Guild Wars 2

What did you honestly expect? As time goes by, all classes will have their playstyles expanded upon. It was just a matter of time till thief got their long range, regardless of what certain people wanted.
Common rants are that “I play thief for melee assassin style” or that the elite spec never could’ve been “good” because it’s a rifle. Well newsflash for you, no one will ever be 100% satisfied, same way one elite spec cant cover all game modes – clearly rifle deadeye isnt the same common decap thief in spvp. Just keep giving feedback instead on how to improve the gameplay so that it is more fluent to use.

Now as to the real reason this thread was created since original feedback got buried, please consider letting us get the swiftness application from Skirmirshers shot (rifle 2) without having a target, as itll heavy increase our roaming (be it in WvW, spvp or whatever..). As it stands, deadeye is lacking swiftness and is slow and it sort of makes a non optimal spec for spvp even worse. I cant stress this enough so please have a look at it!

nacario.9417:

What did you honestly expect? As time goes by, all classes will have their playstyles expanded upon. It was just a matter of time till thief got their long range, regardless of what certain people wanted.
Common rants are that “I play thief for melee assassin style” or that the elite spec never could’ve been “good” because it’s a rifle. Well newsflash for you, no one will ever be 100% satisfied, same way one elite spec cant cover all game modes – clearly rifle deadeye isnt the same common decap thief in spvp. Just keep giving feedback instead on how to improve the gameplay so that it is more fluent to use.

Now as to the real reason this thread was created since original feedback got buried, please consider letting us get the swiftness application from Skirmirshers shot (rifle 2) without having a target, as itll heavy increase our roaming (be it in WvW, spvp or whatever..). As it stands, deadeye is lacking swiftness and is slow and it sort of makes a non optimal spec for spvp even worse. I cant stress this enough so please have a look at it!

Why? Anet won’t do some necessary major overhauls.
Also, no one in this forum is excited about deadeye, more like disappointed and disenchanted.

Warrost.4895:

nacario.9417:

What did you honestly expect? As time goes by, all classes will have their playstyles expanded upon. It was just a matter of time till thief got their long range, regardless of what certain people wanted.
Common rants are that “I play thief for melee assassin style” or that the elite spec never could’ve been “good” because it’s a rifle. Well newsflash for you, no one will ever be 100% satisfied, same way one elite spec cant cover all game modes – clearly rifle deadeye isnt the same common decap thief in spvp. Just keep giving feedback instead on how to improve the gameplay so that it is more fluent to use.

Now as to the real reason this thread was created since original feedback got buried, please consider letting us get the swiftness application from Skirmirshers shot (rifle 2) without having a target, as itll heavy increase our roaming (be it in WvW, spvp or whatever..). As it stands, deadeye is lacking swiftness and is slow and it sort of makes a non optimal spec for spvp even worse. I cant stress this enough so please have a look at it!

Why? Anet won’t do some necessary major overhauls.

Because positive thinking and solutions can in many cases make certain ears listen, than not provide anything. Look at daredevil how much it has changed from launch till now, a spec you love.

Warrost.4895:

nacario.9417:

What did you honestly expect? As time goes by, all classes will have their playstyles expanded upon. It was just a matter of time till thief got their long range, regardless of what certain people wanted.
Common rants are that “I play thief for melee assassin style” or that the elite spec never could’ve been “good” because it’s a rifle. Well newsflash for you, no one will ever be 100% satisfied, same way one elite spec cant cover all game modes – clearly rifle deadeye isnt the same common decap thief in spvp. Just keep giving feedback instead on how to improve the gameplay so that it is more fluent to use.

Now as to the real reason this thread was created since original feedback got buried, please consider letting us get the swiftness application from Skirmirshers shot (rifle 2) without having a target, as itll heavy increase our roaming (be it in WvW, spvp or whatever..). As it stands, deadeye is lacking swiftness and is slow and it sort of makes a non optimal spec for spvp even worse. I cant stress this enough so please have a look at it!

Why? Anet won’t do some necessary major overhauls.

Why not? Just because they won’t succumb to your every opinion on “Major Overhauls”, they might patch in some QoL stuff to make it less clunky to play, because spoiler warning: Some people are going to enjoy this regardless of the state it’s in…

Just to make my stance on the matter, I am not pleased, but whining and being sulky about it is not going to help.

nacario.9417:

Warrost.4895:

nacario.9417:

What did you honestly expect? As time goes by, all classes will have their playstyles expanded upon. It was just a matter of time till thief got their long range, regardless of what certain people wanted.
Common rants are that “I play thief for melee assassin style” or that the elite spec never could’ve been “good” because it’s a rifle. Well newsflash for you, no one will ever be 100% satisfied, same way one elite spec cant cover all game modes – clearly rifle deadeye isnt the same common decap thief in spvp. Just keep giving feedback instead on how to improve the gameplay so that it is more fluent to use.

