PoE 3.25 Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye Build

Ben Author

Created - 21.11.2024 Updated - 22.11.2024

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Playing a Lightning Strike build that is squishy? Do you want a better version; one that can clear T17 maps without dying? If you are asking us if this is possible, the answer is a resounding yes! We’re serious about providing you with a PoE build that can run even 8-mod maps with minimal effort.

If you are interested and want to know more, please read further. This is our comprehensive build guide for the PoE Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye!

Why Play the Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye?

PoE Lightning Strike is a skill gem in Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur that has been used for more than several leagues now. In fact, it got even better thanks to the buffs it received in Patch 3.25. However, we are not going to discuss the base version of the skill gem. Instead, this build guide focuses on the Transfigured Gem, Lightning Strike of Arcing (LSoA).

Is there anything unique about it that GGG has made an entirely new skill gem? Yes, there is! When utilized, you only fire a single projectile at melee range. However, it has an innate ability to chain to nearby targets.

What’s incredible about the Transfigured Gem is that it hits harder than the last. Since it is capable of chaining up to 9 times at gem level/quality 20/20, that equates to 90% more damage!

If you feel that firing only a single projectile feels bad from a map-clearing perspective, you’re right. That is why you need to choose the PoE Deadeye ascendancy class for this build! This is, as you can say, the game’s best class as far as projectile skills are concerned.

You see, the Deadeye has access to Endless Munitions, which provides two additional projectiles without any downsides. Besides that, you have Ricochet—an ascendancy node that lets Lightning Strike projectiles chain an additional time!

If you also include the notable ascendancy passive “Multishot” into the mix, you will be able to launch four projectiles at once! 

Take the ascendancy nodes for the Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye in this order:

1. Gathering Winds
2. Ricochet
3. Endless Munitions
4. Focal Point

Okay, you can fire several projectiles already, which means that you are more than capable of finishing even T17 maps in under five minutes. But, how do you address the build’s defenses, especially considering that the Deadeye is not particularly known as a tanky ascendancy class in PoE?

That’s a good question! Part of your defensive repertoire is Elusive, which is a buff that’s granted by Nightblade Support. It gives you the ability to avoid all damage from hits for a limited time. Because you attack quite fast on this PoE build, this buff will be up consistently.

In addition, you have 100% spell suppression, so 50% of the spell damage you receive is mitigated by this defensive layer. The other part of the formula comes from the shield that you’ll be wielding, so read further to learn more about it.

Now, despite the Lightning Strike skill gem converting some of your physical damage to lightning damage, you do not necessarily scale the former. Rather, you will focus your attention on getting flat elemental damage types, including fire, lightning, and cold. The simple explanation here is that you are going to use Trinity Support for extra damage and elemental penetration.

In terms of ensuring a swift and painful death to your enemies, here are the modifiers that you need to look for when it comes to PoE Lightning Strike damage scaling:

• Added Fire Damage
• Added Cold Damage
• Added Lightning Damage
• Increased Attack Speed
• Increased Critical Strike Chance
• + to Critical Strike Multiplier
• Increased Melee Damage
• Increased Attack Damage
• Increased Projectile Damage

Playstyle

It is easy to think that this PoE Lightning Strike build only involves using Whirling Blades to search for enemies, and LSoA to kill them swiftly. However, that is not really the case if you want to maximize its damage.

You see, you have to be at a considerable distance from the enemy before you use Lightning Strike. Doing this ensures that the monsters are hit twice; one from the melee portion of the skill, and another from the projectile part. You will know that you did the right thing when you see a visible lightning bolt that hits the enemy with each strike.

Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye Gear Recommendations

Just to be clear, the gear for the Deadeye Lightning Strike of Arcing Build PoE is a bit expensive. That can mainly be attributed to the skill gem’s popularity—both the original and transfigured versions.

Having said that, you can go for some budget options while you’re still gearing up. When it comes to your defensive equipment, always go for pieces of gear that have armor and evasion as their base defenses. This enables you to roll for spell suppression, which plays a key role in your survivability.

