Explosive Shot Deadeye Build Guide
This beginner friendly crossbow build annihilates enemies with huge explosions using Explosive Shot. Additionally, a machinegun skill called Shockburst Rounds fills in the gaps to decimate bosses in seconds, granted you shock them first.
You need The Three Dragons for this build to work. If you don't have one, buy this item on trade before starting the build. It's quite cheap though and merges your 2 main skills together perfectly. You can trade for it here.
Note: You do not need resistances or attributes on a specific item, therefore they aren't shown on the gear above. You need to cap your Resistances at 75% as soon as you can, no matter where from!
Path of Exile 2 is currently in early access, this means rapid development including frequent changes to builds as there are balance fixes and we learn more. Pin this page to be notified of any updates.
This guide assumes you are at least level 68 and have completed Act 3 Cruel, to learn more about the leveling process check out our Gas Arrow Deadeye Leveling Guide.
Skills
- Explosive Shot is your main way to clear packs of monsters, and shock bosses or tanky rares. The shock is achieved with The Three Dragons, which converts your ability to ignite with fire damage to shock chance instead. This feeds perfectly into our next skill:
- Shockburst Rounds is your main way to deal with bosses and other high-health enemies. It needs an enemy to be completely isolated, in order to secure hitting the target you want. It only works if the target is shocked, releasing a deadly pulse that unleashes one of the craziest DPS skills currently in the game. You can see the Shock status under the enemy health bar, more on this in the dedicated shock section below.
- Voltaic Mark is a mark that helps to shock enemies. You only use this on bosses, immediately upon spawning. Usually, this is not needed against weak bosses but it depends on how good your damage is.
- Use Emergency Reload right before you have to reload and reset. This gives you a decent damage boost but do mind the cooldown, it's quite long and therefore needs good timing.
- Herald of Thunder, Herald of Ice and Herald of Ash are passive buffs that give you incredible clear in combination with The Three Dragons and Explosive Shot. This one is a little tricky to explain so it has its own section further down below!
- Wind Dancer is a passive aura that increases your evasion by a huge amount. This is the first gem you should put Gemcutter's Prism on if you find them. At 20% quality, you get an additional stage (4)!
- Overwhelming Presence helps with ailment application and is a huge bonus for both clearspeed and single target damage.
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Skill Rotation
- Use Explosive Shot throughout your maps to annihilate packs of monsters. Make sure to use your ranged playstyle, especially early when it's hard to take a hit on an evasion-based character. Your Heralds do wonders here if you build correctly into ailment chance.
- If there is a rare that survives somewhere, you can either keep shooting with Explosive Shot until it dies or use Shockburst Rounds to finish it off. This only works if the target is shocked and isolated, meaning there are no other monsters blocking your shots.
- Against Bosses, once spawned, first use Voltaic Mark, followed by Explosive Shot until the target is shocked. Once shocked, start destroying the boss with Shockburst Rounds. This also freezes the boss, since The Three Dragons converts the shock chance of lightning skills to freeze chance. After the clip of Shockburst Rounds is almost empty, you can use Emergency Reload to instantly reset it and get a damage boost.
- If the boss isn't dead after the shock is over, hit it with Explosive Shot again and repeat the process. That generally shouldn't happen too often though, otherwise investment in shock duration or a better crossbow is needed (see shock & weapon sections).
Important Build Mechanics
Three Dragons Helmet
The Three Dragons is the glue that holds this build together. Without it, you don't have a build. This means you need to trade for one before attempting this build.
Here's how the Helmet works and everything it does for the build:
- Enables your main skill, Explosive Shot to shock.
- This shock enables your Shockburst Rounds to do ridicolous amounts of damage (only while the shock is up).
- Enables Shockburst Rounds to freeze bosses.
- Enables Herald of Thunder to freeze, which in turn enables explosions from Herald of Ice.
Since The Three Dragons is required to make the build work and randomness of drops is a huge factor in path of exile, I do not recommend this if you are in a non-trade environment.
Why Shock is Important
Shocking an enemy can be achieved with Explosive Shot. How long it takes to shock highly depends on the kind of boss you're facing and how good your damage is (can happen on the first shot). Once you achieved the shock, you can see a shock debuff under the enemy health bar, like this:
While Shock is down, your Shockburst Rounds does basically no damage, meaning you should go back to Explosive Shot to apply a shock. Remember that Shockburst Rounds can't apply shock itself! Making a habit out of checking the shock icon on bosses is the only way to secure damage uptime. This is annoying at first but becomes second nature in no time!
Shock Mechanics
- Default shock increases the damage that enemies take by 20%. You can increase this with increased Magnitude of Shock.
