Initiative is unique to the Thief class and is an energy system that is spent when using weapon skills.

All weapon skills cost Initiative except for your auto attacks. You have 12 Initiative and it recharges at one per second.

With the Rifle Deadeye build you will be spending all of your Initiative on .

The Stolen Skill you get in raids is randomized from a group of nine:

• grants you Aegis and applies Poison to your target.
• grants you Resistance and applies Torment to your target.
• grants you Might and applies Weakness to your target.
• grants you Protection and applies Vulnerability to your target.
• grants you Superspeed and applies Immobilize to your target.
• grants you Fury and applies Blind to your target.
• grants you Vigor and applies Chill to your target.
• grants you Quickness and applies Slow to your target.
• will heal you and apply Bleeding to your target.

For this build Stolen Skills are an important resource for obtaining Stealth. Some also provide boons or conditions which will help boost your damage gain from and respectively.

Stealth attacks vary depending on the weapon you have equipped when you Stealth.

For this build, you will only come into contact with one stealth attack:

deals insane amounts of damage and consumes all of your Malice, if used on a target marked with . deals increased damage per Malice consumed.

You can gain Stealth from:

• Using a Stolen Skill with five or more Malice

Cantrips are unique to Deadeyes and Elementalists. Rifle Deadeye uses Cantrips to gain Stealth, Initiative and to refresh your .

You will come into contact with three different cantrips with the Rifle Deadeye build:

• is only used to gain Stealth.
• , your elite skill, is only used for Stealth. It also removes the Revealed buff.
• is used to gain Initiative and can be used to refresh your if you need to reset your rotation.

Malice is a stacking bonus that is unique to Deadeye. It increases the damage of your by 25% per stack. Malice actually increases the effects of all "Stealth Attacks" but your only one with this build is .

Normally, you can have five Malice stacks but as you have you can have seven stacks.

Malice is generated in a few ways:

• means that you will gain one stack of Malice when you use . You will also gain an additional stack when you hit with .
• One stack of Malice will be generated for each skill that hits a target marked with . For example, you will gain one stack of Malice for a full channel of .
• An additional stack of Malice will be granted if that skill does a critical hit on a target marked with . This will only trigger once per skill channel.

Initiative

Malice

is a grand master trait in the Deadeye Trait Line that increases your available Malice from five to seven.

Increased Malice will allow for more damage from !

Due to , when you reach maximum stacks of Malice, you will gain seven Initiative and a bunch of boons:

• 10 stacks of Might
• Fury
• Protection
• Regeneration
• Swiftness
• Vigor

Playing Rifle Deadeye is the epitome of selfish gameplay. While deals 232 Breakbar damage, it should only be used for your rotation. You bring nothing whatsoever to support your team, except for DPS.

Getting access to Stealth is very important for this build. You will get an additional + 200 Power due to and you will be able to use .

You cycle through four difference sources of Stealth during this rotation:

• Stolen Skill

Stolen Skill

Stealth

Malice

After having used your , Downing is very hurtful, since you will not be able to gain any Malice until you can use again. Killing an enemy resets your due to , use this to your advantage by resetting your Cooldown on random enemies.

Prevent getting Revealed while casting by not auto attacking until the cast has finsished.

Delay casting until the very last moment before , to ensure the follow up hits under as well.

Cast once the cast of is 50% completed to ensure the five Initiative granted by this skill don't get overcapped.

As a finisher, use to get rid of Revealed for one last additional .

Positioning is very important with this build. Try to position yourself in a way that allows for very minimal movement or, ideally, none at all.

If you have issues with pulling off , try disabling your auto attack, this allows you to queue up without interrupting yourself.

Enemies can block your projectiles and prevent you from gaining Malice, hence interrupting your rotation. For most bosses it's advised to be as close inside of the boss's hitbox as possible while still flanking.

is just used to generate Stealth and therefore get access to .

grants you + 180 Power. The active of this skill will grant you + 540 Power for five seconds. Make sure to use this utility right at the end of the cast of to ensure that you get two casts in under it's active status.

will grant you Stealth for more . It also does 232 Breakbar damage if your target is marked with .

will cause you to lose all Malice, gain Initiative and refresh . You will always gain three Initiative, regardless of your Malice stacks, and gain an additional Initiative per Malice stack lost.

removes Revealed and applies Stealth. Again, more Stealth results in more spam.

causes you to gain + 80 Power on this build.

will cause you to gain + 120 Power when you are Revealed and it will always grant you an additional + 80 Power. You are frequently Revealed during this rotation so you will greatly benefit from the total + 200 Power.

causes you to do 2% more damage per unique condition on your target. Typically, you will have between 10 - 11 conditions on a target. This only applies to physical damage.

is a flat 20% damage modifier against foes with less than 50% health.

gives you an additional 5% Critical Chance when your health is above 90%.

gives you an additional 7% Critical Chance when you hit your target from the side or behind. You also gain 7% Critical Damage when your health is above 90%.

causes you to gain Ferocity based on 10% of your Precision.

is the reverse of and half the value. You gain 10% additional damage when your target is above 50% health.

causes Fury to give you + 250 Ferocity on top of the native 20% Critical Chance.

causes your to grant one stack of Malice when used. It also causes your to grant one stack of Malice.

causes you to do 1% more damage per unique boon that you have on yourself. This works well with and the Stolen Skills which grant you boons.

is a flat 10% damage modifier on marked targets. If you have a target marked with you will do 10% more damage to that target.

boosts your Malice cap to seven stacks from five. It will also causes you to gain seven Initiative and a load of boons when you hit seven stacks of Malice.