Keep those things in mind as we discuss the different items this build needs in this Path of Exile Lightning Strike guide. If you need help with currency, our PoE Store is ready to handle your orders.

Weapon

You will be using a crafted claw for the Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye for two reasons. First, it lets you take advantage of a Large Cluster Jewel’s notable passive skill that makes you fire even more projectiles! Second, you are going to need Nightblade Support—both for offensive and defensive purposes.

Start by getting a good claw to craft on. We recommend the Imperial Claw or the Gemini Claw as they have a relatively high attack speed and crit chance. The latter is a bit more awesome, though, because it enables you to gain mana on hit.

We found that using the Essence of Anger (Fire Damage) is a more fitting way to craft the weapon. This is simply because its damage range is well-balanced compared to cold and lightning. Thus, utilize this particular essence till you obtain T1 or T2 of the aforementioned damage types.

Lock the prefixes and then go to the Horticrafting Station. Utilize Harvest Augment Speed and hope for a T1 increased attack speed suffix. Put Prefixes Cannot Be Changed from the Crafting Bench again and spend a Veiled Orb.

Unveil the resulting mod by talking to Jun. You’re looking for the critical strike multiplier while a rare/unique enemy is nearby. To cap things off, you can either bench-craft another bonus crit strike multiplier or go for the crit chance plus STR/INT hybrid. The choice is yours!

Use the endgame template above when crafting your starter weapon. When it comes to the flat elemental damage mods, aim for at least Tier 3 to deal a good amount of damage with each strike. 

Aside from that, critical strike chance is more important than the multiplier bonus at this stage of your Path of Exile journey. Therefore, if you had to choose between the two, now you know the answer.

Shield

In addition to Elusive and spell suppression, you have the Dawnbreaker to keep you alive. This unique shield has innate damage conversion, where you take up to 20% of physical, cold, and lightning damage as fire damage. The downside of this shield does not matter since you’re not scaling block chance anyway.

The Dawnbreaker also scorches nearby enemies when you successfully block an attack. This debuff reduces their elemental resistance by 10%, making you hit harder as a result.

Body Armor

If you have at least 173 Strength and Dexterity, then we highly recommend that you get the Conquest Lamellar. The Marshall’s Brigandine is a decent alternative if the previous armor’s attribute requirements are too steep.

Having said that, you actually have complete freedom on how you wish to craft the armor. You can use any essences of your choosing or obtain mods via the Harvest Bench. No matter which mode you prefer, prioritize spell suppression, chaos resistance, armor/evasion, and life.

On the implicit modifiers, we highly recommend that you go for “Melee Hits Have a % Chance to Fortify.” This is an Eater of Worlds mod, so you have to spend Grand Eldritch Ichors for that. 

The crafted armor can get very expensive, particularly when it comes to obtaining the desired modifiers. Fortunately, you are not limited to wearing that. In fact, there’s a good unique body armor in the form of the Loreweave.

This can be obtained via a specific vendor recipe, where you sell a full inventory’s worth of unique rings. That said, the Loreweave is popular for its special modifier, which sets your maximum resistances to 78%.

On top of that, the Loreweave can give your measly critical strike chance a significant boost; useful when you have just finished Path of Exile’s main campaign.

Helmet

The Path of Exile Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye uses mostly red and green gems. However, it still needs a bit of INT due to the presence of Assassin’s Mark and Automation Support.

To prevent deficiencies in Intelligence, you can craft a Haunted Bascinet, preferably with an item level of 85 or above. Despite being an armor/evasion-based gear, this helmet can naturally roll Intelligence by using any other essence. For this PoE build, specifically, you can utilize the Essence of Loathing for increased mana reservation efficiency.

Aside from that, even with “Thrill of Battle” allocated on the passive tree, you might still run into issues with mana when casting PoE Lightning Strike. Hence, you will need Eldritch Embers to obtain “Reduced Mana Cost of Attacks” as an implicit modifier.

