Thieves and Voidwatch

[Nynja]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/11231-July-12-2011-%28JST%29-Version-Update?p=141693&highlight=Treasure+Hunter#post141693


A minor full-spectrum alignment bonus based upon the player's Treasure Hunter effect level will now be granted upon defeating an enemy.

This was a nice minor attempt at getting thieves some inclusion in Voidwatch, since:
-thf has no JA procs
-their lack of weapon utility basically says "daggers only"..of which dnc can use Dancing Edge and Shark Bite, while contributing to JA procs they do have
-that one overpowering trait they have, Treasure Hunter, which has been stated to be such a powerful job trait that thief is automatically doomed to be a mid tier job (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/11492-Screwed-again-Proposed-THF-job-adjustments.?p=153704#post153704) (sorry Camate, I understand you're a messenger, not attacking you), is bloody useless in Voidwatch.

But whys it useless, "we made it so TH raises lights"...it was short sighted.

Using red/blue light as my example because thats the light everyones whos spammed voidwatch 300 times over for cares about:
Soft cap of 350%: this is obtained by procs and Synchronic Blitz.
Hard cap of 500%: This is reached by one of the following two methods:
1-trading 3 of the relevant cells to the Planar Rift prior to the fight to receive a 150% bonus
2-TH effect
Final Cap of 525%: Having Periapt of Glory/Concentration

So whats the problem with the TH effect? If you've traded in 3 cells, it becomes annulled automatically, and thief is still useless in voidwatch. If you ask "what if someone doesnt trade cells"...I'll just ask why they're spamming *insert high tier highly repeated NM* over and over if theyre not trading cells.


Since TH is basically the reason why thieves wont get anything that will bump them up from mid-tier job (not even native subtle blow...meanwhile the "mirror job" dnc has 3/5 eva traits, 3/5 acc traits, 3/4 crit bonus traits, 2 skillchain bonus traits, conserve TP, and 1 higher dual wield trait...oh and JA procs for voidwatch inclusion), how about making it useful for voidwatch. As I've shown above, the TH effect on the lights was good, but its fallen short since you can use cells to automatically attain the hard cap bonus. Perhaps placing the TH effect on the overall spectrum after the hard cap, shared with the periapts, would be better served?

The change wouldnt be game breaking:
current scenario with capped red/blue + TH7 + periapt + cells = 525
proposed changed with capped red/blue + TH7 + periapt + cells = 560

[Nynja]

Maybe I should delete the thread, I just had a gut feeling this will be percieved as "reduce cell offerings to two and let TH give remainder of lights for hard cap"...

[Urteil]

Thief needs to be something other than a TH pony.


Give the job trickster bolts: dispel, mdef down, acc down, atk down, silence, paralyze etc.
Or other physical ways to apply a select choice of debuffs, something, anything other than TH.

Feint is a good start, maybe make abilities that can lower attack, accuracy, or defense drastically for strategic periods of time. Don't be dicks and allow them to stack with other forms (angon etc.)


Enhance the range on their hate-stealing abilities because the range is small and stupid.

Its really a shame they gave a WoW combo-point system to DNC it should have been for Thief.
And uncap evasion at 80% even if just for them.

Keep adding stuff to Thief like Bully because that was a great idea and gave the job a neat creative function.

The job should be more than a prayer to the Random Number Gods.

[Kimble]

Thief needs to be something other than a TH pony.


Give the job trickster bolts: dispel, mdef down, acc down, atk down, silence, paralyze etc.
Or other physical ways to apply a select choice of debuffs, something, anything other than TH.

Feint is a good start, maybe make abilities that can lower attack, accuracy, or defense drastically for strategic periods of time. Don't be dicks and allow them to stack with other forms (angon etc.)


Enhance the range on their hate-stealing abilities because the range is small and stupid.

Its really a shame they gave a WoW combo-point system to DNC it should have been for Thief.
And uncap evasion at 80% even if just for them.

Keep adding stuff to Thief like Bully because that was a great idea and gave the job a neat creative function.

The job should be more than a prayer to the Random Number Gods.

I feel like you totally missed the point as none of what you said would exactly make THF useful for Voidwatch.

[Nynja]

Yeah...nothing in here is a "wah thief sucks" thread, I'm fine with it as is. My not-so-subtle hits towards dnc were just to show just how useless is thief in voidwatch (dnc can do what thf brings to the table, and then its own goodies) and SE's previous attempt, while on the right track, practically does nothing based on the current system.

As said, would it be so game breaking to allow thief to do what its supposed to do? Considering it has been stated that thf doesnt need anymore because TH is such a powerful trait, yet this so powerful trait is completely annuled.

[Karbuncle]

Dear Thieves,

No. Because Aura Steal is too powerful., and because you can upgrade TH Through melee, and if we did this, We'd have to make it so TH Was less effective on other mobs in the game for Balance.

