An Eye on the Deadeye

[Necronaut.6028]

My honest take on the Deadeye changes.

Pros• Kneel is only 1 initiative, allowing for more kneeling options in a movement intensive fight. Thank you for this!!!• The new barrier while kneeling is a great concept. I just wish it was easier to deploy in one press of a key, instead of two.• Pvping as Rifle is now easier, although it still needs improvement.Cons• Stealth Dodging is extremely clunky, and often it breaks so fast due to auto-attacks, ect.• Pvping as P/P is now really bad.• Malice generation is useless for my P/P build now in both PvE/PvP.• Silent Shot is extremely annoying/clunky (this won't change when stealth is moved to the end of the dodge roll). Very bad design, and I often waste huge chunks of dps just trying to trigger this ability, so I gave up on it.• My damage went into the toilet in PvE with the Deadeye changes, since Thief already has near zero aoe, I was forced into Daredevil for PvE/PvP.• I've actually stopped playing Deadeye all together now. Making things complicated just turns me off, Silent Shot ect.• The Thief class is so far behind other classes in PvE it's almost scary, since we have no other option but to play as a DPS class. In Fractals alone, it's really embarrassing.

[babazhook.6805]

I know it was suggested Silent scope work with p/p on dodge allowing stealth after. I would suggest this.

Silent scope works on dodge for stealth on dodge on ANY pure ranged weapon set. This means it would work with Rifle , it would work with P/P and it would work with shortbow but no other set would qualify.

[Ghostt.1293]

Sadly I’m not happy with the rifle update revert DJ back to 4 and make standing rifle lots stronger tyvm for asking us for feed back

[Legatus.3608]

@"OutOfOrder.3719" said:I just don't understand why any of these changes were made.

If a certain build was dealing too much damage, then nerf the damage that skill combo was creating.

Completely reworking the Deadeye, has destroyed the concept of the class as a "sniper".

This class made Guildwars 2 better than any MMoRPG with the first Sniper class.

These changes were unnecesary, and this balance patch was rushed and not tested properly before being implemented.

Please redesign the DeadEye again, you failed Anet this time. Although I appreciate you trying to make changes, this time you royally screwed up.

It seems like they always screw up with thief and somehow buff the already over performing mesmer :(

[Lucinellia.9247]

@Legatus.3608 said:

@"OutOfOrder.3719" said:I just don't understand why any of these changes were made.

If a certain build was dealing too much damage, then nerf the damage that skill combo was creating.

Completely reworking the Deadeye, has destroyed the concept of the class as a "sniper".

This class made Guildwars 2 better than any MMoRPG with the first Sniper class.

These changes were unnecesary, and this balance patch was rushed and not tested properly before being implemented.

Please redesign the DeadEye again, you failed Anet this time. Although I appreciate you trying to make changes, this time you royally screwed up.

It seems like they always screw up with thief and somehow buff the already over performing mesmer :(

Pretty much every profession aside from Druid was buffed to an extent in the most recent patch. Including Thief with the change to Thieves Guild and Assassin's Signet cooldowns. The only problem is that they weren't sufficient enough to pull Thief out of the doldrums of low DPS and low utility and they were coupled with this astoundingly bad Deadeye rework.

[Lucinellia.9247]

@Necronaut.6028 said:• The Thief class is so far behind other classes in PvE it's almost scary, since we have no other option but to play as a DPS class. In Fractals alone, it's really embarrassing.

And even more embarrassing in raids. I don't feel I can join pugs anymore as Thief since I know that basically any other profession can provide more DPS and more utility. It has really killed my enjoyment of the game and I've gone from squeezing in full raid clears (with multiple repeat bosses) and plenty of open world despite a 60 hour work week to only logging in for dailies and for a couple of wings with friend groups that haven't yet told me I can't (occasionally) play Thief.

I really hope Anet are doing something about this - when axe Mirage was nerfed due to the Confusion changes, their Confusion was changed to Torment within two days despite the profession having incredibly viable power and support options at the time as well as an okay staff condition build. Thief has nothing else to turn to - no healing, no support option - and Anet is taking even longer to put us into a reasonable place despite a few numerical changes likely enough to make us mediocre DPS without utility instead of a bad DPS without utility.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

@"Miatela.5047" said:

@Necronaut.6028 said:• The Thief class is so far behind other classes in PvE it's almost scary, since we have no other option but to play as a DPS class. In Fractals alone, it's really embarrassing.

