Glad I've not touched my deadeye in ages so I have no muscle memory to unlearn when the spec gets completely reworked. I'll wait about a month after though to make sure the tweaks are out of the way. Honestly, I'm cautiously optimistic on these changes, but know that it can go sideways fast. Crossing my fingers.
Greck Howlbane - Firebrand
Sorrow's Furnace For Life
@Eddbopkins.2630 said:
Wow a thf rework after a mesmer rework a few months ago....mmm what you did to mes absolutly made them a more formidable opponent with there 100% uptime with clones and allowing them to have more then 4 but more like 4-8 out at the same time...mm
Can we assume that every class will get a rework/overhaul by the end of this year?
Except this change looks like it's basically deleting deadeye. DELETING rifle 4, CONSUMING malice on stealth ability use (which = punishment for stealthing essentially) and nothing damage-wise to replace the ability, instead they gave a defensive barrier on rifle 4? Let's not kid ourselves people, thief isn't a tank class and it isn't going to do kitten all with a defensive ability on rifle 4 and with no damage ability aside from TRB which is basically just going to replace P/P unload, only without the mobility.
All of this most likely due to whiners who complained about builds that EVERYONE agrees are garbage in real play but some random silver newbie a lot of random silver newbies complained that he died in 1s (after 21s of marking, but lets just ignore that because reasons).
Yeahhhhhhhhh this elite was trash to begin with and it's going to be even more trash after this so-called update. As usual, mesmer dominates every game mode and gets a buff in its update while rifle thief is essentially trash that nobody uses in every game mode and gets deleted for its "update".
I can't say I'm surprised.
I'm looking at this that lots of bad players complaining about an already decent spec I play myself to become even better so in the end the good players at playing deadeye will have to be nerfed and not the spec.
@Eddbopkins.2630 said:
Wow a thf rework after a mesmer rework a few months ago....mmm what you did to mes absolutly made them a more formidable opponent with there 100% uptime with clones and allowing them to have more then 4 but more like 4-8 out at the same time...mm
Can we assume that every class will get a rework/overhaul by the end of this year?
Except this change looks like it's basically deleting deadeye. DELETING rifle 4, CONSUMING malice on stealth ability use (which = punishment for stealthing essentially) and nothing damage-wise to replace the ability, instead they gave a defensive barrier on rifle 4? Let's not kid ourselves people, thief isn't a tank class and it isn't going to do kitten all with a defensive ability on rifle 4 and with no damage ability aside from TRB which is basically just going to replace P/P unload, only without the mobility.
All of this most likely due to whiners who complained about builds that EVERYONE agrees are garbage in real play but some random silver newbie a lot of random silver newbies complained that he died in 1s (after 21s of marking, but lets just ignore that because reasons).
Yeahhhhhhhhh this elite was trash to begin with and it's going to be even more trash after this so-called update. As usual, mesmer dominates every game mode and gets a buff in its update while rifle thief is essentially trash that nobody uses in every game mode and gets deleted for its "update".
I can't say I'm surprised.
I'm looking at this that lots of bad players complaining about an already decent spec I play myself to become even better so in the end the good players at playing deadeye will have to be nerfed and not the spec.
@NeroBoron.7285 said:
Same goes for spammable oneshot skills from invis like backstab. oh hey i was lucky and dodged or blocked it, but no reveal and it can still be spammed, due to 0 sec cd when screwing the burst.
Wow, Thief era 2015.
As for spamming skills, a lot of that comes from poor weapon skill design. Some sets have only one or two useful skills, with others being very niche if useful at all. Beyond that, the Thief is limited on what skills it can actually use because it has only one initiative pool that is shared between both weapon sets. Spamming is to make up for the fact that it can't just switch to another weapon to be able to use its other useful skills.
If the each weapon set had its own initiative pool, or if there were no weapon swap cooldown, or even if all skills were actually useful (like D/P), then there would be a lot less reason to spam skills.
These changes have been borhering me since i read them late last week. We have spent the last 8 months learning this spec, and now youe yanking the rug out from under us with a major overhaul. Would have been nice to have seen the planned changes in their entirety, or had a way to preview these changes so we could have had some kind of input on this. Feels like your taking these changes way too lightly.
DeadEye Should have 1800 range.
I mean, come on, this is a sniper, even ranger with a wooden bow has perma 1600 range, sniper with a f riffle only gets 1600 on his knees.
Is that normal ?
@Uani.7682 said:
DeadEye Should have 1800 range.
I mean, come on, this is a sniper, even ranger with a wooden bow has perma 1600 range, sniper with a f riffle only gets 1600 on his knees.
Is that normal ?
Duh. Count how many muscles you need to pull a rifle's trigger compared to pulling a bow's string.
@Uani.7682 said:
DeadEye Should have 1800 range.
I mean, come on, this is a sniper, even ranger with a wooden bow has perma 1600 range, sniper with a f riffle only gets 1600 on his knees.
Is that normal ?
ranger has 1750+ range (1500 in the tooltip) while kneeling rifle DE has 1500 fixed ranged. and no it's not normal i mean in a logical sense. there's another thread about it where someone explained the science behind bullets and arrows like arrows can travel further and faster than a bullet but only if you can have the same initial velocity as a bullet when fired, so in a way, the rifle should have faster projectile speed and range in this game like 1800+ ish
@Uani.7682 said:
DeadEye Should have 1800 range.
