Deadeye or Daredevil (PvE)

Hello everyone!So I am having this dilema, unsure what to 'main'.I'd like to hear your experiences and opinions.

Here's my story:Deadeye:I love roaming around in PvE zones as a Deadeye, sniping bosses, bounties and champions; but I often get put down by it due to lack of AoE and 'survivability' in terms of struggling when surrounded by multilple foes.The damage output is great, it is super bursty and it's super fun (especially as I LOVE sniper rifles!)Nothing more satisfying than seeing that 90k crit hit.The lack of mobility and actual AoE with rifle is what puts me off.

Daredevil:Daredevil I've mained for quite some time. T4 Fractals are a breeze with Daredevil and it's all easy mode with it.Crazy AoE, crazy mobility and a very decent DPS, especially with Quickness to back you up. Forgiveable rotation and enjoyable playstyle, very tough and survives perfectly well with the right traits that enhance your healing per hit/per crit.That being said I am not fond of 'staff' as a weapon, nor am I fond of constant jumping/dodging about and being all over the place. I suppose I got a little bored of Daredevil.

DPS:I've tested the DPS on both and I always get better results as Daredevil (all buffs on and all conditions on the golem).37k Daredevil35k Deadeye rifle and lower (drops down to 30k-33k) yet I heard people scoring over 40k with rifle, how? :o

What are your personal preferences?What are your DPS numbers on both Deadeye and Daredevil? What do YOU find more rewarding/better?Has anyone tried Deadeye in Fractals T4?

Thanks! :)

why not both? not much you got to change if you want to swap.

@Blur.3465 said:Deadeye:I love roaming around in PvE zones as a Deadeye, sniping bosses, bounties and champions; but I often get put down by it due to lack of AoE and 'survivability' in terms of struggling when surrounded by multilple foes.for solo 'trash' mob groups in open world i swap to s/p on DE. if i know i will encounter many trashmob groups i will swap to collateral damage and BQoBK.as for mobility you can use about face + rifle 4 to quickly dash forward.

It is very easy to swap between builds, because nearly everything is the same between the two. You're not locked in to any choice.

I've taken Deadeye into t4 fractals.. It does O.K. Mostly it plays like core thief. I use the rifle sparingly, though, because the area of engagement changes quickly and I need to stick with the group to receive boons. The file is a blessing against MAMA, though. Mostly I use sword/pistol or dagger/pistol, because Black Powder disables anything without a break bar, and those vets hurt at higher levels. Dagger/Dagger is O.K. on bosses, but it can be surprisingly hard to maintain flanking position against them. In most fights where you'll need to use ranged weapons, Pistol/Pistol or sometimes even Shortbow is usually better than the Rifle, because you can maintain mobility while still doing a lot of damage.

For T4s, though, I'd argue that daredevil is overall the better choice. If you have a team good enough to defeat enemies without spamming black powder, then the Staff provides a weapon that is easy to use, does great AoE damage, and can keep you alive for a long time. Spamming Weakening Charge is one of the easiest ways to do good damage in the game.

Deadeye is popular in raids because the bosses spend a long time fixated on a single person. This means it is easy to sit back, flank, and then lay down a whole lot of damage.

I don't really have a preference, mostly because I have shelved my thief. But, whenever I do play one, I alternate between the two builds. I just go with the one that I haven't played in awhile.

@Blur.3465 said:Hello everyone!So I am having this dilema, unsure what to 'main'.I'd like to hear your experiences and opinions.

Here's my story:Deadeye:I love roaming around in PvE zones as a Deadeye, sniping bosses, bounties and champions; but I often get put down by it due to lack of AoE and 'survivability' in terms of struggling when surrounded by multilple foes.The damage output is great, it is super bursty and it's super fun (especially as I LOVE sniper rifles!)Nothing more satisfying than seeing that 90k crit hit.The lack of mobility and actual AoE with rifle is what puts me off.

