My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: watter.5170

watter.5170

Its a pub stomper build. Same with the warriors GS/axe build. I play a S/P thief, and whenever I encounter one of these hs spam thieves, I laugh. I have 22k hp in SPvP to start with, and whenever they leap onto me I use pistol #5, which creates a aoe smoke field for 4 seconds. Since HS sticks to target, and I’m in a smoke field, he gets blinded for every hit, then I laugh and stun him with #3, do 1/2 his hp before he knows what hit him, catch up to him and root him with 2, another 3, and hes dead.

Easy to counter cheese build if you learn a bit about the game and don’t do other cheesy glass cannon builds.

[TBH]Watter
The Brotherhood – Warlord

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Vargs.6234

Vargs.6234

I’m mainly specced for backstab, stealth, and blinds but that stuff tends to feel unnecessary. Most of my melee kills in WvW come from heartseeker spam since 90% of the time whoever you’re attacking will do literally nothing about it whatsoever except maybe hit you with a few basic attacks, or make a really halfhearted attempt at jogging away. If I get super unlucky they may use a single cripple and then start slowly, sloooowly backpedalling (or just stand there).

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Viladel.1837

Viladel.1837

I’m mainly specced for backstab, stealth, and blinds but that stuff tends to feel unnecessary. Most of my melee kills in WvW come from heartseeker spam since 90% of the time whoever you’re attacking will do literally nothing about it whatsoever except maybe hit you with a few basic attacks, or make a really halfhearted attempt at jogging away. If I get super unlucky they may use a single cripple and then start slowly, sloooowly backpedalling (or just stand there).

That’s just most players being terrible right now. We can only hope that will change as people play more.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: LiquidOcelot.1508

LiquidOcelot.1508

Increase Intitative and decrease range and heartseeker is balanced again

Not sure about the initiative, but you can decrease the range on your own. Cripple the thief.

Seriously, decrease his movement speed. Doing that decreases the range of heartseeker. Then kite him. The thief blows heartseekers on trying to get to you, goes like 2 feet with every one, blows all his initiative, has no health, no toughness, nothing left. So then just kill him straight up.

Well if you like me and probably a lot of other thieves who run shadowstep or just happen to have steal off CD, you aren’t getting away from a thief by simply crippling them. On top of that I usually run condition removal on at least one of my skills.

“One does not simply….cripple a thief”

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: metaphorm.6904

metaphorm.6904

whats really funny is that Heartseeker spam isn’t even good. the skill is useful for bursting down low on health enemies but its pretty dreadful other than that. and killing a HS spamming Thief is trivial. jumping forward with it is NOT an evade. you can still wail on the Thief while he’s leaping at you.

I guess some people find it frustrating because its a “cheese” tactic, meaning its effective against people who don’t know what they’re doing but easily countered and not very strong on the whole.

i’d just say people need to learn to play better.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Jordo.5913

Jordo.5913

also…people that are complaining about this build are probably running glass cannon builds….thieves usually go in and try to destroy the light/medium armor wearing classes…when i am on my Guardian or Warrior, a thief hardly ever targets me

I’ll target you. The joy of condition damage is that your armor doesn’t matter. And since I’m using a lot of Death Blossom and dodges, I’m evading most of your attacks. Throw in a Cloak and Dagger and my heal with stealth, and you don’t get to use your big slow attacks while I’m using my biggest and baddest: Backstab. And unless one of your buddies shows up to save you, you’re going to die.

That said, if I land in a stun (aka stupid elementalists blah) I’m just so much roadkill. I mean, I have slightly more survival in that case than the heartseeker build thief, but not enough that it’s really going to matter.

As for the people suggesting spamming dodge and CC’s and what not to beat a heartseeker thief. I’m thinking that’s pretty inefficient, not to mention really difficult since timing the dodge to the thief’s leap is tricky. You’re best bet is to start some kind of AoE even if you’re not sure where the thief is. In the case of elementalists, this is pretty easy since things like Frozen Ground will just totally ruin the thief’s day. The goal is to catch the thief once. After that, you get to dictate how the fight happens, and that’s a disaster for a glass cannon.

alright…but we’re talking about a HS spam build here….not a death blossom build….the power/precision build….where armor does matter….i do see some thieves attacking me….but they are usually condition thieves such as a venom sharing, death blossom, or a really kitteny sword/pistol thief

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Khalif.2076

Khalif.2076

Don’t get me wrong, I think heartseeker is a really cool ability. I just think that the “spamming” of it needs to be fixed somehow. It does huge damage and can be used every second 7 times in a row?

