An Eye on the Deadeye
Gaile Gray.6029
ArenaNet › ArenaNet
A message from Robert Gee, Guild Wars 2 Systems Team:
Hello to all the sneaky thieves out there! I'm unstealthing today to reveal details of the upcoming changes to the Deadeye profession. In a previous update we increased the damage of rifle skills to put Deadeye in a good spot from a DPS-perspective, so this update is focused more around improving their gameplay patterns and mechanics.
The main areas we're looking to address are:
- Malice Complexity - Malice gain rules are obscure and don't allow much interaction from the Deadeye.
- Rifle Flexibility - Rifle optimal damage combos are bland and the weapon lacks adaptability.
- Trait Synergies - Minor traits fight with each other and there aren't strong choices at some tiers.
The Mysteries of Malice
We designed malice as a gating mechanic that would act as a way for a Deadeye to gain increasing damage threat the longer they were in combat with their mark. This system was built to allow for very high damage attacks with enough warning to the victim that there would be room for counterplay.
However while we feel the current system is effective at these goals, it is also confusing. It's difficult to understand how much of a benefit you get from attacking your mark and to calculate when your next malice gain will occur. There also are no rules for which skills scale on malice. For instance, Binding Shadow and Shadow Flare both scale on malice amounts but Shadow Gust does not.
In order to add more interactivity to malice, we are changing the way malice is gained. Malice no longer will build over time but instead will be gained through dealing damage with initiative skills.
Here are the specifics on how it will work:
- Any skill that spends initiative and deals strike damage to your mark will generate 1 malice.
- If that skill critical hits you will gain 1 additional malice.
- Any single skill can gain a maximum of 2 malice from a single use.
- A skill that hits multiple times can generate 1 malice from a normal hit and 1 additional malice from a later critical hit, but still cannot generate more than 2 malice per use.
- Malice no longer grants a 3% damage increase per stack. Instead, this bonus has been rolled into traits.
- Malice scaling functionality is now unique to stealth attacks (more on this in the next section).
In short, malice is now gained through attacking. If you hit your mark you get malice. If you fail to hit you don't gain malice. Investing in precision can increase your rate of malice gain. We feel that this system is more engaging and easier to understand while also preserving the initial goal of requiring a ramp-up time for malice.
Strike from the Shadows
Now that we've gone over the new way that malice is gained, let's talk about the new way that it is used.
Stealth attacks will consume all your current malice when striking your mark to grant bonus effects based on the amount of malice consumed. The actual bonus per consumed malice differs per skill but let's use the sword stealth attack as an example.
Malicious Tactical Strike: If this attack hits your mark, it consumes all malice to regenerate endurance for each malice consumed.
Each stealth attack has a different bonus based on the type of skill it is. Skills primarily focused around damage, such as Backstab, will consume malice for bonus damage whereas skills focused around condition damage, such as Sneak Attack, will consume malice for bonus condition effects. Tactical Strike on the other hand consumes malice to grant an advantage over your enemy via endurance gain.
We decided to tie the malice consumption to stealth for a few reasons. First, we felt that stealth was a solid core mechanic that touched every single thief weapon and had many synergies through core traits and skills. Thief players already understand stealth attacks so this allows malice spending to be an upgrade to an established system rather than an entirely new one. Finally, the Deadeye was already leaning towards being a stealth-based character due to its elite skill Shadow Meld and utility skill Shadow Gust, so we felt that having malice slot into the stealth attack was a natural fit.
The Perfect Shot
With these changes, the iconic Deadeye malice skill, Death's Judgment, is also becoming a stealth attack. This gave us room to make some adjustments to the rest of the rifle skills in order to address its somewhat stale gameplay loop. Kneel and the Silent Scope trait have been changed to allow for more flexible kneeling and stealth while Sniper's Cover has been totally reworked into a new defensive skill that fills the slot previously occupied by Death's Judgement. This new skill creates a defensive barrier while kneeling that can combo with other thief abilities. When taken together, these changes help to give each rifle skill a more defined purpose and allow rifle wielders to handle a larger variety of combat situations.
