Screwed again: Proposed THF job adjustments.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

The Existence of Non-DD abilities does not denote the Idea is was intended to be a DD.

Yes, we had abilities designed to Steal/escape, But they weren't what we were designed to do in parties. I'm quite sure SE didn't intend for THFs to use Flee and hide during a exp party and run in circles, right?

Gilfinder/TH can arguably help an exp party in some small way if you're fighting beastmen or mobs that drop decent items, But its clear these traits were designed for big game.

Also, Hide actually allows you to Sneak Attack from any direction, that had DD implications too. The existence of traits that fit classic THF (Steal, Mug) does not mean its role was not suppose to be a DD. I don't deny SE had other plans for THF than simply a DD, But a DD they were.

Its just today the gap between a Good THF and a Good WAR has widened to a point where the THF is largely undermined as a DD and defaults to TH whore. Closing the gap a tad won't nerf other jobs or make them less desirable.

my point being, THF in a party situation was designed as a DD, with implications toward Enmity control (TA). Their JT obviously role-play the job, but i don't think they were what SE intended the job to do in parties or endgame. I think their role was originally a DD, in fact i think their old Manifesto said that, to the point they were thinking of buffing Perfect Dodge to, when active, your attacks would do more damage from behind.

Their plans changed clearly, But it doesn't change the point at one point, earlier in the games life, We were designed as a DD, and a TH whore, where as today its just TH whore.

We're only asking for the gap in DD to be closed a little. That and if you read my other posts I'm leaning more towards useful utility anyway, Already plenty of DD..

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You just stepped on your earlier argument though. You said "THF was originally supposed to be a DD" and supported that argument by listing traits and JAs designed for damage. However, I pointed out that you actually have more 'snatch and run' techniques than you do DD techniques. Hence, you cannot support your argument in that way. Also, I recall that hide's additional effect occurred in the same update as Assassin, which would mean it's not an original trait.

Moreover, you have to remember that SE modeled themselves after EverQuest's grinding system, so they would hesitate to improve TH extensively. Without room to improve these features of THF, what else were they going to do? At the time, THF was already considered a potent enfeebler via bolts (One of the few classes to take advantage of acid bolts).

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

however, I'd be lying if, back in the day when i had TH3 only, that i wasn't asked to switch jobs because i didnt have TH4.

I'd be asked to change jobs to WAR or something so the TH4 THF in denali Bonnet and DEX rings could be on THF, despite my THF having far superior DD gear and would help us kill quicker. So a far inferior THF whos only marketable skill was owning 2 pieces of Armor and being completely gimp and useless in every other field was desired over a THF with TH3 even if that THF was perfect in every other field.

You could be a Mandau THF with perfect HQ Gear, and if you didn't have TH4? you were switching jobs to let a TH4 THF take your place.

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That makes total sense though. Who is better geared to do what they need to do? Well, what do they need to do? They need to make items drop. Who has better gear for making items drop? The TH4 THF. Anything else would be like evaluating a WHM based on their melee set. It's irrelevant to the point in question.

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All i want is a reason to be in a party outside of TH. You and everyone else reading knows a THF's place in FFXI. We hit the mob, and we go the Fk away. Its how it was at 75, its how it is now (out of Abyssea), and on our current "Vision" Path, Its how it will be at 99.

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The only melee I've brought more often than a THF within the past few months is probably WAR, NIN, MNK, and BLU. The last one is primarily an AoE member. Reasons for bringing the other are irrelevant to DD except WAR, which is why I keep saying comparison to WAR is terrible since most DDs don't meet WAR's melee potential. DRG, PUP, BST, DRK, and SAM will sideline more than THF in abyssea. Outside, the situation is similar except for chest drop events (VW for example). In the case of BCNM style fights, who cares? *Any* melee can do those unless it calls for manaburn. "Oh, but you'll pick a WAR over us." Guess what? That applies to *every* other DD except in cases where evasion matters (And NIN + THF hoard that scene).

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We are useless in a Endgame situation outside of Loot, and perhaps Killing ourselves (A.K.A Saccing).

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WHM is useless outside of healing. WAR is useless outside of meleeing. You should celebrate specialization.

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When a job has no uses outside of TH, and the only other thing your party can think of having you do is killing yourself again and again *sac pulls* than theres something wrong with the job. I don't feel I'm asking too much. Give us some abilities that really make us contribute.

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No, there's a problem with your LS. Just recently, I mandated a THF (who meleed with me) to get Ambushers to drop for a friend. When the entire game revolves around loot, you cannot belittle the significance of TH. VW is the big step against this, but that's primarily because if VW style drops didn't exist, WAR THF BRD WHM + Excess would monopolize the scene.

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This all seems rather meaningless when the Devs think Aura Steal on anything lower than 5 minutes would break the game, if they feel something like that is too powerful for THF we're all fked and we may as well just switch jobs like its been suggested, because this job is going nowhere and you may as well leave the "FFXI TH-Whore" to the Linkshell Mules like it was at 75.[/HB]

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Their responses were underwhelming.

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Originally Posted by Yugl

You just stepped on your earlier argument though. You said "THF was originally supposed to be a DD" and supported that argument by listing traits and JAs designed for damage. However, I pointed out that you actually have more 'snatch and run' techniques than you do DD techniques. Hence, you cannot support your argument in that way. Also, I recall that hide's additional effect occurred in the same update as Assassin, which would mean it's not an original trait.

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I can agree to this. But then we have to look at what THF was used for by the Community. I'd say people invited THF for 2 Reasons. 1) to DD (back in old school? SATA + Viper bite better than all, Magic burst freeze? yes), 2) Trick Attack. So we have 2 base roles. DD, and Enmity.

This just goes back to THF being mislead as they leveled earlier in the game, Today its more obvious (Except maybe to people who don't research all the time), But back then when you leveled THF you expected to hit 75 DD'ing and helping Enmity with Trick Attack, In reality you were a TH whore.

I don't deny the amazingness of our one unique Specialty, I just want a Specialty that lasts more than 1 Melee hit.

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Moreover, you have to remember that SE modeled themselves after EverQuest's grinding system, so they would hesitate to improve TH extensively. Without room to improve these features of THF, what else were they going to do? At the time, THF was already considered a potent enfeebler via bolts (One of the few classes to take advantage of acid bolts).

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No i don't really remember SE modeling them off EverQuest... Either Way you bring up another point I would like THF to expand on. Give us more ways to hinder/hurt a mob, Even if its through increases other players. Like i listed a while back, a JA that increases Debuff potency on a mob, Or increases Damage dealt to the target for a small window, Stuff that gives us a use for the other 10 minutes of a fight.