I mean, come on, this is a sniper, even ranger with a wooden bow has perma 1600 range, sniper with a f riffle only gets 1600 on his knees.
Is that normal ?
ranger has 1750+ range (1500 in the tooltip) while kneeling rifle DE has 1500 fixed ranged. and no it's not normal i mean in a logical sense. there's another thread about it where someone explained the science behind bullets and arrows like arrows can travel further and faster than a bullet but only if you can have the same initial velocity as a bullet when fired, so in a way, the rifle should have faster projectile speed and range in this game like 1800+ ish
The problem with this discussion is that you take into consideration what "makes sense". The only thing that matters is balance, and with Anet reworking the Deadeye it is impossible to say as of now whether a range increase is justifiable or not. Anet nerfed the range of ranger's shortbow to 900 ages ago, not because it made sense when comparing it to the longbow, but because that's how they wanted to balance it (granted, the ranger nerfs back then was completey idiotic and several of them has been re-buffed or re-worked since then - shortbow remains 900 range though).
Are these changes due to PvP or WvW complaints? I want to play my DE as a rifle in open world PvE, Fractals and raids and would welcome any changes to improve that. I am not experienced enough to know for sure but this looks like it will make it worse.
Thinking about wvw with the changes to deadeye coming today. Gank squads could really be dangerous since every skill can gain 2 malice on hit, instead of over time. Things like pistol could do a lot more with 2 malice per skill and malice only being spent in stealth could make deadeye really good in zergs since they won't be having to wait for malice to build up. Deadeye taking down downs, building up malice, then striking a lord from stealth. Dang, that could be useful
Can you imagine a squad of deadeye going into SMC when a big fight is going on, waiting until the fight is over- stealthing each other during the fight with shadow refuge and skills up on the 3rd level, then waiting until the fight is over and if their server didn't win the fight, they wait for the coast to be clear then go and reck the Lord with this new system? That would be insane.
@Gaile Gray.6029 said:
First, we felt that stealth was a solid core mechanic that touched every single thief weapon and had many synergies through core traits and skills.
Wrong (ignoring the fact that P/P feels thematically more like playing a bandit than a "stealthy thief" anyways): stealth based fighting mechanics are pretty much irrelevant for dual pistol gameplay and frankly, no P/P thief cares about having them either. In regards to weapon skills it's definitely not a "core gameplay mechanic for every single thief weapon" nor should it be.
@Eddbopkins.2630 said:
Wow a thf rework after a mesmer rework a few months ago....mmm what you did to mes absolutly made them a more formidable opponent with there 100% uptime with clones and allowing them to have more then 4 but more like 4-8 out at the same time...mm
Can we assume that every class will get a rework/overhaul by the end of this year?
Except this change looks like it's basically deleting deadeye. DELETING rifle 4, CONSUMING malice on stealth ability use (which = punishment for stealthing essentially) and nothing damage-wise to replace the ability, instead they gave a defensive barrier on rifle 4? Let's not kid ourselves people, thief isn't a tank class and it isn't going to do kitten all with a defensive ability on rifle 4 and with no damage ability aside from TRB which is basically just going to replace P/P unload, only without the mobility.
All of this most likely due to whiners who complained about builds that EVERYONE agrees are garbage in real play but some random silver newbie a lot of random silver newbies complained that he died in 1s (after 21s of marking, but lets just ignore that because reasons).
Yeahhhhhhhhh this elite was trash to begin with and it's going to be even more trash after this so-called update. As usual, mesmer dominates every game mode and gets a buff in its update while rifle thief is essentially trash that nobody uses in every game mode and gets deleted for its "update".
I can't say I'm surprised.
I think that by "defensive barrier" he meant something like Revenant's hammer 4, which you can combo with other skills. Not a HP barrier.
@EMTDJ.9042 said:
Can you imagine a squad of deadeye going into SMC when a big fight is going on, waiting until the fight is over- stealthing each other during the fight with shadow refuge and skills up on the 3rd level, then waiting until the fight is over and if their server didn't win the fight, they wait for the coast to be clear then go and reck the Lord with this new system? That would be insane.
you can already stealth all the time and flip everything after your zerg failed, i do that alot to every structure aside from SMC solo, tho i also go in with enemy zerg not only mine. SMC has the issue that too often people walk through lord room, therefor in SMC i look for 1-2 people to remain dead and res them so they can speed it up.
BUT if you have a group of deadeyes coming only to PvE after a failed zerg fight, then the question is: would you even lose the fight if those deadeyes were on more usefull classes and fight along their zerg? one thief doing this well maybe ok, but a group is just stupid.
So the Thief will use the same system than a Rogue in Wow.
Seems logical, because gaining malice over time was a bad idea in practice because it makes a system boring and stale and terrible at switching target. You just mark a target, wait to get 7 malices and spam DJ ad nauseum. The gameplay will be, I hope, a little more dynamic with that update.
@Specialka.7290 said:
So the Thief will use the same system than a Rogue in Wow.
Seems logical, because gaining malice over time was a bad idea in practice because it makes a system boring and stale and terrible at switching target. You just mark a target, wait to get 7 malices and spam DJ ad nauseum. The gameplay will be, I hope, a little more dynamic with that update.
