Guild Wars 2

Except this is one that’s going to address the issue, not cry about how it’s “OP AND NEEDS TO BE REMOVED”.
I like the idea behind it; it’s meant to be a gapcloser to start the fight but as the target reaches low health the power of Heartseeker increases, turning it into a finisher.
On paper it works well.
And even in practice, it works like a charm. Until talents get involved.

For the fun of it, I rolled a Thief, finished the intro and hit the sPvP. A google search found me a build thats got all the kids in an “I am holier than thou” mood so I slap the points as shown and enter some matches.
I did not die. I did not ever drop past 50% HP.

I did not level the thief past this, as I can assume that such a build is pretty worthless in WvW, were range is king.
However there was clearly an issue with Heartseeker, even after its apparent nerf.
Talented, Heartseeker simply does far too much damage, even on tanky builds.
I’ve seen a single thief take down a full defensive guardian, myself (Mesmer), an engineer and an elementalist without taking a break. I had Nullfield out, Chaos Storm (and armour on myself), I had 3 normal clones I was trying to blend in with, I was stacking conditions on him, and that’s just me. Then there’s a guardian trying to control him, an Elementalist laying down some burst and an engineer ranking up more conditions.
He did not drop past 50% HP.

Has there been a newly discovered exploit? Are we simply all “bads” and need to uninstall the game?
Or is there actually something wrong with this single skill.
Thieves have a wide range of weapons to choose from, wider than some other classes, yet I’ve never seen a thief who DOESN’T have dd/dp.

As a WvWer, it becomes very frustrating when a single thief can keep a few of us at bay, especially when we need to get to point C, but to get there we need to pass point B which is where a thief is camping. Should a single class really have the power to destroy entire groups through a single skill?

So what is the issue in my opinion?
Heartseeker has no cooldown. That’s it. That’s all I can see wrong with it.
It’s design is to be an opener and a finisher in one neat package, but no fight will be over that quickly unless you spam Heartseeker itself, completely ruining the concept of the attack.
It needs a cooldown or it needs an increased Initiative cost.

And now for our simple minded readers;
QQ THIEF NEEDS NERF PLZ

Yea A thief can just spam heartseeker on a target from 100 to dead, tab target and continue spamming it.

Just like the other day I fought an elementalist that had 62k HP, and crit me with 1 lightning bolt for 14k damage, oh and he could perms stun me from 2400 range.

On a serious note, yes they can.
Unless there’s a magical new attack I’ve not heard of that looks like HS, sounds like HS and shows up as “Heartseeker” on the combat window.

TheRamosOnline.2670:

On a serious note, yes they can.
Unless there’s a magical new attack I’ve not heard of that looks like HS, sounds like HS and shows up as “Heartseeker” on the combat window.

On a just as serious note, I agree, the elementalist I fought did the same. It even smelled like a lightning bolt

OP: You’re completely missing the point.

If HS really is killing people through pure HS spam, then the problem is absolutely NOT that it’s spamable. The problem is that it’s doing too much damage when people are at high health. It doesn’t scale right.

That said, your post is questionable at best. I’m going to pretend you’re not trolling.

If it’s meant to be a gap closer and fight starter… great. Let it do lower damage on higher health pools.

If it’s meant to be an execute at low health… great. Let it do so.

Problem solved.

I find it interesting that you knew the exact amount of HP an enemy target had without having access to third party software.
If you’re not being sarcastic, you can get struck by lightning which deals rather hefty damage when in WvW.
And if you are being sarcastic, I like how the cheapest class in the game always has people who blindly defend that class and insult anyone who dares speak bad of it.

Wraithforge.8710:

OP: You’re completely missing the point.

If HS really is killing people through pure HS spam, then the problem is absolutely NOT that it’s spamable. The problem is that it’s doing too much damage when people are at high health. It doesn’t scale right.

That said, your post is questionable at best. I’m going to pretend you’re not trolling.

If it’s meant to be a gap closer and fight starter… great. Let it do lower damage on higher health pools.

If it’s meant to be an execute at low health… great. Let it do so.

Problem solved.

