Guild Wars 2

Heartseeker is a spammable execute combo finisher combined with a short range gap closer which increases in damage inversely to an opponent’s health.

Overall the PvP in this game eschews spammy ‘iwin’ mechanics, yet this ability stands out dramatically from the rest. I’ve had players spam it 5 times in a row, taking off upward of 50%+ of my hp bar. Given a player can only dodge 2, maybe 3 times maximum, it seems rather imbalanced to have it remain in-game as it stands.

Tournament gameplay may produce somewhat different results, but in a pick-up game of sPvP, two thieves assist-training ‘skillseeker’ together will win a match 9 times out of 10.

There are many ways this ability can be adjusted to discourage this kind of spam-to-win behavior. I’m quite disappointed it went live in its current form.

To verify how imbalanced it is, I created a level 1 thief, (appropriately named Skillseeker), cobbled together a spec and ran into pick-up sPvP and managed to finish consistently in the top two spots for my team.

TLDR: Heartseeker, in its current form, is an ability that belongs in a game with horrible, mindless PvP like Rift, not Guild Wars 2.

I agree with you. For a game that markets itself on skill this ability sums up the opposite. I cant believe it made it live in this form since all you see is thieves spamming it, going into stealth building points and spamming again.

Its pretty pathetic.

Evade heartseeker. It’s incredibly easy to do. The reason you went into PvP and consistently scored in the top two spots is because this game is new and most people are not very good at it yet, thus easily killed by moves that other players who are not very good think are overpowered.

Seriously if you just backpeddle without being crippled you can evade a heartseeker. Also, most people don’t realize how vital toughness is in PvP. If you don’t have it, you don’t survive.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Heartseeker is a spammable execute combo finisher combined with a short range gap closer and a which increases in damage inversely to an opponent’s health.

Overall the PvP in this game eschews spammy ‘iwin’ mechanics, yet this ability stands out dramatically from the rest. I’ve had players spam it 5 times in a row, taking off upward of 50%+ of my hp bar. Given a player can only dodge 2, maybe 3 times maximum, it seems rather imbalanced to have it remain in-game as it stands.

Tournament gameplay may produce somewhat different results, but in a pick-up game of sPvP, two thieves assist-training ‘skillseeker’ together will win a match 9 times out of 10.

There are many ways this ability can be adjusted to discourage this kind of spam-to-win behavior. I’m quite disappointed it went live in its current form.

To verify how imbalanced it is, I created a level 1 thief, (appropriately named Skillseeker), cobbled together a spec and ran into pick-up sPvP and managed to finish consistently in the top two spots for my team.

TLDR: Heartseeker, in its current form, is an ability that belongs in a game with horrible, mindless PvP like Rift, not Guild Wars 2.

You think ’’Heartseeker’’ is over the top ? Try it on a Guardian and see the ’’results’’? Or even try it on the Mesmer’s multiple ilussions.

The game is fine and I believe it is much more balanced than it’s predecessor GW1.
People has to erase those ‘’ ready pvpwiki builds’’ that used just to overcome 1 or 2 situations.
You want to overcome someone, use different weapons, tactics, skills or even change a character. Just practice on it.

Spyly.5749:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Heartseeker is a spammable execute combo finisher combined with a short range gap closer and a which increases in damage inversely to an opponent’s health.

Overall the PvP in this game eschews spammy ‘iwin’ mechanics, yet this ability stands out dramatically from the rest. I’ve had players spam it 5 times in a row, taking off upward of 50%+ of my hp bar. Given a player can only dodge 2, maybe 3 times maximum, it seems rather imbalanced to have it remain in-game as it stands.

Tournament gameplay may produce somewhat different results, but in a pick-up game of sPvP, two thieves assist-training ‘skillseeker’ together will win a match 9 times out of 10.

There are many ways this ability can be adjusted to discourage this kind of spam-to-win behavior. I’m quite disappointed it went live in its current form.

To verify how imbalanced it is, I created a level 1 thief, (appropriately named Skillseeker), cobbled together a spec and ran into pick-up sPvP and managed to finish consistently in the top two spots for my team.

TLDR: Heartseeker, in its current form, is an ability that belongs in a game with horrible, mindless PvP like Rift, not Guild Wars 2.

