Path of Exile 2: Deadeye Leveling guide (Easiest 0.3.0 League-starter)

Deadeye builds are the de-facto apex predators in Path of Exile 2's patch 0.3.0 meta. Despite a bunch of pre-patch nerfs to Bullseye (your source of Critical Weakness), Deadeye is still in a very strong spot to be the best endgame scaling Ascendancy, and on top of that, the leveling is really easy throughout the campaign.

If you have any prior familiarty with Path of Exile 1 or 2, leveling with LA Deadeye is likely to be an experience you already know by heart. However, just in case you're joining in for the first time in League 0.3, or just want an easy build to play through Path of Exile 2 free weekend, here's a complete guide on how to level a Deadeye build.

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How does the Lightning Arrow Deadeye play in Path of Exile 2?

The bread-and-butter of this build is a time-honored PoE 2 combo: shoot down Lightning Rods on a boss, and then shoot Lightning Arrows into the cluster to re-trigger them. While other Lightning Skills can chain into Lightning Rods, Lightning Arrow has an exclusive interaction where it doesn't have any trigger delay for the additional damage.

That's pretty much your main thing for this build, and this is how you will scale into the Endgame and go through T15 mapping in Path of Exile 2. At that point, you'll be using other Skills to aid and abet your Lightning experiments - Barrage, Tornado Shot, and so on. We will explain these as we go along the campaign.

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Deadeye leveling guide in Path of Exile 2 early-game (Act 1)

You get Lightning Arrow as your first guaranteed Skill out of the box, so what we'll get next is Contagion (temporarily) and Lightning Rod.

Lvl 1 - 5

Start with the Ranger class, kill the Miller, and once you get to the encampment, you'll get your first Uncut Gem. You want to take Contagion from the Occult category with this. Afterwards, sell off your all your loot gained from Miller - unless if it's a particular good bow, crossbow, or mace.

For the next couple areas, your mobbing combo will be casting Contagion on a weak enemy, and then killing it to also kill the monster pack around it. I personally pick up a white-rarity two-handed Mace here for single-target DPS. However, you can also do it easier with a crossbow or bow, or just Contagion + Lightning Arrow to some good effect.

You can pick up another guaranteed Uncut Gem from the abandoned stash in Clearfell, and then cut Lightning Rod from it. If you get this before the Devourer boss, kill it with Lightning Rod + Lightning Arrow, or just use plain regular attack DPS for that fight. After the Devourer, you get your first Uncut Support Gem by talking to Renly. Grab Lightning Infusion with it and stick it on Lightning Arrow.

Afterwards, kill Beira back in Clearfell, and continue to the Grelwood. Here, you want to hunt down Areagne Forgotten Witch first, which gives you both a set of new Flasks from the Cauldron, as well as your second Uncut Support Gem. With this one, you should get Martial Tempo and put it on Lightning Arrow again.

Gearing

After you're lvl 5, travel back to town and start shopping around for some early leveling gear:

• A Shortbow with extra flat physical damage, % physical damage, or lightning damage
• A pair of Gloves with the Adds x Damage to Attacks affix
• Boots with movement speed

For Gold, the main trick is to always identify weapons and trinkets before you sell them (don't do this with Magic Flasks). As long as you maintain good discipline with this, your finances should be good. If you get any crafting currencies like a lucky Exalt or Regal, you want to save it for later; early-game gearing is very transient in Path of Exile 2.

Check out: Complete Path of Exile 2 Crafting guide for beginners

Gem links by this point:

• Lightning Arrow: Martial Tempo, Lightning Infusion
• Lightning Rod
• Contagion

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Lvl 6 - 14

With your first Lvl 3 Uncut Gem, you want to get Stormcaller Arrow. This is a great single-target option for bossing till much later on, and you can also use it for mobbing too. With your next two Support Gem drops, get Scattershot and Concentrated Effect for this purpose.

You want to use Martial Tempo on Stormcaller Arrow's first slot, and switch between these two on the second slot when needed. For this purpose, I keep a Lightning Rod with Lightning Infusion + Scattershot/Concentrated Effect, and then swap out the necessary support on Stormcaller Arrow on the fly. I don't really use Lightning Rod during this point, though.

Lightning Rod is just there for Gem-swapping on the fly (Image via GGG)

For mobs, you want to just keep firing Stormcaller Arrows with Scattershot, and as long as your bow is good enough, it should be fast. Grim Tangle will be a particularly rough patch with the hazardous narrow passages, so be extra careful if you're playing hardcore.

For bosses, you want to also Gemcut Frost Bomb and put the Arcane Tempo Support on it. Frost Bomb now also increases Lightning Exposure, so you want to land this on bosses once in a while. Other than that, Stormcaller Arrow + Conc Effect takes care of your DPS quite nicely.

Once you get to the Hunting Grounds, make sure to take the detour to Freythorn and defeat the King in the Mists to get your Gembloom Skull and first Uncut Spirit Gem, which will immediately be put to use for Herald of Thunder.

