An Eye on the Deadeye

[DemonSeed.3528]

I wonder how combat is going to be like since we need to adopt in&out playstyle - are there going to be changes on rifle skills to reflect this for mobility purposes and not just the barrier/shield? I can only see big openings for opponents to delete deadeyes, and more so with the iniative that needs to be used just to avoid that. The other things that bother me have already been brought up like non stealth builds and the effect on other weapon sets. I even have a few specific builds that does not rely on trickery, but acro instead, that one is surely going to go away after this seeing how important the initiative will be for malice. It feels like deadeye builds will become very pidgeonholed. I was just getting used to current mechanics as well :open_mouth:Need moar info.

[reddie.5861]

woohoo we fixed an already overpowered retarded useless build..

instead of putting backstab back to no reuse and looking into Conditions flying around all over the place with no cool downs from other classes, oh wait its anet we work just for pve stuff..

well then u can just up every1 dmg by 100% and u have it fixed also.. cus pve who cares?

[reddie.5861]

@"dragonkain.3984" said:Some COMMON SENSE things deadeye totally needs to stop being garbage in pvp:

**1. Remove ALL sound warnings to enemies, no other class screams into your eardrums like this supposedly-stealth based assassin, which is just ABSURD. No other class in game screams into your ears that he's about to kill you.

2. Make not-kneel-based rifle into an actually useful weapon, currently its absolute joke when you're not kneeling. Offer players an alternative playstyle with not-kneel based rifle deadeye.
3. Make kneel have 0 cast-time, it's absurd how much casting needs to be done only to start dealing damage to someone. Mark=cast time, kneel=cast time, all rifle attacks=cast time. It takes around 2 seconds only to start dealing ANY damage, by that time your target already ran a mile away when he noted a mark above his head.
4. Rangers longbow has 1750 range base (yes, 1750 is the real range and not 1500 as description states in case you didn't know), rifle deadeye has 1200/1500.... and rangers longbow doesnt require you to stand still, can burst up to 40k dmg every 30 seconds with no warnings whatsoever, yeah, 40k burst out of nowhere, pretty funny how bow rangers are so much more op than rifle sniper eh? To make deadeye less garbage buff range to 1750 both kneeling and not kneeling, it's a kitten rifle, rifles are supposed to have longer range than bows.
5. Retreat on rifle is useless in 80% of situations because terrain still makes it bug in almost all maps that have even a slightest elevation, making you NOT want to use it at all because you know that there's high chance that it will do NOTHING. To fix this just make it a short range targeted teleport, like mirages elite, 450 range anywhere mesmer clicks, it will be balanced because it costs initiative to use it while it costs nothing for mesmer. Mesmer can do it even while using other skills/attacks too.**

READ THIS POST DEVS.

i dont even kneel, and pretty much wreck most things in WvW.you dont need kneel deadeye is already easy and OP enough with the range they have and dmg they poo out.

[Lucinellia.9247]

We've touched nearly every trait in the Deadeye line in order to better define different types of deadeye playstyles and reduce the conflicts between them. Here's a quick example of a new trait that is aimed at improving Fire for Effect boon-sharing builds while also providing a meaningful damage bonus.

Premeditation: Gain +180 concentration and increase your strike damage by 1% for each unique boon on you.

@Robert Gee.9246 I'm quite interested in seeing what the boon-sharing potential of Deadeye will be after this rework - it needs to be massively improved. In PvE, Druids are able to access 25 might on 10 people with only a minor loss of healing output (which is already far more than enough for all raid encounters) by changing to Harrier gear and taking one grandmaster trait over two others which do not benefit healing. Druids also bring unique boons such as Spirits and Glyph of Empowerment. A Druid is not negatively impacted in any meaningful manner by choosing to might share.