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That makes total sense though. Who is better geared to do what they need to do? Well, what do they need to do? They need to make items drop. Who has better gear for making items drop? The TH4 THF. Anything else would be like evaluating a WHM based on their melee set. It's irrelevant to the point in question.

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This is where our Opinions Differ. No other job in the game was completely rejected for 1 piece of armor. If your WAR didn't have Dusk+1, You'd still invite him to DD. Point was THF was completely judged based on those 2 single pieces of Armor, no other job in the game was judged this harshly.

and its all because THF was useless (in the communities eyes) outside of TH. I'm pointing out the Extremes of it. Of course you would check most people gear first, But if someone was a little less than perfect they'd be acceptable.

I have a feeling I know where you'll take this from here but i'll stop and respond to that when the time comes... :X

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WHM is useless outside of healing. WAR is useless outside of meleeing. You should celebrate specialization.

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Yah, But all those things you described keep your attention during a fight. TH can be effectively done by hitting the mob once. You can upgrade it via melee, but the effect chance is so low its not worth it (especially on say, Voidwatch where you'll likely die from AoEs, Cause too much TP feed because SE thinks Subtle Blow job Trait would be too broken for THF, or be an MP sink), So you hit the mob, then default to using SA and TA every minute for a chance to upgrade.

Which i admit is a little more than nothing. So i do concede there.

Still, WHM may only be good for curing (which is bull itself, They have Pro/Shell V at higher potency, and Barspells at higher potency/unique buff to them), but they cure the entire fight. They can even go as far as haste cycles if a RDM isn't covering it. they have something to contribute the entire fight.

Same goes for WAR, they DD the entire fight, They're actively participating int he event in a meaningful way that isn't generally regarded as "Worthless damage that feeds too much TP".

I'm not undermining Treasure Hunter, In fact I've mentioned a thousand times i like it and I know its what keeps our job afloat (which is a big thing), I'm simply asking for more than just TH.

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Their responses were underwhelming.

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yes, yes they were.

I still appreciate them though...

Edit: whoops

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No, there's a problem with your LS. Just recently, I mandated a THF (who meleed with me) to get Ambushers to drop for a friend. When the entire game revolves around loot, you cannot belittle the significance of TH. VW is the big step against this, but that's primarily because if VW style drops didn't exist, WAR THF BRD WHM + Excess would monopolize the scene.

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I Don't belittle Treasure hunter in any way, I like the Ability, I acknowledge its the only thing keeping our job relevant, I just want other reasons for our relevance. Thats not asking too much

Edit: And to be frank you'd have almost no chance at Ambusher's hose without Blue proc, If you had to pick a THF+WHM, or a MNK+WHM to get Ambusher's Hose, what would you chose? The MNK, because on Blunt he can do every Blue proc, which ups the drop rate of Ambusher's hose far far more significantly.

Of course you can bring both, I won't deny that, Just trying to show you that TH is not as bad-ass as it used to be, Because All Current endgame events (Save neo-dynamis) have actions that effect drops far better than TH could hope too.

And if the game continues down paths similar to Voidwatch, Where TH is actually completely useless outside of upping lights by an amount you could already do with procs, It will phase THF out entirely.

Its still an amazing Ability, I'm just worried with our current path in the future not even TH will save the job.

People who think TH is just as important as !!! proc's: awesome.

People who think THF should be the worst DD due to daggers: lol. DRK should always have endeath then, except on massive mobs cause a giant scythe to the head would kill birds, bugards, crabs, raptors, spiders, etc, etc, etc. See how f***ing retarded it is to base a game's damage potential off of real physics? In fact I state WAR, DRG, DRK, SAM and ESPECIALLY RNG should all have 100% endeath. Oh, and if there's 2 mobs in a direct line in front of the RNG, he should OHKO them both. Bullets go through people, after all and we can't have someone with a freaking SWORD doing more damage than a gun, anyone who took a history class knows that's unrealistic.

Seriously, I don't want THF to be a broken DD but that is one of the weakest forms of logic for a game ever, and if SE was dumb enough to follow it, we'd all be RNGs, the end.

PS: That 2H update? Guess what, it was due to 1 handed DDs (THF, MNK, NIN, WAR with axes especially) beating 2H. The only difference now is SE has refused to address that 2Hs now roflstomp 1Hs.

Current endgame content has TH relevant on the new HNMs, anything else it has 1.) no effect. 2.) diminished effect (Voidwatch) or 3.) Less effect than !!!

Guess what, it was found out shortly after the abyssea expansion that for everything outside of empyrean drops, the proc is better than TH. If you have ever spent time farming Loki's Kaftans and tried one with just blue and one with just TH you know the damn difference. Yes, you can bring both but if you have a MNK/WHM duo looking to add one person for drops, they're going to take the BLM for AF items, or the WAR for KIs, etc.

Low manning is the name of the game now, and rightfully so.

@Karbuncle: Neo Dynamis, last I checked, the proc system still helped more than TH, vastly so.

I'm not even touching the "TH is a golden ticket" shit again, no one who is capable of typing is stupid enough to believe any THF can get into any event scott free. I refuse to believe we can make quark-gluon plasma yet can't see simple shit about a video game.

The reason i didn't clump Dynamis in it is because Procing simply raises the drop rate to what it was in old dynamis, and thusly TH is quite effect still. But yah, right down to it Proc >>>>>>> Th there too when you get down to it.

Having both is ideal but its hardly an ideal world, and when it gets down to it if you have to chose between a Proc job, or a THF, Irs proc job.

Dynamis is also an exception because THF can proc. Magic(THF/NIN), WS, or JA (THF/DNC best for that).

Trying to acknowledge TH is great but also acknowledging its far less "great" than it was at level 75 is difficult to convey.

Why TH keeps coming back as an argument? Of course it is a golden ticket, of course it makes THF one of the most desired jobs. But its importance is decreasing over time. Abyssea decreased it somewhat and now voidwatch (the future of endgame) made it completely irrelevant.

Even if TH remained fully relevant, the fact is its mechanics would still be broken. The passive aspect of this trait is the reason we "THF main" don't like the concept of THF=TH. If TH was fun, if it was skill based, things would probably have been different. We, the players, want something that makes us keep playing. We don't want to get bored. TH never contributed with this in our history.

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My point is that for virtually every job, when filling a role, the 1st thing you look for is who is better at the job and that difference is skill based. For thf, you ask "Who has TH6?".

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Originally Posted by Yugl

What kind of retards are you guys using to support your argument? Melee is even more gear dependent and less skill dependent than THF.

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That depends, what special kind of retard are you? Are you really trying to argue that TH'ing a mob is skill dependant?

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Lack of difference between two people with TH6 is a fault of the TH augment system more than THF's general melee capabilities.

