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PoE 2 Build

Eravin's Ball Lightning Arrow Deadeye

Ranger

Deadeye

Creator

End Game

Starter

By Eravin

Updated on Jan 16, 2025

Jan 16, 2025

Build Overview

UNCHANGED BY THE PATCH
The Ball Lightning Arrow Deadeye is currently a top tier Map Farmer & Boss Slayer in the Early Access Release of Path of Exile 2.

Select the Variant Appropriate for your current tier of play!

Starter - This Variant will see you through the campaign quickly and efficiently to get your account started off right as a great budget league starter.

Endgame Ready - This Variant is appropriate for those that have finished the campaign and are ready to begin progressing Endgame Content.
v Endgame Starter Guide
https://mobalytics.gg/poe-2/profile/fd980216-73d1-40b2-a9b2-63ad56a56cde/builds/1f40bf70-5c89-42b9-afdb-2becc6886c44

Endgame - This Variant is ideal for those that have progressed to T15 Maps and are looking to Progress T4 Pinnacle Encounters as well as Min Max their Build.

Build Variants

Endgame

Endgame Ready

Starter

Endgame - This Variant is ideal for those that have progressed to T15 Maps and are looking to Progress T4 Pinnacle Encounters as well as Min Max their Build.

Endgame Variant

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Equipment

Set 1

Set 2

This setup is generally what to look for and reflective of ENDGAME BEST IN SLOT, my actual gear is no where near this spicy and the build is extremely strong without going this far. We want as much damage as possible, massive evasion on our body armour, more then 2,000 Max Life, and 15% below capped Elemental Resistances WITHOUT our Rings so we can transition to using Thief's Torment as soon as we have the capital for it.

Amulet
For the Amulet we want 30 or 45 Spirit, Maximum Life, and +2-3 Projectile Levels above all else, Wind Dancer is a massive increase to Evasion, and we need every bit we can get to run Acrobatics. So spirit is non negotiable.

Cheap Anoint: High Alert

Good Anoint: Essence of the Storm

BIS Anoint: Wild Storm

Bow
Dual String Bows are very much meta for this build thanks to how additional arrows interact with Lightning Rod. The Best in Slot bow would cost several mirrors worth of currency to create, so curve your expectations and pick up a bow with 400+ DPS either fully physical or physical + lightning. For the suffixes take anything that's useful and call it a day, Attack Speed, Crit, Dexterity, or even Mana on Kill. 2 additional arrows is VERY Expensive but VERY Strong if you can afford it somehow.

Primed Quiver or Visceral Quiver, Both are Good!
Primed Quiver is BiS but Visceral is a runner up and often much cheaper with better stats then what you'll find Primed Quivers for on the trade site. So definitely consider it, my current quiver is Visceral with tiers that would cost atleast 20 divs on a primed quiver but I got it for 2 in exchange for some attack speed.

Ring
Thief's Torment is simply the best ring for this build, without it, it is impossible to sustain mana against pinnacle encounters and your flask will quickly run dry, not to mention it provides an infinite battery for mapping as well. Standard rings might be very powerful in their own way but the power of infinity is greater, and that's what you get with this thing.

Gloves
If you can manage to keep your Elemental Resistances maxed out and have the extra Divines for it, Hand of Wisdom and Action are a massive increase to the overall DPS of this build, far more then the amount you could get through a standard pair of gloves BUT IT WILL BE EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE to keep your Resistances capped thanks to also running Thief's Torment, so make sure you are prepared for that before running them and otherwise find a good set of Dexterity based gloves with Max Life, Physical and Lightning Flat Damage, and Resistances.

Gear
For your Body Armour, Helmet, and Boots you'll stack as much Evasion and Max Life and Resistances as possible in addition to 30% or more Movement speed on the Boots. You are not likely to cap Chaos Resistance running this build and honestly that's fine, the sources of chaos damage that are lethal in PoE 2 compared to PoE 1 are much better telegraphed and easier to avoid. Just make sure to not load your map device up with #% extra damage as chaos for the enemy. Ideally your Body Armour will be a Studded Vest with 1800+ Evasion to take full advantage of Beastial Skin, otherwise you are unlikely to have enough Evasion to run Acrobatics comfortably.

