Guild Wars 2

Well not looking to start flame wars here or anything.
not gonna talk about macros (all macros do here is make sure this combo is 100% but it is possible without)

C&D/Steal/BS/HS all at same time + stealth clipped so enemy unable to see you. then follow up with auto attacks or double HS.

this is done vs a guardian/semi bunker so you can imagine the dps vs another class

as far as Im aware only 3-4 thief’s know this.

just want peoples thoughts on the vid

EDIT: This was setup to show the thief combo. its simple to do in an actual game but as i said, only a few thief’s do it atm and its not guaranteed to crit. BUT the main fact is. it still can 1 shot a guardian (or any class)

Awesome gameplay! Amazingly tense fight full of moves and counter-moves. The jockeying for positioning and fakeouts were just incredible from both sides. You couldn’t really tell who was going to win until the very last second there.

Kylex.5962:

Well not looking to start flame wars here or anything.
not gonna talk about macros (all macros do here is make sure this combo is 100% but it is possible without)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbhdsF4oEI8

C&D/Steal/BS/HS all at same time + stealth clipped so enemy unable to see you. then follow up with auto attacks or double HS.

this is done vs a guardian/semi bunker so you can imagine the dps vs another class

as far as Im aware only 3-4 thief’s know this.

just want peoples thoughts on the vid

Every single backstab thief uses this combo, but none use quickness so thats probably whats causing the heart strike to go off while in stealth still.

Oozo.7856:

Awesome gameplay! Amazingly tense fight full of moves and counter-moves. The jockeying for positioning and fakeouts were just incredible from both sides. You couldn’t really tell who was going to win until the very last second there.

This made my day.

Oozo.7856:

Awesome gameplay! Amazingly tense fight full of moves and counter-moves. The jockeying for positioning and fakeouts were just incredible from both sides. You couldn’t really tell who was going to win until the very last second there.

Probably that wasn’t supposed to be a gameplay video, but it is just to show how that combo works?

sorrow.2364:

Oozo.7856:

Awesome gameplay! Amazingly tense fight full of moves and counter-moves. The jockeying for positioning and fakeouts were just incredible from both sides. You couldn’t really tell who was going to win until the very last second there.

Probably that wasn’t supposed to be a gameplay video, but it is just to show how that combo works?

I guess you don’t understand sarcasm/satire very well.

sorrow.2364:

Oozo.7856:

Awesome gameplay! Amazingly tense fight full of moves and counter-moves. The jockeying for positioning and fakeouts were just incredible from both sides. You couldn’t really tell who was going to win until the very last second there.

Probably that wasn’t supposed to be a gameplay video, but it is just to show how that combo works?

Yes, it’s just a proof of concept, but this happens to me over 5x a day in sPvP and WvW. It’s extremely tiresome when you can’t target a thief to retaliate before you’re already at such a deficit that a loss is guaranteed. They need to make thieves immune to being culled in WvW if they ever want this to be fixed, and this video was taken in sPvP, which just makes things even more sad to think how much worse it’d be in WvW.

They could have simply learned from the success of GW1: not giving stealth to their assassin class, or any class for that matter.

Stealth is a horrible, horrible headache for any network gameplay programmer due to the increased strength of stealth when combined with any modicum of latency; any form of competitive GW2 is dying because of it.

No amount of monthly, iterative, baby-steps buffing/nerfing balance changes are going to fix the fundamental problems with this game: stealth.

Yeah this happens without a macro all the time in SPVP.

This combo has been around forever, here just with added haste and macroed (grounds for ban btw, get on it mods). The only thing Anet did about it over last 4 months was slightly nerfing CnD damage.

Anyone still surprised PvP community is abandoning this game like a sinking ship?

Harrier.9380:

This combo has been around forever, here just with added haste and macroed (grounds for ban btw, get on it mods). The only thing Anet did about it over last 4 months was slightly nerfing CnD damage.

Anyone still surprised PvP community is abandoning this game like a sinking ship?

you dont know the difference then i see.

EVERY thief does the cloak and dagger/steal/backstab.. but adding an extra heart seeker at the end INSTANTLY after backstab is so much of a better combo. its like been able to hit backstab twice lol..

after the initial opener of C&D/Steal/Backstab majority of people are below 25% hp or dead. so that heartseeker makes it 100%

almost certain that not many thiefs know this..

To hush the outcry/awareness of this, the thieves on these forums instead try to deflect all criticism/nerf-talk by spamming the forum with threads complaining about mesmer instead.

Kylex.5962:

after the initial opener of C&D/Steal/Backstab majority of people are below 25% hp or dead. so that heartseeker makes it 100%

almost certain that not many thiefs know this..

Pretty sure every thief knows this. If it’s a bad thief that does this combo on you, they will spam Heartseeker forever after the combo is over if you’re still alive because they’ve never failed to kill someone with the opener/heartseeker, so they’ve never had to do anything else after Heartseeker or 1-spam.

Occasionally you’ll meet a good thief and they’ll only heartseeker twice after the opener and if that fails, they’ll switch to shortbow to finish things with a cluster bomb or trick shot spam.