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OK, no you aren't, you are agreeing with me. Did you read that post you quoted?

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When you ask who is better at melee, it's not just SAM1 v SAM2. It's WAR v SAM v DRG v DRK v RNG v MNK v PUP? v BST. Furthermore, when you do get an equal comparison, it's who has better gear. Sound familiar?!

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This is a fallacy. You don't get an equal comparison when playing with individuals. You get the guy that maybe WS's at ~180% if he remembers to. Doesn't eat proper food. Might not have a clue how to land his procs clean. Does he have the combat skills leveled, with the weapons to trigger all the weaknesses his job can? Is he flexible? Does he know how to react to various situations? Does he even have PDT/MDT sets if things go south?

Obviously this is is gear dependant, but you are only making my point here. It's about multiple gear swaps for many different situations with the knowledge and skill to use them with appropriate timing. It is an active process that takes a bit of knowledge, skill, rare gear collection.

Applying TH is non of that. It is a passive trait. All the pieces are stupid easy to obtain. No one cares what you do, or what other gear you have. As long as you have TH6. You can literally main hand a THF knife, nothing in the offhand, be wearing nothing but the hands and feet and still do your job the exact same. You either have TH6 or you don't. Beyond that, a discussion of player skill never enters the equation for bringing TH.

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Even when at their peak, it just meant THF was no longer supreme in all aspects (Though still monopolizing the "TH maker" role in some situations).

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THF was supreme in all aspects? When was this?

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You heard it here folks! Only WAR can use PDT+MDT sets even though THF has better access to MDT than WAR.

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Actually, they can both reach the -50% MDT cap with gear and shellra V so...no. They don't. The point of that was in response to the comment that "THF should not get updates and is fine because it is a defensive job." Which is not true.

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The only point you got correct in that post was the proc!! system undermining TH for VW, but most complaints in this thread don't echo that as much as they complain about WAR (Which is a problem of WAR, not a fault of THF since almost every class can point to WAR at this point and scream overpowered)

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This is why I think you aren't reading what is being written. No one is crying "overpowered" at WAR. That comparison I used to THF damage compared to other WAR DD can be used for any other DD.

In the DD department, we are not saying we want to be the best, or on top of the pile, or a heavy-DD or any herp a derp nonesense. What we HAVE been saying for quite a while now is that the gap is currently too large.

Especially given that our enmity utility is not useful to anyone, from the response we just got, our steal abilities are going to stay useless because SE is afraid of them. And Treasure Hunter is going to remain marginalized due to Weakness trigger procs, and being given away to other jobs.

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Going by the original traits, THF was actually designed to collect items and escape more than DD.

JA
Sneak Attack <=> Steal
Trick Attack <=> Mug
Pick Treasure Coffers
Hide + Flee + Perfect Dodge => Escape mechanisms used in conjunction with Steal/Mug

Traits
Gilfinder <=> Triple Attack
TH1 <=> Assassin (Wasn't even an original trait; was added later)
TH2
A total of 8 Evasion Bonus/Resist Gravity Traits

So no, THF was actually skewed towards obtaining items and escaping (Often times, stuff that went hand-in-hand). Even more evident by the level on Striders.

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Actually THF was skewed towards parties with tanks, SATA lines, closing distortion skillchains and raping faces with......DAMAGE!!!!! YAY!!!!!! SATA damage and stacking WS was a MUCH bigger relative damage payoff than it is today. THF was a great DD for all of its early life.

Going from the origional description of the job...SE described THF as a "stealthy attacker," that looks for the perfect opportunity to attack from behind and suprise its enemies.

And we've been over this about a million times on this forum. You are barking up a very wrong tree if you are trying to argue things like gilfinder, steal, despoil, mug, coffer picking to help your case. All of these things were taken away or made useless because SE is afraid of them. Whatever their "vision" for the job was then, it has most certainly changed.

i keep waiting for Yugl's response because I like debating with him :(

While I appreciate the feedback I have some qualms....

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Originally Posted by Camate

By adding attractive items to monsters, we fear that it would be re-creating the scenario from the past regarding beastcoins (stealing and then hiding right after), making this pretty difficult to implement. If there were a good countermeasure for this it could work, but currently revamping or adding items to monsters is quite difficult.

This only works on mobs that track only by sight. Many mobs in recent additions track by multiple avenues, the high recast for Steal and Despoil make neither of them a viable option. Steal is a THF ability that defines the job and it seems the tactic to balance it is to not add worthwhile items to Steal and have a high recast as well as limiting what we/if we can steal from NMs?

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Originally Posted by Camate

That’s what Aura Steal is for! The effects stolen by Aura Steal are essentially the raw stats that the monster possesses.



We believe making Aura Steal a separate ability would be over-powered. If we did do this, it’s likely that its use on notorious monsters would be removed and it would have even less of an effect than it does now.

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Allowing us to Dispell effects while simultaneously buffing ourselves is over powered? Most mage jobs have the ability to do both with much smaller recast times. I could see that the concern would be the unique buffs we could steal, but the duration of them is short. With additions of items like Brews that allows us to willingly break all parameters why would this be any different? Also, when compared to jobs like NIN that can effectively escape damage all together that would kill them normally via Ninjutsu I would rethink what being overpowered really is. It could easily be controlled by changing the buffs we can Steal altogether, as not all effects can be dispelled as is.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Though we haven’t decided if it will be Aura Steal or not, we do have some rough plans for adding some kind of additional effect to Despoil.

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Why not just give us a separate Dispell or Enfeeble ability? Why do they need to be tied to Stealing abilities with arbitrary conditions?

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Originally Posted by Camate

We are looking into separating the two. However, we are close to reaching a point where there are too many recast timers going on simultaneously, so this isn't something we can implement right away.

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Every spell in the game has its own recast timer. Why would separating these abilities be that much more taxing than a WHM or BLM recast timers? Melee jobs as it is have far fewer abilities to use than any spell casting job. THF outright ignores most of its abilities anyway. Steal and Despoil are rarely used by anyone. Accomplice and Collaborator are far too situational to be used regularly, and with party setups that require a full alliance sometimes to defeat an NM they are used even less...add in that we can only target 5/18 members in the alliance the ability is further pushed back from use.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Due to the fact that normal attacks now increase the effects of Treasure Hunter, we chose to forgo the addition of Subtle Blow as a trade off.

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This is probably the only thing I can understand and agree on as we get subtle blow from the support jobs we generally use on THF and the use of Conspirator.