- Default shock has a duration of 4 seconds.
- Default shock has a chance to occur from any source of Lightning Damage and depends on how big the hit was. Chance to shock is a multiplier to this inate chance. We transform the chance on lightning damage to fire damage with the The Three Dragons.
Out of these stats, the most important ones are in order:
- Chance to Shock/Apply Ailments
- Shock Duration
- Magnitude of Shock
The faster you shock a boss with Explosive Shot, the faster you can swap to Shockburst Rounds and decimate it.
Shock Duration increases the duration that you can shoot a target with Shockburst Rounds.
Magnitude of Shock increases the damage you deal to shocked enemies. This is a decent stat, but other than the damage itself, Shockburst Rounds doesn't care about the magnitude of the shock, just that it is applied at all.
On bad gear, using Voltaic Mark at the start of the fight makes a huge difference!
Weapon Swapping
In Path of Exile 2, you can allocate up to 24 points on your Passive Tree that change depending on your currently equipped weapon. These are not additional points, moreso points that you can split in half depending on the situation.
For example, nodes like Authority or Adrenaline Rush are great while clearing, but provide nothing against bosses. Using a weapon swap means you can reallocate those nodes towards damage whenever your Shockburst Rounds are used, with Passives like Lightning Rod, Flash Storm or Surging Currents.
The Maxroll Passive Tree Planner supports this feature. In the second Passive Tree called "Energy Shield + Weapon Swap".
If you're unsure how to use this system in-game, check out this guide.
I also have a video about it, specifically tailored towards this build on my Youtube Channel here.
This system can be daunting at first, but it is an incredible boost to your build's power and worth investing some time to figure out!
Skill Leveling Priority
Make sure to constantly upgrade your gems if possible. This substantially increases the damage of some skills and the potency of others. Checking back to your gems after you acquire additional attributes to upgrade them should be second nature to you in no time!
Passives
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Ascendancy
Learn how to complete the Trial of the Sekhemas and Trial of Chaos to earn your first 2 Ascensions with our Ascension Guide!
- Gathering Winds increases your movement and attack speed while also giving you a huge evasion boost.
- Point Blank is next to increase your damage substantially to targets near you. This doesn't mean you have to always stand next to the boss, keep your distance for safety if need be!
- Endless Munitions substantially increases both your clearspeed and single target damage. The third ascendancy trial is hard but worth getting as fast as possible as this node is a game-changer.
- Wind Ward comes at the perfect time when you're in dire need to reduce your damage taken. It is highly encouraged to try and get your fourth ascendancy before getting into T15+ Maps!
Gearing
When talking about Attributes in this section, this includes all of them: Dexterity/Strength/Intelligence.
This is because even if you might need Intelligence, by getting Dexterity, you can now undo the Dexterity nodes on your Passive Tree and turn them into Intelligence, having the same effect! Knowing this fact makes your gearing a lot easier.
Offensive Scaling
- Your crossbow is everything. High physical damage and the occasional Elemental Damage roll on top makes or breaks your build. Every one of your abilities multiplies off of your Crossbow. If you are having damage troubles, you have a bad crossbow!
- Scale % Projectile/Elemental/Weapon Elemental/Attack/Crossbow Damage.
- Attack Speed increases both your initial attacks as well as your reload speed, making it a high priority stat.
Defensive Scaling
- Sufficient +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance to cap your Resistances
- +# to Maximum Life is an important stat and should be on most if not all of your rare items.
- Evasion Rating is your main defensive layer. In endgame, you use the Acrobatics Keystone. This enables you to avoid AoE attacks from bosses and rares. Don't use this keystone unless you have at least 13.000-15.000 Evasion!
- If you are still struggling check out our Survival Guide for additional useful information!
Crossbows
- Your crossbow is the heart of the build. You are looking for a high physical DPS crossbow with decent reload time. Most important stats in this order:
- % physical damage (100%+)
- Added physical damage
- Reloads an additional Bolt (only matters on Explosive Shot)
- Attack Speed
- Fire/Cold/Lightning Damage
- Weapon-Swapping is extremely strong but requires 2 good crossbows (see section above)
If you are using an off-hand weapon swap for your boss damage, you can exclude the additional bolt and go for pure damage!
Body Armour
Gloves
Boots
Rings
Amulet
Belt
Jewels
Ultimate Endgame Energy Shield Transformation
Once you reach T16/17/18 maps and start doing Pinnacle Boss encounters there's a steep increase in difficulty.
Good news, this section makes you a lot tankier to deal with that kind of content, without giving up any of your damage. Do note that this swap is expensive to do and can cost you from 5-15 Divine Orbs, depending on the economy and lucky purchases.