Fynd.4890:

Kylex.5962:

after the initial opener of C&D/Steal/Backstab majority of people are below 25% hp or dead. so that heartseeker makes it 100%

almost certain that not many thiefs know this..

Pretty sure every thief knows this. If it’s a bad thief that does this combo on you, they will spam Heartseeker forever after the combo is over if you’re still alive because they’ve never failed to kill someone with the opener/heartseeker, so they’ve never had to do anything else after Heartseeker or 1-spam.

Occasionally you’ll meet a good thief and they’ll only heartseeker twice after the opener and if that fails, they’ll switch to shortbow to finish things with a cluster bomb or trick shot spam.

are you watching the same vid as above? the HS is channeling during the C&D/steal/backstab… if he was to spam heartseeker after the “normal combo” it would be 1 second delayed or so

Kylex.5962:

Fynd.4890:

Kylex.5962:

after the initial opener of C&D/Steal/Backstab majority of people are below 25% hp or dead. so that heartseeker makes it 100%

almost certain that not many thiefs know this..

Pretty sure every thief knows this. If it’s a bad thief that does this combo on you, they will spam Heartseeker forever after the combo is over if you’re still alive because they’ve never failed to kill someone with the opener/heartseeker, so they’ve never had to do anything else after Heartseeker or 1-spam.

Occasionally you’ll meet a good thief and they’ll only heartseeker twice after the opener and if that fails, they’ll switch to shortbow to finish things with a cluster bomb or trick shot spam.

are you watching the same vid as above? the HS is channeling during the C&D/steal/backstab… if he was to spam heartseeker after the “normal combo” it would be 1 second delayed or so

I have had thieves do their opener on me, still not render and get off 3-4 auto attacks on me before they show up in my screen in SPVP, and I definitely had the opener and heart seeker spam, because I can hear that heart seeker noise from a mile away.

Not complaining about thieves in general, just saying the rendering really is what sucks.

Kylex.5962:

Harrier.9380:

This combo has been around forever, here just with added haste and macroed (grounds for ban btw, get on it mods). The only thing Anet did about it over last 4 months was slightly nerfing CnD damage.

Anyone still surprised PvP community is abandoning this game like a sinking ship?

you dont know the difference then i see.

EVERY thief does the cloak and dagger/steal/backstab.. but adding an extra heart seeker at the end INSTANTLY after backstab is so much of a better combo. its like been able to hit backstab twice lol..

after the initial opener of C&D/Steal/Backstab majority of people are below 25% hp or dead. so that heartseeker makes it 100%

almost certain that not many thiefs know this..

Running haste on backstab build is bad lol. Once you get used to the timings you should be able to get heartseeker off without haste, and the initial backstab itself should set you so far ahead that you’re going to win the fight anyways lol. There are more useful utilities for thief like shadow step, scorpion wire, shadow refuge, or even some of the signets that could bring a lot more utility to you and your team. Not to mention that you proc quickness as a passive like every other auto attack anyways lol.

Haste is not bad on a backstab build.
I use haste on my backstab build, But use it for Shortbow not Daggers.

Well. I am just going to reiterate what I put on your YT vid, plus some.

First off, you created a situation that was a perfect storm for the Thief to pull this off. If this was actual gameplay in a SPvP match, then you have a lot more to worry about than a Theif doing this combo. What I mean by that is you were just standing there, doing nothing. Not on the point and from what I can tell you were built as a bunker Gaurdian, where you should of been. You weren’t panning your camera, so awareness wasn’t to be had. Also your camera was tight on your character. So to me, this is all a set up. Especially seeing that your combat log was the only thing open in conjunction to all of the above.

With all that being said, that this is a setup. The reason that I am so negative on this is because. You can make any situation look OP or imbalanced. You can make an Assault rifle look OP to a Tank. Let the tank just sit there not moving and unloaded with the flap to the driver open as the person with the assault rifle unloads it into the compartment.

This combo has been around for ages, as one person in this thread has said. To say that Thieves in general aren’t aware of Heartseeker is just hilarious. Why has it been nerfed so many times and so much? (Though as a Thief I do agree with the nerf, it was slightly OP and benefited too much from spamming) It was nerfed because Thieves consistently used it and had tons of outcry. Also to the individual that said Heartseeker was channeling, that ability is an instant. Not a channel, as soon as you hit 2 the animation and damage normaly happens within about .5 secs and under the influence of Haste, it would be .25 secs.

Now after that TLDR that I made. I will get to the heart of this issue. What I think happened here (talking about the combo itself) is that every ability sans the Stealth animation was affected by haste. If the Stealth animation was tied into the haste, then you would of seen the Thief completely as he Heartseekered you and got you with the Coupe de Grace that put you in the down state.

Now, even more important. That fact that you couldn’t see the Thief because of the Stealth animation running at normal speed, didn’t mean that you were going to be any less dead. You were dead as soon as you got hit with the Basilisk Venom. The haste just sped that up is all. If the Thief didn’t use haste, then you could of easily avoided that opener. I personally think that Haste is the worst ability that they have in the game to be honest. I think that the ability makes strong openers too strong and it should be removed. After all that, even with the Thief using Haste. You could of still avoided this burst opener, simply by being aware of your surroundings and play more defensively. You have to make the Thief waste his burst (as a Gaurdian it is pretty easy) and if he has Haste, he has 0 endurance and you can follow up with a burst opener on him and 99% of the time kill him.