Again while I appreciate the response, it is obvious that much of the vision is being made useless by the type of game we are currently playing. If THF is to be a hate controller then we need to go back to NMs that are killable by parties of 6 or increase the need for hate management while expanding our abilities to be used on members within the alliance. While I enjoy the increase in TH as much as the next guy I feel it is our only defining characteristic anymore and it is becoming useless. We can no longer keep up as a DD, we have no use of support abilities in most parties, and many items are not as effected by TH as they are by the triggers.

While I don't I see what you want us to become, and I enjoy the vision very much, the implementation of it won't be feasible with the situations the gameplay is currently heading towards. The reasoning behind many of what was said above are also, let us call them what they are, poor excuses for not knowing how to fix something or change it. Or it may even be a case of lack of motivation to do so. However, I don't think lack of motivation is the dev teams problem, just lack of insight and understanding maybe even inspiration.

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Originally Posted by Laphine

Why TH keeps coming back as an argument? Of course it is a golden ticket, of course it makes THF one of the most desired jobs. But its importance is decreasing over time. Abyssea decreased it somewhat and now voidwatch (the future of endgame) made it completely irrelevant.

Even if TH remained fully relevant, the fact is its mechanics would still be broken. The passive aspect of this trait is the reason we "THF main" don't like the concept of THF=TH. If TH was fun, if it was skill based, things would probably have been different. We, the players, want something that makes us keep playing. We don't want to get bored. TH never contributed with this in our history.

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That and it's not a golden ticket. Unless you're the only THF around with max level TH, and if you don't have max level TH it's not. People generally bring one THF and only for TH, and once that quota is filled, no more THFs are getting in.

A golden ticket implies you can get into any lucrative event you want, no questions asked. If I was the biggest suck up to all my bosses, and there was some trite training that took 2 hours and gave me an additional 10,000 a year, and I knew straight up I was getting in because I wanted to and the higher ups loved me, their bias is a golden ticket. I want the training/raise, I get it. If a project me and 3 other guys are working on fails, I don't get the blame, I have a golden ticket.

A golden ticket is NOT "Hey Boss I want in on this training." "Oh, we already have one suck up with nice hands, boots and a letter opener, sorry." because it didn't get you in at all. In fact given how popular thief is (It's on the decline however in the last few censuses) it's highly likely max TH is already present and you will be told to swap to another job if you have another more liked one. WAR, BLM, MNK, NIN, DNC, BRD, COR, etc, etc.

New idea: Give PLD treasure hunter and remove it from us, a reason to bring a PLD, they can still tank and SE can put the no DPS buffs on a tank class instead of a DPS. *Sarcasm, before anyone goes all ragey because they can't detect sarcasm*

I get that people are saying if you're the one thief around with max TH you'll be allowed to come. But if you're the one DD or good support around that's smart and geared properly you are too, I'm sure. You're also allowed to do more than 2 abilities and duplicates of other jobs are very rarely considered pointless.

Having a second MNK is never considered worthless, they can engage as well or pop a second NM. Another BLM means faster procs or farming time while the other 2-3 kill a NM. No one ever complains about a second Bard. The only other role people were happy with just one of was a tank, and no one uses a traditional tank anymore either.

Hell, even back in 2005 when MNKs Chi Blasted Kirin it was more fun than this.

tl;dr people really need to think about th's relation to thf and their invites or lack thereof and compare it to any other situation they would use the term golden ticket. Unless your syntax is really weird, you'll get what I mean after you try it.

Lets not talk about "max level of TH" like it matters, for two reasons:
1) Trait level TH has a dramatically higher effect than the TH proc system they introduced. The difference between a TH3+3 and TH3 THF is going to be almost undetectable unless you have a well-controlled test with a high sample size, and if you do I'd love to see it.
2) TH in gear just determines your starting point for the TH proc system. Though I have no formal testing, I feel confident that the odds of a TH level proc decrease as the level gets higher, so starting at TH level 5 vs. TH level 6 probably doesn't matter much on stuff with high HP that you're going to have plenty of opportunity to proc.

Also, even if it did matter it wouldn't be hard to get. My THF mule has TH3+3 for his level 90 THF and I have TH3+2 for my level 50 THF (stored on the Porter Moogle). Durinn is easy, TK is cheap, and Ass Armlets are soloable by quite a few jobs.

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Originally Posted by Reaux

This is probably the only thing I can understand and agree on as we get subtle blow from the support jobs we generally use on THF and the use of Conspirator.

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I may be widely mistaken but im pretty sure that giving us DW was a ploy to encourage other SJ usage in order to augment our damage, like war, but in doing so you sacrifice subtle blow and surviavability. At the very least when it comes to abyssea im asked to come/war because it allows me to cover more procs that way we have back ups when some one goofs.

thats how i read the adding of DW to thief, which is counter to your point, if we have DW and are expected to sub more damage enhancing subs that dont give SB then why cant we get it naturally? but as i said perhaps i read the Dev team wrong in their intentions of giving us DW.

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Originally Posted by Byrth

Lets not talk about "max level of TH" like it matters, for two reasons:
1) Trait level TH has a dramatically higher effect than the TH proc system they introduced. The difference between a TH3+3 and TH3 THF is going to be almost undetectable unless you have a well-controlled test with a high sample size, and if you do I'd love to see it.
2) TH in gear just determines your starting point for the TH proc system. Though I have no formal testing, I feel confident that the odds of a TH level proc decrease as the level gets higher, so starting at TH level 5 vs. TH level 6 probably doesn't matter much on stuff with high HP that you're going to have plenty of opportunity to proc.

Also, even if it did matter it wouldn't be hard to get. My THF mule has TH3+3 for his level 90 THF and I have TH3+2 for my level 50 THF (stored on the Porter Moogle). Durinn is easy, TK is cheap, and Ass Armlets are soloable by quite a few jobs.

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http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/637...reasure-Hunter

Everyone knows gear has less effect than the traits (I assume they do anyway), but that's never stopped people for saying "TH4 or GTFO" at 75 or the same about TH6 now.

Also, I personally think the gear isn't hugely necessary though only the knife is something I ditch. (DMG increase is way more important than the small bonus it gives), though many believe the THF must use all of the items, their reasoning being that mobs die so quickly (Dyna, abyssea, etc) that having the gear on will GREATLY add more procs than meleeing will, compared to losing the gear. In a way they're right, if a mob dies in 5 seconds and you get 3 melee attack rounds in, there's a good chance you won't see a single TH+1, but having a +1 in gear affects it from the getgo. Several events feature this type of fighting.

Of course the later example is equally a design problem as a playerbase problem. THF really has nothing else to bring to the table, so maximize what you have, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Alaik

That and it's not a golden ticket. Unless you're the only THF around with max level TH, and if you don't have max level TH it's not. People generally bring one THF and only for TH, and once that quota is filled, no more THFs are getting in.

