Ranger - [3.24] Ice Shot / Lightning Arrow Deadeye (Or Tornado Shot) - 400%+ MS, League Start Viable! - Forum - Path of Exile (2025)

Farewell Tornado shot!
Tornado shot received the classic triple nerf hammer and the Frostblink of wintry blast technology is pretty much gone, (you can go back to Lightning warp but you need to reach a specific breakpoint of less duration to make it work so it's not accessible in early game like Frostblink was)

Tornado Shot:
Now has an Attack Speed Multiplier of 80% of base (previously 100%).
It now has a Mana Cost of 10 at gem level 1 (previously 8), scaling up to 12 at gem level 20 (previously 10).
Quality now provides 0-40% increased Projectile Speed instead of "Fires +0-1 secondary Projectile".

This nerf in combination with the reduction in splits from sniper's mark (4 -> 2) means much less shotgun going on for about 30-50% less damage and the mana cost increase makes it harder to reach low cost, especially if you use a unique amulet as opposed to a rare with crafted -mana cost.

It's still a very viable very endgame skill but much more in line with other alternatives now, such as Lightning arrow and Ice shot.

Yokes of suffering was buffed and could be a viable option to replace Hyrri's truth depending on the price. It's not clear yet if that's a viable option.

Call to arms is a new gem that automates your warcries, it might be viable to automate enduring cry to generate endurance charge while mapping.

Steelskin and other instant skills can no longer be put on left click, you can still link it to cast when damage taken support or use the numpad trick to circumvent this but it's annoying to set up.

Not much has changed in Pob other than losing the wildwood ascendancies.

We'll have to see if additional projectiles tattoos still exist, what the new unique items are and what the necropolis exclusive modifiers on gear are before further updates are necessary.

Vaal Ice Shot Showcase and Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-8zuOyTgqU

Tornado Shot Showcase and Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cptqdbDwz60

Build Update and Bossing Showcase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyKnS8dhKe8

Crafting +2 ele crit bow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZH7gTCyuwg

3.21 Blood aqueduct clear simulation with day1 gear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvNI135-L-8

Progression/endgame PoB: https://pobb.in/W2-h3ZK6HsJc

Vaal Ice Shot Necropolis PoB: https://pobb.in/B1KlIU_Ud7qm

Import this link above in Pob and play around with the different trees (at the bottom left, in the tree section) the different item sets (at the top near the center in items section) and Skill sets

Download Pob + Fork: https://pathofbuilding.community/

So in 3.23 Affliction league, I have introduced a complex system in the build to generate rage for berserk automatically. This is very rewarding when you get it right so I will explain here how it works and why it might not work as well or at all for you.

To start with, we need to generate rage to use berserk.

Rage comes from stunning enemies that are affected by warlord's mark.

(We already stun normal and magic monsters reliably, you don't need any investment in stun). The only caveat at this stage is that you cannot stun an enemy on the same hit you freeze them and you freeze enemy when you crit them with cold damage. If you have the interrogation jewel, you cannot freeze so you can always stun. If you don't, you will still stun, but only on hits that you do not crit with.

We automate warlord's mark in 2 ways, first of all, it gets cast by a cast on crit setup on your manaforged arrow (so you need high crit chance), and then thanks to your focal point ascendancy, warlord's mark will jump from monsters to monsters as you slay them.

To trigger your manaforged arrow setup, you need to spend 300% of it's mana cost with other bow skills. This means that you have to balance your mana cost between costing too much (having mana issues) or costing too little (having manaforged arrow trigger rate issues).

So if you have difficulties generating rage, it can be any of these systems not working optimally.

Check how much crit you have with your manaforge setup, aim for at least 50%.

Make sure your main skill's mana cost is high enough to trigger your manaforge setup every so often (around 5 to 15 mana cost on your main skill is likely ideal)
You can adjust the cost by changing inspiration for another support gem or adjusting the bench craft on your rings or the implicit on your helmet.

Ascendancy: The Deadeye is unrivaled when it comes to Tornado Shot / Lightning arrow or Ice shot. We get Gathering winds (tailwind) early for a fast campaign clear, then we go for Far shot and Endless Ammunition.

Bandits: Kill all.

The playstyle is straight forward; kill normal enemies with your main skill to gain onslaught and replenish quicksilver flask charges.
And drop your Ballistae on tankier enemies.

Progression:
*Note: refer to Pob for all gems and what level to start using them*
**Note2: For Vaal Ice Shot, I have made an alternative progression path that you can follow in the pob. The following is for Lightning Arrow / Tornado Shot

We level as a multi-elemental bow based ranger, I have greatly optimized the passive tree for you to enjoy a very fast leveling experience.

For our main skills, we start with Galvanic Arrow and a Galvanic Arrow Ballista setup to supplement the single target.

At level 12, we replace both Galvanic Arrows with Rain of Arrow.
At level 28, we replace the Ballista setup with Artillery Ballista.

We use this setup until 3rd lab where we swap our main skill with Tornado Shot/Lightning arrow/Ice shot.

In terms of gear progression, during the campaign, use whatever high elemental dps bow you find on the ground, if you get extra essences, alchemys or binding orbs, buy a high attack rate bow base from the vendor and use the currency on it until you're happy with what you get.

As soon as you can afford these uniques, absolutely buy them: Prismweave and Karui Ward. They will carry you until red maps no problem and you can equip them at level 25 / 5 respectively.

At act 5 you receive a flask reward, pick the granite flask, soon after you will grab the flask duration and flask effect node, this will tremendously improve your effective HP, make sure to press (and craft) your flasks, we get a lot of power and speed from them. Initially, you don't care too much about the rolls on your flask, as long as they don't have any of the less duration prefix modifier.

In early maps, we want to start looking on trade for Tanu Ahi and either a good elemental DPS bow, or a bow with high base attack rate and a fractured added fire, cold or lightning damage, the higher the better. Then we use an essence of wrath, hatred or anger on our fractured bow until we hit either 3 elemental modifiers or attack speed, and bench craft the one we're missing.

If done right, this setup can easily carry you into red maps.

The transition to Crit:

Do not transition to crit too early. Wait until you are at least level 75 AND have these items:

A decent elemental dps bow with either crit or an open suffix to craft crit.
Hyrri's Truth Jade Amulet (try and get a semi decent roll if they are not too expensive)
2 Rings with Non-Channeling Skills have -7 to total mana cost
A rare evasion based body armour or helmet (or both) with reservation efficiency on it.

You can roll reservation efficiency with Essences of loathing for both and/or you can use Lesser Eldritch Ichor to roll reservation efficiency as an implicit on the helmet.

Pantheon:
Major God: Arakaali with at least Armala
Minor God: Abberath for burning ground immunity for Exarch altar farming or Yugul for everything else.

Gear:
*Refer to the Pob for different item sets

You have many slots for rare items which makes gearing easy.

You should use evasion or evasion hybrid bases so that you can use the evasion mastery that gives +15% chance to suppress spell damage.

The stats you care for the most are life, strength(up to 155), intelligence(up to 111), resistances (especially chaos), accuracy.

You want an open prefix on your ring, helmet and body armour to craft
-mana cost of non-channeling skills on rings and %phys taken as fire on helmet / body armour.
You also need onslaught on kill on your boot. You can either buy a pair with the mod and decent life/resist or buy a pair with an open prefix and no movement speed to bench craft the mod yourself (crafted version give less movement speed though).