How to stack stealth with combo field + heartseeker on high ping?

[Joshewwah.2956]

I struggle to stack a smoke field with multiple heartseekers to get more than 4 seconds of stealth at a time. And often when I try to heartseeker quickly, I end up doing 2 heartseekers in the same direction, rather than going back and forth into the combo field. Even if I try to turn my camera around (to face the smoke field) mid HS or at the end, my character will still continue to leap in the same direction. Does this game's high ping really prevent people with high ping from playing certain classes?

Update: After more playing around, I figured that I can HS at least 3 times within 1 smoke field from the pistol 5. You just have to walk and wait a bit in between each HS. With my ping, it's possible to get off 3 HS. Often when I watch videos of other people doing it, I always thought I saw them HS consecutively without a break. Whether they do that or not is beyond me, but the way I do it works, although those with lower ping may get an extra HS off it.

[saerni.2584]

How high is your ping?

Sadly, the best advice is to keep trying and figure out if you can get it to work.

You should focus on precasting the first heart seeker and then repositioning your camera using your mouse.

[Joshewwah.2956]

@saerni.2584 said:How high is your ping?

Sadly, the best advice is to keep trying and figure out if you can get it to work.

You should focus on precasting the first heart seeker and then repositioning your camera using your mouse.

300.

I tried for an hour trying to get it to work. Not once did I managed to change direction between the 1st and 2nd HS; every HS consecutive after each other (casted immediately one after the other) would always result in moving in the same direction regardless of the camera position.

I don't know why you're implying that this would be my fault but I'm getting that vibe from the post. Anyway, I'm assuming that ANET has coded HS's direction to be server sided instead of client sided. Thus having lag would impact this. Moving in a different direction (after the 1st HS) even for just a single tap does nothing; the server believes that I'm still facing in the original direction. I don't believe that those with low ping would intentionally wait 100ms to half a second in between their HS to readjust their position. I'd have to wait about half a second to a second for the server to recognise that my direction has changed. By then my combo would be off and now I can't stack stealth.

From a programmer's perspective, I find it dumb that a move like HS would calculate its direction on the server side and not be done client side. It seems as though they haven't sent the camera's rotation along with the move command itself OTW which I think is dumb considering even a junior programmer like me could figure it out. I believe this would help players with high ping.

[PakSau.3709]

Switch to S/D

[saerni.2584]

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@saerni.2584 said:How high is your ping?

Sadly, the best advice is to keep trying and figure out if you can get it to work.

You should focus on precasting the first heart seeker and then repositioning your camera using your mouse.

300.

I tried for an hour trying to get it to work. Not

once

did I managed to change direction between the 1st and 2nd HS; every HS consecutive after each other (casted immediately one after the other) would always result in moving in the same direction regardless of the camera position.

I don't know why you're implying that this would be my fault but I'm getting that vibe from the post. Anyway, I'm assuming that ANET has coded HS's direction to be server sided instead of client sided. Thus having lag would impact this. Moving in a different direction (after the 1st HS) even for just a single tap does nothing; the server believes that I'm still facing in the original direction. I don't believe that those with low ping would intentionally wait 100ms to half a second in between their HS to readjust their position. I'd have to wait about half a second to a second for the server to recognise that my direction has changed. By then my combo would be off and now I can't stack stealth.

From a programmer's perspective, I find it dumb that a move like HS would calculate its direction on the server side and not be done client side. It seems as though they haven't sent the camera's rotation along with the move command itself OTW which I think is dumb considering even a junior programmer like me could figure it out. I believe this would help players with high ping.

Not saying it is your fault exactly...just that there isn’t much advice I can give you on how to overcome lag.

I think 300 ping is manageable so I guess the best I can do is suggest you try steering your character back in the opposite direction before doing the second heartseeker.

[SoulSin.5682]

I play with around 170 and back in the days that I was training for 4 HS on one Smoke field I reached some conclusions (back when it was possible at least).

• You can use HS immediatelly after Black Powder. Just press 5 and 2 right after, the game will use the first HS as soon as possible due how the skill queue works.
• You can preentive flip the screen in the middle of the animation
• Just turning the screen is not enough to flip the direction of HS, its recommended to always "tap" the Forward button (Default 'W') in the new direction at least once before pressing HS again.
• Likely, after recent changes to the way field works, using HS to "enter a field" won't grant you stealth. You need to effectively cross the field for the bonus to work. You can use corners and odd angles to gain time but its worth to mention.
• Currently, with delay, 3 HS is the max.