Daredevil:Daredevil I've mained for quite some time. T4 Fractals are a breeze with Daredevil and it's all easy mode with it.Crazy AoE, crazy mobility and a very decent DPS, especially with Quickness to back you up. Forgiveable rotation and enjoyable playstyle, very tough and survives perfectly well with the right traits that enhance your healing per hit/per crit.That being said I am not fond of 'staff' as a weapon, nor am I fond of constant jumping/dodging about and being all over the place. I suppose I got a little bored of Daredevil.

DPS:I've tested the DPS on both and I always get better results as Daredevil (all buffs on and all conditions on the golem).37k Daredevil35k Deadeye rifle and lower (drops down to 30k-33k) yet I heard people scoring over 40k with rifle, how? :o

What are your personal preferences?What are your DPS numbers on both Deadeye and Daredevil? What do YOU find more rewarding/better?Has anyone tried Deadeye in Fractals T4?

Thanks! :)

You should not test your dps with all buffs, conditions and boons. Ppl get those numbers when they follow snowcrows rotation.

Seems I might stick to Daredevil due to how fluid and smooth it plays compared to Deadeye (at least to me).Too bad the rifle has the 'restrictions' in terms of movement and proper AoE, otherwise I'd probably main Deadeye with Rifle.

Tested both rotations thoroughly now again and well...Daredevil is super forgiveable compared to Deadeye. If you make one mistake with Deadeye it costs you a lot of DPS loss :cIn PvE I really struggle surviving 'surprise' encounters if I get downed from mount or surrounded by multiple or harder foes all the sudden.

As much as I love the idea of Deadeye, I get put down by the lack of rifle AoE and movement compared to how smooth Daredevil plays without having to switch talents or even weapons to perform well on multiple targets.Unfortunately, Deadeye Rifle also doesn't surpass Daredevil on Single Target damage by a lot either, they're super close and yet again Daredevil proves superior to it.(Deadeye d/d play is good for raids but bad for any other scenario as you constantly have to be behind boss to deliver enough of damage, which isn't the case in Fractals most of the time).

There's also breakbar stuff, where Daredevil shines compared to Deadeye again (unless you stun with pistol and switch some skills that will damage your DPS significantly).

Thanks for all your feedback here!I'm open to more opinions of course, I'm curious to hear what people prefer and 'main' and what builds do you guys use?I'm using the Daredevil Power Build for Fractals/Raid from Metabattle and snowcrows.Using the PvE build for Deadeye Rifle and raid build for Deadeye D/D.

I believe the thing that bugs me the most about Deadeye rifle is the fact that you have to stay knelt in order to deal a lot of damage, which is never ideal in a game where you rely on movement abilities and dodges. Even bounties are a pain with kneel constantly active as you have to move to field/out of field, get cloes to boss or avoid stuff constantly.Great concept for Deadeye, I love sniper style, but it could definitely do with a buff or two to make it worth playing along with other builds.

@Blur.3465 said:I believe the thing that bugs me the most about Deadeye rifle is the fact that you have to stay knelt in order to deal a lot of damage, which is never ideal in a game where you rely on movement abilities and dodges. Even bounties are a pain with kneel constantly active as you have to move to field/out of field, get cloes to boss or avoid stuff constantly.Great concept for Deadeye, I love sniper style, but it could definitely do with a buff or two to make it worth playing along with other builds.if you are in solo PvE like bounties, there is no need to run the raid builds and rotations.most builds you find on snowcrows have very little self might generation because they do not invest into it as it would overcap in a group envoirement. for example daredevil. the deadeye on rifle has self might easily capped on 25 from rifle 3 and maleficent seven. this puts the deadeye solo far ahead of daredevil and you can 'ease' the rotation for the envoirement without dropping below daredevil in dmg. for example you can move around and use standing rifle skills for malice buildup instead and you can use silent scope over premed (wich also gives some of the precision that you now lack because no pocket bannerslave) for an easier rotation + freed up utility slots where you then can take shadow flare for AoE or binding shadows for more single target dmg(15 stacks vuln with 1/3 uptime = +5% dmg along with decent breakbar dmg/boonrip using it with assassins signet further improves the effect). especially for soloing thougher opponents deadeye is miles ahead of daredevil with its boon/ini gen and especially being on range! - no need to hug the boss as there is no allies providing you boons in melee.basically when your not within a group setting, dont try to play like you were. it will get much easier then.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:In most fights where you'll need to use ranged weapons, Pistol/Pistol or sometimes even Shortbow is usually better than the Rifle, because you can maintain mobility while still doing a lot of damage.

