Deadeye or Daredevil for open world?

[StevesDad.8213]

Wondering which of these is best post patch for this? Looking to solo champions and do light fractaling, nothing insane

[Antycypator.9874]

Rifle Deadeye is much better at soloing champions than daredevil — you have boons, mobility, great single target damage, stealth to manipulate agro and range. Even Dagger/Dagger can bench super high, but there are of course some drawbacks: sometimes it's hard to switch targets (can be solved with Mercy skill, but who would waste an utility skill for it?)

Daredevil is better at killing groups of mobs and probably little safer in group play.

You can always use both.

[fool moon.5308]

DE is my go-to for any tough fight that I have to solo. Pretty much just strafe while using kneel3 or stand2 into DJ while M7 gives me perma-boons. The range, constant stealth breaks, sustain, and mobility trivializes most fights in ways daredevil struggles to accomplish smoothly. Cleave is a huge hole in its kit though, and DE's traitline makes it so I'm forced to choose between bosses and mobs or a mediocre inbetween. It's why I really want P/P to be solidified as a mobbing set. At least we got shadow flare, which is better than nothing but piercing projectiles.

You can bring DE into fractals but besides the mechanics forcing you to stay mobile, there are some sections that consist primarily of mobs that you can't skip as well as adds spawning during a boss fight. I find that pugging fractals doesn't always have somebody with a group pull available (or at least willing to use it) which would be the one thing that helps with DE's cleave problem.

Again, I would really like P/P to be good at mobbing, it doesn't need to compete with rifle over the same role. And not just for DE, but for thief in general. It's really lacking cleave without dipping into an elite spec.

[kash.9213]

I feel like Rifle DE is really well rounded with a weapon swap that tunes into how you move and use terrain. Both Kneel and Standing Rifle movement arch feel fluid and can land you where you want once you get used to it and can scale some obstacles or levels of terrain and Action cam can alter that and feel smoother and more responsive for better and sometimes for worse. The last couple of patches have done Rifle DE and SA a solid if you use that, especially if you like you move a fight around or move from one group kill to the next for map travel. I don't think Staff uses a space around it as well unless it's a flat, close radius but Staff or whatever set plus Shortbow isn't bad map travel or terrain negotiation if you're feeling that those skills. 

Edited December 3, 2022 by kash.9213

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I'll go against the grain and say the Daredevil is better for open world.  The cleave is great for smaller mobs, but the biggest advantage that Daredevil has is its endless evades that also do damage at the same time.  I use Daredevil to tank the Sand Giant in full berserker gear, simply because I can evade literally every attack with a good regularity.  Because of this, the skill ceiling for what Daredevil can accomplish is near limitless.

[StevesDad.8213]

Thanks all, I assume you are referring to power deadeye? Would wearing celestial be better or worse(solo)?

 

If anyone has any builds they want to link that would be appreciated, though I have looked at whats on hardstuck and metabattle. I tried lordhizen's build here:

 

 

 

And just can not  get the hang of it

Edited December 3, 2022 by StevesDad.8213

[fool moon.5308]

Celestial is really bad for DE,

1. you need crit chance to build malice faster (full celestial has much less precision)
2. you're already keeping up boons permanently through Maleficient 7 and Thrill of the Crime
3. your sustain isn't affected by healing power (Invigorating Precision) or not very much (SA traits)
4. very little support for condition damage through rifle or DE traits (celestial is still mostly a condition damage set with some power damage lumped in)

You'll benefit more from power damage stats like berserker, marauder, valkyrie, or dragon, depending on how much crit chance you have and how much health you're comfortable with, you don't want to go over 100% assuming other critical chance modifiers are up

Edited December 3, 2022 by foolmoon.2786

[StevesDad.8213]

edit: thanks for the reply

Edited December 3, 2022 by StevesDad.8213

[StevesDad.8213]

If you want deadeye's mark up all the time what is the point of crit chance?

[fool moon.5308]

When you use a skill that costs initiative on a marked foe, you gain malice. But if the skill crits, you gain 2 malice. This is crucial for reaching max malice faster while spending less iniative overall. It does help that if you deal a critical hit at least once during a multi-hit attack (Stand/Kneel3), it will still give you 2 malice. However, gaining malice will be spotty with other attacks that only hit once if you're not capped on crit chance, such as the need to stay mobile or to make use of immobilize (Stand/Kneel2). You also always want to be critting due to Critical Strikes traits applying their benefits on critical hits.

