Guild Wars 2

For anyone who wants deadeye gameplay I streamed the past weekend. Ex-pro player, just messed around during the demo – hadn’t played in about 2 years but the spec felt fairly strong once you get used to the initial clunky feeling and ignore the occasional “no line of sight” message in open fields. Extremely high burst and sustain damage, decent survivability (go as far to say good if you position well), and as a thief you always have mobility. Can 1v1 basically anything, and +1 from range. Kill time is usually around 3-4s.

Cheers,
Caed

https://www.twitch.tv/narcarsis/videos/past-broadcasts

I appreciate this post and share and will definitely check it out. My thoughts on the demo when it comes to spvp are the exact opposite: deadeye ruins it. So I will gladly check out the footage to see if my bias is justified or not. Hope the devs do too, posts from experienced and high rated players, as well as those who spend an awful lot of time in arenas, should receive more attention.

Good to see you still arround and give DE a try when every was super quick to call it kitten. Imo it’s a good spec once you have the mechanics down.

You literally queue ranked when everyone’s trying builds so everyone’s clueless, you don’t duel any current meta build (that you even know off since you say you been gone for two years) and you say you can 1v1 anything. I dont know how many times I counted that you would have been obliterated from the whole game by a normal DRD thief/DH/Rev/Condi S/D thief hell even core D/P thief would have done so.

But yeah, you can basically 1v1 everything when they die out of boredom and logs out.

I’ll happily be proven wrong when monthly AT comes up after expac launch and we’ll see if there’s any successful DE in any top team, I know I won’t be playing one but I’ll defo fool around with it in ranked

Ye, I watched Caed’s stream a bit and it was fun to watch people melt from 1500 range.

It can 1v1 everything yeah but problem is dp thief, once PoF comes out we will see if you can make DE rifle work, I think you could with a good team support and playing 2 points but we’ll see.

bluri.2653:

You literally queue ranked when everyone’s trying builds so everyone’s clueless, you don’t duel any current meta build (that you even know off since you say you been gone for two years) and you say you can 1v1 anything. I dont know how many times I counted that you would have been obliterated from the whole game by a normal DRD thief/DH/Rev/Condi S/D thief hell even core D/P thief would have done so.

But yeah, you can basically 1v1 everything when they die out of boredom and logs out.

I’ll happily be proven wrong when monthly AT comes up after expac launch and we’ll see if there’s any successful DE in any top team, I know I won’t be playing one but I’ll defo fool around with it in ranked

Dawg he’s literally just Messing around with the spec. Why’re you so defensive about this. Obviously DrD is superior to DE in almost every situation. Homie just got back from 2 years, he’s having fun. Caed says he’ll obliterate anything all the time, that’s his personality. But I do have to say caed was playing DE effectively how a DE should be played, from leverage, and out of harms-way, and +1 when needed he showcased it pretty nicely.

bluri.2653:

You literally queue ranked when everyone’s trying builds so everyone’s clueless, you don’t duel any current meta build (that you even know off since you say you been gone for two years) and you say you can 1v1 anything. I dont know how many times I counted that you would have been obliterated from the whole game by a normal DRD thief/DH/Rev/Condi S/D thief hell even core D/P thief would have done so.

But yeah, you can basically 1v1 everything when they die out of boredom and logs out.

I’ll happily be proven wrong when monthly AT comes up after expac launch and we’ll see if there’s any successful DE in any top team, I know I won’t be playing one but I’ll defo fool around with it in ranked

I don’t know, if you go SA instead of DA you literally have perma stealth and you could kite DrD pretty well and maybe if they buff/fix/change some stuff in DE, who knows it may be actually viable in certain scenarios.

I personally played a S/D DE build that I made and tbh I find it disgusting strong, obviously not as fast as dash but it has good mobility, 1v1 potential, high survivability, good team fighter because it strips boons + interrupt + stun a lot of times, high pressure. I think one of the reasons S/D is out of the meta besides not having stealth is the pressure and at least vs PoF specs I deleted holos, weavers and even spellbreakers.

But again this is only against PoF specs we will have to find out next month

You guys are cracking me up. Anyway I’ll happily bet anyone here 500g we will win with daredevil and chrono when expac monthly comes out, any takers?

bluri.2653:

You guys are cracking me up. Anyway I’ll happily bet anyone here 500g we will win with daredevil and chrono when expac monthly comes out, any takers?

not like winning a monthly means anything anyway

community has srs devolved to a point where people are taking DE seriously? DE shadowarts?

