I like DE PvP

This is coming from somebody who didn't like it in the BETA.

My only guess is the ones complaining about it's lack of DPS have crutched on condi's and made it a habit to forsake the power creep. . . Still I hear there are some beast condi builds coming out so I don't know. But I'm critting for 15k up to 30k, always topping some sort of stat and I lost 2 out of 13 games yesterday.

I don't have theorycraft to make a point, I don't have any statistical data to say it's better, but I'm finding the play style very likeable.

A few tips:

• Enemy Thieves can go down in two hits with only 2 stacks of malice while in Kneel. Remember you can go down that fast as well.

• Practice retaliation awareness (A lot of players now know what Deadeyes can do and as such, when we become visible, they blow their cooldowns with Retal, protection, stability, basically anything defensive right away)

• Mark the target that takes the longest to go down

• It isn't about how quick you go into battle, it's about opportunity and having the ability to stay stealthed for elongated periods of time. Use that time to figure out enemy positioning, strategy and habits of other players before you go in.

Thanks for hearing me out, Hope you all are enjoying the new expansion!

Yes, we all suck and you are just THAT good. Thank you for bringing your wisdom to us lowly plebs who are just too dumb to figure out how amazing Rifle is. lol

@Ashanor.5319 said:Yes, we all kitten and you are just THAT good. Thank you for bringing your wisdom to us lowly plebs who are just too kitten to figure out how amazing Rifle is. lol

Maybe if you actually tried it yourself, you'd come to find players like Murmaider are actually right.

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:Yes, we all kitten and you are just THAT good. Thank you for bringing your wisdom to us lowly plebs who are just too kitten to figure out how amazing Rifle is. lol

There is no excuse for sustained DPS of Rifle to be almost as low as Shortbow. Not to mention the burst is lower than P/P. How exactly is he right when faced with these facts? He is assuming that he is better than everyone else and anyone complaining just needs to "learn to play" basically. This is not the case. The weapon has issues and needs to be fixed.

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:Yes, we all kitten and you are just THAT good. Thank you for bringing your wisdom to us lowly plebs who are just too kitten to figure out how amazing Rifle is. lol

Have you even tried to make it work? There is plenty of material on the forums to get you started.

As far as pvp/wvw goes i love rifle. Had allot of success with it over the weekend, thanks for the extra tips. Nice to get away from the bore that was daredevil..And who cares about sustained damage on a burst class anyway? When my targets alive for 5 sec after i target them, who cares how much damage i do over 15sec?

Been running trick/acro/de with s/d rifle and so far so good roaming, definitly gonna play around with a SA variant here soon.

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:Yes, we all kitten and you are just THAT good. Thank you for bringing your wisdom to us lowly plebs who are just too kitten to figure out how amazing Rifle is. lol

Yes, I can make it work just fine. That doesn't change the fact that it isn't good enough. You are constantly starved for initiative.

1) Does ridiculously low damage considering you have to rely on it so much because of initiative deprivation. 2) Isn't the most horrible thing, but who has 3 initiative to waste when you are constantly out? 3) Costs way too much initiative, it should refund some or just cost less. 4) Also costs way too much initiative considering it is ridiculously telegraphed and gets dodged or blocked about 50% of the time and on top of that requires waiting quite a while for malice to build to get decent damage with it in the first place. 5) Should not cost any initiative since it has an ammo system to prevent spamming anyway, and it definitely shouldn't cost 3 initiative after training Silent Scope. Silent Scope should be rolled into Kneel baseline, and it should cost 0 initiative. You are already limited to one kneel per 10 seconds after you burn your 2 you start with.

On top of this, you have issues with pets and other players constantly blocking your shots because you only have pierce on 2. Your mark, which is extremely important for actually doing damage can be dodged and blocked. For an added bonus, it's like reflect is being passed out like candy these days, so you also have that to deal with (but so does all ranged).

