PVE - Is malice now useless for p/p deadeye ?

[Tashigi.3159]

@"Sir Vincent III.1286" @"Legatus.3608"

D/D with M7 and Premeditation DPS [benchmark](https://image.ibb.co/i584GJ/M7DD.png "benchmark"). Only reaches 24.4K; less than both Rifle and BQOBK D/D.

If you can push it higher, I'd be curious to know how you did it. Thanks.

[Legatus.3608]

> @"Tashigi.3159" said:

> @"Sir Vincent III.1286" @"Legatus.3608"

> D/D with M7 and Premeditation DPS [benchmark](https://image.ibb.co/i584GJ/M7DD.png "benchmark"). Only reaches 24.4K; less than both Rifle and BQOBK D/D.

> If you can push it higher, I'd be curious to know how you did it. Thanks.

 

If you regularly do these then I'd take your word for it, I just wanted to make sure someone actually tried because I thought the potential might be there. Thanks for your effort.

 

EDIT: you used dancing dagger right? I guess the stipulation would have to be getting a crit every time you use ini, which needs 3 targets really

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @"Haziq.3907" said:

> With malice no longer providing a damage increase, is it now useless for p/p deadeyes ? It seems like only a rifle deadeye can make use of malice now. I only use the p/p deadeye in pve.

 

It's kinda the other way around...

Without Rifle Malice was pretty much "just there", sure it had decent damage improvement, but no real play to it.

 

What they tried to do, but only partially succeed, was make it more interaction, so now it improves your ambush skills, like the new DJ and such.

Problem is, it's Arena Net's balance team, and while the concept of making it more interactive was good, their execution was all over the place, the change to DJ was nice, some of the traits were improved, a lot of them were made wonky, and honestly, you still don't have much play to Malice, except now when it's full you pop stealth for a better burst...

[Tashigi.3159]

> @"Legatus.3608" said:

> EDIT: you used dancing dagger right? I guess the stipulation would have to be getting a crit every time you use ini, which needs 3 targets really

No. Dancing Dagger would lower your DPS further outside of two specific places (WVW vs small group or T4 vs small group of trash and only used at the start). Due to your auto attack cleaving 2x targets while using Dagger on main hand and dealing higher damage than Dancing Dagger, you should never use it as part of your rotation, but as bump to your burst if you have sufficient targets to benefit from it at the start of a fight. (Though frankly, even then I wouldn't use it).

In most cases, Thieves Guild with Spider Venom on the friendly NPC you spawn, while you use your auto attack + cloak & dagger + backstab, will net higher DPS.

In every other case, your normal rotation will net you equal or very close results to Dancing Dagger as an opener. Generally, I rarely equip it TBH; Basilisk Venom provides better support in groups.

 

You can try testing your substained DPS yourself by following the rules at the bottom. It's helpful to do so when learning a new class.

https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks/

Sadly, as you can see, even Banner Slave Warrior is netting higher DPS than Rifle Deadeye now.

[Legatus.3608]

> @"Tashigi.3159" said:

> > @"Legatus.3608" said:

> > EDIT: you used dancing dagger right? I guess the stipulation would have to be getting a crit every time you use ini, which needs 3 targets really

> No. Dancing Dagger would lower your DPS further outside of two specific places (WVW vs small group or T4 vs small group of trash and only used at the start). Due to your auto attack cleaving 2x targets while using Dagger on main hand and dealing higher damage than Dancing Dagger, you should never use it as part of your rotation, but as bump to your burst if you have sufficient targets to benefit from it at the start of a fight. (Though frankly, even then I wouldn't use it).

> In most cases, Thieves Guild with Spider Venom on the friendly NPC you spawn, while you use your auto attack + cloak & dagger + backstab, will net higher DPS.

> In every other case, your normal rotation will net you equal or very close results to Dancing Dagger as an opener. Generally, I rarely equip it TBH; Basilisk Venom provides better support in groups.

>

> You can try testing your substained DPS yourself by following the rules at the bottom. It's helpful to do so when learning a new class.

> https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks/

> Sadly, as you can see, even Banner Slave Warrior is netting higher DPS than Rifle Deadeye now.

 

I only meant as a way to gain malice stacks for a dual dagger M7 backstab deadeye. If you use heartseeker, you're more likely to miss a crit roll (because only rolling 1 time) and also heartseeker takes 3 times as long as dancing dagger to cast. If you used dancing dagger as your INI generator you'd be replacing autos with a DPS-loss for 1 second, but you're only slightly under the auto floor so not losing much, then after 4 hits your malice is full for an M7 backstab.

