I often see phrases like: “heartseeker spammer noob” and “you use cookie cutter spec, so you’re noob” and things of that nature. So, I’m here to pose a question.
You have an attack that does very high damage against low armor targets. As the meta currently values high burst, low armor players, obviously you have a lot of targets to use this attack on. You can:
A) Use this attack and kill the people stupid enough to not bring toughness
B) Not use this attack and find some other, less efficient way of handling these people that do not have toughness
Which do you do?
Obviously, you’re PvPing. You play to win (or, really, to have fun, but winning is fun). You use A.
I just described Heartseeker.
People speak as if using these moves makes you a joke of a player. Let’s face it, if you have one move that does a whole lot of damage, is a gap closer, costs very little initiative and is a execution move to boot, why wouldn’t you spam it against targets that die quickly?
“But, Leriff!” you say, “these specs can be easily countered, so people who use them are bad!”
That is true, but is also a misconception. You see, just because something is easy, and can be countered, does not mean it is not effective. A player who spams Heartseeker and does not realize it can be countered is bad because he does not understand the game, not because he spams Heartseeker. The same goes for Unicorn builds, Pistol Whip, or truly anything you can think of.
Heartseeker can be beaten by armor, and dodging when a thief is ready to pickpocket. Pistol Whip and Backstab can be beaten by causing the thief to flub his opener. Backstab has wasted its opener, and due to Haste, Pistol Whip has literally nowhere to run unless he shadowsteps away. Unicorn specs are beaten by a simple condition remover.
The point being, before you go off and insult all the “noob thief players” for running spam builds, you have to realize why they run them in the first place. It’s because those spam builds work, because people build glass cannon in these early days and those builds punish glass cannons.
“But, Leriff” you might say again, “it’s too easy! They’re just pressing one button!”
Every class is generally easy, so that argument only holds water if you find something else hard. (Which, some people will. I, for the life of me, can’t play Guardian right. I should be able to. I mean, I just stand there and be an impenetrable wall! It’s not like it’s hard! Hnnnngh.)
Skill in PvP is less about what button you press, if you only press one or two, or anything of that nature. It’s learning when to press these buttons that matters. Once more, if someone runs in and spams Heartseeker against you, wastes most of his initiative and then has to run away, he’s not a bad player because he uses Heartseeker, he’s a bad player because of poor game knowledge.
People are not noobs because they use specs that punish the very common glass cannon player. They’re being smart. Occam’s Razor. The simplest solution is the best solution. (While usually more about hypothesis, let’s relate it to specs.)
If I can beat your spec by pressing one button over and over again, that says more about your spec and less about mine, don’t you think?