PvE Rifle Deadeye - What tops it?

I'm the sort who struggles in solo PvE - primarily, achievement hunting in story missions. shakes fist at Head of the Snake boss

Rifle Deadeye felt pretty perfect for a player like me, but gets a lot of hate lately in a lot of the same areas I like it for. So, I'd like to see if anyone can point to other classes/builds that get the job done better, and how. I ask not to be contentious, but out of genuine curiosity and maybe even picking up those classes myself.

So, here's how I play the Deadeye: Get a power-based build (I prefer Marauder, but Berserker works too), slot the heal-on-hit signet and the heal-on-crit trait, and skills/traits to stack up quickness (haste, Mark augmentations, etc.). Then just spam the 3-shot attack while marking foes, passively generating quickness and self healing, tossing in utility skills as needed. Dagger or sword on swap for when melee is easier, following the same basic strategy but with mostly auto attacks.

Pros and Cons:

• Strong single-target damage (compared to other ranged builds!)
• Stong self healing over time; on-hit healing can outpace most classes' healing skills
• Stealth in a pinch
• Damage goes down if dodge rolls aren't enough to get out of red zones
• Poor AoE; more an issue for farming than difficult boss fights
• A one-trick pony

I'm not really a fan of recent changes to Deadeye, but it still feels hard to match these benefits elsewhere. My past experience is with Warrior, Mesmer, and Revenant (Herald), all power builds.

Nearly any form of Necromancer - I prefer condi, personally. THey have a 10% heal on condi damage trait, which is pretty excellent.

Holosmith if you get good at button mashing

Warr

...Anyone, really. I've found Deadeye to be one of the worst options for PvE soloing.

A certain staff chrono build can also do well, but is squishy if you don't play it well enough (as opposed to necro's spam everything and high health)

dagger dagger berserker deadeye the best, or fastest trash mob clearer there is imogreat for farming heart events (pof legendaries) or just living season 3 (ember bay for t6)

this is what i use http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn0MBNOh9FDmOB0PhlWCb7QFdSUaBgQUwh/ZeN7mA-jBSBAB4pP4q9HlfHcEAc4QAU+JAgS1fA4BAYmSQA-emark target, nuke target, marks gets reset. restting mark gives back cooldowns of other skills, rinse and repeatthis build is what i also used in halloween lab farm etc, just mark a target, it dies (triggers aoe) mark new target, rinse and repeatthat build + shortbow is a very good meta event tagger aswell , as long as you re-apply your mark you're good to go

daggerstorm cooldown, becopmes so small with resetting cooldowns (payback trait) add shortbow bounce and you have a very solid aoe farmer.very good in lake dorric leatherfarm, istan farm (rip) pretty much any farm

and for soloplay nothing comes close damage wise, 15-20k backstabs is like a 1 shot on pretty much everything not-veteran

i dislike rifle it just feels to slow

@"melandru.3876" said:dagger dagger berserker deadeye the best, or fastest trash mob clearer there is imogreat for farming heart events (pof legendaries) or just living season 3 (ember bay for t6)

this is what i use http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn0MBNOh9FDmOB0PhlWCb7QFdSUaBgQUwh/ZeN7mA-jBSBAB4pP4q9HlfHcEAc4QAU+JAgS1fA4BAYmSQA-emark target, nuke target, marks gets reset. restting mark gives back cooldowns of other skills, rinse and repeatthis build is what i also used in halloween lab farm etc, just mark a target, it dies (triggers aoe) mark new target, rinse and repeatthat build + shortbow is a very good meta event tagger aswell , as long as you re-apply your mark you're good to go

daggerstorm cooldown, becopmes so small with resetting cooldowns (payback trait) add shortbow bounce and you have a very solid aoe farmer.very good in lake dorric leatherfarm, istan farm (rip) pretty much any farm

and for soloplay nothing comes close damage wise, 15-20k backstabs is like a 1 shot on pretty much everything not-veteran

i dislike rifle it just feels to slow

Why BQoBK over M7? Wouldn't the boongen and ini restore be far more valuable than the burst?

I mean, I think what it really comes down to is survivability. If you have a brick wall target or are skilled enough to dodge everything then plenty of builds will outdamage the rifle. But range + quickened on-hit-healing makes it much easier to stay alive, with the rifle.