Reloading Traits
To wrap everything up, let's talk a little bit about the trait changes. Deadeye traits currently have somewhat conflicting goals. There are traits that encourage waiting for full malice (Perfectionist) and traits that encourage killing your mark as quickly as possible (Be Quick or Be Killed) as well as a few esoteric traits that don't quite mesh well with any particular style (Peripheral Vision). We've touched nearly every trait in the Deadeye line in order to better define different types of deadeye playstyles and reduce the conflicts between them. Here's a quick example of a new trait that is aimed at improving Fire for Effect boon-sharing builds while also providing a meaningful damage bonus.
Premeditation: Gain +180 concentration and increase your strike damage by 1% for each unique boon on you.
Fire Away
We're looking forward to seeing these changes redefine the Deadeye specialization and hope that they will sharpen your Deadeye experience. As always, we'll be listening for your feedback on these changes and will make future adjustments where necessary. Happy hunting!
Gaile Gray
Communications Manager: ArenaNet
Fansite & Guild Relations; In-Game Events; Community Showcase Live
Comments
This sounds lovely. Big fan
Very passive aggressively chuckling, because I'm totally not mad on the Internet.
180 con per boon. that could be a bit extreme. guess we will see though
Not gonna pass judgment until the changes are live and some time has passed to get used to them.
Are you guys trying to tank this elite to get ready for next expansion? I'm going to have to drop power for precision to kitten around with trying to land as many fire and forget hits as possible so that kitten up my kind of build and stealth setup players are going to have to play more like I currently do or they get no malice at all.
I don't want to be discouraged from using my Stealth skills. Now stealth skills consume and reset my malice stacks? As it is right now apart from some skills or traits being a bit jankey, a patch fix or two can smooth that out but most play styles can currently operate with Deadeye. This change would favor my build and play style, but it sounds like it would totally dismantle and shelve other playstyles and builds.
You're basically creating the same feedback loop of skill/initiative to trait modifiers that makes Staff daredevil/acro so fluid as a melee frontline build but with Malice and range because why?
Northern Shiverpeaks [EL]
Does this revamp also mean that the raid stolen skill that gives all boons will now also correctly give Alacrity?
Valor Zeal [VZ] - Stormbluff Isle
I suspect 180 con is a flat bonus for taking the trait and only the dmg bonus increases with each boon
we can only hope, you stack that and acros con bonus and where talking perma boons
Wow a thf rework after a mesmer rework a few months ago....mmm what you did to mes absolutly made them a more formidable opponent with there 100% uptime with clones and allowing them to have more then 4 but more like 4-8 out at the same time...mm
Can we assume that every class will get a rework/overhaul by the end of this year?
I'm in favor of these changes. Malice took too long to generate before. Some may not like spending it on devastating stealth attacks, but you can generate it up quickly again. Two crits and you're nearly there.
So, will this run for the 8th or later ?
Try reading the post, hello? Yes, they consume your malice but youa lso gain it WAY faster
Very passive aggressively chuckling, because I'm totally not mad on the Internet.
So if Death's Judgment is gonna become the new Rifle stealth attack, what will become of Cursed Bullet? I really like that boon-strip that CB has/it's also helpful in PoF open-world when bursting down Awakened in the new maps (getting rid of their Protection is super useful). Will Death's Judgment retain that functionality as the new Rifle stealth attack?
excellent malice change gotta see the traits and rifle skills after patch to see how is it.
Trash NA thief HITZER
twitch
What about core Thief? Will this make core less attractive again?
the idea is to generate malice and use it through your stealth attacks to gain the bonus and repeat.
imo it's much better than having malice only as a % modifier and waiting for it to stack.
Trash NA thief HITZER
twitch
Will the new stealth Death's Judgment be unblockable like the current stealth attack Cursed Bullet?
signature
This seems a bit... bad, to be perfectly honest. By far, my favourite way to play and enjoy deadeye has been with pistol/pistol and no stealth - allowing for tagging with deadeye's mark, attacking and finishing off with a few unloads. As I understand from the changes, my malice generation will ramp up a little quicker if I change my rotation a bit, but the use of said malice will likely disappear. On top of that, trait changes worry me since I've not found any issues with what's on offer. Different traits are supposed to offer different playstyles, one of which has suited me perfectly fine up until now. Hell, as far as traits and build synergy go, my deadeye is currently my favourite character.
I'm hoping that these changes will be positive in the end - but I'm actually quite worried about what will happen to one of my characters when this goes live. Currently I've got a durable dpser who can dispatch of trash in the blink of an eye, but still offer solid damage in a prolonged fight due to malice building up... I don't see any reason to have to use this in an attempt to make rifle more appealing.
