Build:Deadeye - Power Deadeye

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on April 15, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A very simple open world deadeye build focused on melee weapons. With minor trait changes, this build can perform great at chain killing trash mobs, or in long fights versus bosses. It also makes frequent use of Stealth, has good mobility, and is very fast paced.

Its main downside is that it has extremely low amounts of cleave/AoE damage.

When chain killing, this build can maintain permanent Fury, Might, and Quickness with no boon duration. When fighting bosses, it can maintain a permanent rotation and never run out of initiative (if making the required trait changes).

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Skill Bar

Dagger/Dagger

Dagger/Pistol

Utility

Weapon Variants

While mainhand dagger has potentially the highest damage, the usage section includes all power weapon combinations in case some are ever useful.

• Always keep a shortbow in your inventory should you need it for tagging events.

Skill variants

Heal Skill

• Withdraw - shorter cooldown heal with an evade.
• Malicious Restoration - condi cleanse and huge heal.

Utility skills

You can replace Assassin's Signet and Shadow Flare should the situation require other utilities. You could also replace Signet of Agility if really needed, but you will lose the needed critical chance.

• Binding Shadow amazing CC and boon removal.
• Scorpion Wire - very situational. Extremely good for pulling the bomb in Battle in Tarir south lane meta event.
• Shadowstep - amazing mobility plus stunbreak and condi cleanse.
• Shadow Gust - more stealth and crowd control.
• Shadow Refuge - long duration of stealth for channelling Hero Challenges.

Elite Skill

• Dagger Storm - a 4 second evade.
• Basilisk Venom - strong crowd control if there are allies nearby.

Specializations

Variants

• Invigorating Precision - a litle bit of sustain, not that great after the huge nerf in End of Dragons.
• Collateral Damage - when fighting tightly packed groups of trash mobs.

Deadly Arts

When fighting high health enemies such as bosses, replace Trickery with Deadly Arts. This applies even if you're soloing.

• And replace Be Quick or Be Killed with Maleficent Seven.

Equipment

Ascended gear and stat infusions are not required; you can use exotic gear with the same stats.
This set uses gear similar to Daredevil - Power DPS, making it excellent for general PVE.

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Dagger
Berserker

Dagger
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Pistol
Berserker

Sigil

Rune
x6

Variant Equipment

Gear

• Knight - defensive trinkets
• Marauder - trades some damage for higher health

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of Infiltration - budget DPS
• Rune of Superior Rune of Vampirism - defense

Sigils

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Air - budget DPS
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Energy - Strong defensive sigil that allows for more dodges.
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Fire - can be used on the shortbow for even better mob tagging.

Tagging

• Equip your shortbow with Sigil of Superior Sigil of Fire and Sigil of Superior Sigil of Frenzy for an excellent tagging build. Generally speaking, daredevil performs betterr at tagging.

Consumables

Food

• Any ascended food is superior to any other food you could use. Steak for power, flatbread for conditions. Budget versions of these foods exist and are acceptable.
• - farming
• , - DPS
• - defense

Utility

• (and variants) - farming
• , - dps

Usage

General

• This build focuses on using Deadeye's Mark to proc several powerful traits, including:
  • Kleptomaniac, Thrill of the Crime, Sleight of Hand, Bountiful Theft from Trickery
  • Collateral Damage, Renewing Gaze, Be Quick or Be Killed in Deadeye
• Because of these interactions, every time you steal you will gain Fury, Might, Quickness, Swiftness, Regeneration, Vigor, +200 Power and Precision, and +2 Initiative.
• Because none of the listed traits that grant these boons have an internal cooldown, and Renewing Gaze refreshes your Deadeye's Mark (which counts as a Steal) every time you kill your marked target, you can instantly re-apply these buffs to yourself, making this build amazingly good at killing groups of trash mobs.
• You deal increased damage to your market target, and take less damage from it, thanks to Iron Sight.
• This build makes frequent use of Stealth, for short durations, to deal damage with the very strong stealth attack Malicious Backstab. Your sources of stealth range from stolen skills used above 5 Malice and Hide in Shadows, to your weapon skill Cloak and Dagger. When you swap to the pistol offhand, you can also use Black Powder and leap with Heartseeker though the combo field to gain 3 seconds of stealth, though this costs a lot of innitiative. See also Guide:What are Combo Fields.

