How to Thief PvE

Hey Guys,

how do you play your thief in PvE?Which Builds are you using in open World/Fractal and Raids?

I watched some builds on Metabattle, there is not a single Deadeye build?!And the Staff Build and D/D Build seems really boring if you look at the Rotation ...

Is there an viable Deadeye Build with good DPS output ?

Thanks.

@"NoNameNoob.9758" said:I watched some builds on Metabattle, there is not a single Deadeye build?!Deadeye - P/P UnloadDeadeye - Power D/D DPS

For high-end Fractals and Raids, ignore the low rating of the Deadeye D/D build and Snow Crow's listing it as useless since it works absolutely fine in PvE and brings respectable DPS that is comparable with, or above, Holosmith and Spellbreaker depending on the encounter.

The standard rotations and builds listed are fine but there are modifications you can make to improve over all DPS. These very much depend on your group (particularly Alacrity and Quickness uptime) and the boss (toughness and adds to bounce Dancing Dagger between while building Malice).

The most important thing to do well with Deadeye in PvE is to use immune / CC / distant from the boss moments to build extra Malice that can then feed into a full Malice Malicious Backstab and Shadow Flare under Assassin's Signet. Stolen Skills can also be held to be used within Assassin's Signet.

However, maximising Deadeye DPS is very different depending on the nature of the boss including any split phases, immune phases or taking increased power damage. I wouldn't recommend trying Deadeye in Raids unless you feel comfortable with the mechanics and differences between the bosses.

Good luck!

@"Miatela.5047" said:For high-end Fractals and Raids, ignore the low rating of the Deadeye D/D build and Snow Crow's listing it as useless since it works absolutely fine in PvE and brings respectable DPS that is comparable with, or above, Holosmith and Spellbreaker depending on the encounter.

The standard rotations and builds listed are fine but there are modifications you can make to improve over all DPS. These very much depend on your group (particularly Alacrity and Quickness uptime) and the boss (toughness and adds to bounce Dancing Dagger between while building Malice).

The most important thing to do well with Deadeye in PvE is to use immune / CC / distant from the boss moments to build extra Malice that can then feed into a full Malice Malicious Backstab and Shadow Flare under Assassin's Signet. Stolen Skills can also be held to be used within Assassin's Signet.

However, maximising Deadeye DPS is very different depending on the nature of the boss including any split phases, immune phases or taking increased power damage. I wouldn't recommend trying Deadeye in Raids unless you feel comfortable with the mechanics and differences between the bosses.

Good luck!

Thanks a lot so i can Play The DD Deadeye Build :D was Not sure about it with The low ratingThanks a lot for your comment !

Yeah, people just haven't tried to play it properly. You can check out boss rankings at GW2Raidar.com to get a feel for how Dagger/Dagger Deadeye can perform.

@"Miatela.5047" said:Yeah, people just haven't tried to play it properly. You can check out boss rankings at GW2Raidar.com to get a feel for how Dagger/Dagger Deadeye can perform.

Wtf dude deadeye is one of The top dps Most of The Time o.O did Not expected that.Why everyone says thief is Shit then and does Not offer good dps?

Anyways thats Awesome Gonna Play my thief again:D

@"NoNameNoob.9758" said:Why everyone says thief is kitten then and does Not offer good dps?Because thief ≠ thief, just because you have one or two builds which actually work doesn't mean that thief as a whole is fine. Deadeye in particular has been advertised by A-Net as a raged focused elite spec so that's what most people are going for when picking up this spec, to bad both of your weapon choices in this regard are "suboptimal" (to say the least).

@NoNameNoob.9758 said:

@"Miatela.5047" said:kitten dude deadeye is one of The top dps Most of The Time o.O did Not expected that.Why everyone says thief is kitten then and does Not offer good dps?

Because power Deadeye (and Daredevil) benchmarked incredibly lowly following the May balance patch. As a result, Deadeye was dismissed out of hand and Daredevil was considered to be pretty bottom of the pile which, to be fair, it is.

This caused a lot of people to move away from Thief because of the perception that it isn't useful and can't pull decent numbers. However, Deadeye is similar to Dragonhunter since it has things to improve its DPS in actual encounters. While professions like Dragonhunter will be able to use hitbox size to multihit, Deadeye can use certain phases to build extra Malice which can be used to improve the damage of Malicious Backstab under the effect of Assassin's Signet.

Obviously, as a Deadeye, you'll do better when you aren't competing with other very strong DPS and can stay in high damage phases for longer but even with a four weaver setup, Deadeye can hold itself against your standard Voice in the Void / Demon's Demise / Leaves No Hero Behind, 250+ LI pug weavers and can have decent burst (this attempt was pretty poor for myself since I was focusing on murderising the adds on KC due to how they work now and how easy it is for them to merge - not exactly my 31k total DPS highs! Also Vermouth impairs already bad disabled reactions).

My damage in the above image is in brown and under the name "Lucinellia". Despite being messy at the second and third burn phases, you should be able to see that Deadeye can keep up with (pug) Weavers.

