Guild Wars 2 Survive Against Heart Seeker Thieves Guide

As a pure PvP player with an extensive amount of experience, I’ve come up with some tips for those who are struggling against the alleged “OP Heart Seeker” thief. As BG PvP (spvp) is a zerg style of play, this will rarely apply :P

HS is a skill combo finisher, thus the damage is greatest when used to deal the final blow to an opponent. The skill information shows a significant increase in base damage in correlation to the health remaining on the opponent. Although the common knowledge is to “dodge” the heartseekers, many believe it is impossible to do so. But that’s not true.

Don’t worry when the first one or two HS hit you. Remain calm and respond with the following:

IF Haste is applied to HS thief: immediately dodge roll TWICE as soon as you realize the thief is using HS. The duration of haste will deplete completely and thus you mitigate any damage dealt and they are instantly put in a horrible position (0 – regenerating initiative and no endurance).

IF No Haste, spend your precious endurance dodging the critical heart seekers (aka when you drop below a “safe” health point count). Determining what is safe and what is not is by your own judgment.

When in the difficult situation of facing more than one opponent, one being a HS oriented thief, use your cc (crowd control) skills on the thief ( or the highest threat target), and escape to safety to either help another teammate or backdoor a point.

Thieves who spam Heart Seeker are not good thieves. Those who wait before using their 3-initiative cost skill to finish an opponent are the ones that succeed. HS was not meant to be spammed when your opponent is full health, the damage it deals is not considerable in comparison with some other skills. With exponential growth, a well timed dodge + heal will protect you from sure death.

As for the fact that you just cant run away from a HS thief, average distance covered by an average HS thief is 4 Heart seekers. Without trickery spec.
As dodge rolling increases distance between your opponent and yourself, your best bet is to use your CC after they spam their heart seeker and after successfully dodging the 4. Count.

I’ll edit with more information as I’m currently busy but this should help some of you become better at dealing with HS build Thieves

Feel free to add me in-game if there are any additional questions as well as other thief related questions or comments.