Damage

Default to dagger/dagger and it has the highest damage overall, but know that in some scenarios other weapon combinations might perform better.

Dagger/Dagger

This is the default variant, it has great burst and sustained damage. However, the vast majority of that damage is single target.

• Malicious Backstab is your highest damage ability, but it can only be used from Stealth as it is the dagger's Stealth Attack. Always strike from behind and build some malice before using it to massively increase its damage. To gain stealth to use this attack you can use your stolen skill while at or above 5 malice, or use Cloak and Dagger.
• Dancing Dagger is your highest damage skill and best malice generator against enemies above 50% HP.
• Heartseeker is your highest damage skill and best malice generator against enemies below 50% HP.
• Double Strike when out of initiative.
• Cloak and Dagger to gain stealth.
• Death Blossom emergency evade, don't use it for damage because this a condition damage skill but you are playing a power damage build.

Dagger/Pistol

This variant has more mobility and better opener potential with Shadow Shot but has less access to stealth to use Backstab, so it gets worse in long fights.

• Malicious Backstab is your highest damage ability, but it can only be used from Stealth as it is the dagger's Stealth Attack. Always strike from behind and build some malice before using it to massively increase its damage. To gain stealth to use this attack you can use your stolen skill while at or above 5 malice, or use Cloak and Dagger.
• Shadow Shot is your highest damage skill and best malice generator against enemies above 50% HP.
• Heartseeker is your highest damage skill and best malice generator against enemies below 50% HP.
• Double Strike when out of initiative.
• Headshot to delete breakbars.
• Black Powder extremely situational to gain stealth through its combo field, or to blind trash mobs.

Sword variants

Sword deals considerably lower damage than dagger but, in exchange, it has more crowd control and utility.

• Malicious Tactical Strike dazes when striking from behind.
• Infiltrator's Strike situational and expensive low damage gap closer.
• Sword/Pistol has Pistol Whip which first stuns, and then you evade while dealing damage (although the evade is missing from the tooltip). Good damage but it costs too much initiative.
• Sword/Dagger has Flanking Strike (thief dual) with low damage and short evade, to then use Larcenous Strike to deal good damage and potentially steal boons. Although the damage is good and stealing boons is cool, the initiative cost is too high to spam this.

Pistol/Pistol

Your only ranged option. While pistol mainhand is a condition damage weapon when wielded with dagger offhand, dual wielding pistols enables a power damage build which spams Unload to deal damage.

• Body Shot is bad, don't waste initiative on it.
• Headshot to delete breakbars.
• Black Powder extremely situational to gain stealth through its combo field, or to blind trash mobs.

For a build focused on pistol pistol deadeye see Build:Deadeye_-_Pistol_Pistol_Payback__Deadeye.

Rifle

Rifle is a great ranged option but it shines best when built around it. See Build:Deadeye_-_Rifle_Deadeye

Defense

This build has access to a number of defensive options, though it mostly relies on killing enemies before they can deal much damage.

• Invigorating Precision provides okayish sustain, especially since this build has permanent Fury.
• You have several sources of stealth, which allow for repositioning or disengaging
• Black Powder is an area blind. If you are just auto attacking, you can keep this up permanently, though it only affects 5 targets and will not affect enemies with Defiance Bars.
• Pistol Whip (Sword/Pistol only) is a long-duration evade that allows you to easily dodge predictable attacks, but it costs too much initiative.

Crowd Control

• Headshot
• Sleight of Hand
• Malicious Tactical Strike (sword 1 in stealth)