Gloves

Our version of the PoE Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye is not only more tanky than the traditional ones, but it’s also capable of eliminating T17 map monsters and bosses. One major contributing factor is Soul Ascension. These gloves allow you to become more powerful similar to enemies that have the “Soul Eater” buff on them.

Basically, when you have Soul Ascension equipped, you eat a soul when hitting a rare or unique enemy. Each soul grants a 5% increased attack speed, so just imagine the power you gain by having more than 45 souls!

When shopping for these gloves on PoE Trade, make sure that you buy Soul Ascension that is as close to “+10 to Maximum Number of Eaten Souls” as possible.

Boots

We always recommend the crafted Onslaught Boots for most PoE builds that do not utilize unique items. This also applies for the Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye, so head to our crafting guide to learn more.

The only thing that’s changed when it comes to crafting the boots is that you use the Deafening Essence of Loathing for that “(31-35)% Chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments” modifier, as well as Grand Eldritch Ichors for increased Elusive effect.

Amulet

The Yoke of Suffering, from a defensive standpoint, is quite impressive as it helps address any issues you may have with elemental resistance. However, we know you want to improve the damage of this PoE Lightning Strike Deadeye build, so we won’t bore you with that aspect.

Instead, we are going to discuss why this thing is incredible in improving your offense. In PoE 3.25, you can inflict various ailments when hitting enemies with different elemental damage types. For fire, you inflict Ignite, causing enemies to suffer from fire damage over time.

For cold, you can chill enemies and slow them down. If you deal enough damage, you can freeze them in place as well, effectively stopping them in their tracks.

And for lightning, you have Shock—an elemental ailment in PoE that makes affected enemies take increased damage from all sources.

Since you are using a tri-element weapon, you can inflict all four elemental ailments without a problem. So, why not take advantage of that by wearing the Yoke of Suffering? This amulet ensures that enemies take 40% increased damage with every attack!

When you are swimming in PoE Currency, you must get The Utmost for sure! This is a great amulet to use for Path of Exile elemental damage builds simply because of its 40% increased attack speed bonus, in addition to 20% elemental penetration.

We know that you’re excited to go mapping with this PoE Lightning Strike build, but hold your horses! Be sure to anoint the amulet with Claws of the Falcon (2x Amber Oils, 1x Golden Oil) because it grants increased accuracy and critical strike multiplier with claws.

Rings

The Taming has a similar unique effect to that of Yoke of Suffering, albeit it deals more damage than the said amulet. Sell the three “Berek” rings to the vendor to get your hands on this thing. Alternatively, you can head to our PoE Store if you want The Taming right away!

Capping your chaos resistance is always a primary goal for any PoE build. That is because monsters that deal heavy chaos damage become more prevalent in the endgame, most especially the uber bosses.

While you can have two “The Taming” rings equipped, you may have to sacrifice one of them in order to cap your chaos resistance. Its replacement? A well-crafted Amethyst Ring, which also has INT, global critical strike multiplier, and all elemental resistances.

The critical strike multiplier does not roll naturally on the Amethyst Ring. Therefore, you have to utilize the Deafening Essence of Scorn to force it.

Belt

So, what are the best belts for the Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye? Obviously, the Mageblood is certainly one of them, but this thing costs a ton of PoE Currency. Because of this, you’re asking if there is an alternative—a stepping stone, if you will. The answer is yes, of course!

The Darkness Enthroned is definitely a belt that you can consider for this PoE Deadeye build for a couple of reasons. For one, this unique belt allows you to insert two abyssal jewels. These jewels can roll flat elemental damage with claw attacks, which bodes well for Lightning Strike damage scaling.

Furthermore, it can amplify the explicit modifiers that are on those jewels! This is the reason why you should aim for a Darkness Enthroned belt that has a 100% increased effect of socketed abyss jewels. If you cannot afford one, at least get a version that is as close to that number as possible.