4 seconds is actually a pretty valid time. Remenber that the stealth from fields is just 3 seconds. So 3 HS will grant you 9 seconds, where you will prolly waste 3~4 seconds on animations. If you were expecting more stealth time, you are actually wrong.

Its possible to connect the Blinding Powder to the sequence for an extra 6 seconds if you ever need more time. Even after patch the BP animation is short enough to connect 3 HS right after.

[Joshewwah.2956]

@"SoulSin.5682" said:I play with around 170 and back in the days that I was training for 4 HS on one Smoke field I reached some conclusions (back when it was possible at least).

• You can use HS immediatelly after Black Powder. Just press 5 and 2 right after, the game will use the first HS as soon as possible due how the skill queue works.
• You can preentive flip the screen in the middle of the animation
• Just turning the screen is not enough to flip the direction of HS, its recommended to always "tap" the Forward button (Default 'W') in the new direction at least once before pressing HS again.
• Likely, after recent changes to the way field works, using HS to "enter a field" won't grant you stealth. You need to effectively cross the field for the bonus to work. You can use corners and odd angles to gain time but its worth to mention.
• Currently, with delay, 3 HS is the max.

4 seconds is actually a pretty valid time. Remenber that the stealth from fields is just 3 seconds. So 3 HS will grant you 9 seconds, where you will prolly waste 3~4 seconds on animations. If you were expecting more stealth time, you are actually wrong.

Its possible to connect the Blinding Powder to the sequence for an extra 6 seconds if you ever need more time. Even after patch the BP animation is short enough to connect 3 HS right after.

Using 5 then 2 isn't a problem. It's when you need to press 2, a few more times after the initial one that's the problem (for high ping users).

I've tried tapping W towards a new direction after a HS, and despite my character moving forward a bit in the new direction, pressing HS afterwards will still result in the character moving in it's original unintended direction (again for high ping users). There must be something to do with latency, because even though I may have 300 ping, the round time is actually ~600ms, so because of the way this is coded, I can't seem to change direction in between HS until after ~300-600ms (most likely ~300ms because I believe its calculated on the server side). This makes it almost impossible for high ping thieves as there is this time wasted we have to wait in order to change direction. But often the field's effect would've ended and stacking invis would be impossible for high ping players, since low ping players would've jumped through the field multiple times in succession, without a 300-600ms gap inbetween each HS.

[DemonSeed.3528]

I play thief quite often on a high ping, and heartseeker through black powder can be a problem - when I say high ping, I'm talking about 330 and beyond. I'll say this though, not all lag is equal, some of it is lag spikes (up to 4k) and some is rubber banding and some is skill lag (skills like heal work fine but not anything else when the server seemingly has problems doing calculations and syncing in big fights most of the time). In any case if you are strictly a dagger/pistol thief, the only thing I can say is if it's doing the double leaps on heartseeker, you're not going to have a lot working for you and it's best to switch to a different weapon set, or switch to deadeye if you can because the Dodge stealth is more forgiving for high ping users. If you want to use a high stealth build, choose instant cast stealth skills to supplement like blinding powder. Use snipers cover (rifle 4 kneel but make sure it casts on ground before swapping) and try heartseeker through that, it seems to have a wider berth or something that I have better luck getting 3 heartseeker compared to black powder and you can switch between rifle dodges in between. That should help somewhat a little. What spec thief are you? Core/Daredevil/deadeye?

[godofcows.2451]

i play with 300-350. i rarely use d/p but it's doable. Takes getting used to. Probably max 3 stacks though and definitely won't last as long as other thieves as you'll be wasting a bit more time on the stacking itself more than them.

[Joshewwah.2956]

@DemonSeed.3528 said:I play thief quite often on a high ping, and heartseeker through black powder can be a problem - when I say high ping, I'm talking about 330 and beyond. I'll say this though, not all lag is equal, some of it is lag spikes (up to 4k) and some is rubber banding and some is skill lag (skills like heal work fine but not anything else when the server seemingly has problems doing calculations and syncing in big fights most of the time). In any case if you are strictly a dagger/pistol thief, the only thing I can say is if it's doing the double leaps on heartseeker, you're not going to have a lot working for you and it's best to switch to a different weapon set, or switch to deadeye if you can because the Dodge stealth is more forgiving for high ping users. If you want to use a high stealth build, choose instant cast stealth skills to supplement like blinding powder. Use snipers cover (rifle 4 kneel but make sure it casts on ground before swapping) and try heartseeker through that, it seems to have a wider berth or something that I have better luck getting 3 heartseeker compared to black powder and you can switch between rifle dodges in between. That should help somewhat a little. What spec thief are you? Core/Daredevil/deadeye?