Now as to the real reason this thread was created since original feedback got buried, please consider letting us get the swiftness application from Skirmirshers shot (rifle 2) without having a target, as itll heavy increase our roaming (be it in WvW, spvp or whatever..). As it stands, deadeye is lacking swiftness and is slow and it sort of makes a non optimal spec for spvp even worse. I cant stress this enough so please have a look at it!

Why? Anet won’t do some necessary major overhauls.

Because positive thinking and solutions can in many cases make certain ears listen, than not provide anything. Look at daredevil how much it has changed from launch till now, a spec you love.

Positiv thinking didn’t helped Turrets, or Scrapper or Necromancer.
Tbh, positiv thinking leads to hope for changes, which leads to disappointment.
Better be realistic. Deadeye won’t change in it’s core mechanic, which is the start of the whole problem.
Secondly, Daredevil needed these buffs to be even playable. As you know daredevil just recieved alot of nerfs, and I hope this won’t continue to bring it in line with underwhelming deadeye.

Warrost.4895:

nacario.9417:

Warrost.4895:

nacario.9417:

What did you honestly expect? As time goes by, all classes will have their playstyles expanded upon. It was just a matter of time till thief got their long range, regardless of what certain people wanted.
Common rants are that “I play thief for melee assassin style” or that the elite spec never could’ve been “good” because it’s a rifle. Well newsflash for you, no one will ever be 100% satisfied, same way one elite spec cant cover all game modes – clearly rifle deadeye isnt the same common decap thief in spvp. Just keep giving feedback instead on how to improve the gameplay so that it is more fluent to use.

Now as to the real reason this thread was created since original feedback got buried, please consider letting us get the swiftness application from Skirmirshers shot (rifle 2) without having a target, as itll heavy increase our roaming (be it in WvW, spvp or whatever..). As it stands, deadeye is lacking swiftness and is slow and it sort of makes a non optimal spec for spvp even worse. I cant stress this enough so please have a look at it!

Why? Anet won’t do some necessary major overhauls.

Because positive thinking and solutions can in many cases make certain ears listen, than not provide anything. Look at daredevil how much it has changed from launch till now, a spec you love.

Positiv thinking didn’t helped Turrets, or Scrapper or Necromancer.
Tbh, positiv thinking leads to hope for changes, which leads to disappointment.
Better be realistic. Deadeye won’t change in it’s core mechanic, which is the start of the whole problem.

Owch. The edge.

Warrost.4895:

nacario.9417:

Warrost.4895:

nacario.9417:

What did you honestly expect? As time goes by, all classes will have their playstyles expanded upon. It was just a matter of time till thief got their long range, regardless of what certain people wanted.
Common rants are that “I play thief for melee assassin style” or that the elite spec never could’ve been “good” because it’s a rifle. Well newsflash for you, no one will ever be 100% satisfied, same way one elite spec cant cover all game modes – clearly rifle deadeye isnt the same common decap thief in spvp. Just keep giving feedback instead on how to improve the gameplay so that it is more fluent to use.

Now as to the real reason this thread was created since original feedback got buried, please consider letting us get the swiftness application from Skirmirshers shot (rifle 2) without having a target, as itll heavy increase our roaming (be it in WvW, spvp or whatever..). As it stands, deadeye is lacking swiftness and is slow and it sort of makes a non optimal spec for spvp even worse. I cant stress this enough so please have a look at it!

Why? Anet won’t do some necessary major overhauls.

Because positive thinking and solutions can in many cases make certain ears listen, than not provide anything. Look at daredevil how much it has changed from launch till now, a spec you love.

Positiv thinking didn’t helped Turrets, or Scrapper or Necromancer.
Tbh, positiv thinking leads to hope for changes, which leads to disappointment.
Better be realistic. Deadeye won’t change in it’s core mechanic, which is the start of the whole problem.
Secondly, Daredevil needed these buffs to be even playable. As you know daredevil just recieved alot of nerfs, and I hope this won’t continue to bring it in line with underwhelming deadeye.

If everything about thief is oh soo bad11!!1 Why are you still here?
No one is forcing you to play thief or deadeye.

Im all in for the positive thinking and getting enjoyment out of this new elite spec.

So… op says “As time goes by, all classes will have their playstyles expanded upon. It was just a matter of time till thief got their long range, regardless of what certain people wanted.”

So, regardless of what YOU want why should you get swiftness? Its a new playstyle, ranged you don’t need swiftness… that’s for the rest of us that are melee.

choices bro…

Warrost.4895:

Also, no one in this forum is excited about deadeye, more like disappointed and disenchanted.

Now you are lying. Because I’m excited.

Avador.8934:

Warrost.4895:

Also, no one in this forum is excited about deadeye, more like disappointed and disenchanted.

Now you are lying. Because I’m excited.

me 2! me 2! i cant w8 to slaughter you all!!!
it will be like an execution since you’ll be on your knees xD

Volrath.1473:

Avador.8934:

Warrost.4895:

Also, no one in this forum is excited about deadeye, more like disappointed and disenchanted.