So many people play their builds outside of their roles and don’t take the time to understand thier builds strengths and weaknesses. They see a youtube video or see someone posting a build that they are really successful with and people copy/paste it to their character and expect the build to carry them without any thought of the meta involved. Also there is a lot of players that create the uber deeps and uber tank builds and get destroyed, because they are fighting their hard counters. Those people need to learn that composition of a team and also making a balanced build is much more important in PvP. This is prevelant in all professions.

70% of the players in this game have very low skill, about 20% have moderate skill, 8% have high skill and 2% are the elite. When you listen to the 70% in terms of balance, you will have a serverly imbalanced game. I hate to sound elitist, but you never hear of the higher skilled players complaining too much about balance. You always hear it from the people that are playing at a low skill level or those new to the game and finally people that are just playing FOTM builds.

People need to take the time and learn from their mistakes and look critically at themselves before posting on the forums about this or that being OP. When I get beat. I look at what I did and then what the opponent did and see what I could of done differently to win. I check did I dodge effectively? Did I manage my initiative properly? Did I land abilities at crucial times? Is my build tight enough to help me deal with situations that I am weak against? If I am fine in all of those areas, then I come hear and constructively create a thread about it and either there is a bug or someone tips me off to something I didn’t know.

People need to leave their egos at the door in PvP. I know that it is hard to, but that is what separates bad players from great players.

Guess I will end this now, since I don’t want to crash the servers with all this text.

I don’t know about you guys, but that kitten looked bad kitten with the james bond music

Archonis.7249:

Well. I am just going to reiterate what I put on your YT vid, plus some.

First off, you created a situation that was a perfect storm for the Thief to pull this off. If this was actual gameplay in a SPvP match, then you have a lot more to worry about than a Theif doing this combo. What I mean by that is you were just standing there, doing nothing. Not on the point and from what I can tell you were built as a bunker Gaurdian, where you should of been. You weren’t panning your camera, so awareness wasn’t to be had. Also your camera was tight on your character. So to me, this is all a set up. Especially seeing that your combat log was the only thing open in conjunction to all of the above.

With all that being said, that this is a setup. The reason that I am so negative on this is because. You can make any situation look OP or imbalanced. You can make an Assault rifle look OP to a Tank. Let the tank just sit there not moving and unloaded with the flap to the driver open as the person with the assault rifle unloads it into the compartment.

This combo has been around for ages, as one person in this thread has said. To say that Thieves in general aren’t aware of Heartseeker is just hilarious. Why has it been nerfed so many times and so much? (Though as a Thief I do agree with the nerf, it was slightly OP and benefited too much from spamming) It was nerfed because Thieves consistently used it and had tons of outcry. Also to the individual that said Heartseeker was channeling, that ability is an instant. Not a channel, as soon as you hit 2 the animation and damage normaly happens within about .5 secs and under the influence of Haste, it would be .25 secs.

Now after that TLDR that I made. I will get to the heart of this issue. What I think happened here (talking about the combo itself) is that every ability sans the Stealth animation was affected by haste. If the Stealth animation was tied into the haste, then you would of seen the Thief completely as he Heartseekered you and got you with the Coupe de Grace that put you in the down state.

Now, even more important. That fact that you couldn’t see the Thief because of the Stealth animation running at normal speed, didn’t mean that you were going to be any less dead. You were dead as soon as you got hit with the Basilisk Venom. The haste just sped that up is all. If the Thief didn’t use haste, then you could of easily avoided that opener. I personally think that Haste is the worst ability that they have in the game to be honest. I think that the ability makes strong openers too strong and it should be removed. After all that, even with the Thief using Haste. You could of still avoided this burst opener, simply by being aware of your surroundings and play more defensively.

So many people play their builds outside of their roles and don’t take the time to understand thier builds strengths and weaknesses. They see a youtube video or see someone posting a build that they are really successful with and people copy/paste it to their character and expect the build to carry them without any thought of the meta involved. Also there is a lot of players that create the uber deeps and uber tank builds and get destroyed, because they are fighting their hard counters. Those people need to learn that composition of a team and also making a balanced build is much more important in PvP. This is prevelant in all professions.

70% of the players in this game have very low skill, about 20% have moderate skill, 8% have high skill and 2% are the elite. When you listen to the 70% in terms of balance, you will have a serverly imbalanced game. I hate to sound elitist, but you never hear of the higher skilled players complaining too much about balance. You always hear it from the people that are playing at a low skill level or those new to the game and finally people that are just playing FOTM builds.

People need to take the time and learn from their mistakes and look critically at themselves before posting on the forums about this or that being OP. When I get beat. I look at what I did and then what the opponent did and see what I could of done differently to win. I check did I dodge effectively? Did I manage my initiative properly? Did I land abilities at crucial times? Is my build tight enough to help me deal with situations that I am weak against? If I am fine in all of those areas, then I come hear and constructively create a thread about it and either there is a bug or someone tips me off to something I didn’t know.