Because not many people are actually playing Deadeye at the moment, it still has the reputation of, as Snow Crows puts it, being useless on all bosses when it is so far from that. That reputation is quite ingrained - expect to be kicked regularly because most people think Thief is useless.

However, as a warning, it is not as easy to play as sites like metabattle.com and Snow Crows would suggest. The rotation is highly non-linear with the Deadeye needing to decide whether or not to build extra Malice given how cooldowns will align, the presence of Quickness and Alacrity, starting Malice and Initiative. You also need to be good at avoiding damage and hugging and flanking the boss as much as possible. That is obviously easier with experience and practice! If you can get those down well enough then Deadeye is more than okay.

@Tails.9372 said:Because thief ≠ thief, just because you have one or two builds which actually work doesn't mean that thief as a whole is fine.

For instanced PvE, that is pretty much how it works though. No one is going to really care about ranged damage anyway since aside from a few instances, you'll be stacked in melee to get boons. Both Power Deadeye and Condi Daredevil are okay in raids, Thief in general is a touch weaker in Fractals but T4s and CMs are definitely not out of the question as Deadeye.

@"Miatela.5047" said:

@NoNameNoob.9758 said:

@"Miatela.5047" said:kitten dude deadeye is one of The top dps Most of The Time o.O did Not expected that.Why everyone says thief is kitten then and does Not offer good dps?

Thanks a lot ! I really Love my thief was Main a Long Time.Now i came back and there are raids and dps Meters and i read a lot of Bad stuff about thief But this Sounds Not that Bad at all :D

Atm i dont Know much about The thief like i Said i just came back to The Game recently.

So can i just copy the metabattle Build for now? Armor Full zerk ?

@"Miatela.5047" said:No one is going to really care about ranged damage anyway since aside from a few instances, you'll be stacked in melee to get boons.This just means that you're not dividing from the "mass" when tackling this content but it's not an excuse to keep the DPS of these builds as low as they are.

@"NoNameNoob.9758" said:So can i just copy the metabattle Build for now? Armor Full zerk ?

This metabattle.com build is absolutely fine. Their rotation is lower DPS though. The rotation on Snow Crows but can be further improved with selective Malice building on certain bosses and by holding the Stolen Skill for use under Assassin's Signet.

For example, there might be times where on VG you need to move out due to blue spawns. If you cannot continue to melee and have the initiative and Assassin's Signet will be off cooldown soon, use Dancing Dagger to build extra Malice and consume it under the effects of Assassin's Signet with Malicious Backstab. The damage from this can be increased if you are able to refresh Deadeye's Mark for the second Malicious Backstab under Assassin's Signet to be 3 Malice instead of 2 and by using any held Stolen Skills.

Other scenarios where building extra Malice with Dancing Dagger is worthwhile include Sabetha with multiple adds (particularly when the mini bosses are up at the same time) and on CC phases in Samarog and Slothasor where you want to use Basilisk Venom ASAP (and Binding Shadow or Shadow Gust if you are running a higher CC setup) and then build Malice with Dancing Dagger to immediately go for a high Malice Malicious Backstab (with Assassin's Signet if possible) when Slothasor can be damaged again.

The Toughness of the boss and how much Quickness you have will also change the rotation slightly but that is harder to explain and is something you'll pick up more with practice and experience.

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Miatela.5047" said:No one is going to really care about ranged damage anyway since aside from a few instances, you'll be stacked in melee to get boons.This just means that you're not dividing from the "mass" when tackling this content but it's not an excuse to keep the DPS of these builds as low as they are.

I agree that the DPS of Rifle is far too low however even if it was higher, you aren't going to play it at range aside from a few select cases in instanced PvE.

Thanks a lot for your help and detailed comments i really appreciate this!

You are very welcome! I keep meaning to write a guide to Deadeye DPS to encourage people better than myself to give it some proper time and attempts but I need to work out how best to phrase the sheer number of situational changes due to Assassin's Signet and the boon reliance >.<

Good luck having fun with your Thief!

@"Miatela.5047" said:I agree that the DPS of Rifle is far too low however even if it was higher, you aren't going to play it at range aside from a few select cases in instanced PvE.It's not just rifle, every weapon set with skills designed for burst or sustainable DPS should be capable of having a decent damage output for their respective roles given the right build and equipment.

Deadeye's self sustain of quickness is very cool too and satisfying to play in open world or in a group without chrono. :p

@bennypig.6428 said:Deadeye's self sustain of quickness is very cool too and satisfying to play in open world or in a group without chrono. :pIf we only had seeker stats for PvE...

@Tails.9372 said:

@bennypig.6428 said:Deadeye's self sustain of quickness is very cool too and satisfying to play in open world or in a group without chrono. :pIf we only had seeker stats for PvE...

With right trait and utilities deadeye can reach 70% quickness uptime by self without concentration gear. Im satisfied with this. :p