[Top 5] Path of Exile Best Ranger Builds That Wreck Hard! (3.20.2)

Updated:

16 Feb 2023

5 – Lightning Arrow Deadeye

Elemental Bow builds have always been a staple of PoE, and it usually comes in the form of Lightning Arrow, Ice Shot, or Tornado Shot. All have their benefits and problems, and one of the most significant issues in the past was that you either had massively expensive gear or you couldn’t play at all from lack of damage. And with the new buffs, this has changed things, to the point where you can start pretty quickly with a new build and amass enough currency to progress.

What the Lightning Arrow Deadeye Excels in:

Cheap to start and scales to infinity with proper investments.
Really fun to play and clears screens of mobs.
Extremely satisfying to play and very straightforward.
Can do all content, and bosses on a high budget.

Lightning Arrow Deadeye full details:

As with any Ele Bow build, our focus is to get as high eDPS bow as possible, preferably with +2 Arrows and increased attack speed. You can use Imperial Bows (easy 6L) or even Solarine Bows, for a nice chunk of Fire Damage. Since this build relies on Trinity, having a mix of Elemental Damage is excellent.
The best way to craft bows is by getting a Fractured Bow with High Flat Ele damage, T1 or T2, and then spam Deafening Essences until you hit a third good mod, either +2 Arrows or T2-T1 Flat Added Elemental Damage.
You’ll want as much WED as possible, combined with Bow Damage with Attacks on Quivers, as well as tons of Attack Speed, the highest possible. Phys Damage is good since LA converts to Lightning, but it only converts 50%, so half is wasted unless you can convert the rest.

For more information, check here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3251161

4 – Poisonous Concoction Pathfinder

PConcoc is one of the strongest builds for League Starting and can take you from the leveling to the endgame without much of an issue, and then if you want, you can transition into another poison build if you’d like. It’s one of the most flexible builds in the game, and it’s a delight to play.

What the Poisonous Concoction Excels in:

Fantastic League Starter, HC, and SSF viable.
Incredibly tanky (Sirus Meteor Tanky).
Permanent and Automatic Flasks (Including Dying Sun).
Poison Prolif.
Can do all content.

Poisonous Concoction full details:

P.Concoc damage scales based on our Life Flasks, and as such, you have to keep refreshing and updating your flasks as you level, up till you get a beefy Divine Life Flask of upwards of 5k Life recovered. That massively boosts our PConcoc, giving it over 500 base chaos damage.
The way Pconcoc works, we can overlap our explosions, and as such, we want to scale projectiles as much as possible, using less intuitive gem links, like GMP and Greater Volley, alongside Dying sun, for a total of 10 Overlapping Poisonous Concoctions.
And one of the strongest poison chests was added last league, or rather, reworked, The Covenant, which grants a whopping Level 29 Added Chaos support. This is so strong, that it’s the same amount of damage of 3x Level 5 Awkened Added Chaos Damage. It’s insane for any poison builds, and definitely something you’ll want.
As for defenses, we are Spell suppressed, Ailment Immune, Fantastic recovery, and since we slow enemies, it’s much easier to dodge, along with having great clearing with Asenath’s Gentle Touch.

For a full breakdown, check here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3230482

3 – Cold Crit Spectral Shield Throw Raider

While it has fallen out of favour, SST can still be rather strong, and is a fantastic clearing skill when you lean on it. And the Crit version, with Seething Fury, and using the borderline OP Emperor’s Vigilance shield, you can get a lot of easy damage as well as a ton of crit chance and multiplier!

What Cold Crit Spectral Shield Throw Excels in:

Fantastic Mapper
Good Single Target damage
Very unique playstyle and method of scaling damage
Fairly overlooked, and thus not very expensive, with the exception of a couple items.

Cold Crit Spectral Shield Throw full details:

The way SST works, and in particular the Phantasmal alternative gem, is by scaling your damage based on how much Armor and Evasion your shield has, and with Phantasmal, you also gain 20% Critical Multiplier per 100 ES. This also gets scaled by your Ashes of the Stars, and goes up to 50% Crit Multi per 100 ES.
Since we’re using Emperor’s Vigilance, we have over 1800 Armor and almost 400 ES. And the best way to scale SST’s damage, unlike most attacks, is to scale Gem Level until it reaches the next threshold, which is 24. This means you need a +1 or +2 amulet (Ashes is +1), a Level 21 Gem, and another +2 from another source.
This means that those 1800 armor becomes 720-960 base physical damage. And that’s a massive amount of base damage. Comparately, that’s over 600pDPS one-handed weapon!

For more information, check here: https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/Hekaiyo/YeetThosePotatoes?time-machine=week-3&i=0&search=time-machine%3Dweek-3%26class%3DRaider%26skill%3DSpectral-Shield-Throw%26sort%3Ddps

2 – Omniscience Vaal Venom Gyre

Also belonging to the new batch of Vaal Skills, Venom Gyre’s new way of playing means it gets a lot more single target when you Whirl through enemies, able to shotgun it with your massive damage, and burst them down!

What Omni Vaal Venom Gyre Deadeye Excels in:

Insane clearspeed
Omni build – free Pen and Resistances
Great single target.
Near Permanent Berserk
Quite Tanky, surprisingly.

Omni Vaal Venom Gyre full details:

As an Omni build, we need a LOT of attributes, since it got nerfed to half value. This means you’ll want Synth %attributes on all your jewelry, triple Attribute equipments, lots and lots of attributes (since that double dips with both damage and defense), and as much life and attack speed as possible.
Because Omni removes all the strength we would otherwise use, this means there’s no downside to using a Brass Dome (besides having no base life). So we’re insanely tanky for an usually squishy character.
We’re fully ailment immune, Spell Suppress capped, our Life Regeneration becomes Rage Regen, so we have near permanent Berserk, we have a ton of armor, we move like the wind, and we deal millions of damage. It’s a pretty well rounded build.

For more information, check here: https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/Bombec1/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C%D0%A1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B0?time-machine=week-3&i=1&search=time-machine%3Dweek-3%26class%3DDeadeye%26skill%3DVenom-Gyre%26item%3DThe-Brass-Dome%26sort%3Ddps%26dps%3DSpectral-Shield%20Throw

1 – Crystalized Omniscience Tornado Shot Deadeye

Crystalized Omniscience is probably one of the biggest mistakes and simultaneously one of the most potent items GGG ever made, in basic raw power. Combining it with massive Elemental Bow Buffs, we are left with a ton of damage and can essentially ignore Resistances both on our gear and on enemies, as we shred through any, having over 90% Triple Ele Pen and 90% All Ele Res.

What the Crystalized Omniscience Tornado Shot Excels in:

One of the best clearing skills in the game
Can delete bosses with proper investment
Scales supremely well

Crystalized Omniscience Tornado Shot full details:

While this build can be quite squishy, and thus not played in hardcore, we tend to circumvent this issue by simply killing everything in our path way before we are killed. Getting your hands on a 6-Linked 1000+ eDPS bow is quite cheap in this league, and as such, there’s no need to worry further about lack of damage.
Since we are an Omni Build, our gearing is unique, forgoing any form of resistance in lieu of Attributes, stacking it as much as possible, granting us 1% Ele Pen and 1% All Elemental Res per 15 Omni, and we can easily reach over 1300 Omni.
The most important thing for Tornado Shot is extra projectiles, and as such, we try to get it both on our bow +1/+2 and through our Quiver +1. That, combined with a Dying Sun pretty much covers our need. Having TS Helmet Enchant is quite good too if you want to spend that small fortune.

For a full breakdown, check here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3244077