An Eye on the Deadeye

[Zarfall.6521]

I've noticed a lot too that there's some extreme buggyness to DJ realizing you're 'stealthed.' Plenty of times now I've been in stealth and my 1 has not changed to DJ, especially when using Silent Scope. It's like I get kicked out of stealth instantaneously upon dodging, except I still get revealed as though I had cast DJ, preventing me from dumping my malice.

[Astyrah.4015]

@"Zarfall.6521" said:I've noticed a lot too that there's some extreme buggyness to DJ realizing you're 'stealthed.' Plenty of times now I've been in stealth and my 1 has not changed to DJ, especially when using Silent Scope. It's like I get kicked out of stealth instantaneously upon dodging, except I still get revealed as though I had cast DJ, preventing me from dumping my malice.

according to reddit ppl, that buggy-ness happens when you had an outgoing "1" projectile going to the target as you dodged, it will flag it as an attack and immediately cancels the dodge-stealth giving you revealed. while you can avoid that on the dummy golem (disable autos and wait til your shot lands before dodging - like lul?) but in a real fight against a real boss i don't think we can rely on the dodge rolls to stealth before DJ-ing to be consistent in stealthing us for the big hit

[Volrath.1473]

is it just me or rifle #4 lasts 3sec instead of the 5 that says in the tool fact?

[Branegan.9127]

So, you completely killed an already dead rifle deadeye. Who do you plan to kill next?

[RicochetXD.4128]

@"Astyrah.4015" said:right now i just wish the devs would respond to this thread (they did like, once on page 1 and never again?) because i'm sure they're reading all of our replies but choosing not to respond just yet. when you look at this thread and 2 to 3 other related threads about thief changes, most of the replies or posts (as of this writing) are not really happy with the changes be it being buggy, no longer fun, underwhelming, etc. so i wish they'd at least give everyone some words or acknowledgement

I think they probably realized that the vast majority of players hate this change to Deadeye and they're now really embarrassed and holding some meeting somewhere on what to do about it. I can imagine the one who first suggested this change is trying to get them to keep it. "Give them time, they'll love it" "But these people seem to like it!"

Meanwhile anyone who realized what's happening was like "But 90% of Deadeye players just switched to core thief and daredevil..."

"Nah, they love it!"

[Astyrah.4015]

@Volrath.1473 said:is it just me or rifle #4 lasts 3sec instead of the 5 that says in the tool fact?

it lasts around short of 5s (the rectangle on the floor stays) but the animations (smokey stuff) goes only for 3 seconds

[RicochetXD.4128]

Honestly, I just got the Predator. And now I have to give it to my engie cause I can't use it on my main anymore.

[Zalavaaris.5329]

@"Zhou.3605" said:Thank you for now "REQUIRING" me to use stealth to use a mechanic other than stealth. I am so happy that now I have no choice but add stealth to my build.

It's not even requiring stealth for a build. It's an entire classes dps mechanic that requires as much stealth as possible. I was worried about this and it seems I was right.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

So you can no longer make your opening move Death's Judgement with full malice stacks. This build no longer feels like a sniper. Before I had a lot more control over Malice gain because it went up automatically and I can use skills to make it go up faster. Now malice disappears after using a Death's Judgement and I have to build up again which means DPS is lower than the previous pass.

I like the utility of Sniper's Cover at least. A shame that the heal from Maleficent Seven is gone so survivability is lost. That cover doesn't protect you from AoEs that work like projectiles.

[Vulcaruss.9567]

To be completely honest it's blatantly clear why they changed it like this. They wanted to get rid of the perma stealth build where a Deadeye Marks a Target and Stays Stealthed. The Change to Silent Scope makes that clear, now it's harder for Deadeye to get their 2 Stealths out of the rifle, like just simply kneeling twice did for it pre-patch. This move is obviously aimed at WvW and SPvP. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Devs themselves got owned and 1 shotted by these in there spare time and decided it was unfair. These changes are completely blind to PvE Deadeye.

To be honest this whole problem could of been solved with out such a drastic change. Just make Death Judgement hit for less in WvW and SPvP and leave it's PvE counter part alone.