[StevesDad.8213]

Makes sense, thank you

[StevesDad.8213]

I cannot break 5k DPS with power rifle and exotic berserker. very weird to get used to

[SlayerXX.7138]

13 hours ago, StevesDad.8213 said:

And just can not  get the hang of it

Stealth with dagger 5 if possible. Also be careful with over spamming skills. Thief puts skills in a que. So if you maxed malice but pressed 3 to often and don't give a new input (elite or dagger 5 for stealth) soon enough you waste precious initiative. Deadeye(condition) is a really strong and fun solo build. Maleficent Seven is a god trait for solo play. The hizen build with shadow arts and celestial is busted for soloing.

11 hours ago, foolmoon.2786 said:

Celestial is really bad for DE,

1. you need crit chance to build malice faster (full celestial has much less precision)
2. you're already keeping up boons permanently through Maleficient 7 and Thrill of the Crime
3. your sustain isn't affected by healing power (Invigorating Precision) or not very much (SA traits)
4. very little support for condition damage through rifle or DE traits (celestial is still mostly a condition damage set with some power damage lumped in)

True for rifle. Not true for Pistol/dagger. Celestial + fury + 5 hits of repeater is more then enough to crit at least once in these 5 hits. Celestials allows also quite a bit more of protection uptime you wouldn't have one berserker.  Leeching venom and signet are noticeable affected by haling power. They blow Invigorating precision out of the water in effective healing because you are much sturdier and don't need to go full class to trigger the healing. Deatheye has not a single trait to support condi directly but in ow condition damage is so much better because you can go for some defensive stats without losing much damage. If you lack damage you can always replace some gear with viper. I personally run Viper weapons and the rest celestial. Which end up at 10k damage solo while being tanky as hell.

[ASP.8093]

11 hours ago, StevesDad.8213 said:

I cannot break 5k DPS with power rifle and exotic berserker. very weird to get used to

Simplest PvE rotation:

 

Take Silent Scope and Maleficent Seven for easy Malice cycling (Silent Scope is a moderate DPS loss in hardcore groups but it's great solo, don't sweat it)

Take Critical Strikes to boost your Ferocity a ton

Take either Deadly Arts (more damage, just focus the traits that give +Power even if they're for the "wrong weapon") or Trickery

 

Here's the actual rotation:

Kneel

Mark Target

3-3-3

your Malice (red dots) should be at 7/7, there'll be a sound/animation to remind you; you will also gain Initiative and a ton of boons — it is important not to burn this initiative quite yet! instead…

go into Stealth (dodge with Silent Scope, or F2 skill, or use your elite, or use the new Shadow Advance combo)

press 1 to fire off your Death's Judgement sneak attack

now your Malice will reset to 0-1

3-3-3 and repeat

 

You can get about 15k-20k solo with this without really optimizing your build for damage.

 

They key things to learn are:

• The cadence is always the same: 3 attacks, stealth, sneak attack, 3 attacks, stealth, sneak attack…

• At the moment that M7 refills your Initiative, you need to be thinking "now I need to drop Malice!" *before* you use up all your new Initiative on more DPS skills. You never want Malice and Initiative to be low at the same time.

• Learn the cooldowns of your stealth sources and prioritize them. Eventually, if you min/max hard, you will want to cut 1 or 2.

• If you're using your auto-attacks (normal rifle 1 skills) more than one in a blue moon, you've messed up the resource flow.

[SamuelW.2685]

Deadeye for general open world with lots of mobs, but DD works too

TL:DR: Here is a link to my own Deadeye open world build, it is best suited for lots of mobs rather then bosses, perma quick uptime depending on the amount of mobs.

Why Deadeye for open world? Be Quick or Be Killed is why, grants you quickness for 4 seconds when you steal, AND +200 extra power while under quickness. If you're in open world killing and stealing from lots of mobs, you're gonna have perma quickness uptime with no concentration, and 25 might, and fury, and vigor, and swiftness, and have a insta recharging daze on kill, you'll also gain initiative on steal too, steal has 1500 range on Deadeye too btw, oh and this is without allies too btw, but you'll be able to share everything but the quickness with them too cause lol.

How you ask? Purely with Deadeyes traits on full 'zerker, no sigils or runes required. Here is a link to my build that lets you accomplish this. This build relies on trickery and mostly camps rifle, you're looking for perma boons rather then building up and spending malice, I also bring a Shortbow for when rifle doesnt cut it for tagging.