Signed,
Square Enix.

Is the only answer you'll ever get when asking for a THF buff. I'm still happy with Bully, But asking for anything else is going to make us angrier when they come up with an even more retarded reason why they don't want to buff it.

I like Nynja's idea though. I always thought it was rather dumb TH Just adds to the hard cap rather than breaking it, since anyone serious about farming an Item has the cells they need, and TH Adding such a piddly ass bonus to lights (Even the best Known TH i can recall, 12, is still under 30% of what just 1 single cell offers), It'd be dumb to rely on it.

At this time, The only use i see for it is increasing your Exp/Cruor by about 300 per fight....

So, In Closing, I like Nynja's idea, and i highly anticipate the reason they tell us no.

[Nala]

Blah its late but i'll try to keep it coherent.

I've basically said as much before in regards to how TH and VW relate and how they should function, there is no reason that our "all powerful" th should count towards the cap, honestly its a freaking bull$#%! and complete cop out to say we don't deserve subtle blow due to TH. who knows being able to reach 560+ red might actually help peeps from going 0/300 on VW drops (just gave them the perfect reason not to go through with this oh well im leaving it there)

Aura steal/steal/despoil/mug, considering the whole 12 cool down limit per job and the fact that there isnt anything worth while that has been added since abyssea to use aforementioned on why not drop these so we can split accomplished and collaborator, hmm... oh well tangent started, considering the fact that you'd be able to steal hate more often, perhaps modify TA so that it transfers some of the THF's total emity to TA partner, not that it'd make a huge diff in capped emity situation anyways.

While were on the topic, why not just drop hide too, 5 minutes to frontal sneak attack a mob to the face or escape aggro, honestly flee does more for you in the escape department, though i dont really have any suggestions on what would be a good replacement JA in this case. unless it modified the effects, emity douse has you shed hate from a specific mob but instead how about hide clears thief off the hate list for all mobs? though probably would be difficult to program? either way it would clean TH off mobs too so you'd need a second thief to hold TH level if you went that route, anyways i'm going to go to bed now x.x

[Nynja]

once again, this isnt about how thief is weak, how its been dealt injustices, etc etc...please dont derail it to anything like that, go to the thief boards and do that. I'm just trying to point out how SE's attempt to provide thief for some inclusion for voidwatch is next to useless.

[Kitkat]

Have to agree with Nynja on this. Currently my thf serves primarily only a small, and "can do without," function. That is to steal enmity off 1 of the 2 (sometimes 3) tank entities at pil and a few other vwnm when it is needed or if hate resets occur. Other than this my thf doesn't bring much to the table over any other job due to the scope of triggers they can do (that being dagger, which you can bring a dnc for and get ja triggers on top of it). Would just be nice to feel a little more useful when I actually do go on thf to VWNM.

[Ophannus]

Just another DD I guess. Feint is nice though for some NMs.

[Mirabelle]

So an endgame event where finally THF isn't useful. Welcome to Vanadiel. As a COR main I've been most useful in meripo and VW. Borderline useless in Aby except as a brew master with WF. Decent utility in Einherjar, limbus, Nyzul. Surpassed by BRDs in zergs like Sky and Sea and other HNM's. Having a THF for TH and Feint was always useful. Great puller in Dynamis. Can solo and duo a ton in Aby as an evasion tank.

There are THFs everywhere in Vanadiel. Why? Because the job is helpful in so many events. But all THF's want to be is DDs it seems.

I'm sorry you feel upset about not being invited much to an endgame vent for once. Please talk to some PUPs if you need help with the PTSD you are going through. They have lots of experience with that problem.

[Shioler]

Why not make thf more beneficial by making TH do something everyone complains about in VW anyways. Hate doing VW and having nothing drop in my chest yet someone else gets there 3rd rare/ex item they can't even take out of box. So why not make TH give a percentage chance to drop said rare/ex items from the actual boss ontop of what is found in chest that particpants can lot on it. But only if a Thf is present. I'm not saying remove the items from chest but then when the whm gets the toci's harness for the 10th time on pil and can't even use it. The other jobs can get a shot. Since your not ever gonna allow us to transfer contents from our box into main lot pool. Just an idea, prob to hard to implement. But would sure make it worthwhile to take a thf along to the fights for another small chance at item.

[Nynja]

So an endgame event where finally THF isn't useful. Welcome to Vanadiel. As a COR main I've been most useful in meripo and VW. Borderline useless in Aby except as a brew master with WF. Decent utility in Einherjar, limbus, Nyzul. Surpassed by BRDs in zergs like Sky and Sea and other HNM's. Having a THF for TH and Feint was always useful. Great puller in Dynamis. Can solo and duo a ton in Aby as an evasion tank.