My concern is that PvE damage will fall to pre buff days due to all these changes because of the people complaining about the PvP side of it who have no clue that DE is useless against good players. I feel a Scrapper situation coming on where it will be okish PvP, but it will suck monkey balls in PvE.
If Life gives you lemons, put the lemons in a sack and beat up Life for giving you lemons in the first place.
oh boy. these changes. where do I start
so rifle 5 is just basically a stance change and nothing else besides activating kneel skills and a velocity increase.
the "barrier" is just a smoke screen on rifle kneel 4? gotta stand up and rifle 4 for stealth, feels weird
ok silent scope working.
ît is for me, you need to be in combat and you see the CD in your bar.
stealth camping oneshot DE did not get removed, takes a little longer now but has uninterruptable stealth access and much stronger backstab - so pretty much buffed.
Hey man, can you do some tests since you're a better thief than I am - can you see how it does against another d/p etc thief? i feel quite uncoordinated right now and I'm still getting used to it. It's pretty fast paced but I am not sure it can go head to head with one, but I am beginning to see the light.
ît is for me, you need to be in combat and you see the CD in your bar.
stealth camping oneshot DE did not get removed, takes a little longer now but has uninterruptable stealth access and much stronger backstab - so pretty much buffed.
thats a shame really, was hoping that they removed that sort of thing tbh, ah well.
Hey man, can you do some tests since you're a better thief than I am - can you see how it does against another d/p etc thief? i feel quite uncoordinated right now and I'm still getting used to it. It's pretty fast paced but I am not sure it can go head to head with one, but I am beginning to see the light.
i did onehit thieves with backstab before but in some very rare cases like fat disgrace it didnt allways full onehit - now with new backstab it should allways be enough for another thief. i will need a little time to learn new stealthing.
infight with dodge, outfight with the cool barrier skill 4 ini for 5s field means without trickery 4 leaps = permastealth. i will record for myself to improve the next days or weeks so maybe i can upload whatever you want to see then.
for PvE it would be very nice to have the silent scope stealth applied at the end of the dodge roll rather then at the beginning. because like this i need to stop attacking, wait till the bullet reached the target and then dodge to apply DJ. if stealth was applied at the end i could shoot and while bullets are midair dodge into DJ.
I mean rifle against other weaponset thieves, I feel it still may lack something but I'm still messing around with it. Endurance regen would be nice in a trait (and I won't go the acro route, too little ini, it's kind of already messed up my other build).
The malicious tactical strike is still pretty lackluster. Not enough reason to spend the initiative or utility cooldowns to gain stealth with Sword...
I think they should have added a non-boon regeneration effect or flat healing per malice stack in addition to the endurance replenishment.
you could of 1 shot me with backstab since the aa nerf to sword, removed all vitality infusions for power so now i sit at 17225 health but still run dura runes
I mean rifle against other weaponset thieves, I feel it still may lack something but I'm still messing around with it. Endurance regen would be nice in a trait (and I won't go the acro route, too little ini, it's kind of already messed up my other build).
you never play with only 1 weapon set. i play with d/p + rifle. fighting a thief or power mes i mostly use a dagger backstab unless i know they are bad or i really want to make them rage in that case for instance against d/p thief i wait for them to try going into stealth with BP+HS and DJ into their HS. like this :
the use of the stolen skill is important to not get steal interrupted.
Hello all,
When deadeye was announced, i thought of a 'sniper' new player: boy was i disapointed. First of: the shooting range is TOO SHORT if considering deadeye as a sniper. Second, why does it take so many bullets to kill a foe? isn't a sniper can kill on 1 bullet or 2 bullets? And lastly, when positioning yourself from any place, ex: above on a cliff, or up above high in a tree, why is the range too short or UNABLE to shoot cause you get a red circle? Please anet, if you created a 'deadeye' to be as a sniper, do it properly so we can use our long range rifles as it should be. BTW I worked so hard to get my legendary rifle.
Okay. As a thief main, my main character is a deadeye that I run through dungeons, story, and open world PVE. I've experienced a lot of the problems involving the versatility of the build and I can tell you without a doubt that the previous 4 skill saved my life on multiple occasions. Having it removed has frankly made me a lot more apprehensive. Most of the issue of the build does not come from incoming projectiles, but enemies that hunt you down in your kneeling state and kill you with meelee. This new update does nothing to address that and honestly takes away my only skill that could kill them quicker than they could get to me.
I don't mean to be pessimistic, but after going in game and experimenting some, I'm certain that the lack of offensive skills and the shortness of the new skill is going to get me killed quite a bit. It's honestly worse than if it had just been left alone.
Instead of replacing offensive skills, an easy option is when you are in a kneeling position, to change the 5th skill to Death's retreat instead. This would allow those like me who lose mobility and die from that to survive better. Frankly, however, the way that the deadeye locks down, I need all the offensive skills I can get.
Another option would be to increase endurance when in a kneeling state, so you can evade three times instead of just two. That would give any thief enough time to stand up.
Projectile barrier is cool, but it's not viable. And frankly, incredibly unnecessary and not long enough for what it is. We already have Smoke Screen and it lasts longer and is more effective than this new barrier, which I believe is useless.
Sorry for the rant, but this change is just not viable in the long run without some major balances. It's a whole new bag of worms and it's incredibly redundant.
You've taken away extra damage in exchange for a mini smoke screen and you haven't addressed the real problems with keeping alive as a thief. I hope you take this post into consideration.