Caed, are you streaming Gw2 again?

bluri.2653:

You guys are cracking me up. Anyway I’ll happily bet anyone here 500g we will win with daredevil and chrono when expac monthly comes out, any takers?

Why are you being so aggressive lol? we’re just saying and it could work, it’s pretty obvious that the broken DrD spec is much better than DE but still I don’t understand your behavior.

nothelseth.4621:

bluri.2653:

You guys are cracking me up. Anyway I’ll happily bet anyone here 500g we will win with daredevil and chrono when expac monthly comes out, any takers?

not like winning a monthly means anything anyway

community has srs devolved to a point where people are taking DE seriously? DE shadowarts?

So now Helseth joins, right I guess I know what you two think.

Probably you both felt the new specs were garbage in comparison vs HoT specs which may be true but again who knows maybe someone make a strong and make it viable, maybe some team make work mirage/de and be successful with it.

Nobody is saying they will replace or be better than old specs or that a team will win WTS with them but they could work, who knows. You both need you chill out a bit.

I personally love the new Deadeye. While I am no pro, I personally think it is on par with Deadeye when both players are equally skilled. Daredevil is all about getting in somoene’s face to do damage. While Deadeye is all about maintaining distance, and punishing an individual for letting a fight drag on for too long.

A deadeye who knows how to position well and select targets would be just ludicrously dangerous. Most of my kills in structured PvP actually came from people either not seeing me before it’s too late. Not knowing where I am when I’m weaving through a bunch of clutter. Juking with two shadowstep utilities (also abusing the massive vertical advantage thiefs get from shadow stepping with a bow or utility). And spell breaker bubbles weren’t much of a problem. I’d just shadowstep inside the bubble while my 4 is charging. Kill em and retreat away with the shadow step again.

And WvW… I’m laughing hard right now. Screw roaming. Just hide in a bush with Charzooka. Be surprised how many people miss it. But WvW Lets you abuse SOOOO many advantages that Deadeye has over everyone else. One of the major things is how hard he is to spot when he’s knealt on high ground or in the water.

Elxdark.9702:

nothelseth.4621:

bluri.2653:

You guys are cracking me up. Anyway I’ll happily bet anyone here 500g we will win with daredevil and chrono when expac monthly comes out, any takers?

not like winning a monthly means anything anyway

community has srs devolved to a point where people are taking DE seriously? DE shadowarts?

So now Helseth joins, right I guess I know what you two think.

Probably you both felt the new specs were garbage in comparison vs HoT specs which may be true but again who knows maybe someone make a strong and make it viable, maybe some team make work mirage/de and be successful with it.

Nobody is saying they will replace or be better than old specs or that a team will win WTS with them but they could work, who knows. You both need you chill out a bit.

Think you mistake me being aggressive over being realistic

As i said on another forum post, rifle is obviously not something I wished for as a thief main since the play style isn’t something I enjoy nor feel has a place in pvp it’s more orientated into wvw IMO. I would rather had a 1v1 blade master S/S type of game play but that’s me. And as i said i’m beyond bored of all HoT specs and the meta and would love for it to be gone and of course i’m disappointed, I do hope lots of the feedback comes through from the forum post about clunkyness and stolen abilities getting tweaked up and some things not working unless you have a rifle(malice getting applied quicker being first thing that comes into my mind)

Hell I would love for scrapper/DRD/Chrono(all HoT specs) to get nerfed to the ground to unplayable so we get to play something else, I love all the new stuff as I also said on stream. Mirage/Holo/Scourge but as long as DRD stays as strong as it is I won’t play something that is weaker just to lose same goes for DE.

And could work to me is replacing scrapper for a druid.
Not replacing DRD for DE or Chrono for Mirage.

bluri.2653:

Elxdark.9702:

nothelseth.4621:

bluri.2653:

You guys are cracking me up. Anyway I’ll happily bet anyone here 500g we will win with daredevil and chrono when expac monthly comes out, any takers?

not like winning a monthly means anything anyway

community has srs devolved to a point where people are taking DE seriously? DE shadowarts?