I take deadly arts over the meta critical strikes for Mug, Mug gives you loads of HP if you're able to mark lots of mobs, and it does decent damage too, around 4k ish on the setup listed, kept me alive in HoT maps easily, but if you wanna stick with Deadly Arts you might be able to get away with Dagger Training for a little bit more power at the cost of some sustain. I could see this build working with critical strikes over deadly arts, but you still manage insane damage in dense packs of mobs with deadly arts,

Trickery is used to augment Deadeyes Mark, Bottom - Top - Middle like a lot of power Trickery builds. Mark recharges when your marked target dies and applies the boons on initial steal, so if you're in a meta constantly marking mobs you'll have perma steal boons and quick, plus a daze and more initiative, the more initiative from steal lets you spam weapon skills cause you can potetially never run out of initiative.

In Deadeye I take Burst of Shadows over the usual Malicious Intent, mobs are gonna die stupid quick with this build so a lot of times you won't be able to spend the malice on stealth attacks, Silent Scope gives you 100% crit chance thanks to it and perma fury, and Be Quick or Be Killed gives you and you only perma quickness in dense packs of mobs.

Now I'm embellishing this build a lot, and while it works very, very bloody well in packs of mobs in open world, it's not as great in places where's there's not many mobs, think bosses, bounties, etc, you won't have perma boons cause you won't be able to constantly mark targets, just the one boss, and you'll usually be able to have perma fury and might from allies anyway. I usually swap off to Malicious Intent and Maleficent Seven as those traits are better suited for bosses, so if you do decide to give this build a try pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease keep this in mind when facing bosses.

 

[StevesDad.8213]

On 12/4/2022 at 10:56 AM, SamuelW.2685 said:

Deadeye for general open world with lots of mobs, but DD works too

TL:DR: Here is a link to my own Deadeye open world build, it is best suited for lots of mobs rather then bosses, perma quick uptime depending on the amount of mobs.

Why Deadeye for open world? Be Quick or Be Killed is why, grants you quickness for 4 seconds when you steal, AND +200 extra power while under quickness. If you're in open world killing and stealing from lots of mobs, you're gonna have perma quickness uptime with no concentration, and 25 might, and fury, and vigor, and swiftness, and have a insta recharging daze on kill, you'll also gain initiative on steal too, steal has 1500 range on Deadeye too btw, oh and this is without allies too btw, but you'll be able to share everything but the quickness with them too cause lol.

How you ask? Purely with Deadeyes traits on full 'zerker, no sigils or runes required. Here is a link to my build that lets you accomplish this. This build relies on trickery and mostly camps rifle, you're looking for perma boons rather then building up and spending malice, I also bring a Shortbow for when rifle doesnt cut it for tagging.

I take deadly arts over the meta critical strikes for Mug, Mug gives you loads of HP if you're able to mark lots of mobs, and it does decent damage too, around 4k ish on the setup listed, kept me alive in HoT maps easily, but if you wanna stick with Deadly Arts you might be able to get away with Dagger Training for a little bit more power at the cost of some sustain. I could see this build working with critical strikes over deadly arts, but you still manage insane damage in dense packs of mobs with deadly arts,

Trickery is used to augment Deadeyes Mark, Bottom - Top - Middle like a lot of power Trickery builds. Mark recharges when your marked target dies and applies the boons on initial steal, so if you're in a meta constantly marking mobs you'll have perma steal boons and quick, plus a daze and more initiative, the more initiative from steal lets you spam weapon skills cause you can potetially never run out of initiative.

In Deadeye I take Burst of Shadows over the usual Malicious Intent, mobs are gonna die stupid quick with this build so a lot of times you won't be able to spend the malice on stealth attacks, Silent Scope gives you 100% crit chance thanks to it and perma fury, and Be Quick or Be Killed gives you and you only perma quickness in dense packs of mobs.

Now I'm embellishing this build a lot, and while it works very, very bloody well in packs of mobs in open world, it's not as great in places where's there's not many mobs, think bosses, bounties, etc, you won't have perma boons cause you won't be able to constantly mark targets, just the one boss, and you'll usually be able to have perma fury and might from allies anyway. I usually swap off to Malicious Intent and Maleficent Seven as those traits are better suited for bosses, so if you do decide to give this build a try pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease keep this in mind when facing bosses.

