Guild Wars 2

I am a level 52 Ranger and I am tired of being killed by thiefs spamming HS. I stand there, they jump in and start HSing me and I always die to their HS spam. I read the forums and see thieves try to defend their OP skills. So I ran some tests at the PVP battleground to collect some numbers to explain why thieves are so OP.

I rolled a thief and took to him to the battleground. Using a fairly standard damage dagger/dagger build, I attacked the NPC controlled elementalist (seems to be those stupid thieves’ favorite target) to collect the data I needed.

I also rolled an ele to get how much health they have with their default gear at the battleground. They have 18000hp.

The thief build allows 4 straight HS, and a steal (damages with the trait MUG), and than 3 more HS. The whole sequence takes about 8 seconds.

To account for crit rate damage, I ran this sequence 50 times to make sure you thieves can’t complain about lucky runs.

The opening HS does (on average), 1011(non crit) / 1422 (crit) / 1208 (average damage)
The second HS = 1045 / 1450 /1239
Third HS = 1104 / 1501 / 1312
Fourth HS = 1148 / 1580 / 1365
Steal = 1253 / 1634 / 1366
Fifth = 1060 / 1490 / 1252
Sixth = 1195 / 1513 /1301
Seventh = 1230 / 1620 / 1408

Total damage done on average during that sequence was 10451.

Wait… what? that is crap. The sequence should have killed me. Why is it that the HS damage after the steal dmg is lower than before?? THESE NUMBERS ARE FAKE! Wait…. OH. The NPC elementalist actually used his heal every singletime after the steal. Hmm….. That is crap. I don’t want to have to blow my heal to JUST ONE SKILL from another class.

Since it is a linear progress based on lost health, I can use a basic equation to predict what the rest of the HS damage increase would be like (since that stupid NPC won’t NOT heal himself, don’t you know NPC, you should save that heal incase you need it later). If there was no healing done, the total damage would increase by approximately 1500. See? 12000 HP in 8 seconds!!! INSTANT KLLL….waiiiiiit!

what? Why would I die to a 12000 hp damage burst in 8 seconds? Warriors can do that in one hit. And there just a bit over half my HP… and I still have a heal and 2 dodge.

OH! There it is, during the sequence of HS spam, the thief actually get in an avearge of 2 auto attack worth of 1185(avg) damage. AH HA! See? 13185! Wait…. Hold on…

AH HA! You tricky thieves, you can get even MORE initiative back if take the trait that lets you activate signets to get 2 ini. You can get six ini immediately. 2 MORE HS. Again, using the linear progression = approximately 2000 per HS, that is 4000 HP more. THERE YOU HAVE IT!!! 17185 HP in the span of 10 seconds!

Wait…. I should still be alive by that math, even with my strategy to save my dodges and heal for REAL emergencies…..

This can’t be correct, if I stand there and not do anything, a thief actually can’t kill me with 9 heart seeker and a steal and 2 auto attack? What…?

BUT IT DOESN"T MATTER!!! This is why this is OP! At the end of this. The thief has full health, all of his cooldowns. I have 900 health. I am going to lose this fight even if I stay alive after the HS spam.

It is important for me to save all my cool downs on my abilities for the fight after I survive the HS. I can’t do anything during the spam, he is flipping around evading! Wait, HS doesn’t evad?

So you mean I should be nuking him back during this time? Well… during the test runs, the NPC ele consistently nuked about 11k hp from the thief during the 10 second sequence. That is still OP!!! 11k hp vs 900 hp. Must nerf.

wait what? I should dodge and heal? After 2 dodges and a mid-spam heal, I am left with approximately 11k hp.

well… IT IS STILL NOT FAIR! I had to blow my 2 dodge and heal. He has his heal and all his cool down!

What? thieves don’t use cool downs? He has no initiative? and a 9 HS spam means he used all his ultilitity spots too? Wait. So you are telling me, I am now facing a thief with 11k hp with no initiative, no ulitility skills who is traited for burst damage, who is standing in front of me in melee range… and I have ALL MY COOL DOWNS except my heal and 2 dodge?

