How to properly use Trick Attack!

[Ghenji]

First time poster. long time reader.

I started playing a THF and just got Trick Attack, and was hoping someone could explain to me how to use it properly.

thanks!

[Komori]

The way it activates is by standing behind another member in your party. If standing properly behind someone it will cause high critical damage. At level 60; you will get the Job Trait Assassin that will make it stronger. Up until that point, I believe it's better to use Trick Attack and Sneak Attack together but after Assassin, use them seperate and use them with Weaponskills to boost their damage.

[Mirage]

The agility stat increases its damage too, while dexterity increases sneak attack damage. You should keep this in mind when gearing for weaponskills used with sneak and trick attack later. It doesn't matter too much yet, though.

[Economizer]

The most important thing (well, aside from positioning yourself behind a party member) is to set it up in a macro so you can reliably chain it with a physical weapon skill (or just be able to use it more often). As a previous commenter stated, chain it with Sneak Attack as well until level 60.

The most basic macro you should have should look something like this:




/recast "Trick Attack"
/ja "Trick Attack" <me>



However you might want to add a line or two stacking some gear for it if you don't already have another macro swapping gear for your weapon skill (or if you are using a magic based weapon skill instead).

For Trick Attack, you'll want to stack AGI gear, and if you are combining it with Sneak Attack, you'll also want to stack DEX.

At 37 you might not have a lot of gear for boosting these unless you work at it, which might be something you may wish to skip if you're leveling at a pretty speedy pace.

But if you're willing to take time away from leveling, you can dump some time/money into getting a few pieces. This isn't a complete list of gear, as it omits some gear such as the Rajas Ring, or Race Specific Equipment, as well as only listing some AGI gear rather when what is necessarily best for your job in any situation. Additionally, it only lists gear from 1-40, which means even leveling a small amount may outdate some of this gear fairly quickly.


Ranged:
Power Crossbow - AGI+1
Long Boomerang - AGI+2
Head:
Emperor Hairpin/Empress Hairpin - DEX+3 AGI+3 EVA+10
Neck:
Rabbit Charm - DEX+1 AGI+1 Steal+1
Agile Gorget - AGI+2 EVA+1
Ears:
Genin Earring - AGI+4 (Latent /NIN)
Drone Earring - AGI+3
Body:
Mercenary Captain's Doublet - DEX+1 AGI+1
Hands:
Mage's Cuffs - AGI+2
Rings:
Alacrity Ring/+1 - AGI+3
Back:
Nomad's Mantle +1 - AGI+2 EVA+3
Feet:
Leaping Boots/Bounding Boots - DEX+3 AGI+3


Personally, aside from the Leaping/Bounding Boots and the Emperor/Empress Hairpin, I'd avoid dumping a lot of time or money into these as they tend to get outdated if you level quickly, and it is usually better to dump effort into your weapon first.

If you're interested in finding more gear like this, or just pricing it, check out FFXIAH's advanced search function. I think you'll find it helpful.

[Nawesemo]

Good words econo. Viper bite sata are ancient relics long forgotten, the days of planting hate, the masters of enmity...... I miss a thf who knew they shouldn't be tanking.... Todays vans'diel, I prefer them..... Happy, yet sad, so confused , so confused.

[Ghenji]

Thanks for all the very useful advice that i've gotten from everyone.

Would this macro work?

/ja "Sneak Attack" <me>
/Wait 1
/ws "......" <t>
/Wait 1
/ja "Trick Attack" <me>

Thanks.!

[Economizer]

Would this macro work?

Try two macros like so:



/recast "Sneak Attack"
/recast "Trick Attack"
/echo <tp>


The one above will tell you if your job ability timers and TP are all ready for it.



/ja "Sneak Attack" <me> <wait>
/ja "Trick Attack" <me> <wait>
/ws "Viper Bite" <t>


You might also wish to warn your party so they don't move while you're doing this, but keep in mind that adding a line talking to your party can get very annoying with repeated usage, especially if it tries to say something cutesy.

