Steel Hunters – Heartbreaker: Hunter Guide (Tips & Strategy)

Starter Guide to Heartbreaker

Ву Amatsu-Kami.

• Real Name: Marisol Zamora
• Inception age: 34
• Place of birth: Bogotá, Colombia
• Gender: Female

System Overview

Railgun

Designated bolt-action rifle that works best at long range. High damage per shot; small magazine capacity.

Mods

• Focus
• Markswoman

Mainframe System

Core System that enhances stats and abilities.

Mods

• Preparation
• Determination

Stealth

Temporarily renders you invisible.

Mods

• Nimble
• Rejuvenation

Sonar Pulse

Activates a sonar pulse that reveals and marks all enemies within its radius.

Mods

• Tracker
• Seeker

Gameplay

General Stats

Fitting the theme of the markswoman, defensive capabilities are not really her strong suit. With 7000 structure and 2100 base shield, she’s almost forced to take long range battles, however she can succeed as a glass cannon in shorter ranges.

General Playstyle

Heartbreaker is your go-to sniper; a Hunter, who excels at long- and mid-ranged fights. While she is one of the few glass-cannon Hunters, she is also one that can dish out a lot of damage. Unlike other Hunters who can endure longer fights Heartbreaker is a Hunter that goes all-in most of the time. She is heavily relying on her ammunition and not hitting critical shots (through hitting weakpoints).

While her Stealth and Sonar Pulse ability systems provide the player with multiple advantages, she shouldn’t exclusively rely on those. However, a good Heartbreaker player can be a nightmare for enemy players when trading efficiently with their resources and abilities.

Systems

Weapon System

Heartbreaker’s signature weapon is a Railgun with 3 to 5 bullets per magazine (depending on the weapon mod). It deals a good amount of damage but shines a lot more if weakpoints get hit for critical hits, boosting the damage.

Trigger discipline, precision and good positioning are necessary in order to successfully use the sniper rifle, otherwise, Heartbreaker will suffer from ammunition issues and deal less damage than she should if played correctly. Her rifle also has the option to change the sight magnification from 4x to 8x with the mouse wheel.

Focus

This modification rewards players with great aim and trigger discipline. It modifies Heartbreaker’s weapon to have a 3-round magazine and grants additional damage to the last critical hit. The mod has the highest overall damage potential for Heartbreaker, since players can be way faster with dishing out great damage.

However, this requires all shots to be critical hits and the player experiences an extreme lack of ammunition over the course of a match. Additionally, on higher levels, this modification grants a strong DoT (damage over time) which affects the enemy Hunter, dealing a total of 1000 damage over 5 seconds. This can be quite useful for putting extra pressure on the opponents.

Markswoman

This modification enhances Heartbreaker’s basic playstyle as a sniper. It modifies Heartbreaker’s weapon to have a five-round magazine and increases all weapon damage dealt while scoped in on a target. This provides the most consistent damage bonus of Heartbreaker’s modifications due to its easily-fulfilled conditions but suffers from a longer ads (aiming down sights) time compared to its fellows, making it ill-suited for close encounters. At higher levels, this weapon’s scatter is reduced and can grant a significant heal upon landing four consecutive critical hits.

Mainframe System

Preparation

Preparation provides more sustainability during skirmishes with reduced shield recharge delay, improved repair kit effectiveness, and resistance from critical hits. This provides a safer option and allows for more extended trades during long-range fights. The benefits only come in handy when remaining at a safe distance from the opponent.

Determination

This modification improves Heartbreaker’s disadvantages regarding the lack of ammo. Furthermore, she gains helpful perks at higher levels with reloading not impacting movement speed and invisibility. To gain the maximum value you want to constantly stay on the move and reposition while taking opportunities to throw out shots as many times as possible to whittle down your opponents.

Abilities

Ability 1: Stealth

When activated, it conceals Heartbreaker with a special camouflage turning her invisible. Any action during Stealth will break the player out of it and will stop the invisibility cloak (except reloading with the Determination mainframe mod). While the ability can be used to ambush opponents from an unsuspecting angle, its primary use is to reposition and escape from enemy pressure as Heartbreaker excels at medium-high distance combat.

