Ice Shot Deadeye - Path of Exile 3.24

Bow builds are still pretty popular in Patch 3.24 even after the many changes Grinding Gear Games has implemented. Now, it is important to note that certain gems like Sniper's Mark, for example, have been nerfed. Despite this, some bow skills have survived.

While Tornado Shot definitely took a hit, Ice Shot is still amazing. That is because it has not been touched by the company, making it an incredible league starter that you can play well into the endgame.

In the first three weeks of the league, you can use unique items that help elevate the build’s damage. Having said all of that, if your interest has been piqued, then read further. This is our build guide for the Ice Shot Deadeye in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League!

Basics

Ice Shot is a bow attack skill that converts 60% of your physical damage to cold, hitting your enemies with icy projectiles in the process. You can achieve 100% cold conversion by taking the appropriate node in the Cold Mastery.

When the icy projectile hits an enemy, it causes a cone-shaped cold explosion that hits the targets behind them as well. This is why Ice Shot is quite potent in clearing maps as quickly as possible.

This build utilizes the Returning Projectiles Support so that all of the icy projectiles deal damage twice! Sure, the ones that return to you deal significantly less damage, but because you attack insanely fast, that still factors into your overall DPS!

While Ice Shot can decimate normal monsters without a hitch, it does struggle with single-target damage. Hence, this build utilizes ballista totems that also unleash Ice Shot projectiles in quick succession.

The Ice Shot Deadeye is great because it works with minimal investment. However, because this build is quite fun to play, you can actually elevate its damage to new heights by investing in good items, such as a better self-crafted bow, a Headhunter, or even a Mageblood!

Be sure to look for these mods if you want to improve the damage output of this build:

• Increased Cold Damage
• Added Physical Damage
• Increased Physical Damage
• Increased Elemental Damage
• + to Critical Strike Multiplier
• Increased Attack Speed

The Ice Shot Deadeye's main defensive layers are its insanely high evasion rating and 100% spell suppression. Although you do take hits from time to time with this build, you have enough life leech to keep you alive.

Playstyle

There is a reason why a lot of people use bow builds in Path of Exile. That is because such builds have a very simple and straightforward playstyle and the Ice Shot Deadeye is no exception.

When you enter a map, you simply just scour the area for thick packs of monsters. Then, simply fire at them with your Ice Shot projectiles and you will defeat them in no time!

Once you encounter tougher enemies, drop your ballista totems so that you will have no trouble bursting them down. While you're at it, activate Vaal Ice Shot for even more damage! Just make sure that you stay in one place because the mirage sharpshooters that the Vaal skill spawns only fire when you do.

Ascendancy

When it comes to bow builds in Path of Exile, there is nothing that comes close to the Deadeye in terms of sheer power. This ascendancy class is made purely for offense, so if you want a tankier character, you are better off choosing the Pathfinder instead. That said, what makes the Deadeye special for this build?

Let's start with Gathering Winds. This makes your character move and attack fast thanks to Tailwind. Taking this as your first notable ascendancy passive is a no-brainer simply because it allows you to breeze through the campaign.

The next node you are going to take is Far Shot. Basically, Far Shot lets you deal more damage the farther you are from your foes. Because the Ice Shot Deadeye does not have a high HP pool, killing enemies before they have a chance of getting near you is crucial for your survival.

Now, you will come across more and more enemies as you progress through PoE's main campaign. This is even more so when you start mapping. To give you more power in the later stages of the game, you will take Endless Munitions. This essentially gives you two additional projectiles, making you destroy more enemies with a single cast of Ice Shot.

The last notable ascendancy passive for the build is a toss-up between Ricochet and Focal Point. Ricochet allows your Ice Shot projectiles to chain an additional time. But more importantly, the projectiles have a slight chance to chain to nearby targets when colliding with terrain. This makes it so that you can always deal massive amounts of damage whether you are mapping in an open area or in tight spaces.

Focal Point, on the other hand, significantly boosts the effectiveness of Sniper's Mark. This also serves as a defensive node because you take 25% less damage from enemies that are near the marked target.

