double tap and death's retreat are too expensive

[Crab Fear.1624]

pathetic damage for both, and still cost 6 initiative?

back to the drawing board if the best you can do is increase the cost to every skill to 6 ini.

how long before our autos cost 6 ini?

stahp.

[UNOwen.7132]

They are. But you dont use double tap anyway. Its an inferior damage skill to Three Round Burst, which is inferior to Skirmishers Shot.

[kash.9213]

Being on rifle a lot you get a feel for how much reach you can allow and Death's Retreat is awesome for both lateral and vertical distancing and positioning and it's great for a lot of obstacles but then it doesn't leave you with much to post up and shoot. It's just resource responsible for me to start stealth bombing up close when I see the opportunity and try to close it out then leave with whatever Initiative I have left if I make it. I have no problem being that thief on the WvW forum wanted posters at this point, I gotta hit you with something that will make you flinch once in awhile if I'm spending to avoid your stuff at the same time.

[Sobx.1758]

I agree that DT is garbage, but if you make DR cheaper, it might be just straight up too safe/easy to use.

[Razor.6392]

thats how anet devs think that balancing works.

skill too good? increase ini cost until it's too clunky for anyone to enjoy. nothing more engaging and exciting than using an ability twice and then getting basically self-silenced.

[jgeezz.7832]

The range of the rifle is bull shit any way, a ranger can out range a gun LOL but it can.

[HowlKamui.5120]

Imo double tap should be reworked or changed. It's a single target skil that's inferior to skirmisher's shot. It literally has no purpose.

i'd love for it to be a pseudo-aoe (bouncing) skill. That way deadeyes would have a capacity to tag with the rifle.

[UNOwen.7132]

@mikdepadua.8376 said:Imo double tap should be reworked or changed. It's a single target skil that's inferior to skirmisher's shot. It literally has no purpose.

i'd love for it to be a pseudo-aoe (bouncing) skill. That way deadeyes would have a capacity to tag with the rifle.

I mean Three Round Burst is already inferior to Skirmishers Shot. And Double Tap is worse.

[ASP.8093]

someone's going to read this thread and decide to nerf skirmisher's shot

[kash.9213]

@mikdepadua.8376 said:Imo 1. double tap should be reworked or changed. It's a single target skil that's inferior to skirmisher's shot. It literally has no purpose.

2. i'd love for it to be a pseudo-aoe (bouncing) skill. That way deadeyes would have a capacity to tag with the rifle.

1. I kind of wish standing skills were more run and gun type of skills, Three Round Burst feels about right, with Kneel (thief forum has a few discussions on what could be done with Kneel) being more precise and powerful shots or skills.
2. I miss Cursed Bullet and would like to fit it in someplace but add some bounce or let it pierce an amount of times while it weaves and curves around an area. I'd even keep the old speed of it since it could be placed to land right where you need it in a sequence and was more unassuming. I used to launch it to half moon it's way to one side of the targets while I peeled around or darted the other way and would have CB and DJ or something land about the same time or have a bunch of stuff pile on rapidly.

[Ghost.5637]

DR is a fantastic skill imo, but i agree that 6 ini is way too much.

[Doug.4930]

Yea double tap is only pressed when you fat finger, and you're punished greatly for those slip ups.

[Tails.9372]

I agree, IMO the only reason the ini cost of DT/TRB was raised is because people complained about "TRB spam" even tho IMO Skirmisher's Shot was always the superior option.

@ASP.8093 said:someone's going to read this thread and decide to nerf skirmisher's shot^ this

@jgeezz.7832 said:The range of the rifle is bull kitten any way, a ranger can out range a gun LOL but it can.Outrangeing a gun isn't an issue, I'm fine with LB outrangeing a pistol. The issue is that the LB is outrangeing a sniper rifle which really shouldn't be a thing. DE rifle doesn't make you feel like you're actually sniping, especially the need to constantly jumping around for Silent Scope is stupid. But if an NPC has a SR he instantly gets what feels like 30k+ range. The only time in game where it actually feels like you're sniping is during the sidequests in FS...