Flasks

• Diamond Flask
• Granite Flask
• Bismuth Flask
• Basalt Flask OR Silver Flask (if not wearing the Onslaught Boots)
• Unique Flasks
  • Atziri’s Promise: for Life Leech and Extra Chaos Damage
  • Progenesis: More survivability, but very expensive
  • Rumi’s Concoction: If you want to increase your block chance
  • Dying Sun: Fires two additional projectiles

Flasks Mods

• 55% Increased Critical Strike Chance (of Incision)
• 60% Increased Armor (of the Armadillo)
• 65% Reduced Effect of Curses (of the Owl)
• Regenerate 3% of Life per Second (of the Order, Bench-crafted)
• 25% Increased Effect (Abecedarian/Alchemist/Dabbler, Prefix)
  • Only when wearing Mageblood
• 34% Chance to Gain a Flask Charge on Critical Strike (Surgeon, Prefix)
  • Only when using Darkness Enthroned

Jewels

With Anger, Precision, and Determination as your main auras on this PoE Lightning Strike build, you can get a ton of value in a well-rolled Watcher’s Eye. Here are the mods to look for:

• Anger
  • Damage Penetrates % Fire Resistance
  • Increased Fire Damage
  • Gain % of Physical Damage as Extra Fire Damage
  • +% to Critical Strike Multiplier
• Precision
  • +% to Critical Strike Multiplier
  • Increased Attack Speed
  • Increased Attack Damage
• Determination
  • You Take % Reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes
  • Additional Physical Damage Reduction
  • + to Armour

Although not mandatory for the build to work, an 8-passive Large Cluster Jewel (Claw and Dagger Damage) is definitely welcome here. That is because this jewel can roll “Fan of Blades” which is a notable passive skill that makes your attacks fire an additional projectile. When you have at least two of these cluster jewels, using Lightning Strike of Arcing does not feel bad anymore, does it?

Among the notable passive skills available in that Large Cluster Jewel, Fan of Blades is one of the rarest. Therefore, utilize the combo of Serrated and Lucent Fossils or “Harvest Reforge Attack” for a higher chance of obtaining it.

On the topic of cluster jewels, a medium cluster with projectile damage is another awesome addition, especially when it has the “Follow-Through” passive skill. Use Harvest Reforge Speed to also acquire “Repeater” for more attack speed.

Here is a rundown of the other jewels you can get for this PoE Lightning Strike Deadeye build:

• Ancestral Vision
  • For elemental ailment immunity
• Thread of Hope (Massive Ring)
  • To allocate Forces of Nature, Aspect of the Lynx, Weapon Artistry, Quickstep, and Finesse without spending a bunch of points
  • Insert in the jewel socket right above “Charisma”
• The Light of Meaning
  • With 7% Increased Armor
• Lethal Pride
  • To gain “Rage on Melee Hit” bonuses
  • Insert in the jewel socket below “Infused”
• Abyssal Jewels
  • +% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier
  • + to Maximum Life
  • % Chance to Gain Phasing for 4 Seconds on Kill
  • Added Physical Damage with Claw Attacks
  • Added Fire/Cold/Lightning Damage to Attacks
  • Added Fire/Cold/Lightning Damage with Claw Attacks
• Base Jewels
  • +% to Critical Strike Multiplier with One-Handed Melee Weapons
  • +% to Critical Strike Multiplier with Lightning Skills
  • +% to Critical Strike Multiplier with Elemental Skills

Skill Gems Setup

Body Armour

• Vaal Lightning Strike of Arcing (or lvl 21 Lightning Strike of Arcing)
• Awakened Multistrike
• Trinity Support
• Nightblade Support
• Inspiration Support
• Awakened Elemental Damage with Attacks

Helmet

• Anger
• Precision
• Determination
• Enlighten (lvl 4)

Gloves

• Whirling Blades
• Faster Attacks Support
• Momentum Support
• Lifetap

Boots

• Assassin’s Mark
• Mark on Hit Support
• Frostblink
• Lifetap

Weapon

• Molten Shell
• Blood Rage
• Automation Support

Shield

• Flesh and Stone
• Note: Apart from Flesh and Stone, the rest of the gems on the shield are flexible. In this PoE Lightning Strike build guide, we’ve placed Cast on Death and Portal, but you can replace them with any gems that you like.