By contrast, Deadeye needs to currently take 3 traits in Deadeye, Improvisation, Trickery instead of Critical Strikes and an almost full Cantrip utility selection in order to might share at a level comparable to druid. Deadeye also does not bring any unique boons compared with the professions (Phalanx Strength Warrior and Harrier Druid) that it is seemingly supposed to compete with for might sharing. This further limits an already low utility and low DPS profession and the pay off of dropping from 33k benchmark DPS (which is already shockingly low for a spec that offers no utility, no cleave or piercing, no burst, lower sustain and no movement to achieve those numbers) to approximately 19k benchmark DPS to gain 25 might on 10 people is not worth it. I really hope that with the rework, the opportunity cost of playing might share Deadeye has been seriously considered or, at least, the might share potential of certain other professions has been reviewed.

As before, thank you for the communication and the effort being put into thief - the profession badly needs attention. I am tentatively hopeful for Tuesday!

[bq pd.2148]

its obvious you dont like deadeye reddie, so i doubt you played it alot - have you actually fought good players with it or just the rather noobish majority in WvW ? because sometimes you might even run into players that do have dodge keybinded or play with sound. DE has clear issues, not many play that spec in current form altho some here argue that it is because too cheesy, but that alone has never stopped people from playing builds.conditions are fine, dont get whats your issue with them. you can avoid them on application and clear them on top!i

[kash.9213]

@MUDse.7623 said:

• Cursed Bullet is an extremely powerful tool for deadeye, and it gets taken away. Its an unblockable 3-4K damage attack that corrupts 3 boons, every 4 seconds if you force your cooldowns to restealth. I dont expect a support skill with such strenght to become reality. So this is a huge nerf to deadeye in pvp, taking away the best tool it had to deal with blocks/stab/boonspam.

maybe we get DJ unblockable instead, wich would be kind of a tradeoff because we got now an additional tell by going into stealth. but the boonrip part..i often used it to remove protection or corrupt stability into fear, as i dont use any cantrip aside from shadow meld and rarely shadow gust i think i wont have that boonrip anymore.

The way Cursed Bullet traveled even if it was slow still made it another of my go to skills. It's like sending a small drone to hit someones back or side while you go the other way or as a half decent answer to the crazy line of site/obstruction breaks in a map like EB. I could also pick a range to decide if I wanted CB or Mug to open or land on Revealed. It is slow and if I'm not focused on my movement it can be dealt with pretty easily but it gave me choices to play around with. I really hope the skill it'self will carry over somehow, there's no reason to scrap that kind of creativity with a class for anything generic.

[bq pd.2148]

@kash.9213 said:

@MUDse.7623 said:

• Cursed Bullet is an extremely powerful tool for deadeye, and it gets taken away. Its an unblockable 3-4K damage attack that corrupts 3 boons, every 4 seconds if you force your cooldowns to restealth. I dont expect a support skill with such strenght to become reality. So this is a huge nerf to deadeye in pvp, taking away the best tool it had to deal with blocks/stab/boonspam.

maybe we get DJ unblockable instead, wich would be kind of a tradeoff because we got now an additional tell by going into stealth. but the boonrip part..i often used it to remove protection or corrupt stability into fear, as i dont use any cantrip aside from shadow meld and rarely shadow gust i think i wont have that boonrip anymore.

The way Cursed Bullet traveled even if it was slow still made it another of my go to skills. It's like sending a small drone to hit someones back or side while you go the other way or as a half decent answer to the crazy line of site/obstruction breaks in a map like EB. I could also pick a range to decide if I wanted CB or Mug to open or land on Revealed. It is slow and if I'm not focused on my movement it can be dealt with pretty easily but it gave me choices to play around with. I really hope the skill it'self will carry over somehow, there's no reason to scrap that kind of creativity with a class for anything generic.

i am not sure if i was more often able to hit around a corner or i wasnt able to hit my target because i was trying to shoot to a higher ground.

[otto.5684]

Not that he malice is great mechanic, but if the highlight of this patch is this and under water skills this is a clear indication that the priorities are so ass backwards.