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I think that Death's Retreat is fine, many Deadeyes use it very effectively and at times it can even be too strong.

But Double Tap (and its more powerful Kneel variant) should be changed to an ammo skill that lets you fire two shots before consuming Initiative, effectively making it a reload skill, which would bring a new mechanic to Rifle, since the DE could fire on free shot without consuming Initiative which would lead to some interesting play options.

[Taril.8619]

To be fair, this is an issue with Feef as a whole.

ANet's "Solution" to every problem is always "Hey, lets increase its init cost!"

Meanwhile, everything is seen as a problem because when Feefs use skills, everyone complains.

@Tails.9372 said:

@"jgeezz.7832" said:The range of the rifle is bull kitten any way, a ranger can out range a gun LOL but it can.Outrangeing a gun isn't an issue, I'm fine with LB outrangeing a pistol. The issue is that the LB is outrangeing a sniper rifle which really shouldn't be a thing. DE rifle doesn't make you feel like you're actually sniping, especially the need to constantly jumping around for Silent Scope is stupid. But if an NPC has a SR he instantly gets what feels like 30k+ range. The only time in game where it actually feels like you're sniping is during the sidequests in FS...

To be fair, a lot about DE Rifle doesn't feel like sniping. Such as the filler attacks being spraying shots out (Spamming Skirm Shot in PvP or TRB in PvE), rolling around like an idiot for Silent Scope and the mediocre range when not kneeling...

Ironically, having high init cost attacks that fire a single powerful shot would be more "Sniper" like, given that the idea of a precision weapon like a sniper is to make few but effective shots, not spray and pray.

Though, this could be tricky to balance as it could lead to a case where the burst damage is too high in PvP (And/or it could mean that Guardian takes a huge dump on DE Rifle by spamming out Aegis to block these big burst shots)

[Tails.9372]

@"Taril.8619" said:ANet's "Solution" to every problem is always "Hey, lets increase its init cost!"Which in some cases even has the opposite of the intended effect e.g. increasing the ini cost of unload makes the build even more reliant on unload because now you can't afford to use anything else. This seems to come from a fundamental failure to understand how the build works in the first place. Iirc. the devs said that they increased the CD and ini costs of some skills because they want the player to "feel" the impact of using their most powerful skills. Issue is that this just doesn't work for some weapon sets, especially if the class in question is not based on a CD but a "mana" like system. There is also no comunication with the players on these issues meaning that even if they identified that there is an issue they generally don't seem to understand why that is which oftentimes leads to "solutions" with make you question "why?" e.g. giving the pistol trait piercing instead of ricocheting.

@"Taril.8619" said:To be fair, a lot about DE Rifle doesn't feel like sniping.And yet the name of the e-spec literally translates to "sniper" in some languages. It's like giving thief a torch for their next e-spec, calling the whole thing "pyromaniac" and then only using the torch to light up some bombs you throw at your enemies.

@"Taril.8619" said:Ironically, having high ini cost attacks that fire a single powerful shot would be more "Sniper" likeIsn't that what malice is there for?

[Taril.8619]

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Taril.8619" said:ANet's "Solution" to every problem is always "Hey, lets increase its init cost!"Which in some cases even has the opposite of the intended effect e.g. increasing the ini cost of unload makes the build even more reliant on unload because now you can't afford to use anything else. This seems to come from a fundamental failure to understand how the build works in the first place. Iirc. the devs said that they increased the CD and ini costs of some skills because they want the player to "feel" the impact of using their most powerful skills. Issue is that this just doesn't work for some weapon sets, especially if the class in question is not based on a CD but a "mana" like system. There is also no comunication with the players on these issues meaning that even if they identified that there is an issue they generally don't seem to understand why that is which oftentimes leads to "solutions" with make you question "why?" e.g. giving the pistol trait piercing instead of ricocheting.

