, e. g. Spectral Shield Throw, Tornado Shot, or Ice Shot build! 

Look around the finest offers from the gaming world. Mark our words - once you try, you'll find yourself in the shopping frenzy. Every new user receives a permanent bonus to each order. It is the main cause that more than 5,500 customers already decided to trade with us. Join them in our sellers and friends community.

Copyright sellersandfriends.com 2020, all rights reserved.