Proof of the pudding is in the eating, I've had a taste and I like it. Only tried pve so far but so far thoroughly approve. Putting the stealth on evade i personally think was inspired, and for those worried about the time taken to accumulate malice don't be. It rockets up in seconds, way faster than previously even when attacking. The new skill 4 i find excellent, a shield that is also a smoke field, granting more access to stealth when combined with withdraw. Also enjoying the new DJ, which feels faster (probably because it is) and is unblockable. Finally you haven't turned it into the be-all-end-all. It feels more fluid, but not overpowered, though I'm sure those salty about DJ will now be even more so.
tl;dr: opposite of post above...
Edit: I meant retreat, 4,5,4 quick combo, stealth and shadowstep.
Edit 2: I play casual pve and pvp so cannot comment on raid and fractal efficiency.
withdraw is not a leap though, it's just an evade, afaik it's not going to stealth you in rifle 4 kneel. works with death's retreat and sbow 2 and blinding powder etc though
Sooo, new DJ is kinda bugged... While I checked how new skill works I found a bug that made that after dodge roll stealth when using new DJ instead of skill working correctly you just get debuff "revealed". No dps whatsoever.
@DemonSeed.3528 said:
withdraw is not a leap though, it's just an evade, afaik it's not going to stealth you in rifle 4 kneel. works with death's retreat and sbow 2 and blinding powder etc though
@DemonSeed.3528 said:
withdraw is not a leap though, it's just an evade, afaik it's not going to stealth you in rifle 4 kneel. works with death's retreat and sbow 2 and blinding powder etc though
@DemonSeed.3528 said:
withdraw is not a leap though, it's just an evade, afaik it's not going to stealth you in rifle 4 kneel. works with death's retreat and sbow 2 and blinding powder etc though
So, unless I am missing something, Deadeye has suffered a considerable DPS drop in PvE. Rifle is pretty much unusable now and dagger/dagger can't hit the old highs (amazing highs of almost 30.5k!) due to the loss of the 21% damage boost from full Malice. I hope myself, and the people testing, find something that works because if not, you've just put out a rework that has killed an underplayed profession in PvE - the rifle changes are clunky, the Malice changes are awful and the trait reworks mean we still can't sufficiently run any decent support as a Deadeye.
This, in a patch where Daredevil (mediocre condi damage and poor power damage) seems to have received no major improvements.
Anet, I love your game, but what are you playing at?
In the chrono rework, which was meant to tone down alacrity, you gave chrono more healing, better pure support specs, better dps / support specs and a power DPS option. In the deadeye rework, you seem to have ruined the elite in PvE.
One change I don't like is the change to the heal. Before it was pretty much a complete cleanse at max malice, now there is no reason to take it over withdraw at all. Non I can think of. Should have upped the heal to a middleground.
So some initial observations of mine after the changes:
1.[Silent Scope] the way this grants stealth feels extremely "clunky" and you often get revealed immediately after dodging due to projectiles still in the air striking the target mid-dodge, which then requires you to stop attacking, un-kneel, re-kneel then dodge again which totally kills the flow and any potential DPS.
2.The [Silent Scope] mechanic where the stealth CD resets after un-kneeling and re-kneeling feels awful, it basically makes my rotation look like this (with M7) "Mark>3>3>3>3>dodge>1>3>3>3>3>kneel>kneel>dodge>1>repeat" the kneels/dodge in the middle kill the flow and lower DPS. *see edit.
3. The rotation is also no less stale then it was before when it was "1>1>1>4>1>1>1>1>4" it just has unnecessary kneeling and dodging thrown in now.
4. Malice also feels completely useless now and even somewhat inhibiting on weapons that have no way to "consume" it. For example with P/P you fill up malice pretty fast and with the new M7 getting that extra ini regen and boons with full malice feels great however once you hit 7 malice you're stuck there until you use a stealth attack, which p/p has no real access to, even if you did take a stealth utility you would be using it JUST to dump the malice to get M7 to proc again because the stealth attack with pistol is very underwhelming, this also applies to SB, S/P, Spear, Harpoon Gun, and D/P if in an area with combo fields that overlap your smoke. A reasonable fix for this may be to just make re-applying mark on a target with max malice trigger the M7 effect.
5.DPS feels much lower (about 5k less) this could just be me not used to the clunky rotation. However with the removal of the malice damage bonus and the addition of a 10% flat from a minor trait it does result in a 5-11% damage loss on the marked target.
6.The deadeye heal skill is considerably worse now in PvE at least, it provides less healing then withdraw with almost twice the CD and less condi removal potential then it did before.
7.When running rifle you're all but forced to take [Silent Scope] in order to make use of the elite Spec mechanic Malice which means you can't really pick the other two options, one of which [Premeditation] would actually synergize fairly well with M7 (provided you don't actually need the 20% crit boost) in order to recover some lost damage caused by the removal of the old malice. Picking a trait should always be optional IMO you should NEVER feel forced to take a specific one JUST to make use of your classes innate mechanics. It would be nice if the stealth on dodge was a mechanic of the rifle/kneel itself rather then a trait.
I'll try and update this if i notice anything else.