Now you are lying. Because I’m excited.

me 2! me 2! i cant w8 to slaughter you all!!!
it will be like an execution since you’ll be on your knees xD

You’re wrongly assuming we’re all using rifles. That’s on you.

Yup, don’t play DE then. I’m a Revenant main and I really dislike Renegade so I will keep playing Herald as much as i can. Might finally reroll in fact.

Edit: Or I might uninstall, Idk. Kudos to the people that enjoy their new specs.

Volrath.1473:

So… op says “As time goes by, all classes will have their playstyles expanded upon. It was just a matter of time till thief got their long range, regardless of what certain people wanted.”

So, regardless of what YOU want why should you get swiftness? Its a new playstyle, ranged you don’t need swiftness… that’s for the rest of us that are melee.

choices bro…

Im all in for drawbacks but when out of combat w/o swiftness on a rifle shortbow build u are even more kitten, by even picking the build in spvp. Im not asking nec for a drastic change, the swiftness is already there on rifle2.

people getting 1 shot for 30K lol you think that is fair? deadeye need a nerf, big one. Is honestly kind of ridiculous, i got 2 shot earlier by one. Some specializations are too powerful, deadeye is the most right now.

i know nobody cares and i’m really just being annoying but QQ is not crying.

Warrost.4895:

Why? Anet won’t do some necessary major overhauls.
Also, no one in this forum is excited about deadeye, more like disappointed and disenchanted.

Im excited about the Deadeye, so does many Deadeye user on test server right now. Yes some of the skill need to get tinkered, but deadeye on overall is a good elite spec for consistent damage burst..

Gaining swiftness off rifle w/o a target and being able to activate old Steal skills w/o a target would help a lot. The spec is fun, but soooooooo slow between engagements. Found myself running SA and burning all my cd stealth to get to the next placement last night.

As someone playing against deadeye, I am not upset about the burst, the damage the range. I am upset about the direction players are taking it.

The SA mark stow firing squads are just not enjoyable to encounter.
The people endlessly porting away with #4 is just shortbow 2.0
The stealth camp fire is real. It’s the exact interaction no one wants to play against.

As someone who has played it, it plays out very binary. You either land the pot shot(s) and get the kill or you get caught with your pants down and die near instantly. I don’t feel that it’s healthy gameplay, and ultimately is going to get core theif nerfed is many aspects.

Ultimately I find it fun to play, just not enjoyable to play against.

Eval.2371:

As someone playing against deadeye, I am not upset about the burst, the damage the range. I am upset about the direction players are taking it…

The SA mark stow firing squads are just not enjoyable to encounter…

Ultimately I find it fun to play, just not enjoyable to play against.

Don’t worry. Many here are going to change their tune once they play around with it more.

Scenario- Five Deadeyes coordinating in teamspeak, Specced Critical Strikes, Shadow arts, and Deadeye.

Right side bar:

Hide in shadows, Signet of agility, Smoke Screen, Shadow refuge.

Elite- Basilisk Venom.

Let’s start off by saying yes, you do reach your full potential sniping by kneeling. But you don’t have to kneel. It just makes buttons one-four for rifle better.

In wvw, all five thieves coordinate, each is assigned a number, one through five. This is for calling out who uses shadow refuge and when.

Find a spot not far from a border keep or a well traveled road or along the rout from one to a tower being attacked by your side. When targets are coming SR focus one, when target is in range apply basilisk, All five use Double tap twice.

Long range, insta gib, and the target doesn’t know where it came from and couldn’t have blocked it if they’d wanted to. Next number thief SR for the group- reposition or go for another.

The group could have run along in stealth to get better positioning for the double tap as well- no need to kneel.

You won’t need ascended gear. You won’t need funky exotic gear either- a set of rampagers, assasins, or berserkers will do with travelers runes. Put fire and air on your rifles.

You don’t need to be particularly skilled either. Just coordinate in TS.

Said it before in other threads- Done right, nobody’s going to want to leave a border keep in anything less than a thirty person blob. Otherwise there is no countering this.

It’s everything thieves have wanted in WvW. High range, high damage, you keep your mobility, and instead of just tapping someone and then running away if it gets hot you just end your target from the start, then reposition.

Every anti-stealth ability out there is reactionary at best, short of a prescient Ranger variant or similar squad of thieves running traps along a path you won’t be found out before you take at least one or two of your targets. The rest of the time the enemy will be looking over their shoulders for you.

If that wasn’t tempting enough,- if you don’t want to do that then you still have options with twelve to fifteen hundred range shots. In a blob you’ll still do exceptional damage out of stealth, on the run, and what’s more, you’ll no longer have to be fragile front line melee. This means you actually have a shot at not being kicked from squads.

Let that soak in guys- at least for your own sides you’re not going to be the pariah’s you used to be.