People need to leave their egos at the door in PvP. I know that it is hard to, but that is what separates bad players from great players.

Guess I will end this now, since I don’t want to crash the servers with all this text.

A+ lifetime thief apologist wall of text, will read again.

Archonis, i agree on some parts and on some parts i don’t. im not a 70 % cake player, i know what im talking about, i play paids like almost every day and in top 10 of qp.
first of all… i play a thief as my main.
second, i actually hit 80 % of my burst to all the players, and 20 % that misses are at random dodges.
and imagine this, ur fighting at keep as a guardian, and i come. u think u can always dodge me? i doubt. and if u say thiefs are easy avoidable with haste then u probaly have just faced 90 % of the noob thieves like all others. and 10 % wich u rarely see.
And… gg warriors,mesmers,thiefs,necromancers,elementalist,guardians,rangers that get 1 shot if ur glasscannon lol and u don’t even need to be a glasscannon to get 1 shot.
and i might be just 1 of the “elitist” and if u say that i don’t know what im talking about then ok.
but in theory u might be right… but practically UGHH so hard toooo hard.
but if Anet removes thief 1 shots then i don’t know what their usefull for.

Kirei.1792:

Archonis, i agree on some parts and on some parts i don’t. im not a 70 % cake player, i know what im talking about, i play paids like almost every day and in top 10 of qp.
first of all… i play a thief as my main.
second, i actually hit 80 % of my burst to all the players, and 20 % that misses are at random dodges.
and imagine this, ur fighting at keep as a guardian, and i come. u think u can always dodge me? i doubt. and if u say thiefs are easy avoidable with haste then u probaly have just faced 90 % of the noob thieves like all others. and 10 % wich u rarely see.
And… gg warriors,mesmers,thiefs,necromancers,elementalist,guardians,rangers that get 1 shot if ur glasscannon lol and u don’t even need to be a glasscannon to get 1 shot.
and i might be just 1 of the “elitist” and if u say that i don’t know what im talking about then ok.
but in theory u might be right… but practically UGHH so hard toooo hard.
but if Anet removes thief 1 shots then i don’t know what their usefull for.

And now people are getting to the real root of the problems.
Thief Damage is fine, Warrior damage is fine.

Its power clipping, Rendering, and the effects of Haste that make a lot of classes seem like they are way out of line.
Make quickness a little less potent, fix power clipping. Should be at the top of A nets to do list.

The video was staged to show the bug, it’s not an actual in game footage, but thrust me it happened in paid tournament, that’s why we did research to know what was hapening.
I’ll make a resume of the video content because not everyone get it :
In a time windows of 1.5 seconds :
- 1.5 seconds is the duration of basilic venom’s stun.
- Thief is invisible (it’s ok for some class, but for necro, you can’t DS fear him and you’ll get an heartseeker with this exploit when other thief will be fear right after backstab).
- Does 4 skill in 1.5 seconds (clipping bug and haste make it possible).
- Does 17k damage to someone who has 3k1 armor.
- All this can be done using one macro, no skill required, high reward.

Kirei.1792:

but in theory u might be right… but practically UGHH so hard toooo hard.
but if Anet removes thief 1 shots then i don’t know what their usefull for.

Mobility shortbow + P/W.

Archonis.7249:

70% of the players in this game have very low skill, about 20% have moderate skill, 8% have high skill and 2% are the elite. When you listen to the 70% in terms of balance, you will have a serverly imbalanced game. I hate to sound elitist, but you never hear of the higher skilled players complaining too much about balance. You always hear it from the people that are playing at a low skill level or those new to the game and finally people that are just playing FOTM builds.

Good, rational post overall, but I’m sorry—we cannot continue expecting new players to stick around long enough to learn to counter this. My personal suggestion, rather than nerfing thieves, would be to remove 8v8 hotjoin and replace it with something that’s not a glory farm for burst+mobility professions. That, coupled with tournament matchmaking, would soften the huge insult new PvPers receive when they try their first few matches.

Anet can’t sustain a top-balanced game that’s only fun after you’ve spent ~10 hours improving your reaction time (call it L2P—reflexes are all it is).

Fynd.4890:

No amount of monthly, iterative, baby-steps buffing/nerfing balance changes are going to fix the fundamental problems with this game: stealth.

This.

A game mechanic, broken to the core the way it’s implemented. Should never have made it to the game in the first place, but unfortunately, it’s not going to change.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Archonis.7249:

70% of the players in this game have very low skill, about 20% have moderate skill, 8% have high skill and 2% are the elite. When you listen to the 70% in terms of balance, you will have a serverly imbalanced game. I hate to sound elitist, but you never hear of the higher skilled players complaining too much about balance. You always hear it from the people that are playing at a low skill level or those new to the game and finally people that are just playing FOTM builds.

Good, rational post overall, but I’m sorry—we cannot continue expecting new players to stick around long enough to learn to counter this. My personal suggestion, rather than nerfing thieves, would be to remove 8v8 hotjoin and replace it with something that’s not a glory farm for burst+mobility professions. That, coupled with tournament matchmaking, would soften the huge insult new PvPers receive when they try their first few matches.

