Dual weild

I was responding to Laphine pointing out that THF already does what he proposed they ought to do. Both DNC and THF can cap evasion against any Abyssea NM but THF's higher native evasion means DNC has to give up more gear slots to do it. The enmity cap problem is real but I believe overstated, since if the tank stays ahead of everybody else (perhaps with the assistance of TA!) the vast majority of NMs are going to be dead or close to it before DDs start capping; people assume it's an oversight, but I believe it's actually an intended penalty for low-manning.

THF does more damage than DNC if DNC is healing because DNC healing is an all-or-nothing proposition: either your group is counting on you to heal so you're saving TP for when you need it rather than spamming WSes, or they don't so you aren't. You are using Saber Dance furtively, if at all. Two CW3s for a pathetic 1200 or so healed is the equivalent of a 2k+ weapon skill for either of them. I really don't understand how one could come to a different conclusion.

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Originally Posted by scaevola

Oh, you mean like having close to a flat 20% greater chance to dodge an attack than the next most evasive job, or the ability to plant hate from a large attack on another player, or even take hate from the same and redirect it to itself? And perhaps having these advantages ON TOP of Treasure Hunter, a totally unique advantage that by its mere existence makes THF a necessity?

Yes, I suppose that would compensate THF for not having the undisputed highest damage output in the game.

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Yep. We sure can do a lot of stuff, but none of them good enough (except THing), and every single one of these things we can do is outshined by THing. No one needs us because we evade better, plant hate, steal hate or debuff with xbow (laughable as it is).

TH does make us necessary, a necessary burden...and since the trait is easily activated by a simple /ra, most advanced groups got a TH mule that does nothing but a ranged attack and sits there. The last update was indeed positive on this aspect, and now we get more TH boosts by having an active thf. Whether these boosts are even worth a damn or not is another topic, and probably, most times they aren't. We then fall back to being a burden, and we can even add the tp feeding machine on top as condiment.

The other thing i can say we are good at is evading. Yeah, i won't deny that, but the real problem is that everyone can do it too. Every job in the game can have capped evasion against a number of mobs. Some (like thf) can cap on a wider range. But i can't really call ourselves masters of evasion while we are still limited to the 80% cap like everyone else. This is the reason why i liked ideas like having our very own anticipation/counter concept ja, by which we could dodge attacks randomly and break this 80% cap.

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Originally Posted by scaevola

(ps complaining that you can't outdamage a WAR or MNK is pretty silly when there are seventeen other jobs that can't outdamage WARs or MNKs either)

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Did i ever?

I only said we needed to set a parameter to compare balance between jobs. War for one exists to deal damage, doesn't add anything but damage, and so of course, it deserves to be the best dd there is. Now mnk has both great damage and survivability, i would call it unfair that mnk should be able to deal more damage than war.

We think of dnc vs thf and mnk vs thf too. In one side we have a job that's much better support than thf and does comparable damage (even if less, not so much less), and in the other side we have a job that does much more damage and have comparable (if not better) survivability. Where do we shine? Oh, there is the TH coin. But the problem is that it really doesn't take an actual player to throw this coin.

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Originally Posted by scaevola

DNC does the damage it is capable of doing by shutting off all utility other than Haste Samba. A DNC that cures is a DNC that is not using Saber Dance (to say nothing of TP spent), and is not at all competitive with a THF's damage; if you're proceeding from the assumption that DNC and THF are neck-and-neck damage-wise, then you have to basically write off DNC's ability to heal something more than once every three minutes.

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Not really. Dnc doesn't need saber dance to actually be able to beat a thf. It does, however, need to use JAs sparingly.

If a dnc does nothing but keep haste samba up, it will outdamage a thf. But such a dancer doesn't really exist, and saber dance becomes necessary to counter the dps loss of ja spam.

yes, thief need DW IX so I can sub paladin! get a life people, thief has plenty of abilities to make it unique and a strong job in it's own right. Triple attack puts end-game thief in the top damage dealers even without Atma, TH means we can actually afford to play (even if it doesn't work as well as we think it should). Flee|hide so we have an out when it all hits the fan and hate stealing abilities that would actually work better on a designed tank job-or at least on both.

