The video example, provided by Aurora, proves that a berserkers amulet, assassins signet, 7 malice stack deadeye can kill a light armor class without toughness in one hit.
Let’s compare deadeye to the HoT meta daredevil spec.
Daredevils mobility and survivability makes the class extremely good at a competetive level. You are able to make rotations and +1 that is uncounterable by the enemy team. Deadeye is a stationary target that relies on a non piercing blockable bullet to hit their target with a steal/backstab burst. If you didn’t notice there is also a line between you and the thief the moment he starts casting his killshot. Deadeye is unable to +1 on any map and is just going to make an excellent focus target for the enemy daredevil.
Deadeye has no survivability and is probably easier to focus than a moa in the current state. Any HoT meta spec is going to completely nullify the purpose of running this spec instead of daredevil.
Deadeye has a steal animation, and the stolen abilities are arguably worse than the core ones. On paper you will not land a single steal as the one chance you have will be from stealth before being focused by the entire enemy team and one shot. Daredevil has practically the same steal range, and has better follow up on the steal. If you get marked from a dead eye, you are aware of what’s going on and what is about to happen.
Gunflame warrior had a really good uptime on it’s F1. It also had ways to prevent blocks and piercing issues. You were unable to play reactively versus it in bigger fights (WvW/Gvg) so the nerf was healthy for the game as it was a non animation ranged stronger than any eviscarate damage. There is literally a line between you and the deadeye when you use your burst ability. It tells you before you do damage to dodge or shatter. You shouldn’t be able to avoid steal backstab, preventing a deadeye is having common sense.
Stacking malice is not hard, but it is super predictable. In theory the moment a thief lands a steal, the enemy daredevil is just going to completely destroy the deadeye. You need to realise how easy of a target this is to focus. It has no purpose in either GvG or PvP as long as 15 melee and daredevil remains as strong as it is. This is a spec that would be decent in the core game (pre HoT), but even then normal DP thief (6/0/2/0/6 or shadow arts).
Again, the clip shows a berserkers amulet deadeye kill shot a light armor class without toughness with assassins signet. I wish i could see the full clip to see what cooldowns you had, but there is already a clear missplay shown in the video. I will assume you have no dodges, blocks or distortions. You open from stealth on the deadeye and run towards the middle of 2 pillars. You could simply have been smart and ran behind either pillar and forced a shadowstep from the thief. You could have seen the white circle and used your staff 2 or simply walked to a new LoS. He did not even run shadowstep and any sane player would easily see that and play around it.
You can be the best player in the world and you will not avoid a daredevil if he is at the same level as you. A deadeye is handicapped power necromancer that has no purpose in the current meta and probably never will on a high level. Similar to most specs it is strong versus weaker players however completely useless the moment a decent player faces it.
Stop backpedalling