Rifle Deadeye PVE Benchmarks / Lower DPS

[Swiftwynd.1685]

> @"Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497" said:

 

> Why is the rework bad just because the numbers are lower? I love Deadeye, but I'm not acting like it's the end of the world. If you really find it a problem, stay on daredevil for sometime till Anet tweaks it. It's not like PUB games even allowed thieves to take deadeyes in the first place.

 

The issue at hand is there are a limited number of slots in a raid composition. Fights have different mechanics that make some damage builds easier to use, or very hard to use, and even the hit box size of the foe matters for a damage build's viability.

 

You have some builds that work amazing on large hit box, stationary, easy to hit bosses that don't interrupt you often. Weaver (Condi Berserker) on Gorseval/KC.

You have some builds that thrive on bosses that regularly move, have small hit boxes, or otherwise interrupt your rotations due to mechanics. Mirage and Renegade on Soulless Horror / Matthias.

 

You have some builds that really need positional flanking to do their best, regardless of hitbox size. Soulbeast, and now our "best" 31k power D/D rotation.

You have some builds that really dont need positional flanking and dont care about hit box size, and are fairly reliable and easy to use, but in all cases have much lower damage potential. These really can be used almost anywhere, but in almost all cases, they also bring something else to the table, such as strong CC, a reflect skill, something.

 

 

Currently, Rifle Deadeye does not fit into any of the above. They are "lower" than the easy to play Generalists by a LARGE margin, and the Dagger/Dagger build is Weaker than the "literally easiest braindead" Shortbowx2 Soulbeast build that ALSO enhances his own condi group members with Vulture's stance and power members with Alpha Strikes.

 

So, in the matrix of "hmm, I have 9 professions, who should I bring to this encounter" the absolute answer, definitively, is never a Thief at this current time. It has, literally, no place it "shines" or situations in which it is even "average because its easy."

 

Essentially, the answer to your question is "yes, the numbers are exceedingly too low, to the tune of almost 20% too low in absolute numbers for the Daggers and about 30% too low for the Rifle, especially considering both of these damage rotations fit into a "needs to be immobile" or "needs to always be flanking" limitations, along with the limitation of "does not bring Control skills" and "does not enhance ally's damage."

 

Now, if they gave "Ironsight's" passive to everyone in the raid who is attacking the Deadeye's mark, then sure, they'd be auto-include in every raid composition, but then we'd still have the "druid/warrior must bring due to passives" problem.

[Platanos.8107]

I raid a lot. As much as it sucks, as long as we have one decent raid spec (we have 2.5 decent ones Condi drd, power drd, power d/d), I think anet's time is better off doing something else. For example, scrapper is absolute trash in pve, besides the beginning of the molten facility fractal. There were some complaints, but nothing really changed pve-wise for them.

 

It kinda sucks that all of our raid specs are dps, but it is better to have some specs cater more to pvp/wvw than pve.

 

However, if I could make my own traits willy-nilly, I would remove Collateral Damage, reduce 1% dmg from boons to .5% from Premediation, and move it to a minor trait. Fire for effect changed to self-applied boons are shared next to marked targets and yourself. Put in another major trait. I think it could hit ~24k dps with p/p or rifle, along with giving perma might and fury to the group. You could give 40% quickness uptime if you trait for it, and it will be even higher if you have alacrity. Same with vigor. Additionally, S/D just got better, and so are some trickery traits that will apply 2x. Just some food for thought. I know some people love FfE; it was more of an example. I just really wished anet didn't half ass this support deadeye thing.

[Swiftwynd.1685]

> @"Platanos.8107" said:

> I raid a lot. As much as it sucks, as long as we have one decent raid spec (we have 2.5 decent ones Condi drd, power drd, power d/d), I think anet's time is better off doing something else. For example, scrapper is absolute trash in pve, besides the beginning of the molten facility fractal. There were some complaints, but nothing really changed pve-wise for them.

>

> It kinda sucks that all of our raid specs are dps, but it is better to have some specs cater more to pvp/wvw than pve.

>

> However, if I could make my own traits willy-nilly, I would remove Collateral Damage, reduce 1% dmg from boons to .5% from Premediation, and move it to a minor trait. Fire for effect changed to self-applied boons are shared next to marked targets and yourself. Put in another major trait. I think it could hit ~24k dps with p/p or rifle, along with giving perma might and fury to the group. You could give 40% quickness uptime if you trait for it, and it will be even higher if you have alacrity. Same with vigor. Additionally, S/D just got better, and so are some trickery traits that will apply 2x. Just some food for thought. I know some people love FfE; it was more of an example. I just really wished anet didn't half kitten this support deadeye thing.

 

I think the issue is importance since every other spec has a raid viable build that has some good use in general. Condi Daredevil is about our only viable build and it is very restricted in the fights it is usable on. Holosmith, comparatively, works just fine everywhere and brings some good perks as well, even with its rotation simplified variants.

 

I'm actually getting some good mileage out of the new med kit with scrapper's existing tools and traits as well, so it has a place potentially.