Nimble

Especially useful for aggressive playstyles. The player receives multiple benefits from increased movement speed (good for flanks, confrontations, and escapes if needed), being able to dash up to 3 times after the invisibility (great for movement and agility), and finally providing movement speed for your ally as well.

Rejuvenation

Especially useful if you want to play it safe with a good backup plan. Pairs well with the Markswoman Weapon mod for further increased structure regeneration and good survivability. Sometimes the additional structure can also surprise an opponent when exiting Stealth. In combination with a quick execution of a repair kit around a corner Heartbreaker will likely reenter the fight with a Structure advantage, while enemies spent their time looking for her.

Ability 2: Sonar Pulse

When activated, it highlights all targets on the HUD (Head-Up-Display) that are within the pulse’s radius, even if there is no line of sight to them. Make sure to use this ability considerate with a proper suspicion of nearby foes. Be aware that enemies can identify the position of the origin of the sonar, rendering preceded repositioning with the help of Stealth ineffective if used improperly.

Tracker

Enemies hit will receive increased cooldown on their abilities as well as being highlighted for a longer amount of time. It also provides the player with a very useful tool to interrupt enemies from healing and channeling Kits (Repair Kits, Spherical Barrier Kits, etc.) by dealing small damage on later levels.

Seeker

Provides the player with a passive ability, which displays the exact amount of enemies in range of the ability if not on cooldown and increases the range of Sonar. If at least 2 targets were hit by the Pulse, the cooldown is reduced. On later levels, a silence is applied to all enemies hit inhibiting them from casting their abilities.

General Strategy

A safe way to play Heartbreaker is to seek out enemies at longer ranges. You can try to look out for enemy gunfire during a match and/or try to pay attention to the audio to tell where enemies may be. Once you’ve spotted some enemies try to poke them for some damage.

Do not shy away from trades with the enemy if they happen to challenge you with opposing gunfire. You’ll out-damage them almost every time unless it’s an enemy Heartbreaker. If you are not confident enough to trade shots with an enemy, try to hit a shot and take cover before firing again. If you happen to get into a close-range fight, try to get some distance between you and the enemy.

You can use your Sonar Pulse while creating some distance to keep track of their position (and to check if they are chasing you). Save your Stealth ability as long as you can and use it when you are in great danger. Sometimes the enemy baits you into using it so that they can easily take you down afterwards.

Other times you notice that you didn’t even need to use your Stealth ability. Additionally, keep your eye on the Stealth cooldown, it’s a long 90 seconds! Heartbreaker “can” fight in close range, but it needs a lot of experience to make it work/to make it out alive. Sometimes it is worth simply fighting back and surprising the enemy. Use open areas to your advantage for easy pokes/good chunks of damage.

Use crowded areas to your advantage for cover, flanks, etc. Heartbreaker can work with both, cover and no cover! Most importantly try to hit Hunter weakpoints for greater damage. It may take a while to learn every individual Hunter’s weakpoint spots and to actually hit them, but it’s absolutely worth it.

Don’t forget that you are playing with an ally. Heartbreaker is a selfish Hunter, but is still able to help out her teammates.

Try to focus on the same enemy as your teammate to get them down quickly or keep an enemy busy/away so that one of you may take one Hunter from the enemy duo down.

Advanced Tips

• Try to peek the enemy for an advantageous fight
• A teammate who can draw the attention of the enemies away from you makes a huge difference
• Highground makes it easier to spot and shoot enemies
• Be mindful about your ammo management – ammo crates and the Maimer modification ease your consumption
• A Reactor Charge/Strong Reactor Charge is your friend – drastically reducing her high cooldown abilities, allowing her to use her tools for an advantageous fight
• A Dome/Strong Dome can work wonders for both you and your teammate. However, you can also use it to trap and split up enemies for easier takedowns (2vs1 or 1vs1)

Highlighted Synergies

Heartbreaker pairs well with attention-seeking and/or tanky Hunters as her ally; someone who can take off aggression from herself to give her a clean line of sight like Razorside or Ursus. She can also pair very well with Prophet for quick engages and takedowns, though both Hunters will suffer with longer fights and multiple teams as they struggle with ammo management and sustain.