JEWELS
Prefixes: 20% total Quiver Effect is desired for the 100% breakpoint granting an extra projectile level, beyond that we want either Evasion + Damage % prefixes, or Damage + Damage on the rest.

Suffixes: Attack Speed, Attack Speed with Bows, Movement Speed.

You can also go for 5x 15% increased effect of equipped quiver jewels if you're filthy rich.

No Ring
Without Thief's Torment I highly recommend only running a Ultimate Mana Flask with % recovery while low mana and passive charge gain, otherwise you're going to have issues on pinnacle fights with mana regen and sustain. Make sure to quality it as well.

SHOULD I USE ACROBATICS?
If your Evasion without Tailwind is at 70% or higher with Acrobatics you should probably use Acrobatics, If you lose tailwind and drop down into the 60s it's not going to feel good. Work towards getting enough evasion to use Acrobatics, or just get really good at not slipping in AoE puddles.

Charms
Thawing Charm is the only worthwhile endgame choice for us, if you get frozen you'll die shortly after having no way to continually heal the incoming chip damage or regenerate your tailwind while CC'd to protect yourself.

Endgame Variant

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Skill Gems

Support Gem Requirements:

Str 45

Dex 90

Int 45

Lightning Arrow

Lightning Rod

Cast on Shock

Herald of Thunder

Wind Dancer

Orb of Storms

Voltaic Mark

Barrage

Electrocuting Arrow

Lightning Arrow
Lightning Arrow is still core to the build as you'd expect, still being utilized to quickly combo with our other core skill lightning rods to detonate the rods under large packs of enemies, or otherwise used on it's own to take out weaker packs of mobs. Although it has notably as the build's scaled up fallen completely out of use when it comes to bossing encounters.

Lightning Rod
Lightning Rod is our main combo and our main source of damage for bosses wholesale, each rod fired into the ground is chained to up to X times dealing their initial damage once again in what ends up being a large explosive radius, this chains with the Ball Lightning Fired by our Cast on Shock in an Infinite loop as long as we continue to fire new rods.
During Mapping we'll be chaining Lightning Arrow & Lightning Rods interchangeably as needed based on the threats presented to clear the map with the help of Herald of Thunder. When fighting Pinnacle Bosses and utilizing Weapon Set 2, swap Magnified Effect for Concentrated Effect and steal Primal Armament from Lightning Arrow replacing Overcharge to maximize it's bossing DPS.

Cast on Shock
Cast on Shock , a meta gem that builds up charge from the enemies we manage to shock, and upon reaching maximum energy deploys the skill socketed within. In this case we're using Ball Lightning which fires balls of lightning go figure, the balls can and do activate our Lightning Rod , so by spamming lightning rods on bosses we get a chain of events started where an infinite number of balls of lightning fly from our character towards the rods which fires off the rods causing more shocks which in turn of course causes more balls of lightning. This is the key reason we've taken Conduction on Lightning rod, as we need as many of those rods to be procing shocks as possible to get a near constant beam like fire rate going on our balls of lightning scaling our rare and bossing DPS to insane levels.
Just make sure to purchase Thief's Torment to complete the infinite loop as otherwise mana deficiency will be your limiting factor.

Herald of Thunder
Herald of Thunder Is the strongest map clearing supplement in the game, contributing up to 6 bolts of lightning to every attack we make inbetween kills we confirm against shocked enemies, which due to how our build works, is every enemy. Lightning Arrow on it's own firing through crowds of enemies will proc Herald of Thunder on entire screens worth of enemies for typically lethal damage resulting in near 100% uptime on the Innervate gem socketed within the Herald. Ontop of that each individual Lightning Rod implanted in the ground counts as an attack and can proc herald of thunder, meaning firing one lightning rod and one lightning arrow at a rare results in them not only taking damage from all of the rods and the lightning arrow but all 6 procs we had chambered from Herald of Thunder. Once your shock chance is made consistent with the help of Spreading Shocks, and Conduction, this Spirit gem makes your graphics card cook.

