THF and DNC

[Olor]

I agree that thf gets the short end of the DD stick, but it has so much "utility" in other ways it is difficult to decide whether things are balanced or not... I mean being able to pick coffers may be situational - but that is a pretty darn useful ability, right there. So I wonder if the reason THF is held on the lower end of the DD pack is because it has so many other desirable abilities that SE thought not being a top tier DD was a fair trade off?

[Khajit]

Perhaps some sort of a damage buff for thf based on how high the TH on a mob currently is?

[Jski]

What you want more dmg? Any job can seem to pull ok dmg with atmas, I think the issues should be more of ability to stagger then any thing else. Just be happily that TH is something ppl need still unlike the other 14 jobs that have comply belly up.

[katiekat]

the only way thos other jobs went belly up is if you low man abyssea it least here on Shiva we have quite a few ls's that do runs with 12-18 members mine does we like doing it as a group and thus do it as a group.

[Byrth]

Yeah, as far as I can tell, Saber Dance is 25% (per hand) in the first minute, 20% (per hand) in the second minute, etc. I don't know where the 50%/40%/30%/20%/10% numbers came from, but I assume it was poor translation of JP testing on a per-round basis (Dual wield). If you're 5/5 and average 25/20/15%, you end up with 20% DA. 10% TA ~= 20% DA, so it's kind of a wash and strips us of our Waltz ability... which I should have removed from the left half of the lower inequality.

15% DW is a gigantic increase in damage in non-delay capped situations, which is every situation for THF except for when DNC+BRD are buffers.

Whether it's fair or not to balance the game relative to desirability, I'm not sure. I do know that I definitely would have spent a lot less time playing and gearing Dancer if it hadn't gotten the big boosts around Abyssea release (and if I hadn't found a group that decided they wanted me on Dancer all the time). Even with the boosts and our Thief-crushing damage (lol?), it's hard to argue Dancer is sought-after these days. NIN/DNC is very competitive for solo, has a lot more proc options, and has high Dual Wield as well.

You only reap the benefits of your gear-collection efforts when you play the job that can wear the gear. Any effort you spend gearing Thief is probably wisely spent, because you're likely to play the job and benefit from the effort you spent. Regardless of how much you like being seen as a job trait whore, the odds of anyone else getting higher Treasure Hunter is pretty much nil. You'll always be playing Thief, because Treasure Hunter will always be needed at certain events. Even if your damage is low, the time you spent gearing Thief won't be wasted.

Effort I spend gearing Dancer gear is currently moderately useful (people tolerate me coming Dancer about half the time, largely as a result of the effort I've spent making it awesome). It wouldn't take much for Dancer to lose the advantage of Haste Samba, and I predict that they will definitely lose it at some point in the future. A third tier of March, a RDM-only Haste 2 spell, something will come up that makes Samba nearly-irrelevant, or at least irrelevant enough that another job (like Thief) could sub Dancer and provide it. Long-term, Dancer's niche is in severe jeopardy, while Thief's is secure. Perhaps SE is preparing us for the inevitable drop in usefulness by giving us a quasi-DD role.

Edit: I suppose that was unclear. I meant that to be an argument for desirability balancing vs. damage balancing. Balancing desirability makes sure people waste less of their time gearing undesirable jobs.

PS. Aw shucks thanks~! >^,^<

[Frost]

Not going to jump in here and rail on people as per usual in these kinds of threads. Thief and Dancer both possess levels of utility that far outweigh the DD output of well... DDs... The other DDs are kind of one trick ponies when it comes to playing, and these arguments are kind of narrow in scope.

My dancer can solo Durinn from gathering pop items, to killing the key item NMs (Div-e Sepid, Dvalinn, Kadraeth the Hatespawn) to Durinn himself. With the exception of one, maybe two, of those NMs, I can't do that on any of my other jobs. Thief could do more, but lacks cures to bring it to completion. So between the two, I'm sacrificing cures for Treasure Hunter, and none of my other jobs have the balance of evasion to DD that either thief or dancer has save for Ninja. And my ninja trades a little bit of DD potential and evasion for spell interrupt, more shadows, enfeebles, and the ability to trigger red, as well as the ability to sub dancer and get 'just enough' cures; but no TH. Headed up the line further, once you add one healer to the equation, everything goes nuts. Thief can drop some evade gear for more DD potential, Dancers can drop evasion and cures in lieu of more weaponskills and such, Ninjas can sub war and gain access to more DD potential and even more triggers, and you can add other jobs to the equation, like Mnk, War, Sam, etc.

In a exp party situation, I find the argument to be lost. Half the group or more is underleveld to be at max potential, and mobs die so fast that it doesn't even matter who's killing what and how.

In NM/HNM situations, Thieves either step back from their soloing position or advance it to tanking. Either you back up and support the group balancing hate and providing TH, or you're in the mobs' faces building hate. Dancers aren't very far off. Mnks do it, obviously better/faster, but require a tiny bit more support to do so, so the tradeoff is more than worth it, war too etc.