This does not explain why do I keep getting killed by thieves spamming HS. It can’t be because the thief caught me off guard and I don’t have my dodge/heal/cooldown available for the fight, or I wasn’t at full health to begin with.

That is not a good explanation, because every class can kill someone who isnt prepare and is caught by surprise.

Hmm.. which… leads me to only one conclusion….

Hmm.. which… leads me to only one conclusion….EVERY CLASS IS OP!!!!!! EVERYONE MUST BE NERFED!!!

Hmm.. which… leads me to only one conclusion….EVERY CLASS IS OP!!!!!! EVERYONE MUST BE NERFED!!!

You’re damage is a bit low did you use runes of ogre , beserker necklace? i can hit maybe 3-4 times harder than you.

Added a pic so you can see what i mean about the damage.

Nope, everything was the most basic setup you get at the SPVP testing grounds.

Some of the test runs ended with much higher damage output when the HS crits, I posted the average numbers. I know for me, I only remember those HS spam runs where it seems like the thief critted everytime on me. I feel like I always see 2k+ damage on those Heart Seekers right before I die.

Also, out of 50 runs, the NPC controlled ele NEVER died to a straight HS spam. Which, i believe, must be some sort of bug. I should probably bug report this.

might just be your spec and runes, although i haven’t tried it on the NPC’s. I usually see myself getting hit for over 6k when below 50%hp

I am sure you are right.

Also, that annoying NPC kept casting spells and stuff to defend itself. He keeps casting some sort of shield. It is REALLY hard to get the NPC to stand there and let me SPAM HS on him. It was annoying because if the NPC had turned around and ran, I would have gotten the extra crit rate and damage bonus for attacking from behind. How can the NPC not know that the standard response to a thief doing HS spam on you is to stop, turn, and run. That is like, stop drop and roll when you are on fire. Basic knowledge, right? They teach that stuff in Tyria PVP elementry school.

You could have tried on the training dummies, but I believe them to be weaker then the npcs

Wait wait wait…

I can’t tell if troll,

or just really bad at math…

@ everyone responding to OP
can you guys seriously not sense the overwhelming presence of sarcasm in his post?
His point is that HS spam is not doing as much damage as everyone is claiming “OP”. Not to mention that people facing against HS spam are terrible at avoiding said HS spam.

DeTalores.4507:

@ everyone responding to OP
can you guys seriously not sense the overwhelming presence of sarcasm in his post?
His point is that HS spam is not doing as much damage as everyone is claiming “OP”. Not to mention that people facing against HS spam are terrible at avoiding said HS spam.

I thought it was just me lol….i was like “why is everyone so serious”

Already done:

Thief
Heartseeker: Reduced damage of the 100%-50% threshold by 20%. Damage thresholds changed. Old: 100%-66%, 66%-33%, 33%-0%. New: 100%-50%, 50%-25%, 25%-0%.

sad panda is sad :<

Troll post success.

Anyway, heartseeker’s been nerfed so this discussion is moot.

I hope they flat out remove the abilities, not because they’re good or bad, but because they’re so unfun. Pistol whip—stationary, delayed evasion… not what I want on my sword/pistol thief. Heartseeker is just boring to me unless they change it up to make it a long-ranged gap closer or something actually interesting, not a spammable flip that you do in someone’s face over and over. Doesn’t feel like an execute, it just feels annoying to both use and experience. I don’t really get any satisfaction mashing it.

Thief

Heartseeker: Reduced damage of the 100%-50% threshold by 20%. Damage thresholds changed. Old: 100%-66%, 66%-33%, 33%-0%. New: 100%-50%, 50%-25%, 25%-0%.

Should lower the values some more tbh.

OMGZ! You mean you have to use more than one button now? What is the world coming to?!