I think the easiest fix is to increase its initiative. It will force people to be more conservative with it.

Also, to people saying to get more skill because this game gives the ability to dodge and such.

In seven seconds, I get 2 dodges and that is IF I had full endurance to start the encounter. As I previously stated, the thief spamming heartseeker gets 7 attacks. On top of that, it auto-follows its target due to the sticky nature of the ability.

7-2= 5 heartseekers averaging even 3k damage (I’ve seen these as high as 6k when below 33%) is still 15k damage. That is enough to wipe out a full hp Guardian, elementalist and take every other class in the game down to below 25%.

Just seems like it needs some work. Don’t get upset because someone has realized that your class has one ability that needs tweaking. I didn’t call thief OP, I said one ability is broken.

please do enlighten us to what else a damage thief can use other than HS?

DB? thats for condition thieves

Crippling dagger? yea perhaps you can cripple them to death.

CnD? right, only usefull every 3 secs, and cost almost 1/2 of your ini.

That leaves auto-attack.

so we should auto-attack to death. gotcha.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Elthurien.8356

Elthurien.8356

blind, aegis, retaliation, stun, daze, knockdown and knockback are all valid counters to heartseeker spam. Most HS cheesers dont have the skill to improvise when countered. It’s merely a Pug stopper

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: LordShade.8143

LordShade.8143

my only problem with thieves is why are they always 4-10 of them per Spvp match… Makes them all boring if you know what they are all going to be doing.

They should make the class harder to learn. Right now its so so SOOOO easy to learn hence why its currently the no.1 most spammed class in spvp with warrior right behind it

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Waterseer.7089

Waterseer.7089

Spam heartseeker until you have no initiative … and then what?

If we have no initiative, that gives us no resource to use our other abilities, which in my personal opinion, are just as useful as heartseeker.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Zetesofos.1724

Zetesofos.1724

So, talked with a friend, and I feel we have come up with some design changes that not only eliminate this problem, but also add value and complexity to the thief overall – here goes:

First, heartseeker – to fix/and made more interesting, separate the leap from the damage portion – this helps reduce the ‘cheese’ as the thief now needs to stick to their target better. Secondly, add a small cast time to the attack – .5-.75 sec (blunderbuss time), and animation to the attack; finally convert perhaps a small portion of the full damage into stacks of bleeding (again, similar to blunderbuss).

What you have now is a slow, powerful ability that does good burst damage, but also allows for condition damage; and more importantly, requires more awareness and skill to use effectively, and is punished more by simplistic, spamming tactices.

Secondly, take the leap portion, and add to backstab, perhaps increase the range to 600, to give the thief more mobility – as a stealth skill, it cannot be spammed constantly.

P.S. – reduce damage on Pistolwhip, make evade like ninetailed strike, just sayin’

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Leontes.7204

Leontes.7204

The problem is similar to the Hundred Blades problem from before. If you look at it in a vaccuum, then yes, there are ways around Heartseeker.

What happens in real life 8v8 pubstomp pickup sPvP is that you’re winning a 2v2 on Graveyard because you’re pro-dodging all of their moves and then you take a Bull’s Rush-Frenzy-100B to the back, or a Devourer Mug-Haste-Pistol Whip or 7x Heartseeker while your escapes are on cooldown because you spent them strategically and were winning a fight because of them.

So, is the problem with the build, or the fact that in 8v8 sPvP you’re bound to have fight 3 of these guys at once, and 21x Heartseeker becomes impossible to beat?

I don’t think anyone argues that the build is better in tPvP than other proven builds, so the issue might lie in the game’s structure itself that these sorts of builds that require you to dodge them might actually be overpowered in large quantities without a healing class to prevent these kinds of spikes.

(edited by Leontes.7204)

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Elthurien.8356

Elthurien.8356

9 tailed strike blocks and then strikes it doesnt have an evade. Pistol whip already has evade and its incredibly easy to dodge if you save your stun breaker/dodge immediately after the stun. PW has quite a long cast animation and requires you to be in melee so i think its fine as is.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: antiviolence.7160

antiviolence.7160

I say, let them cry and get Heartseeker nerfed. Thieves have other ways to kill people who cry when they can’t win.