And even more embarrassing in raids. I don't feel I can join pugs anymore as Thief since I know that basically any other profession can provide more DPS and more utility. It has really killed my enjoyment of the game and I've gone from squeezing in full raid clears (with multiple repeat bosses) and plenty of open world despite a 60 hour work week to only logging in for dailies and for a couple of wings with friend groups that haven't yet told me I can't (occasionally) play Thief.

I really hope Anet are doing something about this - when axe Mirage was nerfed due to the Confusion changes, their Confusion was changed to Torment within two days despite the profession having incredibly viable power and support options at the time as well as an okay staff condition build. Thief has nothing else to turn to - no healing, no support option - and Anet is taking even longer to put us into a reasonable place despite a few numerical changes likely enough to make us mediocre DPS without utility instead of a bad DPS without utility.

Haven't they always been this way about the Thief though? Scared to change it out of some fear it will make us too OP in PvP even though there are prof that trump everyone OP wise. Yet, they don't seem to care that prof is OP...Cough mirage

[Lucinellia.9247]

@Doctor Hide.6345 said:Haven't they always been this way about the Thief though? Scared to change it out of some fear it will make us too OP in PvP even though there are prof that trump everyone OP wise. Yet, they don't seem to care that prof is OP...Cough mirage

It is somewhat sad how some professions, especially Mesmer, have the world in pretty much every game mode. Good in PvP, a support build so essential it makes up 20% of raid and fractal compositions, a strong power DPS option and one of the best condi DPS options in the game with the option for some pretty good utility in the form of heavy CC. Similar things can be said about warrior, especially now that it sits at the top with condition DPS and Spellbreaker while still having brilliant support capacity because banners are far too good.

Meanwhile, professions like Thief have so little, particularly in instanced PvE, and are still subject to botched reworks. It gets harder and harder not to feel like there is an inherent bias in the balance team.

[Bramymond.7689]

@"Miatela.5047" said:

@Doctor Hide.6345 said:Haven't they always been this way about the Thief though? Scared to change it out of some fear it will make us too OP in PvP even though there are prof that trump everyone OP wise. Yet, they don't seem to care that prof is OP...

Cough mirage

It is somewhat sad how some professions, especially Mesmer, have the world in pretty much every game mode. Good in PvP, a support build so essential it makes up 20% of raid and fractal compositions, a strong power DPS option and one of the best condi DPS options in the game with the option for some pretty good utility in the form of heavy CC. Similar things can be said about warrior, especially now that it sits at the top with condition DPS and Spellbreaker while still having brilliant support capacity because banners are far too good.

Meanwhile, professions like Thief have so little, particularly in instanced PvE, and are still subject to botched reworks. It gets harder and harder not to feel like there is an inherent bias in the balance team.

Well to be fair, they added pretty cool stolen skills for us in raids. At least it´s something in the right direction. That was a while ago tho...

[Cameryn.5310]

I really wish the developers would come into this thread (or post a separate one) about how they're listening to all of this.

Removing my issue (the uselessness of malie in a P/P deadeye build, because there are no inherent stealth traits built into the weapon spec) from the equation for the moment, it's very obvious that the deadeye changes were received incredibly poorly by most of the people posting here. I've seen them jump in fairly quickly on other specs/professions before, so I'm thinking maybe they just have absolutely no idea what to do. But it would be nice to know they're going to do SOMETHING.

[Klypto.1703]

Yeah if this were the daredevil where its centered around endurance the dodging might be okay if the bugs didn't exist. Although it seems like they were trying to make it where you used sword/dagger right after using rifle for endurance but that just puts you in more of a bind as it is. They should just revert the trait back on the rifle for stealth but keep the rest of the way it is.

[JonnyForgotten.4276]

@"Jay Felger.2510" said:After I did some testing, I come to following conclusion:Regarding deadliness of rifle-thieves in WvW, it feels more of a deadeye-kitten now and the "formerly feared Mark" let enemies laugh in your face.

1. With the redesign of 'Silent Scope' (no stealth without entering into combat first), rifle-thieves cannot move into tactical advanced positions without using some utility-/elite skills that they will need even more now as a fight proceeds (with the new Malice generation).Attention: Silent Scope does not work as tool-tipp suggests! It won't trigger stealth if you (out-of-combat) rifle-dodge-roll an attack - even as it says "Evaded!"