You think ’’Heartseeker’’ is over the top ? Try it on a Guardian and see the ’’results’’? Or even try it on the Mesmer’s multiple ilussions.

The game is fine and I believe it is much more balanced than it’s predecessor GW1.
People has to erase those ‘’ ready pvpwiki builds’’ that used just to overcome 1 or 2 situations.
You want to overcome someone, use different weapons, tactics, skills or even change a character. Just practice on it.

I actually have tried it on a guardian. He went from ~60%->dead and I did nothing but spam that 1 ability.

I’ve actually created a build that was explicitly designed to stop Heartseeker spam: 1800+toughness, lots of hp, knockbacks, etc. Guess what? If a thief comes at me when I have less than 75% health, he still wins with Heartseeker spam.

Hundred Blades does a ton of damage, but it self-roots, has a cooldown and doesn’t increase in damage inversely to an opponent’s health. Heartseeker has no cooldown, actually increases mobility and gets stronger the less health an opponent has.

Alright, before this becomes a 90 pages long about why Heartseeker is okay because you can ‘dodge’, here’s the reasons why it’s currently out of place.

1) Initiative cost vs Damage done: The skill itself is meant to be an executioner move, but currently it’s equally rewarding (both initiative and damage wise) to spam it all the way through a fight. My suggestion, make this skill not worth spamming through from 100%, let it be what it’s supposed to be, an executioner. It should be a drastic difference if you hit someone with it at 100% health and 33% health, currently it hardly is.

2) Reliable leap: When comparing old Heartseeker (and even current burning speed on Elementalists) this skill is way more reliable, not missing as often as it used to, hence increasing it’s damage output throughout a fight now.

3) Distance traveled with it (FIXED AS OF TODAY, SUPPOSEDLY): Initiative-cost wise, it travels further than Infiltrator Arrow does for the same cost (2 Heartseekers go further than 1 IA, supposedly fixed now)

4) Buffed stealth lines, stealth abilities: You can now afford to bring very defensive utilities as they have a better use now, while still being able to use them offensively. If 3 out of your 5 heartseekers hit, you can simply stealth and start to meta the fight and dictate how it’s going to go afterwards. I’m aware stealth doesn’t ‘teleport’ you away, but it’s still a factor that you will now have to guess from there on, or take a new batch of heartseeker to the face.

All I have to say is this, I’m a Warrior and have little to no problems soloing thieves. They’re very squishy, and any CC on a thief, usually ends with them dying. The classes in GW2 are honestly pretty balanced for game launch. Just learn how to counter them, and GG.

^

More or less: Realize its a build that gives you trouble. Learn that build. Find counters. Use counter.

AwesomeAwks.2170:

Seriously if you just backpeddle without being crippled you can evade a heartseeker. Also, most people don’t realize how vital toughness is in PvP. If you don’t have it, you don’t survive.

Over 100 matches played on my thief, I’ve yet to see someone miraculously dodge heartseekers. Sometimes I use it too early (usually as a gap closer) and it doesn’t do much damage – but totally avoid it by backpedaling? Never happened.

To me, looking at the other skills that cost twice as much initiative to do less than half the damage, it seems fairly obvious that it’s broken. Nothing else is giving me 1.5k per initiative point spent consistently against tanky people.

Granted, with my build you get nailed with a 4 second immobilize when I attack you and you’re under 50% health – so maybe that’s part of it – but yeah its brokenly good. Not zealous defense sort of good but still broken.

dcgregorya.5386:

AwesomeAwks.2170:

Seriously if you just backpeddle without being crippled you can evade a heartseeker. Also, most people don’t realize how vital toughness is in PvP. If you don’t have it, you don’t survive.

Over 100 matches played on my thief, I’ve yet to see someone miraculously dodge heartseekers. Sometimes I use it too early (usually as a gap closer) and it doesn’t do much damage – but totally avoid it by backpedaling? Never happened.

It does with strafing.

Often it happens when you are crippled or chilled as it affects your leap range. Then you can just circle strafe the thief while even keeping melee range.

Ragnaruss.1697:

Often it happens when you are crippled or chilled as it affects your leap range. Then you can just circle strafe the thief while even keeping melee range.