Seriously, not every job should simply have every other job's signature abilities-and thief's signature abilities are steal, SATA and TH, not Dual Wield-otherwise we could simply redesign the game with no classes and you basically merit up every ability the game has to offer. Personally, I would quit.

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Originally Posted by Glamdring

Seriously, not every job should simply have every other job's signature abilities-and thief's signature abilities are steal, SATA and TH, not Dual Wield-otherwise...

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I do agree a lot with this.

We got a positive boost for TH on the last update. This was of course necessary because everyone else was getting TH2 access, and the gain from TH3 to TH2 is most likely smaller than TH1 to TH2 (decreasing returns like most things in the game). Now we just need a SA/TA and Steal fix (and who knows, fixing things like lockpicking would be awesome too) and i'll be a proud and happy thief.

All these abilities worked in one way or another back in 2003. Update after update the game evolved and most of them died out. Back then, considering how unique thief was, i would have seen no reason for us to deal big damage. After all we had much more to make it "fun" for us. Now if we consider this completely different game, with so many jobs that make it difficult to keep each one unique, stepping on each others business is inevitable.

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Originally Posted by Laphine

Yep. We sure can do a lot of stuff, but none of them good enough (except THing), and every single one of these things we can do is outshined by THing. No one needs us because we evade better, plant hate, steal hate or debuff with xbow (laughable as it is).

TH does make us necessary, a necessary burden...and since the trait is easily activated by a simple /ra, most advanced groups got a TH mule that does nothing but a ranged attack and sits there. The last update was indeed positive on this aspect, and now we get more TH boosts by having an active thf. Whether these boosts are even worth a damn or not is another topic, and probably, most times they aren't. We then fall back to being a burden, and we can even add the tp feeding machine on top as condiment.

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Even if you were right, which you aren't because people use THF as a DD-centric tank all the time, there are 20 jobs in this game; everyone can be rendered down to a one-trick pony when you start putting them in groups. Do you think White Mages get the short end of the stick by being sought after because of their healing and not, uh, Hexastrike or Banish?

The best thing about FFXI, literally the best thing, is the ability to change jobs freely. If the primary unique benefit of the job you have chosen is insufficient for your needs, you can and should play another job, and the game encourages you to do so.

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The other thing i can say we are good at is evading. Yeah, i won't deny that, but the real problem is that everyone can do it too. Every job in the game can have capped evasion against a number of mobs. Some (like thf) can cap on a wider range. But i can't really call ourselves masters of evasion while we are still limited to the 80% cap like everyone else. This is the reason why i liked ideas like having our very own anticipation/counter concept ja, by which we could dodge attacks randomly and break this 80% cap.

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You can get to that 80% cap through the sacrifice of fewer gear slots than other jobs. DNC does okay, granted, but MNK is pretty screwed IIRC.

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I only said we needed to set a parameter to compare balance between jobs. War for one exists to deal damage, doesn't add anything but damage, and so of course, it deserves to be the best dd there is. Now mnk has both great damage and survivability, i would call it unfair that mnk should be able to deal more damage than war.

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I would disagree with the idea of WAR not having utility; WAR is, after all, the best Red !! proccer in the game, and while that might strike you as kind of beside the point, I'd say there are two reasons why it's relevant:

1) WAR is, by design, the "weapon master" class with the broadest selection of options, so it seems totally intended to me that a mechanic designed to encourage the use of multiple weapon types would be made with WAR in mind, and

2) the fact that this advantage is Abyssea-only is important for this discussion because while I concede DNC's damage in Abyssea might be a bit higher than it really needs to be, I assure you this is only because of its incredible Atma synergy. Dagger damage is still quite low outside and we don't get a better option than Dancing Edge. You wouldn't think the grass was so green on this side of the fence without Razed Ruins.

