Can we... Fix deadeye.

[TorQ.7041]

I miss playing that spec. For reference I quit thief 3 seasons ago and went straight to plat. Can hold my own and contribute up to plat 2.

Mostly on warrior and engi. Recently starting to play sic em. It's just so much easier to play sic em than deadeye. The range and mobility really allows you to pew pew then get away.

Not that sic em is op, dispite other threads I have zero problems with sic em and think it's fine.

Why do I want deadeye when I can already play sic em? I just want to feel like a sniper.. with a rifle and with out a pet..

Can we just delete slient scope. Make range same as longbow and give skill 4 zero cast time? I feel like these 2 minor changes would really make it viable.

Edit: yes I am aware that there are high level deadeyes. But those are few and far in between. And that it's just so much easier to play every thing else.

[Jack Redline.5379]

@TorQ.7041 said:EHThief class + Anet doing at least anything about it = DUUHH

[TorQ.7041]

@Jack Redline.5379 said:

@TorQ.7041 said:EHThief class + Anet doing at least anything about it = DUUHH

Much toxicness. No wonder ppl hate thief players.

[kash.9213]

Kneel up and down can have some weight to it but it needs to feel at least as snappy as most first person shooter games so I don't feel like an old person getting up out of a chair when I get jumped. And, Kneel should have very slow movement speed in crouch while moving to adjust without having to Kneel up and down for the right perch. I actually like playing in Kneel but those two issues have me playing other builds again.

[Creaitov.6328]

My biggest issue with rifle deadeye is that it just can't compete with soulbeast. Its almost like I hear the song "anything you can do I can do better" when I play it lol. Then you have melee deadeye and tbh I think that unless you're playing the cheese backstab build you're better just playing core thief.

I don't really know how to fix DE, but I think at least some quality of life changes should help. Something like letting you move slowly while kneeling as it was said before, or lowering/removing the malice threshold for stolen skills to give you stealth (maybe replace stealth on dodge trait with this?). Reverting some initiative nerfs to rifle would be nice too I guess.

[dDuff.3860]

Deadeye is okay, buff thief.

[bq pd.2148]

the way one does play in spvp and WvW are very different as one is not pressed for time in WvW, so i can play a more sustained fight and dont need to frontload my damage, this gives me a little more room on how i can handle changes to the profession. thats why i think deadeye is still better than soulbeast for solo roaming in WvW, but it also has issues that should be 'fixed' to make it less annoying to play as and against. maybe you can see something in my ramblings that would help you in your mode. so here is what i think about deadeye issues in WvW now..

in WvW many problems with rifle deadeye come from anets adjustments after the rework.the rework had one major issue for WvW: a frequent uninterruptable stealth access.and it is still there.the rework as such had many things that made the deadeye more interactive, wich is exactly what it did need:they removed the stunlocktrait, they gave us a reason/forced us to attack for malice buildup and they made silent scope cost endurance instead of ini, wich means we got more ini to attack, less endurance to dodge. thats exactly what we need. a stealthy thief always needs to have incentives to play aggressive as he chooses the encounter and moment to attack. if you however limit his offensive tools then he will just attack less often => less interaction.now that silent scope is stealth ontop of the evadeframes from a dodge, thats too easy way to get out of a bad situation one shouldnt even get into as a stealthy thief. instead we should have an interruptable skill to make us choose to use that resource (endurance) for stealth or evade frames. putting such a skill on f3 based on master tier choice would also give us options to improve payback for quickfights (for example an execute skill to stomp your mark if downed) and premeditation for supporting (for example consuming malice for AoE alacrity).

they did 3 major changes that did affect the performance of rifle deadeye in WvW after the rework:

• mark changes that now apply 5s reveal if one does stealth for 'long durations' while marked, seems like 2 seconds is long. this change will make it so that either you depend on stealth and stay out of it for fights => no change on actual encounters or you need your stealth but get revealed too much, too early => dead, still not much more interaction just a potential to have an opposite effect on the encounter. for me personally i mostly did fight out of it against opponents where it would matter so it didnt help people one bit, it was mainly an additional annoyance for me. if it was 4 seconds then most single use stealth skills wont be affected and i am much more likely to risk fighting in there.
• unblockable removed from DJ. this one just had the effect that i wait out some stuff in stealth => less interaction. instead the unblockable should have been moved to skirmishers shot and reducing its damage by 15% for increased reliability. again deadeye needs incentives to be played aggressively. its a stealthy, high damage thief, if you want interaction, then the deadeye needs to play aggressive and not just stealth
• silent scope duration from 3(4)s reduced to 1(2)s. this increases the resource cost for stealth per second wich matters in fights were i would need to kite alot with stealth, meaning outnumbered fights. i am much more likely to disengage or swap off the rifle to keep up the stealth a bit more for repositioning, then wait for weaponswap cooldown to go back on rifle. basically its for me much more annoying and less interactive in outnumbered fights. while against single opponents i usually dont need to reposition as far in stealth so it doesnt affect it much. as said above, the stealth needs to be interruptable, without evadeframe, not of short duration. the duration doesnt matter if you can permastealth with core thief. however if it is to expensive, then i will spent resources otherwise used for offense for kiting, wich as said above will make it less interactive on a stealthy thief. stealth is basically like running away. while an interruptable stealth access is like a leap, an uninterruptable stealth access is like a teleport. once your out of a certain range you can use easier to interrupt skills to keep/increase the distance, what matters for you to get away are the first few meters basically. now you dont have many instant groundtargeted teleports that you can spamm on any build, just like you shouldnt have frequent uninterruptable stealth access. the overall speed over a long duration tho doesnt really matter too much.