It must be this, which is an entirely different statement then “just backpedal”. You can definitely kite it with cripples/chills but that’s kinda obvious I’d think.

dcgregorya.5386:

Ragnaruss.1697:

Often it happens when you are crippled or chilled as it affects your leap range. Then you can just circle strafe the thief while even keeping melee range.

It must be this, which is an entirely different statement then “just backpedal”. You can definitely kite it with cripples/chills but that’s kinda obvious I’d think.

The game is still new so people are mincing words and tactics. But not everyone realizes that quickness, cripple, chill, swiftness, and immobile will also impact your movement abilities. Some of those provide quite a nice counter to many different things.

Agreed. Faceroll ability. Press 1 button. No skill required.

Out of curiosity, am I the only person that gets screwed by this ability because it has evade frames?
I play a Warrior,so i imagine it is very much more noticable as melee versus thief.
When you roll,you are invulnerable.
However, when you heartseeker,the thief “blinks” to signify that he/she is evading.
So..you’re invincible to any attacks that hit you during your heartseeker animation.
THIS is what makes this ability really stupid imo.

Evagal.2584:

Out of curiosity, am I the only person that gets screwed by this ability because it has evade frames?
I play a Warrior,so i imagine it is very much more noticable as melee versus thief.
When you roll,you are invulnerable.
However, when you heartseeker,the thief “blinks” to signify that he/she is evading.
So..you’re invincible to any attacks that hit you during your heartseeker animation.
THIS is what makes this ability really stupid imo.

You are thinking of a totally separate ability.

It is way too spammable to do this kind of damage.
I run elementalist/necromancer, on the necromancer I have alot of HP and thoughness, however I frequently see HS doing 12-14, up to 17K damage on as low as 3 hits.

OK – I get that it can be dodged and whatnot, in any case it is way to much compared to other skills/other professions.

Pistol whip also does crazy damage but there you stand still at least when it ‘channels’, so it takes more skill/can be dodged easier. Heartseeker cling to you like some bad disease.

dcgregorya.5386:

Evagal.2584:

Out of curiosity, am I the only person that gets screwed by this ability because it has evade frames?
I play a Warrior,so i imagine it is very much more noticable as melee versus thief.
When you roll,you are invulnerable.
However, when you heartseeker,the thief “blinks” to signify that he/she is evading.
So..you’re invincible to any attacks that hit you during your heartseeker animation.
THIS is what makes this ability really stupid imo.

You are thinking of a totally separate ability.

Am I?
What ability?
I’m pretty positive I’ve have my attacks ring up as invulnerable while getting heartseeker spamming because my attack landed during his animation.

150% damage stacked on it is ridiculous and that’s the problem. When you get hit for a 12k heartseeker through 2k toughness its because they’re popping the 150% damage buff and hitting you when you’re under 30% damage with the +20% damage buff and might stacks.

There’s too much stacking/scaling. It should cap off.

And to the poster above, heartseeker doesn’t evade but lotus something or other (I forget the name offhand) is the #3 ability that applies AOE conditions and that does an evade (and costs a lot more than heartseeker). It doesn’t do much damage but I’ll often use it as a quick dodge if I see something nasty coming up.

Evagal.2584:

dcgregorya.5386:

Evagal.2584:

Out of curiosity, am I the only person that gets screwed by this ability because it has evade frames?
I play a Warrior,so i imagine it is very much more noticable as melee versus thief.
When you roll,you are invulnerable.
However, when you heartseeker,the thief “blinks” to signify that he/she is evading.
So..you’re invincible to any attacks that hit you during your heartseeker animation.
THIS is what makes this ability really stupid imo.

You are thinking of a totally separate ability.

Am I?
What ability?
I’m pretty positive I’ve have my attacks ring up as invulnerable while getting heartseeker spamming because my attack landed during his animation.

Flanking Strike and Leaping Death Blossom. Probably the later since it has a little ‘leap’ and has evasion. HS has no evasion. Do a CC and they go ‘plop’.

Make sure and dodge only the thief, don’t pay attention to the other classes you are battling as well. Don’t defend this ability, It’s OP and that’s a fact.

If Heartseeker didn’t have the teleport it would be alright.

But if you roll away they’re just going to be right on you again in under a second.