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We think of dnc vs thf and mnk vs thf too. In one side we have a job that's much better support than thf and does comparable damage (even if less, not so much less), and in the other side we have a job that does much more damage and have comparable (if not better) survivability.

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Counterstance has always been a horribly-designed ability. Funny how nobody complained about it when the game was still kind of hard.

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Where do we shine? Oh, there is the TH coin. But the problem is that it really doesn't take an actual player to throw this coin.

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This might hold water, except:

1) the much-needed TH proc mechanic, which added a little bit of interactivity (giving groups an incentive to find a way for the THF to TP on things you wouldn't normally TP on)

2) FFXI is, as a whole, pretty simplistic in terms of controls and activity; how are you going to say THF's best advantage is boring to use when DNC and MNK's best advantages, Haste Samba and Counterstance, are just as passive?

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Not really. Dnc doesn't need saber dance to actually be able to beat a thf. It does, however, need to use JAs sparingly.

If a dnc does nothing but keep haste samba up, it will outdamage a thf. But such a dancer doesn't really exist, and saber dance becomes necessary to counter the dps loss of ja spam.

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No, a DDing DNC keeps Saber Dance up because healing at all is a huge damage loss, so nothing is lost by locking out abilities you weren't going to use anyway.

Using JAs "sparingly" is a recipe for failure on any DD. That's pretty much why people stopped making skillchains in 2005.

Counterstance a horrible ability?

I really don't know what to say....

Anyone can tank today. Thief isn't used because it's good, it's used because it's convenient. Nothing wrong with that anyway. We get the job done, just really not with the same success rate of a mnk that has more dd power and survivability. Most times a thief is only able to tank due the lack of this better option. This was my case. I've tanked almost every nm from abyssea as thief because we didn't have a mnk. In big groups, no way a thief will ever get to be the main tank (which is reasonable after all), and before the last update, i wouldn't even doubt of the existence of groups that didn't allow their thieves to melee.

I've also invested a lot of time to get my thief together. Imagine now a new player as a thief. This guy wouldn't even have a chance among the big boys. In a big shell he would just sit in a corner, if lucky to get into a shell because he has no TH+ gear.

As i've said before (not exactly in these words) i don't want thief to become a mnk, i can just go out and level mnk if i felt like it. This is not for me though. I love this job called thief, and really wish for it to grow and evolve with the game. And i'm sure many here, if it isn't thief, have those jobs they relate with the most. Everyone deserves some patting from SE.

Anyway, saying "give us power!" is an easy thing to be said. This is the current hype in the game. I don't think it's too much too wish for since in 9 years of the game we have received 1 damage boost. And a indirect one at that. The dagger damage boost in 2006. And we did receive nerfs: SA positioning restriction and removal of tp floor ( that pretty much only affected thf and nin back then) are two i can think of.

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Originally Posted by scaevola

You can get to that 80% cap through the sacrifice of fewer gear slots than other jobs. DNC does okay, granted, but MNK is pretty screwed IIRC.

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Naked monk vs naked thief should have a difference of evasion rate of about 34% on average. If a thief has a bit more than 50% evasion rate against high level nm, it's not far fetched that a mnk would have about 20%. Monk does have his own unique damage mitigation tool: counter. 70% counter is easilly reached with 10% base, 10% GH (maybe 15%?), 50% counterstance (far from horrible). With 20% evasion and 70% counter a mnk mitigates 76% of the melee damage he receives. The other 24% damage the mnk receives would have increased multipliers due low defense though. Still, the mnk can mitigate this even further with perfect counter ( its own TE+Seigan) and not to say a better pdt selection (who wears this anyway).

Having an over the floor evasion also means that any extra point of evasion added will be put to use. So it's not unreasonable for a mnk to use an evasion set while casting utsu:ichi (but wait, what mnk does /nin anyway?).