Good players use dodge, LoS, invulnerables, root, stuns, etc to avoid Heartseeker spam then followed by a counter attack when the thief is drained of all initiative.

Bads gear their characters with damage boosts, high precision, high power and a wee bit of toughness/vitality because they expect it to be enough. Then they meet another glass cannon, in the form of a thief, and pretty much get owned.
Those are the players who spend their time in SPvP wandering around the map alone because they think they’re skilled enough to not follow others/orders.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Vargs.6234

Vargs.6234

The problem is similar to the Hundred Blades problem from before. If you look at it in a vaccuum, then yes, there are ways around Heartseeker.

What happens in real life 8v8 pubstomp pickup sPvP is that you’re winning a 2v2 on Graveyard because you’re pro-dodging all of their moves and then you take a Bull’s Rush-Frenzy-100B to the back, or a Devourer Mug-Haste-Pistol Whip or 7x Heartseeker while your escapes are on cooldown because you spent them strategically and were winning a fight because of them.

So, is the problem with the build, or the fact that in 8v8 sPvP you’re bound to have fight 3 of these guys at once, and 21x Heartseeker becomes impossible to beat?

I don’t think anyone argues that the build is better in tPvP than other proven builds, so the issue might lie in the game’s structure itself that these sorts of builds that require you to dodge them might actually be overpowered in large quantities without a healing class to prevent these kinds of spikes.

You’re fighting 3 people at once and don’t have enough defensive cooldowns to counter them all. I’m not sure where heartseeker falls into play here.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: antiviolence.7160

antiviolence.7160

Old videos and one with a warning at the start of the video that says “the following video contains strategies that only work against people that are terrible at this game” ?
Your point?

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Lycan Von Wolf.8257

Lycan Von Wolf.8257

Don’t like the spam simple solution. Increase the damage and increase the cost. You don’t like that solution build some defense and attack back you weakling. You can’t nerf heart seeker into the ground and claim people should just use db. Different equipment for both of those you are wasting peoples equipment.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Jordo.5913

Jordo.5913

So, talked with a friend, and I feel we have come up with some design changes that not only eliminate this problem, but also add value and complexity to the thief overall – here goes:

First, heartseeker – to fix/and made more interesting, separate the leap from the damage portion – this helps reduce the ‘cheese’ as the thief now needs to stick to their target better. Secondly, add a small cast time to the attack – .5-.75 sec (blunderbuss time), and animation to the attack; finally convert perhaps a small portion of the full damage into stacks of bleeding (again, similar to blunderbuss).

What you have now is a slow, powerful ability that does good burst damage, but also allows for condition damage; and more importantly, requires more awareness and skill to use effectively, and is punished more by simplistic, spamming tactices.

Secondly, take the leap portion, and add to backstab, perhaps increase the range to 600, to give the thief more mobility – as a stealth skill, it cannot be spammed constantly.

P.S. – reduce damage on Pistolwhip, make evade like ninetailed strike, just sayin’

your kind of taking away the only Power single target ability from thieves….

“What you have now is a slow, powerful ability that does good burst damage, but also allows for condition damage”

so now dagger/dagger becomes a condition only weapon set because it would be more profitable to spam auto attack(instant) than wait and get your HS off

you also cannot put any more condition damage on thieves….their auto attack gives poison, their death blossom gives 3 stacks of bleed per use, burning doesn’t make sense,…..the only one that would actually matter is more stacks of bleeds, but then death blossom specc’d thieves become OP

also….you can’t use slow ability and burst damage in the same sentence…burst is all about fast attacking

your also taking away the only gap closer (besides steal) that the dagger/dagger (melee) set has which forces a utility slot to be shadowstep….and putting the gap closer on backstab is a terrible idea….if a thief doesn’t have utility skill that stealths them, the only way to go stealth is heal, or cast skill 5….which you already have to be at your target to cast, which means you aren’t going into stealth for the gap closer…so that forces a thief to take a utility stealth skill…..forcing one class to take certain utility skills to be viable in pvp instantly kittens them when other classes have freedom of choice

edit: kittens = g i m p s
edit2: wtf, why does it do that? LoL

(edited by Jordo.5913)

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Leontes.7204

Leontes.7204

You’re fighting 3 people at once and don’t have enough defensive cooldowns to counter them all. I’m not sure where heartseeker falls into play here.

Yeah exactly, what I’m saying is that this situation happens every 10 seconds in 8v8, but how often in tPvP?