In order to understand the swap, we need to talk about the weaknesses of Evasion Scaling in endgame. Life+Evasion+Acrobatics is a potent way to avoid hits and recover Life with your Flask when hit. However, if enemies start hitting for more than your Life Pool allows and start spawning in overwhelming numbers, it becomes a frustrating gamble that leads to you sometimes dying and failing important encounters.
This is where Energy Shield + Grim Feast comes in. Lets take a look at the most important changes, starting at your gear:
Gear Changes
- Your Expert Waxed Jacket provides you with a ton of Energy Shield and is the most important piece of the puzzle. Try to go for as high Energy Shield & Evasion as possible and annoint Ancient Aegis on your Amulet. This Body Armour needs a Spirit prefix (minimum 30), to use Grim Feast.
- Your Amber Amulet provides you with % increased Maximum Energy Shield, which multiplies all your other sources. You can get up to 50% and even use Carapace Catalysts to increase that value beyond.
- Your Gloves & Boots can provide some Energy Shield as well, be it less than your Body Armour. It's still worthwhile to upgrade, since it all adds up in the end! Examples: Expert Intricate Gloves, Expert Feathered Sandals.
- Jewels can also provide % increased Maximum Energy Shield, but are rather hard to acquire since the Sapphire has hardly any other relevant mods for you.
Passive Tree Changes
Check out the full Passive Tree in the section further up, remember to check the notes!
Here is a rundown of the changes:
- Changed the Pathing by removing Instant Reload, Adrenaline Rush and Exploit in order to travel to the Monk Starting Area.
- The Monk Starting Area allows us to get more Evasion/Energy Shield hybrid nodes and also just has some of the most concentrated power on the Passive Tree in general. Here are some notables: Mindful Awareness, Step Like Mist, Essence of the Mountain, Essence of the Storm, Flow State, Flow Like Water.
- One negative side-effect of these changes might be a lack of % increased Crossbow Reload Speed, so try to compensate for that on Jewels!
- This Passive Tree also incorporates Weapon-Swap nodes, check out the section further up for more information on that!
Grim Feast
Grim Feast reserves 30 Spirit in order to grant you a Passive Buff. This buff lets you to collect Grim Remnants from killed enemies, regaining a bunch of Energy Shield for each of them. This not only recovers your Energy Shield though, it can also go over your Maximum, up to double your initial value!
Example: Your Energy Shield is 1500. If you collect enough Remnants without getting hit too much, you can achieve up to 3000 Energy Shield. Evasion plays perfectly into this playstyle, since you don't get hit as often.
In order to use this skill, remove your Voltaic Mark. If you can't get the 30 Spirit for another Aura, instead remove Overwhelming Presence. This is not a perfect solution though, so try and upgrade your gear later to reincorporate it back into the build!
Against Pinnacle Boss encounters, your Grim Feast is basically useless, since you don't kill any monsters. Here, swap to Ghost Dance, which allows you to recover a huge portion of your Energy Shield whenever hit. Support this with Fast Forward to get faster Ghost Shrouds!
You probably don't have enough Intelligence to fully level up your Grim Feast , just try to get it as high as possible and apply 4x Gemcutter's Prism on it.
Atlas Passives
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- While Mapping, focus on mechanics like Breach and Expedition. These are perfect for your Explosions to work, since these mechanics have a lot of packsize. Ritual is also ok for this, but be careful since these monsters are deadly and you have little space to maneuver.
- Delirium can be quit3 hard, so only attempt this if you have good gear!
- Avoid Burning Ground Maps at all costs!
Learn about the endgame activities available to you in Path of Exile 2 with our guide!
FAQ
I only have 100 Spirit after the campaign, but I need 150 for your build, how come?
You need an extra +50 Spirit from your Amulet in order to use all your Auras. You can also get it on Body Armour, but it's more of a sacrifice because it takes away from your Evasion Rating.
Also, make sure that you don't have any Support Gems added that directly increase your Spirit Reservation. Avoid these at all costs: Vitality, Herbalism, Clarity, Cannibalism, Precision.
If you are missing some Spirit from the campaign, this article will help you out.
I struggle with my attributes, what should I do?
I keep dying! Is there any way to solve my defense?
What bonuses should I choose from relics in Act 2 and venom drought in Act 3?
Video
Summary
- The Explosive Shot Deadeye is a beginner friendly crossbow build that decimates packs of monsters with ease! Explosive Shot is your main clear ability
- Shockburst Rounds on the other hand is there to absolutely annihilate bosses after they are shocked.
- Evasion Rating combined with Acrobatics keeps you alive while being at a safe range. In Endgame, we use Energy Shield to out advamtage to become tanky and adjust to harder content.