Edit: It would appear that the [Silent Scope] trait has no CD, internal or otherwise, provided you use dodge while staying kneeled without standing up, effectively allowing you to dodge for stealth on demand as long as you are kneeling. This makes it slightly less clunky to consume malice. However my #1 still stands, you get revealed from your own autos about a third of the time while dodging.
@Nomad.4301 said:
So some initial observations of mine after the changes:
1.[Silent Scope] the way this grants stealth feels extremely "clunky" and you often get revealed immediately after dodging due to projectiles still in the air striking the target mid-dodge, which then requires you to stop attacking, un-kneel, re-kneel then dodge again which totally kills the flow and any potential DPS.
if you dodge while kneeling the silent scope cd removes itself pretty instant, you see the cooldown in your buff bar.
but the stealth would be better applied at the end of the roll so you have a very low chance of self reveal.
4. Malice also feels completely useless now and even somewhat inhibiting on weapons that have no way to "consume" it. For example with P/P you fill up malice pretty fast and with the new M7 getting that extra ini regen and boons with full malice feels great however once you hit 7 malice you're stuck there until you use a stealth attack, which p/p has no real access to, even if you did take a stealth utility you would be using it JUST to dump the malice to get M7 to proc again because the stealth attack with pistol is very underwhelming, this also applies to SB, S/P, Spear, Harpoon Gun, and D/P if in an area with combo fields that overlap your smoke. A reasonable fix for this may be to just make re-applying mark on a target with max malice trigger the M7 effect.
i think if the stealth part of silent scope was not rifle exclusive but only the crit chance / cd reset, that would help the other sets with their stealth skills.
@MUDse.7623 said:
if you dodge while kneeling the silent scope cd removes itself pretty instant, you see the cooldown in your buff bar.
but the stealth would be better applied at the end of the roll so you have a very low chance of self reveal.
yeah it is clunky at the moment, in a real fight (not the golem) sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt even with auto attack off so it's pretty unreliable for a way to stealth yourself for DJs atm dunno if this is intended
Sadly, saw no buffs in the patch so will still be poor in terms of relative DPS.
if you dodge while kneeling the silent scope cd removes itself pretty instant, you see the cooldown in your buff bar.
but the stealth would be better applied at the end of the roll so you have a very low chance of self reveal.
Yes, but for a PvE rifle rotation, we need to stand and then rekneel and then dodge. This is where the clunkiness kicks in
It was only slightly behind but is now ahead of power deadeye in terms of feel and potentially damage. I'll need to see what the theorycrafters say about it.
So were my fears right in that they basically gutted PvE rifle Deadeye in order to make it more "favourable" for stupid PvP? It appears so. Good job A-net. pff
If Life gives you lemons, put the lemons in a sack and beat up Life for giving you lemons in the first place.
I love the changes it actually feels like there is flow in the rotation now. I totally called perfectionist now M7 basically refuelling initiative. I liked how easy the class was before, I like the way it plays now. All in all I think people will get used to the way class plays now.
The synergy with class is amazing. kneel 4 and DR are a great escape option, or you can aoe blind with 2 and kneel 4. I really love that. The traits also allow a quickness rifle build that is just fun to run in open world.
The main skill people seem to have problems with is the dodge invis but honestly it works so well imo because you can dodge while kneeling to cancel the kneel and cast A STANDING MOVING DJ! I really love that!
I just wanted to post something positive abd remember that the game and now this class is more fun. The devs set out a goal to make the class more interactive and I think they achieved just that Thanks Anet!!
@Almondjoy.8964 said:
I love the changes it actually feels like there is flow in the rotation now. I totally called perfectionist now M7 basically refuelling initiative. I liked how easy the class was before, I like the way it plays now. All in all I think people will get used to the way class plays now.
The synergy with class is amazing. kneel 4 and DR are a great escape option, or you can aoe blind with 2 and kneel 4. I really love that. The traits also allow a quickness rifle build that is just fun to run in open world.
The main skill people seem to have problems with is the dodge invis but honestly it works so well imo because you can dodge while kneeling to cancel the kneel and cast A STANDING MOVING DJ! I really love that!
I just wanted to post something positive abd remember that the game and now this class is more fun. The devs set out a goal to make the class more interactive and I think they achieved just that Thanks Anet!!
It sounds like you are talking purely PvP perspective. These changes screw over the PvE side.
If Life gives you lemons, put the lemons in a sack and beat up Life for giving you lemons in the first place.
Comments
Glad I've not touched my deadeye in ages so I have no muscle memory to unlearn when the spec gets completely reworked. I'll wait about a month after though to make sure the tweaks are out of the way. Honestly, I'm cautiously optimistic on these changes, but know that it can go sideways fast. Crossing my fingers.
Greck Howlbane - Firebrand
Sorrow's Furnace For Life
I'm looking at this that lots of bad players complaining about an already decent spec I play myself to become even better so in the end the good players at playing deadeye will have to be nerfed and not the spec.
err... sorry what?! o.O'
Wow, Thief era 2015.
As for spamming skills, a lot of that comes from poor weapon skill design. Some sets have only one or two useful skills, with others being very niche if useful at all. Beyond that, the Thief is limited on what skills it can actually use because it has only one initiative pool that is shared between both weapon sets. Spamming is to make up for the fact that it can't just switch to another weapon to be able to use its other useful skills.
If the each weapon set had its own initiative pool, or if there were no weapon swap cooldown, or even if all skills were actually useful (like D/P), then there would be a lot less reason to spam skills.