So really, the last passive node all boils down to preference. If you ask us, we recommend that you take Focal Point, but Ricochet is not bad at all!

Gear

One of the best things about the Ice Shot Deadeye is that you can work with self-crafted gear and inexpensive unique items early on. Then, if you are happy with the build, you can take things a step further by investing PoE Currency on the more expensive stuff, such as a "mirror-tier" bow, the Forbidden Jewels Set, and a whole lot more!

Weapon

Roth's Reach is a unique bow that you can use until you reach the early white maps. This weapon provides a considerable boost to your physical and elemental damage, which are mods that work great for the Ice Shot Deadeye.

Once you have enough currency to buy Shrieking Essences, you can get some Shrieking Essence of Contempt to craft a bow that has flat physical, % physical, and flat cold damage, with some attack speed, crit, chance, or crit strike multiplier for good measure. Use an ilvl 82+ Spine Bow as it has a high base crit chance and attack speed.

Now, if you really want to take this build well into the endgame, you have to craft a tri-element bow. Visit our comprehensive crafting guide to learn how to create this amazing weapon.

If you are so inclined, you can even use a Veiled Orb for a chance to obtain the critical strike multiplier suffix when a rare or unique enemy is nearby. Do this after using Harvest Augment Speed.

Quiver

At level 20, you can equip Asphyxia's Wrath to gain a considerable improvement in your attack speed. But, the main reason why you use this unique quiver is that it grants you 20% of physical damage as extra cold damage, allowing you to destroy foes quickly and easily in the beginning.

Because you technically chill enemies with every attack, you want to punctuate that by using Ahuana's Bite at level 56. This adds up to 70 flat cold damage to your Ice Shot projectiles. However, the point of using this quiver is for its unique effect, where you deal more damage to chilled enemies. You can equip Ahuana's Bite for a while until you have enough currency to invest into a better quiver.

That said, the best quiver for the Ice Shot Deadeye is a self-crafted one. Essentially, you will spam the quiver with Deafening Essence of Torment until you get "% Increased Damage with Bows Skills" and "+ to Maximum Life". Refer to our crafting guide to learn more.

Body Armor

When you are still starting out, you can use Essence of Greed (HP) on an evasion-based body armor until you get some useful mods, including elemental resistances, chaos resistance, and even some spell suppression.

The Hyrri's Ire unique Zodiac Leather is so good for this build that it definitely deserves a special mention. Not only does it provide a good amount of spell suppression, but it also adds up to 200 flat cold damage with bow attacks; useful in improving the damage of your Ice Shot projectiles.

A self-crafted body armor with elemental ailment avoidance, some resistances, and useful Eldritch implicit modifiers is a good alternative as well. If the body armor you are wearing has no life mods on it, be sure to take the Life Mastery that grants you a 15% increased maximum life.

Self-crafted Body Armor

When you want to turn the Ice Shot Deadeye into a Magic Find (MF) character, you can use Greed's Embrace. Be sure to equip other MF items as well to make this body armor count.

Helmet

Because you deal cold damage with your Ice Shot projectiles, you can gain great benefits by wearing the Heatshiver unique helmet. Even though it has been nerfed, it's still the best-in-slot in terms of improving your damage in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League.

Due to the adjustments made to Heatshiver, players are selling it for cheap nowadays. You can buy a bunch of these helmets on the trade website and corrupt them using Vaal Orbs. Aim to get "Socketed Skill Gems Get a 90% Cost & Reservation Multiplier" or "+2 to Level of Socketed Aura Gems". Better yet, acquire them both by running some Temple of Atzoatl's and putting the Heatshiver into the altar found in the Locus of Corruption. The reservation mod is even more appealing now, especially after the recent changes to Mana that GGG has implemented in Patch 3.24.

As you transition to the endgame, you can replace it with the Black Sun Crest. The reason why you use this particular helmet is that you will complement it with the Crystallised Omniscience unique amulet.

If you are not okay with using Crystallised Omniscience, you can opt for a self-crafted helmet with spell suppression, life, and chaos resistance. This piece of gear can also address mana issues thanks to the Searing Exarch implicit mod.