The only self-healing I've seen come close is mesmer's healing mantra when boosted by the 3-use trait. Herald can full heal off of a strong attack, but needs proper timing. Warrior gets... not much.

In my opinion the easiest open world build you can play as thief is sword/pistol with the heal on crit trait + healing signet. Just spam skill 3. You're dodging like 50% of the time, deal good damage and if an attack doesn't 1-hit down you, you'll heal back to full health with 1 or 2 attacks. And if the shit really hits the fan, you can use the dagger storm elite skill to become basically immortal.

Rifle is still a very good ranged weapon though. Really useful for world bosses and meta events with a lot of aoe spam in melee range.

@Curennos.9307 said:

@"melandru.3876" said:dagger dagger berserker deadeye the best, or fastest trash mob clearer there is imogreat for farming heart events (pof legendaries) or just living season 3 (ember bay for t6)

this is what i use

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn0MBNOh9FDmOB0PhlWCb7QFdSUaBgQUwh/ZeN7mA-jBSBAB4pP4q9HlfHcEAc4QAU+JAgS1fA4BAYmSQA-e

mark target, nuke target, marks gets reset. restting mark gives back cooldowns of other skills, rinse and repeatthis build is what i also used in halloween lab farm etc, just mark a target, it dies (triggers aoe) mark new target, rinse and repeatthat build + shortbow is a very good meta event tagger aswell , as long as you re-apply your mark you're good to go

daggerstorm cooldown, becopmes so small with resetting cooldowns (payback trait) add shortbow bounce and you have a very solid aoe farmer.very good in lake dorric leatherfarm, istan farm (rip) pretty much any farm

and for soloplay nothing comes close damage wise, 15-20k backstabs is like a 1 shot on pretty much everything not-veteran

i dislike rifle it just feels to slow

Quickness is just an extremely valuable boon and against many smaller enemies you might not even get full malice.

I do have my complaints about the Deadeye. First is that it requires quite a bit of trait management. BQoBK with Payback is good for killing a lot of enemies in quick succession, but the build falters very fast against targets with a lot of health. M7 with Premeditation e is good for the bigger targets, but in melee range and against smaller enemies the traits effectively do nothing. This means that I end up constantly shifting traits and utilities for each individual fight, and it is painful to get caught off-guard with the wrong build.

Second is that, to capitalize on rifle damage, I have to sacrifice a lot of CC. I have to take Shadow Meld over Basilisk Venom, and aside from the two signets I'm either stuck with Haste or Shadow Flare. If I don't do this, I'll quickly run out of stealth, and lose Death's Judgement. I have to carry sword/pistol as the second weapon, because otherwise breakbars will give me a lot of grief.

Third is the lack of cleave. While Spotter's Shot is good for enemies in a line, in any other arrangement the Deadeye can get overpowered by sheer numbers. Having the best single target damage is good in itself, but something I dearly miss form other classes is the ability to bunch enemies up and nuke them down. I can't count how many times Death's Judgement was body-blocked by a random mook, killing the flow of battle.

Fourth, in particularly dangerous areas the immobility of kneel can get me killed. Dodging is good for moving out of the way of a single attack, but for avoiding multiples and in space restricted areas, a dodge alone isn't enough. Having to un-kneel and re-kneel to stay alive and deal damage cuts my performance down, and frequently isn't fast enough.

As for doing the job better... that depends on what you mean by "job". If the problems above are hindering you, then the short answer is every profession can do it better. It is my opinion that the Daredevil is an overall more well rounded and versatile specialization. Daredevils get the mobility, the CC, the cleave, all in a single build and sacrifice very little to do so. Their damage is lower than the Deadeye's in a theoretical sense, but in a practical one that isn't always the case.

To reiterate (or clarify?) I'm focusing specifically on the ability to kill strong boss-type characters in story missions and such without dying, ignoring player skill as a variable.

I seem to be quite bad at getting my points across, but basically it seems to me that other setups don't match it in simple survivability. Specifically, deadeye's combo of quickness, heal-on-hit, and three-hit spammable skill are more than double what you get out of, say, any of Warrior's healing skills. All at range, clear of most nasty mechanics.

Clearly it's not a common opinion so I'm trying to see what others see.

@Raemyi.2968 said:To reiterate (or clarify?) I'm focusing specifically on the ability to kill strong boss-type characters in story missions and such without dying, ignoring player skill as a variable.

