Deadeye - SA Rifle Roamer
The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great
Focused on: Strike damage and Mobility
Designed for: WvW Roaming
Overview
A Shadow Arts take on Rifle Power Deadeye, this WvW roaming build relies heavily on Stealth to survive between frequent but small burst chains while utilizing its ranged attacks to stay out of harm's way.
Skill Bar
Skill Variants
Weapons
- Dagger/Pistol over Sword/Dagger - another great backup set. Focuses more on stalling in stealth and ambushing enemies with burst damage while S/D offers more of a bruiser playstyle that allows you to go toe to toe with enemies.
Utility
For the optional slot:
Stealth access. Could be used defensively to create a breathing room and escape in stealth, or offensively to set up a Death's Judgment on Rifle.
- CC and easy
Vulnerability stacking. Because of the delay, with proper timing BS can be used to set up burst such as while you're still in stealth.
- CC and damage boost through
- - passive damage increase and an active that can greatly enhance your burst damage.
- - cleanses several conditions, has a useful passive, and refills just enough endurance for a dodge roll which means it has great synergy with .
Stealth access.
- stun break and instant
Heal
- - more focus on stealth, but you sacrifice an on-demand evade frame on for a skill that has a cast time, which means it generally performs worse under pressure unless you are already stealthed or built proper distance.
Elite
- - a panic button that can save your from enemy burst. The choice between Dagger Storm and Shadow Meld is similar to the Withdraw vs Hide in Shadows debate, one grants an instant evade frame while the other adds more stealth albeit with a cast time. Dagger Storm is the better reactive defensive skill, but stealth is one of the most important parts of the build. Both are equally viable options.
Template Code
Specializations
Variants
- makes you slightly worse at building Malice in exchange for better access to stolen skills (which could translate to more stealth).
Equipment
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Dragon
Dragon
Dragon
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
x6
x18
Equipment Variants
Relics
- - worth considering when playing with at least 2 utility Cantrips.
- - a damage boost that can be maintained somewhat passively, but might not be active for stealth bursts or when you're trying to catch enemies offguard. Works well in prolonged 1v1s however.
- - defensive relic with synergy, restoring 1 dodge roll's worth of endurance after using .
- - much better mobility in combat, which also improves your survivability.
Runes
Quickness sources, creating longer burst windows for you with .
- lower burst damage but much better boon duration. This is especially relevant for your
Sigils
- over - better burst on your main set, but less synergy. Good option if you find yourself camping Rifle a lot.
- over - in case you don't want to bother with a stacking sigil.
- over - more damage, less defense against conditions. Air is better if you don't already have it on D/P, but if you've already replaced Bloodlust with Air then go with Blood.
Consumables
Food
- - great synergy with
Stealth uptime.
- Budget version:
, this food provides not just more evasion but also higher
- - better burst damage and some extra life steal.
Utility
- or
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 are further empowered based on the number of 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 to begin passively building Malice.
- provides easy stealth access on rifle, the only limiting factor will be endurance.
- recharges . Use it when you either run out of initiative, have to switch targets, or need to interrupt via .
- 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:
- 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.
- D/P is the set you use if Rifle's either getting countered by projectile denial for an extended period of time but you want to go for the kill, or if you need to stack stealth and resustain.
- procs the damage bonus of , creating a burst window for you.
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: spam until you reach the Malice cap, then enter stealth and follow up with a .
Might and Malice stacking.
(TRB) will be the main skill to spam on the weapon if you do get to Kneel. This is where most of your damage comes from, not to mention Immobilize, or as a cheaper way to reach the Malice cap (Spotter costs 3 Initiative and gives the same amount of Malice as the 6 initiative TRB). The boons provided are also quite good.
can be used either to set up burst with the
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 scenario where you'd use Kneel skills for damage is if you're in a safe spot somewhere up on the highground from where you can snipe targets passing below, quickly taking them out with while having proper line of sight. In that case:
- The only reason most people ever use Kneel is to drop
Stealth stacking methods in the build, use it whenever you're pressured.
(skill #4) - Kneeling inside flips your 4th skill over to which you can then use for stealth access and some mobility. This is one of the best
- We recommend that you set 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.
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 sometimes be useful against other ranged specs as the field destroys projectiles.
Rifle burst rotation example:
- , which already puts you at 1/5 Malice with
- x2
- Stealth using either a stolen skill or a dodge
Stealth
- Entering and exiting
Stealth removes conditions and grants some Initiative.
- Rifle's is the cheapest way for you to enter stealth, endurance being the only limiting factor.
- provides easy stealth access when no other method is available or you want to extend the duration of stealth.
- creates a combo field which can be utilized by you or your team. After dropping SC at your feet use its chain skill to gain stealth.
Sword/Dagger
This is the secondary set. Good for cleaving downed targets, defending yourself vs melee, or finishing off targets who use projectile denial.
- Much 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
S/D chain example
- preferably from range to leave an escape route, meanwhile the Immob should set up the next skill.
- for damage and stealth.
- from behind (if possible).
- Autoattack a bit while the Daze lasts.
- to avoid incoming attacks and open up Larcenous Strike.
- to leave melee range. You should have 5 Malice by now.
- Weapon swap into . Note: this can double as a sort of defensive chain too, if you cut out steps 4-6. This way you'll cleanse several conditions and recover health quickly while preventing your target from pressuring you.
Related Builds
- Marauder Rifle (sPvP) - the Conquest PvP version of this Deadeye WvW Roaming build.
Ratings
![5 stars](/wiki/images/d/dd/5-star.png)
![5 stars](/wiki/images/d/dd/5-star.png)
![5 stars](/wiki/images/d/dd/5-star.png)
![5 stars](/wiki/images/d/dd/5-star.png)
![5 stars](/wiki/images/d/dd/5-star.png)
Comments
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