That was my only point.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: amradio.2513

amradio.2513

Increase Intitative and decrease range and heartseeker is balanced again

Not sure about the initiative, but you can decrease the range on your own. Cripple the thief.

Seriously, decrease his movement speed. Doing that decreases the range of heartseeker. Then kite him. The thief blows heartseekers on trying to get to you, goes like 2 feet with every one, blows all his initiative, has no health, no toughness, nothing left. So then just kill him straight up.

Well if you like me and probably a lot of other thieves who run shadowstep or just happen to have steal off CD, you aren’t getting away from a thief by simply crippling them. On top of that I usually run condition removal on at least one of my skills.

“One does not simply….cripple a thief”

Chances are even if they cripple the thief, they’ll be crippled as well. We have caltrops utility, caltrops on dodge, dagger offhand has a cripple skill….basically crippling is a waste of time. It might work depending on the thief, but my build has at least 3 cripples in it. Even if they break one I have caltrops on the field and a cripple dagger in my back pocket.

Not even counting my shadowstep on the weapon switch to dagger/pistol. Or the shadowstep from steal >_>

One does not simply…escape from a thief.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Mystmory.5164

Mystmory.5164

Do people really spam heartseeker from the start? I only use heartseeker when my target is below 50%. Spamming heartseeker all the way from the start is probably the worse thing a thief can do. I think pistol whip with haste is a bigger problem since it can sure kill almost anyone who is not using a skill that breaks stun. You can’t evade while stunned. Also if you think about it, what does a dagger thief really have to fight with if he does not use heartseeker? All the ranged class won’t just sit there for you to normal attack. The melee classes will destroy you. That being said, a thief is probably the most vulnerable when spamming heartseeker. Two evades and two is already wasted because really what other time will you use evade against a thief?

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: LED Head.2439

LED Head.2439

I don’t really mind it the way it is, I see it as compensation for not being able to self protect as good as a warrior or Guardian and not being able to spam at ranged like a hunter and for not being able to be squishy as you but spam AOE’s and mess everyone’s day an AOE I might add that you sort of have to tank because your a melee user and this game already favors the ranged professions. So I say tough cookies if you don’t want to be hit with what I think it the best offensive ability that a thief has and about the only real burst skill it has going for it then stay away from the thief and play the game properly by out not letting your squishy profession come into contact with melee.

Your saying you want this ability nerfed in response to this I want mesmser condition removal nerfe, Elemental Aoe cool down increased, Slightly nerfed effective range on all ranged casts and bow users to compensate for the fact that I would rather chance all my initiative in one burst attack which I would have taken time to prep so that It was not all wasted leaving me open to any number of attacks I would need to dodge and evade until I got some of my initiative back to counter offensively with.

(edited by LED Head.2439)

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Rika.7249

Rika.7249

If you’re losing to a heartseeker spamming thief, you’re doing something wrong.
Same goes for a Pistol Whip thief.
They’re wasting initiative if they miss, initiative that could be used for Cloak and Dagger, Dancing Dagger, and even a free evade with an applied bleed effect.
Unless they’re using devourer venom, I don’t see how it’s possible to get hit by heartseeker that many times.
And if they’re using devourer venom, dodge.
Personally, people greatly underestimate the power of the number 1 ability. Save your initiative, use it for when it counts.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Kurow.6973

Kurow.6973

Yes, let’s increase the initiative cost so they can just stand there auto attacking a lot more often.

Yes, let’s reduce their damage so they hit with toothpicks when they can finally land a hit.

Yes, let’s make it easier for me to live longer and 1-2 shot a damage stacked thief from range.

God, I love how much qqing people do, instead of getting better at their class, and the game. Learn to use dodge, and skills similar to dodge.

Honestly, I’ve played almost all the classes, and I can certainly say that thief is by far the least broken class. Initiative comes with as much downside and it does with positives.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: MaximusAwesomus.1784

MaximusAwesomus.1784

How about we change the damage at least so it does meagre damage at above 50% health, and yes increase the initiative cost.

I actually don’t like it as a thief because it makes me feel forced into using it. I never feel forced to use a particular skill on a guardian because they all balance out. Heartseeker is broken in that regard. Do what you must, even if it’s a bit nerf at the trade off of a 900 range to make it more of a closing kill move than a spam.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Dixa.6017

Dixa.6017

the skill just needs a cooldown. 3-5 seconds should do it

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Zupernatural.3954

Zupernatural.3954

People stop… I mean just stop b i t c h i n g and whining in forums about nerf this and that, just learn to play the game or play something else if you fail that hard in this game!!

