Deadeye - Marauder Rifle
The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great
Focused on: Strike damage and Mobility
Designed for: PvP Conquest
Overview
This PvP Deadeye Rifle build takes Thief's role of outnumbering to the extreme, potentially bursting targets down in mere seconds.
Skill Bar
Skill Variants
Utility
For the optional slot:
- Stealth access and an AoE CC. - another
- - better burst setup. In the burst combo use it before . It's the least defensive option though so it's a bit greedy.
- - extremely powerful map control tool when used right, but you have to sacrifice a utility slot for no real combat benefits. Shadow Portal lets you enter fights or get decaps from half a map away.
- - better cleansing, synergy and passive crit chance increase.
Heal
- - adds more stealth access to the build but it's a harder healing skill to pull off under pressure than .
Elite
- Revealed access like Soulbeasts or Engineers which would deny you stealth access, leaving you quite vulnerable and unable to use under pressure. - similar to , acts as a panic button that can help you avoid damage when pressured but gives up another stealth access in exchange. Dagger Storm is especially useful if you expect the enemy team to have builds with
Weapons:
Rifle's set in stone but the secondary set can be changed based on personal preferences, there are several alternatives to Sword/Dagger:
- Dagger/Pistol, which has a great leap finisher for or synergy plus can substitute if there's some anti-projecile field in the way.
- Sword/Pistol keeps some the utility value of both mainhand Sword and offhand Pistol with a strong (albeit expensive) skill #3 that stuns enemies and does high damage whilst evading attacks.
Template Code
Specializations
Variants
- is also a viable option.
Variants
- Stealth. can save you initiative by making you reach the Malice cap with fewer attacks, but less access to stolen skills also means less
Equipment
Equipment Variants
Sigil
- Cripple from you rely on having a big enough gap between you and the target. Which one of these sigils you use is entirely up to you. over - the same damage bonus but instead of relying on the
Relics
- - much better mobility in combat, which also improves your survivability.
- - slightly higher burst damage, worth considering especially when playing with at least 2 utility Cantrips.
Usage
Elite specialization basics
- is replaced by , which has greater range but also a cast time. We're still going to refer to this as steal.
- Stolen skills are also replaced by new ones for each profession, although these are much less situational and can be used more freely. One thing to note is that you cannot pick the target freely for the new stolen skills, they will always be used on your marked target (even if they are in stealth, which can be useful for finishing off low HP stealthed targets).
- If you want to know more about these skills, here's a list of them from the official wiki.
- Your specialization resource is called Malice. It's built through using attack skills with an initiative cost on your marked target and you can have up to 5 stacks of Malice. Stealth attacks such as consume Malice and become more powerful with higher Malice stacks.
- At the 5 Malice threshold stolen skills such as Stealth on activation, which is going to be their primary purpose - but be wary that they also do damage, so if you were already in stealth these will reveal you instead. There is a workaround for this however: stolen skills need line of sight (LoS) to deliver damage, if you intentionally break LoS then you can use them for the stealth without drawbacks. grant
General
- Start fights with
- This skill also procs the damage bonus of , creating a burst window for you.
to begin passively building Malice.
- provides easy stealth access on rifle, the only limiting factor will be endurance.
- recharges . Use it when you run out of initiative, have to switch targets, or need to interrupt via . It also breaks stun but that's more of a bonus functionality rather than the main focus.
- Extending the reach of rifle by 1200 range instantly.
- Escaping from melee, and then doing it again with when they get close.
- Stomping downed opponents with Shadowstep ⇒ Shadow Return.
- Breaking stun and cleansing conditions.
is easily the most versatile skill in the build. Couple of applications include:
- Stealth. and offer a steady stream of cleansing and Initiative in combat, having great synergy with and other sources of
- provides stealth without having to burn resources like initiative or endurance.
- If taken is good for more than just cleansing conditions or boosting your precision, its active effect restores an entire dodge roll's worth of endurance which can be turned into stealth.