These changes have been borhering me since i read them late last week. We have spent the last 8 months learning this spec, and now youe yanking the rug out from under us with a major overhaul. Would have been nice to have seen the planned changes in their entirety, or had a way to preview these changes so we could have had some kind of input on this. Feels like your taking these changes way too lightly.
DeadEye Should have 1800 range.
I mean, come on, this is a sniper, even ranger with a wooden bow has perma 1600 range, sniper with a f riffle only gets 1600 on his knees.
Is that normal ?
Duh. Count how many muscles you need to pull a rifle's trigger compared to pulling a bow's string.
Hi.
ranger has 1750+ range (1500 in the tooltip) while kneeling rifle DE has 1500 fixed ranged. and no it's not normal i mean in a logical sense. there's another thread about it where someone explained the science behind bullets and arrows like arrows can travel further and faster than a bullet but only if you can have the same initial velocity as a bullet when fired, so in a way, the rifle should have faster projectile speed and range in this game like 1800+ ish
The problem with this discussion is that you take into consideration what "makes sense". The only thing that matters is balance, and with Anet reworking the Deadeye it is impossible to say as of now whether a range increase is justifiable or not. Anet nerfed the range of ranger's shortbow to 900 ages ago, not because it made sense when comparing it to the longbow, but because that's how they wanted to balance it (granted, the ranger nerfs back then was completey idiotic and several of them has been re-buffed or re-worked since then - shortbow remains 900 range though).
Are these changes due to PvP or WvW complaints? I want to play my DE as a rifle in open world PvE, Fractals and raids and would welcome any changes to improve that. I am not experienced enough to know for sure but this looks like it will make it worse.
Thinking about wvw with the changes to deadeye coming today. Gank squads could really be dangerous since every skill can gain 2 malice on hit, instead of over time. Things like pistol could do a lot more with 2 malice per skill and malice only being spent in stealth could make deadeye really good in zergs since they won't be having to wait for malice to build up. Deadeye taking down downs, building up malice, then striking a lord from stealth. Dang, that could be useful
Can you imagine a squad of deadeye going into SMC when a big fight is going on, waiting until the fight is over- stealthing each other during the fight with shadow refuge and skills up on the 3rd level, then waiting until the fight is over and if their server didn't win the fight, they wait for the coast to be clear then go and reck the Lord with this new system? That would be insane.
My suggestion is to reduce Deadeye's Mark and Sniper's Cover cast to 1/4 instead 1/2.
1/2 is too much for PvP, it's like an healing skill cast.
Wrong (ignoring the fact that P/P feels thematically more like playing a bandit than a "stealthy thief" anyways): stealth based fighting mechanics are pretty much irrelevant for dual pistol gameplay and frankly, no P/P thief cares about having them either. In regards to weapon skills it's definitely not a "core gameplay mechanic for every single thief weapon" nor should it be.
I think that by "defensive barrier" he meant something like Revenant's hammer 4, which you can combo with other skills. Not a HP barrier.
you can already stealth all the time and flip everything after your zerg failed, i do that alot to every structure aside from SMC solo, tho i also go in with enemy zerg not only mine. SMC has the issue that too often people walk through lord room, therefor in SMC i look for 1-2 people to remain dead and res them so they can speed it up.
BUT if you have a group of deadeyes coming only to PvE after a failed zerg fight, then the question is: would you even lose the fight if those deadeyes were on more usefull classes and fight along their zerg? one thief doing this well maybe ok, but a group is just stupid.
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So the Thief will use the same system than a Rogue in Wow.
Seems logical, because gaining malice over time was a bad idea in practice because it makes a system boring and stale and terrible at switching target. You just mark a target, wait to get 7 malices and spam DJ ad nauseum. The gameplay will be, I hope, a little more dynamic with that update.
My concern is that PvE damage will fall to pre buff days due to all these changes because of the people complaining about the PvP side of it who have no clue that DE is useless against good players. I feel a Scrapper situation coming on where it will be okish PvP, but it will suck monkey balls in PvE.
If Life gives you lemons, put the lemons in a sack and beat up Life for giving you lemons in the first place.
Silent Scope isnt working
oh boy. these changes. where do I start
so rifle 5 is just basically a stance change and nothing else besides activating kneel skills and a velocity increase.
the "barrier" is just a smoke screen on rifle kneel 4? gotta stand up and rifle 4 for stealth, feels weird
ok silent scope working.
ît is for me, you need to be in combat and you see the CD in your bar.
stealth camping oneshot DE did not get removed, takes a little longer now but has uninterruptable stealth access and much stronger backstab - so pretty much buffed.
edit: doesnt work with dodgejump
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Hey man, can you do some tests since you're a better thief than I am - can you see how it does against another d/p etc thief? i feel quite uncoordinated right now and I'm still getting used to it. It's pretty fast paced but I am not sure it can go head to head with one, but I am beginning to see the light.
thats a shame really, was hoping that they removed that sort of thing tbh, ah well.
i did onehit thieves with backstab before but in some very rare cases like fat disgrace it didnt allways full onehit - now with new backstab it should allways be enough for another thief. i will need a little time to learn new stealthing.
infight with dodge, outfight with the cool barrier skill 4 ini for 5s field means without trickery 4 leaps = permastealth. i will record for myself to improve the next days or weeks so maybe i can upload whatever you want to see then.
for PvE it would be very nice to have the silent scope stealth applied at the end of the dodge roll rather then at the beginning. because like this i need to stop attacking, wait till the bullet reached the target and then dodge to apply DJ. if stealth was applied at the end i could shoot and while bullets are midair dodge into DJ.