Try and be a little happy for once. It’s still a bit rough, yes, but even so Thieves got dealt a good hand this time around.

I don’t think I can ever get used to a style that’s less mobile and fluid than DD.

Iozeph.5617:

Let’s start off by saying yes, you do reach your full potential sniping by kneeling. But you don’t have to kneel. It just makes buttons one-four for rifle better.

Sadly this mostly ends in either your rifle skills massively lack damage and utility (atm they massivle lack utility and a usable unblockable attack) or kneeling isn’t worth using.

there’s a big difference in an elite spec that expands a class’ playstyle and an elite spec that goes absolutely against what a class is designed for.
thief is and has always been in its core, a melee glass cannon, extremely agile and using dirty tricks to get the upper hand, as backstab or poisons.
this spec is absolutely the contrary. you fight from a distance an are 100% static. I never liked the idea of riffle and even less now that I’ve tried it.

coso.9173:

there’s a big difference in an elite spec that expands a class’ playstyle and an elite spec that goes absolutely against what a class is designed for.
thief is and has always been in its core, a melee glass cannon, extremely agile and using dirty tricks to get the upper hand, as backstab or poisons.
this spec is absolutely the contrary. you fight from a distance an are 100% static. I never liked the idea of riffle and even less now that I’ve tried it.

That’s your interpretation though of the old days, every class get’s their playstyle expanded – just look at necro with scourge losing its shroud and gain more mobility, if that isnt a big change then what? Everyone is passionate about their class, but in the end there are changes to all classes.

I tried renegade and even with shadow spec built for stealth i even had 2 stealth skills a shadow trap and other kinds of traps and i’m getting destroyed.I feel like getting out alive is very difficult.I need help with this cause i really like the idea of renegade build

nacario.9417:

coso.9173:

there’s a big difference in an elite spec that expands a class’ playstyle and an elite spec that goes absolutely against what a class is designed for.
thief is and has always been in its core, a melee glass cannon, extremely agile and using dirty tricks to get the upper hand, as backstab or poisons.
this spec is absolutely the contrary. you fight from a distance an are 100% static. I never liked the idea of riffle and even less now that I’ve tried it.

That’s your interpretation though of the old days, every class get’s their playstyle expanded – just look at necro with scourge losing its shroud and gain more mobility, if that isnt a big change then what? Everyone is passionate about their class, but in the end there are changes to all classes.

But as far as I can tell, just thieves are not excited or happy with deadeye. the other classes seem more excited, but thieves rather disappointed.

thief being an agile melee glass cannon with dirty tricks is not just my interpretation of the class, it’s what’ it has always been. and not inly in GW but in most MMOs and other videogames with such a class.

coso.9173:

there’s a big difference in an elite spec that expands a class’ playstyle and an elite spec that goes absolutely against what a class is designed for.
thief is and has always been in its core, a melee glass cannon, extremely agile and using dirty tricks to get the upper hand, as backstab or poisons.
this spec is absolutely the contrary. you fight from a distance an are 100% static. I never liked the idea of riffle and even less now that I’ve tried it.

No, thieves are about choosing their fights and never playing fair to win- whatever the toolset. Being glass is neither here or there.

You still have base Thief, you still have Daredevil and now you’ve been handed the mother of all hit and fade sniping elites. Deadeye expands your roles: interdiction, diversion, and assassination and does it considerably by giving you a true ranged option.

You have choices now. Deadeye is the latest and none of the others are necessarily bad.

If you ever wonder why there’s little sympathy for thieves, it doesn’t play well complaining about three flavours of awesomeness, when in the other other profession forums most have a single, one-trick spec they all have to run/abuse to be successful.

Over there they’re worrying about being given yet another rubbish elite. Or worse, something that starts off passable and will shortly be nerfed into the ground.

I’d say keep your heads down and your mouths shut and pray that nobody sees how good this elite actually is.

Warrost.4895:

nacario.9417:

coso.9173:

there’s a big difference in an elite spec that expands a class’ playstyle and an elite spec that goes absolutely against what a class is designed for.
thief is and has always been in its core, a melee glass cannon, extremely agile and using dirty tricks to get the upper hand, as backstab or poisons.
this spec is absolutely the contrary. you fight from a distance an are 100% static. I never liked the idea of riffle and even less now that I’ve tried it.

That’s your interpretation though of the old days, every class get’s their playstyle expanded – just look at necro with scourge losing its shroud and gain more mobility, if that isnt a big change then what? Everyone is passionate about their class, but in the end there are changes to all classes.

But as far as I can tell, just thieves are not excited or happy with deadeye. the other classes seem more excited, but thieves rather disappointed.