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:Yes, we all kitten and you are just THAT good. Thank you for bringing your wisdom to us lowly plebs who are just too kitten to figure out how amazing Rifle is. lol

1. I crit 3k autos all of the time. That isn't low.
2. Maybe you should consider not spamming 3 since the short lived might stacks since using it as a source of might is complete waste of initiative. Instead, use Improv and Fire for Effect.
3. See 2.
4. Its 3/4ths of a second which might seem horribly telegraphed to you but isn't so much to me. Just another tip: if someone spotted you, is putting pressure on you and you have not gtfo'd before then, you've already failed as a Deadeye and you end up getting put on your ass.
5. It costs nothing if you don't use Sniper's cover. However, that means you'll have to stack more crit rate because you'll be missing that 20% rate bonus. And personally, I think that is a good tradeoff considering the cost/benefits of each situation. ie: with Sniper's Cover, you could wear more tanky gear while pulling off the same number of crits, faster bullets and gain more stealth access for more initiative burden. And on the topic of kneeling, you use it when you are not under pressure or being targeted. Alternately if you think you are being targeted, disengage and kill them later. Learned that from experience in wvw.

In the case of the ranger pet, you can roll through the pet at an angle so it attacks your side. Or you could focus the pet to make it useless. Or disengage. The Deadeye's playstyle is literally played like a sniper. Long ranged, accurate and deadly cover. Which means you need to figure out who is the bigger threat to you and your team and get them dead asap every fraction of a second. The deadeye deals enough single target damage to put tanky ass guards on their ass, and I have done it. You can too.

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:Yes, we all kitten and you are just THAT good. Thank you for bringing your wisdom to us lowly plebs who are just too kitten to figure out how amazing Rifle is. lol

1. I crit 3k autos all of the time. That isn't low.
2. Maybe you should consider not spamming 3 since the short lived might stacks since using it as a source of might is complete waste of initiative. Instead, use Improv and Fire for Effect.
3. See 2.
4. Its 3/4ths of a second which might seem horribly telegraphed to you but isn't so much to me. Just another tip: if someone spotted you, is putting pressure on you and you have not gtfo'd before then, you've already failed as a Deadeye and you end up getting put on your kitten.
5. It costs nothing if you don't use Sniper's cover. However, that means you'll have to stack more crit rate because you'll be missing that 20% rate bonus. And personally, I think that is a good tradeoff considering the cost/benefits of each situation. ie: with Sniper's Cover, you could wear more tanky gear while pulling off the same number of crits, faster bullets and gain more stealth access for more initiative burden. And on the topic of kneeling, you use it when you are not under pressure or being targeted. Alternately if you think you are being targeted, disengage and kill them later. Learned that from experience in wvw.

1. See what Longbow says about that.
2. Fire for Effect requires that your stolen skill lands, and there is a myriad of things that can keep that from happening.
3. Unnecessary.
4. It's not just the cast time. It is also the giant yellow laser beam of dodge me that emerges from your gun and lands on the target.
5. It costs 1 initiative without Snipers Cover (not 0), and 3 with it.

In the case of the ranger pet, if you kill it, they will just send the next pet, but it isn't just about pets. It is about bodies blocking shots, and necro minion spam blocking shots, mesmer spam blocking shots etc.

I am aware that Deadeye deals decent burst damage, the problem is the dps falls off drastically after your initial burst and P/P can do just as much burst while being more mobile and having higher sustained dps.

yeah i def think rifle need some kind of piercing mechanic. The idea of deadeye is a teamfighter/assassin that slowly bleeds the enemy team of characters one by one, but it's really hampered by the fact that the characters it singles out are often blocked behind other characters.

also people should learn there's a difference between dps and strike damage. Yes, deadeye dps is abysmal. but dps isn't everything. Burst damage is another way of saying "Dps over a short amount of time." Strike damage means "damage over no time." Deadeye has the largest strike damage of all. The ability to put out one or two high damage strikes at the right moment is what makes the class viable in (usually) teamfighting situations.

