Deadeye need an ability to cancel a deadeye's mark.

[Antycypator.9874]

I know there's "Mercy" which works exactly the same, but it's a break stun and initiative refund. I was thinking about "Cancel Deadeye's Mark" available on CD (after using DE mark). Lose all malice and stolen skill, no refunds; just cancel it.Why? Well... mostly because it's easy to lost your marked target or auto-targeting likes to choose e.g. Thumper Turret instead of a mob or something thats 12km away.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

This is a bit of a pointless change tho, assuming it would not reset the cooldown on mark either. Functionally, that would be the same as just walking off, just with an extra button to press. Unless you want it to reset mark too, in which case why would you ever take Mercy? It's redundant either way.

[kharmin.7683]

Perhaps the DE needs to be careful/accurate with the placing of his/her mark? I don't see this as enough of a problem that needs attention.

[Taril.8619]

I don't understand the need. You don't have anything detrimental from having an active Mark over not having one.

If the idea is to have a cancel button that simply removes the Mark, stolen skill and malice... Then you're in no better situation than if you just left it on the target while you attacked other stuff anyway (With the downside of not being able to even get initiative from incidental cleave damage)

The only way a cancel button would make sense is if it did something to Steal's cooldown, in which case it would be OP because then you're effectively getting Mercy for free (Sans the init boost and stunbreak but the init boost is not particularly relevant when running M7 anyway as you generate tons of init). Which would not only be a huge boost to BQoBK as you could spam steals to get Quickness but also would allow for things like Unload, Heartseeker, Flanking/Larcenous Strike and Cluster Bomb to be spammed without having to deal with going into stealth and landing the stealthed attack by just cancelling the Mark to dump the Malice and reapplying it to proc M7 more.

[Sobx.1758]

@kharmin.7683 said:Perhaps the DE needs to be careful/accurate with the placing of his/her mark? I don't see this as enough of a problem that needs attention.

True, not needed.

@Antycypator.9874 said:Why? Well... mostly because it's easy to lost your marked target or auto-targeting likes to choose e.g. Thumper Turret instead of a mob or something thats 12km away.

Soooo turn off autotarget?

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@Taril.8619 said:I don't understand the need. You don't have anything detrimental from having an active Mark over not having one.

If the idea is to have a cancel button that simply removes the Mark, stolen skill and malice... Then you're in no better situation than if you just left it on the target while you attacked other stuff anyway (With the downside of not being able to even get initiative from incidental cleave damage)

The only way a cancel button would make sense is if it did something to Steal's cooldown, in which case it would be OP because then you're effectively getting Mercy for free (Sans the init boost and stunbreak but the init boost is not particularly relevant when running M7 anyway as you generate tons of init). Which would not only be a huge boost to BQoBK as you could spam steals to get Quickness but also would allow for things like Unload, Heartseeker, Flanking/Larcenous Strike and Cluster Bomb to be spammed without having to deal with going into stealth and landing the stealthed attack by just cancelling the Mark to dump the Malice and reapplying it to proc M7 more.

Also, condi DE would be an abomination with condis on steal if it could reset mark at will without mercy. It's rare I agree with you, but yeah. Not a good change imo.

[ASP.8093]

Not only do you have Mercy, you can get Mark down to, like, a 16 sec cooldown with Trickery if you want to (and even in PvE, that line is a strong choice because you get a ton of boons from constantly resetting the Mark, it's easy to maintain +15% damage with the volume of resource spenders you're using, and the deeper initiative pool makes it easier to get the full benefit of Mercy and M7).

[Zacchary.6183]

I would rather use Mercy. Its a great rollback just in case you get ambushed mid fight, and assuming you have mug, can get in an extra heal before Retreating away.

[Qaju.2058]

No going off a tangent. OP, your rant's root cause problem is the game interface priority targeting the turret dropped by any Dominion engineer NPC in Drizzlewood instead of the charr himself? So because of your habit of automatically opening a fight with Mark, you realise you gotta waste your initiative dealing with the marked turret first, yeah? Am I correct?

[Antycypator.9874]

@aleron.1438 said:No going off a tangent. OP, your rant's root cause problem is the game interface priority targeting the turret dropped by any Dominion engineer NPC in Drizzlewood instead of the charr himself? So because of your habit of automatically opening a fight with Mark, you realise you gotta waste your initiative dealing with the marked turret first, yeah? Am I correct?

