Rifle deadeye is in need of serious rework

[Touchme.1097]

Zero cleave, underperforming single target damage in fractals, underperforming in most raids, low popularity. I think it's time for a serious rework for Deadeye.

I can't see why nobody thought of replacing Rifle 2 with explosive rounds. If you look at Snowcrows the rotation doesn't even include Rifle 2 for optimal damage, and the build needs daggers to finish off the fight.

Deadeye is a seriously flawed design that should be reworked to be competitive in PvE, I get flamed in Fractals and it's very hard for thieves to compete for a raid slot.

Explosive rounds should replace Rifle 2 in order to do some damage on multiple enemies, everyone has a cleave ability, why can't Deadeyes get one too? Their single target damage is not performing good enough to compensate for the lack of a cleave. Either you buff Deadeye's DPS or you add cleave for balance purposes.

Rifle 3 spamming, it's a bad design in my opinion, being able to spam Rifle 3 10 times without an actual rotation because using the other abilities would mean a damage loss. Autoattack while kneeling should do more damage than the current AA damage.

Death's Judgment animation shouldn't be slower than an AA, it feels clanky, Deadeye is a rifle specialised elite spec, I think the delay on Death's Judgment animation is not needed. It makes the thief unnecessarily vulnerable and it doesn't feel like playing a sniper either. Remove the delay pls and make it as fast as AAs.

 

[Yasai.3549]

The "cleave" for Deadeye lies in its Adept Trait : Collateral Damage.

 

Yu burst the main target, it boom booms, yu mark another and repeat.

 

They should probably make it less tedious but it's a tad wrong to say Deadeye has "no cleave"

 

If they make DJ too fast, the competitive scene is gonna complain, so I don't see that happening.

 

 

Also on the spam thing.... hahaha.... what rotation do yu want xD yur playing Thief.

 

 

 

[Touchme.1097]

> @"Yasai.3549" said:

> The "cleave" for Deadeye lies in its Adept Trait : Collateral Damage.

>

> Yu burst the main target, it boom booms, yu mark another and repeat.

>

> They should probably make it less tedious but it's a tad wrong to say Deadeye has "no cleave"

>

> If they make DJ too fast, the competitive scene is gonna complain, so I don't see that happening.

>

>

> Also on the spam thing.... hahaha.... what rotation do yu want xD yur playing Thief.

>

>

>

 

I play power sword Weaver, I want a proper rotation for thieves. You can clearly see where I come from XD

Anyway ty for the info, I just wished Deadeye to be back into the meta, it's tough to compete with other DPS when all you can do is DPS as a profession and the DPS is underperforming

[Raffrey.5271]

Deadeye is so single-target focused they should excel at single-target DPS. It feels so weird that they are not.

I think devs could change one of the Deadeye trait to something like, when you're kneeled(so that this won't affect pistols and make them overpowered) you deal 5~10% more damage but lower toughness by 120~300(reasonable trade off sustain for damage), of course this is for PvE, in PvP and WvW maybe the damage modifier should be kept lower.

 

Edit- or make rifle skill 2 to apply buff on thief to deal more damage for ~5 seconds, or debuff on target to receive more damage for ~5 seconds.

[kash.9213]

We use the same gear in WvW and it doesn't feel bad at all to me even when I knock out story stuff, is it really that bad? I handle crowds mostly with absorption and draining sigils with Rending Shade and Premeditation kind of helps keep up pressure plus I can pick up Collateral Damage in pve. I'm sorry I don't know anything about Fractals, that Snowcrow rifle build looks like it should make sense for what you're doing. It looks like it has a heavy surface hitting feel to it though and I'd probably get frustrated and switch to Rending Shade or maybe Cloaked in Shadow and slot some blinds before I get voted out.

[Sobx.1758]

Espec doesn't need to do everything, it's part of a class, not a new class of its own. You want cleave, then build for cleave. DE's single target is doing fine and I didn't have trouble with finding a spot in raid squads for a dps spot. So no, it's not in need of a serious rework. If you want "weaver-like rotations", then play weaver. Thief is based on a different mechanic and it should be obvious why it doesn't really have a rotation you're aiming for. Saying "I like that class, so make this class like that one" is pretty ridiculous, we can choose between different classes and their playstyles for a reason.

Aaaand dj definitely shouldn't have its cast time reduced, there's simply no need for that in any mode.