Anet can’t sustain a top-balanced game that’s only fun after you’ve spent ~10 hours improving your reaction time (call it L2P—reflexes are all it is).

Thanks.

I agree that 8v8 should be removed. I was opposed to them in beta and still am. It doesn’t help newbies to GW2 how to appropriately PvP and is actually a detriment to them when starting tourneys.

In 8v8 like you said, it is all about the burst. There isn’t a team element going on, it is people going after the glory. Not learning their build, not learning how their build works together with others and not being able to learn from their opponents. Most times in 8v8, you have to study your combat log to find out why your butthole just got shot through your mouth in less than 1 sec because of all the chaos.

I am not really saying L2P in an offensive sense. I am saying learn how to play as in take the time to understand your profession, your role and how you fit in a team and not to play against it and expect to succeed.

Fynd.4890:

A+ lifetime thief apologist wall of text, will read again.

Based on your previous hyperbolic posts about Thieves. I don’t think reading this will help you understand what I am saying.

PS: Not a wall of text, I used proper sentence and paragraph structure along with punctuation and capitalization.

Nice troll attemped. I give it a 6/10 and you were a little pitchy dawg.

Archonis.7249:

Fynd.4890:

A+ lifetime thief apologist wall of text, will read again.

Based on your previous hyperbolic posts about Thieves. I don’t think reading this will help you understand what I am saying.

PS: Not a wall of text, I used proper sentence and paragraph structure along with punctuation and capitalization.

Nice troll attemped. I give it a 6/10 and you were a little pitchy dawg.

Based on your previous hyperbolic posts about thieves, you defend them in every single thread and then you kittenpost in every mesmer thread to deflect attention from your baby: thief.

Best burst, best mobility, best survivability, most evades, most vigor, most condition removal, best lifesteal, most healing, most offensive abilities combined with invincibility(evades), most stealth(mesmer has 2 less), most off-cooldown abilities, most teleports, second-most stun-breaks. Thieves have it real hard. I play my thief in sPvP just to remind myself why the game isn’t even close to e-sport ready.

I’m not trolling, I’m waking you up and debasing the garbage you keep feeding to people that read the forums.

Fynd.4890:

Best burst, best mobility, best survivability, most evades, most vigor, most condition removal, best lifesteal, most offensive abilities combined with invincibility(evades), most stealth(mesmer has 2 less), most off-cooldown abilities, most teleports, second-most stun-breaks. Thieves have it real hard. I play my thief in sPvP just to remind myself why the game isn’t even close to e-sport ready.

Fighting whether thief or mesmer is more unbalanced? Yay! * Grabs a popcorn *

I have never said anything about Mesmers being overpowered. I think that I mentioned once that the Shatter bug is pretty strong and I don’t think that Anet intended that. I never call nerf on a profession. Never have and never will. I defend the Thief often because there are numerous “OMGERD THEIVEZ IZ OP!” and plenty of incorrect information about Thieves OPness.

You seem really heated over a game man. I might suggest that you take some time off and spend it with your family this holiday season.

Archonis.7249:

I have never said anything about Mesmers being overpowered. I think that I mentioned once that the Shatter bug is pretty strong and I don’t think that Anet intended that. I never call nerf on a profession. Never have and never will. I defend the Thief often because there are numerous “OMGERD THEIVEZ IZ OP!” and plenty of incorrect information about Thieves OPness.

Never calling nerf on a profession is bad judgment, there’s nothing to be proud of with that, “Never have and never will”, statement.

You also contradicted that entire statement by mentioning Shattered Strength. It was a buff and if you wish for it to be reverted, that’s asking for a nerf.

You seem really heated over a game man. I might suggest that you take some time off and spend it with your family this holiday season.

My family was killed by Unknown in stealth, you insensitive clod.

Yeah, in a game with no dedicated healer they made combos that are instant death faster then anything I have ever seen.

The only reason you dont see these deadly combos all the time is because the PvP player base is so small and serious pvpers that min/max types already left the game. There are just a handful of good players the rest of the population are average or below farmers not really good at all.

Also you dont need a macro for this, you can do it manual with very little testing, or you can get a mouse that you can program. Not sure if a mouse you can program is against the EoA no way for Anet to legally tell if someone is using a mouse like that regardless.

All of this would be acceptable if there was a dedicated healing class that could respond to instant-high burst damage with fast heals/shields. The only thing that can kind of do this atm with any sort of reliable speed is guardian, and the fast heals they can provide are too small to overcome this.

In a game with no trinity, there should be no burst assassin class with stealth really. There’s little to no counter play; all you can do is try to react fast enough to survive.

Archonis.7249:

Well. I am just going to reiterate what I put on your YT vid, plus some.

First off, you created a situation that was a perfect storm for the Thief to pull this off. If this was actual gameplay in a SPvP match, then you have a lot more to worry about than a Theif doing this combo. What I mean by that is you were just standing there, doing nothing. Not on the point and from what I can tell you were built as a bunker Gaurdian, where you should of been. You weren’t panning your camera, so awareness wasn’t to be had. Also your camera was tight on your character. So to me, this is all a set up. Especially seeing that your combat log was the only thing open in conjunction to all of the above.