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I mean rifle against other weaponset thieves, I feel it still may lack something but I'm still messing around with it. Endurance regen would be nice in a trait (and I won't go the acro route, too little ini, it's kind of already messed up my other build).
Silent Scope is working, but i guess it would be better if the stealth came in the end of dodge, so we could get stealth dodging before weapon swap
The malicious tactical strike is still pretty lackluster. Not enough reason to spend the initiative or utility cooldowns to gain stealth with Sword...
I think they should have added a non-boon regeneration effect or flat healing per malice stack in addition to the endurance replenishment.
Fort Aspenwood
Jekkies
you could of 1 shot me with backstab since the aa nerf to sword, removed all vitality infusions for power so now i sit at 17225 health but still run dura runes
you never play with only 1 weapon set. i play with d/p + rifle. fighting a thief or power mes i mostly use a dagger backstab unless i know they are bad or i really want to make them rage in that case for instance against d/p thief i wait for them to try going into stealth with BP+HS and DJ into their HS. like this :
the use of the stolen skill is important to not get steal interrupted.
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Hello all,
When deadeye was announced, i thought of a 'sniper' new player: boy was i disapointed. First of: the shooting range is TOO SHORT if considering deadeye as a sniper. Second, why does it take so many bullets to kill a foe? isn't a sniper can kill on 1 bullet or 2 bullets? And lastly, when positioning yourself from any place, ex: above on a cliff, or up above high in a tree, why is the range too short or UNABLE to shoot cause you get a red circle? Please anet, if you created a 'deadeye' to be as a sniper, do it properly so we can use our long range rifles as it should be. BTW I worked so hard to get my legendary rifle.
Okay. As a thief main, my main character is a deadeye that I run through dungeons, story, and open world PVE. I've experienced a lot of the problems involving the versatility of the build and I can tell you without a doubt that the previous 4 skill saved my life on multiple occasions. Having it removed has frankly made me a lot more apprehensive. Most of the issue of the build does not come from incoming projectiles, but enemies that hunt you down in your kneeling state and kill you with meelee. This new update does nothing to address that and honestly takes away my only skill that could kill them quicker than they could get to me.
I don't mean to be pessimistic, but after going in game and experimenting some, I'm certain that the lack of offensive skills and the shortness of the new skill is going to get me killed quite a bit. It's honestly worse than if it had just been left alone.
Instead of replacing offensive skills, an easy option is when you are in a kneeling position, to change the 5th skill to Death's retreat instead. This would allow those like me who lose mobility and die from that to survive better. Frankly, however, the way that the deadeye locks down, I need all the offensive skills I can get.
Another option would be to increase endurance when in a kneeling state, so you can evade three times instead of just two. That would give any thief enough time to stand up.
Projectile barrier is cool, but it's not viable. And frankly, incredibly unnecessary and not long enough for what it is. We already have Smoke Screen and it lasts longer and is more effective than this new barrier, which I believe is useless.
Sorry for the rant, but this change is just not viable in the long run without some major balances. It's a whole new bag of worms and it's incredibly redundant.
You've taken away extra damage in exchange for a mini smoke screen and you haven't addressed the real problems with keeping alive as a thief. I hope you take this post into consideration.
Proof of the pudding is in the eating, I've had a taste and I like it. Only tried pve so far but so far thoroughly approve. Putting the stealth on evade i personally think was inspired, and for those worried about the time taken to accumulate malice don't be. It rockets up in seconds, way faster than previously even when attacking. The new skill 4 i find excellent, a shield that is also a smoke field, granting more access to stealth when combined with withdraw. Also enjoying the new DJ, which feels faster (probably because it is) and is unblockable. Finally you haven't turned it into the be-all-end-all. It feels more fluid, but not overpowered, though I'm sure those salty about DJ will now be even more so.
tl;dr: opposite of post above...
Edit: I meant retreat, 4,5,4 quick combo, stealth and shadowstep.
Edit 2: I play casual pve and pvp so cannot comment on raid and fractal efficiency.
withdraw is not a leap though, it's just an evade, afaik it's not going to stealth you in rifle 4 kneel. works with death's retreat and sbow 2 and blinding powder etc though
Sooo, new DJ is kinda bugged... While I checked how new skill works I found a bug that made that after dodge roll stealth when using new DJ instead of skill working correctly you just get debuff "revealed". No dps whatsoever.
Withdraw is a leap.
Oh kitten sorry mate, I meant retreat
ah gotcha lol
So, unless I am missing something, Deadeye has suffered a considerable DPS drop in PvE. Rifle is pretty much unusable now and dagger/dagger can't hit the old highs (amazing highs of almost 30.5k!) due to the loss of the 21% damage boost from full Malice. I hope myself, and the people testing, find something that works because if not, you've just put out a rework that has killed an underplayed profession in PvE - the rifle changes are clunky, the Malice changes are awful and the trait reworks mean we still can't sufficiently run any decent support as a Deadeye.
This, in a patch where Daredevil (mediocre condi damage and poor power damage) seems to have received no major improvements.