- If taken
- Note: skills like or are able to interrupt Dagger Storm, so don't be completely careless.-->
is primarily a defensive elite. The rather lengthy evade frame with increased movement speed makes it an excellent panic button when you're being focused by the enemy team.
Rifle
Main weapon set. Burst, mobility, easy stealth access.
- Rifle technically has 10 skills, but most of them won't be used much if at all.
- The basic game plan is the following: your target, spam until you reach the Malice cap, then enter stealth and follow up with a .
- Kneel skills have longer range, in niche situations you may end up using skills 2-3 to stack Malice but only if you're out of range with Spotter's Shot.
- The ⇒ chain allows you to move around the map undetected in stealth, and you can do this for extended periods of time as refunds part of the initiative cost (especially if your weave in a few dodges too). Don't forget to cancel after using Death's Advance for improved mobility. It's also a great defensive chain to fall back on if you're getting focused by the enemy team, especially following a dodge which already gives you a brief amount of stealth plus some initiative refill.
swaps your rifle skills for more powerful ones but limits your mobility. The cost usually doesn't justify the payoff, so stick to your spam. The only real reason most people ever use Kneel is to drop a smoke field with skill #4 which is a combo field your team can use for stealth stacking and grants access to (while standing inside the field) for stealth access and some mobility.
- We recommend setting up a bind for "about face" (Options ⇒ Control Options ⇒ Movement). This makes it easier to teleport forward with this skill using the following sequence: about face ⇒ ⇒ about face.
- You may decide to throw in a dodge or any other stealth source to proc , restoring initiative and allowing you to spam more. This skill burns the same amount of initiative as the chain (after factoring in the Shadow's Rejuvenation synergy there) and you remain targetable for most of it, but offers better mobility as you don't have to kneel between jumps.
is basically the of this build when it comes to mobility, but that's just one aspect of it. In combat this serves as a spammable condition cleanse or even combo tool for stealth access when used in a smoke field.
- At maximum (5 stacks) of Malice you should enter stealth and do a
- At maximum Malice prioritize using stolen skills for stealth access, don't waste dodges if you don't have to!
. Exceptions include targets at very low health, in that canse it may be quicker to just spam them down with other skills.
- could be useful against other ranged specs, but a more common application of it is stealth stacking. It's a combo field which can also be utilized by your team.
- is taken for synergy.
Rifle burst rotation example:
- If taken Open with . This skill has a delay so timing is key! If you immediately follow up with Deadeye's Mark, BS should land a split second after the mark has been applied.
- (which already puts you at 1/5 Malice IF you're using )
- x3 (enough to do it x2 when playing with Malicious Intent)
- Stealth up using either a stolen skill or a dodge if you can, or any of your stealth CDs if you can't
Sword/Dagger
This is the secondary set. Good for cleaving downed targets, defending yourself vs melee, or finishing off targets who use projectile denial.
- Most of the damage here comes from weaving together autoattacks with the
- There are exceptions of course. For example spamming without a target (and without hitting anything) could be used to buy a few extra seconds for your CDs to come back up under heavy pressure, as it evades attacks.
+ chain. Try not to spam skill 3 too many times in a row because it's very predictable and thus often a waste of initiative.
- Most of the time you should initiate combat with from a safe distance, preferably also behind something that breaks line of sight. This way you'll always have an escape route via .
- is sort of a filler skill, won't be used much unless you're stuck on S/D but can't afford to go into melee range.
- Stealth lets you follow up with a for even more damage plus a CC. At 5 Initiative this isn't cheap, but refunds much of the cost.
- This could be used on AI (clones, pets, minions) if all you need is stealth not the damage, as AI won't dodge it therefore the odds of getting a successful CnD off become higher.
does good damage and the
Top Streamers
- Twitch: Sindrener
- Twitch: Azzardome
- Twitch: Faeleth
Videos
Related Builds
- SA Rifle Roamer - the WvW Roaming version of this Deadeye PvP build.
Ratings
Comments
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