 

Also I realized you need to use it FOUR times not three times to cap your malice, which kind of sucks because you're wasting a stack of malice for the INI and time investment, and you can't skip the last stack because it's tied to the INI refund. This would work much better mechanically with a 6 malice cap.

[Tashigi.3159]

> @"Legatus.3608" said:

> I only meant as a way to gain malice stacks for a dual dagger M7 backstab deadeye. If you use heartseeker, you're more likely to miss a crit roll (because only rolling 1 time) and also heartseeker takes 3 times as long as dancing dagger to cast. If you used dancing dagger as your INI generator you'd be replacing autos with a DPS-loss for 1 second, but you're only slightly under the auto floor so not losing much, then after 4 hits your malice is full for an M7 backstab.

 

Yes, the problem is, dancing dagger does poop damage, while heartseeker does decent, but still poop damage. While under quickness (which in a good group composition, you should have on 100% of the time), heartseeker is basically instant.

That's why some people are advocating to upgrading heartseeker damage, so that it makes sense to build up and use malice with Deadeye builds when using daggers. This is also the reason people are currently bypassing malice and going straight up for raw damage from BQOBK and Premeditation for dagger builds.

 

> Also I realized you need to use it FOUR times not three times to cap your malice, which kind of sucks because you're wasting a stack of malice for the INI and time investment, and you can't skip the last stack because it's tied to the INI refund. This would work much better mechanically with a 6 malice cap.

 

There is just so much that went live with what seems to be 0% Q/A.

I just don't understand how this patch made it out in this state. It's very upsetting when you go from making a somewhat "decent" class look good, to having that same class be put below average/mediocre, then all you can do it is make it look at best, okay, through the same effort it would take you to make ANY other class perform amazing.

 

[Legatus.3608]

> @"Tashigi.3159" said:

> > @"Legatus.3608" said:

> > I only meant as a way to gain malice stacks for a dual dagger M7 backstab deadeye. If you use heartseeker, you're more likely to miss a crit roll (because only rolling 1 time) and also heartseeker takes 3 times as long as dancing dagger to cast. If you used dancing dagger as your INI generator you'd be replacing autos with a DPS-loss for 1 second, but you're only slightly under the auto floor so not losing much, then after 4 hits your malice is full for an M7 backstab.

>

> Yes, the problem is, dancing dagger does poop damage, while heartseeker does decent, but still poop damage. While under quickness (which in a good group composition, you should have on 100% of the time), heartseeker is basically instant.

> That's why some people are advocating to upgrading heartseeker damage, so that it makes sense to build up and use malice with Deadeye builds when using daggers. This is also the reason people are currently bypassing malice and going straight up for raw damage from BQOBK and Premeditation for dagger builds.

>

> > Also I realized you need to use it FOUR times not three times to cap your malice, which kind of sucks because you're wasting a stack of malice for the INI and time investment, and you can't skip the last stack because it's tied to the INI refund. This would work much better mechanically with a 6 malice cap.

>

> There is just so much that went live with what seems to be 0% Q/A.

> I just don't understand how this patch made it out in this state. It's very upsetting when you go from making a somewhat "decent" class look good, to having that same class be put below average/mediocre, then all you can do it is make it look at best, okay, through the same effort it would take you to make ANY other class perform amazing.

>

 

Well as for heartseeker vs dancing dagger, dancing dagger has 1/3rd the cast time of heartseeker regardless of quickness or not and so has more dps on anything above 25% hp. You're also able to get back to your autos faster, meaning less dps-loss overall due to smaller time frame spent under the dps autoattack floor. There's the torment damage as well but it's probably minimal enough to not be worth looking at on a berserker thief. Dancing dagger is always preferable unless the target is actually under 25% hp.

[Blacksarevok.8104]

It's useless for everything in PVE. The damage gain for taking stealth utility skills does not outweigh the damage loss from dropping DPS utility skills.

 

Overall this was one of the worst thief changes I've seen, and there's been *a lot* of bad thief changes

[Tashigi.3159]

> @"Legatus.3608" said:

> Well as for heartseeker vs dancing dagger, dancing dagger has 1/3rd the cast time of heartseeker regardless of quickness or not and so has more dps on anything above 25% hp. You're also able to get back to your autos faster, meaning less dps-loss overall due to smaller time frame spent under the dps autoattack floor. There's the torment damage as well but it's probably minimal enough to not be worth looking at on a berserker thief. Dancing dagger is always preferable unless the target is actually under 25% hp.

The problem is, dancing dagger does abysmal damage, so when you take the cast speed into account and the damage, heartseeker (even when not below 25%) still wins.