Except of all the things youve mentionned where X job isnt useful for Y event werent explicitly told their job isnt deservant of adjustments becuz of certain traits/abilities that would render them overpowered.

In this case here, Thief has been told they cant really get anymore buffs cuz with the ability to raise TH effect, it would be too powerful. Ok, np... How about making this powerful effect useful.

The only reason 15/20 jobs became useless in aby was cuz SE made it easy mode. You werent mnk+whming at 80 cap.

[Kitkat]

Never knew thf was so useful in some of the things you state cor was useful in. Not to mention I wasn't aware we were still stuck at 75 cap? Seems to be the basis of your post anyhow. Also not sure what any of that has to do with TH affecting Light alignment either.

Just like in BCNM or most Ein wings, TH has no effect on the loot in the box so in that case thf has always been useless where as a cor retained utility. With that, giving thf the ability to further enhance the quality/quantity beyond the soft caps as if it were a separate category is going to have roughly the same effect TH always had.....a minor increase at the chance of a low drop item.


Not sure what endgame you played that made thf anything more than a TH whore with a small amount being geared well enough to pass as DD too, but based on the fact you brought up brd it sounds like most of your problem stems from not being able to fill a brd role rather than anything to do with this topic: TH and its effect on light alignment caps.

[Laphine]

As Nynja said our TH was always used as the reason we never really got buffed. If voidwatch/voidwatch-like events (TH has no effect) are going to be the rule to endgame content, THF will be automatically excluded forever, unless we get something else. So yeah, they either stop using the TH card as the reason we can't have nice things, or they fix the damn thing already.


With that, giving thf the ability to further enhance the quality/quantity beyond the soft caps as if it were a separate category is going to have roughly the same effect TH always had.....a minor increase at the chance of a low drop item.

And this is what we asking here. Players will always want drops no matter what, if THF brings the lights to new limits, it certainly will be reason to bring at least one THF. We are simply accepting the fact that we are and will always be TH whores. But well, if they can fix our current situation differently we wouldn't mind for sure.

ah btw, my expected reply from them: It would take too many man-hours to make this change to TH.

[Karbuncle]

Just like in BCNM or most Ein wings, TH has no effect on the loot in the box so in that case thf has always been useless where as a cor retained utility. With that, giving thf the ability to further enhance the quality/quantity beyond the soft caps as if it were a separate category is going to have roughly the same effect TH always had.....a minor increase at the chance of a low drop item.

While i agree for the most part...

Switching TH to raise above the hard cap, instead of Soft cap, fixes the problem. It gives THF Use, and from there, it'd be up to people to determine if it was worth it.

Pretty much what you said, But instead of making it its own category, Just add TH bonus on top of everything.

[Nynja]

Never knew thf was so useful in some of the things you state cor was useful in. Not to mention I wasn't aware we were still stuck at 75 cap? Seems to be the basis of your post anyhow. Also not sure what any of that has to do with TH affecting Light alignment either.

Just like in BCNM or most Ein wings, TH has no effect on the loot in the box so in that case thf has always been useless where as a cor retained utility. With that, giving thf the ability to further enhance the quality/quantity beyond the soft caps as if it were a separate category is going to have roughly the same effect TH always had.....a minor increase at the chance of a low drop item.


Not sure what endgame you played that made thf anything more than a TH whore with a small amount being geared well enough to pass as DD too, but based on the fact you brought up brd it sounds like most of your problem stems from not being able to fill a brd role rather than anything to do with this topic: TH and its effect on light alignment caps.

You're probably one of those people who kill things without TH then bitch when nothing drops cuz "its a marginal increase". Marginal increase or not, its an increase...


why was this moved to thief forums? If anything it would be battle content?

[Kitkat]

You're probably one of those people who kill things without TH then bitch when nothing drops cuz "its a marginal increase". Marginal increase or not, its an increase...


why was this moved to thief forums? If anything it would be battle content?

Not sure how you came to that conclusion based off what I said. Pardon me for not quoting the bitching cor to show it was a response directed at them. The comment I made was in relation to them saying thf was desired in all endgame content and to stop bitching now that they aren't. Fact is, it never was because of the factors I mentioned for specific events and why people are asking that TH affect beyond the cap. Had nothing to do with what you somehow concluded out of it, especially considering I backed you idea in the first place, so I don't understand how you got that ass-backwards idea out of it.

As to why it got moved, probably because of the title if I had to guess. Seems quite a few topics got moved out of general including this one and some of them were based on title rather than content, or they felt that since it was so localized to the thf's TH effect on light alignment that it belonged in the thf forums rather than general.

[Kristal]

why was this moved to thief forums? If anything it would be battle content?

Probably because this has little of interest to other jobs. It's about THFs wanting to be mandatory at VW (as they have been in most endgame content), rather then an alternative option to expensive cell usage. After all, if a THFs role can be subverted with items, what is the point of bringing a THF to VW.