 

 

Thanks much for all of this info! What are your changes for champ/boss killing solo? Just those at the bottom?

Edited December 7, 2022 by StevesDad.8213

[StevesDad.8213]

On 12/4/2022 at 6:14 AM, ASP.8093 said:

Simplest PvE rotation:

 

Take Silent Scope and Maleficent Seven for easy Malice cycling (Silent Scope is a moderate DPS loss in hardcore groups but it's great solo, don't sweat it)

Take Critical Strikes to boost your Ferocity a ton

Take either Deadly Arts (more damage, just focus the traits that give +Power even if they're for the "wrong weapon") or Trickery

 

Here's the actual rotation:

Kneel

Mark Target

3-3-3

your Malice (red dots) should be at 7/7, there'll be a sound/animation to remind you; you will also gain Initiative and a ton of boons — it is important not to burn this initiative quite yet! instead…

go into Stealth (dodge with Silent Scope, or F2 skill, or use your elite, or use the new Shadow Advance combo)

press 1 to fire off your Death's Judgement sneak attack

now your Malice will reset to 0-1

3-3-3 and repeat

 

You can get about 15k-20k solo with this without really optimizing your build for damage.

 

They key things to learn are:

• The cadence is always the same: 3 attacks, stealth, sneak attack, 3 attacks, stealth, sneak attack…

• At the moment that M7 refills your Initiative, you need to be thinking "now I need to drop Malice!" *before* you use up all your new Initiative on more DPS skills. You never want Malice and Initiative to be low at the same time.

• Learn the cooldowns of your stealth sources and prioritize them. Eventually, if you min/max hard, you will want to cut 1 or 2.

• If you're using your auto-attacks (normal rifle 1 skills) more than one in a blue moon, you've messed up the resource flow.

Awesome thank you for taking the time, I will give this a shot

[StevesDad.8213]

One of the things that gave deadeye a sour taste for me is that I use a Djinn hero challenge to test most new builds and I think he kept removing the mark through some cleanse ability

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

On 12/2/2022 at 9:22 AM, StevesDad.8213 said:

Wondering which of these is best post patch for this? Looking to solo champions and do light fractaling, nothing insane

I know it's not a option above, but I am going to really go against the grain and say ritualist alac specter (scepter/dagger) is probably the easiest in open world when it comes to soloing group gold bosses by yourself or with one other (scepter/pistol + paralyzation sigil offhand for defiance bars).

If it's a choice between deadeye and daredevil only. I would say the following.

• Deadeye for soloing a group gold bosses if you are doing that mainly
• Daredevil if you are doing content where you are swarmed by mobs and or if you ever have a hard time with deadeye handling many mobs.
• Daredevil if you are learning fractals. Quite often you get swarmed by mobs in fractals, plus it may be quicker. This also is relevant to the point above. Deadeye dagger/dagger builds have the potential do a lot more damage then daredevil though.

As a warning. Daredevil got a nerf to invigorating precision so it isn't as beginner friendly as it used to though! Personally I usually switch it up between all three specialties for different content to keep things fresh.

Edited December 8, 2022 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[ASP.8093]

16 hours ago, StevesDad.8213 said:

One of the things that gave deadeye a sour taste for me is that I use a Djinn hero challenge to test most new builds and I think he kept removing the mark through some cleanse ability

The Mark times out after 30 seconds (the cooldown on the F1 ability itself is like 25, or closer to 17 if you have Trickery). It will also be reset if you use Mercy (but you'll get your Mark back immediately).

 

IME the Mark can be a bit of a problem with phased bosses, but I just went and tried out the Djinn and you can just pew-pew normally without any problems (and, if you have Trickery, use the Mark to break his bar as well).

[StevesDad.8213]

6 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

The Mark times out after 30 seconds (the cooldown on the F1 ability itself is like 25, or closer to 17 if you have Trickery). It will also be reset if you use Mercy (but you'll get your Mark back immediately).

 

IME the Mark can be a bit of a problem with phased bosses, but I just went and tried out the Djinn and you can just pew-pew normally without any problems (and, if you have Trickery, use the Mark to break his bar as well).

