After so much theory crafting, tweaking, and tuning. I believe I found the best Deadeye sniper build.
This build will require the Deadeye to choose targets carefully and find a perfect location for the best shot. This is not a build that someone can simply stealth and kill. No, no, no…the Thief must act like a sniper. Pick the time, the place, the target and everything to make sure that they can down their target in less than 2 seconds. There are some variations of this build and I personally do not like them
WvW – Sniper
So now let’s break this down. First thing first is the utility skills. Two of the skills are straight up damage boost and one stealth skill that can be used for both offensive and defensive. The healing skill is also a stealth since it is necessary to stay in stealth in order to pick a location undetected. The Elite skill is another stealth and anti-revealed skill. Looking at this list of skills, it’s obvious what they are used for.
Now for the traits, I choose Crit Strike and Trickery. What I need from Crit Strike are might and fury and what I need from Trickery if to activate everything in Crit Strike. Thrill of the Crime will trigger CS’ Assassin’s Fury which will give me Fury and 4 stacks of Might. Of course, DE Mark will trigger Thrill. By applying DE Mark on the target, it will trigger several things. First, as I’ve mentioned, Thrill and Assassin’s Fury. Second, it will trigger BQoBK and Sleight of Hand giving me Quickness, 200 power and 200 prec at the same time Dazing my target. The 200 prec will improve Practiced Tolerance and give me more Ferocity. Hidden Killer only gives 2 seconds window and this is the window the Thief need to down the target. However, if the target persisted, the Thief will still have enough buffs and about 90% crit chance to finish the job.
Here’s my suggested sequence of skill use. Scout target and maintain maximum range of 1500. Find a high ground for a better view of the target. Shadow Refuge will pop an icon overhead so I suggested to use this skill outside 1500 range to avoid detection. When in stealth, move in the range of the target. Use kneel followed by Shadow Meld to extend the stealth duration then apply DE Mark on the target which will trigger BQoBK and apply 4 seconds of Quickness. Fire two shots of Death’s Judgment while the Quickness buff will make sure that these shots are done in less than 2 seconds. This skill combo will deplete all of the Thief’s Initiatives (Kneel costs 3, Death’s Judgment costs 6 each shot). The first shot of DJ will trigger 4 traits; Hidden Killer, Lead Attacks, Unrelenting Strikes and Revealed Malice which will apply another 3 stacks of Might and extend Fury duration. The first shot will also speed up the Malice regen by 50% which gives the second shot an 18% damage boost (2% from Malice and 15% from DJ). Thus the second shot of DJ will be highly buffed that it’s almost impossible for any target to survive this attack. In any case that the target did survive, they can be dispatched using D/P or S/D — I prefer S/D since Infiltrator Strike on costs 3 while Shadowshot costs 4 plus IS immobilizes the target.
A fair warning is that this build is pure berseker gears using Rune of the Wurm for extra vitality and increased ferocity. The precision in this build will further increase the ferocity thanks to Practiced Tolerance. So the aim of the gears is to maximize the Ferocity as much as possible. I didn’t add any food and oil since I think it’s already an overkill. Another thing to point out is that the gears I’ve chosen are all Exotics and surely will have better stats with Ascended gears.
Other variations of this build is using Fire for Effect instead of BQoBK. The 10 stacks of Might is tempting, however, it requires the use of stolen items. Squeezing the stolen items in that tight 2 seconds windows increases the risk of failure since each stolen item has a 1/2 casting time. This is the main reason why I’m not a big fan of this skill even in PvE. Yes, I know that with Improvisation, FFE looks great having the ability to stack 20 stacks of Might. However, by opting to spec for Deadly Arts instead of Crit Strike makes the build lose a lot of killing power. Not to mention, each use of the stolen item alerts the target giving them more time to put up their defenses. Using two stolen items wastes about 1.5 seconds. Another tempting trait is in Deadly Arts, which is Executioner. The 20% damage buff from Exec is very tempting in addition to Exposed Weakness. However, the Thief can either stacks 20 stacks of Might or get 20% damage boost, but not both. There’s a lot of traits that are tempting from DA but I don’t believe that it will get the job done. The single trait from CS trumps them all, which is Hidden Killer. The guaranteed crit with 236% crit damage ie enough to convince me that CS is the correct trait line.
If the target thwarted the assassination attempt and if everything didn’t go as planned, get up, take a bow, then disappear using Shadow Meld. Thrill grants Swiftness so the Thief can get the heck out of there fast.