Yeah...

The thing they're forgetting is that with the Init system and no CD's, you're incentivised to use the most effective skill over and over. Making that skill less effective often doesn't put it below other skills and if it does, it simply shifts the gameplay to using the new most effective skill.

It's one of the reasons I think they should utilize their "Combo" design that they've used in other classes, such as Elementalist Fire Sword 3 and Fire Dagger 5, Warrior Hammer 2 and 5, Ranger Dagger 4 and Sword 2/3 and GS 2/5 etc.

Where skills gain bonus effects when used together, either because of applying a specific condition, or providing named skill bonuses. So as to promote using a variety of skills to obtain maximum value.

Instead of continuing this trend of not knowing how resources work (Since a similar issue plagues Rev, whereby you only spend Energy on the most effective skills and ignore the rest. Which results in things like PvE Renegade using basically just Impossible Odds, Soulcleave's Summit, Chilling Isolation and Citadel Bombardment/Orders from Above depending on if DPS or Alacrigade. Never mind the other 6 utility skills, 3 weapon skills and other F skills they're not important because of how shared resources work)

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Taril.8619" said:To be fair, a lot about DE Rifle doesn't feel like sniping.And yet the name of the e-spec literally translates to "sniper" in some languages. It's like giving thief a torch for their next e-spec, calling the whole thing "pyromaniac" and then only using the torch to light up some bombs you throw at your enemies.

Yeah. Heck, even the Mark system is akin to that of working as a "Spotter" which traditionally points out targets for the Sniper (Though, it's usually a second person with a pair of binoculars, not the Sniper themselves doing the spotting)

It feels like whomever came up with the idea of Deadeye and whomever designed the kit of Deadeye were working in completely different offices...

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Taril.8619" said:Ironically, having high ini cost attacks that fire a single powerful shot would be more "Sniper" likeIsn't that what malice is there for?

Yeah, but that's only 1 shot every so often. With your filler being a bunch of pew pew spam skills, either spamming 3 init Skirm Shot or triple tapping for TRB.

[saerni.2584]

The big issue is that M7 basically gives rifle a massive bonus to malice generation. All you need is a little quickness and you can reach M7 proc very quickly from 1200-1500 range. That makes the “six initiative fix” more tempting for Devs who see that as the way to play rifle (which just forces more and more DE players into taking M7).

You get more mobility out of kneel, less range, but the costs still reflect this M7 dynamic because DE can generate initiative.

Honestly, if M7 were a little less good then we’d have a much stronger argument for making DT/TRB a 4 initiative skill again.

[Tails.9372]

@"Taril.8619" said:Yeah...

The thing they're forgetting is that with the Init system and no CD's, you're incentivised to use the most effective skill over and over. Making that skill less effective often doesn't put it below other skills and if it does, it simply shifts the gameplay to using the new most effective skill.Which wouldn't even be much of an issue if they would take more of a "toolbox" approach when designing the weapons sets. One skill being the best choice for single target damage wouldn't be an issue at all if the other skills had other uses like an AoE / CC / other kinds of utility. This way every skill would get some usage and "the best skill" would really be "the best skill for the situation at hand". In this scenario issues only arise if the weapon set in question is plagued by redundancies which, ideally, should be avoided regardless.

@"Taril.8619" said:It's one of the reasons I think they should utilize their "Combo" design that they've used in other classes, such as Elementalist Fire Sword 3 and Fire Dagger 5, Warrior Hammer 2 and 5, Ranger Dagger 4 and Sword 2/3 and GS 2/5 etc.

Where skills gain bonus effects when used together, either because of applying a specific condition, or providing named skill bonuses. So as to promote using a variety of skills to obtain maximum value.I really think that part of the issue here is that they treat the mana like ini system like another form of CD when it really isn't. In some cases the things they seem to be afraid of are actually the solution. Saying that making things more spammable reduces the reason to spam it might sound counterintuitive but it makes sense if you think about it.