With all that being said, that this is a setup. The reason that I am so negative on this is because. You can make any situation look OP or imbalanced. You can make an Assault rifle look OP to a Tank. Let the tank just sit there not moving and unloaded with the flap to the driver open as the person with the assault rifle unloads it into the compartment.

This combo has been around for ages, as one person in this thread has said. To say that Thieves in general aren’t aware of Heartseeker is just hilarious. Why has it been nerfed so many times and so much? (Though as a Thief I do agree with the nerf, it was slightly OP and benefited too much from spamming) It was nerfed because Thieves consistently used it and had tons of outcry. Also to the individual that said Heartseeker was channeling, that ability is an instant. Not a channel, as soon as you hit 2 the animation and damage normaly happens within about .5 secs and under the influence of Haste, it would be .25 secs.

Now after that TLDR that I made. I will get to the heart of this issue. What I think happened here (talking about the combo itself) is that every ability sans the Stealth animation was affected by haste. If the Stealth animation was tied into the haste, then you would of seen the Thief completely as he Heartseekered you and got you with the Coupe de Grace that put you in the down state.

Now, even more important. That fact that you couldn’t see the Thief because of the Stealth animation running at normal speed, didn’t mean that you were going to be any less dead. You were dead as soon as you got hit with the Basilisk Venom. The haste just sped that up is all. If the Thief didn’t use haste, then you could of easily avoided that opener. I personally think that Haste is the worst ability that they have in the game to be honest. I think that the ability makes strong openers too strong and it should be removed. After all that, even with the Thief using Haste. You could of still avoided this burst opener, simply by being aware of your surroundings and play more defensively. You have to make the Thief waste his burst (as a Gaurdian it is pretty easy) and if he has Haste, he has 0 endurance and you can follow up with a burst opener on him and 99% of the time kill him.

So many people play their builds outside of their roles and don’t take the time to understand thier builds strengths and weaknesses. They see a youtube video or see someone posting a build that they are really successful with and people copy/paste it to their character and expect the build to carry them without any thought of the meta involved. Also there is a lot of players that create the uber deeps and uber tank builds and get destroyed, because they are fighting their hard counters. Those people need to learn that composition of a team and also making a balanced build is much more important in PvP. This is prevelant in all professions.

70% of the players in this game have very low skill, about 20% have moderate skill, 8% have high skill and 2% are the elite. When you listen to the 70% in terms of balance, you will have a serverly imbalanced game. I hate to sound elitist, but you never hear of the higher skilled players complaining too much about balance. You always hear it from the people that are playing at a low skill level or those new to the game and finally people that are just playing FOTM builds.

People need to take the time and learn from their mistakes and look critically at themselves before posting on the forums about this or that being OP. When I get beat. I look at what I did and then what the opponent did and see what I could of done differently to win. I check did I dodge effectively? Did I manage my initiative properly? Did I land abilities at crucial times? Is my build tight enough to help me deal with situations that I am weak against? If I am fine in all of those areas, then I come hear and constructively create a thread about it and either there is a bug or someone tips me off to something I didn’t know.

As most posts that catch momentum tend to be a harshly worded opinion piece, back and forth. Players like ya are why it is fun to be competitive. Be a shame if it were buried.

This isn’t a new combo at all. It’s also not nearly effective against good players as it looks. You run this in paids and you’ll go against people who can react in half a second to stunbreak out as soon as they are petrified. Don’t need to see the thief to do that.

they need to get on their stuff man, this thief garbage is killing the community. regardless of tourney balance.

nerva.7940:

they need to get on their stuff man, this thief garbage is killing the community. regardless of tourney balance.

Aye, also thiefs are still strong in tpvp not like they become weak against good players just takes some reaction on the thiefs part if burst fails at a kill.

also, theyre really wrecking wvw, but thats another story.

Revyri.3487:

This isn’t a new combo at all. It’s also not nearly effective against good players as it looks. You run this in paids and you’ll go against people who can react in half a second to stunbreak out as soon as they are petrified. Don’t need to see the thief to do that.

you know this from experience? there is only 1 thief which does this (wont mention names and he knows who he is) and hes… by far stronger than the rest

oh and your forgetting this is to a semi-bunker guardian…. if it was to any other class, i think its 1 shot within 0.75 seconds. unless you see the thief coming, its almost not preventable. i play/played high end tpvp and trust me.. its not possible know exactly where enemy thief is 24/7 and even if it is, you can only partly survive it WITH a cd which you may not even have.

Archonis.7249:

Well. I am just going to reiterate what I put on your YT vid, plus some.

First off, you created a situation that was a perfect storm for the Thief to pull this off. If this was actual gameplay in a SPvP match, then you have a lot more to worry about than a Theif doing this combo. What I mean by that is you were just standing there, doing nothing. Not on the point and from what I can tell you were built as a bunker Gaurdian, where you should of been. You weren’t panning your camera, so awareness wasn’t to be had. Also your camera was tight on your character. So to me, this is all a set up. Especially seeing that your combat log was the only thing open in conjunction to all of the above.