[Cameryn.5310]

@Vulcaruss.9567 said:To be completely honest it's blatantly clear why they changed it like this.

They wrecked PvE to shore up WvW/PvP, that's why. PvE is basically screwed... I'd love to hear from ArenaNet exactly in what PvE context they think the Deadeye rifle right now works in, because I'm hard pressed to find it. And malice is completely useless now to P/P.

[jenosmaverick.8694]

Ugm guys am just 3 days old in the game. Seeing deadeye made me buy the game. So from the comments here the update basically kills the rifle/pistol builds for pve? Atleast I want to be averaged at both pve and pvp. I was even thinking of having a rifle+pistol/pistol build but haven't seen anyone do it or post anything about it.

[Vulcaruss.9567]

It's not like Thief was hurting in Either WvW or SPvP Prior to the patch anyway... This change was just pointless. And made the class unnecessarily harder to play cause of it. The opposite of Arena Nets Intentions on the first page.

[Vulcaruss.9567]

@"jenosmaverick.8694" said:Ugm guys am just 3 days old in the game. Seeing deadeye made me buy the game. So from the comments here the update basically kills the rifle/pistol builds for pve? Atleast I want to be averaged at both pve and pvp. I was even thinking of having a rifle+pistol/pistol build but haven't seen anyone do it or post anything about it.

Pistol is still very Viable at this point but it's not going to have access to the new Malice "Fad" Arena Net is pushing with the Stealth Attacks, unless you take several dozen stealth based abilitys in healing skills utility slots, and elite skills. To that point its a near waste of potential. Rifle has been completely upstaged at this point cause every other weapon works better with the new Malice Scaling other than the Weapon intended to make Deadeye Iconic.

[JonnyForgotten.4276]

So, you took away Unforgiving.. . . . my build is gone. It was fun playing a brawler thief for a bit. Oh well. Thanks devs!Edit: Please change it back.Further Edit: Really!?! You replace Unforgiving with Payback? What the heack, Anet, what was the point of this?

[Leo G.4501]

From reading the thread so far, the changes are slightly polarizing. Some really do not care for the changes while others love it with some in between that can see a definite improvement in their build.

Ultimately, I think the change will eventually be accepted by those that continue to get better and better at Deadeye but you can't be considering this a success, right? Changes like these should be saved for when its absolutely necessary, not done on a whim. But I sense you'll continue with this trend, changing professions because you want to while upsetting your playerbase for no reason...

...or maybe you weren't being completely honest with how you presented this change? Was it to better balance the profession because it was performing too well or not well enough? From the OP, it seems these changes were brought about because certain aspects were "bland", "lacked adaptability" and "conflicted".

So how many professions are going to be overhauled for such reasons?

[bq pd.2148]

@Vulcaruss.9567 said:To be completely honest it's blatantly clear why they changed it like this. They wanted to get rid of the perma stealth build where a Deadeye Marks a Target and Stays Stealthed. The Change to Silent Scope makes that clear, now it's harder for Deadeye to get their 2 Stealths out of the rifle, like just simply kneeling twice did for it pre-patch. This move is obviously aimed at WvW and SPvP. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Devs themselves got owned and 1 shotted by these in there spare time and decided it was unfair. These changes are completely blind to PvE Deadeye.

To be honest this whole problem could of been solved with out such a drastic change. Just make Death Judgement hit for less in WvW and SPvP and leave it's PvE counter part alone.

you can still stack up malice without leaving stealth, just takes longer. and now backstab does more damage then DJ , i mean evading a DJ is alot easier then evading a BS ..

[Asphelt.6802]

@"jenosmaverick.8694" said:Ugm guys am just 3 days old in the game. Seeing deadeye made me buy the game. So from the comments here the update basically kills the rifle/pistol builds for pve? Atleast I want to be averaged at both pve and pvp. I was even thinking of having a rifle+pistol/pistol build but haven't seen anyone do it or post anything about it.