So, rifle-deadeyes lost some defensive capabilities by combining a dodge roll with "an attempt to stealth" which may or may not trigger and maybe even get them "revealed" as soon as a bullet hits after the dodge-roll-stealth-success!

2. Death's Judgement max. damage reduction of 11% (5% with Premeditation and Maleficent Seven, without Silent Scope).These 1-2k damage make the difference of bringing down a heavy armoured full-HP player or not. (players healing to full-HP-level in seconds is not that uncommon)

Also, a 2nd up-to full-malice-stack-Death's Judgement in a row is not possible anymore.You have to build-up Malice stacks again. That's a massive burst-damage reduction.

3. Malice generation to full "Maleficent Seven"-level is way more harder now with all the evades, blocks, reflects while being more vulnerable while constantly attacking.Haven't seen many players (if any) using "Maleficent Seven" anymore (in WvW).Actually I've seen more and more players now who don't even bother with the "Mark" (in WvW), because it doesn't give you that much of a benefit anymore for all the risks it brings by alarming your target (and other players) and giving them time to counterplay.

In that regard, I want to make the following suggestion that will give deadeyes a certain tactical improvement (please let it linger in your mind for a moment):Since the new Mark-Malice(-not-time-based-generation)-system does not impose any threat in itself any longer, please consider redesigning the Mark as "not visible to enemies".There is no need for a glowing Orb pulsing above players heads anymore. Lets be clear on that.If deadeyes have to heavily invest into a fight by constantly attacking with initiative-using-damage skills/critical hits in order to build-up a significant amount of Malice, enemy-players know something serious is coming for them. No more additional heads-up necessary.

Maybe leave the orb visible to us, but not the target. I have found it very useful for tracking mesmers through their clones.

[Volrath.1473]

@"Miatela.5047" said:@Robert Gee.9246 @"Gaile Gray.6029"

Are you still paying attention? Will you commit to fixing thief in instanced PvE?

https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks/

An entirely selfish thief is now the third worst condi option of the benchmarked professions. Only scourge (which has epi and utility) and engineer (poor condi engineer) benchmark worse.

Power deadeye and daredevil are now the two worst power DPS options of those benchmarked. We give up a lot of utility and CC to achieve that bottom of the barrel DPS and the damage patterns are such that we lack the burst advantage of other power DPS and the consistent damage away from the boss of condi. We have the worst of both worlds.

Any sort of further statements on this would be really appreciated.

Thieves were already borderline decent. To the point were even pugs would kick us out of the daily fractal quests party...

Thief has no identify nor a role to fill in any aspect of the game...

DPS wise we're at the bottom... Direct dmg or dot we can't keep up with the other professions.

Less survivability then most, worst support in game and don't give me the mobility bs because in pve is worth noting, and in PvP other professions can outrun us.

So where/how does the thief stand out from the other professions? (In a positive way)

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

@Volrath.1473 said:

Thieves were already borderline decent. To the point were even pugs would kick us out of the daily fractal quests party...

Thief has no identify nor a role to fill in any aspect of the game...

DPS wise we're at the bottom... Direct dmg or dot we can't keep up with the other professions.

Less survivability then most, worst support in game and don't give me the mobility bs because in pve is worth noting, and in PvP other professions can outrun us.

So where/how does the thief stand out from the other professions? (In a positive way)

You know, playing a weaver in fractals is like pulling teeth. Especially in pug groups. All of the big damaging skills are long channels (meteor shower, glyph of elements, ice bow 4, ice bow 5), or they require me to be in melee range (lightning hammer 4, FGS 4). Nearly all of them require the enemy to stand in one place for a long period of time, or else all the damage goes out the door. Now, a lot of these aren't issues in raids, but fractals are full of vets that do 14k damage in a single hit, while also running scattering about with ill defined areas of engagement. There's no worse feeling than when the Archdiviner decides to warp across the entire map just as you're dropping all your AoEs on him. It's so bad that I don't even run the max DPS spec: I keep arcane shield on my bar, just so I can complete my darn channels. I'm also locked in elements, so if I happen to need to CC or cleanse, tough cookies. The weaver is the only power DPS spec that has trouble solo killing the anomaly in CM100.