Right now I basically have to run shield for stun or I can’t beat a good thief. Rolling is not enough to save you from HS spam.

How can people possibly defend this ability? Oh wait, they play thieves. Durp.

Find counters? Ok, so what you are saying is…. That I have to spec the right spec, roll the right class, use the right weapon, and use the right instacast skill at the exact right time all in order to defend against one ability and/or one class?

And I do love how the defenders always say “oh just do this, and then this, and then that” as if PvP is the ultimate perfect and structured environment. Humorous.

Anyway, when you have to revolve an entire game around one ability or one class, then that is the sole definition of overpowered.

As a thief, if you evade our Haste+Heartseeker combo, we’re nothing.

I still hate hundred blades more. As far as moves go at least if you get hit by a HS you can begin to take evasive manovers, if a warrior gets you in even a small amount of their HB you die.

EDIT: Basically, HS might be OP, but HB is completely totally skill less AND OP.

I think the most OP thing about heartseeker is how it constantly evokes “spam heartseeker much noob” in chat from the deceased.

You don’t see too many abilities get this kind of treatment-sometime 100-blades gets it, but not to the extent of HS.

I haven’t found HB or HS to be OP or gamebreaking unless I just sit there and take it right in the face. And that makes it my fault.

I agree this skill is way too ridiculous and easy to use but with insane damage. Sure it can be dodged but same goes to almost every other skill.

I haven’t found HB or HS to be OP or gamebreaking unless I just sit there and take it right in the face. And that makes it my fault.

It’s not the fact they are “op” (which they might be) bur rather how little skill is involved in using them, especially HB. It’s like having a fps shooter where one of the guns auto-locks and doesn’t require you to aim, kinda strips the skill right out of it.

As a full time thief player myself (IGN: Reposition), I’ve found that the ability itself is somewhat on the overpowered side. For those who believe that it is a single button “spam to win” skill, it truly is not. The average thief without the trickery spec as a total initiative of 12. With regeneration skills, it IS possible to use Heart Seeker (costs 3 initiative) more than 4 times in quick succession. The thing is, however, Heart Seeker’s damage scales as the opponent’s hp is decreased. With a full hp bar, the skill literally does about as much as an auto attack. Of course, as the HP of the target decreases, the skill begins to deal a significant amount of increased damage. Nearing the 50% mark, with the correct traits, the damage is possibly amplified to an instant down (7-9k criticals). From personal experience, those who apply the utility skill “Haste” and then continue to spam Heart Seeker only succeed if they are lucky. What they can do about the skill to make it less of a problem is to increase the initiative cost slightly, thus the “mindless” spammers who do not understand how to utilize other forms of the thief’s toolkit are eliminated from spamming the skill enough times to get the “one button kill.”

If you have any counter arguments or want specific tips about any type of Thief build, contact me in-game or via skype.

IGN: Reposition (Guild: Fwied Wice)
Skype: kvinh0u

Wreckz.4053:

All I have to say is this, I’m a Warrior and have little to no problems soloing thieves. They’re very squishy, and any CC on a thief, usually ends with them dying. The classes in GW2 are honestly pretty balanced for game launch. Just learn how to counter them, and GG.

Now impress me by playing an elementalist and still saying the same thing.

It seems to me that the primary issue people have here is that they want to fight a HS Thief straight up, the way they fight other classes and that’s just not a good idea. Both HB for Warrior and HS for Thief can be avoided and countered IF you change your tactics to fit the situation.

And of course that’s not going to work everytime. If you’re fighting another player and a HS Thief jumps you, you’re going to die.. but that would likely happen no matter what class was the one that jumped you. If you see a Thief, you should be CCing prior to any straight DPS because that’s the best way to hinder HS spam. Same with Warriors planning to use HB. If you see the wind up, get the heck out of there.

If you don’t want to have to change your tactics depending on the class you’re fighting then what’s the point of even having different classes? May as well just be Rock Em Sock Em Robots.

I understand that people hate dieing but since there’s no Arena (DM) style PvP, a death in the short run shouldn’t be a big deal. Play the objectives and stick with your team and even if you die, your team should be able to win (obviously there are more factors than this, but you get the point).

And yes I do play a Thief, but I play a Condition Thief that doesn’t use D/D. I don’t even use Dagger as my Main hand weapon.

