[Teef] Open Deadeye Training 6-7th October

[Teef] will be organizing training sessions in their Guild Hall and Arena designed to get you used to the Rifle's mechanics in a combat setting. This training is open to anyone. Although since we will be using the seclusion of our Guild Hall, anyone willing to join [Teef] for the duration of the training will have no obligation to stay. Repping is not needed, but joining is so you can get in the Hall. Afterwards, you can bail whenever (tho we'd prefer you'd stay and help with missions (yes, I am being that guy)). :P

Purpose:Increase survivability of the Rifle weaponset by breaking the conditioning caused by 4 years of close range to melee range sets through discussion and exercise within a secluded environment.

When:6 pm Eastern - Friday 6, October6 pm Eastern - Saturday 7, October

Lessons:

1. The Rifle
2. The Traits
3. Picking your Fights
4. Properly Positioned Pop-a-squats
5. Premeditating Priorities
6. Pop Gun Gallery
7. The Art of GTFOing.
8. Final Questions and Discussion

If you like what [Teef] does, or are interested in what we do, be sure to go here and ask for an invite!

This is pretty cool. Have to appreciate you guys going out of the way to teach people how to play :)

Wish I could join, but zimezones :/

No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

I'm very certain that you can ask if someone taught you this or that outside of the dates.

Are we doing this in the EU servers too?

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

No amount of buffs is going to make a player good.

@Volrath.1473 said:Are we doing this in the EU servers too?

Working on EU times.

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

True, but my point still remains.

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

Can you explain what makes it bad?

I wouldn't say it's necessarily "bad" but it certainly isn't meta. However, it doesn't have to be the best set for people to want to learn it and that's why we are running this training session. The goal is for people to have fun and learn things they can use either now or later in order to have fun playing rifle without dying a ton. It's like if we were running an s/p session, it's not viable or very good but it's still good info to take away.

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

I didn't say it was bad, I just said it wasn't good. What makes it not good is having the sustain of a Shortbow (very slightly higher technically) and less burst than P/P.

@Ario.8964 said:I wouldn't say it's necessarily "bad" but it certainly isn't meta. However, it doesn't have to be the best set for people to want to learn it and that's why we are running this training session. The goal is for people to have fun and learn things they can use either now or later in order to have fun playing rifle without dying a ton. It's like if we were running an s/p session, it's not viable or very good but it's still good info to take away.

That's fine. Just felt like this was another one of those "well, if you don't think Rifle is the best Thief weapon ever made, you must just suck and are doing it wrong" posts. I was obviously mistaken about the intent.

@Ashanor.5319 said:That's fine. Just felt like this was another one of those "well, if you don't think Rifle is the best Thief weapon ever made, you must just kitten and are doing it wrong" posts. I was obviously mistaken about the intent.

That is the point of most who write on this forum: Another OP weapon/spec would've broken the game even more. If 'm not mistaken anet promised HoT wouldn't deliver OP weapons/specs but a different playstyle. They failed with Hot (kind of the player's fault) but in thief's case delivered with PoF (can't say much about other classes).

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

That's it? I've actually done testing with the two and I found that while p/p can maintain damage over time better than Rifle, Rifle has the much better burst. Within a few seconds I have managed to pump out at least a 30k burst with the Rifle, using a highly buffed auto that would crit 3-5k on average after I burned my initiative on 3 DJs, which would again crit 10k+ each. Meanwhile, p/p takes about 4-6 unloads before it hits that amount of damage. And I used the same build I have now for both. So I do not really understand the issue.

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

Do you count the time it takes to load malice for your "3 DJs" or are you one of those "I'll just take the perfect setup and count my DPS froooom NOW-till-NOW!". Because if you count the malice charge up and 'p/p maintains dmg better', then I'm not sure about your claims.

@Jana.6831 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:That's fine. Just felt like this was another one of those "well, if you don't think Rifle is the best Thief weapon ever made, you must just kitten and are doing it wrong" posts. I was obviously mistaken about the intent.

