An Eye on the Deadeye

[Jumpel.3972]

I actually think they make a big mistake by choosing to remove interaction between Malice and Deadeyes Utilities. These Utilities should consume Malice when hiting the marked target with a bonus for each stack consume. It will make a better interaction between Malice system and weapon with no easy acces to stealth or bad stealth attack (like P/P and condi D/D)

[Astyrah.4015]

> @"Jumpel.3972" said:

> I actually think they make a big mistake by choosing to remove interaction between Malice and Deadeyes Utilities. These Utilities should consume Malice when hiting the marked target with a bonus for each stack consume. It will make a better interaction between Malice system and weapon with no easy acces to stealth or bad stealth attack (like P/P and condi D/D)

 

been trying P/P for the lols right now and would love something like this if it was tied to a trait or something.. like if at full M7, and dump all of that on a shadow flare for massive aoe damage would be lovely - that way it opens up more weapon choices for DE builds

[Zephyr.1768]

If they at least would have kept the extra heal for 'malicious restoration' per point of malice you have but no. Generating malice with a p/p build is now completely useless! Even if you somehow go stealth, the little torment you add with 'malicious sneak attack' isn´t satisfying at all.

[Hikarifuxi.4761]

I doubt they will change it back completely but I hope they will at least give us back Death's Judgment at 4 and remove that pointless thing we got on there now, but most important make it available without stealth like before. About the new way of Malice.. I could arrange myself with that but well.. I loved my deadeye the way he was before *sob* Still don't see why there was an urge to change it that massive at all..

[Cameryn.5310]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > First, we felt that stealth was a solid core mechanic that touched every single thief weapon and had many synergies through core traits and skills.

> Wrong (ignoring the fact that P/P feels thematically more like playing a bandit than a "stealthy thief" anyways): stealth based fighting mechanics are pretty much irrelevant for dual pistol gameplay and frankly, no P/P thief cares about having them either. In regards to weapon skills it's definitely not a "core gameplay mechanic for every single thief weapon" nor should it be.

 

This.

 

I'm a P/P PVE deadeye thief. There is NO STEALTH FACTOR in playing a pistol thief. None. The only way you can possibly do it is taking both cantrips (the regular one and the elite one) and somehow work stealth into your rotation periodically... and even then, the ONLY BENEFIT from stealth is a torment dot that is really not useful to a full power build. It's a DPS loss to worry about one stealth shot that barely adds anything.

 

In other words, Malice has absolutely no impact on a pistol deadeye. Which is not what we were told at the start of this change by Robert Gee who said that he thought it was 'better'. We've now gone from a terrific bonus the malice stacks gave us, to no bonus at all, which is sort of the point of playing the deadeye spec (well, one of them, the other being the ranged steal).

 

Explain to me what I'm missing.

[vertiria.3428]

I always remain silent no matter what Anet do to anything. But I won't tolerate for this changes. As one of DeadEye player, I need old mechanic back.

[babazhook.6805]

Prior to changes I rarely used P/P or s/p stealthed. I did express a concern early that weaponsets with low stealth access would be unable to use MALICE to any great degree. We have to trait more of the utilties and traits that provide stealth if we really want to take advantage of the Malice mechnic in these builds. IE Hidden Thief, Shadowmeld , shadowburst.

 

That said without the damage add of the old malice to p/p , if one wants to stay in the DE line there enough reasons to if one p/p focused. (I tend to use p/p as support for my s/d main) One is obviously the added INI provided by Mercy and Mali 7. Premed can also make up at least some of the lost damage via the number of boons stacked on you. I generally have at least 5 if not more boons meaning a 5 percent boost. Iron sight gives a flat out 10 percent boost to damage which we never had before. Iron sight plus premed means a ~ 15 percent boost to damage without malice over old style. This 15 percent is the same you would have got with old style Malice and taking BqoBk. Add in more INI availability and as far as damage overall concerned , P/P is not suffering here.