Gloves

Hrimsorrow is a pretty good pair of gloves to use for this build. That is because it converts all of your physical damage to cold damage, ensuring that your Ice Shot projectiles deal maximum damage at all times.

Then, if you have taken the Cold Mastery, you can replace it with the Oskarm unique Nubuck Gloves. These gloves provide some chaos resistance and spell suppression. But more importantly, it increases your critical strike chance the more accuracy you have. That's not all! It also triggers a level 10 Assassin's Mark, freeing up a gem slot that you can use for something else.

The absolute best gloves for the Ice Shot Deadeye, however, is one that comes with the Alva Temple mod where you deal increased damage against chilled enemies. You can fracture this mod with a Fracturing Orb so that you can use this as your crafting base.

Once you've fractured the said mod, spam the gloves with the Deafening Essence of Zeal (Attack Speed) until you get "% Chance to Suppress Spell Damage". If your spell suppression is already capped, you can go for elemental resistance or chaos resistance instead. After that, put "Suffixes Cannot Be Changed" from the Crafting Bench followed by an Orb of Scouring to remove the prefixes. Lock the suffixes again and then use a Veiled Orb.

Before unveiling, bench-craft "25% of Physical Damage Converted to Cold Damage" so that you can block this mod from appearing on the list. Then, talk to Jun and unveil. Look for the +2 AoE prefix.

When you've successfully acquired all of the desired modifiers, go to the Crafting Bench once more and put "43% Increased Damage While Leeching".

For the implicit modifiers, use Grand Eldritch Ichors until you get an increased effect of your marks or cold exposure on hit. Then, spam Grand Eldritch Embers for increased attack speed.

New to Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League is the ability to craft items via Undertaker Arimor's graveyard. That said, use corpses that have the properties, "Armour Can Roll Haunted Modifiers" and "% Increased Chance of Haunted Modifiers" for a chance to obtain the "+1 to Maximum Frenzy Charges" prefix

Boots

Atziri's Step is an amazing pair of boots that are pretty affordable even early on in the league. They grant up to 26% spell suppression, a significant amount of evasion rating, and 30% increased movement speed, with some added life as a bonus.

The end goal is to craft a pair of boots that help you reach full elemental ailment immunity. To do that, use Deafening Essence of Loathing to guarantee the mod, "% Chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments". You can even take things a step further by crafting a pair of Onslaught boots! Be sure to include the Eater of Worlds implicit too!

The Goldwyrm is a must if you are going the MF route. These boots increase your item quantity by up to 20%, which is great when paired with Greed's Embrace.

Belt

The Stygian Vise is a cost-effective option for the belt slot. Use any essence that can help you address issues with the build. Do you need more chaos resistance? You have the Essence of Envy for that. Do you lack certain attributes, such as Strength or Intelligence? If that is the case, you can spam the Stygian Vise with Essence of Rage or Essence of Spite, respectively. Are you struggling to cap your elemental resistances? Utilize the Essence of Anger (Fire), Hatred (Cold), or Wrath (Lightning) depending on your needs.

You're probably wondering why we recommend the Stygian Vise as a budget belt for the Ice Shot Deadeye. Well, that is because you can insert an abyss jewel into it. Abyss Jewels can come with useful mods that help improve damage.

While you can settle with the Stygian Vise, especially if you just want a comfortable mapping build in PoE, you do have the option to take things up a notch by acquiring the Headhunter. This unique belt allows you to gain the modifiers of the unique or rare monsters you kill in maps. Things start slow when you enter a new map, but once you kill the first rare/unique enemy, you will start to feel the true power of the Headhunter!

The true endgame belt for the Ice Shot Deadeye is none other than the Mageblood. This belt is special because it gives you 100% uptime of your magic utility flasks, enabling you to resolve the common problems of this build, including elemental resistances, mana cost of attacks, and low chaos resistance.