Playing a thief, I have none of those problems. My evades are plenty, so it is really easy to survive. My damage is fast, consistent and chases the enemies. My CC is some of the best in the game. I have ample blind fields to disable vets or stop projectiles. I have a group condi cleanse/panic button in Signet of Agility. I can solo an anomaly just by using fist flurry. All the enemies get permanent weakness from all the spinning I do. When it comes to ease of use and defensive utilities, the Thief is really good. Shadow Refuge still shows its utility in places where players like to skip.

Of course, none of this is true for the deadeye, which is a pretty big problem right now.

[Lucinellia.9247]

Not much of what you've written is even applicable (or useful) for Daredevil though. Firstly, it is worth checking https://discretize.eu/builds. It is out of date now but the reasons for taking Weaver over pretty much any DPS for 99 and 100CM still remain. It is absolutely the top pick still due to the massively high burst DPS which with frequent breaking of break bars puts Weaver miles ahead. The weaknesses of Daredevil haven't been resolved either.

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

Playing a thief, I have none of those problems. My evades are plenty, so it is really easy to survive.

Really though, unless you are doing something wrong your evades aren't that much more plentiful because you have to use them rotationally. Survival also isn't an issue when Druids give constant protection and Chronomancers put out as many boons as they do. So having (and needing to use) more dodges isn't really that beneficial.

My damage is fast, consistent and chases the enemies.

Your damage isn't actually that fast. You have no burst. Certainly Daredevil has consistent damage but you actually want burst damage in fractals so that it can be overlapped with break bars being broken. Your damage also doesn't "chase" the enemy - you aren't condi with the build you've been describing. What you mean is that you physically chase the boss or add spawns.

My CC is some of the best in the game.

True, but CC isn't a problem - which is why multi-Weaver groups are considered meta and the best for speed killing. CC can be adequately brought by other people. Sure we can backup and have some emergency CC but so can pretty much every other DPS spec. Our heaviest CC (Basilisk Venom) also depends on people being stacked before post-break bar burst phases. That isn't always the case.

I have ample blind fields to disable vets or stop projectiles.

And how often do you see people advertising in LFG for "blinds"? This is a non-issue since trash in fractals and raids is trivial and there are better and more plentiful sources of damage mitigation. Blinds are also pretty useless utility on bosses which is what instanced PvE should be balanced around as it is what matters.

I have a group condi cleanse/panic button in Signet of Agility. I can solo an anomaly just by using fist flurry. All the enemies get permanent weakness from all the spinning I do. When it comes to ease of use and defensive utilities, the Thief is really good. Shadow Refuge still shows its utility in places where players like to skip.

Signet of Agility is lovely, I adore it but, again, we are backing up a role that should already be covered. Fist flurry really isn't brilliant burst damage and other professions can also solo an anomaly easily. Weakness and vulnerability are plentiful from other sources. The defensive utilities we have aren't useful on bosses. Again, it is bosses where what we can bring is truly important.

Of course, none of this is true for the deadeye, which is a pretty big problem right now.

And, sadly, not much of it is really useful for giving merit to Daredevil in raids and fractals - which is why other posters, including myself, have plentiful experience of being kicked from pug raids and fractals for being a Thief of either spec, your kill proof and experience be damned. This is because what we bring, as outlined above, isn't actually that useful, it isn't unique and it certainly doesn't make up for us being absolutely bottom of the barrel for power DPS (we are nearing Power Reaper and Renegade level) while also lacking the burst damage profile of power DPS which makes them desirable when bosses have break bars. It isn't just Deadeye that needs substantial improvements, Daredevil and even core Thief do as well. We aren't in a good place.

[Lucinellia.9247]

Update concerning fractals available here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/8kdu89/dt_balance_patch_0508_fractal_meta_changes/

I'll just quote from them directly because it highlights an issue that all variants of Thief face in PvE;

The changes to Deadeye didn't do anything, while it's easier to generate Malice now, the problems with missing burst and general scaling still exist. Thief remains an awkward, below average DPS build.

If Anet doesn't want to make one variant of Thief decent in instanced PvE, then fine. It is their game. But if that is the design direction, can we get some communication so we can all either reroll or jump to a game that treats players of less popular professions decently?

It's been well over a week and we have no updates aside from fixing an obvious bug. That alone won't do anything to help PvE Thief out of the hole it is in.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

@"Miatela.5047" said:Update concerning fractals available here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/8kdu89/dt_balance_patch_0508_fractal_meta_changes/

I'll just quote from them directly because it highlights an issue that all variants of Thief face in PvE;

The changes to Deadeye didn't do anything, while it's easier to generate Malice now, the problems with missing burst and general scaling still exist. Thief remains an awkward, below average DPS build.