[Touchme.1097]

> @"Sobx.1758" said:

> Espec doesn't need to do everything, it's part of a class, not a new class of its own. You want cleave, then build for cleave. DE's single target is doing fine and I didn't have trouble with finding a spot in raid squads for a dps spot. So no, it's not in need of a serious rework. If you want "weaver-like rotations", then play weaver. Thief is based on a different mechanic and it should be obvious why it doesn't really have a rotation you're aiming for. Saying "I like that class, so make this class like that one" is pretty ridiculous, we can choose between different classes and their playstyles for a reason.

> Aaaand dj definitely shouldn't have its cast time reduced, there's simply no need for that in any mode.

 

You are not following my argument, I don't want every class to be like a Weaver, I want Deadeye to have a decent interactive rotation that would make most of its abilities useful. Just because you don't have an issue finding a raid spot doesn't mean the class itself is fine, this is a flawed assumption that leads to no valid point. DJ should have its cast time reduced because in raids a lot of mechanics require a fast reaction time to be dodged and the cast time is unnecessary, not only because it's an empowered autoattack but because it requires previous casting of other abilities with a casting time, so it requires 2x casting times.

Since Thief can only do Damage, Deadeye needs enough changes to bring this elite spec back to the meta.

[Sobx.1758]

> @"Touchme.1097" said:

> > @"Sobx.1758" said:

> > Espec doesn't need to do everything, it's part of a class, not a new class of its own. You want cleave, then build for cleave. DE's single target is doing fine and I didn't have trouble with finding a spot in raid squads for a dps spot. So no, it's not in need of a serious rework. If you want "weaver-like rotations", then play weaver. Thief is based on a different mechanic and it should be obvious why it doesn't really have a rotation you're aiming for. Saying "I like that class, so make this class like that one" is pretty ridiculous, we can choose between different classes and their playstyles for a reason.

> > Aaaand dj definitely shouldn't have its cast time reduced, there's simply no need for that in any mode.

>

> You are not following my argument, I don't want every class to be like a Weaver, I want Deadeye to have a decent interactive rotation that would make most of its abilities useful.

 

But that's what I answered to: due to the mechanic that thief uses (initiative instead of cooldown), it's 100% expected for this class to not have "your regular rotation that makes use of all skills" in pve, because it will just keep using the most efficient/efective one in any given pve situation. If you don't want that then you don't want thief. If you play thief and then come to forum to "change the class so it can have regular rotation in pve" then you're trying to change the class into another one. That's not "DE issue", that's how thief in general works and that's not a reason for an espec rework.

 

>Just because you don't have an issue finding a raid spot doesn't mean the class itself is fine, this is a flawed assumption that leads to no valid point.

 

Why? You say it's bad in pve, but it's not. It's a solid single target deeps, me having no problems with finding a raid spot to fill dps role supports that, not sure how it's flawed assumption, but I'm open for an explanation.

 

>DJ should have its cast time reduced because in raids a lot of mechanics require a fast reaction time to be dodged and the cast time is unnecessary, not only because it's an empowered autoattack but because it requires previous casting of other abilities with a casting time, so it requires 2x casting times.

 

No, it really shouldn't. You shouldn't really have a problem with any mechanic while using dj and if you do, learn the encounter and delay your dj once in a while. Usually that's still not needed in the current form. And no, it doesn't "require 2 x casting times", what even is this idea lol (yes, I understand what you're trying to say, but that's just false).

 

> Since Thief can only do Damage, Deadeye needs enough changes to bring this elite spec back to the meta.

 

No, not really. Your assumption that a class needs to be the best in something (which is when it joines "the meta") to be valid/good/sufficient/worthly/whatever is just false and pretty short sighted imo. Not to mention nearly impossible.

[Zacchary.6183]

There is no such thing as rotation on thief. The very design makes rotating skills impractical and near pointless. The closest you'll ever get with deadeye rifle is Skirmisher's x3 > Dodge (Silent Scope) > Death's Judgement with Maleficent Seven. The rest of the profession + elite specs are spam/use as needed because that's how the initiative system works.

[fluffdragon.1523]

Rifle Deadeye's biggest flaw is that it works best when you use Kneel -- which is entirely counterintuitive in content such as Fractals, where you might have to move quickly or evade lethal effects to progress, and hunkering yourself down into one spot can potentially jeopardize your team mates.

 

In PvE, however, there's far less of a problem. Find yourself a corner, use Kneel, and blast away.

 

Or if you want, just roll pistols. Less damage baseline, more might generation, no change in mobility.