[Piieuw.5834]

Each stealth attack has a different bonus based on the type of skill it is. Skills primarily focused around damage, such as Backstab, will consume malice for bonus damage whereas skills focused around condition damage, such as Sneak Attack, will consume malice for bonus condition effects. Tactical Strike on the other hand consumes malice to grant an advantage over your enemy via endurance gain.

I am wondering about the Sneak Attack one, considering p/p is used way more than p/d. Considering p/p is power, it would be pretty useless if it gives a condition increase. Although I wonder if p/d might finally be somewhat viable in any gamemode, maybe something to consider is changing the 1 skill to power if its p/p, condi when it's p/d?

[saerni.2584]

P/D is viable right now. But it isn’t as powerful as condi mirage or scourge without being played well so it has less presence at this time.

As a P/D Deadeye I’m actually quite interested in this update.

[Zelulose.8695]

Make it so that if you play a thief without vitality you die in two shots rather than one vs dead-eye please.

[bq pd.2148]

@Zelulose.8695 said:Make it so that if you play a thief without vitality you die in two shots rather than one vs dead-eye please.

most professions can onehit or rather instant multihit a thief down that doesnt invest in defensive attributes - what is so special about deadeyes that you do not want them to be able to do the same?

[Kalan.9705]

I hope the new deadeye will support condi builds also for more variety e.g. malice currently offers no dps increase to conditions only power attacks.

[Urejt.5648]

I prey deadeye gets really good unblockable atack every 10 seconds like old cursed bullet was.

[Klypto.1703]

I like the idea of these changes but one thing that will hinder them is a long time problem that has never been fixed and that is all the traits tied into trickery for utility like the initiative bonus, damage from lead attacks, etc. When using elite specs these should just be carried over but not stack with the trickery line so that possible builds like say a Critical Strikes, Shadow Arts, Deadeye setup could be used making more versatile builds where as the trickery line causes more damage to build diversity than it helps. So if you do that we could possibly see some nice builds like the ones from before the elite spec system where you aren't throwing things to the side just because of a few traits on one line. Same goes for classes like guardian for example has the same problem.

[MakubeC.3026]

I thought of this change last night. A lot. And came to the conclusion it could be great, after all. The main reason why DJ is not used in PvP is because the huge ini investment that can many times be in vain. Having it placed in the stealth attack will see a lot more play, which will in turn translate to more hits and more damage. But we will also lose the ability to continuously spam it, which gives the receiving end more chance to counter play. We are also keeping the 3% dmg bonus though I'm not convinced of the trait thing. So we can choose to keep the bonus or make a big attack. I'm feeling a lot more positive about this change than when I first read it. Let's see what happens.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

This smells like an unnecessary nerf to a class spec that was already borderline useless outside of a handful of situations.

[saerni.2584]

I suspect it won’t be a damage nerf if you weren’t camping stealth before. The changes also make non-rifle versions more competitive but we will have to see how malice generation works out in practice.

[ZDragon.3046]

I do appreciate all the work you do devs but seriously just so out of control.

No one asked for this why would you waste your time on this when you have other specs and professions in much more of fix than deadeye.You have had complaints about scourge and its mechanics from day 1 and how its mechanics obviously need re working.Rengade is in shambles and no one can make it work with 100% satisfaction across multiple game modes Rev in general by far has the most complaints of things not living up to their standards yet its out right ignored.Core necro is still running with a lot of gw2 launch material (skills and traits with absolutely 0 QoL changes) which most defiantly should not be happening in 2018Core engi even needs help.

And looking at these changes I cant tell if this was a shadowed nerf or a real attempt to fix what I dont think most people had a problem with.

You have so many other things you could have touched up on with the community about the upcoming patch and you guys pulled this out I have to say im dissapointedI was hoping to hear more about under water skills if anything.