Wind Dancer
Wind Dancer When maxed out provides us with a 80% multiplicative increase to Evasion as long as we are not Hit with a melee attack, something typically easily avoided. The extra evasion granted by this spirit gem is essential for reaching acceptable levels of evasion for running Acrobatics, Something virtually impossible without it, while also helping to keep us safe from would be melee attackers when popped causing a knockback effect. If we have the extra 15 Spirit to do so, we attach Cannibalism and Clarity to spend it. Helpful but not mandatory additions.

Orb of Storms
Orb of Storms provides the build with additional bossing DPS through its ability to chain to Lightning Rod that have been fired into the ground. During boss fights you'll want to keep this constantly on top of your target while staying within 3 meters of it to stack Rage thanks to the Font of Rage we've socketed into it for 30% multiplicative attack damage. You should also utilize this spell combo'd with Lightning Rod during close quarters encounters like Rituals, Delirium Mirrors, and Simulacrums. Lastly active this combo on the edge of Breaches to confirm kills in an area while you move on to the other side of the Breach.

Voltaic Mark
Voltaic Mark In the campaign and early endgame this mark provides the build some extra AoE clear and provides us some extra shock chance against Rares to help us get our Cast on Shock rolling before we have enough without it. In the endgame however you'll basically only use this against bosses, make sure to maintain this mark at all times during the fight to boost your Shock Magnitude and Shock Chance for optimal DPS.

Barrage
Barrage Is switched in late in the endgame replacing Magnetic Salvo after we no longer need it, Barrage allows us to more rapidly deploy Lightning Rod for huge bursts of damage when activated before walking into Rare enemies, and during Pinnacle Bosses for extra DPS optimization where we keep it on cooldown throughout the fight as well as utilize it in our opener.

Electrocuting Arrow
Electrocuting Arrow Is our main form of crowd control against bosses all the way through the campaign to the endgame, after firing a clunky flip animation the enemy receives Electrocution build up from all sources of Lightning damage including from allies. When utilizing our Bossing Weapon Set this is caused rapidly resulting in no boss in the game getting to fight back against us in any meaningful way. Activate this as part of your Bossing Opener right after deploying Voltaic Mark & a Barrage Boosted Lightning Rod to end the fight before it even begins.

Endgame Variant

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Passive Tree

main:

122

set 1:

set 2:

We're going to be incorporating a weapon swap so that we have a mapping setup on our first weapon set (Red Lines) and a pinnacle bossing setup on our second weapon set (blue lines) giving us the best of both worlds, this ends up being not at all difficult to utilize either, basically if you're at a pinnacle boss you'll be swapping sets and then simply moving your bow and quiver to your second set with you, this allows us to shift up to 24 points in our tree to better accommodate endgame mapping and endgame bossing as individual activities. This build currently covers up to level 956keeping it on the slightly realistic end of things for the average user, as every level typically changes "something" about a build this late in the game.

Endgame Variant

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Atlas Tree

Breach Atlas
Full Video Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR3-YlmVpDA
I recommend Crumbling Walls be your first not because Frantic Invasion would not be better, but because as this is your first two points an earlier endgame character might struggle with the increased damage received from Frantic Invasion while Crumbling Walls has no negatives. If your character is already very powerful you can instead pick up Frantic Invasion First and Rising Pyre second. Crumbling Walls however adds a chance to hit it big with up to 11 breaches on one single map which is extremely beneficial when it hits.