[SinisterSlay.6973]

I love my deadeye. Stealth + Damage. Very fun to play and huge damage to a single target for incredibly little effort. It's my go to for my "chill and kill" class.

[ASP.8093]

M7 on Deadeye transforms all the core weapons — you can freely cycle high-Initiative-cost abilities as long as you have a way of giving yourself stealth or killing your target quickly. That means you're not pigeonholed into Rifle to do damage.

 

If you're worried about thief viability in group PvE (besides Staff Daredevil), that has more to do with the design of the core weapons than the design of Rifle.

[Antycypator.9874]

First, I would like to see a fix for random Reveal and interrupting DJ for no reason or movement.

Rifle Deadeye is a class that doesn't need any rework, only QoL features, like remove pathing from Shadow Gust, teleport skills and Deadeye's Mark (so can use it e.g. on an Octovine), or maybe add a "cancel deadeye's mark" (some kind of Mercy, but with no refunds. You lose your stolen skill and malice; available for 5 seconds after using Deadeye's Mark).

[saerni.2584]

> @"Antycypator.9874" said:

> First, I would like to see a fix for random Reveal and interrupting DJ for no reason or movement.

> Rifle Deadeye is a class that doesn't need any rework, only QoL features, like remove pathing from Shadow Gust, teleport skills and Deadeye's Mark (so can use it e.g. on an Octovine), or maybe add a "cancel deadeye's mark" (some kind of Mercy, but with no refunds. You lose your stolen skill and malice; available for 5 seconds after using Deadeye's Mark).

 

A fix for the LoS issue with Mark is also pretty high on my list. I'd just make two checks, one without LoS for the mark and then a second one with LoS for the stolen skill. It's clunky but there are things like Octovine that consistently bug out because the mark itself never lands even while being able to hit with projectiles.

[Touchme.1097]

I have had issues with DJ being cancelled or unable to land due to target obstruction. These are certainly things that need to be fixed. I was unable to do any damage on the portals spawning during the dragon boss in Drizzlewood Coast's meta event, today. It happens on other targets that get obstructed for no reason and I am unable to do any damage forcing me to swap to melee weapons.

[kash.9213]

> @"Touchme.1097" said:

> I have had issues with DJ being cancelled or unable to land due to target obstruction. These are certainly things that need to be fixed. I was unable to do any damage on the portals spawning during the dragon boss in Drizzlewood Coast's meta event, today. It happens on other targets that get obstructed for no reason and I am unable to do any damage forcing me to swap to melee weapons.

 

I would like Kneel to turn into Crouch where you could still move but slowly so you can position. While in Crouch there could be a laser site that would basically just be a flattened target border the length of max range so we could see where terrain or invisible structure would cut us off.

[draxynnic.3719]

> @"Sobx.1758" said:

> Espec doesn't need to do everything, it's part of a class, not a new class of its own. You want cleave, then build for cleave.

 

On top of this, rifle is only one weapon on a profession with weaponswap. Sword/pistol gives pretty good cleave. If you want to stay at ranged, shortbow is another good option for area damage.

[Touchme.1097]

> @"kash.9213" said:

> > @"Touchme.1097" said:

> > I have had issues with DJ being cancelled or unable to land due to target obstruction. These are certainly things that need to be fixed. I was unable to do any damage on the portals spawning during the dragon boss in Drizzlewood Coast's meta event, today. It happens on other targets that get obstructed for no reason and I am unable to do any damage forcing me to swap to melee weapons.

>

> I would like Kneel to turn into Crouch where you could still move but slowly so you can position. While in Crouch there could be a laser site that would basically just be a flattened target border the length of max range so we could see where terrain or invisible structure would cut us off.

 

I like your suggestion, I was thinking the same thing the first time I started playing Deadeye. Another idea would be permanent stability while kneeling only. This way kneel becomes more useful and not a burden in any mode and DJ doesn't get interrupted.

 

> @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > @"Sobx.1758" said:

> > Espec doesn't need to do everything, it's part of a class, not a new class of its own. You want cleave, then build for cleave.

>

> On top of this, rifle is only one weapon on a profession with weaponswap. Sword/pistol gives pretty good cleave. If you want to stay at ranged, shortbow is another good option for area damage.

 

Swapping to any melee weapon gives cleave on small hit boxes, that doesn't make Rifle combat any better, you are simply forced to swap weapons and interrupt your rifle rotation when cleaving but I get your point. Swapping can translate into a DPS loss when closing the distance gap is necessary.