If we were going to talk any kind of changes lets talk about the problematic one, aka mesmer and thats not even here.

[Nero.7369]

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:A message from Robert Gee, Guild Wars 2 Systems Team:We designed malice as a gating mechanic that would act as a way for a Deadeye to gain increasing damage threat the longer they were in combat with their mark. This system was built to allow for very high damage attacks with enough warning to the victim that there would be room for counterplay.So perma invis oneshot deadeye has conterplay?

Three things you should really watch:a) perma invis, hopefully you remove the reveal remove. its the only thing that conters the perma invis a littl bit. even with revealed there are still a lot of ports to gain range and evades.b) litterally one shot skills, in wvw Death's Judgement deals currently up to 30~40k damage currently, backstab up to 16~21k. a damage buff to backstab is just ridiclous and death's judgement hopefully is a bit nerfed due to malice is only gain on attacking and not while camping stealth.c) I still dont get why it is okay for the thief that he can spam skills, specially while it was broken for the revenant as well and he got nerfed already in the hot beta. give those skills some charges. so that stuff like always mashing one button wont be that successfull and gets a longer cd then just the regeneration of initiative. Same goes for spammable oneshot skills from invis like backstab. oh hey i was lucky and dodged or blocked it, but no reveal and it can still be spammed, due to 0 sec cd when screwing the burst.

[saerni.2584]

@NeroBoron.7285 said:

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:

A message from Robert Gee, Guild Wars 2 Systems Team:

We designed malice as a gating mechanic that would act as a way for a Deadeye to gain increasing damage threat the longer they were in combat with their mark. This system was built to allow for very high damage attacks with enough warning to the victim that there would be room for counterplay.So perma invis oneshot deadeye has conterplay?

Three things you should really watch:a) perma invis, hopefully you remove the reveal remove. its the only thing that conters the perma invis a littl bit. even with revealed there are still a lot of ports to gain range and evades.b) litterally one shot skills, in wvw Death's Judgement deals currently up to 30~40k damage currently, backstab up to 16~21k. a damage buff to backstab is just ridiclous and death's judgement hopefully is a bit nerfed due to malice is only gain on attacking and not while camping stealth.c) I still dont get why it is okay for the thief that he can spam skills, specially while it was broken for the revenant as well and he got nerfed already in the hot beta. give those skills some charges. so that stuff like always mashing one button wont be that successfull and gets a longer cd then just the regeneration of initiative. Same goes for spammable oneshot skills from invis like backstab. oh hey i was lucky and dodged or blocked it, but no reveal and it can still be spammed, due to 0 sec cd when screwing the burst.

You’re mistaken. The backstabs and Death Judgment are currently malice assisted. Due to the current malice system once a DE reaches max malice (which can be achieved while perma stealthed) the DE can continue to spam multiple hard hits. This is especially true of DJ because it doesn’t require stealth to fire (unlike backstab).

The change makes it into a single hard hitting ability (still possibly 15-25k). It won’t hit that hard if the DE is camping stealth. It will hit once before needing to recharge malice. This opens up counterplay because an invisible thief won’t generate malice.

Now whether the thief is better than you/your build is another issue entirely.

[bq pd.2148]

@NeroBoron.7285 said:

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:

A message from Robert Gee, Guild Wars 2 Systems Team:

We designed malice as a gating mechanic that would act as a way for a Deadeye to gain increasing damage threat the longer they were in combat with their mark. This system was built to allow for very high damage attacks with enough warning to the victim that there would be room for counterplay.So perma invis oneshot deadeye has conterplay?