Amulet

In the first week of a new league, get your hands on Hyrri's Truth. This allows you to activate level 30 Precision which boosts your accuracy rating and critical strike chance significantly. The amulet also empowers your attacks to kill enemies instantly when they are below 10% of their max health.

If you can get your hands on Replica Hyrri's Truth early, you can use that instead of the normal version. This thing grants you the ability to activate a level 22 Hatred aura, with 100% increased mana reservation efficiency.

Then, you have The Pandemonius. This increases your killing potential by not only giving you a considerable amount of cold damage, but also your attacks penetrate the enemy's cold resistance as well. You can stick with this for the long haul, but if you really want to maximize your damage output, then you should use the Crystallised Omniscience.

The Crystallised Omniscience is a unique amulet that turns all of your attributes into a pseudo-attribute called Omniscience. Basically, the more Omniscience you have, the more damage you will deal thanks to the copious amount of elemental penetration. That is why if you do opt for this one, make sure to equip items that increase your attributes.

For the anointment, go for Sovereignty (3x Silver Oils) to reduce the mana required to activate all of your auras, thus giving you more mana for use on your other skills.

Rings

Your rings can aid you in capping your resistances. Get an ilvl 82+ Amethyst Ring and use Harvest Reforge Fire/Cold/Lightning options to sort out your elemental resistances. Additionally, use Harvest Reforge Chaos if you want to cap your chaos resistance. Leave a prefix open so that you can put "Non-channelling Skills Have -7 to Total Mana Cost" from the Crafting Bench.

If you do not want to do crafting, you can use The Taming instead. This ring provides a good amount of elemental resistances. However, its main attraction is that it increases your elemental damage with attack skills by 30%. It also grants you the ability to inflict Freeze, Shock, or Ignite, which is quite helpful when you are using the Heatshiver.

For the MF version of the Ice Shot Deadeye, the Ventor's Gamble is tough to beat. It gives you increased item quantity and item rarity plus some elemental resistances, provided that you get one with good rolls.

Flasks

• Jade Flask
• Amethyst Flask
• Diamond Flask
• Quicksilver Flask
• Taste of Hate (Offense/Defense)
• Bottled Faith (Swap with Taste of Hate for more crit chance and damage)
• Divination Distillate (for MF)

Flask Mods

• 60% Increased Evasion Rating (of the Impala)
• 55% Increased Critical Strike Chance (of Incision)
• 17% increased Movement Speed (of the Dove)
• 14% Increased Movement Speed (of the Cheetah)

Jewels

The Watcher's Eye provides incredible value to the Ice Shot Deadeye. Here are the mods to look for when shopping for this particular jewel:

• Hatred

  • Damage Penetrates % Cold Resistance (Best)
  • +% to Critical Strike Chance
  • % Increased Cold Damage

• Precision

  • +% to Critical Strike Multiplier
  • % Increased Attack Speed
  • % Increased Attack Damage

• Grace

  • % Chance to Suppress Spell Damage
  • % Chance to Evade Attack Hits
  • % Increased Movement Speed

Large Cluster Jewels are also great for this build, primarily because of Arcing Shot. This can be acquired from the bow damage cluster jewel. Use Harvest Reforge Attack to obtain Arcing Shot and any of the following mods:

• Martial Prowess

  • 20% Increased Attack Damage
  • 6% Increased Attack Speed
  • 15% Increased Global Accuracy Rating
  • 20% Increased Damage with Ailments from Attack Skills

• Feed the Fury

  • 0.4% of Attack Damage Leeched as Life
  • 30% Increased Damage While Leeching
  • 15% Increased Attack Speed While Leeching

• Fuel the Fight

  • 8% Increased Attack Speed
  • 0.4% of Attack Damage Leeched as Mana
  • 20% Increased Damage While Leeching

• Calamitous

  • 30% Increased Elemental Damage with Attack Skills
  • 10% Chance to Freeze, Shock, and Ignite
  • 15% Increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments

Medium Cluster Jewels, specifically those that increase your critical strike chance, are great additions to the Ice Shot Deadeye as well. Use Harvest Reforge Caster until you get Pressure Points and Quick Getaway.