Deadeye with rifle. If I use the rifle's combo field, its slightly more doable but the invis stack won't last as long compared to someone with low ping who can immediately change direction after each HS.

[DemonSeed.3528]

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@DemonSeed.3528 said:I play thief quite often on a high ping, and heartseeker through black powder can be a problem - when I say high ping, I'm talking about 330 and beyond. I'll say this though, not all lag is equal, some of it is lag spikes (up to 4k) and some is rubber banding and some is skill lag (skills like heal work fine but not anything else when the server seemingly has problems doing calculations and syncing in big fights most of the time). In any case if you are strictly a dagger/pistol thief, the only thing I can say is if it's doing the double leaps on heartseeker, you're not going to have a lot working for you and it's best to switch to a different weapon set, or switch to deadeye if you can because the Dodge stealth is more forgiving for high ping users. If you want to use a high stealth build, choose instant cast stealth skills to supplement like blinding powder. Use snipers cover (rifle 4 kneel but make sure it casts on ground before swapping) and try heartseeker through that, it seems to have a wider berth or something that I have better luck getting 3 heartseeker compared to black powder and you can switch between rifle dodges in between. That should help somewhat a little. What spec thief are you? Core/Daredevil/deadeye?

Deadeye with rifle. If I use the rifle's combo field, its slightly more doable but the invis stack won't last as long compared to someone with low ping who can immediately change direction after each HS.

Yep, it's a problem because of the latency, the time of adjustment we need cuts off on the stealth time we can do (as well as slight pauses we get between actions due to lag). It is doable up to 330ms ping as long as it is stable in my experience. When it is not stable, I wouldn't bother trying and it's better to change to a more tanky or condi build instead for survival. This is what we have to contend with unless Anet/ncsoft decide to proxy/tunnel connections for certain regions to provide lower latencies.

[NuhDah.9812]

Your issue might have to do more with the ability queue time, rather than ping and latency. You need to get your ability press timing right to not get it queued after the active ability and not spam them. Yes, for some mechanics the queue time is pretty long, while some combos take advantage of it. And no, there isn't a way to chage it.

Latency and ping might affect your reaction time too, though.

[Joshewwah.2956]

@DemonSeed.3528 said:

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@DemonSeed.3528 said:I play thief quite often on a high ping, and heartseeker through black powder can be a problem - when I say high ping, I'm talking about 330 and beyond. I'll say this though, not all lag is equal, some of it is lag spikes (up to 4k) and some is rubber banding and some is skill lag (skills like heal work fine but not anything else when the server seemingly has problems doing calculations and syncing in big fights most of the time). In any case if you are strictly a dagger/pistol thief, the only thing I can say is if it's doing the double leaps on heartseeker, you're not going to have a lot working for you and it's best to switch to a different weapon set, or switch to deadeye if you can because the Dodge stealth is more forgiving for high ping users. If you want to use a high stealth build, choose instant cast stealth skills to supplement like blinding powder. Use snipers cover (rifle 4 kneel but make sure it casts on ground before swapping) and try heartseeker through that, it seems to have a wider berth or something that I have better luck getting 3 heartseeker compared to black powder and you can switch between rifle dodges in between. That should help somewhat a little. What spec thief are you? Core/Daredevil/deadeye?

Deadeye with rifle. If I use the rifle's combo field, its slightly more doable but the invis stack won't last as long compared to someone with low ping who can immediately change direction after each HS.

Yep, it's a problem because of the latency, the time of adjustment we need cuts off on the stealth time we can do (as well as slight pauses we get between actions due to lag). It is doable up to 330ms ping as long as it is stable in my experience. When it is not stable, I wouldn't bother trying and it's better to change to a more tanky or condi build instead for survival. This is what we have to contend with unless Anet/ncsoft decide to proxy/tunnel connections for certain regions to provide lower latencies.

Yeah it just sucks that players with high ping can't effectively play thief in wvw using stealth. And I was hoping that I could use stealth builds to deal with the fact that I'd be 600ms behind other players. They'd have such an advantage over me. I guess sticking to condi and tank is more better :/

If there's any other players with high ping (300+) wanting to try stealth thief builds in WvW, I'll save you from the hassle, don't even bother, unless you can effectively stack stealth.

@NuhDah.9812 said:Your issue might have to do more with the ability queue time, rather than ping and latency. You need to get your ability press timing right to not get it queued after the active ability and not spam them. Yes, for some mechanics the queue time is pretty long, while some combos take advantage of it. And no, there isn't a way to chage it.