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Originally Posted by scaevola

No, a DDing DNC keeps Saber Dance up because healing at all is a huge damage loss, so nothing is lost by locking out abilities you weren't going to use anyway.

Using JAs "sparingly" is a recipe for failure on any DD. That's pretty much why people stopped making skillchains in 2005.

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The reason why dancer can't spam JA is because this does decrease their dps. Each JA used locks the dancer dagger swing for 2 sec. And each JA used after the first one adds another second. So if you use 2 JAs one after another (like sata) you lose 3 secs of damage. Sure there are dances that can be used to increase the dps (which might or not counter the lost seconds), and those that obviously won't. Thief is also affected by this with sa/ta, but we don't get to spam them like dancers do with their dances.

Let's math something out just for the sake of it.

Some considerations:

-Thief using Twash+Triplus, Dancer using Twash+DA Parazonium (not sure on best dnc off hand weapon).

-Thief with 33% DW, Dancer with 48%, and both with 25% haste (not even going to use haste samba).

-Thief with 44% TA and 13% DA, Dancer with 28% TA and 23% DA(no saber dance). ->This also means RR/AO/Apoc atma combo.

-Thief with 1.8 cratio, and since dance has about 30 less attack, dancer cratio is 1.725. Thief has 58% crit rate (with 38% extra damage) and dancer 54% crit rate (with 43% extra damage).

THIEF
Attack round base damage: 80
Round base delay: 352 ||| DW delay: 235 ||| Haste delay: 176
TP/hit: 4.4
TP/s: 2.256
Dps:29.31
Multi hit average: 1.9528
Multi hit modified dps: 57.23
TP/s (after STP and multi hits): 6.12
Attack modified dps(Attack + crit bonus 2.99 multiplier): 171.12

Calculating SA/TA gain:
(Using 60 70 secs being a humanly possible average usage with an aggressive stance)
SA @ 280 dex = +336(20% boost) base damage every 60 secs.
Base added dps: 5.6
Crit modified dps (4.0 multiplier ) = 22.4

TA @ 230 agi.= +264(15% boost) base damage every 70 secs.
Base added dps: 3.77
Crit modified dps (4.0 multiplier)= 15.08

SA/TA dps: 37.48
60% hit rate: 22.48 (it's not uncommon to miss sa/tas)

Thief SA/TA modified dps: 193.6 (or 208.6 by never missing a single sa/ta)

DANCER
Attack round base damage: 93
Round base delay: 387 ||| DW delay: 201 ||| Haste delay: 150
TP/hit: 4.3
TP/s: 2.554
Dps:37.2
Multi hit average: 1.7256
Multi hit modified dps: 64.19
TP/s (after STP and multi hits): 7.17
Attack modified dps(Attack+ crit bonus 2.89 multiplier): 185.51

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So there we have it: 193.6 dps to thf and 185.5 dps to dnc. This is only the dagger swing damage for both; i didn't factor ws damage. Things might or not change if we add ws to the mix. To calculate ws damage contribution to dps i would need ws sets, and oh well, i'm not really in the mood to check these out (maybe later). But thief will need to ws quite a bit harder to counter the dancer tp gain.

And finally this calculation simulates a dancer that only hit stuff and ws. At least i don't feel so humiliated by being outdamage by an "afk" dancer. We still have to work to reach this dancer damage performance tho <.<

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Originally Posted by Alaik

Counterstance a horrible ability?

I really don't know what to say....

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Yes, an ability that stops half of all incoming hits in a game with a spell like Utsusemi available to all classes via easy customization is terrible design.

Sorry that you somehow managed to read that wrong, but I'm not sure how anybody could not think Counterstance is broken just from looking at the help text.