It seems to me that the primary issue people have here is that they want to fight a HS Thief straight up, the way they fight other classes and that’s just not a good idea. Both HB for Warrior and HS for Thief can be avoided and countered IF you change your tactics to fit the situation.

The problem I have with HB warriors is that it’s skill less, they charge you and hope that your stunbreakers are down, if they are they score a kill if not they womble about being confused.

The problem with a HS thief is that you CAN’T fight them straight up. A good thief controls the pace of the fight not you, this makes countering them very hard since he decides when the and how the specific bouts of fighting will occur. This means that 1) they can spec full into burst damage with 0 survivability and not suffer for it and 2) you can’t ever properly punish them, if they get in a bad spot they begin using stealths and take a reset in order to bring it back under control.

It’s actually 2 separate issues, the first is that the spec requires zero skill and the second is that the spec is to good when the player is skilled.

Jest.9276:

It seems to me that the primary issue people have here is that they want to fight a HS Thief straight up, the way they fight other classes and that’s just not a good idea. Both HB for Warrior and HS for Thief can be avoided and countered IF you change your tactics to fit the situation.

And of course that’s not going to work everytime. If you’re fighting another player and a HS Thief jumps you, you’re going to die.. but that would likely happen no matter what class was the one that jumped you. If you see a Thief, you should be CCing prior to any straight DPS because that’s the best way to hinder HS spam. Same with Warriors planning to use HB. If you see the wind up, get the heck out of there.

If you don’t want to have to change your tactics depending on the class you’re fighting then what’s the point of even having different classes? May as well just be Rock Em Sock Em Robots.

I understand that people hate dieing but since there’s no Arena (DM) style PvP, a death in the short run shouldn’t be a big deal. Play the objectives and stick with your team and even if you die, your team should be able to win (obviously there are more factors than this, but you get the point).

And yes I do play a Thief, but I play a Condition Thief that doesn’t use D/D. I don’t even use Dagger as my Main hand weapon.

I am not sure what your experience of Tournament PvP is, but in the situation of a 1v1 due to the fact that you are a point holder and a roamer (Thief) engages on you to attempt to take the point, a death matters significantly. The speed of which the offensive player is able to take down the defensive also matters since most Gladiator + ranked teams respond quickly to calls for help. A heart seeker thief, in all honesty, is not that over powered. After going through the horrible experience of playing against Death Blossom thieves at high level tpvp, it really outshines the hs build.

Malakree.5912:

The problem I have with HB warriors is that it’s skill less, they charge you and hope that your stunbreakers are down, if they are they score a kill if not they womble about being confused.

I haven’t played a Warrior but I’m pretty sure that there’s much more to playing the class well than just hoping for HB to hit. If all they’re focused on is trying to land an HB and they happen to land it on you and you die, you should blame yourself for getting killed by a 1 trick pony. Again, if they jump you while you’re engaged with someone else and land it, that’s not your fault, but you would have likely died anyhow being caught off guard.

Malakree.5912:

The problem with a HS thief is that you CAN’T fight them straight up. A good thief controls the pace of the fight not you, this makes countering them very hard since he decides when the and how the specific bouts of fighting will occur. This means that 1) they can spec full into burst damage with 0 survivability and not suffer for it and 2) you can’t ever properly punish them, if they get in a bad spot they begin using stealths and take a reset in order to bring it back under control.

If a good Thief is controlling the pace and making you fight on their terms then they’re just out playing you. HS or not. Keep playing PvP and keep trying to figure out how to change that. That should be the goal of all balanced PvP. It should not be a situation where you have to have a hard counter to a class. It should not be just hit X skills in order and kill Y class nearly every time.

I’d also argue that going full Survivability does make a Thief suffer and suffer badly if they make a mistake. Thief dies incredibly fast as a Glass Cannon build. Make them make a mistake and you win. That’s the key to beating them.

Stealths themselves last 3-5 seconds max and have a CD between uses. AoE’s hit through stealth and any projectiles activated (not just fired.. but activated) before Stealth still hit the Thief. Stealth does not Reset the fight for a Glass Cannon Thief.

Malakree.5912:

It’s actually 2 separate issues, the first is that the spec requires zero skill and the second is that the spec is to good when the player is skilled.