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Oh i meant TH is a golden ticket for the job. It's very different than being a golden ticket for the player. There would always be a THF where TH worked, doesn't matter his skill/gear sets, just like death and AH taxes lol.

Yeah, I assumed. I just hate the phrase golden ticket, and want to punch anyone who thinks it really is.

Pet peeve, etc. lol

I'm not a THF, but I know enough about the job to know it needs improvements. I do remember in the other Final Fantasy games that Steal was used to obtain rare valuable items. Right now there is nothing worthwhile to Steal in our current endgame.

I would love to see THFs steal something of value in endgame.

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Originally Posted by Nebo

I want to thank you, Camate, and the development team for taking the time to attempt to address our concerns.

I am really at a loss for words on some of these responses. I am very sorry that this is going to sound disrespectful because this is most certainly not my intention.

But it really does feel that the developement team is very out of touch with the difficulties that the job faces and the actual utility of the unique abilities that THF has left.



This, specifically, worries me greatly. What the treasure hunter melee update has done is create a situation where the mechanics of how the THF job functions are in direct contradiction.

We are supposed to be engaging the monster to enhance treasure hunter? OK. But with A) the extremely low proc rate on Treasure Hunter for melee swings, and B) the sheer amount of TP we feed to high level Notorious Monsters, this has simply created a situation where THF will not be allowed to engage and forced simply to Sneak Attack and Trick Attack the Monster as timers allow while disengaged. Even with subtle blow gear, it is not worth it for a THF to engage for the purpose of Treasure hunter procs on normal attacks.

And quite honestly....I can see no visible difference between treasure hunter effectiveness level 6 and treasure hunter effectiveness level 13. How about throw us a bone and actually TELL us what it does? (I know, I know....what a crazy idea.)



This kind of reply makes me think that no one on the Dev Team has ever tested or played THF to know why this won;t work. The dev team removed the possibility for this tactic to work a very long time ago. For 1) Hide doesn't work on much of anything at all (thanks for that btw). 2) After this adjustment, you can only steal from a monster once and then you need to kill and respawn it to be able to steal again.

You must understand the frustration here. The developement team has taken so much from us in this area without giving anything to fill that void. The adjustment to steal to address the gold coin situation, the removal of valuable items from treasure coffers, the phasing out of Mug by refusing to give any new monsters any gil to steal, etc.

I understand this is a difficult issue, but the idea that seperating aurasteal from steal would be overpowered? Especially given that they are tied to a (needlessly long)5 minute recast timer? I don't understand that logic. They are completely seperate abilities with completely seperate functions that, because of the way they were combined, are often in contradiction with each other.

Seperating Aurasteal would not make it overpowered. The fact that it is tied to a 5 minute recast timer AND combined with Steal make it severely underpowered as a 75+ job ability. What seperating them would do is give us our very first steal ability that was acutally useful for its function.

I don't understand this need for the development team to sort of, kind of, almost give THF something that is useful. And then completely kill its relevance with either a needlessly long/shared recast timer or really messed up functionality. There is nothing about THF right now that is even remotely close to thinking about the possibility of being overpowered. Really? REALLY? It would be Overpowered!? THAT is your reason? Are you kidding me with this?



Adding things to Despoil is not going to fix Despoil. The ability itself really needs to be taken a look at and reconsidered. The items that despoil steals are of no use to anyone at this point in the game's lifespan. Adding Despoil as a post-75 level cap ability really accentuates the serious disconnect between the playerbase and the Developement team. I really don't think they understand how taxed our inventory is....that aurasteal and despoil both require you to have inventory space to even attempt to take advantage of their effects

But even the fact that Despoil attempts to steal an item as a requsite for its enfeebling effect to occur is useless at this stage in FFXI's lifespan. The variability of that enfeebling effect, should the steal be a success, is useless in any situation you would want to enfeeble any enemy. A variable enfeebling effect on a 5 minute timer is really quite useless. But most importantly, the fact that it takes away the ability to (aura)steal (the ONLY remotely useful steal we have) makes it exceptionally useless.

Again, I am sorry to sound disrespectful. I know what I knightmare it must be to address agnry and whiny players demading changes for their job.

But the disconnect between the playerbase and the Dev Team on these key issues really worries me. After seeing their vision for the job and hearing these responses, I find myself very discouraged for the future of my beloved THF.

You are so worried about making us "over powered" that almost everything you have given us has been "under powered" to the point of functional uselessness.

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I agree with everything Nebo said and others that have posted like Karbuncle.

Camate, thank you for your hard work on delivering us important information, but please tell the Dev Team to pay close attention to what the players want and how the players play the job.

Pretty much steal will still be useless :p lol but im okay with it i guess, i hardly use it anyway except in Dynamis.. Though since steal can Proc it really should have a higher success rate in Namis... especially with a 5 min recast.. i am lucky to steal 1 coin in an entire run..

I wish thief was getting some kind of voke type thing.. We are suppose to be "hate controllers" that would be nice to have...

I am really excited for the new job abilities!!

I see your 2008 thread and raise you a 2010 thread.

Neither of them are relevant to the new proc system, or the effect of Treasure Hunter +1.

I somehow doubt TH1/2 Were changed with the new proc system.

I wish people would test TH+1, I'm still convinced it falls into the "+1% drop rate" theory. Which means TH11 is basically +8% on top of the improvements from TH1/2 and untested TH3.

that thread was a nice one...

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

I assure you, It was not our priority either :x

Given some time to think I could like THF as a support/DD/TH-whore so long as they did it right and updated a lot of our JAs.

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Me, too. Just give THF stuff to do that actually means something. I get a kick out of aura steal (when it works) and though there are usually strained silences when nothing interesting drops after getting TH up to 10, it is nice to be appreciated if only for TH. THF was fun in the beginning because we could do a lot of stuff in EXP parties that would make the EXP fly through the roof. We could also have a fairly big effect on hate management. I agree with most of the posts here that the TH whore just isn't going to kick it. The AF3 gear is awesome in theory. In practice, you're just a superfast TP donor with reasonable survival skills. Oh, and TH... If we're supposed to be ducking and diving so much, why are we standing around, out of range, waiting for SA/TA to recover? Why not give us an ability that puts damage at zero and hacks away at stats or something? It could be linked to AGI or DEX or, heaven forbid, CHR! It could be made situational, whereby according to the build, you hack at a certain stat. High INT takes down MND, DEX takes down AGI, AGI takes down DEX etc etc. It would make equipping a nightmare, but also great fun. That would solve the TP donor problem and if it were not as unreliable as steal and the TH proc, could actually save the job. I'm just brainstorming here, but something where we could actually debuff real stuff instead of a hit-and-miss dispel's poorer cousin and the occasional acid bolt would be a big improvement. While we do that, we could go back to SA/TA when we have them to inflict some damage and raise the ever-awesome TH ;) Any thoughts?