Then take a look at the other class forums, always unhappy people there over various things. Though if I was a scourge, spellbreaker or weaver I would be quite happy.

nacario.9417:

Warrost.4895:

nacario.9417:

coso.9173:

there’s a big difference in an elite spec that expands a class’ playstyle and an elite spec that goes absolutely against what a class is designed for.
thief is and has always been in its core, a melee glass cannon, extremely agile and using dirty tricks to get the upper hand, as backstab or poisons.
this spec is absolutely the contrary. you fight from a distance an are 100% static. I never liked the idea of riffle and even less now that I’ve tried it.

That’s your interpretation though of the old days, every class get’s their playstyle expanded – just look at necro with scourge losing its shroud and gain more mobility, if that isnt a big change then what? Everyone is passionate about their class, but in the end there are changes to all classes.

But as far as I can tell, just thieves are not excited or happy with deadeye. the other classes seem more excited, but thieves rather disappointed.

Then take a look at the other class forums, always unhappy people there over various things. Though if I was a scourge, spellbreaker or weaver I would be quite happy.

Of three devs in the spec team, one alone was dedicated to weaver. Just saying.
The thieves forum just contents problems with deadeye or how it’s mechanic is broken, or failed design and so on.
None of the other classes have this, but the toxic community of gw2 goes in both directions.
Everything is bad<→no matter how bad something is designed/implemented, shut your mouth and kiss anet’s butt.

As usual, it’s less about the core concept for the spec (which is cool) and more about its extremely clunky and rushed implementation. It took quite a while after HOT release for DD to be whipped into decent shape… loads of good beta feedback was almost completely ignored. DD even had placeholder animations until days before release…

Between that and the ongoing lack of attention for Thief, I see no reason not to expect a repeat of the same with DE. Maybe it’ll be fun a year from now?

Amante.8109:

As usual, it’s less about the core concept for the spec (which is cool) and more about its extremely clunky and rushed implementation. It took quite a while after HOT release for DD to be whipped into decent shape… loads of good beta feedback was almost completely ignored. DD even had placeholder animations until days before release…

Between that and the ongoing lack of attention for Thief, I see no reason not to expect a repeat of the same with DE. Maybe it’ll be fun a year from now?

This is the point where all these “It’ still time to fix” babble got rekt.
We saw the same with HoT beta an release and with core GW2 beta and release.
Anet has proven to be completly ignorant/incompetent to react to criticism (which includes justified criticism, way to often lost in the salt-mine).

That’s my problem with deadeye. Not that Anet has failed to implement it properly, but that I know for the next months/year it will stay like this. Frustration is the keyword.
We saw it with core GW2, we saw it with HoT.

The spec is fine. As far as I can tell there only limited tweaks that need to be made, most of them in Rifle itself. The emphasis on stealth and the Malice concept adds flavor as you can really feel you have singled an opponent out and are stalking him.

There was much the same griping over DrD when it first came out with people claiming it trash and that all it added was an extra dodge as every other class got everything.

I have only begun to explore what this spec can do and so far I am quite pleased. This spec opens up a WIDE range of possibilities and with my limited tests , dependent on the weapons chosen , there all manner of builds and traitlines that can be used in Combination.

babazhook.6805:

… DrD when it first came out with people claiming it trash…

Daredevil was trash, until Anet fixed him around a year after release.

babazhook.6805:

The spec is fine. As far as I can tell there only limited tweaks that need to be made, most of them in Rifle itself.

Malice needs to get built up way faster. Kneel should’ve been a class mechanic, so it would affect other weps too. Making kneel a weapon skill is just cheap.
some traits need a rework, other tweaking.
Remove cast time of Mark, and kneel.
And many more changes.

Warrost.4895:

nacario.9417:

coso.9173:

there’s a big difference in an elite spec that expands a class’ playstyle and an elite spec that goes absolutely against what a class is designed for.
thief is and has always been in its core, a melee glass cannon, extremely agile and using dirty tricks to get the upper hand, as backstab or poisons.
this spec is absolutely the contrary. you fight from a distance an are 100% static. I never liked the idea of riffle and even less now that I’ve tried it.

That’s your interpretation though of the old days, every class get’s their playstyle expanded – just look at necro with scourge losing its shroud and gain more mobility, if that isnt a big change then what? Everyone is passionate about their class, but in the end there are changes to all classes.

But as far as I can tell, just thieves are not excited or happy with deadeye. the other classes seem more excited, but thieves rather disappointed.

Lol, have you looked at any of the other class forums? EVERY one is full of the same garbage. “My elite sucks” … “Need a complete overhaul” … “We are useless garbage now!” … “RIP insert class name”… “This is NOT how we are intended to play!”

It’s funny and sad at the same time. It takes time to see how you can make the spec cater to your play style. Things will get better tuned before launch. And in the end, if you can’t make it enjoyable, then don’t play it. Not every elite will please everyone.

To the claim “nothing will be done by ANET to address any thief issues in this expansion”. Nonsense. HOT was released in October of 2015. Thieves gave all manner of feedback on the spec and within three months there was all manner of changes so as to tweak the spec and thief as a whole.

