The Hybrid Nature of Deadeye, (Grieving over low dps)

Thief has long been conflicted. Each weapon set conflicts between condition and direct. with the introduction of Grieving gear, it looked for all the world like hybrid dps could be pulled off, only on the thief. lets look at the weapon and trait interactions where this hybrid nature is expressed.

Daggers, the auto chain is a HUGE part of the dps here, and its all power, except for a LONG poison on the third swing. Death Blossom is primarily a bleeding applicator. Dagger training makes all the dagger skills have a chance to inflict poison. potent poison buffs this, by doubling the stacks. yet, cloak and dagger+ backstab is still the highest damage rotation. this interaction of traits has been often criticized as poor design, but i see it as unrealized philosophy. see, i think the idea here, is a choice between conditions, (death blossom and auto spam, with dagger training and potent poisons.) and direct damage, (revealed training, auto spam, cloak and dagger, backstab.) in either situation you are locked out of the other play style, yet its on your quick bar, and you have the resources to do it... but, because of gear, you can only dedicate to one or the other.

now add Deadeye, and the introduction of malice and magnificent 7. the logical conclusion to draw from all this, is to use grieving, and take all the traits. then you get a clean rotation. death blossom, death blossom, death blossom, cloak and dagger (or Shadow meld, if malice is full.... or Hide in Shadows if you only need one more for max.) and all that to land a full on M7 malicious backstab. rinse and repeat.

...if using rifle, here you can take panic strike, and silent scope, in order to play the same game, or spamming Spotter's Shot, until setting up stealth for Death's Judgement. you can stack poison quite high, but rifle has no bleeds, and thus any investment n bleeding to maximize the daggers, provides no bonus to the rifle. also, were forced to choose between Silent Scope and Premeditation.... while Premeditation is almost always preferable... silent scope is necessary to have enough stealth to keep up sustained dps with the rifle.

now, lets pause here for a second, i have my thief in full grieving, with a vipers backpiece... and the issue here becomes runes. you cant max bleeding and poison. you can hyper focus on poison and max it thanks to Fancy Truffle Burgers extra 15% and a rune of Thorns. ... but if bleed capping were also possible, then we be at a reasonable level of dps. with max poison duration... I'm sitting at 21k dps, in realistic buffs with mesmer clones for venom sharing. with bleed and poison at 80ish% I can hit 26k (with be quick or be killed and assassin signet)

now, its stupidly fun. like an absolute blast to play. you feel like a hyper ninja from hell. its beautiful. but its weak. i dont have a great suggestion for making this a possibkle playstyle in high end content, but it should be. all the pieces are there, and implemented. the questions I pose to the forums at large is this:

how can we buff (nerf? change?) these traits and interactions, in order to embrace, rather than destroy the Deadeye's hybrid nature?

my best suggestion is to give a grandmaster trait (somewhere?) that provides a large amount of conversion. something like, "14% of condition damge is converted to ferocity and 14% of power is converted to expertise"

Hybrid in grivers is rough and I do play one myself using grievers. I found that any of the duration investments for conditions just not worth what you give up to get . I just learned to live with the potent poison add. Of the runes Rata Sum or Mad King are likley best if you want to squeeze both something reasonable for power and durations out of a rune. Renegade runes can also work in a hyrbid using Grievers. Mad king might be best for your purposes as you can get 40 percent to your bleeds and with Potent 38 percent to your poison.

They really cut back on the consumables that add dursations so I really do not see a scenario where they going to boots that a lot more via traits.

My own Rune of Choice in the Griever hybrid are the Rune of the wurm. You gain a lot out of the vitality defensively and the make up you get out of the ferocity add ultimately does more damage then trying to squeze a couple more ticks out of your conditions.