I seem to be quite bad at getting my points across.

I switch to a standard CS build in pve whenever a new story comes out and it feels fine even closing out a story. In every mode I play off of Snipers Cover pretty much all of the time just as prep for anything I might do and I'll Dancing Dagger and auto adds. Story bosses and bosses in a good deal of episode maps get finicky with positioning and platforming so you have to get used to switching between target and untargeted back and forth naturally, you can hotkey it I guess or pick a corner as a dead zone. I dunno, your op sounds pretty baseline, most of those bosses have a pattern that takes positioning and Deaths Retreat feels so good everywhere.

@Curennos.9307 said:

@"melandru.3876" said:dagger dagger berserker deadeye the best, or fastest trash mob clearer there is imogreat for farming heart events (pof legendaries) or just living season 3 (ember bay for t6)

this is what i use

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn0MBNOh9FDmOB0PhlWCb7QFdSUaBgQUwh/ZeN7mA-jBSBAB4pP4q9HlfHcEAc4QAU+JAgS1fA4BAYmSQA-e

mark target, nuke target, marks gets reset. restting mark gives back cooldowns of other skills, rinse and repeatthis build is what i also used in halloween lab farm etc, just mark a target, it dies (triggers aoe) mark new target, rinse and repeatthat build + shortbow is a very good meta event tagger aswell , as long as you re-apply your mark you're good to go

daggerstorm cooldown, becopmes so small with resetting cooldowns (payback trait) add shortbow bounce and you have a very solid aoe farmer.very good in lake dorric leatherfarm, istan farm (rip) pretty much any farm

and for soloplay nothing comes close damage wise, 15-20k backstabs is like a 1 shot on pretty much everything not-veteran

i dislike rifle it just feels to slow

against normal mobs you will steal dagger 5, dagger 1 and dead. that's all the ini you useyou will never, ever run out of inni.you can repeat this as many times as you want.if in some odd case, ure backstab didn't crit then u have +200 power from be quick or be killed + 200 power from revelead training and quickness, some auto attacks and the deed is done.

the utilities are just there to use and shorten the distance to the next fight.if you really fear ini issues you could swap assassins signet for infiltrators signet, and swap out the trait twin fangs for signet mastery.

an extra shadowstep, with minimal cooldown (20% reset per kill thanks to our deadeye traits) and on kill you restore 1 ini

@"Raemyi.2968" said:I mean, I think what it really comes down to is survivability. If you have a brick wall target or are skilled enough to dodge everything then plenty of builds will outdamage the rifle. But range + quickened on-hit-healing makes it much easier to stay alive, with the rifle.

The only self-healing I've seen come close is mesmer's healing mantra when boosted by the 3-use trait. Herald can full heal off of a strong attack, but needs proper timing. Warrior gets... not much.

are you kidding me?warrior that uses strenght/defense/spellbreaker has the most insane health regen there is

healing signet 344 heal per secondadrenal health 394 health per second (3 stacks)might makes right 133 health per might stack

^ nothing comes close to that passive sustain

every new warrior player i would advise a build like this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAR3ejMdQXH25BmhAnIWICMjAQEonh/j9kROB9tRAA-jRCEABJq+jEHBgEeAAbpEsNdDMp8Ll9HA4CAk9BBAA-edoes not need to be ascended, simple exotics work just fine

it covers pretty much everything. stunbreaks, condi cleanses, tons of healing, reflect, tons of damageyou can go full balls-deep and switch shield offhand for offhand dagger, and take sun and moon trait in spellbreaker for even more passive healing

if you die in open world with this build, warrior (or any melee class) might not be for you

@Raemyi.2968 said:To reiterate (or clarify?) I'm focusing specifically on the ability to kill strong boss-type characters in story missions and such without dying, ignoring player skill as a variable.

I seem to be quite bad at getting my points across, but basically it seems to me that other setups don't match it in simple survivability. Specifically, deadeye's combo of quickness, heal-on-hit, and three-hit spammable skill are more than double what you get out of, say, any of Warrior's healing skills. All at range, clear of most nasty mechanics.

Clearly it's not a common opinion so I'm trying to see what others see.