 

Thank you! Care to elaborate on the specter one? I usually duo with a mesmer and sounds like the alac would  be great

[StevesDad.8213]

On 12/4/2022 at 6:14 AM, ASP.8093 said:

Simplest PvE rotation:

 

Take Silent Scope and Maleficent Seven for easy Malice cycling (Silent Scope is a moderate DPS loss in hardcore groups but it's great solo, don't sweat it)

Take Critical Strikes to boost your Ferocity a ton

Take either Deadly Arts (more damage, just focus the traits that give +Power even if they're for the "wrong weapon") or Trickery

 

Here's the actual rotation:

Kneel

Mark Target

3-3-3

your Malice (red dots) should be at 7/7, there'll be a sound/animation to remind you; you will also gain Initiative and a ton of boons — it is important not to burn this initiative quite yet! instead…

go into Stealth (dodge with Silent Scope, or F2 skill, or use your elite, or use the new Shadow Advance combo)

press 1 to fire off your Death's Judgement sneak attack

now your Malice will reset to 0-1

3-3-3 and repeat

 

You can get about 15k-20k solo with this without really optimizing your build for damage.

 

They key things to learn are:

• The cadence is always the same: 3 attacks, stealth, sneak attack, 3 attacks, stealth, sneak attack…

• At the moment that M7 refills your Initiative, you need to be thinking "now I need to drop Malice!" *before* you use up all your new Initiative on more DPS skills. You never want Malice and Initiative to be low at the same time.

• Learn the cooldowns of your stealth sources and prioritize them. Eventually, if you min/max hard, you will want to cut 1 or 2.

• If you're using your auto-attacks (normal rifle 1 skills) more than one in a blue moon, you've messed up the resource flow.

 

man this is infuriating to try to get down. im never ready when the mark drops/cant see it and the rotation is screwed. Are you talking about 15-20k dps at the golem with no buffs?

[ASP.8093]

7 hours ago, StevesDad.8213 said:

man this is infuriating to try to get down. im never ready when the mark drops/cant see it and the rotation is screwed. Are you talking about 15-20k dps at the golem with no buffs?

15k-20k on the golem without any extra buffs, yeah.

Start with just 3-3-3-dodge-1. Once you get the hang of that, you can mix in 3-3-3-F2-1 as well (when F2 is available). (This is all Kneeling with a target Marked.)

Then try running around (not Kneeling) doing 2-2-2-dodge-1. Way less DPS but it's an easy way to kite stuff in open world.

 

I use to play Greatsword Mesmer and switched to Deadeye to get better sustained DPS with a similarly mobile/slippery class.

[ASP.8093]

7 hours ago, StevesDad.8213 said:

Thank you! Care to elaborate on the specter one? I usually duo with a mesmer and sounds like the alac would  be great

PvE Specter uses Scepter/Dagger with condi stats (Viper's for pure DPS, Ritualist's for DPS + alac support).

The starting point is a "priority-based" rotation. Just do whatever you can closest to the top of the list and you'll get like 80% of the way to optimal play:

1. Utilities (wells or venoms) — these should be placed on the group because they're group buffs

2. Spam 3 (Twilight Combo) whenever you can

3. F1 on cooldown

4. When you're out of Initiative, hit F2 for Shroud. Spam 2, 4, 5 as much as you can. Leave Shroud (F2 again) only when Initiative is full.

 

• Your Wells and Shroud 3 are also mobility skills, you can use them to move around in boss fights that involve a lot of running away from evil circles.

• Note that you can do almost all of your damage at range — this is super valuable in fights like Anka where you're just not allowed near the boss sometimes — except for Shroud 4.

• I usually take either Basilisk Venom or Shadowfall as my elite skill and just save it for big boss breakbar moments. (Basilisk Venom is really, really good in groups.)

[StevesDad.8213]

18 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

15k-20k on the golem without any extra buffs, yeah.

Start with just 3-3-3-dodge-1. Once you get the hang of that, you can mix in 3-3-3-F2-1 as well (when F2 is available). (This is all Kneeling with a target Marked.)

Then try running around (not Kneeling) doing 2-2-2-dodge-1. Way less DPS but it's an easy way to kite stuff in open world.

 

I use to play Greatsword Mesmer and switched to Deadeye to get better sustained DPS with a similarly mobile/slippery class.

 

Yeah I've been doing 3,3,3, dodge  1 for the staple then going to F2 when available. even when starting out with good rotation Im hitting maybe 9k which drops as soon as I make a single mistake with rotation.

edit: this is the  build if it helps explain anything: https://i.ibb.co/Q6sz2qG/image.png

Edited December 10, 2022 by StevesDad.8213