 

The IRON sight change also applies to all other weapon sets. This +10 percent across the board against marked target. This starts right at the get go and can not be ignored . Given under the old system it took time to build that malice to even get to that 10 percent damage add , in game terms the change benefits p/p when looking at damage output.

[Mahdra.2863]

I also don't post here normally. And I agree with many of the feedback at the end of the thread:

 

The reason I loved the class (I play PvE mainly, by the way) was the fun of getting into position, kneel down, aim and hit the big shot (ability 4 while kneeling). I can't believe that this big damage shot was taken out completely. THAT is what snipers are about. To put it nicely: This change killed the class for me and I'm going to play my other classes instead. I didn't use stealth much, and even switched out the elite ability back to Thieves Guild for emergency support.

 

I'm just disappointed. I hope this change can be reconsidered.

[Turk.5460]

I miss Unforgiving, but at the same time I LOVE the new Silent Scope - though I can't get it to synergize well with Be Quick or Be Killed (immediate self-reveal too often). I'm also having difficulty with the new Death's Judgement, but that's mainly due to muscle memory I guess - since it kneels down and movement stops, I press 5 immediately after the cast to stand up, even though technically I'm already standing...It completely throws off my game haha.

 

Other than that everything is great! Much more fun than before and new builds have opened up, burst damage is through the roof now! TY Anet! :D

[Chameleon Dude.1564]

Okay, so I've given the new deadeye a go... it needs fixing. Apart from dagger/dagger deadeyes, it seems like not just a nerf - but deadeye's very mechanics are broken. Originally, I planned to just list a few bullet points. However, once I started typing it out, I realised more structure was needed because of just how much I feel is wrong with these changes and how strongly I feel about the specialisation. This will probably come across as an angry rant, but I just want to offer some criticism in hope that deadeye can, well... work again.

 

## Malice

* Malice doesn't feel rewarding anymore. Before there would be that incremental damage gain no matter your build. Now it's just a passive damage gain for backstab dagger builds. Malice literally offers nothing if you don't run a stealth spam build. I won't speak for other game modes, but this is _**not**_ something that will be done in PvE.

 

## Stealth Attacks

* I'll preface this section by saying that tying the use of malice to stealth was a horrible idea. Thieves use stealth, yes. Do all thieves use stealth? No. Should all thieves be forced to incorporate stealth into builds for things like PvE? No. While I think some of these stealth attacks are actually fine, the concept of tying malice to stealth just removes the option of even using the deadeye's _**core mechanic**_ even remotely effectively from several weapon set ups.

* Death's Judgement as a concept is fine - it's the sniper kill shot. There are better people to talk about the state of rifle balance than me, so I'll leave it to their posts to go down that rabbit hole.

* Malicious Backstab is strong, _**very**_ strong. This might lead to some annoyance in PvP and WvW. My only real issue here is that I thought daredevil was supposed to be the go-to melee specialisation for thieves.

* Malicious Sneak Attack is just a mess. Mainhand pistol is just a mess. While it's become a joke within the community, _"purity of purpose"_ comes to mind here. The torment stacking seems fair enough for a condition damage weapon... but mainhand pistol is in some weird hybrid state. This would suit a pistol/dagger build, I suppose, but it's literally useless to pistol/pistol - a set up a lot of deadeyes have been using and enjoying. Seeing that pistol/pistol is a power set up used for Unload, with that odd hybrid autoattack, and shortbow is clearly a condition/mobility weapon with a power-based autoattack - maybe it's time we revisited these weapons and made pistol purely power (with a trait similar to Dagger Training to enable pistol/dagger condition builds, or maybe reworking said trait to grant poison to daggers _**and**_ bleed to pistols) and shortbow purely condition? Personally, I feel that a change like this would help the entire class more obvious to use and easier to balance in the future.

* Malicious Tactical Strikes is just... bad. If I wanted unlimited endurance or to jump all over the map in melee, I'd be playing a daredevil. Sword/dagger playstyles have more than enough mobility as it is, and would surely gain more from daredevil. Sword/pistol set ups are taken for Pistol Whip, which stuns and also offers more evade frames. Endurance just isn't needed here.

