[Teef] Some Deadeye Tips You Should Know

Hello, Thief Forum! [Teef] has gotten a little more active in recent days with the upcoming launch of Path of Fire. As such, we are resuming operations as normal.

Today, [Teef] brings to you little tips and tricks that may make Deadeye and it's rifle set something more than just a 533345 bot. Now granted, since PoF has not launched most of these tips will be based off the wiki. If something non-damage does drastically change in the future, so will this write-up. Anyways, here we go.

• Since this spec is literally a magic sniper, it is beneficial to you to understand the importance of having a BATTLE BUDDY. AKA a friend using a unicorn/troll/tanky build to pull aggro away from you while you pop heads from long range.
• Abuse terrain to your advantage. If it took you 3-7 seconds to get to the ledge you were on, it will take meleeing enemies that long to reach you. It also gives Smokescreen another use when ranged enemies decide to target you while you are trying to safe. Use high brush for camouflage just in case your target fails to notice the little markers above your head. Be smart.
• Deadeye's Mark does not immediately put you in the fray. So if your target is not paying attention, seeing the mark may put them on alert or freak them out considering how everyone knows about the stupidly high bursts Deadeye can put out.
• ALWAYS keep Deadeye's Mark up. It is what makes Deadeye's skills so strong. Every stolen ability, every cantrip and Death's Judgement gets boosts per stack of malice you have.
• Spam stolen skills! They will disappear when the mark drops anyway, so use them if only to buff yourself. All of them provide some benefit to you and inflict a condition on your target so use them while you got them.
• It would also be to your benefit to bind an easy to access Call Target key so that in the case your target gets dropped for any reason, you can easily retarget and resume killing. And it works as a way to prioritize which two targets get to die first.
• Deadeye's mobility is arguably better than SB 5, but it doesn't entirely make SB useless. Death's Retreat shadowsteps you away from your target 600 units. With full blown Malice, Mercy, Roll for Initiative, Maleficent Seven and Preparedness from Trickery you can easily GTFO with DR > DR > DR > Roll for Initiative > DR > Mercy > DR for a maximum of 3580 units in under three seconds. Ho-ly crap.
• Death's Retreat is also a leap finisher. This means that switching to rifle and hitting 4 right after using Pistol 5 will stealth you and place you 600 units directly away from your target. You can use those 3s to reposition yourself or perhaps spam it and put some distance between you and your target. You might find that Smokescreen could also be useful in this situation.
• Malicious Restoration is the best burst healing thief will ever get. With Maleficent Seven and seven Malice, you get a 15k heal and seven conditions cleared. amg Turns out this was a bug. The malice bonus healing would sometimes fire off twice. However, 10k and 7 conditions cleared is still pretty good. Not as good a burst heal as Channeled Vigor, but better vs conditions than Channeled Vigor.
• With Silent Scope, you have arguably better stealthing capabilities than Dagger 5. Lower cost, no need to land a hit and synergizes extremely well with SA.
• With enough access to fury and natural damage buffs, a zerk Deadeye is not necessary. So consider using Valk or Knight instead. This is because Silent Scope gives you a 20% crit chance while kneeling on top of the fury generated bySpotter's Shot and Perfectionist. Using Thrill of the Crime will also boost your Fury uptime.
• Consider stacking concentration too since all stolen skills and Rifle 2 and kneel2 provide a boon.

Any other tips you would like to share are welcome!

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That healing though ಠ_ಠ

@RedSpectrum.1975 said:That healing though ಠ_ಠ

I don't know...the skill just heals you for that amount if your malice is full, which is a rather small window.As for nearly all other builds, you will have the trickery traitline, which gives you reduced cooldown on a good healing skills, with a low cooldown.Right now malicious restoration feels way too situational for me, be it in pvp, roaming or zerg.

I seriously hope they add cooldown reduction for cantrips to one of the DE traits. I really liked the DE heal during the test weekend, and was able to get some insane saves from it - but 30 seconds was absurd when competing with Withdraw.

@Turk.5460 said:I seriously hope they add cooldown reduction for cantrips to one of the DE traits. I really liked the DE heal during the test weekend, and was able to get some insane saves from it - but 30 seconds was absurd when competing with Withdraw.

in which situation ? Saved from a condi bomb ?

@Turk.5460 said:I seriously hope they add cooldown reduction for cantrips to one of the DE traits. I really liked the DE heal during the test weekend, and was able to get some insane saves from it - but 30 seconds was absurd when competing with Withdraw.

That's it. Most of the teefs run trickery anyway, so a CD reduction of tricks is easy to get. Malicious restoration has to compete with withdraw, which has an extremely low CD and is just too good.

@Warrost.4895 said:

@Turk.5460 said:I seriously hope they add cooldown reduction for cantrips to one of the DE traits. I really liked the DE heal during the test weekend, and was able to get some insane saves from it - but 30 seconds was absurd when competing with Withdraw.

Traited, Withdraw has a 14 1/2s CD which means it could heal 9k and cure up to 10 total conditions in 30s. However, Malicious Restoration has straight cleansing and so it is statistically better than Withdraw assuming you keep mark up. If It seems like its too clutchy to use, you can supplement it with Mug which would act like a spot heal. Also Deadeye's Mark can be reset more often than steal due to Renewing Gaze. If you combine it with Swindler's Equilibrium, you can almost outright spam it and thusly keep your HP high enough for you to pop off MR. That's just how I see it though.

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Warrost.4895 said:

@Turk.5460 said:I seriously hope they add cooldown reduction for cantrips to one of the DE traits. I really liked the DE heal during the test weekend, and was able to get some insane saves from it - but 30 seconds was absurd when competing with Withdraw.

Withdraw let's you evade and Malicious restoration has a cast time.And just for a underwhelming heal, it seems not very good to trait Acrobatics above trickery.

@Warrost.4895 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Warrost.4895 said:

@Turk.5460 said:I seriously hope they add cooldown reduction for cantrips to one of the DE traits. I really liked the DE heal during the test weekend, and was able to get some insane saves from it - but 30 seconds was absurd when competing with Withdraw.

You think 15k is underwhelming? That craps on all the other heals. Withdraw might be an evade but 5k can go away fairly fast.

Once people find out all the teleports with Death's Retreat I think it will be a viable option instead of SB.

Malicious has a cast time but the DE spec has plenty of access to stealth and many ways to fight at range. The downside of malicious is not its cast time (see Channeled Vigor). It is the longer ICD.

If used in conjunction with other heal sources (IP or Shadows Rejuv) then that longer ICD becomes less an issue. The fact it a cantrip and can be used in conjunction with one in the chamber can not be overlooked either as this can be s significant sourc of might and boons for the self and allies.

As example assume one in chamber traited along with fire for effect and Peripheral vision. Use malicious and heal. Get stolen random skill (assume it steal durabilty). Apply steal durability on your mark at 5 stacks malice. He gets 10 stacks vuln for 7.5 seconds. Up to 5 guys near him get the same. You get 10 stacks might. Any near you get 10 stacks might if they allies. You get protection for 7.5 seconds. Up to 5 guys near you get the same.

That is prtty significant.