With all that being said, that this is a setup. The reason that I am so negative on this is because. You can make any situation look OP or imbalanced. You can make an Assault rifle look OP to a Tank. Let the tank just sit there not moving and unloaded with the flap to the driver open as the person with the assault rifle unloads it into the compartment.

This combo has been around for ages, as one person in this thread has said. To say that Thieves in general aren’t aware of Heartseeker is just hilarious. Why has it been nerfed so many times and so much? (Though as a Thief I do agree with the nerf, it was slightly OP and benefited too much from spamming) It was nerfed because Thieves consistently used it and had tons of outcry. Also to the individual that said Heartseeker was channeling, that ability is an instant. Not a channel, as soon as you hit 2 the animation and damage normaly happens within about .5 secs and under the influence of Haste, it would be .25 secs.

People need to leave their egos at the door in PvP. I know that it is hard to, but that is what separates bad players from great players.

Guess I will end this now, since I don’t want to crash the servers with all this text.

It wasn’t my vid but we was trying to create a tester situation pulled ON a bunker guardian, and if you want to think its “staged” yes… lets put this in a real situation, where somebody is already attacking the guardian with condis ect. maybe even get an ele to updraft guardian so he cant stunbreak it, and thief opens so its 2s of free dps time.

i don’t have any major problem with the damage BUT if you gave every class the ability to do this. would you call it a balanced game? “1 shot fest” just 1 shotting each others inc bunkers.

but as i said only 1 thief is able to pull this off as of now but that’s due to small community.
more players = more skilled players = more complaints of these things

Edit: Can people not post pointless things if they have no experience at current high end tpvp. its pointless hearing peoples opinions who do spvp or wvw since they have never had it happen to them.

Kylex.5962:

Archonis.7249:

Well. I am just going to reiterate what I put on your YT vid, plus some.

First off, you created a situation that was a perfect storm for the Thief to pull this off. If this was actual gameplay in a SPvP match, then you have a lot more to worry about than a Theif doing this combo. What I mean by that is you were just standing there, doing nothing. Not on the point and from what I can tell you were built as a bunker Gaurdian, where you should of been. You weren’t panning your camera, so awareness wasn’t to be had. Also your camera was tight on your character. So to me, this is all a set up. Especially seeing that your combat log was the only thing open in conjunction to all of the above.

With all that being said, that this is a setup. The reason that I am so negative on this is because. You can make any situation look OP or imbalanced. You can make an Assault rifle look OP to a Tank. Let the tank just sit there not moving and unloaded with the flap to the driver open as the person with the assault rifle unloads it into the compartment.

This combo has been around for ages, as one person in this thread has said. To say that Thieves in general aren’t aware of Heartseeker is just hilarious. Why has it been nerfed so many times and so much? (Though as a Thief I do agree with the nerf, it was slightly OP and benefited too much from spamming) It was nerfed because Thieves consistently used it and had tons of outcry. Also to the individual that said Heartseeker was channeling, that ability is an instant. Not a channel, as soon as you hit 2 the animation and damage normaly happens within about .5 secs and under the influence of Haste, it would be .25 secs.

People need to leave their egos at the door in PvP. I know that it is hard to, but that is what separates bad players from great players.

Guess I will end this now, since I don’t want to crash the servers with all this text.

It wasn’t my vid but we was trying to create a tester situation pulled ON a bunker guardian, and if you want to think its “staged” yes… lets put this in a real situation, where somebody is already attacking the guardian with condis ect. maybe even get an ele to updraft guardian so he cant stunbreak it, and thief opens so its 2s of free dps time.

i don’t have any major problem with the damage BUT if you gave every class the ability to do this. would you call it a balanced game? “1 shot fest” just 1 shotting each others inc bunkers.

but as i said only 1 thief is able to pull this off as of now but that’s due to small community.
more players = more skilled players = more complaints of these things

Edit: Can people not post pointless things if they have no experience at current high end tpvp. its pointless hearing peoples opinions who do spvp or wvw since they have never had it happen to them.

Not sure if you are saying that it is unfair if that Bunker Guard is getting CC’d and then bursted by the Thief? IF you are, then what? Is a Bunker Guard supposed to tank and beat everyone?

In hot join 8v8, 1 shot burst seems to be the name of the game. That is what is most effective (which I think is terrible for PvP). In 5v5 and Tourneys, not so much. Balanced builds and good team composition rule the day there. If you take a 5 man Burst team into a Tourney (especially Paid), they will get destroyed. That is why a majority of PUGs get stomped in Free Tourneys.

More people does mean that you will get more skilled players, but up to 70% of those new players are going to be bad and want ANet to balance around their bad play.

I don’t know if you are directing the edit to me, but I primarily do nothing but TPvP.

Backstab Thief isn’t really all that desired in TPvP unless you team is synergizing arouns it. There are much more sturdy Burst DPS that can roam. I am not saying that Thief is useless in Tourneys, but if you had a choice. You would take an Ele roaming DPS before you would take a Thief for that role.

There are only a few stellar Thieves that you will run into in Paid tourneys. The rest including myself are alright.

