Last paragraph is a good way to look at it. But then again, they also implemented DR as a shadow bomb that could tear through graveyards faster than any elemental bomb could and had the presence of mind to change it after realising the mistake. Similarly, EV can only be acquired via krogmos and I carry that (or Gravi) with me almost everywhere. Hearts can be used in CWs, just the same as any other trinkets.
Amn't disagreeing with the sentiment btw, just saying that I hope that's not their justification for allowing it to continue, as it applies to all krogmo gear which can and should be used everywhere, and that if there's a problem with something it should be fixed regardless of the original intentions. This is only a suggestion to that fix, but the fact that we need a fix is not a question.

Someone else (I forget who) said that removing a the damage bonus from strikers would encourage them to ditch a heart for a slash mod, which I guess would work, but if I can pull out striker damage as a recon with VH damage, then so can they; I reckon a lot of people would just suffer a damage penality in the hopes of redundancy factors (by that I mean that if a VH sword can kill them in three hits, then there's no guarantee that a max sword can do it in two; the max damage might not actually make a difference) and keep the hearts to increase tankitudiness. Could be wrong, ofc.

Spookington did already suggest just giving everyone hp, which I commented on earlier. I'm on the fence with that one, as my main issue isn't with strikers having hp, it's with strikers having the same hp as the other classes (and their max:max, and their boost) that bothers me.

Although don't get me wrong, I get that the classes are pretty imbalanced as it is. To make myself clear, this isn't a suggestion to solve all balance issues and put the world into order; I'm well aware that several problems will remain completely unchanged by this. I feel that Hearts are a huge problem for such a simple fix (whereas some other problems require more thought or a lot more work to balance without making things worse) and that as a bi-product of making this fix, we'll bring back teamwork.

As in the title, this thread isn't meant to be dedicated to LD balancing issues. Although I'm using lack of balance as reasoning, the main problem is that a teamwork game has basically become team deathmatch with a few support classes being kicked around because of this specific lack of balance. I feel that fixing that particular issue would encourage players being more team-orientated and working as teams proper, rather than everyone having soloist attitudes.
As for the rest of the balance problems, class bonus imbalances etc...well, they're for another thread and another discussion. I'm aware that changes here and there could affect this suggestion, but the more they get involved the more complicated things get and the more changes need to be made to make it work etc etc

Although I'm not against any other changes/suggestions that do go towards furthering my ideal of LD as a team game again.

@Lezly:

You can't use one shining example of a pro player who can beat the odds, to make the point that there's no problem as it is. You get sword eaters at circuses, but does that mean I'm okay to grab the nearest sword and shove it down my mouth? Does it mean that I can sleep on a bed of coals because you get coal walkers? I'm double-jointed across most of my body; I can do a lot of stuff that if you tried to do, you'd break your bones. But I can do it, so that means you should be able to too, right?

Yes, I really do suck as a guardian, and yes you get amazing guardians who beat strikers down. But the average playerbase (read: the majority) get mowed down by heart clones. It's known as a rogue statistic, and is commonly ignored in science because one or two stats that are very far from the average are likely to come up, and they're not considered part of the average purely because they are, simply, not average.

Good for him that he can do it. But what about the rest of the players who can't? Point is that you get amazing bombers, amazing gunners, amazing recons, amazing guardians etc, who can do everything. They're skilled and/or they have no ping to speak of, so they can do the impossible. But the average player can't. However, clones don't need to be that skilled. A completely skillless clone can achieve amazing things because of Hearts doubling their margin for error. Thus, we have an imbalance, which leads to the aforementioned attitude of broken teamwork.