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Kurow.6973

Kurow.6973

Yes, let’s start adding c/d to thief skills now too. As if initiative wasn’t restrictive enough.

Seriously, get better at the game…this is pathetic and hurts to read.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Aegletes.8461

Aegletes.8461

I know that a heartseeker against a full HP elementalist still hits for a good 3-4k. Thats[sic] just silly.

Out of curiosity, how much defense did this elementalist have?
Or perhaps more importantly, how much defense did this thief have?
It is not impossible to achieve a lucky 3-4k critical strike with heart seeker against a target with no defense if the thief also sacrifices defense. Silly? Maybe. Suicidal? Most definitely.

Others in this thread have already outlined simple, clear strategies for countering heart seeker spam. The “tactic” quickly becomes inviable against even minimally experienced opponents. It is important to remember that this game is balanced across multiple, diverse game modes and is not balanced solely around your personal gameplay.

Heart seeker is a short range (450) leap that does moderate damage. It does about twice as much damage to targets above 33% health than infiltrator’s strike, but does not immobilize, has only 75% of the range, and cannot remove a condition and retreat for an additional 2 initiative. It has half the range of body shot and does not apply vulnerability but does more initial damage. It does less damage than cluster bomb, does not apply bleeding, and is about one third of the range, but does not rely on a slow moving projectile. All of the 3 initiative weapon skills have positives and negatives.

Contrary to some of the opinions in this thread, heart seeker is not broken and exclusively spamming it is by no means an effective strategy.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Dixa.6017

Dixa.6017

Yes, let’s start adding c/d to thief skills now too. As if initiative wasn’t restrictive enough.

Seriously, get better at the game…this is pathetic and hurts to read.

then remove the teleport. hearseeker spamming thieves are unstoppable. wouldn’t be so bad if heartseeker didn’t do as much damage as it did and was more a gap closer OR it kept it’s current damage and gap closing but had a cooldown.

they nerfed hundred blades and put most of its damage on the last couple of hits precisely because it became the go-to ability for all warriors in pvp. you are a little daft if you think nothing is going to happen to heartseeker.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Total Barrage.3570

Total Barrage.3570

Yes, let’s start adding c/d to thief skills now too. As if initiative wasn’t restrictive enough.

Seriously, get better at the game…this is pathetic and hurts to read.

then remove the teleport. hearseeker spamming thieves are unstoppable. wouldn’t be so bad if heartseeker didn’t do as much damage as it did and was more a gap closer OR it kept it’s current damage and gap closing but had a cooldown.

they nerfed hundred blades and put most of its damage on the last couple of hits precisely because it became the go-to ability for all warriors in pvp. you are a little daft if you think nothing is going to happen to heartseeker.

How about all you who complain how OP anything is, go and roll the toon, easy enough, just play the start sequence on your toon and head to the mists – then go owning anyone you see with so called OPdness – record your stuff and show the world how uber you are.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Agenteusa.6380

Agenteusa.6380

Again, QQ saying HS is broken and thieves are OP.

It’s funny you don’t mention some warriors crit on one attack the full 17k you mention from spamming 7 heartseekers.

Just saying.

The classes are actually pretty well balanced according to mmo standards the prob is you people seem to always evaluate classes by the dmg they do.

Yes thief can do insane bursts (so can warrior) but that’s really what the class should do and to be able to inflict those numbers you have to be a glass cannon to some point AND be in close/medium range.

Anyways pvp isn´t balanced around 1 vs 1 as most mmo developers already stated and your rambling would fall into that category.

Every kitten mmo is the same crap, people start complaining after 2 weeks about classes. SWTOR was the same, rolled an operative, had to stop playing it as concealment cause the QQ’ers won.

Seriously learn the basics of combat , you have so much freaking control and cc in this game it’s unbelievable. Besides the initiative to spam 7 or more HS has to be specced and is still reliant on luck so don´t assume its out of the box as most will understand from what you’re saying.

Else I can complain as well that rangers are OP cause I’m a bad player and I can’t get close to them before they kill me. Seriously.. /sarcasm on OMG rangers have a longbow and I can’t get close to them!!! FIX!!! /sarcasm off

(edited by Agenteusa.6380)

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: GummiBear.2756

GummiBear.2756

I play a Thief and i agree on heartseeker needs to be looked in to asap.

