Guild Wars 2

You need to stop trying to make thieves work like every other class. They designed them differently on purpose. Being able to spam one skill is fine, because there’s already a risk involved. Using heartseeker at the wrong time does less damage and waste initiative you could use at other points.

Furthermore, what else do you expect them to use? You’ve got Heartseeker on #2. #3 is Death Blossom, which isn’t effective on single targets in most cases. Dancing dagger on #4, similarly, is intended for groups. It does the same damage per target as heartseeker does over 50% health. #5 is a stealth.

Using Dancing dagger or Death Blossom on single targets is a waste of initiative. They will do the same (DD) or less (DB) damage, and cost more initiative. There is literally no reason to do this.

I’m not even sure who you’ve heard complaining about the skill, because I’ve not heard anybody doing so. It’s not that strong, compared to a lot of the alternatives. If you look at effectiveness of the skills (base, tooltip values. They change, but they all change together), using damage for initiative ratios, heartseeker is pretty bad before 50% health. It only does 112 points of damage for each initiative it uses. Comparatively, Pistol Whip with a sword and pistol does 205.2. That’s higher than heartseeker even under 50%, which is only 168.

Even using cloak and dagger to stealth and then backstabbing an enemy does more damage at 134.33 per initative, than using heartseeker above 50% health.

Anybody who’s spamming heartseeker when the enemy is above 50% health is wasting their initative. The first tap of your #1 skill does more total damage with it’s two quick stabs than heartseeker does above 50% health. Heartseeker inherently needs to be used properly, or you’re wasting your initiative and your time, and doing lower damage.