If Anet doesn't want to make one variant of Thief decent in instanced PvE, then fine. It is their game. But if that is the design direction, can we get some communication so we can all either reroll or jump to a game that treats players of less popular professions decently?

It's been well over a week and we have no updates aside from fixing an obvious bug. That alone won't do anything to help PvE Thief out of the hole it is in.

This rework is basically why I quit playing the game, and why I am waiting on how they are going to remedy it. The sole reason I play GW2 is because of the thief class with rifle and P/P. P/P is the reason I even started getting interested in it back in 2012. With how they are treating the Thief class as an useless class(Especially P/P and rifle), I don't know if I can take it much anymore. I might as well go play another game that actually balances what I enjoy instead of nerf after nerf to the prof I enjoy.

They did well when they buffed the rifle back in February, but they failed hard with this one. This is their last chance really in my eyes to redeem themselves from the way they treat the Thief prof like a second class citizen in PvE.

[Cameryn.5310]

@Doctor Hide.6345 said:This rework is basically why I quit playing the game, and why I am waiting on how they are going to remedy it. The sole reason I play GW2 is because of the thief class with rifle and P/P. P/P is the reason I even started getting interested in it back in 2012. With how they are treating the Thief class as an useless class(Especially P/P and rifle), I don't know if I can take it much anymore. I might as well go play another game that actually balances what I enjoy instead of nerf after nerf to the prof I enjoy.

They did well when they buffed the rifle back in February, but they failed hard with this one. This is their last chance really in my eyes to redeem themselves from the way they treat the Thief prof like a second class citizen in PvE.

I'm really in the same boat with my P/P & Rifle deadeye thief too. Ever since the patch dropped and I got frustrated with it, I have barely logged in. That was my main and I loved playing with it, but it just seems so... puerile now.

[Astyrah.4015]

@"Miatela.5047" said:If Anet doesn't want to make one variant of Thief decent in instanced PvE, then fine. It is their game. But if that is the design direction, can we get some communication so we can all either reroll or jump to a game that treats players of less popular professions decently?

this exact thing has been on my mind recently, it's why i stopped playing regularly (only logging in now playing my ele to help PvE with my friends) because i have come to the conclusion that Anet doesn't care about my favourite class (thief).

now i don't demand it to be the top DPS but just something that does viable, respectable output.. enough to be considered as an alternative to the present meta. the dev's lack of regular communication and/or cherry picking responses regardling all the issues and complaints regarding thief is enough to tell me that they don't care much. one thing i miss from FF14 coming to gw2 was that dev's there listened and made/reverted changes as needed when people gave enough evidence/facts and/or complained enough that a certain issue or balance breaking thing isn't to be overlooked or ignored.

of course, i'd like the devs here to change my mind and convince me otherwise but i doubt.

[Lucinellia.9247]

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Many of the advantages you've outlined, aren't actually advantages. I implore you to log some of your runs. See how useful those blind fields are in a PvE environment where trash doesn't matter because of what other professions bring. See how Daredevil (and Deadeye) doesn't have burst DPS compared with other professions, despite Fist Flurry and Bound / Vault rotations - this is pretty well agreed on by anyone that looks at benchmarks or damage patterns from Arc DPS and is one of the reasons why Thief isn't well accepted in instanced PvE.

I could spend some time discussing all the points further but clearly that isn't worth it given;

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:You're trying to defend someone who said that thieves have no identity, no role, poor survivability, the worst DPS, and no support in any aspect of the game, and this is blatantly false. Your argument for this is that none of the thieves skills are valuable, because you like to play exclusively with comps built to make their support redundant and in content where all you do is sit in one place attacking a single enemy who was designed specifically to be out-healed, and you don't feel like every other place in the game should count. This is a terrible argument. Quoting someone else who makes the same terrible argument doesn't make it stop being terrible. You can make it gigantic and fight people on every single phrase they say, but meticulous madness is still madness.

