Easy to play, open world deadeye build

[myrek.9436]

tl;dr Here's a draft deadeye build I'm working on. The goal is to simplify the skill loop and make it a little more flexible while keeping it strong enough for open world play.

 

A discussion in a different thread got me thinking about thief builds - specifically deadeye builds. None of the popular deadeye builds have the simplicity of Reaper - which I've been playing. (It's made me lazy.) Reaper's mechanic makes it pretty simple to deal with groups of mobs or bosses. I'm wondering if there's a deadeye build that's both good enough to do both and simple to use (for general open world play).

 

Here's the 1st draft of what I've come up with so far: The stealth signet deadeye: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaxAQpjlFw0YXsMmJWUPvvUA-zRRUBKEoCKoPxQ+GEu0JYCLSB4fA-e

 

This build leans into the core concepts of deadeye: marking, malice, and stealth. As soon as you mark your target, you gain 1 malice and are stealthed. You can go right into a stealth attack. Also, you stealth when you kill so you can theoretically chain easy kills. But you still have the ability to go thru a longer-though-less-powerful traditional power deadeye skill rotation for bosses.

 

Known issues:

The gear is wrong - at least the runes.

The build has way too much healing on it.

I should probably use Silent Scope over Payback

I should probably use Cloaked in Shadows over Shadow's Rejuvenation

I like the pistol and dagger combo, but can't decide which should be main hand.

 

 

Questions for you

What did I miss?

What holes do you see?

Are there easy ways to improve this?

Do you know of similar builds? Am I reinventing the wheel?

[kash.9213]

I'd change to 1-1-1 DE and 1-2-1 SA for what you're doing. I'm not one of the better players to give advice on this but I feel like your power is kind of low for how low your health already is. 

 

I'd then take ?/pistol maybe to pop off Cloaked in Shadow easily and to have a leap on hand. 

 

Adjust your utility along the way, it will probably end up looking different, especially if you're setting stuff up with other open world players. 

[Nezekan.2671]

You can go full Valkyrie if you are taking hidden killer from critical strikes along with shadow arts. You should have enough stealth to constantly get 100% crit chance, so you don't need any precision.

[myrek.9436]

@kash.9213

DE listed: 122

I was thinking it should be 112. I think 112 and 111 are so close that I should have them hotkeyed. 111 for bosses and 112 for roaming.

 

SA listed: 332 and I thought it should be 331. Thanks for mentioning that poison skill. I hadn't read it fully. It's on the new version. But I have to keep that initial 3 because that's what grants stealth when you steal.

 

@Nezekan.2671 

That's an interesting idea. Basically give up on crits except when "sniping" in exchange for 1000s of HP. 

 

Here's what that looks like (with the other changes too) : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaxAQpjlFw0YXsMmJWUPbvSA-zRIUjCBqm7rQAjzsE6ND8bA-e

 

Initial HP: 16088

W/ valk: 23788

And my power went up 53

 

And I'm keeping the vampiric runes. They're a big part of that health pool and they're surprisingly helpful for getting back on your feet. I got swarmed earlier and Downed Skill 5 took out a pile of bad guys. I was on my feet with almost full health.

 

Thanks for the input.

[shrew.3059]

6 minutes ago, myrek.9436 said:

@kash.9213

DE listed: 122

I was thinking it should be 112. I think 112 and 111 are so close that I should have them hotkeyed. 111 for bosses and 112 for roaming.

 

SA listed: 332 and I thought it should be 331. Thanks for mentioning that poison skill. I hadn't read it fully. It's on the new version. But I have to keep that initial 3 because that's what grants stealth when you steal.

 

@Nezekan.2671 

That's an interesting idea. Basically give up on crits except when "sniping" in exchange for 1000s of HP. 

 

Here's what that looks like (with the other changes too) : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaxAQpjlFw0YXsMmJWUPbvSA-zRIUjCBqm7rQAjzsE6ND8bA-e

 

Initial HP: 16088

W/ valk: 23788

And my power went up 53

 

And I'm keeping the vampiric runes. They're a big part of that health pool and they're surprisingly helpful for getting back on your feet. I got swarmed earlier and Downed Skill 5 took out a pile of bad guys. I was on my feet with almost full health.

 

Thanks for the input.

 

Invigorating Precision is so good at higher crit percentages, since you do more damage and 20% of that damage is healing. You might consider building more aggressively and recouping the health loss through IP. Remember: too much survivability can be a liability if it stretches out encounters for too long; a dead mob is a mob that can’t hurt you.

 

P.S. It’s a relatively silly build and you won’t really learn how to play Thief well, but IP + Unload will get you through a lot of OW stuff without any fuss. There are a bunch of variants you can try based on how good you are with your Initiative and how long your average encounters are.