I really liked that thread too, but it left three questions unanswered:

1) How does TH affect the drop rate of slots with multiple possible drops? (ie, if it was 10% Dhalmel Hide/20% Dhalmel meat in a slot, how would it work?) - Never explicitly tested, though Bahamut v2 implies it likely works using my "no drop" rate calculation.

2) How does TH+1 work? - Also never explicitly tested. I'd like the +1% thing except for one major problem with it:
* Assuming we're going off the "no drop" rate thing, where a slot is "rerolled" if it fails to be filled, then items with low drop rate would be really dramatically affected by TH+10. I don't know about you guys, but personal experience for me seems to point to this not being the case.
* For instance, say you have something with a 5% drop rate that is in an unshared slot. TH3 would turn the 5% drop rate into an 18% drop rate. TH Level 10 (+10% drop rate) would make it a 15% drop rate base, which would turn into a 50% drop rate. The difference between an 18% and a 50% drop rate should be pretty incredibly obvious, and I don't feel that just putting a high level of TH on Blue-dropper monsters gets you a 50% drop rate.

3) Does TH3 follow the pattern set up by TH1 and TH2? - Implied assumption is that it does, but I might as well list it.


An alternative to the TH+1% per Treasure Hunter +1 would be:
* Treasure Hunter +1 gives you a 1% chance of another "re-roll"

To Camate and all at the dev team: Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to our gripes and groans :D
I don't wish to shoot the messenger, so please don't take this personally, Camate.

However, though it's all been covered, I shan't go into how the vision kind of sucks for us thieves.

I do, however feel sorry for all non-war DDs after this coming update, especially thf drg and rng, and I suppose mnk itself even falls into this category: The 1 place where war didn't outshine the other DDs was vs mobs resistant to piercing or blunt damage. Now SE is planning to fix this, good show! No longer will people need to seek out thf/drg/rng to kill birds (should the best exp spot for 99 be vs them) nor find 3-5 mnks for a pt vs pots/bones. WAR is the only melee you'll ever need if TH isn't required.


Where TH IS REQUIRED then we thieves get to replace 1 of the war in that pt, so maybe we should think ourselves lucky? A little bit at any rate, as long as the mob won't wipe the pt if we feed it tp so we can /war with no subtle blow >.>

Otherwise, we're the prize turkey sat in the corner. Maybe it's just time that we all turn in our triple attack merits (don't want to feed too much tp if it kicks in) and go 5/5 trick, 5/5 sneak so we can use a JA every 25 secs, on top of conspirator, feint (yep, toss out the AC merits too), and hit steal to dispel some buff that's of no use to me (because I neither have hate, not am I meleeing) so that I can save the rdm or /rdm 25 mp (assuming we tossed all of our haste and tp gear because... what's the point anymore? Better to not be 80/80 inv slots so that we can aura steal).

Ok, so I'm a little bitter.

To cheer myself up a little, here's a blast from the past on page 10. A little inb4udevs!

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Originally Posted by Camate

Howdy! We spoke to the development team about your feedback on thief and they provided some commentary. The below is a compilation of responses to both the English and Japanese suggestions/feedback. Hopefully it will give you a better idea of what is planned for thief in the future.

With the large amount of job adjustment discussion going on we have A LOT of feedback to sort through, so while this might not answer every single thing being discussed at the moment, we will try our best to update when we can. Likewise, we will be making our rounds to other job related threads as well!

So, without further ado…



By adding attractive items to monsters, we fear that it would be re-creating the scenario from the past regarding beastcoins (stealing and then hiding right after), making this pretty difficult to implement. If there were a good countermeasure for this it could work, but currently revamping or adding items to monsters is quite difficult.



That’s what Aura Steal is for! The effects stolen by Aura Steal are essentially the raw stats that the monster possesses.



We believe making Aura Steal a separate ability would be over-powered. If we did do this, it’s likely that its use on notorious monsters would be removed and it would have even less of an effect than it does now.



Though we haven’t decided if it will be Aura Steal or not, we do have some rough plans for adding some kind of additional effect to Despoil.



We are looking into separating the two. However, we are close to reaching a point where there are too many recast timers going on simultaneously, so this isn't something we can implement right away.



While thieves possess superior stats for all of the above, we do understand your concerns. I apologize that I can’t go into detail about specific abilities, but we are planning to make adjustments so that thieves are really able to shine.



Due to the fact that normal attacks now increase the effects of Treasure Hunter, we chose to forgo the addition of Subtle Blow as a trade off.



Don’t worry, it will be separate!

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Originally Posted by Babekeke

It can be slightly re-written to show what they would respond to this thread:

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Originally Posted by Dev Team

Don’t fret thieves! These example adjustments are just that…examples. It doesn’t mean that every single thing is going to be implemented as stated. All of your suggestions and opinions on these concepts will be relayed to the development team and they will of course consider them when actually creating the adjustments to be implemented. Just keep in mind that their concept of thief, same as in the past, is that they sacrifice damage and usefulness in exchange for gilfinder, steal and treasurehunter.

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Thankfully, Camate was kind enough to go into far more specifics for us than for the DRKs, but the general jist of what he said and what I said are the same. :)

Like I said at the start Camate, if you read this, I understand that you are just the messenger so it's nothing personal against you. If someone from the actual dev team posted here, I'd be more than happy to shoot them instead XD

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

I can agree to this. But then we have to look at what THF was used for by the Community. I'd say people invited THF for 2 Reasons. 1) to DD (back in old school? SATA + Viper bite better than all, Magic burst freeze? yes), 2) Trick Attack. So we have 2 base roles. DD, and Enmity.

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A few issues with your argument:
1. If we agree with SE's original plan for THF, I don't see how it's a problem to maintain that track
2. People invited people for TH purposes, why is that not listed?
3. How else could THF have been played?
4. Remember that we didn't have knowledge of THF's TH mechanics, so part of the reason for melee focus was the belief that it enhanced TH
5. The RDM community believed they would be on track as melee RDM, should we then give into their demands as well because they "believed this is how SE would develop them"?
6. THF's abilities were actually more prominent as a sub rather than as a main, which means SE should focus on features of THF as a sub right?

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This just goes back to THF being mislead as they leveled earlier in the game, Today its more obvious (Except maybe to people who don't research all the time), But back then when you leveled THF you expected to hit 75 DD'ing and helping Enmity with Trick Attack, In reality you were a TH whore.