* Malicious Surprise Shot is fairly okay. As I said earlier, I think it would make more sense for shortbow to become a condition weapon; so on that note I'd suggest adding some bleed or something to this skill.

* Malicious Deadly Strike (yes, I'm even considering the underwater ones!) is okay. My only real gripe would be shared with the base Deadly Strike - it's extra condition damage on a power weapon. Possibly make it pure power?

* Malicious Ripper thematically makes sense. I can't say I've tested it to see the numbers, but bleeding on a mainly condition based weapon is fine.

 

## Minor Traits

* These are okay, I guess. We get the mark recharge and damage in minors now. They're fine.

 

## Adept Traits

* Malicious Intent is a fine choice if malice is useful to you. Sadly, only stealth spamming power dagger and maybe rifle builds benefit from this mechanic anymore. I see no reason to take this if you use any other weapons.

* Collateral Damage is pretty bad. Clearly designed for clearing trash mobs. Tiny radius, low damage and a blind to try and make it slightly useful in PvP? Along with the cooldown on it to stop chain reactions... it's just weak.

* One in the Chamber seems okay on paper, but trying to use this leads to spending half of your time casting utilities and stolen skills... instead of just killing your target with your weapon. Actively trying to use this trait seems to be a dps loss and not offer much else.

 

All in all, Malicious intent seems okay if you have anything to gain from malice, while the other two traits are awful. To fix this tier, I'd suggest making malice useful again outside of stealth spammy builds and just gutting the two worthless traits. I hate to be harsh, but they're just dead traits.

 

## Master Traits

* Silent scope seems fine if you're a rifle user, which is one of the main uses of deadeye (or at least should be). It's functional enough.

* Payback... again it's functional, but it doesn't really _**feel**_ engaging in any way. Shaving a couple of seconds off of a heal, while fairly useful, doesn't feel all that great.

* Premeditation is just odd. It seems to be the choice for the raid boon sharing build that just isn't wanted by groups, despite Arena Net wanting it to be a thing. The damage buff is okay in a group situation, or maybe for some quick burst if comboed with Maleficent Seven. Sadly, in a non-group situation, Be Quick or Be Killed will likely take the grandmaster slot... making this trait just a damage buff if you're raiding.

 

Overall there's an option for rifle snipers and an option for raiding. If you want to do some open world PvE, fractals without a support, WvW roaming or PvP without a rifle... you can shave a few seconds off your heal. It's not a very exciting choice of traits for a lot of weapon choices, but it beats the adepts. Personally, I'd suggest reworking Premeditation to purely help the boon share build, remove the damage buff and stick another 5% flat damage into Iron Sight so we can get our lost damage output back outside of a group scenario (afterall, scaling damage buffs are too confusing for players to understand /s).

 

## Grandmaster Traits

* Maleficent Seven is pretty good for a malice using build. Unfortunately, as I've said before, this only currently gets any real value from power dagger and rifle builds. Having the boons from the old Perfectionist trait being dumped here feels like a loss for the specialisation. If malice was given some use to more builds, this trait would be pretty good.

* Be Quick or Be Killed has stayed the same, a strong choice if you plan to kill your targets quickly or if you have perma-quickness from a nice group composition. It's a good trait.

* Fire for Effect is the trait for the boon sharing build that will never see the light of day. Of itself, it's fine. But to make it viable, the whole game's balance needs a shuffle. I have no intentions of going into that now. Seems like it could work nicely with One in the Chamber and Payback as a combination, but this would mean dropping Premeditation and spending all your time using utilities; severely hurting the deadeye's personal dps. The specialisation would need to offer a _**lot**_ more boons, some general support and be able to tank raid encounters effectively for this trait set up to be worthwhile. I don't think the sniper specialisation should go down that road.

 

One of the grandmaster traits is as strong as ever,;but the other two need changes to the specialisation as a whole, or the game's balance as a whole to reach their full potential.