IMO all 3 changes basically reduced the interaction i have with other players while roaming on deadeye instead of increasing it further. its more annoying to fight as and against. tho as it is now weaker some might think its better now, i doubt its much more fun.

there are more things that could improve the fights as/against deadeyes that anet didnt touch so far like dropping mark after a certain range and more options to reset malice ( avoided stealth attack or limited time to use max stacks ), but i think issues above should be a good start to work on improving deadeye and learning from past changes.

double tap/TRB changes didnt affect deadeye as much in WvW IMO, maybe thats just because i didnt play a build on frontloaded damage. but regardless of my use of the skill, i think its rather stupid to nerf a skill in a way that there is basically no reason left to use it on the weapon. a damage nerf would have been much better than a cost increase, then it could still be used for might buildup.

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

@TorQ.7041 said:

@Jack Redline.5379 said:

@TorQ.7041 said:EHThief class + Anet doing at least anything about it = DUUHH

Much toxicness. No wonder ppl hate thief players.

The community and Anet made us into this from years of abuse :U. You wrought this monstrosity yourself.

[Bunny.9834]

start by buffing kneel range to 2000 and increase the projectile speed.

standing range should be 1500 like ranger LB.

reduce Mark casting time to 1/4.

[TorQ.7041]

@dDuff.3860 said:Deadeye is okay, buff thief.

Not every 1 is you. Infact at low plat 2 high plat1. I ve never seen a deadeye, pretty sure there's almost non apart from you. Sic em ranger is a far superior ranged class.

[Skiravor.1257]

swtor agent with sniper spec pls. I wan't to be a dang bunker when I plop down. I want to be able to take massive hits, then leave when things are seriously dire.

[lare.5129]

I like current deadeye state. Who can play will be on top, who not - have chance try others professions.Anyway now it is TOP dps on single target.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

I think the problem is that anet are forcing deadeye to build heavily into stealth and play like an assassin for the sake of balance. This works in WvW as now it's a great +1 assassin that can be outplayed if you know it's there, but in sPvP it doesn't actually benefit the roles deadeye is supposed to fill within the capture point type play. A player that can't hold or fight on point, can't teamfight and can only +1 while also having to choose between stealth and mobility to decap (D/P or shortbow offhand) is going to be dead weight for the most part, especially compared to stuff like soulbeast.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@kash.9213 said:Kneel up and down can have some weight to it but it needs to feel at least as snappy as most first person shooter games so I don't feel like an old person getting up out of a chair when I get jumped. And, Kneel should have very slow movement speed in crouch while moving to adjust without having to Kneel up and down for the right perch. I actually like playing in Kneel but those two issues have me playing other builds again.

I proposed that a long time ago to make Kneel use the stance mechanic. You can move while kneeling as long as you're in the stance and the kneel weapon skills will be active in this stance. Although my proposal is a bit different, but the goal is the same; to eliminate Kneel/Stand toggle if you only need to move an inch.

The idea I proposed was the Deadeye can move normally, but when they stop moving, they will go on kneeling position if the Kneel stance is active. However, when moving while the Kneel stance is active, the DE will use the standing (normal) Rifle weapon skills instead of the kneeling weapon skills. Kneel weapon skill will only be available when the DE stopped moving. This allows the DE to easily reposition without toggling the Kneel/Stand skill. At the same time, when they get jumped, they can stay in Kneel stance and move using the normal Rifle skills for skirmish.

[kash.9213]

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@kash.9213 said:Kneel up and down can have some weight to it but it needs to feel at least as snappy as most first person shooter games so I don't feel like an old person getting up out of a chair when I get jumped. And, Kneel should have very slow movement speed in crouch while moving to adjust without having to Kneel up and down for the right perch. I actually like playing in Kneel but those two issues have me playing other builds again.

I proposed that a long time ago to make Kneel use the stance mechanic. You can move while kneeling as long as you're in the stance and the kneel weapon skills will be active in this stance. Although my proposal is a bit different, but the goal is the same; to eliminate Kneel/Stand toggle if you only need to move an inch.