So now Helseth joins, right I guess I know what you two think.

Probably you both felt the new specs were garbage in comparison vs HoT specs which may be true but again who knows maybe someone make a strong and make it viable, maybe some team make work mirage/de and be successful with it.

Nobody is saying they will replace or be better than old specs or that a team will win WTS with them but they could work, who knows. You both need you chill out a bit.

Think you mistake me being aggressive over being realistic

As i said on another forum post, rifle is obviously not something I wished for as a thief main since the play style isn’t something I enjoy nor feel has a place in pvp it’s more orientated into wvw IMO. I would rather had a 1v1 blade master S/S type of game play but that’s me. And as i said i’m beyond bored of all HoT specs and the meta and would love for it to be gone and of course i’m disappointed, I do hope lots of the feedback comes through from the forum post about clunkyness and stolen abilities getting tweaked up and some things not working unless you have a rifle(malice getting applied quicker being first thing that comes into my mind)

Hell I would love for scrapper/DRD/Chrono(all HoT specs) to get nerfed to the ground to unplayable so we get to play something else, I love all the new stuff as I also said on stream. Mirage/Holo/Scourge but as long as DRD stays as strong as it is I won’t play something that is weaker just to lose same goes for DE

I understand where your frustration comes from I guess we all are extremely bored with HoT specs and I get that rifle thief is not something everybody likes ( I don’t either) but I think you as a pro player has to be a bit more cautious in what you say because most people take it too seriously, but you’re right DrD will problaly remove any DE build heck any PoF build tbh, it is just too strong right now.

Being said that and also taking into consideration what you just said, what would you do as a dev? nerf DrD? (dash/pi) buff DE (less clunky more variety).
Imagine someone comes with a good DE build but can’t make it work because DrD eats it, unless they buff DE to a certain extent it will never be meta/viable only for the fact DrD will be there to destroy it.

Elxdark.9702:

bluri.2653:

Elxdark.9702:

nothelseth.4621:

bluri.2653:

You guys are cracking me up. Anyway I’ll happily bet anyone here 500g we will win with daredevil and chrono when expac monthly comes out, any takers?

not like winning a monthly means anything anyway

community has srs devolved to a point where people are taking DE seriously? DE shadowarts?

So now Helseth joins, right I guess I know what you two think.

Probably you both felt the new specs were garbage in comparison vs HoT specs which may be true but again who knows maybe someone make a strong and make it viable, maybe some team make work mirage/de and be successful with it.

Nobody is saying they will replace or be better than old specs or that a team will win WTS with them but they could work, who knows. You both need you chill out a bit.

Think you mistake me being aggressive over being realistic

As i said on another forum post, rifle is obviously not something I wished for as a thief main since the play style isn’t something I enjoy nor feel has a place in pvp it’s more orientated into wvw IMO. I would rather had a 1v1 blade master S/S type of game play but that’s me. And as i said i’m beyond bored of all HoT specs and the meta and would love for it to be gone and of course i’m disappointed, I do hope lots of the feedback comes through from the forum post about clunkyness and stolen abilities getting tweaked up and some things not working unless you have a rifle(malice getting applied quicker being first thing that comes into my mind)

Hell I would love for scrapper/DRD/Chrono(all HoT specs) to get nerfed to the ground to unplayable so we get to play something else, I love all the new stuff as I also said on stream. Mirage/Holo/Scourge but as long as DRD stays as strong as it is I won’t play something that is weaker just to lose same goes for DE

I understand where your frustration comes from I guess we all are extremely boring with HoT specs and I get that rifle thief is not something everybody likes ( I don’t either) but I think you as a pro player has to be a bit more cautious in what you say because most people take it too seriously, but you’re right DrD will problaly remove any DE build heck any PoF build tbh, it is just too strong right now.

Being said that and also taking into consideration what you just said, what would you do as a dev? nerf DrD? (dash/pi) buff DE (less clunky more variety).
Imagine someone comes with a good DE build but can’t make it work because DrD eats it, unless they buff DE to a certain extent it will never be meta/viable only for the fact DrD will be there to destroy it.