Anet, I love your game, but what are you playing at?
In the chrono rework, which was meant to tone down alacrity, you gave chrono more healing, better pure support specs, better dps / support specs and a power DPS option. In the deadeye rework, you seem to have ruined the elite in PvE.
I sincerely hope I'm missing something.
One change I don't like is the change to the heal. Before it was pretty much a complete cleanse at max malice, now there is no reason to take it over withdraw at all. Non I can think of. Should have upped the heal to a middleground.
So some initial observations of mine after the changes:
1. [Silent Scope] the way this grants stealth feels extremely "clunky" and you often get revealed immediately after dodging due to projectiles still in the air striking the target mid-dodge, which then requires you to stop attacking, un-kneel, re-kneel then dodge again which totally kills the flow and any potential DPS.
2.The [Silent Scope] mechanic where the stealth CD resets after un-kneeling and re-kneeling feels awful, it basically makes my rotation look like this (with M7) "Mark>3>3>3>3>dodge>1>3>3>3>3>kneel>kneel>dodge>1>repeat" the kneels/dodge in the middle kill the flow and lower DPS. *see edit.
3. The rotation is also no less stale then it was before when it was "1>1>1>4>1>1>1>1>4" it just has unnecessary kneeling and dodging thrown in now.
4. Malice also feels completely useless now and even somewhat inhibiting on weapons that have no way to "consume" it. For example with P/P you fill up malice pretty fast and with the new M7 getting that extra ini regen and boons with full malice feels great however once you hit 7 malice you're stuck there until you use a stealth attack, which p/p has no real access to, even if you did take a stealth utility you would be using it JUST to dump the malice to get M7 to proc again because the stealth attack with pistol is very underwhelming, this also applies to SB, S/P, Spear, Harpoon Gun, and D/P if in an area with combo fields that overlap your smoke. A reasonable fix for this may be to just make re-applying mark on a target with max malice trigger the M7 effect.
5.DPS feels much lower (about 5k less) this could just be me not used to the clunky rotation. However with the removal of the malice damage bonus and the addition of a 10% flat from a minor trait it does result in a 5-11% damage loss on the marked target.
6.The deadeye heal skill is considerably worse now in PvE at least, it provides less healing then withdraw with almost twice the CD and less condi removal potential then it did before.
7.When running rifle you're all but forced to take [Silent Scope] in order to make use of the elite Spec mechanic Malice which means you can't really pick the other two options, one of which [Premeditation] would actually synergize fairly well with M7 (provided you don't actually need the 20% crit boost) in order to recover some lost damage caused by the removal of the old malice. Picking a trait should always be optional IMO you should NEVER feel forced to take a specific one JUST to make use of your classes innate mechanics. It would be nice if the stealth on dodge was a mechanic of the rifle/kneel itself rather then a trait.
I'll try and update this if i notice anything else.
So staff daredevil it is?
if you dodge while kneeling the silent scope cd removes itself pretty instant, you see the cooldown in your buff bar.
but the stealth would be better applied at the end of the roll so you have a very low chance of self reveal.
i think if the stealth part of silent scope was not rifle exclusive but only the crit chance / cd reset, that would help the other sets with their stealth skills.
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Sadly, saw no buffs in the patch so will still be poor in terms of relative DPS.
but the stealth would be better applied at the end of the roll so you have a very low chance of self reveal.
Yes, but for a PvE rifle rotation, we need to stand and then rekneel and then dodge. This is where the clunkiness kicks in
Kneeling to remove the Silent Scope Cooldown is the worst mechanic ever >.<'
yeah it is clunky at the moment, in a real fight (not the golem) sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt even with auto attack off so it's pretty unreliable for a way to stealth yourself for DJs atm dunno if this is intended
It was only slightly behind but is now ahead of power deadeye in terms of feel and potentially damage. I'll need to see what the theorycrafters say about it.
So were my fears right in that they basically gutted PvE rifle Deadeye in order to make it more "favourable" for stupid PvP? It appears so. Good job A-net. pff
If Life gives you lemons, put the lemons in a sack and beat up Life for giving you lemons in the first place.
Another class-killing for PvE players. Thank you very much, A-net, I enjoyed playing DE until this day.
I love the changes it actually feels like there is flow in the rotation now. I totally called perfectionist now M7 basically refuelling initiative. I liked how easy the class was before, I like the way it plays now. All in all I think people will get used to the way class plays now.
The synergy with class is amazing. kneel 4 and DR are a great escape option, or you can aoe blind with 2 and kneel 4. I really love that. The traits also allow a quickness rifle build that is just fun to run in open world.
The main skill people seem to have problems with is the dodge invis but honestly it works so well imo because you can dodge while kneeling to cancel the kneel and cast A STANDING MOVING DJ! I really love that!
I just wanted to post something positive abd remember that the game and now this class is more fun. The devs set out a goal to make the class more interactive and I think they achieved just that Thanks Anet!!
It sounds like you are talking purely PvP perspective. These changes screw over the PvE side.
If Life gives you lemons, put the lemons in a sack and beat up Life for giving you lemons in the first place.
D/P SA going to be even more overpowered for WvW than it already was lol.
Incoming 30k+ backstabs from permastealth builds because ANet forgot how SA works lol.
You sure that Sniper idea is as good as you thought it was gonna be?
Because I think my original idea is better.