Honestly, i feel the primary complaints about DE sterns from players trying to play it like a regular Thief while its role is clearly meant to be different. You're not supposed to rush ahead and cap far nodes or roam very far. You don't have the mobility for that.

I mean, just look at the overall theme of the spec, its a Sniper. What snipers do? They camp important points and defend them. That's Deadeye's purpose in sPvP and i'm finding some pretty good success doing it. I rarely go for far nodes, i simply attack the middle one with my team and guard it. Just look at some of the talents of the spec, it has a lot of boon sharing, hinting at the fact its meant to be valuable in teamfights, something the base Thief and Daredevil specs always struggled with. I also took the habit of micro-managing team fights by calling my marked targets, doesn't always work cause people are going to be people, but i definitively noticed it helped.

If the middle node isn't busy i roam between the close node and the middle one (or the far one in the unlikely event its the second one my team is holding., picking off potential cappers on their way. Which is why i run Shadow Refuge and the Shadow Arts tree in general.

That's also one thing that has been boggling my mind looking at Meta Battle and some streamers is how nobody seem to see the insane synergy Deadeye has with that tree.

Only thing i can agree with as far as complaints goes is how frustrating pets, mesmer clones and other bullcrap getting in the way of a perfect Death's Judgement you just spent 10 seconds building up can be. I really think the spec would feel a LOT better if that ability had Pierce, even if it meant lowering the damage coefficient on off-targets. Would even help PvE where the spec seem to be hurting at the moment, and a complete and total lack of any AoE besides Shadow Flare and some mild cleaving from our 2 is clearly one of the reasons.

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:Yes, we all kitten and you are just THAT good. Thank you for bringing your wisdom to us lowly plebs who are just too kitten to figure out how amazing Rifle is. lol

1. I crit 3k autos all of the time. That isn't low.
2. Maybe you should consider not spamming 3 since the short lived might stacks since using it as a source of might is complete waste of initiative. Instead, use Improv and Fire for Effect.
3. See 2.
4. Its 3/4ths of a second which might seem horribly telegraphed to you but isn't so much to me. Just another tip: if someone spotted you, is putting pressure on you and you have not gtfo'd before then, you've already failed as a Deadeye and you end up getting put on your kitten.
5. It costs nothing if you don't use Sniper's cover. However, that means you'll have to stack more crit rate because you'll be missing that 20% rate bonus. And personally, I think that is a good tradeoff considering the cost/benefits of each situation. ie: with Sniper's Cover, you could wear more tanky gear while pulling off the same number of crits, faster bullets and gain more stealth access for more initiative burden. And on the topic of kneeling, you use it when you are not under pressure or being targeted. Alternately if you think you are being targeted, disengage and kill them later. Learned that from experience in wvw.

1. See what Longbow says about that.
2. Fire for Effect requires that your stolen skill lands, and there is a myriad of things that can keep that from happening.
3. Unnecessary.
4. It's not just the cast time. It is also the giant yellow laser beam of dodge me that emerges from your gun and lands on the target.
5. It costs 1 initiative without Snipers Cover (not 0), and 3 with it.

1. What exactly are you using to compare them? Both Long Range Shot does less damage and Dual shot arguably does less damage than Brutal Aim and Deadly Aim. The ranger and warrior also can't easily self buff to the same degree as Deadeye. So 10 seconds into the fight, Deadeye has the clear AA damage advantage.
2. What myriad of things? They are not projectiles. The only thing that will ever block them is LoS and I am not even sure even LoS will prevent Stolen Skill use once the enemy is marked.
3. Very Necessary
4. Now you are over-exaggerating. The laser beam is not that big and the whole skill lasts as long as the auto.
5. Okay so it's one initiative, which is still nothing. And there is no point in spamming it anyways when you don't have Sniper's Cover. What is the problem?

That's why you hit 5, readjust and then hit 5 again. If you are the type of person that just parks your ass where ever with kneel and lets everything hit you and get in the way, then yeah you are going to have problems. But your bursts are powerful enough that it will kill the meat shields too. This is a player issue.