 

I do agree that Fire For Effect is currently our only good use-case across most raid encounters now, although we DO have the omega powerful Boon Thief on Matthias, Mursaat Overseer, wing 5 Statue events, and on Keep Construct, so there is that for the really niche people like myself that run it. With the druid changes we absolutely do stack and maintain might significantly better than they can, which might free up some more space for other healers, still working that out with our group.

 

I'd be fine having "just ok" damage of around 30k with rifle and 33k with Dagger/Dagger, and 36k+ with "ideal" scenarios, if we also have the Might/Fury/vigor/swiftness stacker role on lock down.

 

[TwiceDead.1963]

Rifle is in a worse spot now for PvE players, hopefully they sort that out somehow. . .

 

But Deadeye's were never Raid competitive pre-patch. They had a notoriously bad reputation to the point where some of them got kicked outright just for seeing the Deadeye emblem in the squad on pub groups. Whenever a Deadeye brought this up, the routine response was _"Find yourself a friendly Guild"_, which they had to.

 

Unless thief becomes the DPS overlords in the entire game, they are never going to be automatically accepted because they bring no group utility aside from FfE, which means Might and Fury. Woo~

 

The more interesting solution is to give them some of that group utility...

[CptAurellian.9537]

> @"TwiceDead.1963" said:

> Unless thief becomes the DPS overlords in the entire game, they are never going to be automatically accepted because they bring no group utility aside from FfE, which means Might and Fury. Woo~

>

> The more interesting solution is to give them some of that group utility...

Many (most?) dps classes don't bring substantial utility apart from CC, which thief isn't that bad at. Besides, what kind of utility do you want to give to thief? Most boons are redundant and we really don't need more stupid unique buffs in this game. Thief should rather get reliable top tier dps (_not_ overlord dps), which is currently lacking.

[TwiceDead.1963]

> @"CptAurellian.9537" said:

> > @"TwiceDead.1963" said:

> > Unless thief becomes the DPS overlords in the entire game, they are never going to be automatically accepted because they bring no group utility aside from FfE, which means Might and Fury. Woo~

> >

> > The more interesting solution is to give them some of that group utility...

> Many (most?) dps classes don't bring substantial utility apart from CC, which thief isn't that bad at. Besides, what kind of utility do you want to give to thief? Most boons are redundant and we really don't need more stupid unique buffs in this game. Thief should rather get reliable top tier dps (_not_ overlord dps), which is currently lacking.

 

Part of the problem with that is how most raid bosses boil down to a DPS race, which limits the amount of utility needed, another is how easily accessible every boon is in the game. It's a goddamn overflow to the point where one class can almost bring everything of necessity. I agree with the notion that we need less unique abilities as that just further locks other classes out, because of the feeling of _need_, that it fosters in the playerbase.

[Asur.9178]

> @"Asur.9178" said:

> > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > **A message from Robert Gee, Guild Wars 2 Systems Team:**

> > In a previous update we increased the damage of rifle skills to put Deadeye in a good spot from a DPS-perspective, so this update is focused more around improving their gameplay patterns and mechanics.

>

> Considering the whole change to rifle DPS was done through a single skill, which has now become exclusive to stealth, I hope your overall changes balances this out because otherwise you effectively killed the DPS boost you gave rifle because you decided to do it through a single skill.

>

> We will find out come Tuesday, but I hope you will not let me down. Time will tell!

 

This drop in DPS is NOT shocking at all, and was quite expected from players like myself.

 

DD still outperforms DE in every single gamemode, unless you're meme-ing or "having fun" running around in OWPvE, spamming 3 on P/P.

[Tashigi.3159]

> @"Asur.9178" said:

> DD still outperforms DE in every single gamemode, unless you're meme-ing or "having fun" running around in OWPvE, spamming 3 on P/P.

Incorrect, Asur. Power DD and Power Rifle DE were toe to toe on DPS meters before this rework. In fact, Power Rifle DE often beat Power DD in most scenarios.

Use the outdated benchmark sheet for reference: https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks/

[mPascoal.4258]

> @"Tashigi.3159" said:

> Every PVE Thief should have a problem with this damage reduction, even you.

> Pre patch, we were in middle to high grounds damage wise. But now, you're going to be at the bottom of the line (Close to support classes DPS). There is 0 reason to bring anything but D/D Deadeyes to Raids/T4 CM's if a support Power Chrono can rival your DPS while also supporting the entire group with all of their lyssa blessed boons.