Lethal Pride gives you a good amount of Strength and some double-damage mods. Utilize the Timeless Calculator to help you get one with the right bonuses that can complement the build.

Instead of Lethal Pride, you could also use a Thread of Hope (Large Ring) and put it in the jewel socket just above “Fervour” on the passive tree. This is so that you can take the following notable passive skills without spending a lot of points:

• One with Nature

  • +8% to All Elemental Resistances
  • 24% Increased Critical Strike Chance for Attacks
  • 24% Increased Elemental Damage with Attack Skills

• Primeval Force

  • 25% Increased Elemental Damage During Any Flask Effect
  • 25% Increased Elemental Damage with Attack Skills

• Master Fletcher

  • Bow Attacks Fire an Additional Arrow

• King of the Hill

  • 100% Increased Critical Strike Chance with Bows

• Multishot

  • Attacks Fire an Additional Projectile

• Aspect of the Eagle

  • 20% Increased Damage with Bows
  • 6% Increased Attack Speed with Bows
  • 10% Increased Accuracy Rating with Bows
  • 20% Increased Damage Over Time with Bow Skills

Whenever you start doing red maps, it is vital that you have achieved full elemental ailment immunity at this point. If you are still not capped, you can use Ancestral Vision to aid you. This gives you a huge 50% boost to elemental ailment avoidance, assuming that your spell suppression is already at 100%.

If you have PoE currency to spare, you can add Inspired Learning as well. With this jewel, every time you kill a rare monster, you will gain one of its modifiers for 20 seconds.

For the uber endgame, you can obtain the Forbidden Flesh and Forbidden Jewel with Ricochet or Focal Point as the matching modifier (whichever is the cheapest).

Gems

The Ice Shot Deadeye has two separate Ice Shot setups; one acts as your main attack skill and the other is for your totems. The other gems used in this build are primarily for utility and defensive purposes.

Body Armor

• Vaal Ice Shot
• Awakened Elemental Damage with Attack Support
• Returning Projectiles Support
• Bonechill Support
• Inspiration Support
• Increased Critical Damage Support

Vaal Ice Shot is your main attack for this build. The "Vaal" skill spawns mirage sharpshooters that help you kill enemies quickly and effectively. Use it whenever you need to burst down stronger foes like essence monsters and bosses.

Returning Projectiles is a support gem that enables this build to clear maps more efficiently. Because of this, you essentially do more damage overall because your Ice Shot projectiles return to you after they have reached their maximum travel distance. This also synergizes well with the Arcing Shot notable passive from the Large Cluster Jewel.

Bonechill Support causes enemies you have chilled to take increased cold damage as a result. Improving the quality of this support gem increases your cold damage by 10%, so be sure to spam it with Gemcutter's Prisms ASAP.

Awakened Elemental Damage, Increased Critical Damage, and Inspiration Support all work to make your Ice Shot projectiles even more devastating. The Awakened Elemental Damage Support also has an added benefit where your attacks cannot be reflected back to you, enabling you to take on maps with the "Reflect Elemental Damage" mod without fear!

The mana cost reduction provided by Inspiration Support is quite useful, especially with the mana changes implemented by GGG in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League.

Weapon

• Ice Shot of Penetration
• Ballista Totem
• Focused Ballista Support
• Awakened Added Cold Damage Support
• Awakened Elemental Damage with Attacks Support
• Increased Critical Damage Support

This setup allows you to drop up to three ballistae on the battlefield. This is best used against tougher enemies and bosses. In the 3.24 version of the build, you have the option of using the new Ice Shot of Penetration skill gem. This Transfigured Gem has the ability to naturally pierce through targets, dealing damage on either side rather than behind them. Its slower attack speed compared to the base version can be circumvented by the inherently rapid fire rate of the ballista totems.

Focused Ballista Support not only enables you to drop your ballistae faster but it boosts the damage and attack speed of your totems as well.

The rest of the support gems in this setup are there to improve the damage output of your Ice Shot ballistae.