 

Sorry for the wall of text, I hope that breaking it up made it a bit less unwieldy. In summary:

* Malice, the deadeye's core mechanic, is now tied to stealth. This is how the rifle was designed, but that weapon has other issues. Power dagger/dagger builds can utilise it for an effective damage buff, but this feels more passive than something you'd engage with - build up a couple of malice and backstab as normal. Some tactical use might be seen with some weapons in a PvP scenario, but some weapons' stealth attacks are not readily available in PvE, making malice completely pointless for these playstyles.

* Thief as a whole could use a little purity of purpose concerning pistols and shortbow.

* The traits were gutted. Earlier in this thread, it was said that the traits were being reworked to prevent things such as minor traits conflicting with each other (in this case, rewarding clearing enemies quickly and helping in a prolonged fight - having both of these actually helps when you switch between clearing trash and fighting bosses). Now we have choices at some tiers which just feel... awful... empty...

* Payback and Premeditation are in the same tier and both synergise with Fire for Effect - we still have conflicting traits.

* Boon sharing deadeyes still don't seem to be close to desirable in raids, despite the push Arena Net has made for it.

* The specialisation has gone from an interesting, engaging mechanic (increased damage from malice) to yet more passive power creep tied into an elite specialisation (Iron Sight changing from a defensive adept trait to a flat damage boosting minor trait)

[Anesco.8310]

I think you notice two player types crystallizing out of here. Most people who don't play with rifles love the changes. Most people who play with a rifle don't like the changes. I don't want to take sides, but here ArenaNet would have to listen more to the players who play with a rifle. It's about sniper specialization. This is an elite specialization praised by the rifle. The advertisements of this specialization clearly showed the thief with a rifle. If these changes now make the gunplayers dissatisfied, Anet has done a bad job. Personally, I liked the gun-wearing thief as a sniper the way he was. It was about betting the mark and finding the right position and the right moment. If you don't like this way of playing, the thief gives enough other specializations to find something suitable. I think it is important that we gun-playing thieves continue to let ANet understand how dissatisfied this is for us. If not, ANet will certainly not change anything. ANet will wait for this little s...storm and then forget about the topic. So stay tuned and report your dissatisfaction via the forum.

[Zephyr.5382]

> @"Vulcaruss.9567" said:

> But most of the positive people aren't even using Rifle, which the majority of the changes affect.

 

I'm going to third this comment--for visibility. These changes objectively worsen the main and selling point of the profession. We _do_ need for Anet to see this.

 

> @"Specialka.7290" said:

> I mean, it was not fun in Pve either. Trash mob, you would never be able to get full malice on any single one in open world. It had to be a veteran or more to hope for that. And once you were at full malice, you just had to spam Dj, not really great gameplay either.

 

Well, that's certainly _one_ opinion. Who was waiting for full malice stacks on sub-vet trash, anyway? I've loved the profession and the gameplay ever since it came out. It has kept me logging in to the game every day. After these unwarranted (**in PvE!!!**) changes, my Steam backlog is looking mighty enticing....

[Astyrah.4015]

> @"Zephyr.5382" said:

> After these unwarranted (**in PvE!!!**) changes, my Steam backlog is looking mighty enticing....

 

yeah same here i started poking around starbound and gta online again after losing my motivation to play DE rifle... P/P, when i tried it earlier was really fun to play but the damage just wasnt on par with the old DE rifle

 

 

[kraver.9318]

I feel the _main_ purpose of these changes was to nerf Death Judgement from spam once full Malice is reached. The other changes were just to get you to think that the elite spec was revamped, not nerfed. If they really wanted to remove spamming DJ, fine. But now we have to force stealth every time we want to use DJ? Ugh.. why?

 

And what's the whole point of building malice now for players who don't use rifles or stealth attacks at all? These changes make absolutely no sense, and they need to be reconsidered.

 

[1] Remove that useless new [4] skill for rifle, and put Death Judgement back on there to remove forced stealth. You could've just increased initiative cost or spend Malice stacks to prevent players from spamming this skill. C'mon Anet, think!

[2] Give us back our original Malice's damage increase passive effect.

[3] Keep all the other changes as they are now.