I don't have any experience with deadeye, but I do play Daredevil, and while I see your point of being able to deal truckloads of damage from range, Staff Daredevil will help you with your lack of AoE. You do need to have practice though to make it work, as dodging becomes part of your offense as well as defense, but the Invigorating Precision trait in Critical Strikes trait line provides a significant amount of self healing, and Marauder gear works very well as it gives vitality as well as more precision than Berserkers at the cost of power/ferocity.

Staff also helps with some defensive utility via evades, blind and weakness.

No easy access to stealth though, unless you run x/pistol as a secondary, and I usually run SB.

DD is overall easier to use than DE because of braindead rotation and the fact that staff is great for both trash mobs and meaty targets. But if you're set on DE for soloing champs/bosses, I posted a perma-quickness DE build a while back that I find very competitive. It's only gotten better since the introduction of Diviner gear and Fireworks runes.

Since BQoBK is completely useless against bosses, the idea is to get 100% quickness while traiting Maleficent 7 for them sweet sweet boons and basically unlimited initiative.http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAoY4an0MBFPhNGDGOB8PhFwCzLAEBaA8nx5YdcLEtW6NA-jByIQBbT/QXOJAkVJ4YVOAz9HWn6PA4JAsPlckCY3xAA-e

The schtick here is to achieve 100% quickness uptime via the new rage+celerity sigils, BoS, and Haste, which allows me to pick M7 instead of BQoBK for initiative sustain. Aside from quickness, might will be self-capped and you'll have perma every boon from M7.

Rotation is pretty simple:mark2xHS or DB for 4 malice(depends on if you need to evade)C&D -> mBSAA as needed for filler

Deathblossom under quickness is actually really good for evading, as the pre-/aftercasts are halved and the leap distance shortened, so most of the clunkiness around its use is gone. It's effectively another dodge that uses initiative instead of endurance, and builds 2x malice per cast. In terms of sustain, you'll have perma protection and regen from M7, coupled with Invigorating Precision it should be more than enough (use lifestealing food if you need even more).

I wanna call out Mercy as a key utility for initiative management, it has excellent synergy with M7. It gives 7ini right away + 2 from recasting Mark, a "free" M7 proc via resetting malice, and a second M7 via stolen skill -> stealth. That's a total of 23 initiative if you complete the whole chain.

On weapon swap, you can use D/P or S/P for spamming Headshot against breakbar, while still retaining a decent amount of cleave with AA under quickness.

just put crit strikes with heal trait and heal signet and ur good to go if ur struggling if that still not enough pop the 66% chance to heal on crit food. u can just 1111 tru everything.

as for dps in PvE im not into it so i might be wrong, just go p/p? Deadeye? mark > kill > mark > kill should be piss easy :D

@melandru.3876 said:

@"Raemyi.2968" said:I mean, I think what it really comes down to is survivability. If you have a brick wall target or are skilled enough to dodge everything then plenty of builds will outdamage the rifle. But range + quickened on-hit-healing makes it much easier to stay alive, with the rifle.

The only self-healing I've seen come close is mesmer's healing mantra when boosted by the 3-use trait. Herald can full heal off of a strong attack, but needs proper timing. Warrior gets... not much.

This is exactly the kind of response I was looking for. Thank you!

Use staff for Thief if you want more AoE as opposed to single target. Still does a ton of damage to single target though. You get evades with your 5 so passive sustain with that and your heal on crit are pretty high. Also, you have better disengage. There is also D/D for stealth spamming. Whenever you stealth you get rid of all aggro so you don't get hit. Swapping between these builds would be great once we get swappable build templates.

It seems like some content is pretty punishing at melee range though. While there are some good suggestions here, they largely rely on accepting a rather subpar ranged option or just going full melee. Daredevil is tempting, but i just couldn't stand having to rely on shortbow; and I don't remember warrior's rifle being too great.