I can’t say that it requires zero skill just as I can’t say HB requires zero skill. Both attacks require very specific conditions to be met to be used successfully. When facing those builds you need to do everything you can to prevent those conditions from being met. If you succeed, you win the fight. If you fail, you lose the fight. It’s pretty straight forward.

Whether you agree with my reply thus far or not, the point of SPvP and TPvP is to win the objective and focusing on Killing primarily (as glass cannons do) should not win the game. Unless your whole team is having absolutely no success getting to capture points because they’re dieing to the opposing team, in which case.. the opponents builds aren’t likely to be the problem.

Greed.1702:

I am not sure what your experience of Tournament PvP is, but in the situation of a 1v1 due to the fact that you are a point holder and a roamer (Thief) engages on you to attempt to take the point, a death matters significantly. The speed of which the offensive player is able to take down the defensive also matters since most Gladiator + ranked teams respond quickly to calls for help. A heart seeker thief, in all honesty, is not that over powered. After going through the horrible experience of playing against Death Blossom thieves at high level tpvp, it really outshines the hs build.

I agree with your post here to an extent. However, if a single player holding a point is having trouble with a HS Thief killing them then a different tactic should be applied. At that stage, the Defender should be focused only on kiting until help arrives. Even if they have to leave the point to stall for backup. 1 player shouldn’t be able to flip a point before help arrives.

DB Thieves are definitely a whole different ball game though and I completely agree with you there. When used correctly, they’re much more of a threat.

I haven’t played a Warrior but I’m pretty sure that there’s much more to playing the class well than just hoping for HB to hit. If all they’re focused on is trying to land an HB and they happen to land it on you and you die, you should blame yourself for getting killed by a 1 trick pony. Again, if they jump you while you’re engaged with someone else and land it, that’s not your fault, but you would have likely died anyhow being caught off guard.

Playing a greatsword warrior is basically summarized as “try to land HB, then burn all GS skills before turtling as hard as you can and doing it again”. There is so little skill in that build it’s unreal.

Again, if they jump you while you’re engaged with someone else and land it, that’s not your fault, but you would have likely died anyhow being caught off guard.

Again your sort of missing my point. The problem with HB is that it forces people to have specific tools not only on their bar but available to them at all times in order to deal with the warrior. Imagine that when you ran at a necromancer he pushed his 4 key and it then checked whether you have a condition removal skill available, if you do he dies if you don’t you die. It just makes the combat so meaningless as neither player is having a proper input into the game and it’s not dependent on the skill of the players.

As to the thief thing. It’s not the fact they ARE controlling the pace of the fight, this as a thief isn’t actually outplaying since there is no other class which can stop you from controlling it. I’m struggling to explain this since you obviously don’t really play that much as anything other than a thief but if the thief isn’t braindead he SHOULD have control of the fight. The play off of skill is then how the thief plays while in control of the fight against how his opponent plays defensively and ceases what opportunities arise.

The issue is that a well built thief basically wins the fight for free ONCE they are in control of it. It’s like playing a game against someone where you lose if the other person sees you touching your face then the first main rule of the game is that you start with your hands on your face , the game itself provides an auto-win for your opponent unless they are blind or stupid.

If you succeed, you win the fight. If you fail, you lose the fight. It’s pretty straight forward.

Ironically this is exactly how balanced PvP shouldn’t occur. It’s like having a game of chess where the person who loses the first piece loses the game, it leads to quite a silly and quite a boring game. A true skill based game is one where each player strives to get little advantages and snowball them into the win, go view some games of professional dota for a beautiful example of this.

does heartseeker kill someone 100% of the time? no. Can 2 of the 5+ heartseekers be countered with evade if you happen to be at full endurance? yes. The problem is the other 3 heartseekers not to mention the X amount that come as initiative ticks(or ramps depending on spec) back up. Couple this with the fact that thieves guild, auto attack, poisons, HASTE, and other abilities are still playing a huge factor and you have a very lopsided DPS class.