I hate to bring up P/P all the time but it's just that good of an example of whats wrong (it's a meme set for a reason) and how increasing the ini cost actually makes things worse:

Just take a look at how a P/P thief fights agaist a camp with a BB:

You spam Unload for damage which is ok cause everything else is utility anyway. Then the BB comes up. Usually breaking the BB will stun the champ so the player has an easier time to damage him however, for P/P thief this means that using your ini for Headshot is leading you into a situation where you can't make use of the stun phase so the default approach is to just ignore the mechanic and keep spamming Unload.

You don't necessarily need a combo system if the skills have enough synergy and like I said in the other thread making Signets of Power crit based for pistols would actually solve (parts of) this issue by making Unload more spammable because then you would get one ini every time you hit a crit (assuming you use the corresponding signet) giving you a reason to alter between Unload and HS instead of just having to spam unload like how it is rn.

[Taril.8619]

@"Tails.9372" said:Which wouldn't even be much of an issue if they would take more of a "toolbox" approach when designing the weapons sets. One skill being the best choice for single target damage wouldn't be an issue at all if the other skills had other uses like an AoE / CC / other kinds of utility. This way every skill would get some usage and "the best skill" would really be "the best skill for the situation at hand". In this scenario issues only arise if the weapon set in question is plagued by redundancies which, ideally, should be avoided regardless.

It would still be an issue.

Especially given that the game is predominantly focused around single target, it ends up with the optimal single target damage skill being the best skill to use in most situations.

Even if scenarios occur where other skills can be useful, the game as a whole is still pushing for maximum single target damage (With the main exception being something like WvW or OW Metas where AoE can be more sought after)

Heck, you even go on to explain the flaws in this "Toolbox" approach later in your post, when talking about P/P and how even when a BB comes up that would warrant use of Headshot, Unload, the best single target damage skill you have is still the better option (This is also true of Rev, where they're incentivized to not use their CC skills for BB's either due to how much DPS it costs them to do so, while other classes whom don't have shared resources with their damage and CC skills are free to use their CC skills where applicable)

This is the underlying problem of shared resources and singular "Best" skills. To optimize, you want to cut out any usage of non "Best" skills to get the most out of your resources.

Hence why having the best usage of skills being more inclusive due to interaction with each other is more desirable. Where you WANT to use that CC because using it to CC something makes this other skill deal enough damage to outperform your filler skill. You WANT to apply this otherwise redundant condition effect, because doing so improves this other skill.

So gameplay optimization ends up being less "This is the best skill to use, I'll mash it forever" and more thought about "What combo of skills do I want to use? Is there any mechanics that I can capitalize on (Such as BB's or PvP opponents running out of Cleanse/Breaks)? How can I best utilize my kit to perform the best?"

As opposed to spamming Heartseeker because its your best single target damage skill and even outperforms CnD + Backstab (Even in DE with Malice bonus it's better to just spam HS and use one of your other ways of gaining stealth to use BS, which of course you'll be running plenty of due to it being necessary to run Rifle which is the higher DPS weapon)

PvP at least creates some interesting decisions, because things like swapping to Shortbow to get access to Infiltrator's Arrow and Choking Gas provides utility that is worth more than raw damage. But within weapon sets themselves, it's very much focused down to 1 skill being useful with a 2nd one having some occasional use if you're lucky.

[Tails.9372]

@"Taril.8619" said:Heck, you even go on to explain the flaws in this "Toolbox" approach later in your post, when talking about P/P and how even when a BB comes up that would warrant use of Headshot, Unload, the best single target damage skill you have is still the better optionYes but that is not because "Unload does more damage than Headshot" but because Unload is too cost intensive which makes the CC skill a non option as the game "punishes" you for using it. That's not an issue with the "toolbox approach" but one with the devs slapping an ini cost on something that really shouldn't have one. Like I said there would be more of a reason to use other skills if Unload would actualy generate initiative instead of consuming it (and ofc. if P/P even had some useful utility options which for the most part it doesn't) even if the other skills e.g. Headshot do less damage then Unload.