Frantic Invasion Increases the amount of splinters obtained by 75% which isn't very significant outside of SSF due to how cheap they've gotten this deep in the league, but early in the league this passive will provide alot of snowball opportunity for your account.

Rising Pyre is an additive 40% density increase on the amount of breach monsters spawned by your breaches so it's typically less overall value then a multiplicative 40% would be do to diminishing returns, but this still really ramps up your rewards all the same.

Sustained Siege Is my choice for the final two points, slowing down the expanse of the breach allows you to cover a wider surface area before it has a chance to close which in turn means more kills and more loot from your breaches especially on bad maps where you need to pivot directions often to continue pushing dense packs of mobs. Grasping Hands is otherwise a good choice if you're Temporalis gaming and can clear the entire breach without losing out on monsters regardless, but for most players Siege will be strictly better then a few extra magic mobs and splinters.

How it Plays

Against White Mobs: Lightning Rods one or two times underneath the enemy then fire away with lightning arrows till they're gone.

Against Magic Mobs: Early game packs of Magic Mobs take a bit more effort, throw a voltaic mark on one of them, lay down some lightning rods under them, then fire lightning arrows towards the marked target. Ideally this causes the voltaic explosion to finish the whole pack.

Against Breaches & Rituals: Make Use of Orb of Storms while doing these activities by laying it down where the enemy is coming from and setting lightning rods underneath to get kills as soon as the enemy becomes active. This helps to keep you safer during these sketchy endgame encounters.

Essence Rare: If you encounter an essence trapped rare throw down 4 casts of lightning rods under the essence, orb of storms, open the essence then roll backwards. It'll likely die instantly, but if not fire lightning arrow till it goes down and don't charge right in once it does to grab the loot, let it air out.

Rares: Early endgame try to get as many rods under the rare as you can and put voltaic mark on the target, ball lightning should do the rest in most cases. If it's a melee rare rushing you lay down the orb of storms and set the rods where it's running not where it is. If it's a particularly spicy rare electrocuting arrow can neutralize it although it's risky to use.

Bosses: If a boss let's you setup which, they almost always do. Get 20 lightning rods under where the boss will become active, this takes 4 casts of the skill if you're ascended have scattershot and an extra arrow bow. Lay down the orb of storms as it's about to become active, the moment the boss comes into play voltaic mark it, If you want to start building up a stun this is likely your safest chance to fire Electrocuting arrow, either way following this continue to upkeep orb of storms under the boss, voltaic mark on the boss, and continue firing lightning rods until it goes down. If your proc rate on CoS isnt' crazy yet, you'll be doing a mix of lightning rods and lightning arrows.

How it Works

Overall this build requires minimums in the currency department while maximizing what you can afford to put into it making it an ideal league starter assuming nothing changes (It will) The damage output and crowd control capability during boss fights is second only to freeze abuse and the map clear is S tier. The only cons of running the build is it does not abuse Grim Feast and Energy Shield for pseudo invincibility and most users are unlikely to be able to cap chaos resistance making this build even with over 2,000 life relatively squishy compared to it's peers requiring some fancy footwork to pilot properly, no smashing your face into every on death effect and boss slam, It also is not at all a one button build, you have skills that are best utilized in specific situations and an MMO style rotation and Opener when it comes to boss fights you'll want to become familiar with, but these are also the reasons this build is so affordable AND less likely to be nerfed.

Changelog

1/12/25
Coursing Current replaced with Elemental Focus on Herald of Thunder due to it not causing shocks, this was my mistake as it was actually Lightning Arrow with Spreading Shocks giving the impression Herald of Thunder could shock when it actually cannot, Focus is 25% More Damage for your Herald making it the optimal choice instead as there is no downside to using it.
1/13/25
Breach Atlas explanation and breakdown added to the Atlas Section.
Starter Variant Passive Tree Added.
1/15/25
Starter Build Guide Variant finished.
1/16/25
Build Updated for latest patch, Endgame passive tree updated to level 96.

Video Guide

Table of Content

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