So Pat6019, why did you even make a post if you weren’t interested in any dicussion?

I can tell you right now that if you didn’t want to play a class that relied on stealth and kiting, then you should probably go with warrior or guardian instead of thief.

I’ll never understand the mentality of trying to make a class into something it is clearly NOT meant to be.

Oh, and I assure you there ARE builds for thief that can and DO go toe to toe with other classes. They do employ stealth, but so does every thief build except maybe the odd P/P.

Just because you can’t figure out how to make it work doesn’t mean that it’s broken.

best thing is the people who ONLY played thief acting like nerf wasn’t coming down the pipe.

Biggest nerf is 25% instead of 33% for max damage. I was only using this attack to execute anyway.

Expected, and not really a deal-breaker in any way. As D/P I only use it as an execute (mostly), a re-stealth (often) and a last-resort gap closer (rarely).

Won’t negatively affect any of our primary builds and should (hopefully) reduce inbound complaints.

The only thing I don’t like about this change is I can’t see targets’ health percentages and it’s annoying to eyeball it—moreso to have to relearn a new value to eyeball.

mickers.2715:

You’re damage is a bit low did you use runes of ogre , beserker necklace? i can hit maybe 3-4 times harder than you.

Added a pic so you can see what i mean about the damage.

my damage is nowhere near this. 6k with steal? wth?

I hope they nerf until it’s completely removed and replaced with something funner than flipping over and over as a short-ranged gap closer. Then remove Pistol Whip and replace with something less clunky and more thief-like. And the 3 skill from Sword/Dagger needs to go to, it’s stupid and random. Oh and let’s improve Unload too, since it’s easy to dodge 60% of it, it does very little damage, and it’s kind of boring and pistol/pistol gives up so much versatility for so little.

Okay, maybe HS should be higher damage scaling at lower health, and low-low-low scaling at high health. So it’s actually a loss for the thief to use it at high hp, and instead would be a gap closer. But at low hp, it’d be a perfectly non-qq-worthy execute.

Idk.

Teaturtle.2094:

Heartseeker is just boring to me unless they change it up to make it a long-ranged gap closer or something actually interesting,…

Shadow Shot (D/P #3) is a 900-range gap-closer already.

It would be nice if there were colored marks along their HP bars or something. But yeah, this is NOT a problem, Heartseeker already had a lot going for it, and still does, it’s just not quite as hard hitting.

Cause the way I think of it, it seems like they’ve only pidgenholed PvE thieves into even mode Death Blossom spam. So exciting, why not just remove the skill so I only get to spam DB?

I don’t see how this is such a major blow to PvP thieves honestly.

There’s other weapon sets…

It’s best usage was always as an execute anyway. The 25-0 threshold is the change that affects things the most but not terribly. It should manage spam.

That said, this wasn’t the nerf I was expecting. I was expecting an increase on Initiative cost. Doesn’t really matter. I don’t really use the skill often on my daggers build anyway.

QQers usually get their way in mmos balancing.

This was an expected change. Will the qqing stop though? No…because baddies will STILL die to HS spam baddie thieves.

It’s really not that big of a problem. Heavy Heartseeker spam might be fine for quick matches but it’s best left as an execute. You’ll still have plenty of functionality with the skill. This change merely reigns in the mindless spamming a bit.

yall postin in a troll thread

Sharpclaw.7510:

It’s really not that big of a problem. Heavy Heartseeker spam might be fine for quick matches but it’s best left as an execute. You’ll still have plenty of functionality with the skill. This change merely reigns in the mindless spamming a bit.

this is exactly what I see too. to me it just seems like a blow to PvE dagger thieves DPS, which I’m sure wasn’t the intention.

TSLlol.4879:

It’s really not that big of a problem. Heavy Heartseeker spam might be fine for quick matches but it’s best left as an execute. You’ll still have plenty of functionality with the skill. This change merely reigns in the mindless spamming a bit.