[Taril.8619]

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Taril.8619" said:Heck, you even go on to explain the flaws in this "Toolbox" approach later in your post, when talking about P/P and how even when a BB comes up that would warrant use of Headshot, Unload, the best single target damage skill you have is still the better optionYes but that is not because "Unload does more damage than Headshot" but because Unload is too cost intensive which makes the CC skill a non option as the game "punishes" you for using it. That's not an issue with the "toolbox approach" but one with the devs slapping an ini cost on something that really shouldn't have one. Like I said there would be more of a reason to use other skills if Unload would actualy generate initiative instead of consuming it even if the other skills e.g. Headshot do less damage then Unload.

But this is again, you highlighting the flaw with the "Toolbox" approach.

You'd only consider using the CC skill, when it's not competing for resources with your main damage skill.

That's essentially saying that your ideal scenario is one where the best damage skill, is auto attacks. Then we could use all the utility skills we'd like. Which of course, is true, because they're no longer competing with resources for damage skills.

If the best damage skill costs initiative, irregardless of how much, it will always be competing with any utility providing skills and thus be a DPS loss to utilize anything but the best damage skill. How much of a DPS loss it ends up being is determined by the costs of the skills and just how much damage the best damage skill does over auto attacks (Which you will be using while you regen init)

The "Toolbox" approach only works when none of the skills are competing for resources. Hence why it is completely fine for classes other than Thief and Rev. Since then there's no loss of damage to use the more niche skills in the times they are relevant. An example would be Ranger's best weapon, GS where your optimal damage is Maul and your filler is auto attacks. But you have Swoop for mobility, Counterattack for defence and Hilt Bash for CC. That is "Toolbox" design.

Rev also has "Toolbox" design, but because of the Energy system, everything (Including F skills and utilities/elites) has a shared resource cost and thus, anything that is not optimal damage is not used because of how it will be a damage loss (Especially if it causes you to run out of Energy before your 10s Legend swap CD is ready) - It has CC skills and mobility skills available, but is actively disuaded from using them due to the shared cost.

Thief would be in exactly the same situation if their weapon sets had more emphasis on niche skills. It'd still revolve around Heartseeker, Unload, Repeater, Weakening Charge, Skirm Shot/TRB spam at the cost of using utility providing skills. That is unless you either dismantle the Init system completely, or make every weapon into Sword where its best damage is auto attack and everything else is pure niche utility.

[Tails.9372]

@Taril.8619 said:That's essentially saying that your ideal scenario is one where the best damage skill, is auto attacks.Yes and no, you're forgetting how (in case of DE) malice works. Your strongest attack should ideally still be your stealth attack by full malice and you only get malice by using ini which would still require you to use your utility skills to build it up as the AA doesn't generare malice.

@Taril.8619 said:The "Toolbox" approach only works when none of the skills are competing for resources.Not quite, there is no issue with utility skills competing for initiative. Like I said in the example I gave earlier you would still be forced to alter between Unload and Headshot in order to take down bigger BBs. The issue for P/P specifically is that Unload essentially is the "filler skill" while the game acts as if it isn't. Vital Shot is just a redundant skill which should have been replaced by Unload through the dual wielding system but the devs decided to focus on simplicity rather than practicality which is the main cause of the issues P/P is suffering from.

Same thing goes for rifle btw, DT/TRB should have been the auto.

[Taril.8619]

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Taril.8619" said:That's essentially saying that your ideal scenario is one where the best damage skill, is auto attacks.Yes and no, you're forgetting how (in case of DE) malice works. Your strongest attack should ideally still be your stealth attack by full malice and you only get malice by using ini which would still require you to use your utility skills to build it up as the AA doesn't generare malice.