Edited August 31, 2021 by shrew.3059

[Zacchary.6183]

I use this. It is modified from what I normally use. I had Infiltrator runes on but switched to Vampirism when I needed more defense. It does decent damage with a braindead rotation and is good for anything open world.

[kash.9213]

3 hours ago, myrek.9436 said:

@kash.9213

DE listed: 122

I was thinking it should be 112. I think 112 and 111 are so close that I should have them hotkeyed. 111 for bosses and 112 for roaming.

 

SA listed: 332 and I thought it should be 331. Thanks for mentioning that poison skill. I hadn't read it fully. It's on the new version. But I have to keep that initial 3 because that's what grants stealth when you steal.

 

@Nezekan.2671 

That's an interesting idea. Basically give up on crits except when "sniping" in exchange for 1000s of HP. 

 

Here's what that looks like (with the other changes too) : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaxAQpjlFw0YXsMmJWUPbvSA-zRIUjCBqm7rQAjzsE6ND8bA-e

 

Initial HP: 16088

W/ valk: 23788

And my power went up 53

 

And I'm keeping the vampiric runes. They're a big part of that health pool and they're surprisingly helpful for getting back on your feet. I got swarmed earlier and Downed Skill 5 took out a pile of bad guys. I was on my feet with almost full health.

 

Thanks for the input.

Those are good points. I'm used to using SA to cover people mostly but that's a good choice if that's the sequence you vibe with. 

It is nice being able to switch templates fast, especially if you're thinking about kill and clear rate across a map. 

I play Rifle a lot like I play Staff, maybe using Death's Retreat way too much, but positioning and clearing obstacles fast is nice for most maps including WvW. Helps to test it every where so you can size up terrain accurately over time, it's just costly if not staggered but sometimes you can't take out mount to keep up with everything.

 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Hardest part I've found about building a deadeye is the lack of any sort of omni-build.  It isn't like Daredevil, where Staff + Signets carries.  The strengths of the Deadeye are peculiarly tied to what traits you pick, so it isn't easy to select one and say "go with these."  So, I'll break my overworld deadeye build into two parts: small enemies, and large enemies.  

 

For lots of small enemies:  http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaxAQxrlFw8YSMMmJOsL7vSA-zRIYRUzXG1mCVUB2uKpH-e

 

It's similar to the raid build, but with 3 big differences:

 

#1: Mug.  It heals 2k on steal.

#2: Invigorating Precision.  You'll quickly heal from any attack that isn't lethal.

#3: Be Quick or Be Killed.  This will boost crit chance to 100% while giving you near-permanent quickness.

 

If there's a lot of small enemies, I use this build.  It lets me camp in one place and snipe things down very quickly.  It can run out of initiative sometimes, but usually the quickness and high damage lets you swiftly kill enemies with auto attacks.  Haste is a filler spot that can be filled with any other utility needed.  For groups of enemies, just swap to sword/pistol then either blind spam with black powder or use pistol whip to evade while attacking.  

 

For larger enemies, it looks like above, with a few more differences:

Use the trait Maleficent Seven

Use the trait Revealed Training

Use the utility Shadow Gust.

 

Basically, just take the raid build and use the traits Invigorating Precision and Silent Scope.

[Nezekan.2671]

9 hours ago, myrek.9436 said:

@Nezekan.2671 

That's an interesting idea. Basically give up on crits except when "sniping" in exchange for 1000s of HP. 

 

Here's what that looks like (with the other changes too) : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaxAQpjlFw0YXsMmJWUPbvSA-zRIUjCBqm7rQAjzsE6ND8bA-e

 

Initial HP: 16088

W/ valk: 23788

And my power went up 53

 

And I'm keeping the vampiric runes. They're a big part of that health pool and they're surprisingly helpful for getting back on your feet. I got swarmed earlier and Downed Skill 5 took out a pile of bad guys. I was on my feet with almost full health.

 

Thanks for the input.

If you go full valkyrie you should take more stealth.

 

So thanks to shadow arts, stealing gives stealth and using a healing skill also gives stealth. Using a stolen skill also gives stealth. Dodging with rifle gives stealth. In order to boost this, you can add the sigil that refills endurance on kill on the rifle So your rotation will be, Dodge to stealth, kill with 100% crit chance, endurance fills, repeat.

 

Since we don't need precision much, you can replace signet of agility with either blinding powder or shadow gust for an emergency stealth.

 

Rune of wurm would also be great, as it allows us to turn some of the vitality into fercity. But this is optional.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Nezekan.2671

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

Honestly, you can go a lot of directions to make open-world pve doable and fun with DE. If you WvW roam, you will need a different build than that shown though. 

I like your idea of using the signets for pve; ill have to try that out.