Can we please talk about the "Marked" debuff?

UNOwen.7132 · September 19, 2019

@Turk.5460 said:
@"UNOwen.7132" said:Im not "struggling with them", I merely avoid them because I know I cant kill them. Because I am playing the highest damage, glassiest build possible ,and my damage just isnt nearly enough (for the record, its full ascended berserkers, DA, CS, DE, Scholar Rune, standard damage food and utility, damage sigils. My Skirmishers shots, the highest damage skill in the arsenal, do 3k or less damage per hit to the 24k health scourge. And I die to just 3 hits from them. You could of course go a lot less glassy and more tanky, but then your skirmishers shots will hit for 2k or even less, and at that point Im pretty sure you get countered just by the scourge pressing the heal skill when its up).

You seem to be the only DE in WvW who is unable to kill a Scourge. Is that not enough to realize it's not the DE that struggles...but the player?

Nah, most DEs I know ingame are pretty much in agreement. Then again, based on context clues I have noticed that you legitimately seem to be fighting glassy and undergeared necros, and thinking those are the norm.

UNOwen.7132 · September 19, 2019

@kash.9213 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Doug.4930 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Voltekka.2375 said:
@Turk.5460 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Doug.4930 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Doug.4930 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Turk.5460 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Turk.5460 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:I dont, most of my experience was facing Deadeyes and being surprised at how awful all versions of it is. Then I tried it and confirmed my suspicions. There simply isnt any way to win 1v1s. You do a lot less damage, your survivability is a lot lower, your utility is a lot lower and you have nothing to make up for any of it. Its incapable of fighting any 1v1, even the usually easy Necros dont lose.

Ah, I see. You're just trolling. DE Rifle literally

hard-counters

all iterations of Necro.

Thief does. Deadeye, unfortunately, doesnt. The standard issue of "you do less damage and are less survivable" apply. All the Necro has to do is dodge your Deaths Judgment, while applying their choice of condi or power pressure. You dont even really do enough damage to kill a Necro through his survivability, so technically a necro could just dodge and be fine. Usually you might think "well, I have the range advantage", but thats only the case if you kneel. And kneeling is bad, since 300 units are quickly covered, and then youre a sitting duck. And thats really it.

Incorrect. DE hard-counters Necro. I

dare

you to go to the Necro forums and tell them that that DE does not.

I don't need to land Death's Judgement to win 1v1s. Nor should it land, it's the easiest attack to dodge in the game. It's great for using up enemy dodges however! If you'd like me to teach you how to play rifle DE, I may be able to set aside some time...

Then they must be AFK. Lets do some math. I am playing the glassiest, highest damage build possible. All-in on berserkers, Scholar rune, Critical Strikes, DE, Deadly Arts lineup. Literally the highest, possible damage. Now, lets assume the Necro is on, hm, Scourge, since thats the closest to beatable. Now, on a scourge, with the standard gear setup that a power scourge has, your highest damage skill, Skirmishers shot, hits for about 3k-3.5k. I note, this is the highest damage you can get. Since you wont be running Malificent seven (if you do, the Scourge snaps his fingers, and your boons become conditions you simply cant clear fast enough), you get 4 shots of skirmishers shot. 5 if you wait 3 seconds after the first one. You do, best case scenario, a total of 17.5k, plus another 1k from mug. The scourge meanwhile has 24k health baseline. Thats without doing anything.

In other words, after 3 seconds of non-stop attacking, hitting the necro hard as you can, with a full glass build, you barely get rid of 2/3 of their health. With the scourge just watching you. Now, lets say the scourge isnt just watching you, and instead is using his skills to survive. Now, we have 8k from Sand Flare, almost 5k in a barrier, and a little over 3k in healing. Suddenly, your 17.5k damage have turned into a measily 9.5k. Less than half the necros hp. Now the Necro well might have Spectral Armor, if he is expecting to fight you, thats another 33% less damage, so your 17.5k turns into about 12k, of which you lose 8k, so youre left, after a full 4 seconds of attacking, with having done 4/24k health in damage on the necro. And this entire thing was just the necro sitting there. Doing nothing but avoiding damage. No counterattack. And I havent even brought up the sand shade barrier.