As a DE main I personally find the changes to be an improvement. You gain max malice in a matter of seconds, rather than 10-20 secs, DJ is easy to access and hits just as hard, if not harder due to unblockable and I've been firing it off way more with this change. Backstab is incredible at max malice, but "that isn't the point of the spec" apparently. Personally I find the lean towards stealth a sensible one. Daredevil dealt with the mobility aspect of thief, why shouldn't this spec focus on the stealth aspect? I never saw elite specs as an upgrade (the current meta in pvp is core thief for example) but more a focus. You can no longer permastealth and stalk your target, which sounds cool but it wasn't viable in pvp and wasn't fun in pve as targets are mostly stationary and who wants to wait for 20 secs to take out one dude? Now you can take out 4 at range all finished off with DJ in that time. Ghillie sniping was only viable in wvw, which I think is where most of the complaints are really coming from. However that is only my opinion and I acknowledge I seem to be in the minority on this one.

[ulgnaw.8376]

TL;DR: Please do a full revert of this change.

I don't ever post. In the past when there were changes that I hated I would just deal with them (e.g. nerf to Berserker). All of my characters are level 80, so I can just play another class. But, in this time, you've taken away a really interesting playstyle (sniper, stealth, high set up time) and now it's completely removed so that this class plays like a lesser version of other classes.

If anything less than a full revert is under consideration, at least bring back the old Sniper's Cover mechanic.

[CattyWampus.9721]

@ulgnaw.8376 said:TL;DR: Please do a full revert of this change.

I don't ever post. In the past when there were changes that I hated I would just deal with them (e.g. nerf to Berserker). All of my characters are level 80, so I can just play another class. But, in this time, you've taken away a really interesting playstyle (sniper, stealth, high set up time) and now it's completely removed so that this class plays like a lesser version of other classes.

If anything less than a full revert is under consideration, at least bring back the old Sniper's Cover mechanic.

Please. 100% this^

[Darkstar.7319]

Our raid group tried making Deadeye work in raids tonight (it was never that good, but it was fun) but without Death's judgement and old malice, its dps is utter garbage. Dagger auto-attack does more, and Deadeye dps wasn't that great in pve to begin with. I never post on the forums myself, but gutting the snipe skill from a sniper class just takes away the unique feel of it. I am also of the notion that these balance changes needed to be reverted. Deadeye doesn't feel like a deadeye right now.

[kash.9213]

This basically feels like I can do whatever I was doing before but to stay in control of my positioning and pace it just costs more from one or more resource otherwise I have to run and gun in a way that feels like everyone's going to play the same way. I'm pretty much stuck with M7 if I want to pace myself. I hope it's just a matter of feeling this out and recovering some of the choices, drawbacks and all, that I had before as I learn it more.

[Zhou.3605]

Here is my thought...how about instead of making us all hate the DE now you put it back and fix the fact that the damn mirage can one hit me just by looking at me in wvw.How about this maybe next time tie the use of something like cantrips instead of stealth. I mean I am just spitting out my rear here, but stealth is a theif skill. If I want to stealth I will play a thief. DE is an elite. Why does it suddenly depend on the main tactic of the original class?

[DeceiverX.8361]

Despite noble intentions, this implementation tremendously disappoints.

D/P permastealth OHKO potential is better than DJ rifle was before with even lower risks and fewer tells, and also managed to slow down gameplay even more while making malice from these builds feel even more unpredictable and harder to understand due to tie-ins with heals.

At this point I'd just suggest scrapping the entire notion of empowered stealth attacks with the DE. It just cannot be balanced.

[Tashigi.3159]

@"Darkstar.7319" said:Our raid group tried making Deadeye work in raids tonight (it was never that good, but it was fun) but without Death's judgement and old malice, its dps is utter garbage. Dagger auto-attack does more, and Deadeye dps wasn't that great in pve to begin with. I never post on the forums myself, but gutting the snipe skill from a sniper class just takes away the unique feel of it. I am also of the notion that these balance changes needed to be reverted. Deadeye doesn't feel like a deadeye right now.

I came to post this exact same thing.It's a loss of nearly 9K DPS in worse case scenario. Best case scenario I am losing around 5.5K DPS.Plus, this style of gameplay is really, really upsetting me for some reason. I enjoyed the previous playstyle far more. I am having flashbacks of the "Ricochet" trait removal...