Guild Wars 2

@Melphina I have tried what you are trying to explain.
It’s kinda chain C&D when you hit like 1/2 second before the stealth expires.
While its doable on golem or npc(cuz they tend to stay at place when no target),
i find it mere impossible on human player who isn’tkitten Furthermore one hit in 3-4 sec is laughable damage,you will never kill anyone.You apply no bleads and one miss can cost yuo everything.In my opinion this cannot be more than exotic “build”,just for showing that is somehow possible to do it.

DoubleUnder.9052:

So now HS thieves in PvP can kill the rest of us faster. Oh joy!

What exactly is HS thief today?If someone starts to spam HS on a target over 50% it will hit maybe less than a greatsword swing…
This kind whining posts are exactly why i created a tread to tell you to STOP whining,which was delete due to “lack of usefulness”.What is useful in your post?
Heartseeker along with other classes skills was bugged,and it was fixed.That’s it.

Melphina i don’t this is right.Stealth expiring naturally means that the thief didn’t benefit from his stealth skill(backstab,sneak attack e.t.c).I think ANnet in purpose made it like that: either you get nice stealth skill+ short debuff or you don’t get any.

Laika,don’t play smart a.ss,OK.How are you gonna learn the class,before rolling it?
Furthermore i am pretty sure i know my class a lot better that you and i will give you and example:
From each class you can steal atleast 3 different abilities(for example Blinding Tuft OR Sab Tooth OR Bone Crack from mesmer,checked and rechecked) which makes the whole idea a lottery,and that is bad for people like me who like to excel in theorycrafting.So can you please keep your lame oppinion which has nothing to do with reality for yourself?

Dee Jay,the overall community opinion is that condition thief is a noob guy,who spams
LDB and wins all the time.Than when they decide to try,it appears that it isn’t that easy,
because as you rightly pointed LDB is expensive.The main source of damage of a good
condition thief however is the combination of LDB+Caltrops(both skill and from Dodge).This,combined with heavy C&D usage makes the thief almost unkillable,while
capable to kill almost anyone(and even few ppl at a time).The gamestyle isn’t easy by any standart(any gamestyle that includes Cloak&Dagger+carefully initiative monitoring isn’t),but it is quite rewarding,and i swear to GOD,it’s the most annoying build EVER.

Only thing i don’t like is the total random nature of what you steal.
I don’t want to plant trees,nor to fear the target out of my OWN trap.
Just give us one steady buff,like 3 stacks of might for 10 seconds and call it quits.

Tallman,how does one spams LDB ,worth half of his initiative?
I am sure that i say that you spam turrets,and that’s all you do,i will not be correct
and i will sound like a fool.So please don’t make a fool of yourself either.
As for the build,it does exactly what it says:quick insta-kills,big numbers,lot’s of fun.

Also the auto-target option should not work for targets in stealth.
I lost count of how many random Heartseekers and Eviscerates i ate after i stealth ,cuz the guy felt that it’s his lucky day.

Source of bleed on sword+dagger?
Lemme see: you will have no CD 1200 range shadowstep+immobilize ,also no CD condition removal,also 2 sec daze+blind,nice white damage and stealth hit?
Add bleeds to this and you will have the deadliest most OP rotation IS+C&D+TS,while
dots are ticking….don’t know….

From a fellow Feral druid and a thief.No,no and no…
First your friend sees you trough stealth,because you were probably in a party before joining a SPVP.
Second: change C&D to stealth you weather you hit or no? Hell NO
It’s will be like no CD Vanish,and with proper traits you can chain-cast it.
Third: the cast time of the heal is for everyone ,not just thieves.
I would consider a change that if C&D misses thou,it takes only 3 initiative…

Maybe just for the fun of the trait,here is my idea: ANet could make if you use only one weapon and thus left with only 3 skills,player to be able to choose from ANY third skill from any combination.Like 1 dagger with BS,HS,and Pistol Whip.Omg that would be so OP….

