Deadeye Death's Judgement Question

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

So...longtime player but new to Deadeye. 

Sometimes when trying to use a stolen skill to trigger Death's Judgement, the rifle '1' skill will just flash repeatedly but never flip over to Death's Judgement. I'm not quite sure when it will or won't flip to DJ. On the other hand, evading will reliably cause '1' skill to flip to DJ.

What am I missing?

 

[saerni.2584]

Sounds like a bug (assuming you are using the stolen skill at or above 5 malice so using it grants stealth). 
 

It's possible you are seeing the regular auto attack being queued rather than DJ. That means you need to stop your auto attack before firing DJ or firing off your DJ just after the auto attack fires (but before it hits the target). 
 

Your experience with dodge stealth working fine may be because the dodge is clearing your attack queue so nothing is in the way. 
 

Try holding down the 1 key after using the stolen skill for stealth and see if that properly queues up DJ. 

[ASP.8093]

Oh, that's easy to explain:

 

Death's Judgement is a sneak attack. Meaning you get access to it by going into Stealth (for any reason, including stealth granted by combo fields or other players).

 

Every Deadeye stolen skill (that's the "F2" skill) will put you in stealth IF YOU HAVE 5 MALICE OR MORE. (Malice is the red dots above your health orb.)

They're all very similar, giving you a small bonus while inflicting some debuff and light damage on your target; here's the full list if you want to read them all: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deadeye's_Mark

 

On top of that, projectiles have travel time and the stolen skills have a fairly quick cast. If you're trying to go fast-fast-fast it's possible you'll go into stealth and then your previous attack will hit and Reveal you immediately. (This can happen, especially, when you have Quickness — so your skill animations complete more quickly — but you aren't Kneeling — so your projectiles aren't traveling as fast.) In my experience, the easiest way to avoid this is to stow weapon right before you F2.

 

With the Sniper's Scope trait and a rifle equipped, dodging will also give you stealth at the end of the roll. And all that time you're in the dodging animation means you don't see the "projectile in flight" problem.

 

(Note that Death's Judgement is subtly differently from every other sneak attack skill: you become Revealed as soon as you start the aiming animation, not when the attack hits. This is supposed to make it a bit "fairer" in SPvP/WvW, because it hits pretty hard at range. Note also that going Deadeye "upgrades" all of your other thief weapon sneak attacks to get additional benefits from Malice. The shortbow, dagger, and spear ones in particular are pretty strong.)

Edited December 22, 2021 by ASP.8093

[ASP.8093]

I should add, also:

The "oops I got revealed just as I hit F2" thing tends to happen because Skirmisher's Shot has a very low aftercast (which is what makes it a strong skill in the first place).

[nopoet.2960]

I've been messing around with deadeye for the last couple of week and this thread just made everything click.  I never noticed that you needed 5 malice to go stealth and I couldn't figure out why I was going stealth randomly.  Now DE is my favorite spec.  I'm going into the expansion as a D/P Rifle DE.  It's crazy how good it is and I've been just missing out.  I can't believe the devs let Be Quick of Be Killed even exist.  It's kind of devastating on D/P ... and you just refresh it when your target goes down.  Now I also have another way to stealth reliably.  Now that I've played it, I don't understand why it doesn't get talked about more. 

[Gigawatt.7850]

On 1/3/2022 at 1:57 PM, nopoet.2960 said:

I've been messing around with deadeye for the last couple of week and this thread just made everything click.  I never noticed that you needed 5 malice to go stealth and I couldn't figure out why I was going stealth randomly.  Now DE is my favorite spec.  I'm going into the expansion as a D/P Rifle DE.  It's crazy how good it is and I've been just missing out.  I can't believe the devs let Be Quick of Be Killed even exist.  It's kind of devastating on D/P ... and you just refresh it when your target goes down.  Now I also have another way to stealth reliably.  Now that I've played it, I don't understand why it doesn't get talked about more. 

Can you link your build for me? I'm new to Deadeye. I've been doing rifle plus sword pistol since I heard it's good for aoe and constant stuns. 

[nopoet.2960]

@Gigawatt.7850  I eventually moved to a sw/p rife build too.  It's much more efficient but, for me, not as much fun.  The main feature of both build is triggering be quick or be killed, thrill of the crime, and bountiful theft every time you down an enemy.  Depending on what you want to do with the rest of your build you can add even the odds too.    Pick off weak enemies first and keep rolling.