1. I mean nerfing DrD to make it unplayable would also make Mirage instantly more viable in terms of 5v5 gameplay, just compare a DrD/Mirage(Jaunt) vs DrD/Chrono(Moa) opening, you can’t even compare. Would also make other builds more viable again because you suddenly have same classes with the same mobility (rifle thief even with sb you are not that much quicker then others, rev being one for example)

2. Cautious in what way? DE remains unviable in my eyes as long as all the HoT Specs exist, there is two specs of the new ones I can see reaching the meta and that is holosmith (Zan is doing some insane work here, can even beat/do very good vs helseth/mishas chrono) and Scourge seems absolutely crazy and I love the visuals even if they are too much.

3. DE needs to get rid of the clunkyness of kneeling, DE mark instant revamp the stolen abilities, they can’t compare to the core thief ones like they are a joke in comparison. One example is adding maybe something unblockable? Also theres tons of bugs right now for DE.

• Malice does not get applied quicker if you attack with anything but rifle
• The #4 on rifle standing up needs to act like phase retreat, remove the cast time it’s dumb and makes about face really clunky and 5 initiative for condi remove is a very high cost
• Resetting Steal(Deadeyes mark) with mercy makes you lose your stolen abilities, intended or not? Bad if its intended.
• No reason to use auto attack, too slow and less damage then rifle engi/ranger standing up/kneeling
• Need to be able to steal without target for SA traits to work
• Mark needs to be instant to get back that play with stomp/resses that can be so clutch in a saving fight (steal when stomping or steal when ressing is interesting plays, you lose this completely with mark being cast time, it’s already a “nerf” that you can’t port to low HP targets if they kite on high ground etc)

Utilities seems underwhelming, heal too and traits needs to be looked at

4. If you want to make DrD unplayable nerf AA damage on daggers, increase headshot/SS ini decrease dash range from 450 to 350-400 and reduce swiftness from 10 sec to 5 sec. Nerf PI further either dmg/add ICD whichever, same result in the end

I also however have the impression that removing DrD from the meta wouldn’t make DE replace it tho, you would just have a meta similar to revenant’s era at least that’s what I think. And I also don’t feel DE would have been played that much differently in it’s role then a DrD except it’s new mechanics and a weapon but I assume the role would still be played the same way so I don’t really see what difference it makes (you still stealth, use mobility to +1 from stealth) it’s just done differently.

If they just made a specialization based around 1v1 instead or a bruiser type of gameplay that would have been a lot more interesting

Had a quick glance to see if the results were any different from my own. It’s as expected. I was skipping through and found one particular genius warrior, who instead of taking 2 steps to obstruct the fire behind a pillar, used gs 3, ran 8 paces and jumped up and went around the wall on Khylo, healed, came around the corner, got hit again, so jumped down, took more damage from the rifle, and then realised he could use that pillar after all, took damage while running back up toward it, then took more damage while trying to figure out how to actually stand behind it, by which time he was on about 6% health, defensive skills and healing skill already blown.

That just says it all right there. People are so bad that anything can SEEM incredibly, overly strong. Then D/P loses 1v1 up there.

bluri.2653:

You literally queue ranked when everyone’s trying builds so everyone’s clueless, you don’t duel any current meta build (that you even know off since you say you been gone for two years) and you say you can 1v1 anything. I dont know how many times I counted that you would have been obliterated from the whole game by a normal DRD thief/DH/Rev/Condi S/D thief hell even core D/P thief would have done so.

But yeah, you can basically 1v1 everything when they die out of boredom and logs out.

I’ll happily be proven wrong when monthly AT comes up after expac launch and we’ll see if there’s any successful DE in any top team, I know I won’t be playing one but I’ll defo fool around with it in ranked

I’m not quite sure how much you watched, but I’ll humour you since you can’t have possibly watched all of it and you seem to be quite adamant about your viewpoint.

The game hasn’t evolved that much over 2 years – same builds are in the meta. Chronomancers, DP dash, Scrappers, Druids, Reapers, Tempests. Sure no one was playing them but it’s not that hard to speculate. There were a few Chronos playing, only druids I saw were in the HotM arena which has no LoS. The Chronos didn’t last that long. I only had trouble with S/D condi once before I started killing them all – you have condi clear on every utilility and your heal + #4 on rifle. It’s also fairly clear you didn’t watch/play the build that much if you think there’s any issues with DH, it’s actually a fairly easy match up as you burn their CD’s extremely quickly and you can clear revealed with your ult should they manage to land the chain.