Now, we have established that for Deadeye, an unfortunately very low damage class thanks to DJ being impossible to hit, simply doesnt have the damage to kill Necro. Not even remotely. What about Necro killing you? Hoo boy. See, there is this little skill called "Ghastly Claws". Its an axe skill that the current power scourge builds use. Its got a lengthy channel time of 1.75 seconds. Over the course of these 1.75 seconds, it does as much damage as 5 skirmishers shots. Thats right, the entirety of the initiative you dumped into your highest damage skill gets trumped by Necros Axe 2. And thats just one skill, Necro has an entire arsenal left to unleash.

So no, Deadeye does anything but hard-counter necro. Its helpless against any necro who can dodge Death's Judgment. Regular thief does counter Necro in WvW, mainly on account of doing actual damage. But deadeyes damage numbers are so pathetically low, its signature initiative skill worse than Rangers longbow attack, that it simply stands no chance whatsoever.

So yeah, either theyre hilariously undergeared, or you hit DJs. Otherwise you simply cant kill Necros, your damage isnt there.

Well, this explains why you think deadeye is bad, you're on a PvE build which is plain terrible but more importantly your tactics suck because you're too focussed on max DPS.

Firstly, I run SA trick DE for the boon steal on DJ so protection is a non issue. You have way more DJ attempts than a necro has dodges so eventually you will land it, no matter how good the necro is at dodging.

Secondly, M7 is more than viable because you shouldn't be in range of most boon corrupts. You have 1500 range on rifle, use it. If you're being hit by scourge corrupts that's your fault.

Thirdly, you don't use skirmisher's shot Vs necros, you sit at max range with spotter's shot for the immob. This forces them to use cooldowns to close the gap and avoid being killed hilariously because on my marauder build that hits for 4k a shot against anything not full trailblazer.

Fourthly, don't dump ini into barrier or shroud, this is just obvious. As soon as you see it pop, that's your cue to stealth and reposition.

Fifthly, use shadowstep aggressively to take advantage of their low mobility. You should be running multiple stunbreaks on any thief build these days, and shadowstep is a cleanse. So you spotter's shot from max range until they close to 900 range, dodge for stealth and port to their flank, spotter's shot for the immob and DJ before it hits (with quickness at 1200 range the DJ will land before the immob wears off), DPS til the close the gap, dodge and return shadowstep, cleansing 3 condis if you got hit on the second engage. Usually the necro is dead or all but dead by this point.

This is all ignoring the fact that if I run one shot and land the burst, the necro is dead before any of this can happen.

Deadeye Vs necro is like bird Vs potato, one of these things is never going to catch the other if played correctly. Seriously tho, most of the skills you reference have 900 range. That's entirely on you if you're getting hit by them.

No, Im focused on max DPS, because as you can imagine, if you do less damage then the Necro is even less likely to be killed.

Unfortunately, the Necro has more boons than just protection. Ones that are higher in the priority and as a result get stripped first. That is, if you ever hit a DJ, because unfortunately, dodges are not the only way Necro can stop those from hitting, so realistically, you wont hit a single DJ until well into the fight (when youre already dead).

You only have 1500 range if youre kneeling. Which is actively very bad and something you should never do. And even then, they can just walk up, youre a sitting duck while kneeling after all. And Necros best boon corrupt has 1200 range, so youre gonna be hit by it, no matter what.

You dont use spotters shot because its bad. Youre just doing less damage over the same amount of time, and the Necro is in no rush to get to you. Theyll just wait til your burned all your initiative, then walk up slowly and kill you. That is, if they dont just pop stability and walk through your spotters shot. Also, your Spotters shot will not do 4k. It will do 3k-3.5k, except on your build with SA, it will do less, so probably 2.5k-3k on a properly geared scourge.

They will use barrier while your shot is mid-air. You cant stop that, and each barrier only barely takes more than one shot.

They only have to close to 1200 range. Which is like a second of walking. Or a singular dodge. Your attempt at hitting the DJ obviously wont work since the DJ animation starts before the Immob hits, so they just dodge both (unless theyre really bad), the gap is already closed (Shadowstep has 1200 range, so you wont be able to get a port that isnt them already in range), so they will now be killing you. And even then, with this entire attempt, you will not have killed the necro. With your build, you will not even have gotten them to half health.

Nope, the cheesy oneshot build needs to hit glass cannons. It does about 14k damage against any non-toughness/damage reduction builds. Against Necro, it does about 8k, since its a toughness/damage reduction build. Thats 1/3 of their health, and now youre dead.