Latency and ping might affect your reaction time too, though.

Believe me, I've tried playing around with getting 2 heartseekers to NOT go in the same direction (consecutively) for hours. I've tried all sorts of camera angles, using the 2nd heartseeker immediately to using it after a small delay (+ movement in another direction). Surely if I tried for that long, that eventually I would be able to change direction after the 1st one right? That is assuming that the game is working for me, which in this case is not. Its too much effort for me to post a gif of this. I can understand jumping to conclusion and putting the blame on me, but getting 2 HS to NOT go in the same direction is really a simple task that anyone can do. But if some players fail at executing this task, then is it not logical to stop considering the player as the one at fault, and start to look at other culprits? (i.e: the server)

[dDuff.3860]

100+ is unplayable ping for thief in PvPFor other modes, you can make it work with right queuing the abilities.Like 5+2 as a queue than during heartseeker animation press another #2 and turn your camera as soon as you can.

Actually, you just need to incorporate your delay into your gameplay, which actually s***s =(

[Joshewwah.2956]

@dDuff.3860 said:100+ is unplayable ping for thief in PvPFor other modes, you can make it work with right queuing the abilities.Like 5+2 as a queue than during heartseeker animation press another #2 and turn your camera as soon as you can.

Actually, you just need to incorporate your delay into your gameplay, which actually s***s =(

Yeah thief does fine in fractals and pve. I just wanted to have some fun trying it out in WvW. There's really not much we can do other than play something that doesn't rely on stealth or just accept the fact that you'll be inherently at a disadvantage with less stealth and high ping.

[Xenji.4907]

Not sure if you got the answer yet but I know what the issue might be. When you black powerd and then press for HS; you have to let the animation end before entering another heart seeker. I had this problem too where you press for HS and since there is a slight delay; I would press it again too soon. What normally happens is we press it again thinking the 2nd press is the one that trigged it, but in order to do it correctly; you must press HS, turn your camera, and also wait until the animation ends of HS! Then press W and then HS again. The accidental double HS happens because we are too eager to press it and the high ping encourages that since he adds more to the delay. So that was my problem before too and I hope that helps.

Thus;1)Black Power2)Press HS once!!3)Turn your camera4)Make sure the HS animation stops5)W(Move foward a bit)6)HS again.

[NuhDah.9812]

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@DemonSeed.3528 said:

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@DemonSeed.3528 said:I play thief quite often on a high ping, and heartseeker through black powder can be a problem - when I say high ping, I'm talking about 330 and beyond. I'll say this though, not all lag is equal, some of it is lag spikes (up to 4k) and some is rubber banding and some is skill lag (skills like heal work fine but not anything else when the server seemingly has problems doing calculations and syncing in big fights most of the time). In any case if you are strictly a dagger/pistol thief, the only thing I can say is if it's doing the double leaps on heartseeker, you're not going to have a lot working for you and it's best to switch to a different weapon set, or switch to deadeye if you can because the Dodge stealth is more forgiving for high ping users. If you want to use a high stealth build, choose instant cast stealth skills to supplement like blinding powder. Use snipers cover (rifle 4 kneel but make sure it casts on ground before swapping) and try heartseeker through that, it seems to have a wider berth or something that I have better luck getting 3 heartseeker compared to black powder and you can switch between rifle dodges in between. That should help somewhat a little. What spec thief are you? Core/Daredevil/deadeye?

Deadeye with rifle. If I use the rifle's combo field, its slightly more doable but the invis stack won't last as long compared to someone with low ping who can immediately change direction after each HS.

Yep, it's a problem because of the latency, the time of adjustment we need cuts off on the stealth time we can do (as well as slight pauses we get between actions due to lag). It is doable up to 330ms ping as long as it is stable in my experience. When it is not stable, I wouldn't bother trying and it's better to change to a more tanky or condi build instead for survival. This is what we have to contend with unless Anet/ncsoft decide to proxy/tunnel connections for certain regions to provide lower latencies.

Yeah it just sucks that players with high ping can't effectively play thief in wvw using stealth. And I was hoping that I could use stealth builds to deal with the fact that I'd be 600ms behind other players. They'd have such an advantage over me. I guess sticking to condi and tank is more better :/

If there's any other players with high ping (300+) wanting to try stealth thief builds in WvW, I'll save you from the hassle, don't even bother, unless you can effectively stack stealth.

@NuhDah.9812 said:Your issue might have to do more with the ability queue time, rather than ping and latency. You need to get your ability press timing right to not get it queued after the active ability and not spam them. Yes, for some mechanics the queue time is pretty long, while some combos take advantage of it. And no, there isn't a way to chage it.