I don’t play Shadow arts, so I don’t know why you even insinuate boredom/logging out. The burst is upwards of 30-40k in 4 seconds, and that’s not even with all of it landing. If the target has no immob clear you can open with a 2 and land every 3 following, killing most necros outright.

As for people knowing what they’re doing, I fought Toker on Rev more than once, Chaith on Holosmith (which you admittedly said in a seperate post is quite powerful and that Zan was doing quite well on), and Phanta on Weaver. I’m not sure how powerful Weaver is at the moment, since I think Phanta was still figuring out what he wanted to play at the time but one of the two times I actually got “obliterated” an entire game was when I was focused by Chaith, Toker, and a DP thief the entire match with another deadeye and teammates who died faster than either of us. Overall the quality of players varied widely. A few good players and a lot of people just messing around having fun, which was my intention when streaming. I enjoyed the spec and found it a nice change of pace and I myself was learning as I went – just as anyone else.

Sure D/P thief is a good counter, but you can deal with it – or at least I could after not playing for almost 2 years. There are definite strengths and weaknesses to the build – as with most builds – and the strengths in my opinion outweigh the weaknesses. If the game were even remotely competitive I wouldn’t be surprised to see a drop in DP thieves with the amount of cleave and power creep in the game. The spec inherently relies on your teammates having favoured advantages in their match ups to take advantage of your mobility. In the case where they don’t and the cleave is high you start to enter a place where you can’t team fight without dying and you can’t +1 fast enough. You’re definitely entitled to a different opinion and that’s your prerogative but any talk about what would happen in competitive play is speculation because it doesn’t exist anymore.

And finally, for the monthly Helseth already mentioned it but I can reiterate; most of the high tier players on NA stopped playing. Not sure what a monthly proves, especially on this side of the pond but from what I hear it’s really not that different over there. The game isn’t competitive at all currently.

Hope that addresses everything. I have no intention of returning to the game when there’s nothing to even play for but I thought it would be fun to try the demo weekend and it was. Only intention of this post was to show people a different perspective on the elite spec that was more positive than what I was seeing people say in forums/streams – I think the spec is viable if you play well and I found it a lot more fun than playing D/P since 2012.

Cheers,
Caed

Narcarsis.5739:

bluri.2653:

You literally queue ranked when everyone’s trying builds so everyone’s clueless, you don’t duel any current meta build (that you even know off since you say you been gone for two years) and you say you can 1v1 anything. I dont know how many times I counted that you would have been obliterated from the whole game by a normal DRD thief/DH/Rev/Condi S/D thief hell even core D/P thief would have done so.

But yeah, you can basically 1v1 everything when they die out of boredom and logs out.

I’ll happily be proven wrong when monthly AT comes up after expac launch and we’ll see if there’s any successful DE in any top team, I know I won’t be playing one but I’ll defo fool around with it in ranked

I’m not quite sure how much you watched, but I’ll humour you since you can’t have possibly watched all of it and you seem to be quite adamant about your viewpoint.

The game hasn’t evolved that much over 2 years – same builds are in the meta. Chronomancers, DP dash, Scrappers, Druids, Reapers, Tempests. Sure no one was playing them but it’s not that hard to speculate. There were a few Chronos playing, only druids I saw were in the HotM arena which has no LoS. The Chronos didn’t last that long. I only had trouble with S/D condi once before I started killing them all – you have condi clear on every utilility and your heal + #4 on rifle. It’s also fairly clear you didn’t watch/play the build that much if you think there’s any issues with DH, it’s actually a fairly easy match up as you burn their CD’s extremely quickly and you can clear revealed with your ult should they manage to land the chain.

I don’t play Shadow arts, so I don’t know why you even insinuate boredom/logging out. The burst is upwards of 30-40k in 4 seconds, and that’s not even with all of it landing. If the target has no immob clear you can open with a 2 and land every 3 following, killing most necros outright.

As for people knowing what they’re doing, I fought Toker on Rev more than once, Chaith on Holosmith (which you admittedly said in a seperate post is quite powerful and that Zan was doing quite well on), and Phanta on Weaver. I’m not sure how powerful Weaver is at the moment, since I think Phanta was still figuring out what he wanted to play at the time but one of the two times I actually got “obliterated” an entire game was when I was focused by Chaith, Toker, and a DP thief the entire match with another deadeye and teammates who died faster than either of us. Overall the quality of players varied widely. A few good players and a lot of people just messing around having fun, which was my intention when streaming. I enjoyed the spec and found it a nice change of pace and I myself was learning as I went – just as anyone else.