[Babekeke]

Just add bully as a VW proc.

However, I do like Nynja's idea of allowing TH to go over and above the hard cap, but as others have said, THFs have been a favourite for many events, and I don't mind that for VW I pull out my SMN, as it gives me the opportunity to get some skillups, since the only other place I use SMN is in campaign or WoE... neither of which give skills ><

[Arcon]

Just add bully as a VW proc.

Would still be the most useless proc job in VW.


[..] as others have said, THFs have been a favourite for many events [..]

They haven't. TH has been a favorite. And THF, being the only job with a high degree of it, was included by extension. That's why you'll never have two THF for any one event, because the effects don't stack. Normally, if a job is good, you'd want more of it. With THF, that's not the case. Anything more than one THF are wasted spots. Admittedly, allowing TH to have more of an impact would help alleviate the current THF dilemma in VW, so I certainly wouldn't be complaining.

But that comment is like saying VW favors all jobs, which that's not the case. The proc system just artificially forces job inclusion, not because of the functionality of a job itself, but because SE thought this was a good way to promote "diversity". VW favors the same jobs that almost all other events ever did, good DDs and healers. Everything else has to be decided on a trade-off basis, trade regular efficiency (DDs and healers) for artificial efficiency (proc jobs) through permanent procs. If you think jobs are "included" because they have to proc things (which is essentially why THF is included for other events), I don't see why you even bother to play other jobs. A BLU in VW is not a BLU, it's a spell spammer for procs. Just like THF, in most events, isn't a THF but a TH whore.

[Babekeke]

TH has been a favorite. And THF, being the only job with a high degree of it, was included by extension. That's why you'll never have two THF for any one event, because the effects don't stack. Normally, if a job is good, you'd want more of it. With THF, that's not the case. Anything more than one THF are wasted spots.

Black Belt fights. Healer and 2 THFs. The only Damage that is done is though Sneak Attack or Trick Attack. Maximum way to get TH as high as possible, since you have to waste your KS to get the pop item.

Fights not going fast enough? Throw in some more THFs.

Events like this are severely limited to NMs that have farmed pop items, and no procs as a better way to get drops, but they are there.

As for "THF wasn't wanted, TH was" I also disagree on that too, since THF is also a great blink tank. Therefore if you want to low-man something, THF might as well be 1 of the people going if it's a toss-up between nin, mnk, dnc or thf to blink tank it. TH might be all THF has, but it's the most highly sought after JT for most events. VW being 1 of the exceptions.

[Nynja]

Probably because this has little of interest to other jobs.

I guess people dont want their Toci's or Corsu's or Mekira's...


Just add bully as a VW proc.

...

THFs have been a favourite for many events, and I don't mind that for VW I pull out my SMN, as it gives me the opportunity to get some skillups, since the only other place I use SMN is in campaign or WoE... neither of which give skills ><

Adding bully wont change anything. one unique proc in a pool of ~450 isnt going to do anything. pup and bst have a lot more unique procs...I've done one VW set with pup, I've yet to do VW with a bst.

and THF wasnt a "favorite" for any event. If it wasnt for TH, people would have told a majority of thieves to change job.


Black Belt fights. Healer and 2 THFs. The only Damage that is done is though Sneak Attack or Trick Attack. Maximum way to get TH as high as possible, since you have to waste your KS to get the pop item.

...

TH might be all THF has, but it's the most highly sought after JT for most events. VW being 1 of the exceptions.

You'd be better off getting the items from the KS99 iteself...I'm 0/5 on KB drop strictly killing Behemoth with SA and TA blows. And I wouldnt really consider "kings" an endgame event now, nor is "let the thieves try to raise TH as high as possible because the drop rate on HQ king pop item is something like 0.01%"

Repeating myself for the third time on this: In the prime endgame event right now, one that people will probably still be doing unless the legion loot is really good because VW drop rates are disgustingly low and the rare/ex items keep going to the same people / mules, that one thing thats essentially capped thieves from becoming stronger is annulled.

[Phen]

Wow i thought i was logging into ffxi for all those years of "hit it once for th and turn" and the cors constantly being used for buffs since 75 was my imagination. Must have missed the section where it was a blink tank for endgame content as welll. Missed TH being premier for ksnm, limbus, einherjar, abyssea over having (blm/brd/war/whm/nin/mnk).

TH is this job, and making it not even an OPTION at voidwatch. Hey it might not change anything like it not helping pup and bst but it would be an option. Cor might not have been bard, but it could buff. Thing is thf isnt dancer(which isnt exactly swimming in voidwatch invites).

Also lol at thf is relevant because of kings, they get to hit it twice a minute and make no see able difference on 3 quest items for monk hooray! Not like we are ever going to get an update like bully again anyway, we are a farm or have a mule tag it job- nothing more a "job trait".