[Aistos.5174]

> @"kraver.9318" said:

> I feel the _main_ purpose of these changes was to nerf Death Judgement from spam once full Malice is reached. The other changes were just to get you to think that the elite spec was revamped, not nerfed. If they really wanted to remove spamming DJ, fine. But now we have to force stealth every time we want to use DJ? Ugh.. why?

>

> And what's the whole point of building malice now for players who don't use rifles at all? These changes make absolutely no sense, and they need to be reconsidered.

>

> [1] Remove that useless new [4] skill for rifle, and put Death Judgement back on there to remove forced stealth. You could've just increased initiative cost or spend Malice stacks to prevent players from spamming this skill. C'mon Anet, think!

> [2] Give us back our original Malice's damage increase passive effect.

> [3] Keep all the other changes as they are now.

 

Very important points! I also can't see any other reason for this whole "destruction" than the try to sell us a nerf of DJ as a "positive revision" of the DE specialisation. And it went terribly wrong:

 

A nerf isn't fun but you can get used to it after a while.

But this patch isn't just an "uncomfortable" nerf, it's a breaking down of the rifle-DE. And honestly, the main weapon of the deadeye should be the rifle if you put it on every picture with a DE. Just give us a nerf of DJ (for example dmg reduction and higher initiative cost) and reset the rest - then all will be fine. We know you can do better ANet.

[Specialka.7290]

The new malice system and how you build it up should stay as it is now. it is better than before.

 

For Dj, they should either make the stealth happen at the end of the roll so you do not reveal yourself by mistake (but then in pvp, it is less useful since your opponent knows where you are) or put it back in 4 and remove the stealth requirement, but that means Anet will need to find a way for other builds to spend the Malice.

[jenosmaverick.8694]

Uhmmm so prolly they wont roll back and we won't know if they'll ever try to "improve" it again lol. Paid $100 for this and I was hoping to enjoy deadeye (still lvl18 only) but it seems i'll be disappointed and might quit in a few months if no improvements are made for p/p or rifle builds.

 

To clarify so p/p DE just got nerf to being unusable for either pve/pvp?

 

It's just frustating I was hoping to enjoy this MMO as I didn't like the grind of bns and lack of open world pvp. And thanks to all those who replied to my earlier posts.

[Turk.5460]

> @"Anesco.8310" said:

> I think you notice two player types crystallizing out of here. Most people who don't play with rifles love the changes. Most people who play with a rifle don't like the changes. I don't want to take sides, but here ArenaNet would have to listen more to the players who play with a rifle. It's about sniper specialization. This is an elite specialization praised by the rifle. The advertisements of this specialization clearly showed the thief with a rifle. If these changes now make the gunplayers dissatisfied, Anet has done a bad job. Personally, I liked the gun-wearing thief as a sniper the way he was. It was about betting the mark and finding the right position and the right moment. If you don't like this way of playing, the thief gives enough other specializations to find something suitable. I think it is important that we gun-playing thieves continue to let ANet understand how dissatisfied this is for us. If not, ANet will certainly not change anything. ANet will wait for this little s...storm and then forget about the topic. So stay tuned and report your dissatisfaction via the forum.

 

I main Rifle and I love the changes.

[Astyrah.4015]

> @"jenosmaverick.8694" said:

> To clarify so p/p DE just got nerf to being unusable for either pve/pvp?

 

P/P BeQuick Deadeye is fun to play in open world PvE (anything sub-veteran rank will usually melt really fast by just opening with DE mark then spamming unload) but suffers from lack of good sustainable DPS on boss fights with high HP pools (basically your opening burst is really good and that's most of where your damage comes from and then you start losing steam on prolonged fights if it drags too long) and you pretty much have no spammable AOE if you don't have a shortbow/dagger+dagger/sword for a swap set, but it is definitely usable. for PvP i think the go-to now after the changes is D/P or D/D but i will leave other people to inform you about the PvP things

 

 

[Aeterni.3741]

> @"CattyWampus.9721" said:

> > @"ulgnaw.8376" said:

> > TL;DR: Please do a full revert of this change.