Here's the [same rotation](https://image.ibb.co/ck7sqo/Dancing_Dagger.png "same rotation") but instead, with dancing dagger. You lose around 2K DPS more or less. Maybe a little less since I messed up one backstab as the golem turned in the two runs I did.

 

[Tashigi.3159]

> @"Blacksarevok.8104" said:

> It's useless for everything in PVE. The damage gain for taking stealth utility skills does not outweigh the damage loss from dropping DPS utility skills.

> Overall this was one of the worst thief changes I've seen, and there's been *a lot* of bad thief changes

I really couldn't agree more. Before, at least you had reason to keep refreshing your mark, while trying to keep an active rotation.

 

[Legatus.3608]

> @"Tashigi.3159" said:

> > @"Legatus.3608" said:

> > Well as for heartseeker vs dancing dagger, dancing dagger has 1/3rd the cast time of heartseeker regardless of quickness or not and so has more dps on anything above 25% hp. You're also able to get back to your autos faster, meaning less dps-loss overall due to smaller time frame spent under the dps autoattack floor. There's the torment damage as well but it's probably minimal enough to not be worth looking at on a berserker thief. Dancing dagger is always preferable unless the target is actually under 25% hp.

> The problem is, dancing dagger does abysmal damage, so when you take the cast speed into account and the damage, heartseeker (even when not below 25%) still wins.

> Here's the [same rotation](https://image.ibb.co/ck7sqo/Dancing_Dagger.png "same rotation") but instead, with dancing dagger. You lose around 2K DPS more or less. Maybe a little less since I messed up one backstab as the golem turned in the two runs I did.

>

 

Well unless there's a discrepancy that I don't know about on the wiki, this has to be incorrect.

 

Here's the info for heartseeker:

3/4 cast time

Above 50%: 367 (1.0)?

Below 50%: 550 (1.5)?

Below 25%: 734 (2.0)?

 

And for dancing dagger:

1/4 cast time

Damage: 220 (0.6)?

Torment (6s): 132 Damage, 191 Damage if Moving

 

Theoretically this means that anything above 25% hp, a single cast of heartseeker does 550 damage (nonscaled) and 3 casts of dancing dagger (same time frame as one heartseeker due to 1/3rd cast time) does 660 damage (nonscaled).

 

Moreover since the auto chain does about 1000 damage (unscaled) in the exact same amount of time, you're always under the auto attack dps floor during either of these animations, so the less time you spend being locked into them, the more dps you'll do - meaning heartseeker should be a MASSIVE dps loss, pretty much always, whether its compared vs autos or dancing dagger.

 

I confirmed the numbers by looking at them on my character in game and they look correct. Where is this huge discrepancy between theoretical and actual dps coming from?

[Tashigi.3159]

> @"Legatus.3608" said:

> I confirmed the numbers by looking at them on my character in game and they look correct. Where is this huge discrepancy between theoretical and actual dps coming from?

It comes from attack power coefficients and amplifiers.

Once fully buffed, your Heartseeker will do near or more than twice the damage of Dancing Dagger. The added damage from Torment is extremely minimal. The delay in attacks is also very similar once Quickness is applied. Then, once you hit 50% on the target, all amplifiers from your trait and Heartseeker kick in, leaving Dancing Dagger in the dust.

I encourage you to try it on Golem; once buffed, you'll be able to immediately tell the difference.

Ultimately, building up the Malice is still a waste of time and DPS, whether you use Dancing Dagger or Heartseeker. Using #5 + #1 spam will net you nearly 6K DPS more, while skipping the core mechanic of the spec, I'm afraid.

 

 

[Legatus.3608]

> @"Tashigi.3159" said:

> > @"Legatus.3608" said:

> > I confirmed the numbers by looking at them on my character in game and they look correct. Where is this huge discrepancy between theoretical and actual dps coming from?

> It comes from attack power coefficients and amplifiers.

> Once fully buffed, your Heartseeker will do near or more than twice the damage of Dancing Dagger. The added damage from Torment is extremely minimal. The delay in attacks is also very similar once Quickness is applied. Then, once you hit 50% on the target, all amplifiers from your trait and Heartseeker kick in, leaving Dancing Dagger in the dust.

> I encourage you to try it on Golem; once buffed, you'll be able to immediately tell the difference.

> Ultimately, building up the Malice is still a waste of time and DPS, whether you use Dancing Dagger or Heartseeker. Using #5 + #1 spam will net you nearly 6K DPS more, while skipping the core mechanic of the spec, I'm afraid.