I usually just attack back with no mercy lol works all the time

Lewk.8359:

does heartseeker kill someone 100% of the time? no. Can 2 of the 5+ heartseekers be countered with evade if you happen to be at full endurance? yes. The problem is the other 3 heartseekers not to mention the X amount that come as initiative ticks(or ramps depending on spec) back up. Couple this with the fact that thieves guild, auto attack, poisons, HASTE, and other abilities are still playing a huge factor and you have a very lopsided DPS class.

The point of the thief class is to make it the high mobility, high damage assassin. Your role in a team is to “assassinate” the weaker armored damage/support roles. In a larger scale battle, if you are in the situation that you are ganked by one or more members of the opponents team, it doesn’t matter if the thief is a hs build or not. You’re going to die unless they just stand there. The point of the game is to take the strengths and weaknesses of each class and play a sort of “counter” to and per class. This is my opinion.

Ragnaruss.1697:

^

More or less: Realize its a build that gives you trouble. Learn that build. Find counters. Use counter.

Not really…

As a Necro it feels as if the class is designed to perfectly counter me. They tear through my 30k health crazy fast.

Their heal stealths them and removes bleed (a staple of quite a few Necros).

They get increased damage out of said stealth and their auto attack applies a nice poison which minimizes my healing.

If I slow/fear/stun them and get distance, they tele to me with steal (which often gives them a full 3 second fear with which to kill me).

Then they HS to their little heart’s content killing any other distance I may have got on them. This damage always, always tops the kill chart in any pvp at usually 15000+.

Have I won against them? Sure. But, it takes almost flawless dodges and use of my blind well, and often my Plague elite skill.

QSpec.4298:

Ragnaruss.1697:

^

More or less: Realize its a build that gives you trouble. Learn that build. Find counters. Use counter.

Not really…

As a Necro it feels as if the class is designed to perfectly counter me. They tear through my 30k health crazy fast.

Their heal stealths them and removes bleed (a staple of quite a few Necros).

They get increased damage out of said stealth and their auto attack applies a nice poison which minimizes my healing.

If I slow/fear/stun them and get distance, they tele to me with steal (which often gives them a full 3 second fear with which to kill me).

Then they HS to their little heart’s content killing any other distance I may have got on them. This damage always, always tops the kill chart in any pvp at usually 15000+.

Have I won against them? Sure. But, it takes almost flawless dodges and use of my blind well, and often my Plague elite skill.

With 30k health, no pure hs thief should be able to take you down regardless of whether you dodge or not. A pure damage / critical thief build leaves the thief with roughly 14k health. That’s half of your total health point count, and definitely damage wise, the first few heart seekers will do nothing more than 2k maximum, even in crits. This is from my personal experience.

Greed.1702:

With 30k health, no pure hs thief should be able to take you down regardless of whether you dodge or not. A pure damage / critical thief build leaves the thief with roughly 14k health. That’s half of your total health point count, and definitely damage wise, the first few heart seekers will do nothing more than 2k maximum, even in crits. This is from my personal experience.

This is true, but the loss is like an exponential graph. I often don’t feel like I am losing, and then out of no where my health drops crazy fast. With the stealth, fights last a long time and I am usually whittled down. While time might seem to be on a conditionmancer’s side, in this case it isn’t. Stealth stops me from stacking too much bleed, and in the event that I do, Thief heal removes it. Plus, do not underestimate what a 3 second fear can do to your health pool.

QSpec.4298:

Greed.1702:

With 30k health, no pure hs thief should be able to take you down regardless of whether you dodge or not. A pure damage / critical thief build leaves the thief with roughly 14k health. That’s half of your total health point count, and definitely damage wise, the first few heart seekers will do nothing more than 2k maximum, even in crits. This is from my personal experience.

This is true, but the loss is like an exponential graph. I often don’t feel like I am losing, and then out of no where my health drops crazy fast. With the stealth, fights last a long time and I am usually whittled down. While time might seem to be on a conditionmancer’s side, in this case it isn’t. Stealth stops me from stacking too much bleed, and in the event that I do, Thief heal removes it. Plus, do not underestimate what a 3 second fear can do to your health pool.

Definitely agree with you. Yet the situation you are explaining is of a more experienced thief player and not the “heart seeker spammer” that the majority of heart seeker builds are considered. If the thief is able to outplay you by using steal when you fear, by countering every skill with his toolbelt, then he has successfully defeated you through his player skill by utilizing everything within his toolbelt. In a complete 1v1, elites, utilities, etc are all used in the sole purpose of defeating your enemy. Again, personal experience.