After you defeat The Executioner and head back to the town to continue the quest, you will get your first Lvl 5 Uncut Gem, and you want to spend this for a Freezing Salvo. Put Hourglass on it, because you'll only be using it ocassionally for burst damage on shielded enemies and Rares.

Gearing

Your bow is your entire damage scaling (Image via GGG)

At Lvl 11, you want to make your first big gearing attempt: a Warden Bow. You ideally want at least a couple of the following affixes:

• + added Lightning Damage
• + added Physical Damage
• % increased Physical Damage
• + Level of Projectile Skills

This Warden Bow is highly important, and you should be on the lookout for this when running through the areas, and frequently check Renly's wares. Vendor inventory resets on every levelup, so make sure to revisit every time you gain a new level. This bow will be your mainstay for the better part of Act 2.

From the Blank Rune that you gain off recovering Renly's Tools, you want to take a Storm Rune and stick it into the Warden Bow once you're sure you have got a good one.

Gem link by the point you finish Act 1:

• Stormcaller Arrow: Martial Tempo, Concentrated Effect / Scattershot
• Lightning Rod as placeholder
• Freezing Salvo: Hourglass, Magnified Effect
• Herald of Thunder: Innvervate
• Frost Bomb: Arcane Tempo

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Path of Exile 2 Deadeye leveling guide: Act 2 gear swap

Before you proceed to Act 2, if you have any leftover Lvl 5 Uncut Gems, use it to get Barrage, a Spear Skill. You just need to equip a thorwaway spear to gemcut it. Stick the Premeditation support on it, and use it beofre a Freezing Salvo on bosses and Rares.

Afterwards, your Gem stup doesn't change much till Lvl 28. You want to focus on getting Rings with added Attack Damage, and in general gear that adds Life for defenses. Once you get to Lvl 28, it's time to switch back to good old Lightning Arrow and Lightning Rod. Why? Because we're now looking for the biggest game-changer of all: the Dualstring Bow.

Dualstring Bow and gearing swap

Once you get to lvl 28, Dualstring Bows start dropping in the world, and you can also find them in vendor inventories in Act 2 after this point. Dualstring bows come with an implicit affix (meaning it's a guaranteed property): all Bow Attacks fire an additional Arrow, which also works with attack Skills like Lightning Arrow.

This is such a massive increase in effective DPS that you'll be using it for the rest of the campaign. Unless PoE2 adds new Dualstring Bow variants in patch 0.3, you will be using this bow all the way up till mapping, and at lvl 55, which is when the Twin Bow drops.

Naturally, for something that you'll be using for 25 levels, getting a good Dualstring Bow is highly important. If you are playing a trade League, this is where you want to spend your Exalts and Regals to try and grab a good Dualstring Bow off the market (much easier now thanks to async auto-trading in Path of Exile 2).

If not, always identify every Dualstring Bow you find as ground loot, and check vendor inventory regularly. The other option is gambling with Gold. In any case, you are looking for at least three of the following affixes again:

• + added Lightning Damage
• + added Physical Damage
• % increased Physical Damage
• + Level of Projectile Skills
• % increased Attack Speed

Otherwise, your gearing is simple - you want Quivers with added Lightning Damage, a boot with Movement Speed on it, and Elemental Resistances, Life, and Mana on the rest of your gear as you move into Act 3 and onwards.

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Passive Skills

Path of Exile 2 will have a massively overhauled Passive Tree, so I don't know right now what exact Passives you should take in the later levels. The general idea here is to look for nodes that add Projectile Damage, Attack Speed, Attack Damage, Elemental Damage with attack Skills and Hits, and Ailment proc rate.

The Attribute nodes should be taken as needed according to requirements for Support Gems. Mainly, you just want DEX other than that - because Evasion works against all hits now, and alongside the new Deflection mechanic, it's a solid natural defense to cover you till T4 mapping or higher.

For your Ascendancy passives once you unlock Deadeye via Trial of the Sekhemas in Path of Exile 2, you want to take Gathering Winds, and after you do the Chaos lab, go for Projectile Proximity Specialization (Point Blank).

Since the central part of the Passive Tree is unlikely to see heavy modification, here's what I'm currently using at Lvl 15:

Sample Passive Tree for early-game pre-patch (Image via GGG)

We will update this build as needed after testing out leveling runs with a Lightning Arrow Deadeye when Path of Exile 2 patch 0.3.0 drops. Until then, check out our other guides on the game:

• Path of Exile 2 Defense guide: Energy Shield, Armor, and Evasion explained
• Path of Exile 2: Skill Gems and Gemcutting guide
• Path of Exile 2 tier list
• 5 biggest changes in PoE2 patch 0.3, The Third Edict
• 5 Deadeye builds to try in Path of Exile 2 The Third Edict (0.3)
• Path of Exile 2: League starter Blood Mage build guide (0.3.0)