That was just an example. I play rifle deadeye in WvW and I can't stand that sometimes I have to wait for my Mark to reacharge because people can run away (zerg). It would be good to switch targets if your current is still alive.Sure, I'm using auto-targeting, because I hate clicking on literally everything.

[kash.9213]

@Antycypator.9874 said:

@aleron.1438 said:No going off a tangent. OP, your rant's root cause problem is the game interface priority targeting the turret dropped by any Dominion engineer NPC in Drizzlewood instead of the charr himself? So because of your habit of automatically opening a fight with Mark, you realise you gotta waste your initiative dealing with the marked turret first, yeah? Am I correct?

That was just an example. I play rifle deadeye in WvW and I can't stand that sometimes I have to wait for my Mark to reacharge because people can run away (zerg). It would be good to switch targets if your current is still alive.Sure, I'm using auto-targeting, because I hate clicking on literally everything.

For now when you're traveling across a size spectrum of fights when a map is on fire you can Mark the most immediate threat to yourself, maybe that other thief or ranger who you know is scoping you out. You'll get the damage increase and reduction to that threat while you're hammering other targets and you can sit on the Stolen Skill until you need to ping them if they're stealthed. I like Basilik Venom with Stolen Skill to pop people from Stealth but it's also a good way to start dismantling or tripping up some squad or group support if you're not into driver sniping, I'll pop the Venom Stolen Skill then hopefully Scorpion Wire will bite and they'll have to scramble to get their healer or buffs back.

[doogal.9368]

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

Also, condi DE would be an abomination with condis on steal if it could reset mark at will without mercy. It's rare I agree with you, but yeah. Not a good change imo.

So am I correct in thinking thieves aren't really after condi builds in pvp?

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@doogal.9368 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

Also, condi DE would be an abomination with condis on steal if it could reset mark at will without mercy. It's rare I agree with you, but yeah. Not a good change imo.

So am I correct in thinking thieves aren't really after condi builds in pvp?

Depends on the thief really, and it often depends how much the player plays thief. Most newer thieves tend to play condi more as the learning curve isn't as steep as power because of the added defensive stats, although there are veterans that have always played condi. There's also those veteran thieves that have been playing S/D power or D/P power forever because that's what was meta, and you'll never see them play anything else. Then there's buildcrafters, who play everything because they just enjoy making and testing builds to see what works. You can usually tell who fits into what group here based on their forum posts.

I'm more of a buildcrafter, I've played my fair share of my own condi builds in WvW but I can't say I enjoy the condi build that is floating around PvP and WvW at the moment either, mostly because I think trailblazer is a very binary set to run. Either the enemy can deal with your condis and you are an easy kill, or they can't and they are an easy kill. This is boring from a build perspective imo, because the result of the fight largely depends on their build, not because of anything you did. I actually am really liking a celestial deadeye build I made for PvE and WvW atm. It's an attrition build (like condi was originally supposed to be) so it's not as burst heavy as marauder or trailblazer but it has the advantage of working around things like endure pain and stone signet and has surprisingly good DPS if you can sustain an attack, so I'm enjoying it in 1v1 and small scale fights.

More to the point, the OP's suggestion would potentially allow a deadeye to stack poison from 1500 range (poison on steal), the poisons would have a duration of 20s with max condi duration so assuming you could use this button every 2s you'd build up and maintain 20 stacks of poison before the first application expires. On top of that you'd apply 25 vulnerability stacks (even the odds) all while never leaving stealth (stealth on mark). If you decided to get stealth from something other than steal, you could take trickery over SA and add 25 might from thrill of the crime, daze spam from sleight of hand, and stupid amounts of boonrip from bountiful theft and absorption sigil. There is just no way that this change is healthy because of how many things you can make your steal skill do, it should never be spammable. This is assuming the change resets mark, the skill simply removes the mark and puts mark on a cooldown of 10s or more, the change would serve absolutely no function whatsoever because with trickery mark is only on a 17s cooldown to begin with. I can only assume the OP didn't think through the consequences of the change.