Sure D/P thief is a good counter, but you can deal with it – or at least I could after not playing for almost 2 years. There are definite strengths and weaknesses to the build – as with most builds – and the strengths in my opinion outweigh the weaknesses. If the game were even remotely competitive I wouldn’t be surprised to see a drop in DP thieves with the amount of cleave and power creep in the game. The spec inherently relies on your teammates having favoured advantages in their match ups to take advantage of your mobility. In the case where they don’t and the cleave is high you start to enter a place where you can’t team fight without dying and you can’t +1 fast enough. You’re definitely entitled to a different opinion and that’s your prerogative but any talk about what would happen in competitive play is speculation because it doesn’t exist anymore.

And finally, for the monthly Helseth already mentioned it but I can reiterate; most of the high tier players on NA stopped playing. Not sure what a monthly proves, especially on this side of the pond but from what I hear it’s really not that different over there. The game isn’t competitive at all currently.

Hope that addresses everything. I have no intention of returning to the game when there’s nothing to even play for but I thought it would be fun to try the demo weekend and it was. Only intention of this post was to show people a different perspective on the elite spec that was more positive than what I was seeing people say in forums/streams – I think the spec is viable if you play well and I found it a lot more fun than playing D/P since 2012.

Cheers,
Caed

Most high tier players stopped playing cus they were banned , lulz

But, yeah.

Snowywonders.1378:

Most high tier players stopped playing cus they were banned , lulz

But, yeah.

Most high tier players quit before then, and the ones that were banned still play.

watched a lot of this. I like your build only if there is no daredevil in enemy team. You faced almost no daredevils in your gameplay so u had very easy kills.

Daredevil easily destroys deadeye. You said something like its 50/50 but i highly disagree. Goodp layer has 1/2 sec reaction if not faster and devil can press dodge, find the target and steal fo the win.

All might stacks only feed devil. So i played with scholar instead of this with some lvl of success in eu, but if enemy had devil and aura ele deadeye is no good.

Maybve if utility and elite stealth cantips were insta cast or 1/4 s it would be good. But as it stands dp devil insta destroyes deadeye/

Skill level a side, I know most thives in our mu in wvw and core s/d pretty much farmed them. But it’s also easy to get bursted down.

I didn’t play too much of any new specs but so far from what i have seen weaver/holo/mirage and scourge seem pretty solid. Let’s see what the next beta test brings (if there is a next 1)

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Skill level a side, I know most thives in our mu in wvw and core s/d pretty much farmed them. But it’s also easy to get bursted down.

I didn’t play too much of any new specs but so far from what i have seen weaver/holo/mirage and scourge seem pretty solid. Let’s see what the next beta test brings (if there is a next 1)

There won’t be, and this weekend was no beta tbh. It was a preview, so I assume what we saw and tested will be what we get. No overhauls will happen I guess.

Mmm… I noticed that you really hate using the #4 key, and prefer to spam tripple tap. Why? It seems like you’re wasting initiative and time when the power shot is able to deal more damage a little more cheaply than blowing the initiative bar on a rapid fire attack.

Rifle Deadeye is fine, its absurdly powerful as an offensive supporter (with good positioning/taking advantage of terrain and having an easy escape route), people like to kitten too much about kneeling. I myself kittened about it a lot too, but after the weekend I found out not to be that bad at all.

Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497:

Mmm… I noticed that you really hate using the #4 key, and prefer to spam tripple tap. Why? It seems like you’re wasting initiative and time when the power shot is able to deal more damage a little more cheaply than blowing the initiative bar on a rapid fire attack.

agreed. sniper4 is weak skill but only because malice takes a long time to charge. Imagine malice charged twice or 3 times as fast. u could sinpe4 after 5 seconds to get more dmg. I really hope they reduce malice dmg stack from 3% to 1% but charging time is much faster so u can get max malice in 7 seconds.

Malice charge time seems like the most important change to make. It gonna give faster boons and make sniper4 usefull. Currently it takes too long to take advantage of malice mechanic.