Its more like tank vs cloaked guy with a knife. Sure, the tank might not be able to stop the cloaked guy from running away, and only is able to kill them if they stay too close for too long. But the cloaked guy with a knife actually can never, ever kill the tank. Its a 1v1 that only has 2 possible outcomes: 1, the thief runs away. 2, the thief dies.

Well, I tried. Deadeye clearly isn't for you.

It has nothing to do with that. I still play Deadeye, mainly out of the fact that I cant be bothered to switch gear every time I go from PvE to WvW. But the problem is that its an actively horrible weaponset that entirely relies on bad enemies. Its in dire need of buffs, specifically as far as damage is concerned. Its a joke that Scourge can have far more sustain, be 4 times as tanky, and still out-DPS you with absolute ease. Scourge. A build that should be good at teamfights and bad at 1v1s.

Look, I've made it clear that I think DE/thief whatever, is completely hard done by when it comes to marked, marked really should be altered in some way to make things more even. But its not under powered. Its not under powered at all. It does counter necro. Maybe a reaper could burst down a DE if the DE makes an error, there was also one reaper build I fought a few times that runs the locust skill that blocks projecticles which was reaallly challenging to kill. But 90% of the time, the DE is going to beat most iterations of necro in most situations. Its ability to kite and stay out of range of the slow and low mobile necro makes the necro an easy target. DE does counter necro at the moment.

On the flip side, a Holosmith running tools should never lose to a DE. So if you want to talk about DE hardcounter start with holosmith+rifle+lockon.

But seriously, necro's are DE food. Just like DE's are holo food.

It is horribly underpowered. It doesnt counter necro. What you describe is that if the thief wants to run away, the necro wont be able to kill the thief. But if the thief wants to fight, the necro can kill the thief. The thief cannot kill the necro. Ive already described why with Deadeyes pathetic damage killing the necro is impossible, so lets go about the "kite and stay out of range" part. Specifically, the part where that doesnt work. You only have a range advantage if youre kneeling. Except, for one kneeling is terrible, but more importantly, you lose that range advantage quickly, since you cant move while attacking. You also dont have much mobility on Rifle, since you need initiative to do any damage, so youre restricted to just shadowstep, which is good burst movement, but bad continous movement.

So, in reality, what happens is that unless the DE uses its tools to run away, it tries to be out of range of necro and poke a little, the necro barely takes damage, walks up to the kneeling Thief, and marks him. Now the thief is slowed/feared/crippled, the necro can walk even closer, and kill him. While being at no risk to DE at all, since DEs damage, again, is far too low to kill the Necro (in fact, Im pretty sure that with the way the cooldowns are lined up, if you just avoid the Deaths Judgments, the necro wont ever die even if he doesnt fight back).

Well, I never have any trouble with necro's. All I need to do is engage them at range and keep them at bay with spotters shot to build malice. I feel my damage is more than adequate, as damage is off the rails with every build these days. I think you're far understating DE.

But we'll agree to disagree much like my disagreements with people who think marked is fine. Although it always seems to be on these forums that a build is brokenly overpowered and needs nerfing or brokenly under powered and needs buffing. DE is fine, it doesn't deserve nerfs before all the other crazy meta battle kitten out there, but it certainly doesn't need any buffs. Its just as broken as everything else.

EDIT: The only time anything that you've stated happens to me is when I'm marked. For the sake of this thread i'll agree that rifle DE is very underpowered when marked. To the point that a rifle DE should run run away whenever it wanders into marked, even against a necro. But unmarked DE is fine.

Then you must be running into glassy, undergeared and/or bad necros. Well, definitely bad ones seeing how spotters shot is somehow keeping them at bay. In a class that can just pop stability and walk up slowly. Good necros are literally unkillable. And no, Im not. Im evaluating it exactly correctly. Its a build that has no survivability or sustain, no damage, no anything. Longbow ranger using nothing but the autoattack is

better

. Thats how bad Deadeye is. Mind you, longbow ranger actually using skills isnt even considered that good. Deadeye is worse than an intentionally severely crippled version of that build.