If you did tournaments you would see very quickly that Heartseeker spam builds are extremely weak. It burns all of their initiative so they have to invest EVERYTHING into spamming HS… Giving you ample time to get away / damage them / heal up / etc. If you’re getting downed by heartseeker spam, you’re doing it wrong… You need to time your dodges and always have your utilities and CC ready. Incredible how this forum is FILLED with completely illegitimate complaints about sPvP that basically sum up to, “You’re not playing well.”

The general thief in BG’s have no idea how to do any of this as the main strategy within spvp is zerging with groups of 2 or more. In tournament pvp, the 1v1 situations are more likely, yet eventually end within 20 seconds or less because this game is team based. In order to achieve victory, rotations/teammate support is a definite must.

Malakree.5912:

Again your sort of missing my point. The problem with HB is that it forces people to have specific tools not only on their bar but available to them at all times in order to deal with the warrior. Imagine that when you ran at a necromancer he pushed his 4 key and it then checked whether you have a condition removal skill available, if you do he dies if you don’t you die. It just makes the combat so meaningless as neither player is having a proper input into the game and it’s not dependent on the skill of the players.

I really don’t see the game breaking down to this level anywhere but certain pick up games in SPvP. The balance was built around teamwork and objective gameplay. If the pick up game you’re in is comprised of players trying to primarily play it as a DM and no one is supporting each other then you’re going to have lopsided games where glass cannons do well. This is a playerbase issue though and only prevalent in pug games of SPvP. If they were to make changes to these specs, it hinders the available builds to the classes and in the case of the Thief, lessens it’s viability as a whole.

Malakree.5912:

As to the thief thing. It’s not the fact they ARE controlling the pace of the fight, this as a thief isn’t actually outplaying since there is no other class which can stop you from controlling it. I’m struggling to explain this since you obviously don’t really play that much as anything other than a thief but if the thief isn’t braindead he SHOULD have control of the fight. The play off of skill is then how the thief plays while in control of the fight against how his opponent plays defensively and ceases what opportunities arise.

The issue is that a well built thief basically wins the fight for free ONCE they are in control of it. It’s like playing a game against someone where you lose if the other person sees you touching your face then the first main rule of the game is that you start with your hands on your face , the game itself provides an auto-win for your opponent unless they are blind or stupid.

Ironically this is exactly how balanced PvP shouldn’t occur. It’s like having a game of chess where the person who loses the first piece loses the game, it leads to quite a silly and quite a boring game. A true skill based game is one where each player strives to get little advantages and snowball them into the win, go view some games of professional dota for a beautiful example of this.

I have to disagree. I don’t think it’s as simple at all as who makes the first move but rather who makes the right or wrong move at the right time(and the end result only decides who dies.. not who wins the game). I also feel like you’re comparing two different aspects. Living and Dying in a 1v1 faced paced MMO vs Winning and Losing an entire game in a slower MOBA.

I like my 1v1s to not be “oh kitten what happened to mykitten #8221;…..the problem I have with the thief, and I’m not even sure I’m talking about HS, is that they are like a boa constrictor, where you start with it wrapped around you. If they kitten up 2/3 times and you heavily outplay them then you are able to get your hands free and begin to fight back but if they don’t kitten up your build needs to be tailored to fight them to the exclusion of all else. Generally I beat them since most of them are kitten but the few times you meet one that has even half a clue you can’t even get your foot in the door, you have to hit them before they do anything.

I don’t think it’s overpowered at all, but I think it should be changed. Remove or shorten the leap. It shouldn’t even remotely be an option to spam a single attack for good damage and gap closer.

All I know is that upon death, usually Heartseeker is always on the top of the list. I often see two Thieves running alongside one another using the same build, obviously working together in TS or similar. It’s laughably overpowered. For those of you saying “dodge,” yeah, I’ll dodge. Twice. That buys me about two seconds. Do you really think most other classes can output that same damage in two seconds to gain an advantage? Especially against two Thieves running the same build. There is no counter to it, only things that may buy you a couple of seconds.

I actually met a thief who did 25 k damage with 4x of heartseeker, lovely