The point I am rambling on about is that we're experiencing actual game balance right now. Some jobs shine in a broad range of aspects, but still not as bright as jobs that excel in any one of those facets specifically. Thief and Dancer are far from back-seat here. I'd go so far as to say Thieves' TH is their greatest ability if anything just to guarantee a slot in the alliance. And Dancers' ability to provide 'the third haste' while adding cures and debuffs no other jobs can, makes dancers' deficiencies more a matter of other peoples' perspectives and level of knowledge of the job than anything.

And while i agree that thief kind of got mildly shafted on their Empyrean weapon's weaponskill, it DOES stack with SA/TA, as do all thief WS that are useful. But like with everything on the job, it's a B+ at best, but... that's with EVERYTHING with the job. We don't have the A+ abilities(save for TH) and the D's in others, everything is pretty B- to B+ where it counts. And I agree that Dancers' usefulness could raise tenfold if the waltz timers were split, or at the least were given an AoE debuff removal like Blus got.

[katiekat]

i onistely think DNC needs a seprit ws for emprin dagger

[Atomic_Skull]

How to fix THF:

A+ dagger

Attack Bonus I through III

Cut Sneak Attack and Trick Attack timers in half for THF main.

Adjust Sneak Attack so that it deals reduced damage when attacking from the side (being in front still causes it to fail)

Adjust Trick Attack so when used together with Sneak Attack being behind another character counts as being behind the monster (you are out of it's sight after all).

Triple Attack II at 75 and Triple Attack III at 95. +5% each. Also raise Triple Attack I to a base 10%.

[Arcon]

I'm one of the few main THFs who think THF should not get a damage boost. THF to me is a utility job, same as DNC although with different purposes. As was mentioned before, THF should be able to manipulate the course of the battle in some other way than just by Accollaborator and Trick Attack, that is what I would like to see in a thief.

Maybe it's just me, I'm really annoyed by this huge boost in pretty much everything in the recent updates (FFXI has lost a lot of the fine tuning that went into it at 75, where every single MP mattered), but imo DNC should be nerfed in terms of damage. I like to look at it from an role-playing point of view, and think about it... dancers? Why would dancers do good damage in a battle? It makes no sense whatsoever to me. A dancer sounds more like a backline job to me, and thus I think its current damage output is ridiculous. However, both fast movements and dexterity sound fitting for a dancer, so delay and accuracy should remain. I think dancers should be severely limited in the daggers they are able to wield, either that or give them way lower skill, but higher tiers of Accuracy Bonus (although they already are at a very high tier, but this is the best thing I can come up with). Also, Fan Dance is ridiculous, why would a dancer be able to take any kind of damage head on? Evasion I can understand, but this not at all. Especially coupled with their healing abilities they are already overpowered with respect to tanking.

Thieves have a bonus most people haven't mentioned when it comes to general tanking, higher evasion. And not just a bit, but at least 30 evasion on dancers (with capped Closed Position merits, 45 difference without). And with Raider's Poulaines +2 they get almost 20 more evasion just in that slot. That requires them to cast way less shadows, or sacrifice less other DD gear for Evasion, giving them a slight edge in that regard.

Sadly overall dancers would still win in terms of damage, and call me whining, but that doesn't really make sense. Not even from a balance point of view, but as I mentioned, from a role-playing view. But again, maybe it's just me, I think the entire game needs to be taken down a notch. Nerf DNC, nerf some DDs or Empyrean WSs, fix enmity calculations (I'll post an idea about this later) and the game will be treated to some balance again. But let's see what the next update brings, maybe SE already has something in the works. There's some really good suggestions on these forums, unfortunately also a lot of junk. I hope they still make an effort to go through this to find the good stuff.

[Eeek]

DNC, and dagger jobs in general, are the last DD jobs that need to see any nerfs. After nearly a year of fun and usefulness, all THFs and DNCs will be shocked back to cold reality when we step outside Abyssea. We'll be banished back to the Mog House only to emerge and occasionally poke an NM or two with our Thief's Knife, Assassin's Armlets, and Raider's Poulaines +2.

I agree completely with RaenRyong, and I believe that THF could desperately use some tweaks. Atma of the Razed Ruins, Atma of the Gnarled Horn, and Atma of the Apocalypse combined essentially 'fixed' THF (and DNC), and it would be nice if some of those boosts were permanently rolled into THF. Aside from TH and enmity shifting, THF should be the king of critical hits. But we're not. We're the king of standing around bored.

I don't want overpower THF to the point where it becomes the next SAM, MNK, or WAR, but we'd appreciate the opportunity to actually play the job we enjoy rather than poke a mob once for TH, put on our dunce hat, and go sit in the corner. THF could really use more boosts to Critical Attack Rate, Critical Attack Bonus Damage, and at least one more tier of the Triple Attack Job Trait. THF's current JAs, with the exception of Collaborator/Accomplice, are too passive to make any substantive difference during the course of battle.