A person may not agree with the changes that were made , but to claim they were non responsive to said complaints is not true. Look to the January patch for thief in 2016 just as example. Much of that was in direct response to the stuff being discussed on the forums.

I recall people making direct comments on Bandits defense, GI, Felines grace and upper hand as it was thought Acro underperfromed at the time and that patch addressed many of the issues. In April of that same year in the next patch cycle there a number of other changes made in direct response to player feedback.

That first major patch happened 3 months after release, the second another 3 months following their prescribed cycle of issuing this major updates every three months. 3 months is NOT an excessive period of time. Some might argue that such patches should come more frequently but that ANET decided on this longer cycle does not suggest they do not listen to feedback or can not handle criticism.

Microsoft is still issuing patches to its products YEARS after release. It the nature of the business.

Warrost.4895:

babazhook.6805:

… DrD when it first came out with people claiming it trash…

Daredevil was trash, until Anet fixed him around a year after release.

babazhook.6805:

The spec is fine. As far as I can tell there only limited tweaks that need to be made, most of them in Rifle itself.

Malice needs to get built up way faster. Kneel should’ve been a class mechanic, so it would affect other weps too. Making kneel a weapon skill is just cheap.
some traits need a rework, other tweaking.
Remove cast time of Mark, and kneel.
And many more changes.

No it was NOT trash until a year after release. People were playing it right out of the gate and the majority of those people STUCK to DrD over other traitlines. The first major patch happened 3 months after release and one followed that within 6 months.

I specced immediately in DrD and while noting it had problems, hardly thought it trash. In fact I later discovered that many of my initial reservations about the line were overstated and once I used the spec more discovered just how well it COULD perform.

If one looks at the patch History for thief they will see that after these intitial adjustments to DrD most changes were made to other speclines . This suggests DrD was already performing well.

There are still people claiming Acro is trash where it in fact an excellent traitline.

After playing around with DE some more, I would say the bigger problems are more with Rifle than the trait line for sure… I’ve been having a decent amount of fun with P/P DE.

The Rifle is chock full of all the classic Thief anti-synergies that tend to come from hasty implementation: clunky skills (KNEEL), long after-casts for no discernible reason, easily dodgeable projectiles, buggy teleports, and so on.

It’s all fixable, of course, the question is how long Thief will sit on its ceremonial position upon the back-burner before ANet remembers to give Thief its once a year look-see. I personally will not be buying the expansion until Rifle is whipped into shape.

Eval.2371:

As someone playing against deadeye, I am not upset about the burst, the damage the range. I am upset about the direction players are taking it.

The SA mark stow firing squads are just not enjoyable to encounter.
The people endlessly porting away with #4 is just shortbow 2.0
The stealth camp fire is real. It’s the exact interaction no one wants to play against.

As someone who has played it, it plays out very binary. You either land the pot shot(s) and get the kill or you get caught with your pants down and die near instantly. I don’t feel that it’s healthy gameplay, and ultimately is going to get core theif nerfed is many aspects.

Ultimately I find it fun to play, just not enjoyable to play against.

These things need to be factored in when designing the profession.
Ranged burst from stealth has been a controversial topic since this game came out, and we’ve already had issues with it with small groups of SA/AoE stealth thief + killshot warrior in the past.

Eval.2371:

Ultimately I find it fun to play, just not enjoyable to play against.

That’s just Stealth mechanics in-general. Stealth is never fun to play against, and it’s been that way forever, precisely because the whole concept behind it is to prevent opportunities of counter-play.

TwiceDead.1963:

Eval.2371:

Ultimately I find it fun to play, just not enjoyable to play against.

That’s just Stealth mechanics in-general. Stealth is never fun to play against, and it’s been that way forever, precisely because the whole concept behind it is to prevent opportunities of counter-play.

Extended stealth surely, but stealth in general isn’t necessarily unfun to play against. In this case it’s just pretty low-risk given the range, while keeping huge burst. Rifle Deadeye is basically an even further extreme of gimmick of signet D/D, except it plays in an even more binary fashion with even bigger numbers while leaving the enemy less-engaged.

Iozeph.5617:

Eval.2371:

As someone playing against deadeye, I am not upset about the burst, the damage the range. I am upset about the direction players are taking it…

The SA mark stow firing squads are just not enjoyable to encounter…

Ultimately I find it fun to play, just not enjoyable to play against.

Don’t worry. Many here are going to change their tune once they play around with it more.

Scenario- Five Deadeyes coordinating in teamspeak, Specced Critical Strikes, Shadow arts, and Deadeye.

Right side bar:

Hide in shadows, Signet of agility, Smoke Screen, Shadow refuge.

Elite- Basilisk Venom.

Let’s start off by saying yes, you do reach your full potential sniping by kneeling. But you don’t have to kneel. It just makes buttons one-four for rifle better.

In wvw, all five thieves coordinate, each is assigned a number, one through five. This is for calling out who uses shadow refuge and when.