To put it bluntly, Deadeye is so underpowered that it would require major buffs just to be on par with P/P thief. And thats not a build thats even good. Itd be fine, if Deaths Judgment wasnt impossible to hit, but against good players it is. And without DJ, which is pretty much all your damage, youre just nothing

If you are personally unable to perform well as a Rifle DE, it does not mean the profession/build is inherently weak. So far multiple Thief

mains

have disagreed with your assessment that DE is underpowered and requires "major buffs" and exactly zero people have agreed with you in that regard. Certainly nobody has agreed with you in regards to DE's

not

countering necros. This should be enough information for you to reflect upon and

just maybe

realize that you are not as good of a DE player as you think you may be.

Btw you have a MUCH better chance at killing a de as a core nec, instead of scourge. I main nec, and I have to admit that killing a de in wvw is one of the hardest things to do. Nigh impossible on some occasions. De hardcounters scourge, period, if the de is even halfgood.

Killing a DE is hard, yes. Since if you get close to, they just run away. But a DE killing a properly geared necro is literally impossible. DE does not hardcounter scourge in any way, shape or form, unless you consider "Not dying because its very good at running away" a hardcounter, at which point thief hardcounters everything (including thief, ironically).

I'm sort of curious, you are running a power DE? With rifle? Maybe you could link what build you're running and perhaps that may shed some light as to why you're struggling with necro's.

Im not "struggling with them", I merely avoid them because I know I cant kill them. Because I am playing the highest damage, glassiest build possible ,and my damage just isnt nearly enough (for the record, its full ascended berserkers, DA, CS, DE, Scholar Rune, standard damage food and utility, damage sigils. My Skirmishers shots, the highest damage skill in the arsenal, do 3k or less damage per hit to the 24k health scourge. And I die to just 3 hits from them. You could of course go a lot less glassy and more tanky, but then your skirmishers shots will hit for 2k or even less, and at that point Im pretty sure you get countered just by the scourge pressing the heal skill when its up).

That looks like a strong build but not a controlling one. I think if you pack a few things to tie up their mitigation they'd either die on your opener or maybe be pressured enough to try to reset instead of turning around to nuke you right away at least. Fortunately your core build looks like it should still have the same impact in tightly marked areas so don't write off that quick Death's Judgement, even if appears to be weak to you in the moment, it's at least staggering out your resource pools so you're not chewing up all of your Initiative although it's stronger with modifiers loaded up to Steal and Stealth Attacks and then followed by Skirmishers or whatever under Quickness. I think you wouldn't have to give up too much damage to fit in some quickness, boon steal, and some interrupts or control and then most of the fight could be in your opener and you'd probably rage for one shotting.

They cant die on the opener. Youre just a tiny bit of damage off even when you go "Skirmishers shot x4 -> Deaths Judgment" with the DJ hitting, and thats a total of 3 seconds of uninterupted combat. And of course, requires the DJ to hit. Which it wont. But here is the thing, even if I had quickness (would require to use haste, which means one defensive cooldown down, so thats not a good idea), even if I had interrupts (to be honest, I cant think of any that even are available. Binding Shadow has a long travel time, Scorpion Wire bugs out 90% of the time and the only good one is in Daredevil), it would not change anything. The Necro still does not get killed by you, and still kills you. Basically in order for you to be able to properly "oneshot" the necro (so lets say, just 3 skirmishers and immideate DJ), they would have to fuck up and you still would need around, I want to say 4000 power? Probably more.

The problem is, no matter what approach you take, the ultimate truth is that the necro does more than twice your damage, has more than 4 times as much survivability as you do, much better sustain, and better control and boon access. The only "advantage" you have is range. Except you only do when kneeling (which you dont because the kneel skills suck), and even then its just one dodge, and the advantage is nullified. The only way thief could ever win the fight is if they could attack outside of necros range while still being in range themselves for a couple minutes. You cant even maintain that advantage for 10 seconds.

Jugglemonkey.8741 · September 19, 2019

@UNOwen.7132 said:
@kash.9213 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Doug.4930 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Voltekka.2375 said:
@Turk.5460 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Doug.4930 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Doug.4930 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Turk.5460 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:
@Turk.5460 said:
@UNOwen.7132 said:I dont, most of my experience was facing Deadeyes and being surprised at how awful all versions of it is. Then I tried it and confirmed my suspicions. There simply isnt any way to win 1v1s. You do a lot less damage, your survivability is a lot lower, your utility is a lot lower and you have nothing to make up for any of it. Its incapable of fighting any 1v1, even the usually easy Necros dont lose.