I play PvP whole evening and i notice big lack of 22222 spamers.
Also i notice quite a big switch to condition builds.The 22222 spamers are testing if
33333 will work with similar results.It doesn’t…..
5 initiative ain’t equal to 3
Next we will see a quick check of a Pistol Whip.Then Haste+Unload,and when the scrubs
finally realize that no build will carry them w/o any playing skills we might notice a
big increase of illusionary unload mesmers…

I think that if you consider C&D+BS combo,you must have the trait for 2 point back on a skill that stealths you.This make the whole combo worth 4 points with better damage vs 2 HS for 6 points with much easier delivery.It all goes down to what you want to do.
If you are willing to spend a lot of time in stealth and thus putting yourself in a safer position in expense of much harder delivery of BS then you go CD+BS.If you are easier to spam two HS then you go HS.

Fair enough, Science vs Shallow Observation 1:0

Brogin,while i respect your scientific aproach,i see it every day in practice that
stacks of might(which are pure power boons in essence) which i get increase the bleed
ticks damage EVEN after the bleeds was applied.

Do this simple test:
1.Get the trait which you get might after dodging.
2.Go to the test golems and spam 2-3 Leaping Death Blossoms
3.Start dodging and observe already apllied bleeds getting BIGGER.

1.Power DOES increase condition damage.I am condition thief,and i can tell this for sure.
It doesn’t increase it as good as you may hope thou.I mean if you replace condition amulet with power,hoping both direct damage and bleeds to rock,you will fail.
2.Precision has nothing to do with condition damage whatsoever,because dot’s don’t crit.
3.Toughness doesn’t affect conditions.You will bleed with the same amount the squishiest elementalist as well the toughest guardian.
Hope that this helps.

Yesterday i wrote quite a few posts in this tread with my oppinion,that HS should be fixed.I was sure that this will happen,but to be honest i didn’t expect to happen until atleast few weeks.Now that’s a fact and altough it’s not what i expected,i am amazed how elegantly ANet,fixed it without damaging it’s contribution to all D/D gameplay.
It will be amazing finisher and close gapper,and at the same time it will be no longer profitable to spam it mindlessly.Now the thief will actually WORK to take 75% of your HP,and then profit from HS.I like that.

Round 12,Fight!!!
OK let me go back a months ago in the beta weekends and to track the history of Heartseeker.
Now GW2 is a game,quite different from the others mmorpgs(atleats from the other AAA rpg from which we all come) in some aspects:
1.It has NO global cooldown.
2.It has forced Skill queueing.
3.It has NO range skill prevention(in a way “you are out of range”,ergo nothing happens)
As a result of this and other things in the early beta’s,thousands of players,utterly commoned with button mashing and skill spamming,who was trying to play thief,instead of being the badkitten Ninjas who they expected to be all ended hitting the air and constantly w/o initiative(and getting fully destroyed by anyone).
The game just was designed to punish spammers.
As a result this same forum filled with thousands of whine posts(one or two by me),who were demanding for buff,fix,rework,tune or whatever.Some of this request were somehow reasonable,but most were gamebraking like Perma-stealth and such.
So i guess ANet chose the least evil and change one thief skill to be spam-friendly instead of being spam-punishing…
It was HeartSeeker,which back than had a range 170(the range of the present LDB)
What they did is they increased its range to a value that will ensure all blows will deliver if you just spam.
So this take us back at the present moment.ANet KNOWS this skill isn’t OK,because back then it was OK,and they change it to please all ninja-wannabies until they are satisfied and hopefully some of them develop some skills.And when they deal with the acount hacking HS will be tuned back again where it was before .It’s a fact that they don’t have problem with reverting things(they changed C&D from 5 to 6 and reverse several times).