DPS falls off drastically when you spam 3. There are ways to get around it. Again, a player issue.

Secondly, sustain is important more for weaker hitting weaponsets like p/p. Unload hits 8 times, dealing small amounts of damage (says 147) with each shot for a total of 1176 if all hits land. The skills cast time is 1.5s. Compare that to Brutal Aim which can fire two shots (545 each) in the same time, dealing 1090. Deadly Aim is 33% more powerful (727) dealing 1454 in the same amount of time. Also consider that only 1/4th of the shots have to land with rifle vs unload to get this damage.

So in reality, Rifle potentially has better sustain than p/p. The only thing p/p offers above rifle is mobility and better on hit/crit procing.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that if you buff yourself properly and use auto for sustain, you can save up your initiative for DJ which will really increase your dps.

There is a difference between spike DPS and sustained DPS. A 25k hit, even if lower sustained DPS is still a downed target 9/10 times.

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Ashanor.5319 said:Yes, we all kitten and you are just THAT good. Thank you for bringing your wisdom to us lowly plebs who are just too kitten to figure out how amazing Rifle is. lol

1. I crit 3k autos all of the time. That isn't low.
2. Maybe you should consider not spamming 3 since the short lived might stacks since using it as a source of might is complete waste of initiative. Instead, use Improv and Fire for Effect.
3. See 2.
4. Its 3/4ths of a second which might seem horribly telegraphed to you but isn't so much to me. Just another tip: if someone spotted you, is putting pressure on you and you have not gtfo'd before then, you've already failed as a Deadeye and you end up getting put on your kitten.
5. It costs nothing if you don't use Sniper's cover. However, that means you'll have to stack more crit rate because you'll be missing that 20% rate bonus. And personally, I think that is a good tradeoff considering the cost/benefits of each situation. ie: with Sniper's Cover, you could wear more tanky gear while pulling off the same number of crits, faster bullets and gain more stealth access for more initiative burden. And on the topic of kneeling, you use it when you are not under pressure or being targeted. Alternately if you think you are being targeted, disengage and kill them later. Learned that from experience in wvw.

1. See what Longbow says about that.
2. Fire for Effect requires that your stolen skill lands, and there is a myriad of things that can keep that from happening.
3. Unnecessary.
4. It's not just the cast time. It is also the giant yellow laser beam of dodge me that emerges from your gun and lands on the target.
5. It costs 1 initiative without Snipers Cover (not 0), and 3 with it.

1. What exactly are you using to compare them? Both Long Range Shot does less damage and Dual shot arguably does less damage than Brutal Aim and Deadly Aim. The ranger and warrior also can't easily self buff to the same degree as Deadeye. So 10 seconds into the fight, Deadeye has the clear AA damage advantage.
2. What myriad of things? They are not projectiles. The only thing that will ever block them is LoS and I am not even sure even LoS will prevent Stolen Skill use once the enemy is marked.
3. Very Necessary
4. Now you are over-exaggerating. The laser beam is not that big and the whole skill lasts as long as the auto.
5. Okay so it's one initiative, which is still nothing. And there is no point in spamming it anyways when you don't have Sniper's Cover. What is the problem?

I am not even going to bother with you anymore. If I do, it will just be a constant back and forth wasting 10-15 minutes of my life a day on a reply. No thank you. You win.

This is spike DPS, not sustained DPS. Want sustained then go Condi. I'm not better than anybody lol, I just enjoy Deadeye and had some tips -- is that okay? Clearly not :astonished:

Try stacking might, using haste, taking advantage of quickness and boons from mark steals to have a higher sustained dps.

I think it's fun! But of course there are things that need to be fixed ... you can find those suggestions in another other thread, why should I add to that cluster when there's plenty of that material to go around? I'm offering a refreshing perspective and maybe a glimmer of hope that this new profession can shine if properly figured out.