> https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks/

 

I dont want to bash andsound hurtful, but to be honest, what was the reason to even bring Thief before this anyway? I havent seen Thiefs in PvE for ages, even in fractals is a rare sight... for pure dps there are other that can do it better and with much easier time while doing it

I'm also not fine with this Thief should be the hardest hiting class IMO because they have to be on close range and have no HP and no Armor basicly, so technically they have the hardest keeping nice DPS, but with the changes I also did not predict a increase in DPS but it should feel a lot smother to play the spec in PvP

[Tashigi.3159]

> @"mPascoal.4258" said:

> I dont want to bash andsound hurtful, but to be honest, what was the reason to even bring Thief before this anyway? I havent seen Thiefs in PvE for ages, even in fractals is a rare sight... for pure dps there are other that can do it better and with much easier time while doing it

> I'm also not fine with this Thief should be the hardest hiting class IMO because they have to be on close range and have no HP and no Armor basicly, so technically they have the hardest keeping nice DPS, but with the changes I also did not predict a increase in DPS but it should feel a lot smother to play the spec in PvP

That's actually exactly the point many of us are trying to make.

If there was little to no reason to bring a Thief before, what reason is there now?

Thieves, if played proper, can do a lot of raw damage (at least before this rework) while bringing some decent CC from either Pistol offhand or Venoms or Rifle kneeled #2 for Immobilize (though that's a soft CC).

So prior to this rework, Thieves (more specifically, DE) were sort of the typical power slot filler, similar to how DH, Holo, Weaver, etc are. If you want to fill that role now, you have to basically switch out the entire spec and go back to Daredevil.

 

[Asur.9178]

> @"Tashigi.3159" said:

> > @"Asur.9178" said:

> > DD still outperforms DE in every single gamemode, unless you're meme-ing or "having fun" running around in OWPvE, spamming 3 on P/P.

> Incorrect, Asur. Power DD and Power Rifle DE were toe to toe on DPS meters before this rework. In fact, Power Rifle DE often beat Power DD in most scenarios.

> Use the outdated benchmark sheet for reference: https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks/

 

I hate to repeat myself; so, if you want to argue with yourself over what you read in your head, as opposed to what is actually written, then that's your choice.

[Tashigi.3159]

> @"Asur.9178" said:

> I hate to repeat myself; so, if you want to argue with yourself over what you read in your head, as opposed to what is actually written, then that's your choice.

Your quote didn't populate when I first read that. Gotcha, though.

 

[Zalavaaris.5329]

I'll probably just switch to warrior. They seem to have a place in everything.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

Would buffing the iron sight trait to 21% and fixing the silent scope dodge issues help bring the dps back to 33k? I am trying to think of ways that could at least somewhat bring PvE rifle back to the 33k range because despite me wanting them to roll back the changes to the old way. I don't see it happening.

 

Or perhaps they could make silent scope work with all weapon types on that when you roll you enter stealth? Would save a slot on my P/P set up.

 

[Tashigi.3159]

> @"Doctor Hide.6345" said:

> Would buffing the iron sight trait to 21% and fixing the silent scope dodge issues help bring the dps back to 33k? I am trying to think of ways that could at least somewhat bring PvE rifle back to the 33k range because despite me wanting them to roll back the changes to the old way. I don't see it happening.

> Or perhaps they could make silent scope work with all weapon types on that when you roll you enter stealth? Would save a slot on my P/P set up.

It would bring Rifle back up, but given that it is a passive trait, it'd push D/D even further on DPS. So this would not really "normalize" DPS across builds.

It would be best to put the extra damage on Silent Scope so D/D Thieves have to make a decision between Premeditation and Silent Scope, instead of automatically getting the extra damage passively.

Another way is to put part of it on Silent Scope and the other on M7; IE 7% extra damage on full Malice and 5% extra damage while kneeling.

Keep in mind, that given that we need to dodge to stealth to then DJ, the delay will result in DPS loss, as well. So you won't be seeing 33K DPS, it's more likely that you'll see 30-31K DPS total, unless you add in stuff like Glyph of Empowerment from Druid.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

> @"Tashigi.3159" said:

> > @"Doctor Hide.6345" said:

> > Would buffing the iron sight trait to 21% and fixing the silent scope dodge issues help bring the dps back to 33k? I am trying to think of ways that could at least somewhat bring PvE rifle back to the 33k range because despite me wanting them to roll back the changes to the old way. I don't see it happening.

> > Or perhaps they could make silent scope work with all weapon types on that when you roll you enter stealth? Would save a slot on my P/P set up.

> It would bring Rifle back up, but given that it is a passive trait, it'd push D/D even further on DPS. So this would not really "normalize" DPS across builds.

> It would be best to put the extra damage on Silent Scope so D/D Thieves have to make a decision between Premeditation and Silent Scope, instead of automatically getting the extra damage passively.

> Another way is to put part of it on Silent Scope and the other on M7; IE 7% extra damage on full Malice and 5% extra damage while kneeling.

> Keep in mind, that given that we need to dodge to stealth to then DJ, the delay will result in DPS loss, as well. So you won't be seeing 33K DPS, it's more likely that you'll see 30-31K DPS total, unless you add in stuff like Glyph of Empowerment from Druid.

 

That is true. I didn't think of that. I would be fine with the 7% on Silent and 5% on M7, so just the rifle really benefits from it. Maybe they could do an increase in attack damage skills to compensate for the rolling time to make it 33k again?