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That really makes no sense. TH is irrelevant for XP mobs, but THFs need XP nonetheless. What else were they going to do in PTs? If they expected enmity control, then how is the community's original expectation different from SE's plans? The truth is that even if one considered how underdeveloped the TH system was back then, the playerbase made arguments for THF DD, not in the name of damage, but in the name of TH. Remember the beliefs about TH approximating the damage done by THF? Remember the beliefs about THF needing to get the last hit? Even though these were false, they were beliefs and TH bolstering strategies upstarted by the community.

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I don't deny the amazingness of our one unique Specialty, I just want a Specialty that lasts more than 1 Melee hit.

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Then make plans to develop the TH system further (And SE has already started that). For example, make TH apply to caskets and so forth. I've seen very few "ideas for SE" that compliment this notion.

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No i don't really remember SE modeling them off EverQuest... Either Way you bring up another point I would like THF to expand on. Give us more ways to hinder/hurt a mob, Even if its through increases other players. Like i listed a while back, a JA that increases Debuff potency on a mob, Or increases Damage dealt to the target for a small window, Stuff that gives us a use for the other 10 minutes of a fight.

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EQ was successful prior to WoW and given the similarity in FFXI's and EQ grinding system, the connection has been made. Quite frankly, the role of additional debuffs should go to other melee whom neither have TH nor will compete with WAR. It's unreasonable to demand that WAR, BST, DRK, SAM, DRG, RNG, MNK, BLU, and NIN DD at the same capacity. Some of them will ultimately have to default for suboptimal positions, and in doing so, will need features that make them worth inviting. Siphoning RNG into the TH realm may not be a bad idea, but it will not work for the rest of melees. For those that will be difficult to buff to the realm of top DD, it is more practical to have them function as supportive melees, such that we have...

Healers
Mage Support (BRD/COR)
Primary DD
Secondary DD (Enhances overall, rather than personal, damage at the cost of suboptimal damage output)
Treasure hunter classes (Allow THF to remain leagues ahead of RNG to compensate for damage differences)
Nukers

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This is where our Opinions Differ. No other job in the game was completely rejected for 1 piece of armor. If your WAR didn't have Dusk+1, You'd still invite him to DD. Point was THF was completely judged based on those 2 single pieces of Armor, no other job in the game was judged this harshly.

and its all because THF was useless (in the communities eyes) outside of TH. I'm pointing out the Extremes of it. Of course you would check most people gear first, But if someone was a little less than perfect they'd be acceptable.

I have a feeling I know where you'll take this from here but i'll stop and respond to that when the time comes... :X

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People rejected players for not having ACC rings way back. People rejected others for not having Turban during the ToAU era. The present system undermines your point further since TH gear is incredibly easy to obtain now with Dynamis revisions and, as Byrth mentions, the difference between TH gear is somewhat irrelevant since you can easily upgrade from lesser tier TH. By this, I mean that even though a TH5 will trump TH4 at reaching TH12, they'll probably both end up at that value due to the difficulty of gaining further increases. This also means that it's more important for THF to melee.

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Still, WHM may only be good for curing (which is bull itself, They have Pro/Shell V at higher potency, and Barspells at higher potency/unique buff to them), but they cure the entire fight. They can even go as far as haste cycles if a RDM isn't covering it. they have something to contribute the entire fight.

Same goes for WAR, they DD the entire fight, They're actively participating int he event in a meaningful way that isn't generally regarded as "Worthless damage that feeds too much TP".

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And without acceptance of soft cap TH, you have the duty of pumping TH from start to finish. Shell/Prot V is the same for WHM as it is for RDM and SCH (AoE version is what's different). Any sub WHM (And soon sub RDM) member can toss out hastes. None of this response means anything with regard to the central point. If TH becomes irrelevant, then so does THF. However, this is true for the aforementioned classes. If healing is irrelevant, then WHM is is too. If melee damage is irrelevant (Think manaburns), then so is WAR. That's the price of specialization, but as you can see by the examples, specialization is much more significant in this game.

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I Don't belittle Treasure hunter in any way, I like the Ability, I acknowledge its the only thing keeping our job relevant, I just want other reasons for our relevance. Thats not asking too much

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Ok, lets try this with other classes then.

WHM acknowledges its superior healing capabilities and general enhancements, but would like more than that.
WAR acknowledges its superior DD capabilities, but would like more than that.

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Edit: And to be frank you'd have almost no chance at Ambusher's hose without Blue proc, If you had to pick a THF+WHM, or a MNK+WHM to get Ambusher's Hose, what would you chose? The MNK, because on Blunt he can do every Blue proc, which ups the drop rate of Ambusher's hose far far more significantly.

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And guess how many Ambusher's Hoses that person wants to get after obtaining theirs? Compare to how many buds a person starting X Empyrean items wants after obtaining 1-2. We've been over the "boxes and proc!! undermine TH" dilemma. Why not ask for TH to become relevant in those instances? Or even better, an ability to floor drops at the benefit of greater melee action? It really makes no sense how one can acknowledge these facts and decide that improving TH is not the way to go. It's like RDM asking for melee buffs the moment their role is eclipsed/becomes irrelevant.

What I find interesting is how several THFs talk about proc!! undermining the role of THF in abyssea, but don't make that association with DDs. Brews and Atmas undermine melee equipment and MP management (Hello SCH!), but no mention of that. Why's that?

I don't buy that you actually believe what you are saying. I feel like you are just here to argue. Accidentally making things drop is not the answer to a job being fun and in the end SEs first priority on all jobs needs to be making them fun to play. Yes it gets at least 1 THF involved in most group events but in most cases they have less fun than anyone else there because their "specialization" is standing around and their mastery of that specialization is measured only by a flip of a coin and the contents of a loot pool. You can't rationally compare that to being the best DD or the best healer or the best tank. It's just not the same. TH is not an excuse for the mediocrity of our damage and the near uselessness of almost all our JAs.

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...30190156445174

there's my post on alla, if anyone really cares to read anymore ranting about just how stupid the DEV response was.

What I really came here for was to beg people: Please. For the love of god, STOP POSTING IDEAS ABOUT HOW TO MAKE STEAL/AURASTEAL/DESPOIL BETTER!

They are crap job abilities. They don't need to be tweaked, they need to be replaced. Posting ideas about how to fix them is just going lead to more crappy tweaks on them.

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

What I really came here for was to beg people: Please. For the love of god, STOP POSTING IDEAS ABOUT HOW TO MAKE STEAL/AURASTEAL/DESPOIL BETTER!

They are crap job abilities. They don't need to be tweaked, they need to be replaced. Posting ideas about how to fix them is just going lead to more crappy tweaks on them.

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It saddens me that I agree so much with this now.