I don't know where this misconception is coming from but rifle has definitely more mobility than P/P. You don't need Kneel in order to outperform dual pistol and unlike P/P rifle has actually a disengagement skill.

@MUDse.7623 said:

@Blur.3465 said:I believe the thing that bugs me the most about Deadeye rifle is the fact that you have to stay knelt in order to deal a lot of damage, which is never ideal in a game where you rely on movement abilities and dodges. Even bounties are a pain with kneel constantly active as you have to move to field/out of field, get cloes to boss or avoid stuff constantly.Great concept for Deadeye, I love sniper style, but it could definitely do with a buff or two to make it worth playing along with other builds.if you are in solo PvE like bounties, there is no need to run the raid builds and rotations.most builds you find on snowcrows have very little self might generation because they do not invest into it as it would overcap in a group envoirement. for example daredevil. the deadeye on rifle has self might easily capped on 25 from rifle 3 and maleficent seven. this puts the deadeye solo far ahead of daredevil and you can 'ease' the rotation for the envoirement without dropping below daredevil in dmg. for example you can move around and use standing rifle skills for malice buildup instead and you can use silent scope over premed (wich also gives some of the precision that you now lack because no pocket bannerslave) for an easier rotation + freed up utility slots where you then can take shadow flare for AoE or binding shadows for more single target dmg(15 stacks vuln with 1/3 uptime = +5% dmg along with decent breakbar dmg/boonrip using it with assassins signet further improves the effect). especially for soloing thougher opponents deadeye is miles ahead of daredevil with its boon/ini gen and especially

being on range!

- no need to hug the boss as there is no allies providing you boons in melee.basically when your not within a group setting, dont try to play like you were. it will get much easier then.

This is really helpful, thanks a lot!I'm improvising with some Rifle builds and having quite a blast right now.Silent Scope is super useful for avoiding aggro and enemies when dodging too, so I think I'll definitely keep that over Premed!

I like both to be honest (even more so before they completely reworked the Deadeye, which I LOVED if I'm being honest) but for me, it just depends on what mood I'm in. If I feel like going "PEW PEW PEW" from range, then I'll usually go Deadeye with Rifle, otherwise I just stick with Daredevil :3

Deadeye is ok-ish in WvW (however, I rather use Core), but I will never bring it in Fractals. My biggest gripe with Deadeye is not having Steal (instant teleport).

Somehow, I had issues with Daredevil when it first came out, so when I rotate to my Thief, I've been playing Deadeye. Sir Vincent, unless I'm wrong, Deadeye F1 is a steal. It just doesn't shadowstep you. And when you use the stolen skill, it stealths you for a free stealth shot. I use it a lot to keep the stealthed shots coming. (That plus you can dodge while kneeling, which also stealths you.)

(Not sure if I had to trait to get the stealth on dodge and stealth on stolen skill use. Maybe it's not automatic.)

@Druitt.7629 said:Somehow, I had issues with Daredevil when it first came out, so when I rotate to my Thief, I've been playing Deadeye. Sir Vincent, unless I'm wrong, Deadeye F1 is a steal. It just doesn't shadowstep you. And when you use the stolen skill, it stealths you for a free stealth shot. I use it a lot to keep the stealthed shots coming. (That plus you can dodge while kneeling, which also stealths you.)

(Not sure if I had to trait to get the stealth on dodge and stealth on stolen skill use. Maybe it's not automatic.)

You no longer need to be kneeling. However, the patch today will reduce the duration of the stealth granted by this trait.

Dead Eye is meh particularly with the upcoming nerfs. Dare Devil has perma-speed, solid condi removal for those areas that need it and great access to both single target DPS and AoE. In PvE where the NPCs cannot see the DD AoE coming a mile off, it is a no brainer. The might stacking on PP is crazy good and if building a hybrid power/condi the DPS is off the charts.