Keeping it brief – 4 has too long of a ramp up before it does damage. 3 is consistent (might stacking), more powerful for initial burst, and harder to avoid (also tracks stealth past the initial cast). In order to do good damage with 4 you need to wait for malice and might stacks to build. In most situations it’s just not worth using because of the telegraph.

Fighting better players you can start with a 3 and then hold off for a second or two while they spam their dodges, then just 3 them to death fairly quickly. Against classes who can’t cleanse immobs quickly you can open with 2 and then 3 them down.

The power of 3:
https://clips.twitch.tv/LaconicLightYogurtSmoocherZ
https://clips.twitch.tv/CoyBraveWolverineKevinTurtle
https://clips.twitch.tv/RudeSeductiveSnoodTTours

Here’s #4 for reference, and probably a large portion of why Sind thinks rifle is bad: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/168162426?t=11m25s

Here’s a shocker: not everybody plays in a high level team against other high level teams. DE is great for pubstomping and blowing off steam when you occasionally enter PvP… which is how PvP in GW2 should be played at this point.

Death’s Judgement should never be used unless you build specifically for it. I think SA Thief can have some success with it by initiating, surviving until he has full Malice and then double-tapping #4 to kill someone. Overall a generalist Deadly Arts Thief is probably better. #3 is cheaper, buffs you with might that enchances your autoattack, clears Aegis/Blind, tags people in the end of their dodges sometimes and is harder to see, because it’s a stream of little black pellets and not a giant doom lazer.

I ran into a ton of dual daredevils on sunday while running deadeye. The only times i died where a direct result of a user error (i kittened up).

Dual rolls, Shadowstep ( i tried the new lesser version but it sucks) And s/d offhand. Not only are you a kiting genius but you can easily bait them to block your rifle shot’s swap to s/d and murder them with unblockables.

You guy’s do realize you have more boons then a glint rev right… obviously not.
Now let me ask you a serious question here.. a long time ago when s/d was meta. did they perform the same roll as d/p? Of course not.

*i should clarify a bit and say i ran s/d power, who in there right mind runs condition on s/d,

Narcarsis.5739:

Here’s #4 for reference, and probably a large portion of why Sind thinks rifle is bad: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/168162426?t=11m25s

The game play and skill level that i watched from his stream wasn’t that of any special caliber (Using DE Rifle), whereas Caed, your game play was particularly strategic and map aware, although you took a hiatus from the game for 2 years, and are just as new to the spec as the rest of us. Deadeye most certainly has it’s flaws, but I would not say it was the worst class spec to be created.

Narcarsis.5739:

Keeping it brief – 4 has too long of a ramp up before it does damage. 3 is consistent (might stacking), more powerful for initial burst, and harder to avoid (also tracks stealth past the initial cast). In order to do good damage with 4 you need to wait for malice and might stacks to build. In most situations it’s just not worth using because of the telegraph.

Fighting better players you can start with a 3 and then hold off for a second or two while they spam their dodges, then just 3 them to death fairly quickly. Against classes who can’t cleanse immobs quickly you can open with 2 and then 3 them down.

The power of 3:
https://clips.twitch.tv/LaconicLightYogurtSmoocherZ
https://clips.twitch.tv/CoyBraveWolverineKevinTurtle
https://clips.twitch.tv/RudeSeductiveSnoodTTours

Except you’ve had multiple moments where 4 was at full power. And there were moments when you could have just used one 4 and a tap on 3 and killed someone without them even having a chance to react that is in a shorter timespan than spamming 3 three or five times to kill someone.

You also don’t really need full malice for 4 to have value. 3 malice is usually enough to chunk someone and put them on the defensive.

This is my rotation, and it kills people at 3 malice. 1-3-2-4. If they aren’t dead yet, an auto attack or a flare is all that’s really needed to finish them off.

If I have full malice on them and they know where I am. I just tease their reflect or block out by shooting them once with 2, then an auto attack. Then 4 and watch them die to 45k damage.

In a hallway or bottle neck? I use 2 it pierces and does good damage.

I would say Death’s Judgement #4 is a little hard to pull off unless they are fighting someone else or running away (knowing they lost the fight). Otherwise, it’s still an excellent skill that I wouldn’t completely take out of a rotation. We all know PvP isn’t all about 1 v 1.