Path of Exile is an extensive game that supports many different playstyles. With six original classes, and one advanced class to choose from, you can build your character any way you want. If you prefer killing enemies from a distance before they know it, we have one class in mind for you.
The class we’re discussing today is the Ranger, one of the six starting classes you can pick up from the get-go. There are multiple ways to build a Ranger in Path of Exile, but if you want to get going quickly with a low-to-medium budget, our build here is perfect.
Path of Exile: Ranger basics
Before we get into the meat of our Ranger build, you need to know how to properly start with a Ranger. The Ranger is a powerful beginner class with multiple effective endgame builds. Rangers primarily use bows to snipe enemies from a distance, and their clearing speed only increases over time with the right gear and gems.
To bring out the best of our Ranger, let’s first talk about their Ascendancy classes. All six starter classes have three different Ascendancy classes to choose from, each with a unique playstyle that changes how you play the character. For the Ranger, these are the classes you can choose:
- Deadeye: A swift archer that specializes in movement speed and quick attacks.
- Raider: An assassin that finishes off enemies before they can react.
- Pathfinder: A nature-oriented class that uses flasks and poison attacks to weaken enemies.
For the sake of this build, we will be choosing the Deadeye Ascendancy class to make the most of our ranged playstyle. Deadeyes focuses on dashing around the battlefield and sniping enemies with several buffs to their movement speed and attack speed. The skills and passives we will eventually choose augment this playstyle even further as the endgame approaches.
Now that you know the basics of playing a Deadeye Ranger, we get into the build that brings it all together.
Best Deadeye build in Path of Exile
Build choices for a Deadeye Ranger vary depending on what stage of the game you’re at. Rangers usually have a smooth time clearing early-game content but once the time comes to ascend, you will have to make choices regarding what you want your endgame to look like. For the sake of this guide, we’re choosing to go with the Tornado Shot endgame build for our Deadeye.
Going by its namesake, the build revolves around one main skill: Tornado Shot. This skill allows your Deadeye to fire one projectile that travels a certain distance and then disperses, breaking into four additional projectiles that fire in all directions. Upgrades to this skill will ramp up its damage and area coverage, making it one of the most potent mapping skills.
Spamming this skill while you run around the map with increased movement speed and attack speed will ensure your enemies die a swift death. This applies to normal mobs as well as elite enemies, making this build an efficient boss-killer as well.
The only drawback is how expensive the endgame items can be, but we can work our way there. Getting to the endgame can be quite challenging after you finish the story, so you check out our beginner guide to make the start of your League journey much easier.
Getting started
The first thing to do before we start on our Deadeye build is ascend your Ranger into a Deadeye. Doing this involves clearing the early stages of The Labyrinth. If this is your first time completing it, you will gain access to all the Ascendancy options available for your character. When you get the option to do so, simply select the Deadeye to unlock the class.
Unlocking the class will also unlock its unique Ascendancy tree with its own set of passives. For our Deadeye build, we’ll select four of these minor passives before getting into the Ascendancy nodes later down the line.
- Projectile Damage, Accuracy: Increased accuracy rating and projectile damage.
- Projectile Damage, Projectile Speed: Increased projectile speed and projectile damage.
- Projectile Damage, Attack Speed: Increased attack speed and projectile damage.
- Projectile Damage, Critical Strike Chance: Increased chance of critical strike and additional damage.
Since the Deadeye gains access to Tailwind by default, you will be breezing through the map while spamming Tornado Shot at groups of enemies. Aiming the shot behind them will cause the ability to splinter and hit several targets for great coverage. If the enemies are too tanky for your damage, we can set up Ballista Totems to also fire Tornado Shots leading to devastation.
There is little that this build cannot do. That said, every build has its weaknesses, and this one is quite item dependent when it gets to the endgame. Farming the necessary items is the biggest challenge, and even then, Uber Pinnacle bosses are quite challenging to successfully kill. The build also leaves you quite squishy and depends entirely on your evasion stat to avoid damage.
This is why we invest points into appropriate passives to bolster our build further, and the next section covers which ones you will need.
Passive choices
We now get to the core of this build, the passives. Path of Exile is well-known for its massive network of passive skills that encompass every class in the game. Depending on which class you pick, you start at different locations on the passive tree. Since our base class is the Ranger, we begin at the eastern half of the passives network and will eventually branch out northward and southward.
We’ll start with the top half of the passive tree. After investing a few points into Dexterity, head upward and pick up Reservation Mastery so that your auras have an increased effect on Deadeye. From the branch, head south to pick up important passives like Primal Spirit and Heart of Oak. Complete that tree and head back to the branching path.
From the central point again, go east and pick up a super-essential passive, Wind Dancer, which is a key component of this build. Then, pick up the neighboring Elemental Mastery and Evasion Mastery before going upward and branching to the east where more passives await you.
Head up from the branch and pick up Accuracy Mastery and all its neighboring passives. Then, head further north until you pick up the Infused passive. From here, go back to the branching path and head south for the next half of the passives.
Going south from here will let you pick up Spell Suppression, Critical Mastery, and most importantly, Bow Mastery along with all their neighboring passives. From this point, drop further to the south to another branching point, where you’ll pick up Life Mastery and all its associated passives before venturing southwest.
Keep going southwest and pick up Flask Mastery and Projectile Mastery before veering to west to pick up Life Mastery again. Finally, go north to pick up Bow Mastery and its related passives to round off this build. For a thorough look at the passive tree for this build, check out the passive skill tree on the main Path of Exile website.
Gear options
The Deadeye Ranger’s gear setup can take a while to get going. You can trade for better options if you’re playing an online League to make the journey to endgame easier. By the time you acquire everything you need, this is what an endgame Deadeye Ranger’s full build should look like:
- Bow: Tri-Ele Bow
- Quiver: Feathered Arrow Quiver with Additional Arrow and high Projectile Speed
- Helmet: Life/Resistance helm with Suppression or Accuracy
- Body Armor: Hyrri’s Ire
- Gloves: Shadows and Dust
- Boots: Life/Resistance/Movement Speed boots with a chance to gain Onslaught on kill
- Amulet: Crystallised Omniscience
- Rings: Death Rush
- Belt: Life/Resistance belt
The items mentioned above are all the best-in-slot gear options for your Deadeye build, and they will start to shine as you inch closer to that coveted level 100.
Ascendancy nodes
The final part of this build deals with the Ascendancy skill tree and the nodes we need to power up. These nodes are the final things needed to push your Tornado Shot to its limit by granting additional Ascendancy passives that boost several aspects of your build.
The passives are chosen in the order of priority for this build.
- Gathering Winds: You gain one Gale Force every time you use a skill. The number of Gale Forces that you have active increases the effect of Tailwind. Additionally, Tailwind affects you and your allies.
- Far Shot: Your Projectile Barrages have no spread. The passive also grants your Tornado Shot with a consistent damage boost by granting your secondary projectiles bonus damage depending on the distance they travel.
- Endless Munitions: Your skills fire two additional projectiles. This grants your Tornado Shot increased coverage by hitting multiple targets, thereby further increasing its damage output.
- Ricochet: Your skills chain one additional time. If your projectiles hit terrain, they have a chance to chain as well. This allows Tornado Shot to bounce between multiple targets if used right.
That’s everything you need to know to run an endgame Deadeye Ranger in Path of Exile.