Find a spot not far from a border keep or a well traveled road or along the rout from one to a tower being attacked by your side. When targets are coming SR focus one, when target is in range apply basilisk, All five use Double tap twice.

Long range, insta gib, and the target doesn’t know where it came from and couldn’t have blocked it if they’d wanted to. Next number thief SR for the group- reposition or go for another.

The group could have run along in stealth to get better positioning for the double tap as well- no need to kneel.

You won’t need ascended gear. You won’t need funky exotic gear either- a set of rampagers, assasins, or berserkers will do with travelers runes. Put fire and air on your rifles.

You don’t need to be particularly skilled either. Just coordinate in TS.

Said it before in other threads- Done right, nobody’s going to want to leave a border keep in anything less than a thirty person blob. Otherwise there is no countering this.

It’s everything thieves have wanted in WvW. High range, high damage, you keep your mobility, and instead of just tapping someone and then running away if it gets hot you just end your target from the start, then reposition.

Every anti-stealth ability out there is reactionary at best, short of a prescient Ranger variant or similar squad of thieves running traps along a path you won’t be found out before you take at least one or two of your targets. The rest of the time the enemy will be looking over their shoulders for you.

If that wasn’t tempting enough,- if you don’t want to do that then you still have options with twelve to fifteen hundred range shots. In a blob you’ll still do exceptional damage out of stealth, on the run, and what’s more, you’ll no longer have to be fragile front line melee. This means you actually have a shot at not being kicked from squads.

Let that soak in guys- at least for your own sides you’re not going to be the pariah’s you used to be.

Try and be a little happy for once. It’s still a bit rough, yes, but even so Thieves got dealt a good hand this time around.

You can easily do this with the current thief… Or even any thief, even more so with older variant builds. I’ve done it and been doing it with three, you easily backstab one-shot someone. ANY CLASS CAN DO THIS, legit it isn’t some kind of special ‘thief’ skill to be able to blow up some random ranger trying to get back to his zerg when you have two more friends also using all their burst.

Amante.8109:

After playing around with DE some more, I would say the bigger problems are more with Rifle than the trait line for sure… I’ve been having a decent amount of fun with P/P DE.

The Rifle is chock full of all the classic Thief anti-synergies that tend to come from hasty implementation: clunky skills (KNEEL), long after-casts for no discernible reason, easily dodgeable projectiles, buggy teleports, and so on.

It’s all fixable, of course, the question is how long Thief will sit on its ceremonial position upon the back-burner before ANet remembers to give Thief its once a year look-see. I personally will not be buying the expansion until Rifle is whipped into shape.

I main thief. Thieves have never been the once a year look-see class, we have always been considered by others to be Anet’s favorite. Let’s hope that meme is true this time around.

Considered by others does not mean true. Choose any point in Thief’s history—including one of its many low ones—and you will find a legion of mediocre scrubs insisting with certainty that OMG TEEF OP

I main Thief in PvE, though not in PvP. In PvP I play a core Mesmer because I dislike Chronomancer.

1v1, the Deadeye sucks. In any kind of group situation it’s nastily OP. You can mark, walk out of sight, wait to build malice, stealth and nail somebody. That’s lame and it’s gonna kitten people off big time.

The mark tracks for a long time through stealth.

tldr: This playstyle combined with the very heavy damage is going to result in the nerf chorus. Thief may well find itself where chronomancer did when the screaming began. That is to say; in the dumpster.

tested it, can say only for myself, that i’ll stay at daredevil.
deadye is way too clunky n slow for me. Am already way too used to having 3 bars of endurance and the DD dodge styles that the DE doesn’t have..

The whole gameplay around the kneel mechanism is way too unintuitive.
It shouldnt be something, for which the player should have to press extra a button first to make it happen. It should be something the character should do automatically on its own when you use the skills.
Then you need also not to waste a skill slot extra only for changing between kneeling and not kneeling anymore.

Can’t see this class possibly working alone well enough, the skilsl aren#t good enough to defend yourself alone.. the moment you get caught into melee combat, you are basicalyl forced to instantly swap your weapons to like D/P or S/P or D/D to make sure you can safe your hide in melee combatz, because the whle deadeye spechas been designed from ground of by its skilsl and traits to work only for long range combat, as long you can sly around unseen as practically “silent killer”, which is what snipers are…

they are a hit and run gameplay design, while you cover your runs basically with perma stealth to ensure, that nobody sees you where you are runnign next to make your, you can snipe your next target without beign disturbed by some kind of melee enemy.