They delivered by giving a weapon meant to be a dps power weapon less burst than P/P and only slightly more DPS than SB? Seems like a failure to me.

@Ashanor.5319 said:They delivered by giving a weapon meant to be a dps power weapon less burst than P/P and only slightly more DPS than SB? Seems like a failure to me.

I only played DE Rifle for a short time during beta - the burst was very high and I believe Zach when he says that the burst still is really high. And that was what the weapon should be like.Only time I really used P/P was at Tequatl. My damage went from 12k to 50k during one 33333 spam. That itself is insane = they buffed P/P way too much (although there's ties to the 50k and they do make sense for PvE - it's pretty hard to achieve the same in pvp/wvw). They did wrong in the past and tried to implement rifle in a good way and so far it seems as if they did. Now they only need to come around and nerf some of what is OP and the game gets finally back on track. It's no use to buff rifle for it to be OP (when in the right hands) just so that some PvE players can happily spam away - that shouldn't be the goal of a game.

ETA: But to not go off topic: See what the TEEF lessons brings, maybe someone could even make a video of it for those who can't be present and then start to think about what could be improved.

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

What good is burst during a 5 minute boss fight?

@Zalavaaris.5329 said:What good is burst during a 5 minute boss fight?This is actually a PvP thread.

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

With my set up, casting Mark (1.6k* from mug) and then using the two stolen skills from Improv (1k crit x2) which gives me 21 might and fury. I then hit 5 for stealth from Sniper Cover, 1 for stealth attack (another 1k crit), 1-2 autos (3k crit each) and then double tap DJ which land for 10k+ each.

If I have 4 initiative left, I auto attack until I get 6 (3k crit each) and then hit DJ once more before hitting Mercy and starting it all over again. I don't have to wait for malice to build up so much because I use Revealed Malice which starts me off with 2 malice even before I start using DJ. If you want the build I have now to see for yourself, here it is.

EDIT: Slight mistake in numbers. Was looking at Mug healing not damage.EDIT: typo :P

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:No offense, but no amount of training is going to make Rifle good.

Using 4-6 unloads also exhaust most of our init, though.

Can you guys make a vid while doing this?

Yeah we will.

If I have time off of classes and stop being lazy long enough to set up my stream I can stream the event. Then it's always possible to go look back and review the material we end up covering. Also let's people who aren't able to actively participate view what's going on and ask questions.

@Jana.6831 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:They delivered by giving a weapon meant to be a dps power weapon less burst than P/P and only slightly more DPS than SB? Seems like a failure to me.

P/P is far from overbuffed. It's the best ranged DPS option thief has, but those options are the condi/utility focused Shortbow, the condi focused P/D, and now the Power focused Rifle. Even S/D outdamages all of these, and that is the lowest melee DPS option a thief has. Even in PvE, P/P is trash at anything but flavor killing. It is an initiative hog, and doesn't make up for it in raw damage like S/P or Staff does. Staff damage compared to anything else thief has is just crazy PvE wise. I think P/P will never see a buff for the same reason we will probably never see a Rifle buff; ArenaNet doesn't know how to make them engaging on thief. I mean, it's difficult without cooldowns to give a reason to use the other abilities, Shortbow got away with having a great kit because it does no damage. They would have to rework the skills for anyone to consider P/P; they would need to give it a rotation of some kind that doesn't have a single initiative spam. Why use any other skills in P/P? You take it (and you don't take it, but in this example you do) for the 3 spam and nothing else. The auto is more condi than power, the 2 is a four initiative waste (in PvE, I mean) because it won't do any damage, it won't hurt a breakbar, and everyone and their mini pet pulses 25 stacks of Vulnerability anyway. The 4 costs the same as the 2 for a marginal increase to breakbar damage, but the interrupt only synergies with Daredevil. How many Daredevils run P/P in high level PvE content? And the 5 is absolutely worthless in P/P, just a skill you will never be using unless your mainhand weapon is melee. P/P is for the 3, and the 3 isn't good enough to sacrifice 4 other skills. Even if it was, how boring?