Archonis, almost all the top teams in eu have a thief. but why would you say that u would prefer a ele instead of a thief? i think most teams have both?

Backstab Thief isn’t really all that desired in TPvP unless you team is synergizing arouns it.
Thats what you said…
in eu its so desired. i really hope that NA will come to EU and feel what the difference
and thief is better roamer than elementalist lol. and a thief can kill certain things what ele can’t. having no thief in team fighting against full bunker class is not do able. but maybe na thiefs are bad (i don’t know it) but im getting the impression that they think really lowly of thiefs.

i came here to lelz, funny vid, guardian was just standing, that was pro move. gg

EvisceratriX.1750:

i came here to lelz, funny vid, guardian was just standing, that was pro move. gg

i dont know why i bother feeding the trolls but… it was “staged” as i said 3x+

AND

semi bunker is as it says. dont ask stupid questions. “whats glass cannon guys!?”

It would be nice if people actually realised that if this is fixed 20% of the QQ on the forums would go away

Kirei.1792:

Archonis, almost all the top teams in eu have a thief. but why would you say that u would prefer a ele instead of a thief? i think most teams have both?

Backstab Thief isn’t really all that desired in TPvP unless you team is synergizing arouns it.
Thats what you said…
in eu its so desired. i really hope that NA will come to EU and feel what the difference
and thief is better roamer than elementalist lol. and a thief can kill certain things what ele can’t. having no thief in team fighting against full bunker class is not do able. but maybe na thiefs are bad (i don’t know it) but im getting the impression that they think really lowly of thiefs.

Most thief roamers that i have seen are used to kill the weakest link, help in point battles by picking off the squishy, or bursting the burst mesmers.
Bunkers I have seen can hold off 1 -2 people on a point wether it be a theif+ or an Ele+
Maybe its because of that fact people dont use theif roamers, because an ele can sit in combat and has a little more CC than a theif , while being just as mobile.

Solori.6025:

Kirei.1792:

Archonis, almost all the top teams in eu have a thief. but why would you say that u would prefer a ele instead of a thief? i think most teams have both?

Backstab Thief isn’t really all that desired in TPvP unless you team is synergizing arouns it.
Thats what you said…
in eu its so desired. i really hope that NA will come to EU and feel what the difference
and thief is better roamer than elementalist lol. and a thief can kill certain things what ele can’t. having no thief in team fighting against full bunker class is not do able. but maybe na thiefs are bad (i don’t know it) but im getting the impression that they think really lowly of thiefs.

Most thief roamers that i have seen are used to kill the weakest link, help in point battles by picking off the squishy, or bursting the burst mesmers.
Bunkers I have seen can hold off 1 -2 people on a point wether it be a theif+ or an Ele+
Maybe its because of that fact people dont use theif roamers, because an ele can sit in combat and has a little more CC than a theif , while being just as mobile.

Yea, a Thief is great at fulfilling the word Roaming. He is very mobile and can get around the map fast, but when met with the slightest resistance you have to (most times) back off. With an Elementalist you can engage where a Thief cannot. There really isn’t a vice versa. So to me Elementalist is a better roamer than thief, simply because he can burst and has much better survivability without having to break combat and control a lightly defended point.

Archonis.7249:

Solori.6025:

Kirei.1792:

Archonis, almost all the top teams in eu have a thief. but why would you say that u would prefer a ele instead of a thief? i think most teams have both?

Backstab Thief isn’t really all that desired in TPvP unless you team is synergizing arouns it.
Thats what you said…
in eu its so desired. i really hope that NA will come to EU and feel what the difference
and thief is better roamer than elementalist lol. and a thief can kill certain things what ele can’t. having no thief in team fighting against full bunker class is not do able. but maybe na thiefs are bad (i don’t know it) but im getting the impression that they think really lowly of thiefs.

Most thief roamers that i have seen are used to kill the weakest link, help in point battles by picking off the squishy, or bursting the burst mesmers.
Bunkers I have seen can hold off 1 -2 people on a point wether it be a theif+ or an Ele+
Maybe its because of that fact people dont use theif roamers, because an ele can sit in combat and has a little more CC than a theif , while being just as mobile.

Yea, a Thief is great at fulfilling the word Roaming. He is very mobile and can get around the map fast, but when met with the slightest resistance you have to (most times) back off. With an Elementalist you can engage where a Thief cannot. There really isn’t a vice versa. So to me Elementalist is a better roamer than thief, simply because he can burst and has much better survivability without having to break combat and control a lightly defended point.

elementalist can go and bunker out far point after you wipe them at mid or something.
thief can 1 shot guy on far point. with my vid been the main point (only 1 thief does similar combo to this which is why it works) he can pretty much take the point off anybody.

so where as an ele would still be fighting for agessssssss until they reinforce, a thief can simply take from anybody.

depends which you find the best but actually seeing this in action id go more the thief way.. and im NOT crying for Nerfs i just wanted to see peoples opinions on this

man, its pointless to explain. people will never understand… coming US in future, get ready for me, i’ll make u guys change opinion. u guys need to See. then u guys believe.
cba to respond anymore, no point explaining mehh

some players in europe know what the thief can do…

it is good that kirei is not streaming ^^