EDIT: After posting, I realised that the idea of deadeye mechanics being "confusing" reminded me of the new player experience. Feeding cows, putting out fires and an optional chess-like mini-game aren't confusing; and neither is waiting and gradually building a damage buff. The specialisation and rifle aren't popular because it's not top tier in raids and fractals, not because it's bad or difficult to understand.
I'll just have to miss running into those builds then and basically see the same deadeye all over. I guess the complaints about those stealth DE's lurking around camps and stuff didn't go unnoticed. If a malice dump stealth skill is going to be DE signature, one weapon set is going to reign. I like S/D, but don't need the extra endurance. I'll shut up and wait and see like everyone else but this change sounds like a tighter funnel into one DE build.
Northern Shiverpeaks [EL]
In addition to restoring endurance, a successful Tactical Strike hit should also steal life (or simply self-heal) increased by malice. As it stands, even with restored endurance, it remains a lackluster Stealth-Attack with laughable damage.
I would also like to know what will become of Cursed Bullet. I enjoyed having a ranged unblockable attack with great utility and moderate damage in the current iteration of the game where blocks/reflects/general projectile hate are everywhere.
Fort Aspenwood
Jekkies
I like the sound of these changes. Now if only you got rid of that stupid stealth attack cooldown, and just change the behavior it was a response to.
i could see alot of problems with the malice change if the traits would remain the same, but as we dont know what they will be like..
now will we lose our malice if the stealth attack does not hit, like a warrior missing his burst skills? adrenaline will still be faster build up than malice tho.
if there is still a trait for 7 malice stacks, then we need 4 initative costing skills minimum to get to max. how much resources will we still have to go into stealth and actually use those malice stacks in a stealth attack? or will the deadeye now have cheaper stealth access?
i hope rifle standing stealth skill is cursed bullet and turns now a boon for every malice and kneeling stealth skill is DJ so we can spamm it at max malice as stealth skills do not cost 6 initative..
Is there any possibility that deadeye becomes a relevant support option, or is that complete trait line just for filling's sake?
Edit: while we're at it, scrapper may need some rework to give it an actual spec mechanic.
Don't get me wrong - I'm glad they are giving the spec some attention - it NEEDS it - but I'm not sure these changes are going to address the core issues. Deadeye gives up mobility and AOE damage... for what exactly? Other specs easily do more damage with fewer restrictions placed on them.
And its more than just the damage that is at issue here. They touched on rifle being bland in the notes, and I agree... but I disagree with them on WHY it feels bland. IMO it feels bland, not because of its combos/adaptability, but because of kneel.... which is apparently still a thing that exists after this rework. You are literally locked into place pressing buttons. It doesn't really get any less engaging than that and I don't see how changing up a few rifle skills is going to change things.
I'm guessing they didn't bother adding any Deadeye-specific traits for pistol based on the notes... which is a shame... because it fits in with the markmen-like nature of the profession very well. I would love, love, LOVE it if they gave Deadeye the old ricochet trait back so we could use p/p as an AOE option but that probably won't happen.
No more sitting in stealth waiting for a rifle shot, PogChamp.
No more free bonuses to 3/3 thief, PogChamp.
Gimmicks weakened, PogChamp.
ArenaNet, there are a lot of thief players like myself who love playing a dual-pistol Deadeye. In fact, I run into more and more all the time... the thieves who have realized that while the rifle is slow and clunky, a good P/P deadeye with health-regenerating food and constant Might generation is amazing in PVE situations.
Please tell me that we aren't going to lose that and be forced to play Deadeye spec with rifles. Please. I don't want to go back to that. In PVE, I never do more damage with the rifle than the pistol, because circumstances where I can safely kneel and hit things with my rifle are few and far between, but with dual pistols I'm hitting things every second.
Based on 'The Perfect Shot', I assume you mean that when a rifle thief is stealthed, their 1/AA will now turn to Death's Judgement? Just looking for some clarity
What about the non-kneel version of Death's Judgement, Death's Retreat? It was an -extremely- valuable movement skill that allowed thieves mobility without being chained in extremely intimate, explicit ways to Shortbow just because of SB#5. I assume (again, correct if wrong) that Death's Retreat remains Rifle#4's standing skill, and we're getting a new defensive skill on Kneeling Rifle#4 now that Death's Retreat is out stealth attack and attached to the AA while stealthed?