Leap:

450 Range x 4 × 1.25(Speed Signet) = 2250 Range.

so much range a Thief can cover in 4 seconds.

I properly specced thief can spam 6-7 of them. Covering a distance of 3375 to almost 4000.

I encounter alote of Thief in WvW and Spvp that use heartseeker to get away from deaths. Combine it with Stealth and it becomes a [b] Legendary [b/] skill.

so yeah… you can move around quickly, but when you actually get there and any enemy stand in front of you, then what are you going to do? auto-attack him?

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Agenteusa.6380

Agenteusa.6380

I play a Thief and i agree on heartseeker needs to be looked in to asap.

Leap:

450 Range x 4 × 1.25(Speed Signet) = 2250 Range.

so much range a Thief can cover in 4 seconds.

I properly specced thief can spam 6-7 of them. Covering a distance of 3375 to almost 4000.

I encounter alote of Thief in WvW and Spvp that use heartseeker to get away from deaths. Combine it with Stealth and it becomes a [b] Legendary [b/] skill.

Yeah so now thief is OP cause you use HS as a teleport…my god….

Tired , tired , tired of complaining….

Just to show some notice on past games:

I endured DK’s and Palas in pvp in Wow when they were OP , never complained.
I endured Frost Mages when they were severely OP in pvp, never complained.

Just to give a couple of examples. Odds is most of you complaining (and that’s something understandeable) don’t even know your own class after a couple of weeks much less all the classes and all their intricacies.

Seriously if I did what you guys do which is basically express what I see I would say the ranger is OP just because I see them burn through most things like butter. Yet I won’t cause I don´t understand crap about the class.

Take swtor for instance, first was the operatives, they got nerfed (to a point they became unplayable as the ranged tree sucked and the healing tree was bugged to life).

Then it was the Pyro PT’s because they did huge burst. The class did quite some dmg yes but it was worthless in everyother playfield aside from the grapple.

If you want equal classes might just give them all base abilities and add some flavor and call it a class.

You’re lucky thieves can´t be stealthed for how long as they wanted, if they did it here then yes I would say it was unfair.

Play a bit more and let people start getting up in levels as most fights you might see might be bewteen high lvls and lower lvs (yes just because it bumps you to 80 doesn´t mean you’re a real 80)

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Aegletes.8461

Aegletes.8461

then remove the teleport. hearseeker spamming thieves are unstoppable. wouldn’t be so bad if heartseeker didn’t do as much damage as it did and was more a gap closer OR it kept it’s current damage and gap closing but had a cooldown.

they nerfed hundred blades and put most of its damage on the last couple of hits precisely because it became the go-to ability for all warriors in pvp. you are a little daft if you think nothing is going to happen to heartseeker.

Likening the live iteration of heart seeker to a beta version of hundred blades seems almost a desperate comparison. Both personal experience and common sense contradict the notation that heart seeker spam on full health opponents is a prevalent tactic. One must begin to question the accuracy of such accounts offered here.

While remaining highly skeptical of the supposed wide spread existence of unstoppable thieves that are downing full health opponents in 7 seconds by spamming heart seeker, this weapon skill is useful on targets below 33% health. At this point, a thief with the executioner grandmaster trait swapping to his dagger set can achieve massive damage with a single heart seeker. Of course, unless he spent another 30 points in the acrobatics trait line for quick pockets, he will need to have 3 initiative left to even be able to use heart seeker.

Heart seeker seems to be designed primarily for high single target damage on low health opponents. As a gap closer, infiltrator’s strike and shadow shot offer longer range and greater functionality. The additional damage of heart seeker is an underwhelming concession for its short range and the absence of additional effects. Below 33% health you can expect a dagger thief to use this ability. Above 50% health a thief is only using this to get back into melee range after dodging.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: hharry.1967

hharry.1967

Decrease its range by 80%, make it a 100% melee skill, its justkitten it even hits you while stealthed or invisible no matter how far you are.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Zerokx.5641