Edited as I realised I was envisioning a thief with 4 specialisations xD

[kharmin.7683]

@Antycypator.9874 said:

@aleron.1438 said:No going off a tangent. OP, your rant's root cause problem is the game interface priority targeting the turret dropped by any Dominion engineer NPC in Drizzlewood instead of the charr himself? So because of your habit of automatically opening a fight with Mark, you realise you gotta waste your initiative dealing with the marked turret first, yeah? Am I correct?

That was just an example. I play rifle deadeye in WvW and I can't stand that sometimes I have to wait for my Mark to reacharge because people can run away (zerg). It would be good to switch targets if your current is still alive.Isn't there a utility skill that will do this?

[ASP.8093]

@"kharmin.7683" said:Isn't there a utility skill that will do this?

Yup. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mercy

You can even try to combo it with Improvisation for a pretty spicy but unreliable skill-recharging gimmick.

[Zevered.9345]

I know this is an old thread but I agree with OP, Mercy should be removed and reworked and F1 should flip to be able to cancel it. Or just remove the cooldown on the skill so you can switch targets quicker. I am speaking purely from a PvE perspective, it become obvious the skill is wonky as hell there. The Kudu fight is a prime example, you mark Kudu blast him for 20% of his hp and he jumps up on a pedestal becoming invulnerable. Out comes the big robot adds. Well now you just sit there with nerfed dps and no way of stacking Malice. This prof needs a serious rework, a rotation of F1, 3 3 3, Stealth, 1 isnt really fun tbh. Dont get me wrong I enjoy the big numbers popping up on the screen, but youre rooted and the dps doesnt make up for it at all tbh.

Edit: One idea would be to move the Malice stacks to the darn Deadeye instead of the target and balance it for PvP afterwards. Doesnt matter what target youre firing on, youre stacking your Malice regardless, you can still only do single target DPS...

Edited February 7, 2022 by Zevered.9345

[kash.9213]

20 hours ago, Zevered.9345 said:

I know this is an old thread but I agree with OP, Mercy should be removed and reworked and F1 should flip to be able to cancel it. Or just remove the cooldown on the skill so you can switch targets quicker. I am speaking purely from a PvE perspective, it become obvious the skill is wonky as hell there. The Kudu fight is a prime example, you mark Kudu blast him for 20% of his hp and he jumps up on a pedestal becoming invulnerable. Out comes the big robot adds. Well now you just sit there with nerfed dps and no way of stacking Malice. This prof needs a serious rework, a rotation of F1, 3 3 3, Stealth, 1 isnt really fun tbh. Dont get me wrong I enjoy the big numbers popping up on the screen, but youre rooted and the dps doesnt make up for it at all tbh.

Edit: One idea would be to move the Malice stacks to the darn Deadeye instead of the target and balance it for PvP afterwards. Doesnt matter what target youre firing on, youre stacking your Malice regardless, you can still only do single target DPS...

It is frustrating not being able to switch marks given that line of sight and invulns are a thing. I'd like to be able to cancel and change marks at times but I'm not sure if that would be often enough for a change like that to makes sense. There could be a color shaded count down on the Mark icon to give an idea of when Stolen Items cooldowns and Steal related modifiers are up. I do think it's mostly fair currently though, building 5 Malice can happen swiftly if you're prepped for it and Mark is a contract, so it's modifiers being connected to the target makes sense. I appreciate that at times like when I need to put Basilik Venom on a Stolen skill to tag someone who broke LoS or is in Stealth. 

Edited February 8, 2022 by kash.9213

[Stx.4857]

I'm new to deadeye but the mark malice mechanic is really frustrating.  In pvp when your mark hides behind los and you start attacking someone else, not building malice feels just terrible.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

5 hours ago, Stx.4857 said:

I'm new to deadeye but the mark malice mechanic is really frustrating.  In pvp when your mark hides behind los and you start attacking someone else, not building malice feels just terrible.

It is sort of meant to be the trade-off for superb ranged damage. But, considering how largely thief's damage has been neutered all across the spectrum, I don't see the warrant anymore, either.

It's not as much of an issue in PvE as it is in PvP and WvW, where the initiative costs for rifle are kitten. 6 for Death's Retreat AND Three-Round Burst is insane - yet if you pick Improvisation (which I've been ignoring) you're going to have a lackluster time damage-wise. And, again, if you ignore Shadow Arts you're likely to get roasted by any build with a gap closer and a bit of additional durability.