How do you anticipate these changes will effect PvE Deadeyes, now that (say) getting an absolutely massive backstab from dagger seems to be a real nice possibility? Are we (Finally? excited, hopeful screeee) expected to, in a PvE scenario where DPS is important, to AA/low init cost dmging attack to build up Malice, then stealth to malice dump for a major, DPS-boosting attack? I'm a little concerned as to how this is going to work for PvE, since across...pretty much all weapons, PvE AAs tend to be the best DPS option. I'm not too fond of just HS spamming on dagger to build up Malice, since doing so will be a horrible DPS loss compared to AAs (for the first 50% of enemy hp anyway).
What about non-rifle setups that don't have consistent access to stealth, such as uh...anything that doesn't use pistol as an offhand and have a leap finisher, I believe. D/P has excellent access to stealth when you need it and I'm looking forward to trying to 1-shot people with Black Powder -> HS -> Shadow shot into backstab, but the other weapons are a bit more brawly and have to sacrifice either traitlines, utility skills, or other things to get even a little bit of stealth. With the new focus on dumping malice with a stealth attack, I'm worried that weapons other than D/P and rifle will be left in the dust if they want to use DE.
Can you share anything specific on your changes to Perfectionist? Since Malice is going to be stacking MUCH faster, dumped and then swiftly regenned again with these changes, I'm curious as to what you guys have done to/it.
And lastly...THANK YOU. This looks like it'll solve the issues with DE's in WvW waiting in stealth for Malice stacks to try and then nail their target with a DJ, then repeat with little room for counterattack. Bless.
In short, anything else you're willing to share? Because the wait is already HNNNNG.
Can we get an instant cast Mark please? Even if it's only in PvE (though having it in PvP would be nice too). Pretty please.
Looking forward to building max malice on D/P, then using Black Powder -> Wpn swap into standing rifle 4 for stealth, then kneeling for a DJ
So +180 Concentration and then deadeye gives no unique boons that chrono doesn't, so you need a chrono to give you boons to make this trait effective, but then you have no reason to have that concentration cuz chrono is just doing it all???? This is almost even worse
Now this is much better.
Buildup should be that. Buildup. Ready the attack, then unleash a massive hit.
The current iteration of Malice is just boring, flat, passive extra damage. Wait out, then spam while it's up.
While I'm sure that some weapon skills may eventually get charges, before we can know which ones will really need them, this had to be done first.
Hopefully this will encourage more use of stealth attacks and more focus on using them skillfully to get the upper hand after softening targets over repetitive gameplay.
☆ SUGGEST-A-TRON
You aren't wrong. The boon duration is completely wasted in a group situation and next-to-worthless solo (12% is basically nothing).
Hey everyone, I know this is all a lot to take in so I wanted to clarify a few of the questions I saw pop up in this thread.
The concentration bonus is flat and does not scale with number of boons.
Cursed Bullet is being removed. Its boon removal functionality will be moved to one of the utility skills.
Malice is only lost if you hit your mark.
While I can't speak to your exact build, I personally find P/P Deadeye to be just as good or better with these changes.
Yes. Stealthing flips over the AA to Death's Judgement.
Death's Retreat is still the Rifle standing skill #4.
Has Kneel been changed to make it more comfortable to stand up yet? I just couldn't get into the idea of having to press a specific button to be able to move, in a game that's very motion-heavy. That's the main thing that keeps me from playing a rifle Deadeye, and without playing a rifle Deadeye, I still don't see a reason to not play a Daredevil, who is WAY more mobile and has a staff.
sad to hear that, i loved cursed bullet not just for the boonrip but especially for being unblockable. thief has aside from BV no access to unblockables and that is on 32-40s cd + only 1 hit, so with all the projectile hate and blocks around it was good that at least cursed bullet would deal decent damage.
rangers got in one elite spec an alternative range weapon that is not projectile based and in the other a rather low cool down 4sec unblockable buff, while we got a range weapon with no option to get through all the projectile hate. fighting a mesmer with mirror spamm from trait will be alot of fun with a rifle now without cursed bullet i assume.
a soulbeast like 4 sec unblockable would be nice on mark or even better with perfectionist if we still got that trait.
These changes make me uneasy. They don't sound... fun to me.
Maybe I'm wrong. I'll have to wait and see.
Lip synching is just mime karaoke.
Will the 1 second cool down on stealth attacks be removed?