This still doesn't change things.

Since stealth attacks are inherently limited (Due to the Revealed mechanic, which can only be bypassed via DE Elite)

In the meantime, between stealth usages, you have a baseline selection of weapon skills.

In your "Ideal" case, the strongest skill to use for damage during, is auto attacks. Something that either doesn't cost or actually generates initiative.

This is so that using utility providing skills is viable because they're no longer competing with damage skills (Though, even in the scenario where the only damaging skills are stealth skills and auto attacks, people would determine if the cast time of utility providing skills and the damage of the stealth skill is worth the cast time or if it is simply better to do an auto attack chain)

@Tails.9372 said:Not quite, there is no issue with utility skills competing for initiative. Like I said in the example I gave earlier you would still be forced to alter between Unload and Headshot in order to take down bigger BBs. The issue for P/P specifically is that Unload essentially is the "filler skill" while the game acts as if it isn't. Vital Shot is just a redundant skill which should have been replaced by Unload through the dual wielding system but the devs decided to focus on simplicity rather than practicality which is the main cause of the issues P/P is suffering from.

Except, Unload is the "Filler skill" due to the way that initiative works. The whole concept of spamming the most effective skill.

Unload is the filler skill, since it is the most effective thing to spend initiative on, because it's the most damaging skill available to the weapon set.

Just like Heartseeker is the most effective thing to spend initiative on for D/X - This includes for DE where you have Malice boosting Backstab's damage, it's still more effective to spend initative on Heartseeker than to spend initiative on CnD or Black Powder in order to access Backstab.

The only deviation from spamming the most effective available skill, is in DE when using alternate means to access stealth (Stolen skills, Shadow Gust, Hide in Shadows, Shadow Meld or Silent Scope) free of init in order to access the stealth skill. Though, this is only relevant for weapons where the stealth skill is high damage such as Rifle, D/X and P/D (For S/X, P/P and SB it's not notably damaging enough even with Malice boost to be worth trying to utilize)

This is literally the entire issue of shared resources. Which is the case for Thief with Initiative and Rev with Energy. Shared resource costs promotes using only the most effective skills and no other. This typically means the most damage per cost at the expense of things like CC. It will always exist so long as either shared resources or singular "Best" skills exist.

If your answer to this issue is simply remove the resource cost off the most damaging skill to spam, then people will simply move to spamming the next most effective skill for the resource cost, because that's the inherent way that the mechanic works and is seen in a plethora of other games that utilize shared resource systems (Though, many of them utilize a priority similar to Rev due to also having skill CD's like Rev)

[Tails.9372]

@Taril.8619 said:Since stealth attacks are inherently limited (Due to the Revealed mechanic, which can only be bypassed via DE Elite)Revealed only lasts for 3 sec. so it's not that much of a limiting factor.

@Taril.8619 said:In your "Ideal" case, the strongest skill to use for damage during, is auto attacks.Again not really, that's just what you're reading into it. If you are in a 1 on 1 fight and the AA of the weapon in question does AoE damage while its strongest attack vs. a single target costs initiative then you would have to alternate between the two. Same goes for weapons which have a single target AA vs. multiple enemies (asuming the weaon even has an AoE skill).

@Taril.8619 said:Unload is the filler skill, since it is the most effective thing to spend initiative on, because it's the most damaging skill available to the weapon set.No it's the filler skill because the weapon set is geared towards 1 v 1 combat and dishing out damage is the most effective thing to do in a default (as in the enemy is not doing anything which warrants an action from the player) situation. This however only leads to stale gameplay if the enemy you're fighting against is essentially an immovable target dummy. The more "active" the enemies are the more you would be inclined to use other skills such as engagement / disengagement skills (which is something P/P is lacking entirely) or CC to keep them form moving (if possible) which, if executed right, generally works rather well for the gameplay they were aiming for.