The gameplay is garbage for me and thats the reason, why I alwaysfavored as a ranged weapon the Longbow over the Rifle, but those crybabies here demanded so much for their silly sniper class ..sigh
Longbow woudl always have been the much better choice, that owuld have fitted better to the Thief as a Rogue E-Spec or as an Infiltrator-Espec and a mixture of focused Shadow Magic imo… but it is now as it is sadly… won#t be changeable anymore, anet decided to please the counterstrike boom headshot crowd with a bad cheap sniper spec, that will always lose against a core thief or a daredevil, the moment they get surprised and forced into heavy melee combat against which the spec has nothing to offer, eexcept 1 single backwards evade skill…wow nothign that can#t be instantly countered with a leap skill or a shadow step ect. pp

and with the tons of anti stealth gameplay anet keeps on adding lately within all the E specs, their elite skill is completely hopeless as well, when theres a spellbreaker, which can like reveal you instantly 3x in a row and tether you, so that you can’t escape from them as you get pulled back each time, which makes fights agaisnt them surely no fun as deadeye, if you can#t out dps when they force you to battle them, knowing that your rifle won’t be in melee combat any help at all

Daredavil just feels naturally, its a fast paced melee combat spec, that fits to the design of the initiative system much better, than the deadeye.
The traits of the DE also aren’t really any good compensations for the lost traitline that gets replaced by DE. However you see it, as DE you will always lose something thats very important for you to be viable, while tricks for preparedness is still too important for all thief builds to even be viable at all.

Crit/Trick/DE.. or Deadly/Trick/De, or Acro/trick/DE,, nothign of these options feels right to me at the moment.
if you use acro, the spec feels loosign too much DPS just for a bit more mobility to get slightly closer to daredevil and regardless if you use now crit, or deadly, bot options feel incomplete withotu each other imo. Wouldn’t trick so heavily required to be viable, one could use Deadly /Crit/DE. or Deadly/Shadow/DE or Crit/Shadow/De, or Acro/Shadow/DE, to get more survivability, without losing the viability that comes from needign to have preparedness too run not out too quickly from initiative…

Could be solved basically, if DE woudl provide better/more initiative regain management, but it has 0 of that, which makes everythign only worser!!

Think the main problems are with rifle itself, with a couple of exceptions. The precast needs to be removed from aa and 4, kneel needs to be less clunky, the whole set just feels like it needs sped up by an 1/8th to a 1/4 second.

Main problems I see with the spec are the needing a target to activate Steal abilities, and the cast time on Mark. Both feel pretty kitteny after using Steal all these years.

I’m going to pre-order POF precisely because of deadeye. Rifle is not clunky; it’s deliberate, which is perfectly valid trade-off for massive range. It’s also a nifty change of pace, and fits perfectly with the whole sniper motif.

Also, as many have pointed out, people are confusing the new weapon with the new traitline. Feel free to experiment with different weapons.

Dude, I’m excited for Deadeye, I just find it massively more effective without the rifle.

Trickery is NOT required in a DE build.

To the INI. With ample ways to achieve steath via the new Elite and utilities anyone used to an x/d build wherein stealth achieved via CnD or a p/p or d/p build will make up for lost INI via more access to stealth via utility.

If traiting SA which is very compatible with DE , you can more than make up for the lost BT and boon theft by taking RS.

Ready might access and the ability to garner bonuses out of stealth makes up for the loss of lead attacks.

The stun on steal via SOH is surpassed by unforgiving.

If a thief was using Trickery to get trickster for tricks you WILL miss those lower cooldowns but I found due to the ability to pop into stealth so readily and given I traited up SA , Shadows embrace worked very well removing conditions.

It may not be as easy or straightforward to get access to all the same things trickery offers but I have been having very good success in dropping that line , more then I could have had taking DrD. This does not mean I will no longer take trickery on every build as it does offer tremendous benefit. It is just not as much a must have as it was before DE.

As to those added dodges from DrD yes they are missed but I have been playing without them in anticipation of this for some time and the transition not all that difficult once you retrain yourself to use a dodge more wisely.

babazhook.6805:

Trickery is NOT required in a DE build.

To the INI. With ample ways to achieve steath via the new Elite and utilities anyone used to an x/d build wherein stealth achieved via CnD or a p/p or d/p build will make up for lost INI via more access to stealth via utility.

If traiting SA which is very compatible with DE , you can more than make up for the lost BT and boon theft by taking RS.

Ready might access and the ability to garner bonuses out of stealth makes up for the loss of lead attacks.

The stun on steal via SOH is surpassed by unforgiving.

If a thief was using Trickery to get trickster for tricks you WILL miss those lower cooldowns but I found due to the ability to pop into stealth so readily and given I traited up SA , Shadows embrace worked very well removing conditions.

It may not be as easy or straightforward to get access to all the same things trickery offers but I have been having very good success in dropping that line , more then I could have had taking DrD. This does not mean I will no longer take trickery on every build as it does offer tremendous benefit. It is just not as much a must have as it was before DE.

As to those added dodges from DrD yes they are missed but I have been playing without them in anticipation of this for some time and the transition not all that difficult once you retrain yourself to use a dodge more wisely.

Trickery is required for literally every thief build.
For years thief was balanced around trickery, deadeye with those extremely high initiative costs was even created with trickery in mind.