I really like how malice will stack now. Investing more into a stealth play style/theme sounds fun. Hope the DPS is there. Thieves should be one of the highest single target DPS classes in the game and sadly other classes get all that plus more while we are left in the dust. At least we have our mobility gents....they can't take that away from us.
I have a request for the devs, could you make kneel cancel on moving arrow keys? Would solve the fluidity issue without much change to mechanics. Feels super clunky right now.
Please reconsider removing Cursed Bullet. It would be nice to have that remain as the standing version of Skill 1. Having an unblockable attack is very necessary right now in competitive modes, and that one in particular also required you to first gain stealth (therefore costing another skill or utility).
Fort Aspenwood
Jekkies
Plus the way CB traveled was awesome and let me time a hit on both sides of someone and it was good for tagging runners trying to break line of sight. I hope the skills unassuming functionality carries on in some capacity.
Northern Shiverpeaks [EL]
i had hoped we keep standing the CB. but standing DJ confirmed will be interesting..
Sword/Dagger!
All is vain.
why would i use sword dagger? if i want to melee i rather backstab oneshot them. i guess by the complaints in the forums about p/p thieves there is not much projectile hate in sPvP currently for some reason but in WvW, in group fights you pretty much cant bring any projectile based range weapon if you dont have an unblockable buff or like the current DE a cursed bullet able to hit 10k+ unblockable.
I think he is specifically referring to a ranged unblockable. And CB certainly isn't spammable - it is slow and requires 2 separate abilities each use (unless stealthed by another player).
Fort Aspenwood
Jekkies
That makes me VERY happy, thank you. Honestly, I love playing a P/P Deadeye, it's probably my favorite PVE fun in the entire game... the ranged deadeye steal, the constant unload, the Might stacks... it's all very rewarding. (I do wish there was an AoE attack, but things die so quickly anyway and health regen is so good that I can usually take on a pack of 4-5 mobs and kill them one by one without breaking a sweat. Though I wasn't around for Ricochet, so I am not missing something that other players miss.)
Hopefully CB's unblockable gets put on a utility skill like its boonsteal in that case.
All is vain.
@Robert.Gee.9246 this is actually one thing I would suggest you guys look at. Getting out of kneel stance would be a lot more appealing if it was easier. In fact, it would be amazing if hitting your weapon swap (which is something most of us use muscle memory for) broke you out of kneel stance... Hit once to stand up, hit again to swap weapons. Easy peasy.
"Be Quick or Be Killed"
Please still have quickness
To be fair I've always played as a thief and I always wanted more out of dead eye, I think this is the push I need to move from daredevil to dead eye now, good update guys!!!:D
I am honestly not sure how I feel about these changes. Will it be better dps in PvE environments? I am also not liking the removal of CB because there is already enough ranged hate in the game, so removing CB would make us even more gimper than we already are when it comes to ranged hate.
If Life gives you lemons, put the lemons in a sack and beat up Life for giving you lemons in the first place.
Sorry but the fact that Death Judgement is being moved to the Auto Attack Stealth slot makes this horrible. What should be done is Deaths Judgement should be left alone in the #4 slot but make a special version that changes when in stealth for the #4 slot and leave Cursed bullet alone. The On Stealth factor is garbage simply cause there are only a handful of ways a Thief Can stealth from Utility slots, healing skills, and traits. Unless you plan to give them a more consistent and fluid way to stealth while wielding a rifle or do you suggest we run D/P use #5 then #2 to leap into stealth swap weapons kneel and fire? talk about literally leaping through hoops. This is only going to be doing less DPS than before, not to mention the Auto Attack skills is such a fire and forget skill putting Deaths Judgement on that hinders it's Importance.
Looks good. I like moving malice to stealth attacks to emphasize each attack holistically rather than being just a flat damage bonus that impacts only a few skills directly on the rifle.
My main questions revolve around the new traits. Without more than “improved synergy” I’m not sure what to expect.
I guess if I had one question it would be how quickly this new malice will build up given that high initiative skills are maxed out at two malice each regardless. I do like the move to make crit chance important but I worry about the generation rate as a practical concern.
Northern Shiverpeaks (NSP)
Deadeye (Thief)
Commandant of P/D and Apex Predator
If I'm not wrong, in some raids we get perma revealed, how are we going to use stealth attacks in those circumstances?
Joko lies, Balthazar don't.