I forget if the timing on <wait> is enough as is, but you can adjust it as needed with a number like <wait5> if I'm not mistaken. You can change the weapon skill as needed, but you'll want to use a good physical weapon skill - weapon skills like Cyclone won't work with Sneak/Trick Attack unfortunately.

While forums are great places to ask for advice, you might also find community websites like FFXIAH, BGwiki, and FFXIclopedia useful, especially if you're trying to find out something like whether a particular weapon skill counts as physical to work with Sneak Attack, or what the price on that shiny new dagger is.

[Sarick]

Thanks for all the very useful advice that i've gotten from everyone.

Would this macro work?

/ja "Sneak Attack" <me>
/Wait 1
/ws "......" <t>
/Wait 1
/ja "Trick Attack" <me>

Thanks.!

No the Weapon skill takes longer then 3 seconds to complete.

[Mirage]

No, it does not. The damage calculation is complete way before the animation is over.

Anyway, that macro does look kind of off.

If you want to use trick attack with a WS, you need to do /ja "Trick attack" <me> before /ws Whatever <t>. Currently, that macro will execute sneak attack, make your WS execute with sneak attack in effect, then after the WS is over, it would perform trick attack.

If you want to perform Sneak attack and trick attack with the same WS, your macro should look more like this:

/ja "Sneak Attack" <me>
/wait 1
/ja "Trick Attack" <me>
/wait 1
/ws "......" <t>

Alternatively, to save macro lines, you can use /ja "sneak attack" <me> <wait 1> instead of putting /wait on its own line.

[Babekeke]

To add a little information for your understanding:

Lv 30 > 59, Trick attack adds your AGI value to the damage value of your weapon for a single hit, as long as there is another player directly between you and the monster that you are targeting.

Eg: YOU > PLD > < MOB where the arrow shows the direction that person or mob is facing.

With a 20 dmg dagger and 50 AGI in this case you do a single hit equivalent of hitting the mob with a 70 damage weapon.

Due to it not being a guaranteed crit, it's generally stacked with Sneak Attack. Since Sneak attack requires you to be stood behind the mob you need a setup like this:

YOU > MNK > MOB > < PLD

Lv 60+ Trick attack adds your AGI value to the damage value of your weapon for a single (critical) hit, as long as there is another player directly between you and the monster that you are targeting. Due to this being a guaranteed crit, it's no longer required to stack it with Sneak attack, so the first diagram works best. Also since at 60, you have access to a bit of haste gear (at least 12% from what I can think off the top of my head), mages all have access to haste spell, and BRDs have access to March, and you have your first tier of Triple Attack, and DW 2 as /nin, you might be able to WS every 30 seconds now, so you can stack each with a ws separately.

[Catmato]

You might also wish to warn your party so they will probably still move while you're doing this

FTFY

On a serious note, I really respect that you're trying to learn your abilities as you get them. Too many people don't learn a job until they're 75+.

[TMG]

Also at 45 you get the job ability Hide, which will allow you to SATA (or just Sneak Attack) from any direction depending on the mob type, and assuming there is another player in front of you. It mostly works on mobs that detect by sight and a few others under certain conditions. Wiki has a little more information on the types of mobs Hide works on. http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Hide

You'll need to make a macro that goes something like this:
/ja "Sneak Attack" <me> <wait 1>
/ja "Trick Attack" <me> <wait 1>
/ja "Hide" <me> <wait 1>
/ws "Viper Bite" <t>

It will work well if you're duoing FoV pages with a friend and thus have nobody else you can SATA standing behind the mob. Hide also works in a pinch if you have aggro you really need to lose, again depending on mob type.

[Babekeke]

Spekaing of Hide, you can use trick attack whilst under the the effect of hide without losing the effect. Unfortunately, you can't do this with sneak attack. Because that might be useful.

[Catmato]

you can use trick attack whilst under the the effect of hide without losing the effect.
This actually works with any form of invisible, not that it makes it any more useful though.