I haven't seen a thread here spcifically dedicated to these yet. A few posts here and there mixed into other threads but I think the issues with these abilities deserve their own thread to discuss.
Steal, Aurasteal and Despoil. Three abilities, bound to one (needlessly long) 5 minute recast timer.
I like that Square Enix has tried to give THF more steal-like abilities. Stealing enhancement effects, inflict enfeebling effects. These are cool ideas.
What doesn't make sense to me is the way these abilities were implemented. Aurasteal was just arbitrarily attached to (item)Steal. Why? Why, if I'm trying to steal an enhancement effect, is it bound to an ability that attempts to steal an item? Why should Steal negate Aurasteal, if item Steal is successful? This makes no sense.
I have my suspicions that this was just an attempt to make steal useful again due to a combination of the lack of anything worth stealing (save maybe dynamis currency) and the lack of desire from the developement team to add items worth stealing to the game.
Steal and Aurasteal should be two seperate abilities. Not combined into one. A 5 minute recast is too long for an ability like Aurasteal to be really relevant.
It's the same thing with Despoil. The fact that the ability to inflict a status ailment is both random and dependant on the success rate of stealing an item also makes no sense. If I am trying to inflict a status ailment, stealing items should have nothing to do with it.
Rather than attempting to steal an item, Despoil should steal the status ailment it inflicts.
Why is the status ailment random? Random makes planning any kind of tactic to utilize this enfeeble effect virtually impossible. Random makes Despoil not useful. A 5 minute recast time makes despoil not relevant, were it even made to be useful. On top of this, being bound to the same recast timer as (Aura)steal is absurd.
And that's assuming it works, assuming the monster has items to steal. Which excludes any and all Notorious Monsters, or really anything you'd actually want to be able to enfeeble.
These three abilities should not be tied to the same 5 minute timer. Especially when even one 5 minute timer is too long a recast for any one of them. These should be seperate job abilities with 3 seperate recast timers and the timers for Aurasteal and Despoil need to be lowered.
If I want to steal an enhancement effect, it shouldn't have anything to do with stealing an item. Inflicting despoil debuffs also should not have anything to do with stealing items.
Mug. A solid contender for the most useless job ability in all of FFXI, on a 15 minute recast timer.
It is pretty clear that Square Enix doesn't want us stealing any amount of relevant gil. It has come to the point where they've just stopped giving NM's gil to mug. Obviously there is potential for abuse of such an ability were it too powerful.... so I say, just repurpose Mug. Lower the recast and have it deal some small amount of damage + stun.
Change Mug and give THF something useful (on a much lower recast) in its place.
How would you fix these abilities? I would do something along these lines (quoted from another post with some other utility stuff mixed in there):
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...ll=1#post97770
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A universal steal timer of 30 seconds (MAXIMUM), and a seperate category for Enmity Steals.
Dramatically increase the success percentage, with a cap of 95% with +steal gear.
I would then create different kinds of steal that all share this 30 second timer.
•Steal:Steals temporary items [That don't take inventory space] that are useful in battle instead of the useless items we can steal now. Percent chance would remain the same for valued steal items like coins and dynamis currency. These would simply be HQ steals as opposed to regular temporary items used for battle.
•Aurasteal: Seperated from (item)Steal. Only steals & dispells Enhancement Effects. Does not attempt an item steal. Will not fail if inventory is full.
•Despoil (Attack): Inflicts Attack Down and Steals a 15% Attack Boost.
•Despoil (Accuracy): Influcts Accuracy Down and Steals 30 Accuracy
•Despoil (Critical Hit Rate): Inflicts Crit Hit Rate down and Steals a 10% Critical hit Rate boost.
•Despoil (Magic Evasion): Inflicts Magic Evasion Down and Steals 30 Magic Evasion.
•Despoil (Magic Defense): Inflicts Magic Defense Down and grants 15% Magic Defense Bonus.
•Despoil (Evasion): Inflicts Evasion Down and Steals 30 Evasion
•Despoil (TP): Steals 35 TP
•Despoil (HP): Steals 350 HP
•Despoil (Speed): Inflicts a 10% "Speed Down" status effect (stacks with but is not a slow effect) and causes a "10%Speed Boost" Status effect (stacks with but is not a haste effect.)
•Mug: Inflicts Damage and Stuns the target. No longer steals gil.
*All Despoil abilites are specific, not random, and have nothing to do with stealing an item.
*All Despoil Enfeebles and resulting enhancements last 2 minutes (enhanced by +despoil gear).
*All enhancement effects stolen with Aurasteal last the standard base duration of the enhancement effect. Duration is not determined from the time the monster used it.
Conspirator Recast is shortened to 2 Minutes and grants current stolen Despoil enhancement effect to your party. e.g.Despoil (Attack) + Conspirator = Party Attack Bonus.
•"Current enmity target" restriction is removed from Conspirator
Enmity Steals To be on Seperate recast timers. Recast timers are not shared:
•Collaborator: Steals 25% Enmity: 30 Second Recast
•Accomplice: Steals 50% Enmity 1 Minute Recast
•Perpetrator: Steals 90% Enmity 5 Minute recast
*Effective range will be extended
Flee is changed to a party effect (like Mazurka) so we can help them {run away}.
Hide adds Invisibe, Sneak and Deodorise effects. Recast is lowered to 1 minute.
Sheds enmity on all but a very select few HNMs (IE: Works on almost everything)
Perfect Dodge is reduced to a 5 minute recast Job Ability.
•A new 2 hour Plunder is added that attempts to steal valuable treasure from (any) Notorious Monster drop pools (Doesn't target crystals etc). Success rate is enhanced by +steal gear.
•A defensive ability called "Evade" will be added. One minute recast timer. Allows the THF to automatically dodge the next phsyical Attack (TP or otherwise) directed at him.
Treasure Hunter is adjusted to impact the rare loot pools of treasure chests as well (so there is actually a reason to bring us to BCNM/Voidwatch type fights).
Job Traits, THF specific Ranged Weapons, or THF specific gear will be added to enhance Status Bolts/Arrows accuracy, potentcy etc.