@Raemyi.2968 said:It seems like some content is pretty punishing at melee range though. While there are some good suggestions here, they largely rely on accepting a rather subpar ranged option or just going full melee. Daredevil is tempting, but i just couldn't stand having to rely on shortbow; and I don't remember warrior's rifle being too great.

no content is punnishingeveything is manageble on melee range you just need to see what is happeningknowing what skills you can facetank, sidestep or worst case evade.

i can't remember last time i died in pve (that are not raids/cm fracs) as a warrior .

warrior ranged options aren't great, because they are not the focus of the warrior. melee is. if ranged was the way to go, warrior would have lower base health (compared to highest base health now) and high single target ranged damage (high aoe dmg now with melee cleaving)

but why not go full valkyry stats, you don't really need precision as a deadeye, your health pool will be larger then marauder and you'll have more power and ferocity

critical strikes traitline "hidden killer" 100% crit chance for 2 seconds on leaving stealth, revealed lasts for 3 seconds, so you are 1 second without crit chance(but you still have +- 35-50% so no big deal)deadly arts traitline "revealed training" +200 power on revealed, nice synergy with hidden killer trait from above

dagger/dagger or rifle with dodging (use dodge food, for faster endurance regen) and just go nuts with dodgeon rifle /dagger 5 to stealth and enefit from 100% crit chance and +200 power

how about a build like this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYUn8MBNGj9FDGOB0PhlWCTLAEi+AbjgozLg/ZON7mA-jxBBQBB4JAsH9BjU5nS2f4Sq/AgTBQjUCSGAqxA-e24k health thief, full power and fercocity. 100% crit chance 2/3 seconds and the remaining 1 second you have base 30% crit chance + fury + traits putting you ate +- 60% crit chance, which is still very goodevery kill you make heals you for +- 3k (532 from heal signet + 2.44k from rune)

@Raemyi.2968 said:It seems like some content is pretty punishing at melee range though. While there are some good suggestions here, they largely rely on accepting a rather subpar ranged option or just going full melee. Daredevil is tempting, but i just couldn't stand having to rely on shortbow; and I don't remember warrior's rifle being too great.

Being in melee isn't punishing as Thief. You're constantly regenerating health due to your trait so keeping it up isn't a problem. Especially with staff as you're hitting multiple enemies at once. Go as full zerk with Scholar runes for more damage so you heal for more and then complement yourself with food if you're having troubles.

Why do you get hate for playing rifle btw? It's good single target damage.

@"melandru.3876" said:but why not go full valkyry stats, you don't really need precision as a deadeye, your health pool will be larger then marauder and you'll have more power and ferocity

critical strikes traitline "hidden killer" 100% crit chance for 2 seconds on leaving stealth, revealed lasts for 3 seconds, so you are 1 second without crit chance(but you still have +- 35-50% so no big deal)deadly arts traitline "revealed training" +200 power on revealed, nice synergy with hidden killer trait from above

dagger/dagger or rifle with dodging (use dodge food, for faster endurance regen) and just go nuts with dodgeon rifle /dagger 5 to stealth and enefit from 100% crit chance and +200 power

how about a build like this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYUn8MBNGj9FDGOB0PhlWCTLAEi+AbjgozLg/ZON7mA-jxBBQBB4JAsH9BjU5nS2f4Sq/AgTBQjUCSGAqxA-e24k health thief, full power and fercocity. 100% crit chance 2/3 seconds and the remaining 1 second you have base 30% crit chance + fury + traits putting you ate +- 60% crit chance, which is still very goodevery kill you make heals you for +- 3k (532 from heal signet + 2.44k from rune)

I've gone marauder as it lets me benefit from all three grandmaster traits in the critical strikes line depending on circumstance. No quarter with bqobk is good for getting the highest DJ damage possible when ganking (since I have 100% crit chance on rifle under fury and quickness), hidden killer is useful for guaranteeing the crit on backstab if I think I can one shot easily (would be 75% otherwise, not guaranteed), and invigorating precision with M7 is great if I'm taking a T3 camp or soloing a tower, using spotter's shot to get max pierce damage and healing. The power and health difference between a mara/zerk/valk mix and pure Valkyrie is pretty marginal tbh, compared to that flexibility.

As far as PvE goes, I tend to find myself using CS, Trick, and DD and alternating back and forth between sword/pistol or staff depending on the situation. The heal on crit trait is a constant, but I will alter traits on DD. Switch to PI for more damage or to EA for condi cleanse, then back and forth between Bounding Dodger and Unhindered Combatant, etc. I usually stay in UC because I like to move fast, but BD on staff is great for big boss targets where the speed boost isn't necessary.

Gearwise, I have mostly marauder, plus some of the mixed Valk/Zerk jewelry to up my power a bit. Unbuffed health is at 16750 or so, crit chance at 65.