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Originally Posted by Laphine

b-b-b-but monks

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counterstance is a terribly-designed ability and while we're at it H2H damage calculation is pretty messed up, too, but i have never claimed every other job in the game is not pretty bad compared to MNK


also, if you're feeling saucy you could sub MNK yourself to tank


(it is actually pretty good for aga-heavy NMs with lots of debuffs, like Fuath, for instance)

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Originally Posted by Laphine

math that leaves out weapon skills so as to ignore how much better Twashtar is for THF than DNC, and also assumes a Twashtar THF or DNC has any reason to bother doing anything meaningful without WHM or BRD support, making up the delay reduction deficit as they both hit the cap

oh and also i guess that either of these hypothetical dudes WILL be tanking whatever they fight (the DNC, who can't TA/Rudra's, will be doing so immediately) and the THF's higher evasion makes him less likely to have to worry about taking AO out for GH, but whatever

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Three things.

1) I said initially I believed the solution was an increased utility for SA/TA, so that they could be used more readily.

2) In any real-world situation, you are not endlessly swinging in perpetuity. The less your time on target, the better SA and TA become; downtime between pulls while meriting is less an issue now and Abyssea lets you be lazy about endlessly TPing on NMs, but we'll be leaving there soon and will be back in a world where you actually have to try not to feed TP or get drilled by AoEs. This is why X's/blau was better than blau/sirocco, even though the latter was mathematically more DPS with the added effect factored in, as somebody on alla figured out a few years ago and no, I won't go dig up that thread, because holy crap waste of time.

3) Perhaps more importantly, if either THF or DNC, hell, if ANYONE is doing around 200 DPS, which is enough to solo down Raja, iirc the highest health mob in Abyssea at 150k, in 12 and a half minutes, does it really matter who is doing more? It's like arguing whether level 99 Steiner is better than level 99 Amarant when they can both kill Ozma in like 3 turns.

Yes, utsusemi is certainly the most broken thing in the game in terms of defense. Still, in the current state of the game, it's hardly necessary. Thief is even among those that can brag about not needing it, being that i've heard accounts of thieves tanking things like orthrus as /war. Mnk is on its own level though (b-b-b-but monks indeed). Again: great damage mitigation without sacrificing dot in any way (which anyone is doing just by casting utsusemi), high hp pool to afford being hit, and the list goes on.

I agree with you that we could make /mnk work. But we are still working with trade-offs because +10 DW it's a very big deal. The day we get natural DW3 this sub will become very interesting.

1) Agreed.

2) Agreed. SA/TA doesn't get better though. It's % on our total damage does increase, yeah, because we decrease the normal dot.

3) 200dps, but this method doesn't provide very realistic numbers but it's good enough as a mean to compare them, as it simplifies things. Two things that would reduce these numbers are considering 95% hit rate and using pdif instead of cratio. So the reason why we don't have 200dps on Raja is because we simply don't have 1.8 cratio and 100% hit rate.

My idea on that math was to use evisceration to compare the jobs. This of couse, favors dancer, since as you have said, thief can put RS to better use. But this simplifies the calculation because i didn't have to worry about reducing SA dps and increase ws dps. And because evis is taken as the better option when soloing a ws i decided using it full time. Why are you crying anyway? Thief won. I lost the discussion that dancer could beat thief with a hand tied.

This doesn't change my belief that we deserve a damage boost. Even SE promised it last year saying something like increasing thief damage on hnms or something. We have forgotten about what's hnm today, but i still don't see much that contributes to that finality today.

No, counterstance is not underpowered. At all. You don't block 100% of attacks, only 75-80%.. And increasing your DoT every single time. Utsusemi is casting and losing a more damaging sub. This isn't 2004 where MP was like gold. Give me a choice between a MNK with relic feet, merits and GH and a MNK who's subbing NIN and not using counterstance... The goal isn't to make the healer able to sleep, and if we've learned anything it's DEF/VIT aren't even in the top 5 defensive stats. My wife actually complains about not being able to heal enough with MNK/WAR tanks.

You know what, forget it.