It could be a scaling issue, I don’t have access to the numbers used to calculate the damage it does.
All I know is that I’ve seen thieves down people in 2 hits just through Heartseeker.
And this wasn’t an enemy theif, I was chasing down a ranger and then a thief joins in the case, uses HS 2 times to close in, the next 2 actually hit and the ranger is downed.

It could all be an issue in the numbers, like Mesmers with our Warden.

Lmfao HS two-shotting and wiping out whole groups including a tank guardian. It’s posts like this that discredit REAL complaints and makes it more difficult to decide what actually needs adjusting.

TheRamosOnline.2670:

I find it interesting that you knew the exact amount of HP an enemy target had without having access to third party software.
If you’re not being sarcastic, you can get struck by lightning which deals rather hefty damage when in WvW.
And if you are being sarcastic, I like how the cheapest class in the game always has people who blindly defend that class and insult anyone who dares speak bad of it.

I like how people come into a forum, have such low intelligence and self esteem they have to make up stories and super exaggerated numbers that only exist in the imagination of a small child. To add salt to the wound, these same players never provide data or actual evidence, and will BLINDLY defend their “Imagination” to the fullest extent possible.

In WvW if i use 4 signets(signet of malice too) pop them all at once steal 2 hearsekeri can kill in 3 hits ANY glass cannon, however i just blew my heal all 3 utilitys too. Hearseeker damage at hight health scales well, however problem is you are in WvW, where i have orbs/food and i can spec more into dps then Spvp. I told earlier i can have 3500 power not far from 60% crit chnce. i get 21 stack of might thats 3500+735 attack= lets call it 4250 attack power. Which makes my heartseeker hit pretty much close to 4k-5k on another glass cannon with 100% hp. Mind that another glass cannon is ranger who should have 20k hp at least, in my opinion downing him is next to imposible in 2 hits. 3 hits + steal is minimum

Stin: Thanks for the post.

I haven’t done any WvW yet. Things seem mostly reasonable in in sPvP, though.

Sounds like maybe this game needs some kind of special pvp damage mitigation. Maybe like a permanent boon that caps how hard you can be hit in a single strike, based on health percent, or something?

Say like, no single hit can take more than 25% of another player’s health?

Something like that would make it so Anet don’t even have to rebalance professions too much. The PvP boon would keep a lot of things in check.

Wraithforge.8710:

Stin: Thanks for the post.

I haven’t done any WvW yet. Things seem mostly reasonable in in sPvP, though.

Sounds like maybe this game needs some kind of special pvp damage mitigation. Maybe like a permanent boon that caps how hard you can be hit in a single strike, based on health percent, or something?

Say like, no single hit can take more than 25% of another player’s health?

Something like that would make it so Anet don’t even have to rebalance professions too much. The PvP boon would keep a lot of things in check.

No, no, and no it wouldn’t. That is the same narrow minded thinkin that RUINS games.
If you were to have such a boon it would have to put check and cap on ALL stats. That means everything from boon duration, to damage and max hp. Obviously the only way it would have any effectiveness is the cap would have to be equalized in some way across the board and cap be lower then the usual stats we see for each class if they were to focus everything on it.

If you just make a boon that lowers the max damage potential, it then becomes a Tank Wars 2. Everyone will just play a tank.

I think you’re pushing it too far, Knyx, and maybe underestimating the dev’s ability to keep things fun yet fair. They’re smart people.

I’m also not sure what you mean by a “check and cap on all stats.” My suggestion only checks on health pools. Any single incoming strike (burst, not condition) can’t exceed 25% of a player’s maximum health pool. It simply ignores damage above that number, which would be different for every player.

Player’s with tiny health pools won’t be killed in 1 shot, but they’ll still be easier to kill than player’s with huge health pools. All it does is ensure that no player can die in less than 4 hits.

@ Wraithforge: The idea of yours isnt good, since, it fixes nuthing at all, and ruins certain styles of gameplay,(ones that focus on hight hits), and no fixing can be done in WvW unless they remove orbs+ using food in there. Making such changes as you mentioned ruins certain skills of certain classes. etc- Mesmers power/crit builds on phantasm who now cant hit past 25% hp Thiefs backstab, warriors evisecerate/killshot.