Three things you should really watch:a) perma invis, hopefully you remove the reveal remove. its the only thing that conters the perma invis a littl bit. even with revealed there are still a lot of ports to gain range and evades.b) litterally one shot skills, in wvw Death's Judgement deals currently up to 30~40k damage currently, backstab up to 16~21k. a damage buff to backstab is just ridiclous and death's judgement hopefully is a bit nerfed due to malice is only gain on attacking and not while camping stealth.c) I still dont get why it is okay for the thief that he can spam skills, specially while it was broken for the revenant as well and he got nerfed already in the hot beta. give those skills some charges. so that stuff like always mashing one button wont be that successfull and gets a longer cd then just the regeneration of initiative. Same goes for spammable oneshot skills from invis like backstab. oh hey i was lucky and dodged or blocked it, but no reveal and it can still be spammed, due to 0 sec cd when screwing the burst.

a) as we are talking WvW and removing revealed. first of all those funny stealth disrupting traps need to be made dodgeable. they are the reason i started playin DE over DD. sure you can overwrite the 20s reveal with 3s using a DJ- but that only works if your not jumped by 10 people when you trigger the trap.

b)with daredevil and burst of agility i could still burst people down within a second out of permastealth. if i do know mark people 20 seconds before i attack - they can atleast prepare for it and might be able to avoid it. yes deaths judjement will be nerfed because by needing stealth to cast it, they add another tell. as if it wasnt already the skill with the most tells.

c) spamming is not really clever as a thief.backstab has an awfully long cast and then a cooldown so if you screw it up, that already means you got to stack some more stealth or fall out of it unless ofc you overstacked your stealth expecting to miss your backstab. you have to run rather offensive stats to get backstab onehited and a ton of people in WvW still run durability runes wich gives them a 25% chance at surviving backstab by proc. most people i run into currently run way to defensive to be oneshot by a backstab.

@saerni.2584 said:This opens up counterplay because an invisible thief won’t generate malice.we dont know about that yet. their official reasoning for the change has nothing to do stealth camping playstyle, but only that the DE needs more control over the malice generation. with those changes they actually want to emphesize playing with stealth as DE and also will give 'more flexible stealth' what ever that is. therefor till we see all the changes, i still hope for other ways of malice gen than the ones in the opening post becuse it would else be a huge PvE nerf and would push for only one playstyle in PvP.

[Zalavaaris.5329]

So once again, to reiterate. It seems like 100% of our malice will require stealth to utilize. So let's say we gain malice much faster than we do now. Our dps will require a lot of uptime on stealth to take advantage of the damage multiplier right? It seems like I'll need to take every bit of stealth I can just to use my class mechanic. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Legatus.3608]

@"Eddbopkins.2630" said:Wow a thf rework after a mesmer rework a few months ago....mmm what you did to mes absolutly made them a more formidable opponent with there 100% uptime with clones and allowing them to have more then 4 but more like 4-8 out at the same time...mm

Can we assume that every class will get a rework/overhaul by the end of this year?

Except this change looks like it's basically deleting deadeye. DELETING rifle 4, CONSUMING malice on stealth ability use (which = punishment for stealthing essentially) and nothing damage-wise to replace the ability, instead they gave a defensive barrier on rifle 4? Let's not kid ourselves people, thief isn't a tank class and it isn't going to do fuck all with a defensive ability on rifle 4 and with no damage ability aside from TRB which is basically just going to replace P/P unload, only without the mobility.

All of this most likely due to whiners who complained about builds that EVERYONE agrees are garbage in real play but some random silver newbie a lot of random silver newbies complained that he died in 1s (after 21s of marking, but lets just ignore that because reasons).

Yeahhhhhhhhh this elite was trash to begin with and it's going to be even more trash after this so-called update. As usual, mesmer dominates every game mode and gets a buff in its update while rifle thief is essentially trash that nobody uses in every game mode and gets deleted for its "update".

I can't say I'm surprised.

[PookieDaWombat.6209]

Glad I've not touched my deadeye in ages so I have no muscle memory to unlearn when the spec gets completely reworked. I'll wait about a month after though to make sure the tweaks are out of the way. Honestly, I'm cautiously optimistic on these changes, but know that it can go sideways fast. Crossing my fingers.