The idea I proposed was the Deadeye can move normally, but when they stop moving, they will go on kneeling position if the Kneel stance is active. However, when moving while the Kneel stance is active, the DE will use the standing (normal) Rifle weapon skills instead of the kneeling weapon skills. Kneel weapon skill will only be available when the DE stopped moving. This allows the DE to easily reposition without toggling the Kneel/Stand skill. At the same time, when they get jumped, they can stay in Kneel stance and move using the normal Rifle skills for skirmish.

Ya it's a gripe I keep going to back to with DE every time I play Daredevil or core for a bit and then go back to DE. Anyone playing DE and not doing anything at all in Kneel should just play another build, but I get why they don't. The stances sound like a good system except there's a step of activating a stance on top of Kneel action which could trip people up unless it would be baked into Kneel. I've been playing DrD with different weapons and nearly all of them fit right into my keybind scheme perfectly and feel like the build was uploaded to my brain Matrix style, whereas DE has a lot of stop, cast time, and go to do anything and to orient yourself because Kneel key placement and action is a different template than other sets and because of finicky range and connection you'll re-position constantly.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

I think one of the first things to buff is to make more then one skill pierce...

[alain.1659]

Lol sorry for you guys but a rifle berserker can hit way more than a rifle deadeye. Thief is not in a good spot and I do not think it will in near future. "Empathetic nod as an ele/longbow dh player".

[Turk.5460]

The nerf to Silent Scope was necessary for the health of the game, but unfortunately we were not compensated with an increase in survivability elsewhere. Now that people have seen how laughably easy it is to counter-pressure and kill a power DE that only has 1 second to re position, maybe we will finally see an improvement in non-stealth defense.

[otto.5684]

The issue with deadeye is having stealth+range+high range is highly problematic design, as we seen in the past. The initial iteration of deadeye, before the stealth on dodge was much more consistent. Deadeye had much more munverability and could support more weapons than rifle. We need to get back to that point and adjust from there.

Rifle should be more mobile, but deal less damage. Stealth on dodge should be removed. And overall, deadeye as an elite should offer more options for various weapons and builds.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Soulbeast makes a better sniper than DE currently as it was designed to be great at range through multiple Avenues. DE was designed to be great at range through stealth but only arenet devs would think repeated nerfs to stealth with zero compensation would leave the spec in a good spot. I wouldn't expect this team to fix anything.

[Ashgar.3024]

5+ Malice Death's Judgements should be unblockable again imho.

[TorQ.7041]

@otto.5684 said:The issue with deadeye is having stealth+range+high range is highly problematic design, as we seen in the past. The initial iteration of deadeye, before the stealth on dodge was much more consistent. Deadeye had much more munverability and could support more weapons than rifle. We need to get back to that point and adjust from there.

Rifle should be more mobile, but deal less damage. Stealth on dodge should be removed. And overall, deadeye as an elite should offer more options for various weapons and builds.

Agreed. Yeah it's just not viable in higher ranks. Esp when there are rangers,revs and holos.

Tired it the other day, u basically can't be seen at any time and only +1. Sic em ranger can just skill4 and 2. U have to burn both your dodges. Then they smoke assault n u have just burned your cool downs. U can fight sure but u gotta avoid WI and maul. Either which can kill you in 1 hit. Not to mention their gs5 which dazes or daze from beast attack.

Dps is def great if u can fire a shot. But once u hit plat u get focused down so fast u spend most of ur time trying to hide.

[Total Barrage.3570]

@DragonSlayer.1087 said:start by buffing kneel range to 2000 and increase the projectile speed.

standing range should be 1500 like ranger LB.

reduce Mark casting time to 1/4.

Indeed, this is what I'd propose as well - would bring deadeye to the story level with the 'from the ashes... raises deadeye'.. that solely etc etc.

But yes as a vote for kneel range and LB range as normal and mark casting time.

• TB

[UNOwen.7132]

@otto.5684 said:The issue with deadeye is having stealth+range+high range is highly problematic design, as we seen in the past. The initial iteration of deadeye, before the stealth on dodge was much more consistent. Deadeye had much more munverability and could support more weapons than rifle. We need to get back to that point and adjust from there.

Rifle should be more mobile, but deal less damage. Stealth on dodge should be removed. And overall, deadeye as an elite should offer more options for various weapons and builds.

The initial iteration was also considerably worse than the current one. It was basically only used in a permastealth build that waited for malice to stack up, then killed you with a deaths judgement. Which yes, is not that different from the current one. What Rifle needs is a lot of the nerfs to be undone, and a change to the stealth mechanic (stealth is fine if its melee, arguably even weak, but at range its ludicrous). The fact that Three Round Burst barely does more damage (or even does a little less, I dont recall) than just autoattacking with Rangers Longbow while costing half your initiative is pathetic.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

If it were me, I'd put three round burst where two round burst is, and put a small blast finisher that does minimal damage where three round burst is now. That way steal thing off the smoke field would be waaaaaay less clunky in a fight (just have to find a spot out the way and kneel) which might make up for or even facilitate the removal of stealth on dodge altogether.