Steal, Aurasteal, Despoil & Mug Discussion

[Nebo]

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.

[Laphine]

is despoil really random? I thought/heard it had some pattern based on mob family. Idk anyway, i think used it like one single time lol.

Mug delay doesn't sound so bad either. If we are lucky enough to make a 3k mug, that's only 36k in 1h. It's just some cheap change.

[Nebo]

Hmm. Perhaps truly random is the wrong way to put it. Rather, it's not specific.

It is variable based on the item you steal (which is a sort of random chance that you have no control over). It can be one of a few different debuffs per mob family if the item steal is successful.

[Babekeke]

#1 Mob uses defensive move... THF grins and hits steal... THF aquires item worth probably 21 gil.

22 merits well spent?


#2 Mob uses defensive ability. THF uses Steal. "Unable to perform this action because your inventory is full"

22 merits well spent?


#3 THF uses Despoil (which probably misses, but is irrelevant either way). Mob uses defensive move. THF tries to use steal. "Unable to use Job Ability. 4:45 remaining"

22 merits well spent?


You get the idea. I love Aura Steal, but the fact that it shares the timer is BS.
If they simply split this to a separate JA on a separate timer, I'd be happy. Steal and Despoil could keep their timer share for all I care, but the fact that to guarantee success we need to go 5/5, then the fact that it shares timer, then the fact that the chance to steal item comes first and THEN the fact that if the mob has multiple buffs on you can't guarantee which buff you will steal!?!?

And that, America, is what grinds my gears.

[thefinalrune]

Agreed once again. In the many years that I've played thief I've been constantly annoyed that the lack luster of the only thief like abilities we have. The idea of converting Mug into a stun+damage move is much more in line with its FF roots than the current version and I would love to see it changed.

In my opinion, all steal related abilities, baring the before mentioned new mug that would work nice at a five minute timer, should have not only separate timers, but have their reuse recasts reduced to one minute each.

[Capn]

Nebo!

Seen you around a lot and like a lot of your ideas.

I think that 90% of what you have listed in your post is pure gold and would revive the dying job class (ok not dying... just losing it's place in the game... I mean who NEEDS hate control...). It really seems like thf has the most ridiculous shared timers of any job in the game...

Accomp/Collab

Steal/Aura/Despoil

and the fact that mug is on a 15 minute timer is just....... sad...

DEVELOPERS!!!
You've done a fantastic job at making gil almost irrelevant aside from consumables on the AH. Great job! now that gil means nothing... can you change mug? please?? 5 minute timer, inflicts damage and chance to stun is so Final Fantasy of olden days.

I like your ideas but I would change a few things so as not to "overpower" them (and some general commentary notes):

Hide - keep it the same shedding hate from sight only NQ mobs, added effect of sneak/invis/deod if you are not on any hate lists.

AoE Flee - Would be awesome.... just had to say that <.<;

Perfect Dodge - GIVE US WHAT YOU ALLUDED TO 5 YEARS AGO!!!! PERMA SNEAK ATTACK DAMAGE MODS FROM BEHIND WITH PD UP!!! (still 2 hours ability)

Evade - Thf third eye... yea... I like that... just had to say that too...

Despoil - Everything you have there listed... but 50% chance to land, random effect from that list...

Steal - Temp items... fk yes... please... NQ steal and crit steal ... NQ = temp potion or cathlicon... HQ = steel ingot (lolcorbulletjoke)

Conspirator - ::Leave Conspirator Alone - Brittney.jpg:: (maybe only half potency if you have mobs attention)

Universal steal timer of 30 seconds = win

Dear SE,

If you don't want to give us survivability boosts like nin and dnc have natively... give us this... thank you

[Babekeke]

I always wondered why Perfect Dodge didn't give 'Invincible-like' enmity. One of the best panic moves in the game when your healer dies in a party, but you are bottom of the enmity list (I'm thinking lower level parties now - certainly applies pre-collomplice) so you hit perfect dodge and sit watching everyone else die in the party, and as mob turns to you... perfect dodge wears off. Nice one.

[Nebo]

Nebo!

Seen you around a lot and like a lot of your ideas.

lol oh wow. Thanks a lot!

Despoil - Everything you have there listed... but 50% chance to land, random effect from that list...

I think you have some good points, but I am very very very very very against this. I think if Despoil is going to be made useful at all it must to be able to be specific and accuracte. Even if only one or two from that list of suggesstions made it into the game, or they had to make it a longer recast, it would still be vastly more useful than a random effect because you could plan for it or use it in tactics.

Random + inaccurate is just not useful.

[Nynja]

Mug is on a 15 minute timer because HNM groups used to hold mobs and just use multiple thf' to spam mug for gil, untill theres nothing left.

Aura Steal imo should be its own JA on a reduced timer.

Desoil debuffs are not random as was originally claimed, but pre-determined by mob (by family or by specific mob Im not sure). However, its kinda dumb how you can only inflict a pre-determined debuff. Despoil list on wiki is fn stupid because its not tracking mob debuff per item...probably because some people are too stupid to realize "hey I keep inflicting X when I steal Y, and I keep inflicting A when I steal B". But, for example, Crapaudy's in Abys-LTP are debuffed with MAB down. Why would I want to give MAB down on a mob who has no TP moves and does not cast spells...therefor has absolutely no use for a MAB down effect?

[Nebo]

Why would I want to give MAB down on a mob who has no TP moves and does not cast spells...therefor has absolutely no use for a MAB down effect?

Yeah this is pretty stupid. I feel like Despoil is one of those abilities that they put almost no thought into at all....or way too much and in doing so overcomplicated and ruined the ability.

I'll admit random is the wrong word to use. The debuff being variable based on mob family and item stolen, etc (which is just as absurd imo, especially given your example).

Not having any control over what it does (as well as being tied to the success rate of an item steal) is quite useless. I can't imagine why they thought this was worth adding to the game.