All I know is that I’ve seen thieves down people in 2 hits just through Heartseeker

What is this I don’t even… I mean… But… But you… I mean… Aw hell, I don’t even know how to respond to this level of bullkitten.

Stin… I don’t even know what to say to that. You’ve completely 100% missed the point.

If HS really is killing people through pure HS spam, then the problem is absolutely NOT that it’s spamable. The problem is that it’s doing too much damage when people are at high health. It doesn’t scale right.

Except it takes 30 seconds to clearly demonstrate that this is false. Like so:

Stin, how can you have 3500 power and 60% crit ?
I am wearing berserker’s amulet+rings+earrings+weapons, valkyrie’s armor; all exotic.
I have less then 2k power. I can have another 165 from runes and 300 from traits and a little bit from food.
It will be almost 2500, that is 1000 power missing…
Critical chance is @ 46% … far away from 60.
I think i’m doing something wrong, can you please explain me how do you reach those numbers ?

Knyx.5926:

TheRamosOnline.2670:

I find it interesting that you knew the exact amount of HP an enemy target had without having access to third party software.
If you’re not being sarcastic, you can get struck by lightning which deals rather hefty damage when in WvW.
And if you are being sarcastic, I like how the cheapest class in the game always has people who blindly defend that class and insult anyone who dares speak bad of it.

I like how people come into a forum, have such low intelligence and self esteem they have to make up stories and super exaggerated numbers that only exist in the imagination of a small child. To add salt to the wound, these same players never provide data or actual evidence, and will BLINDLY defend their “Imagination” to the fullest extent possible.

And so from now on I shall have Fraps on when in WvW.
Especially if there’s a thief nearby.

I have some footage I took last WvW, but I don’t think I caught a HSthief in it. Let me skim the footage.
EDIT: Nope, no signs of a thief. They’re rare, I’ll give them that. Most thieves I see in WvW are doing the Puzzles, as its the only place in WvW where ranged isn’t king (depending on the part of the Puzzle they’re in)

Honestly, I think it was when I saw our own HSthief that I was the most shocked at its damage.
That ranger was at full health and when I blinked I saw a slither of health left. Maybe it was a lucky backstab followed by a HS finisher, I don’t know.
I blinked and I missed it.

@TeoH

Yup. I ran the same test after I made my post. I assumed that the provided information was factual. However, it’s not. In fact, the longer I fact check all this stuff, the more I’m realized almost nothing here is true.

I’m moving on to better threads.

Deandur what i meant is 3500 attack, which im sure you understood.

ah ok, i didn’t understand, sorry.

Obviously, “HS spam” is a bit of an hyperbole.

However, I’d say that HS is too strong at the thing it was meant to be strong at. It deals a lot of damage when the target has low hp. Now, that isn’t a problem by itself. What makes it broken is the fact that you can spam two or three times for a clean up, just like that. It has a fast activation time and it’s a gap closer (and it’s a combo finisher for even more damage and or defense), making it so easy so use, than you can pretty much say that against HS thieves, we only have 75% of our HP.

When a skill does this many things by just pressing 1 button, then something is clearly not right. Let’s nor forget that we’re talking about the same game that has professions like the Elementalist, that although have twice the skills, in practice that simply means they require twice the skills to do the same thing as other professions. So, to get similar results to Heartseeker, a D/ D elementalist would need Magnetic Grasp for the gap closer + combo finisher, which is slower but immobilizes, while having stayed in fire attunement before that if they ever want to wish for a combo field, while dealing good damage with… what? Churning Earth, that has 3-4s casting time and 30s recharge? Drake’s Breath, which slows down our movement, can be walked away, prevents us from dodging, and needs to hit most of the times to deal meaningful damage? We have Fire Grab, but it’s a single skill with a 45-ish seconds recharge. It won’t be enough by itself, and by the time we finish casting the other two spells, we’re dead.

What can we do to even counter it? Self Healing usually takes longer than HS, so by the time we get about 1/3 or more of our HP back, we’re not that far from where we were before. Dodging only works twice wthout boons in a short amount of time, and chances are, we have already dodged one or two times to evade other hard-hitting skills.