Helmet

• Precision/Hatred
• Vaal Grace
• Haste
• Enlighten Support

This is your main aura setup. Precision is a must to help you cap your accuracy and provide you with a considerable boost to your crit chance. Use this if you have equipped the Replica Hyrri’s Truth. If you are wearing any other amulet, replace it with Hatred for a huge increase in cold damage.

Grace is a defensive aura in PoE that provides you with additional evasion to improve your chances of survival. Use the Vaal skill whenever you are in a rough spot.

Haste increases your attack speed and movement speed, thus allowing you to clear maps at a much faster pace.

An Enlighten Support gem just makes it comfortable for you to activate all of the auras with some mana left to spare for your other skills.

Gloves

• Sniper’s Mark
• Mark on Hit Support
• Blink Arrow/Frostblink
• Faster Attacks Support/Enhance Support

Despite the heavy-handed nerfs to Sniper's Mark in the 3.24 Necropolis League, it is still the best Mark skill for the Ice Shot Deadeye. This causes monsters affected by the Mark to take increased damage from your projectiles. This is linked to Mark on Hit Support so that you do not have to cast it manually.

Blink Arrow is utilized as a movement ability. Couple that with Faster Attacks Support and you have a travel skill that lets you traverse the map quickly and efficiently.

Now, if you do not like to use Blink Arrow, you can replace it with Frostblink instead. And oh, swap Faster Attacks Support with Enhance Support while you're at it.

Boots

• Frenzy
• Ensnaring Arrow
• Power Charge on Critical Support
• Manaforged Arrows Support

Frenzy and Ensnaring Arrows are there for utility purposes. The former gives you a reliable and sustainable way of generating Frenzy Charge. The latter, on the other hand, enables you to fire an arrow that ensnares enemies, slowing them down, and causing them to take increased damage from your Ice Shot.

Power Charge on Critical Support not only gives you a huge chance to gain Power Charges on critical strikes, but it also amplifies the effect of said charges.

It is cumbersome to have to use the above-mentioned bow skills manually, right? Fortunately, you can automate their activation by putting the Manaforged Arrows Support into the gem setup.

The way this works is that Frenzy and Ensnaring Arrow are cast automatically whenever you spend mana using your other skills.

Tattoos

Even though the Wildwood Ascendancies have been removed in Patch 3.24, you can improve the build by putting Tattoos on the passive tree. Here are the ones that we recommend for the Ice Shot Deadeye:

• Tattoo of the Arohongui Warrior

  • 5% Increased Cold Damage

• Tattoo of the Ramako Sniper

  • % Increased Projectile Speed

• Tattoo of the Tasalio Scout

  • 4% Increased Effect of Your Marks

• Tattoo of the Valako Warrior

  • 5% Chance to Shock

• Tattoo of the Ramako Fleetfoot

  • 2% Increased Movement Speed

Passive Tree

POB

Ice Shot Deadeye (Main Setup)

Ice Shot Deadeye (Magic Find Version)

Final Thoughts

The Ice Shot Deadeye is one of the best league starters in Path of Exile. This build can work with minimal investment, thus allowing you to farm better pieces of gear as you progress through the game.

It can tear through huge packs of monsters with ease thanks to the interaction between Ice Shot's projectiles and the Returning Projectiles support gem.

Although this build is not as tanky as other characters in PoE, it does have high evasion and capped spell suppression to keep it alive in most situations.

With the introduction of Ice Shot of Penetration in Patch 3.24, you can use this Transfigured Gem in conjunction with Ballista Totem Support to make quick work of the enemy.

Are you going to try out the Ice Shot Deadeye? If so, do let us know about your experience!

With all of that said, good luck on your adventures in Wraeclast, Exile!

PROS:

+Viable league starter

+Can be enjoyed even on a low budget

+Bombard the screen with icy projectiles to eliminate monsters with ease

+Able to transition to other bow skills later down the line

+Still awesome in Patch 3.24

CONS

-Ice Shot projectiles may be hard on your GPU

-Relies heavily on evasion and spell suppression for survival

-Not as tanky as other builds in the game