>

>

 

Well, your correct in the numbers being different, but you're not correct in why. What I noticed is that damage scaling doesn't matter, and neither does quickness. What's different is the cast time on dancing dagger being about 3x as long as it should be. Idk if the bug is in the tool tip or in the actual cast time though.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

> @"Legatus.3608" said:

> > @"Tashigi.3159" said:

> > > @"Legatus.3608" said:

> > > I confirmed the numbers by looking at them on my character in game and they look correct. Where is this huge discrepancy between theoretical and actual dps coming from?

> > It comes from attack power coefficients and amplifiers.

> > Once fully buffed, your Heartseeker will do near or more than twice the damage of Dancing Dagger. The added damage from Torment is extremely minimal. The delay in attacks is also very similar once Quickness is applied. Then, once you hit 50% on the target, all amplifiers from your trait and Heartseeker kick in, leaving Dancing Dagger in the dust.

> > I encourage you to try it on Golem; once buffed, you'll be able to immediately tell the difference.

> > Ultimately, building up the Malice is still a waste of time and DPS, whether you use Dancing Dagger or Heartseeker. Using #5 + #1 spam will net you nearly 6K DPS more, while skipping the core mechanic of the spec, I'm afraid.

> >

> >

>

> Well, your correct in the numbers being different, but you're not correct in why. What I noticed is that damage scaling doesn't matter, and neither does quickness. What's different is the cast time on dancing dagger being about 3x as long as it should be. Idk if the bug is in the tool tip or in the actual cast time though.

 

There is a roughly 0.25 precast/aftercast delay. Thus, if you are to match one HS with 3 Dancing Daggers, you're already wasted 0.75 seconds in pre/after casting delays. Not to mention, the projectile from Dancing Dagger has to travel, thus additional travel time delay depending on your distance to your target.

[Tashigi.3159]

> @"Legatus.3608" said:

> Well, your correct in the numbers being different, but you're not correct in why. What I noticed is that damage scaling doesn't matter, and neither does quickness. What's different is the cast time on dancing dagger being about 3x as long as it should be. Idk if the bug is in the tool tip or in the actual cast time though.

 

Like in many other MMO, there is a soft cap on attack speed and power coefficients that the devs themselves determine.

I can't really tell you why or how much exactly the numbers are, but certain skills benefit more from power than others. Same with quickness.

Once skills reach a soft cap, you start to notice diminishing returns. It's like hitting 100% crit rate, if you add more, it's pointless. Except it's more per skill based. WoW had something similar going as well.

Frankly I am not sure how GW2 works those numbers. I've heard mixed explanations from other devs, typically from Korean MMO. Something about animations breaking or ping becoming more relevant than desired, etc.

 

As for the numbers... [heartseeker](https://image.ibb.co/nMVffo/GW2heartseeker.png "heartseeker") at 51% > and [dancing dagger](https://image.ibb.co/eNnnRT/GW2dd.png "dancing dagger").

If you don't want to click, HS is at 8K damage more or less. DD is at 4.4K more or less.

[Legatus.3608]

> @"Sir Vincent III.1286" said:

> > @"Legatus.3608" said:

> > > @"Tashigi.3159" said:

> > > > @"Legatus.3608" said:

> > > > I confirmed the numbers by looking at them on my character in game and they look correct. Where is this huge discrepancy between theoretical and actual dps coming from?

> > > It comes from attack power coefficients and amplifiers.

> > > Once fully buffed, your Heartseeker will do near or more than twice the damage of Dancing Dagger. The added damage from Torment is extremely minimal. The delay in attacks is also very similar once Quickness is applied. Then, once you hit 50% on the target, all amplifiers from your trait and Heartseeker kick in, leaving Dancing Dagger in the dust.

> > > I encourage you to try it on Golem; once buffed, you'll be able to immediately tell the difference.

> > > Ultimately, building up the Malice is still a waste of time and DPS, whether you use Dancing Dagger or Heartseeker. Using #5 + #1 spam will net you nearly 6K DPS more, while skipping the core mechanic of the spec, I'm afraid.

> > >

> > >

> >

> > Well, your correct in the numbers being different, but you're not correct in why. What I noticed is that damage scaling doesn't matter, and neither does quickness. What's different is the cast time on dancing dagger being about 3x as long as it should be. Idk if the bug is in the tool tip or in the actual cast time though.

>

> There is a roughly 0.25 precast/aftercast delay. Thus, if you are to match one HS with 3 Dancing Daggers, you're already wasted 0.75 seconds in pre/after casting delays. Not to mention, the projectile from Dancing Dagger has to travel, thus additional travel time delay depending on your distance to your target.

 

Thanks that's very helpful, although the tool tip should show the actual cast time, not some arbitrary number they decided to throw onto the skill