> >

> > I don't ever post. In the past when there were changes that I hated I would just deal with them (e.g. nerf to Berserker). All of my characters are level 80, so I can just play another class. But, in this time, you've taken away a really interesting playstyle (sniper, stealth, high set up time) and now it's completely removed so that this class plays like a lesser version of other classes.

> >

> > If anything less than a full revert is under consideration, at least bring back the old Sniper's Cover mechanic.

>

> Please. 100% this^

 

Yes.

[DragonSlayer.1087]

I've been playing a lot with the new DE changes to try to get used to this new mechanic. One thing that's very tricky is trying to execute the new DJ once you build enough malice. The new Silent Scope mechanic is not very intuitive now it it's connected to dodge and you require "kneel" to reset the internal cool down. **Wasting your dodge for a stealth should have a better pay off, like longer stealth to allow you set up better for DJ. Either that or decrease the recharge of Shadow Meld** Also please please increase the range to 2000.

 

PS I love how they added the Range Ring Indicator when you kneel so see who's within range.

[breno.5423]

The most problematic thing is the change on silent scope, mainly because we could get on stealth out of combat before and now we can't and moreover because we have to spent endurance to get on stealth.

But, the change on Malificent Seven was pretty cool.

[sorudo.9054]

i rather have death's judgment always available and back where it belongs, the barrier is just useless when you kill enemies faster then they can get close enough to even do anything.

all PvE viewed.

[Tashigi.3159]

> @"Turk.5460" said:

> > @"Anesco.8310" said:

> > I think you notice two player types crystallizing out of here. Most people who don't play with rifles love the changes. Most people who play with a rifle don't like the changes. I don't want to take sides, but here ArenaNet would have to listen more to the players who play with a rifle. It's about sniper specialization. This is an elite specialization praised by the rifle. The advertisements of this specialization clearly showed the thief with a rifle. If these changes now make the gunplayers dissatisfied, Anet has done a bad job. Personally, I liked the gun-wearing thief as a sniper the way he was. It was about betting the mark and finding the right position and the right moment. If you don't like this way of playing, the thief gives enough other specializations to find something suitable. I think it is important that we gun-playing thieves continue to let ANet understand how dissatisfied this is for us. If not, ANet will certainly not change anything. ANet will wait for this little s...storm and then forget about the topic. So stay tuned and report your dissatisfaction via the forum.

>

> I main Rifle and I love the changes.

 

Do you PVE at all, then? 'Cause these changes should have costed you anywhere between 5-9K DPS if you were able to pull 32K DPS before.

Or did you somehow find a way to break out of 26K DPS? I'd love to hear the rotation, 'cause I sure haven't.

[Astyrah.4015]

> @"Tashigi.3159" said:

> > @"Turk.5460" said:

> > > @"Anesco.8310" said:

> > > I think you notice two player types crystallizing out of here. Most people who don't play with rifles love the changes. Most people who play with a rifle don't like the changes. I don't want to take sides, but here ArenaNet would have to listen more to the players who play with a rifle. It's about sniper specialization. This is an elite specialization praised by the rifle. The advertisements of this specialization clearly showed the thief with a rifle. If these changes now make the gunplayers dissatisfied, Anet has done a bad job. Personally, I liked the gun-wearing thief as a sniper the way he was. It was about betting the mark and finding the right position and the right moment. If you don't like this way of playing, the thief gives enough other specializations to find something suitable. I think it is important that we gun-playing thieves continue to let ANet understand how dissatisfied this is for us. If not, ANet will certainly not change anything. ANet will wait for this little s...storm and then forget about the topic. So stay tuned and report your dissatisfaction via the forum.

> >

> > I main Rifle and I love the changes.

>

> Do you PVE at all, then? 'Cause these changes should have costed you anywhere between 5-9K DPS if you were able to pull 32K DPS before.

> Or did you somehow find a way to break out of 26K DPS? I'd love to hear the rotation, 'cause I sure haven't.

 

DE's before the rework were already 3 to 6k DPS lower than your meta power weaver/holo/dh etc. i wonder how they look at us now