Pantheons

• Major God: Soul of Lunaris OR Soul of Arakaali (if Chaos Resistance is not capped)
• Minor God: Soul of Abberrath OR Soul of Shakari (if your Chaos Resistance is below 50%)

Passive Skill Tree

Point Blank is the only keystone passive you need to take on this PoE build. This provides 30% more damage to your Lightning Strike projectiles.

If you’re wondering why “Cornered Prey” is allocated here, it is because the said notable passive skill allows you to land more critical strikes on the enemy. This is the main reason why you do not convert all your physical damage to lightning damage, basically retaining the ability to inflict bleeding on your target.

For Masteries, here are the ones you can consider:

• Attack Mastery
  • Non-Vaal Strike Skills Target 1 Additional Nearby Enemy
• Claw Mastery
  • Skills Supported by Nightblade Have a 40% Increased Effect of Elusive
• Dagger Mastery
  • Critical Strikes Have Culling Strike
• Elemental Mastery
  • Hits Have a 25% Chance to Treat Enemy Monster Resistance Values as Inverted

Tips and Strategies

• Invest in an Ambusher: At the very pinnacle of Lightning Strike builds is a character that wields a crafted Ambusher with a mix of Elder- and Shaper-influenced mods. The only reason why we did not include it in this PoE build guide is that it is quite expensive and is normally out of reach for most players. However, if you have the PoE Currency, then go ahead and purchase this dagger.

• Soul Gain Prevention Mod: Do you want to spam Vaal Lightning Strike of Arcing? If so, go to the Runesmithing Table and put this enchantment on your weapon: “Socketed Vaal Skills Have a 100% Reduced Soul Gain Prevention Duration.” Take note that this is only possible on a dagger, which is why the Ambusher is the desired weapon for the endgame.

• Substitute The Taming for a Nimis: The Taming is undoubtedly a great ring for Path of Exile elemental builds. However, for this PoE Deadeye build in particular, the Nimis provides more value. Its unique effect lets your projectiles deal double damage. Keep in mind that this ring is also quite expensive, so you may have to hold off on buying it until you have the budget.

• Raise the level of Lightning Strike of Arcing to 21: The main selling point of this skill is that it deals 10% more damage each time it chains. Leveling it to 21 by using a Vaal Orb enables the projectile to chain an additional time! Therefore, use a Vaal Orb and hope that you successfully achieve a level 21 Lightning Strike gem.

• Wield a Max-rolled Dawnbreaker: The Deadeye ascendancy class is not known for its defenses. However, the Dawnbreaker possesses some amazing defensive capabilities thanks to its inherent damage conversion. As much as possible, obtain a max-rolled Dawnbreaker, specifically concentrating on physical damage converted to fire.

POB

Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye

Final Thoughts

The Deadeye, with its nodes that improve projectiles in various ways, is the best ascendancy class for a PoE Lightning Strike build. When you factor in the other items that you will use, you can fire more than five projectiles at a time, thus bypassing the very restrictive nature of your primary skill!

If you’d like to know more about this particular build, drop your questions in the comments below! Also, we have an extensive list of Path of Exile build guides, so don’t forget to visit them.

PROS

• Durable enough to withstand T17 maps
• Able to bypass the 1-projectile limit of the skill gem thanks to the Deadeye’s ascendancy nodes
• One of the best builds in the Necro Settlers Event

CONS

• Not really a build you can fight endgame bosses with
• Most of the required items are expensive due to Lightning Strike’s popularity