Nope. ArenaNet rules.As for “majority”,only 2 bothered to explain(like i bother) their reasons.The other of you are like “everything is OK,umad,gtfo”

Edit: Backstab is not IMBA.Every thief who manages to land a BS to me,while im dodging like mad,knowing that he has only 3-4 seconds and limited range to deliver,and have to be from behind otherwise it suxx ,deserves to do a LOT damage to me.But skill with no position requirements,with tripple the range and worth so little,no thanks.

I use heavy C&D+LDB+Caltrops high conditon ,in&out of stealth .If you have troubles imagine it,i will explain that it never includes 1 skill used more than once in a row…

Edit: And YES,i am D/D,i have HS,and i still insist that it have to be fixed.

OK so you are S/P.It explains a lot.The skill IS OP,i will explain again why.Countering a skill-sequence (222222) that requires 10 sec renewable resource and zero palying skills with a skill with 60 seconds CD,which is intended to counter another high CD skill(like bulls charge+frenzy100 blades) isn’t by any means balanced,and thats why it will be changed.Like Thief was able to apply infinitive bleed stacks with cheap LDB (with somehow limited capability of others to remove bleeds) and the skill was fixed,same way HS will be fixed.

Cal it is POSSIBLE to counter it,but its nowhere as easier as spamming it itself and also includes some high CD skills,while the thief himself will regenerate the full initiative needed for next spamming for like 10 seconds.Can i ask you just for curiousity what are you using.Pistol Whip maybe?

Sin.8174:

Any posts to back this up? You know, from Anet?

No?

Didn’t think so.

Umad.

Judging from what happened with Leaping Death Blossom,i am quite sure.You just keep on checking the forum,we will talk again…

Again to conclude:it must be nerfed and it will be nerfed,no matter how much you defend it.
So you might just learn to play with some of the other high initiative cost skills that actually require initiative monitoring and proximity caution.
2222222 ,no more as soon Anet fix the hacked acounts nonsence.

Cal,thank you very much for your advice,but i think you got the wrong impression that i get wrecked by HS spam,and i cannot counter it in any way.Actually i use Roll For initiative and Roll away far beyond the HS range.This however doesn’t mean that wasting 1 min CD is equal for someone’s 222222222 spamming,as long he has close to full initiative.

I repeat: It WILL be nerfed by the same reason Leaping Death Blossom was nerfed.
OK?
Now if you are developed some skills with thief meanwhile,you will be ok(and i hope you are ).
If you didn’t ,i will probably soon meet you playing the next-in-line easy FOTM build,some Illusionary Unload Mesmer or smtng.

Cal,HS is NOT by any means easy to prevent.First even wit half leap it has 200 range ,which is more that LDB and way more than any other DD attacks(130).I personaly have the trait for recovering endurance and even with that i find it very hard to escape the full HS unload on me.As for leaving the rogue with only Backstab,what about C&D.
LDB was nerfed exactly by the same spam reason,so it is clear that Anet don’t like this things.
Sentaul,while it is executed with daggers,you can hardly call a skill that have half of the range of Steal a melee ability.

I played enough with moderate success,and the fact this gameplay doesn’t stand (how to say it) “organized enemy behavior”, doesn’t mean its not broken.

OK ,i am lvl 80 thief,also i am rank 20 SPVP,so i guess i have a objective view on a thief
gameplay and pvp gameplay.My opinion is :HS is totally broken at this moment.
It has 3k average dmg,it is spammable beyond any playing skills requirement,it chase you TROUGH stealth without any target visible,it leaps too far and in combination with
Haste is a complete joke(PW is almost as laughable,but atleast once you brake the immobilize you can dodge away cuz its short range and kinda channeling mechanic,with HS the Thief-wannabe will just chase-spam-you down no matter what.
It has to be changed.
The fact that every one can make a lvl 2 char with any class and rush into full sPVP plus the fact that the valor is bound to the whole acount and not the character itself is something that i don’t approve at all.It generates FOTM easy riders that ruin the game(imo).But since it will not likely be changed,atleast fix those no-skill-required spamable builds that make thief(and possibly any other class) a joke.