Who's a better Sniper?

I ask this question in WvW because I've been noticing an increase lately in Deadeye (thanks to a couple of fixes to kneel and SC) and especially Soulbeast population in squads and roamers.

Deadeye Pros and Cons:

• Deadeyes have access to pretty much endless stealth.
• Easy access to immobilize.
• Projectile hate and blind with Sniper's Cover.
• You are bound to a single target with Mark. Enemies know you're on to them.
• You rely on Kneel skills to maximize you're damage and accuracy making you immobile.
• No option for meat shield.
• Revealed...
• limited range.

Soulbeast Pros and Cons:

• Ability to snipe without marks and range increase with height.
• Unblockable attacks combined with quickness + OWP
• Evades AND stealth.
• Wordly impact + KDs (depends on pet)

soulbeast is the better sniper, but deadeye is in many aspects better than soulbeast.

Define 'sniper' in this context first.

D:

For the amount of times I died by soulbeasts, I go with soulbeast.

I'm a Mesmer so soulbeasts have never been a threat to me because of the mirror skills and traits, so deadeye is a bigger threat to me because they attack that reveals them out of stealth is unblockable(can't be reflected by mirror skills and traits) :#

@necromaniac.7629 said:I'm a Mesmer so soulbeasts have never been a threat to me because of the mirror skills and traits, so deadeye is a bigger threat to me because they attack that reveals them out of stealth is unblockable(can't be reflected by mirror skills and traits) :#

you know that soulbeast can be unblockable with ALL skills for several seconds tho?

@MUDse.7623 said:

@necromaniac.7629 said:I'm a Mesmer so soulbeasts have never been a threat to me because of the mirror skills and traits, so deadeye is a bigger threat to me because they attack that reveals them out of stealth is unblockable(can't be reflected by mirror skills and traits) :#

oh oh yes I just remembered that, is it their elite skill that does that?

@necromaniac.7629 said:

@MUDse.7623 said:

@necromaniac.7629 said:I'm a Mesmer so soulbeasts have never been a threat to me because of the mirror skills and traits, so deadeye is a bigger threat to me because they attack that reveals them out of stealth is unblockable(can't be reflected by mirror skills and traits) :#

The movement speed signet or trait in the first line I think.

D:

@necromaniac.7629 said:

@MUDse.7623 said:

@necromaniac.7629 said:I'm a Mesmer so soulbeasts have never been a threat to me because of the mirror skills and traits, so deadeye is a bigger threat to me because they attack that reveals them out of stealth is unblockable(can't be reflected by mirror skills and traits) :#

warhorn skill while in beastmode, entering beastmode with trait , signet.obviously you dont need it all as one of them is enough to get a burst with quickness on your target.

Fairly sure the answer is hammer rev :/

Signet of the Hunt is what makes SB so deadly. Only real counter is if you can evade fast enough. Soft classes/builds melts to them. I usually survive if I ran an ele with Stone Heart or a heavy and avoid crits. But fighting against these with Marauder Deadeye/Thief, let alone Zerk is suicide.

Deadeye has DJ but it takes a while to build its effectiveness. You do have a small window to burst rifle 2 and 3 with your 3 second quickness if youre running QoBK. When I play DE i actually play defensively with SA to maximize stealth.

Rifle Holosmith.

You need a third option:

Who The F**k Cares

@Trajan.4953 said:You need a third option:

Who The F**k Cares

Apparently you do.

engi or warrior not in the choices?

Both rely on finding targets to pick off. Almost all players for both just constantly reset / avoid combat to re-engage only when they can freely. Most are only capable of picking off players that can't possibly fight them, i.e. low end ganking. Fun if you don't have other means of getting kills, but rarely skilled.

Some soulbeasts are quite skilled at kiting at which point it's a fairly potent build. Daredevil is a lot more obnoxious and slow; rather than kiting it tends to spam-reset / stealth.

In group play, you should kick both.

I play Soulbeast. I'm better then deadeye. Simple!

a true "sniper" shoots/attacks without being seen...hence what a "sniper" is. Deadeye is the only one of the 2 to fit this. Ghost sniper is the king of true snipers.

@"Bigpapasmurf.5623" said:a true "sniper" shoots/attacks without being seen...hence what a "sniper" is. Deadeye is the only one of the 2 to fit this. Ghost sniper is the king of true snipers.

Soulbeast can attack from stealth using the Smokescale F2.

@DragonSlayer.1087 said:

@"Bigpapasmurf.5623" said:a true "sniper" shoots/attacks without being seen...hence what a "sniper" is. Deadeye is the only one of the 2 to fit this. Ghost sniper is the king of true snipers.

Whilst I realize this, DE can keep going back into stealth as will more frequently.

@Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:

@DragonSlayer.1087 said:

@Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:a true "sniper" shoots/attacks without being seen...hence what a "sniper" is. Deadeye is the only one of the 2 to fit this. Ghost sniper is the king of true snipers.

That's true. A good Deadeye can reset the battle if he's in trouble. I still wish the Deadeye's range (while kneeling at least) is longer. 1800-2000. And make the Mark instant cast.

They're such different play style that it makes me curious what other people think.

Thematically, it's the Deadeye.In practice though... I find the Soulbeast to currently be the better one at 'picking off targets from long range'. They got more range than the Deadeye does (despite both actually having a "1500 range"). They can access a variety of ways to get unblockable hits, which especially in WvW gets to play a hefty role, what with all the Minstrel Guards and such. They got quite comparable horizontal mobility (DE can still beat it in vertical mobility, depending on the build), and access to Out-Of-Combat Stealth. Even though the DE can reset a tad easier, the Soulbeast builds that are currently ran, tend to have far more sustain built into them, so that they simply don't need to reset as often and such...

So yeah, I'd give the edge to Soulbeasts for now.

thematically I vote for Deadeye, because Soulbeasts can't carry a rifle.

In terms of fun to play I prefer Deadeye

But in terms of effectiveness, I think SoulBeast has the edge

Personally, I would say that a SoulBeast is a much better ganker, but a Deadeye is a better sniper, after all, a Deadeye built right can remain in stealth indefinitely, while waiting for a good moment to snipe someone down.

Soulbeast is easymode Deadeye.

Ganker = deadeye (but that's because of Malicious Backstab which isn't always ideal to set up)Sniper = soulbeast, hands down from any non-melee rangeStealth is not a requirement outside of defensive scenarios and kiting so it's a strong tool but high mobility/CC/movement condition spam is usually better

Rifle is still meh outside of the now overpowered deadeye dodge stealth trait. Death's Justice works really only with +1 situations where it doesn't matter what you are playing or against players that can't react where it doesn't matter what you are playing either which is why Deadeye is not the better sniper. Basically, the "kneeling portion" of rifle mechanic needs to go and rifle range needs to be baseline 1500 without kneel - basically why not just give the Deadeye +20% crit if standing still for 'x' seconds instead and scrap the inferior near-garbage standing rifle abilities (turn 5 into the Sniper's Cover ability)?

Also, baseline Deadeye's Mark use abilities are pretty terrible still outside of the odd Deadly Arts/Trickery/Deadeye build traits and utilities required to enhance it (way too much build investment for return and still not that great even with all that). Now compare that to the variety, simplicity and heavy damage/defensive options of Soulbeast Beastmode mechanics (Worldly Impact, Stealth option, massive horizontal low-cooldown leap option, high-damage single target long-evade option, etc.) as baseline options.