Deadeye - Rifle Deadeye

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on June 23, 2022 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A power deadeye build focusing on the rifle weapon. This build has amazing damage from 1500 range, with amazing boon uptime, and decent mobility. Its main weaknesses are the lack of AoE damage, being very reliant on projectiles to deal damage, and safely using the rifle skill Kneel that roots you but in turn greatly increases your damage.

The build revolves around quickly building 7 malice to trigger Maleficent Seven to regain initiative and get lots of boons, including permanent 25 might and fury, and then consume that malice to fire a powerful sniper shot Death's Judgment.

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Skill Bar

Rifle

Dagger/Dagger

Utility

Weapon Variants

Mainhand dagger can be substituted for sword. The goal is merely to have a melee weapon set for the rare cases where you cannot safely use rifle.
Keep a shortbow in your inventory and equip it when you need to tag enemies in group events.

Skill Variants

Shadow Gust and Blinding Powder are quite important for this build. Assassin's Signet, however, can be replaced as needed.

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 Flare - AoE damage and teleport.
Shadow Refuge - long duration of stealth for channeling Hero Challenges.
Signet of Agility - if conditions are a problem.

Specializations

Variants

Invigorating Precision - little bit of sustain at the cost of damage, not that great after the hard nerf with End of Dragons.

Trickery

Trickery can be considered when soloing to replace Deadly Arts. It deals slightly less damage than Deadly Arts, dropping even lower in long fights and/or group fights. In exchange, it gives a little more room for error thanks to the extra initiative, and utility from the boon steal+daze on Deadeye's Mark.

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

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Rifle
Berserker

Sigil

Dagger
Berserker

Sigil

Rune
x6

Variant Equipment

Gear

Marauder trades some damage for higher health and crit chance.

Sigils

Sigil of Superior Sigil of Accuracy - good alternative to Impact sigil

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

Deadeye's Mark and Malice

The most important part of the build is correct usage of Deadeye's Mark. Make sure to mark your target before you start firing. Deadeye's Mark increases your damage against that target by 10% and reduces the damage you take from that target by 10% due to Iron Sight; gives you 1 initiative when marking or hitting that target with a stealth attack because of Malicious Intent; and makes your weapon attacks against that target build 1 initiative, or 2 if the attack deals critical damage thanks to Deadeye's Gaze.

The second most important thing is building 7 malice. Maleficent Seven gives you Might, Fury, Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness, and Vigor; and replenishes 7 initiative.

Thus, the goal is to build 7 malice as fast as possible, fire an empowered Death's Judgment, and repeat. This will give you permanent 25 Might (also thanks to Three Round Burst), permanent fury, permanent regeneration, permanent swiftness, and permanent vigor.

Rotation

The rotation is extremely simple to learn. As simple as it is, it is important to follow this rotation exactly, otherwise you will run out of initiative and you won't do damage.

Kneel
Deadeye's Mark
Three Round Burst X3
Stealth
Death's Judgment

Sources of stealth

Mastery of this build requires management of your sources of Stealth, which are the only way to fire your Stealth Attack to reset your initiative. You have several sources of stealth, you will need to learn which is the best one to use at that time:

Silent Scope dodging while wielding a rifle stealths you for 3 seconds. As it has no cooldown, this is only limited by your endurance, and this build has permanent Vigor. Nevertheless, remember to save at least one bar of endurance to dodge incoming attacks.
Shadow Meld - as it has 2 charges, this is the first stealth skill you want to use. The first charge will recharge as you still have access to a second charge should you need it.
Stolen skill - casting your stolen skill while at 5 malice or above will stealth you for 3 seconds. Second highest priority.
Shadow Gust - 3 seconds of stealth. Low priority as you might need to use this for CC. Requires valid path to target to cast.
Blinding Powder - 3 seconds of stealth. Lowest priority as it is your only stunbreak.

Kneel

Kneel is a key part of rifle deadeye. While kneeling, your attack range increases from 1200 to 1500 (Death's Judgment is an exception and always has 1500 range), the speed of your bullets is increased by 50% so they don't take too long to hit your target from max range, and you gain 1 initiative each 3 seconds.

Generally speaking, in the open world it is safe to kneel all the time especially if you make use of your range, often killing durable enemies like hydras before they can even come in range of you. Just be ready to dodge should an attack come your way.

Notes

Death's Judgment inflicts Revealed when cast, so it will always make use of Revealed Training.
Try to stay above 90% health to benefit from Rune of Superior Rune of the Scholar, Keen Observer, and Twin Fangs.
When fighting bosses in a group, try to attack from behind to benefit from Twin Fangs.
If using Action Camera, they keybind "Look Behind" can be used while casting Death's Retreat to quickly and seemlessly jump forward.
- if you don't us action camera, you will have to stop running, turn your character, cast the skill, turn the character again, and resume runing. The keybind "About Face" can help with that.
With a distance of 600 units, Death's Retreat can teleport you up/down slopes or stairs.
You can combo Sniper's Cover with Death's Retreat to disengage by teleporting backwards and entering stealth by blasting the smoke field.
Use Sniper's Cover to destroy dangerous projectile attacks like the volley of arrows from the Tengu Hero Point in Auric Basin.
Death's Retreat deals damage before teleporting. If you are in stealth, it will reveal you.
Death's Judgment and all other stealth attacks will only deal their bonus damage from malice against the marked target. Marking target A and building 7 malice but then firing on target B will not consume malice nor deal bonus damage.
Deadeye's Mark lasts 30 seconds, but you are never letting it run out as casting this gives you access to a stolen skill which are a necessary source of stealth.

Defense

The best defense is to kill your enemy before it can kill you. This build is very aggressive and has little defense.

Dodge dangerous attacks, even while kneeling.
Teleport backwards with Death's Retreat.
Disengage with stealth.
Against trash mobs, you can always use Spotter's Shot to impair their movement. Or you can kite enemies with Skirmisher's Shot. Both skills pierce. Or knock them back with Shadow Gust.

Crowd Control

This build has little crowd control.