[saerni.2584]

Those ideas, especially zero cooldown on Mark, couldn't be implemented because of all the "on Steal" traits. Unless you added internal cooldowns to everything (which would likely tend to make the traits unreliable):
 

You'd be able to permastealth just by rotating Mark on a target. You'd have 100% Fury/Might/Swiftness. You'd have infinite initiative. Your ability to poison and bleed a target with just Mark at 1500 range would be limitless. 
 

Now, I totally get the frustration of needing to build malice. You either need to use piercing attacks or otherwise ensure you hit your specific target to build malice. If you don't you can't get stealth from your F2 or extra initiative/boons from M7. Other people, geometry, or even random obstructed bugs can make things just not work. And in PvE there are bosses that just don't work with Mark because the obstructed bug prevents you from doing your damage rotation (Octovine is a classic example). 
 

But those bugs don't justify anything. Anet should fix the bugs. That's a much more simple and reasonable ask. You'd need to rebalance the entire Thief profession otherwise—not going to happen.

[ASP.8093]

The only improvement that would be nice here is clearing marks when bosses "phase" in PvE.

For PvP play, the mark is a commitment and if your target peels off or hides, you have options about how to engage them further. Also the cooldown is only ~17 sec and you've got Mercy to reset (and restock Initiative when you do).

[DeceiverX.8361]

On 2/9/2022 at 9:06 AM, saerni.2584 said:

Those ideas, especially zero cooldown on Mark, couldn't be implemented because of all the "on Steal" traits. Unless you added internal cooldowns to everything (which would likely tend to make the traits unreliable):
 

You'd be able to permastealth just by rotating Mark on a target. You'd have 100% Fury/Might/Swiftness. You'd have infinite initiative. Your ability to poison and bleed a target with just Mark at 1500 range would be limitless. 
 

Now, I totally get the frustration of needing to build malice. You either need to use piercing attacks or otherwise ensure you hit your specific target to build malice. If you don't you can't get stealth from your F2 or extra initiative/boons from M7. Other people, geometry, or even random obstructed bugs can make things just not work. And in PvE there are bosses that just don't work with Mark because the obstructed bug prevents you from doing your damage rotation (Octovine is a classic example). 
 

But those bugs don't justify anything. Anet should fix the bugs. That's a much more simple and reasonable ask. You'd need to rebalance the entire Thief profession otherwise—not going to happen.

Yeah, I can't understand how anyone can justify asking for increases in Mark cast availability when so many super potent effects are tied to the application/steal.

Like anything, Mark is a skill.  You don't get take-backsies on stuff you cast on any other profession, either.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

On 2/14/2022 at 3:07 AM, DeceiverX.8361 said:

Yeah, I can't understand how anyone can justify asking for increases in Mark cast availability when so many super potent effects are tied to the application/steal.

Like anything, Mark is a skill.  You don't get take-backsies on stuff you cast on any other profession, either.

Fair, and I tend to agree.
1) It's easier to balance deadeye's strengths and weaknesses with this limitation in place.
2) It gives the spec a distinct feel and trade-off.
3) It actually keeps the design space a bit more open for current traits.

[DoomNexus.5324]

I would already be satisfied if deadeye's mark would reset when the target goes down, not die entirely.
Because I really don't want to cleave through a ton of downed-player-hp or stomp just to get my mark back, especially since it's usually beneficial to let them bleed out in sPvP.
And being forced to waste Mercy just to get it off a downed target is also meh.. But idk, imo it's rather an annoyance than an issue.

Edited February 17, 2022 by DoomNexus.5324

[ASP.8093]

On 2/17/2022 at 9:23 AM, DoomNexus.5324 said:

I would already be satisfied if deadeye's mark would reset when the target goes down, not die entirely.
Because I really don't want to cleave through a ton of downed-player-hp or stomp just to get my mark back, especially since it's usually beneficial to let them bleed out in sPvP.
And being forced to waste Mercy just to get it off a downed target is also meh.. But idk, imo it's rather an annoyance than an issue.

It also really should reset when you take a ranger pet to 0 hp.

That pet is *dead* for all intents and purposes, it's just a weird (and kinda glitchy) animation.