Latency and ping might affect your reaction time too, though.

Believe me, I've tried playing around with getting 2 heartseekers to NOT go in the same direction (consecutively) for hours. I've tried all sorts of camera angles, using the 2nd heartseeker immediately to using it after a small delay (+ movement in another direction). Surely if I tried for that long, that eventually I would be able to change direction after the 1st one right? That is assuming that the game is working for me, which in this case is not. Its too much effort for me to post a gif of this. I can understand jumping to conclusion and putting the blame on me, but getting 2 HS to NOT go in the same direction is really a simple task that anyone can do. But if some players fail at executing this task, then is it not logical to stop considering the player as the one at fault, and start to look at other culprits? (i.e: the server)

My intention wasn't to put blame on anyone, just trying to explain how it works and that you need precice timing with those jumps and camera turning, but if you say it's not that I don't have any reason not to believe you, nor do I stand to gain anything from it. I remember I struggeled with the hs turns even back in the days when you could have them shorter due to moving your camera above facing the ground while I was playing with 300 ping. I was able to pull off at least 3 leaps through BP though, even the 4th went through if I was lucky, but it was a pain. Than again, now the leaps are max distance on flat ground.

[saerni.2584]

Maybe an alternative is just placing BP near a wall so you don’t have to turn the camera. Just HS into the wall repeatedly.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

Try not to spam the heartseeker too fast, and have your mouse on a high sensitivity. I turn the camera as the first heartseeker casts then hold A to strafe, and when I see the animation clearly finish and my character strafing I'll press 2 again. This is because the heartseeker will go in whatever direction you were facing on cast, and this gives the server time to realise you've turned your character, not just the camera. With human reaction time accounted for that should work with 300 ping, the worst thing for you is going to be if the ping is variable like in a blob fight.

[Joshewwah.2956]

Did some more testing and its possible to change direction on the 2nd HS with high ping, however...

There has to be a mob nearby and you have to be facing it. Your 2nd HS will also go towards the mob. This obviously occurs if you have the auto target setting on. However, this is obviously not useful because you can't stack invis on your own in your own leap field without a mob nearby. And you won't be able to control the direction you go towards since it automatically goes towards the mob. Lastly, you risk actually hitting and damaging the mob, removing you from stealth.

That was as far as I could go attempting to queue 2 HS and trying to change the camera direction for the 2nd one.

[saerni.2584]

Maybe a video of what you are seeing would help?

[DemonSeed.3528]

@"Joshewwah.2956" said:Did some more testing and its possible to change direction on the 2nd HS with high ping, however...

There has to be a mob nearby and you have to be facing it. Your 2nd HS will also go towards the mob. This obviously occurs if you have the auto target setting on. However, this is obviously not useful because you can't stack invis on your own in your own leap field without a mob nearby. And you won't be able to control the direction you go towards since it automatically goes towards the mob. Lastly, you risk actually hitting and damaging the mob, removing you from stealth.

That was as far as I could go attempting to queue 2 HS and trying to change the camera direction for the 2nd one.

I have hotkeys for autotargetting/snap to ground so I can toggle them on/off depending on my class/build for reasons like this. It's important that I can detarget and leap away in the direction that I want instead of towards the enemy. You will get used to not running it (autotarget/snap), and it feels better to freecast aoe on the ground with more flexibility in hitting them where you predict they'll go however there are also certain advantages using it on as well, which is why I prefer a toggle for both of them. Try building the muscle memory for bp->hs->hs->hs according to your ping, as much as you can take. Eventually you can compensate for the lag enough to "feel" for the timing of the hs. Don't be afraid to give the hs a slight delay, it'll better help you judge the sweet spot of when it needs to be pressed.

[Joshewwah.2956]

@saerni.2584 said:Maybe a video of what you are seeing would help?

Won't do much. Even if I posted one, the fact that I personally cannot reliably (at all) redirect my 2nd HS like people with low ping can won't make this any easier. And I highly doubt ANet would fix this considering this issue isn't really worth fixing anyway. At best, I'll be told by the community to just accept it or play other classes. At least I have my faceroll scourge though for WvW.

[Joshewwah.2956]

After more playing around, I figured that I can HS at least 3 times within 1 smoke field from the pistol 5. You just have to walk and wait a bit in between each HS. With my ping, it's possible to get off 3 HS. Often when I watch videos of other people doing it, I always thought I saw them HS consecutively without a break. Whether they do that or not is beyond me, but the way I do it works, although those with lower ping may get an extra HS off it.