Deadeye Ascendancy Overview

The Deadeye Ascendancy offers a playstyle familiar to fans of ranged combat. This class focuses on increasing attack speed, movement speed, damage, and projectile manipulation. By specializing into the Deadeye Ascendancy, players can create powerful ranged builds that excel at dealing damage from afar. If you want to play elemental bow skills, the Deadeye is a great choice, as it provides bonuses to projectile-based builds, including additional projectiles and increased movement speed.

Deadeye Mechanics

The Deadeye Ascendancy enhances projectile-based attacks through passive skills that improve damage output, mobility, and survivability.

Projectile Enhancements

• Endless Munitions grants skills an additional projectile, increasing your damage potential and area coverage. Skills like Gas Arrow, which causes an area hit upon impact, benefit significantly by shotgunning enemies within its radius. Similarly, Lightning Rod sees its damage potential double when increasing from one to two projectiles.
• Eagle Eyes ensures consistent damage output by removing the long-range accuracy penalty, as in Path of Exile 2 you are less likely to hit enemies the farther your projectiles travel.

Projectile Proximity Specialisation

• Point Blank increases projectile damage by up to 20% for targets within the first 3.5 meters, decreasing to 0% after 7 meters (approximately 3/4 of a 16:9 screen). This incentivizes players to engage enemies at closer ranges, especially effective in boss encounters where proximity can lead to higher damage output despite the increased risk.
• Far Shot boosts projectile damage by up to 20% once they exceed 7 meters of travel. This rewards players who maintain distance from their targets, enhancing map-clearing efficiency.

Mobility and Defence

• Gathering Winds provides the Tailwind buff upon skill use. Each stack grants 1% increased movement speed, 3% increased skill speed, and 15% increased evasion rating for 10 seconds, refreshing with additional stacks up to a maximum of 10. This node is a staple in most Deadeye builds, valued for the smooth and responsive gameplay it enables.
• Wind Ward reduces damage taken by 3% per Tailwind stack, up to 30%. However, the effect is removed upon being hit. This synergizes with high evasion builds to maintain uptime, though it’s less effective against spell damage unless combined with Acrobatics, which adds another layer of defense and maximizes the benefits of Wind Ward and Tailwind.

Frenzy Charge Specialisation

• Avidity grants a chance to instantly gain maximum Frenzy Charges, smoothing charge generation and sustain. Skills like Spiral Volley deal double damage if a Frenzy Charge is consumed, with an additional 20% more damage per charge. Each charge also grants one extra projectile chain. Due to charge consumption, pairing this with Combat Frenzy aids in regenerating charges quickly. Builds focused on charge mechanics can further enhance damage using Charge Infusion.
• Thrilling Chase offers a 50% chance for the benefits of consumed Frenzy Charges to be doubled. This synergy is particularly potent when used with Spiral Volley, or by pairing Barrage with Snipe.

Double Marks

• Called Shots allows the Deadeye Ascendancy to apply an additional Mark. Sniper's Mark enhances critical damage taken by the marked target. Freezing Mark boosts freeze buildup, making it easier to freeze enemies and generate energy for Cast on Freeze. Voltaic Mark significantly increases shock chance by 200%, amplifying damage taken by enemies and aiding energy generation for Cast on Shock.

The Deadeye Ascendancy in Path of Exile 2 enhances projectile attacks through passive skills that improve damage, mobility, and defense. It features skills like Endless Munitions and Eagle Eyes, which increase projectile quantity and ensure consistent long-range accuracy. Proximity specialization is offered through Point Blank, which boosts damage at close range, and Far Shot, which enhances damage at greater distances. For mobility and defense, Gathering Winds provides stacking buffs to speed and evasion, while Wind Ward reduces damage taken based on Tailwind stacks. The ascendancy also strengthens Frenzy Charge mechanics with Avidity and Thrilling Chase, improving charge generation and amplifying benefits when charges are consumed for greater damage output. Lastly, Called Shots enables the application of two Marks, enhancing critical damage, freeze buildup, and shock chance to significantly increase overall damage potential.

Credits

Written by: Crouching_Tuna
Reviewed by: Tenkiei