Zerokx.5641

I would decrease the damage on 100-66%, 66-33% and increase the damage slightly on below 33%.
Just make this skill more… situational to prevent spamming.
And why would anyone use HS to run away? Infiltrator’s arrow is much more effective.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: metaphorm.6904

metaphorm.6904

the skill just needs a cooldown. 3-5 seconds should do it

thief weapon skills don’t have cooldowns. they just don’t. thats the whole point of the initiative mechanic. a higher initiative cost is the equivalent of a longer cooldown.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: obtuse.8291

obtuse.8291

I dont want to see the range go down, if anything make it consistent with sword 2 and give a 0.5 to 1 second cast time. Adjust the cost so the base is 1 more, and it refunds some initiative above certain health levels (since it is less potent) but casts faster. This way the resource and timing costs have more consequence while used to execute

I am the super thief

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Liav.7598

Liav.7598

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Dee Jay.2460

Dee Jay.2460

Increase the Initiative Cost for Heartseeker by 1 and lower the cost of Death Blossom by 1 is what I say.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Hyde.6189

Hyde.6189

3) Remove initiative from the game, and put all thief skills on a Cooldown. ( The easiest imho – it will also save them alote of extra work in the future with balancing thief class.)

How on earth would that save them work? It would cause the entire class to need to be completely rebalanced. Not to mention it would completely remove the entire point of playing a thief. Initiative allows high burst, but at the cost of not being able to do much once initiative runs out. If you put everything on cooldowns, then everyone playing thief might as well just delete the character and make a warrior instead, because currently that burst plus a small amount of stealth are the only things we do better than warriors (at the cost of being much more squishy and being next to useless when initiative runs out).

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Rika.7249

Rika.7249

Here’s a thing: Immobilize the thief.
Here’s a thing: Daze the thief.
Here’s a thing: Blind the thief.

I am pretty sure every profession can cover at least 2 of the above.
If you land any of the above on the thief, you’ve won the battle because he was running a glass cannon trait spec that isn’t viable.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Swiftly.2385

Swiftly.2385

I main a level 80 Thief and I want HS toned way down. ANet has taken a class that was very rewarding if played well, and turned it into a FOTM class for every one button mashing newb on the planet. I would be willing to be bet that Thief numbers are close to Warrior numbers in terms of population all because of one skill.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Vasi.7825

Vasi.7825

Initiative is our limiting factor. Once we run out of that initial burst, our combat effectiveness greatly decreases and it takes a long time to fully recover. Maybe you should consider not trying to 1v1 the class best designed for 1v1? You do have team mates you know.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Kintari.4172

Kintari.4172

Heartseeker isn’t that bad to go up against. You need to have some mobility / kiting / escape utility in your setup though. For example, as a shortbow thief, I use dodge (traited for endurance return so you get 3), disabling shot, infiltrator’s arrow, withdraw, and 25% passive run speed. If you rotate these properly, it is extremely difficult for a HS thief (or any melee for that matter) to stick to you.

Kintari | Rintaki | Rin Taki | Kian Tir | Zahinn | Lith <<< Blackgate >>>

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Cloud Kanno.3715

Cloud Kanno.3715

These people crying “OP” left and right need to understand you can’t play against all professions the same way and expect the same outcome. They need to learn how each individual profession operates, and then come up with ways to counter them. There are so many ways to counter the heartseeker it’s laughable.

Every single profession has multiple abilities to prevent and/or avoid a heartseeker spam. The tools are all there for you, act on them.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: leonardoraele.3725

leonardoraele.3725

I don’t really think it’s overpowered. Just tumble away or stun him.

Yeah, agreed; it’s easy do deal with this. And the thief is a class meant to kill fast.

If you built a full-power build with no overal defense and no CC, you have no rights to protest.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: TitanNZD.6387

TitanNZD.6387

Honestly when another Thief attempts to spam heartseeker on me while I am at full hp I tend to just start laughing hit cloak and dagger and stab them for 5-9k(depending on who it is) and then watch them run around like a nub… first off if you fighting any decent thief you will not be able to outrun them anyways we are just that mobile. They will eventually catch up to you as well being able to run away just as easy. I find that being a shadow arts build I am in stealth assassinating people more than spamming heartseeker but that is the thing with this game there are many different ways of playing.

Then again I tend to do WvW more than I do Spvp so it is mostly likely different in a smaller environment.

My personal opinion: Heartseeker is broken

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Posted by: Bluntski.8736

Bluntski.8736

I don’t really think it’s overpowered. Just tumble away or stun him.

Yeah, agreed; it’s easy do deal with this. And the thief is a class meant to kill fast.

If you built a full-power build with no overal defense and no CC, you have no rights to protest.

You forget how it makes them jump to you. Even with CC they will just vanish and continue.

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