One of your quotes works perfectly here.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:steaming pile of misinformation

I run Fire for Effect Might share Thief in raids and fractals where I can. I also play this pretty much permanently in open world and dungeons. I've Might shared to help unsure Druids and new players successfully on encounters like VG, Samarog and Deimos (before the changes to Rifle) amongst others while running meta and off-meta builds as my groups allow. I've done 99CM and 100CM as a Might share Deadeye with my partner playing Magi Tempest healer and tend to prefer the T4 groups where you bring whatever and make it work. I certainly do not go out of my way to build compositions which let me "sit in one place attacking a single enemy". My raid groups typically run slightly off-meta compositions too, valuing the additional utility that professions can bring. Before PoF, I loved running Fractals as Daredevil and sure, way back at the beginning of HoT, those blinds and bounds definitely proved useful however with PoF and the immense amount of power creep, growing player experience as they tackle content that is over two years old and the increased utility of other professions, what Thief brings really isn't that special, unique or even useful.

But this is the problem that happens when you decide to attack the person through straw men - you don't actually know how that person plays and when you come out with fabricated scenarios that don't hold weight it just makes you look silly. That I'm having to defend personal attacks because people don't like hearing of Thief being in a bad spot in raids and fractals is kind of sad, especially when all evidence points to that fact.

Now, that isn't to say you have some good points. I agree with you fully on how DPS should be balanced, I've already expressed my sympathies in this thread and others regarding other poorly balanced professions and I definitely agree that condition builds are undervalued in fractals. I'd also like to apologize since my discussions and arguments contrary to your points apparently weren't well received and I don't think discussions devolving to this level are useful when we're both, ultimately, trying to achieve much the same thing otherwise we wouldn't be here discussing the terrible state of a profession we both clearly love.

But you went for the personal attacks. You talk me down as squabbling and arguing minutia, and proceed to be worse. You try to discredit by constructing personal falsehoods. So you can take your own advice;

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:Don't try to "win", don't try to "get what you want", try to have a broad perspective aspire to have a critical mind.@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:In the future, have an ounce of damned respect for someone

And again, my apologies for making you feel such a post was necessary.

[Lucinellia.9247]

On a happier note;

I'll say that I was pleasantly surprised with how the new Malice interaction with Backstab is working on fights like Keep Construct during the stun phase. For a quick band aid number fix, making the Malice consumption damage increase even 12% instead of 10% would work well. It still doesn't fix the gameplay loop though and I'd be concerned that a heartseeker heavy rotation for Deadeye would hamper us further by removing the small amount of cleave that we do bring.

[Volrath.1473]

Hate to say it but it is official...

I have reactivate my wow account and with the expansion coming up in August... I'll come back next year to see how things are.

Until then gl and hf.

/Out

[Lucinellia.9247]

@Volrath.1473 said:Hate to say it but it is official...

I have reactivate my wow account and with the expansion coming up in August... I'll come back next year to see how things are.

Until then gl and hf.

/Out

I'll admit to being in a similar spot. Despite playing Guild Wars 2 pretty much exclusively since mid 2015, I've now started to dabble with Warframe, recently reactivated WoW and I'm thinking of downloading FFXIV again.

Ironically, I got back into GW2 during 2015 because the class I was playing in another game felt gutted by a rework and the new play style didn't sit well with me and I started trying out older games I had drifted away from.

[Sodeni.6041]

I think Anet tried to make a second Mirage with modified stealth attacks instead of dodge-ambush attacks.

However, they missed the point.

Every mirage has easy access to mirage cloak via dodging regardless off their build.

Deadeye needs to be stealthed to do the malicious stealth attacks. But you HAVE to use stealth utilities, traits and elites in order to use your new class mechanic.

This is a major flaw of the Deadeye rework. Your build diversity is very limited if you take stealth utilities and traits.

If they gave the deadeye a F3 ability that lets them stealth for a short duration in order to do the malicious stealth attacks it would be a completely different story. A new profession mechanic should not require you to use certain utilities or weapons (pistol offhand, dagger offhand) to benefit from it.

If they did that they could then balance the malicious stealth attacks and improve the Deadeye further.

[Lucinellia.9247]

This is a major flaw of the Deadeye rework. Your build diversity is very limited if you take stealth utilities and traits.

Absolutely and it is clear that Silent Scope granting stealth on dodge was supposed to be the solution but the ability is buggy, is limited to Rifle, introduces time where the Deadeye can't DPS (and Death's Judgement / 3RB are not strong enough to make up for that) and punishes a profession that is already immobile by limiting dodges as a mobility option.

The issues are so obvious in hindsight as well.