It might be that but you should be able to generally manage, particularly if you work build around Stealth for PvE. Deadly Arts and Shadow Arts (with some Trickery) will become your spec trees. Which isn’t much of a shift from what you’re probably focused on already. You might just rearrange to make Blossom a bit more effective or to give you better backstabs. Use that as your damage dealer and then when the target hits the right threshold, use HS.

Or…something like that anyway.

Sharpclaw.7510:

TSLlol.4879:

It’s really not that big of a problem. Heavy Heartseeker spam might be fine for quick matches but it’s best left as an execute. You’ll still have plenty of functionality with the skill. This change merely reigns in the mindless spamming a bit.

It might be that but you should be able to generally manage, particularly if you work build around Stealth for PvE. Deadly Arts and Shadow Arts (with some Trickery) will become your spec trees. Which isn’t much of a shift from what you’re probably focused on already. You might just rearrange to make Blossom a bit more effective or to give you better backstabs. Use that as your damage dealer and then when the target hits the right threshold, use HS.

Or…something like that anyway.

That’s basically what I’ve been doing up ‘till now. It’s pretty much gonna be the same, only since the threshold has been lowered I can’t transition into HSing as fast as I earlier did. Which again I’m pretty sure wasn’t the intention, because as far as I know the issue with HS was PvP related. And to me this change seems to effect PvE more than PvP. So if anyone could prove I’m wrong?

I don’t know about damage cause I’m not advanced in my thief but I do know that its now sending me too far and just out of range.

Kurow.6973:

QQers usually get their way in mmos balancing.

This was an expected change. Will the qqing stop though? No…because baddies will STILL die to HS spam baddie thieves.

prettymuch this.

Good. Will make it more interesting to see how other thieves play now. Just don’t touch my backstab. And please unnerf the cost of C&D =(

I only use HS in the 33% – %0 range, so idc

good thing im condition damage

So i dont no if you guys have seen but heartseeker skill got nerfed so i cant do lots of damage anymore. can someone explain why this happend? i think theifs arent a good class anymore cuz are onyl gud damage skill does almost nothing to people
i tried new heartseeker on a racoon and i did only 2000 dmg insted of 8000. is this becuz of heart seeker or double daggers? i think sword and gun is the best

Ouzhyr.2175:

Troll post success.

Anyway, heartseeker’s been nerfed so this discussion is moot.

It’s not, though. It’s proof that they nerfed something that wasn’t really OP just because enough people whined about it.

Nerf is irrelevant to players who were using the skill properly anyway.

The 25% thing is a bummer. Wish they’d just nerfed the high health damage to stop heartseeker spammers and left the rest alone.

good thing, hope all those scrubs will be gone now.

Ouzhyr.2175:

Nerf is irrelevant to players who were using the skill properly anyway.

The damage nerf is. The change in percentage required is a huge pain in thekitten however.

buttski.6135:

good thing, hope all those scrubs will be gone now.

All those scrubs that couldn’t rub two sticks together to counter it so they whined about it incessantly? No, they’ll just find something else to whine about.

If heartseeker and death blossom spam are the only two strategies you know how to use… well maybe it’s time you considered playing a more child-friendly game. I hear Sims3 is pretty fun.

This is hardly a nerf. If you the skill properly it will still do tons of dmg. Nice change.

From a health pool of 20 000 7% are 1400 which is one/two autoattacks. Don`t see how this is gamebraking or making a HS bad ability.

i never use HS for the starter so i don’t know how much damage deal when enemy is in prime condition [full health] … maybe someone who ever do HS spam can give his max damage experience from full health till down..? is it better than backstab?

What I don’t get is how come good skills like heartseeker get nerf so easily and fast but when bad skills like basilisk vemon need to get fix, there is no work done on it?

Mardets.2570:

What I don’t get is how come good skills like heartseeker get nerf so easily and fast but when bad skills like basilisk vemon need to get fix, there is no work done on it?

not enough people whining about it.