I do think DE needs a piercing mechanic -- the warrior rifle has one, why not US?
I do think that stance changing should be more instantaneous, as that half second to switch really screws up following abilities.The cantrip heal is meh. It heals for A LOT, but is such a long cooldown with no boons or stealthing ability.Rifle #4 is almost useless on anything with a slope and I find myself getting stuck a lot.

STILL, I hold out because I'm having a lot of fun whether it's an instant 25 stacks of might and group boon buffs with distanced Spike DPS or just going pure glass cannon.

I goofed around with P/P on DE and had a blast with the P/P R Combo. What P/P lacks alone is distance, stealth mechanics and boons.

Ashanor, there have always been people like you that spell doom and gloom for Thieves since beta - Yet thieves are still killing it out there every day in PvP and making Dev's heads spin.

Hope you're all having fun!

"DPS" is not the same as "Burst". DJ burst is not a DPS increase. Rifle has pitiful DPS.

@Murmaider.1805 said:This is coming from somebody who didn't like it in the BETA.

My only guess is the ones complaining about it's lack of DPS have crutched on condi's and made it a habit to forsake the power creep. . . Still I hear there are some beast condi builds coming out so I don't know. But I'm critting for 15k up to 30k, always topping some sort of stat and I lost 2 out of 13 games yesterday.

I don't have theorycraft to make a point, I don't have any statistical data to say it's better, but I'm finding the play style very likeable.

A few tips:

• Enemy Thieves can go down in two hits with only 2 stacks of malice while in Kneel. Remember you can go down that fast as well.

• Practice retaliation awareness (A lot of players now know what Deadeyes can do and as such, when we become visible, they blow their cooldowns with Retal, protection, stability, basically anything defensive right away)

• Mark the target that takes the longest to go down

• It isn't about how quick you go into battle, it's about opportunity and having the ability to stay stealthed for elongated periods of time. Use that time to figure out enemy positioning, strategy and habits of other players before you go in.

Thanks for hearing me out, Hope you all are enjoying the new expansion!

It's a play style adjustment. And people haven't gotten there yet. There are some things that rifle needs an improvement on, and some of the traits do need some tweaks. But overall deadeye is pretty scary in PvP.

Reflection has killed me plenty of times. But eventually I actually figured out how to fight it without needing Basilisk Venom. It basically took about 20 games of toying around with the Cantrips to figure out, and specifically me only, I can use them the best. It is a little weird really. The Deadeye Rifle and Malice is about patience. But the Cantrips are about being proactive, and preempting.

To adjust for the cast time, I actually started using the Deadeye utilities early.

So instead of waiting till people are on top of me, I use Shadow Gust when I see them enroute to me. So Either they are diving on top of me, or they are running at me and close enough for the utility to land.

Shadow Flare I started using it to discourage people from getting on top of me by dancing around it. Those who thought they could kill me before it kills them died very quickly when they ran into it. I've even used it for small traps. A daredevil had me on the ropes so I started to book it. Used my invisibility movement speed to gain some distance and baited him. Refreshed mark on him, chunked orb behind a wall so he couldn't see it and crouched. He vaulted. I swapped places with the flare, cast Shadow Bind, autoed him to stun, he broke it, he got knocked down immediately, Hit him with a tripple tap, auto, death's judgement and flare finished him.

Hell, I've even encountered Deadeyes who fucking baffled me. You got those who abused the living shit out of the multiple Shadow step utilities to keep you spinning around, and running away is definitely not a good idea. You got those who combined deadeyes and traps and took a strong defensive role. The deadeye assassins who ran around and made squishy players permadead.

My build had a mix of Seeker and magi.

Stealthing was my primary defense. So I had it where it prevents critical hits, and heals me per second. If peripheral vision was better, I would have actually taken it to push my boons onto my allies. But they are never near me.

Sigil of Separation, and Sigil of Courage on the Rifle. Rune of Rage on the Armor.

Critical Strikes, Shadow Arts, Deadeye.

I don't theory craft. I just build something that works for me.

DEs damage is op in pvp. It needs nerfing!!!