Good deadeye builds for roaming in WvW with rifle? + Why is it hard to land DJ?

[Joshewwah.2956]

Currently trying to think of a good deadeye build for roaming. I know that my primary weapon should be a rifle, but I'm not sure about the secondary. It could be another rifle, but then I would have nothing to cleave and to fight against reflects. A shortbow can make escaping a bit easier, but then I wouldn't have another weapon that can actually help in battles, and it suffers from projectile hate. It could be d/p or s/d or s/p but I don't know which.

I don't even know if I want to put all my damage within a 2 second burst (quickness, signets, CS, binding shadow, berserker stats, scholar runes, etc.) or if I should diversify my damage over a longer duration and have M7, mercy, trickery, runes of durability, etc.

If it helps, I always enjoyed playing soulbeast and being able to kill people from far away. I liked being able to be tanky and kill people from far away. I guess I could just play soulbeast instead, but for stupid aesthetic reasons, I don't really want to play it (namely, the legendary longbows not having any special effects for the longbow 5). I wonder if there's a similar build. I know that you could play the standard sick 'em which would have 2 abilities used at the start, and only 1 defensive ability. I liked playing with 2 defensive abilities, so I would often take quickening zephyr (utility, offense and defense), signet of stone and the roll.

If I'm playing deadeye, I was thinking of always having roll for initiative and shadowstep and withdraw, but I feel like that's not enough to escape. With the ranger, I could merge with a bird, have and a gs or sword and easily cover ~2000 distance, along with 1600 for the longbow. Having withdraw, roll for initiative and shadowstep doesn't feel like it covers enough distance, considering against most other roamers, they can easily still attack you at range.

Is there any sort of build that lets me play dirty and easily escape if I wanted to, but also lets me go for kills/fights at the same time?

Edit:Additional question, why is it so hard to land a good DJ? I find it hard to dismount enemies with this as they just evade it. Most people simply put reflect, block or dodge roll it too. I find it much more easier to land a burst with Ranger's longbow, than it is to get a decent DJ with rifle deadeye.

[Zacchary.6183]

If you need an escape, Death's Retreat on rifle is a very fast bail out. With 15 initiative and RoI, you can cover over 3k in a few seconds easily. You can also use it as misdirection in a fight by stealthing or running through and using it. It is also a leap finisher, so you can combine that with Sniper's Cover for stealth. The trick is getting used to doing everything backwards. As for landing DJ, try being part of a zerg and use it when people are distracted. Warclaws have enough evades to safely avoid DJ so you are just wasting time trying to dismount them.

[Safandula.8723]

as mentioned above sb is useless for escape as u have rifle 4.big problem i see with thief now, u can get easilly outnumbered and rifle wont help u to escape if mount guys are chasing u, so my only bet now is to do what iv never liked tbh. stack stealth and reset. d/p that is i think

[Bezerker.2379]

Until you hear BWONG because a tower/guard 5000 feet away / target painter put marked on you. Then you get eaten anyway.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@Bezerker.2379 said:Until you hear BWONG because a tower/guard 5000 feet away / target painter put marked on you. Then you get eaten anyway.

Pretty much. I alternate between stealth and non stealth builds depending on how active people are in using target painters and stealth traps, and how well they +1 in groups. It's pretty funny watching someone stand there letting you shoot them because they marked you and they expect you to run.

[Helicity.3416]

@Zacchary.6183 said:Warclaws have enough evades to safely avoid DJ so you are just wasting time trying to dismount them.

I recommend using shadow step to get ahead of the target in stealth and then three round burst + spotter's shot to get them off the warclaw.

This works pretty reliably for me.