Take over if you are struggling to survive when acting as kiter on Qadim. You should also drop for .

When kiting at Qadim the P, you should drop for . You should also drop and take .

This build requires , if your subgroup does not have access to you will need to take .

Optimal gear setup for Qadim the P:

• Full Berserker Armor
• Full Berserker Trinkets
• & on your Rifle
• & on your Sword / Pistol set.
• and

• = 232 Breakbar damage, if the target has .

Since you can not walk out of , make sure that you manage your Endurance properly.

Rifle Deadeyes have an advantage in terms of phase one and two damage especially if the team is doing the "Side Tanking Strategy".

In phase three, you need to save one Dodge to go from the red field to the green field. Swap to Dagger / Dagger if the team can not kill the boss within two fields.

The image below shows you the ideal place to during the first and second phase:

If you have your at the start of the split phase, stay on rifle. If you do not, swap to Dagger / Dagger.

You can always use your Stolen Skill, for free Stealth, on each Charged Soul. Ideally your rotation for each Charged Soul would be:

2. x 3
3. Stolen Skill
5. x 3

Optimal gear setup for Keep Construct with :

• Full Berserker Armor
• One Assassin Amulet
• One Assassin Ring
• Two Assassin Earrings
• , and
• and

Optimal gear setup for Keep Construct without :

• Full Berserker Armor
• Full Berserker Trinkets
• , and
• and

If you have Fixation, use to remove Revealed.

When doing more than one Orb, swap to Dagger / Dagger while the Orb is being pushed.

Always take a button during the pre-event. As the name suggests, you lose nothing through ranged DPS.

During the first phase, make sure to be inside Xera's hitbox. This will ensure that your projectiles don't get blocked by the adds.

Rifle Deadeye brings absolutely no cleave, none whatsoever. If you aren't getting top DPS in phase one, consider swapping to something else.

During phase two, you will be required to avoid the orbs that come from the centre of the platform. If your current positioning does not allow that, swap to Dagger / Dagger until it's safe.

This boss is literally a golem. Try to move as little as possible whilst always flanking.

Take this time to practise your rotation and get into the swing of things.

The following guide assumes that you will be kiting Qadim.

The first, and most important thing you need to do, is drop and take . This will help you sustain yourself while kiting. Just use off Cooldown on the Lava Elementals.

Qadim always has the same attack pattern, just learn it and you'll find kiting a walk in the part. His attack pattern goes like this:

After , Qadim will move to the next platform. Take care as will Stun you. The Aoe will spawn and you will have ~ two seconds to move before you get Stunned.

You can easily avoid Qadim's auto attack, , and while kneeling on the blue fields at one of the corners. You are required to Dodge the Knockback from by Dodging sidewards to the other blue field,

You can do your normal Rifle Deadeye rotation on the boss during the main phases. In phase two and three, you can still flank by standing slightly sidewards. Make sure that you do not get Knocked Back by or by .

The moral of the story:

Don't

Get

The

Pillar

Mechanic

Be selfish and stand right inside Adina's hitbox. Getting the Pillar mechanic is basically game over for you.

In fast groups, you should run instead of . This will boost your burst by a significant amount. The rotation looks like this:

• x 3
• during
• x 3

During the split phase in fast groups, you may not have time to use three times. So instead, and use three times. If the hand is still not dead, you an use your Stolen Skill and then .

The following guide assumes that you will be on Pylon duty.

Just as with kiting Qadim, you need to swap out for . You should also drop and take .

Optimal gear setup for Qadim the P:

• Full Berserker Armor
• Full Berserker Trinkets
• & on your Rifle
• & on your Sword / Pistol set.
• and

To CC your Pylon, swap to Sword / Pistol and use to Stealth yourself. When Stealthed, your Sword auto attack deals CC damage. In addition to this, you can spam . If your group CC isn't terrible, try to keep at least half of your Initiative.

Outside of and , you are required to Dodge in order to gain Stealth for .

Use to quickly catch your orbs and go back to the Pylon afterwards, should always be off Cooldown.

Your openers on Qadim the P at the 100%, 80% and 60% phases should look like this:

3. x 3
4. Dodge to avoid the shockwave

If you have trouble fitting this all in, you can auto attack until you have to Dodge.

After 40%, you do not require anymore, thus you can use to gain mobility. This will come in handy if you get targeted by the lightning attack or Qadim the P charges at your Pylon.

If your Pylon is destroyed, make sure to tether yourself to a different pylon, so you have good boon uptime while benefiting from banners and spirits.