I'm guilty...I posted a lengthy thread of thought and ideas regarding these abilities....I think that steal abilities could have great potential to be ACTUALLY useful. But I have no faith in the Developement team to do anything good with them.

If they think that a 5 minute recast dispel seperated from something as useless as steal would be "overpowered"....we are sooo screwed lol. I would be angry but all I can do is laugh at that.

It will just be more of the same. Shared recast timers. Recast timers that are way too long. Retardedly low success rates to go with the the retardedly long (shared) recast timers. Retarded party only or "doesn't work on the current enmity target" restrictions to go with the retardedly long shared recast timers. Oh and the absolute thrill of not knowing what the ability will do when you press the macro. Will I get an item? Will I get an enhancement effect? Will it miss? Which enfeeble will I enflict?

NOBODY KNOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA The overpoweredness is just too much! lol

I SO wanna put a picture here of Xibit all like "Yo Dawg I heard you like restrictions so we put a restriction on your restrictions so you can fail while you fail.

Yet again thanks Camate -though apparently the dev team i just dont even know. Also if you are going to live in fear of RMT you need to seriously change our job away from item functionality. Dont push us that way while constantly nerfing abuse. I'm referring to treasure chests removed, stealing useful items, gil from monsters removed. These all targeted thief specific abilities and nothing was given back to compensate for the removal.

I just want to compare some visions with reality:

Dev Team Vision:
-Drop rates and items
-Aura steal/despoil useful
-Hate control
-Positional DD

Issues with Dev team vision:
-TH not nearly as effective as team play (procs) increase still negligible to majority of player base
steal is useless- aura steal requires 5 merits be decently useful and even then fails. If any other job fails dispel they can try again in 90 seconds maximum. Not all of these absorb and all cost mp or an item. Still even at a two minute timer for a chance that would still put it behind all other dispelling jobs.
-Collab and Trick attack equate to nothing---- TA ws still amount to maybe an extra ws by tank, half of a major melee damage or blm spell (therefore getting a little extra on tank) Collab is probably just as useful animus in hate control. Good idea but the current enmity system severely hinders its usefulness.
-Position, like dark, requires sacrifices and strategy--- increase in damage will still put you at half the damage of most melee making perfect positioning vital to keep the job lagging behind by a huge margin. Also last I checked
So you need a significant change in all three categories. A damage increase or many more abilities that can do things like bleed hate away or lower the enmity cap for a support role. TH needs a more discernible change in drop rates--- if a good half the player base says "placebo hunter" something is WRONG. Seeing as whats wrong with steal/despoil/aura steal has been beaten to death i wont mention it agian.

Player Vision from thf forums(feel free to correct me):
-DPS DD
-Utility Roles
-TH

Issues with Player vision:
-DPS is tp spam, still gain tp at same rate despite multiple hits. If the idea is lower damage, more ws ---the tp system doesnt work this way.
-Utility on thf is minimal--- i already addressed above what hate control doesnt do. The tanks have better and more abilities for these anyway. As far as debuff(none since despoil doesnt work on nms) and aura steal isnt consistent enough to work.
War has better buffing for the party for gods sake. Utility outside of battle. Flee- useful. Lock picking nope and dont say that one door in reef. Steal- nope. Despoil- bad food buffs? nope.
-TH isnt enough----- the tp feed to proc is not worth the increase on major fights, isnt useful in most battlefields(chests), proc systems way outweigh meaning that certain jobs are better at drop rates. There is an early nebo post i think says it best.

The fact is we dont meet the dev teams vision atm. We need not only additions but major FIXES.

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Originally Posted by Nebo

That depends, what special kind of retard are you? Are you really trying to argue that TH'ing a mob is skill dependant?

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Ironically, your buddies in this thread are a perfect example of why it is. Anything a melee has to do, a THF will have to do as well. This include very very basic stuff like PDT/MDT sets, TPing, WSing, and using JAs. Unlike these other melees, however, THF has to to position themselves properly for SA/TA, which supposedly improve the rate of TH enhancement. According to people whining in this thread, they apparently can't do it because of hate issues. So yes, according to the complainers in this thread, THF does take more skill (knowledge of enmity) than other melees.

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OK, no you aren't, you are agreeing with me. Did you read that post you quoted?

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The post that you pointed to made the retarded assertion that skill determines the melee you bring and said that, unlike melee, determining your THF is by gear. This completely misses the fact that gear determines your damage. You cannot will more damage per hit if your gear is inferior. You cannot will more damage per weaponskill if your gear is inferior.

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This is a fallacy. You don't get an equal comparison when playing with individuals.

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Equal comparison means DRG v DRG or WAR v WAR. Are you honestly trying to suggest no one has had to choose between two of the same class before?

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You get the guy that maybe WS's at ~180% if he remembers to. Doesn't eat proper food. Might not have a clue how to land his procs clean. Does he have the combat skills leveled, with the weapons to trigger all the weaknesses his job can? Is he flexible? Does he know how to react to various situations? Does he even have PDT/MDT sets if things go south?

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Does the THF know how to handle capped enmity situations so he can SA properly? Does the THF even bother to TA? Do they even bother to position themselves properly? Note that these are treasure hunter enhancing. PDT/MDT applies to THF as well. Is your dagger skill leveled up to land TH? Does he have an evasion set for duo situations where needed? Does he know how to react to bad situations? What exactly are you trying to get at when most of these apply to THF as well. Quite frankly, anyone who does do what you call "skillful acts" is utterly stupid and will make as many mistakes (or more) trying to heighten TH on THF.

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Obviously this is is gear dependant, but you are only making my point here. It's about multiple gear swaps for many different situations with the knowledge and skill to use them with appropriate timing. It is an active process that takes a bit of knowledge, skill, rare gear collection.

Applying TH is non of that. It is a passive trait. All the pieces are stupid easy to obtain. No one cares what you do, or what other gear you have. As long as you have TH6. You can literally main hand a THF knife, nothing in the offhand, be wearing nothing but the hands and feet and still do your job the exact same. You either have TH6 or you don't. Beyond that, a discussion of player skill never enters the equation for bringing TH.

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Maybe the old TH, but the new TH seems to branch from that concept entirely with new emphasis on SATA abuse. What even more interesting is that according to your logic, BRDs are in dire need of an upgrade as well. They only need roughly 3 pieces of gear to match a "well geared" BRD's marches and the rest is duration, which is irrelevant when you can just cast the song again. Prior to abyssea (And I only say this because I'm uncertain if it's still the case) BRDs bragged about how Elegy (Their most potent debuff) landed on most mobs with just Terra's staff. However, I think most people would agree that BRD is fine. Hence, I don't think the criteria you set up accurately captures the issue with THF.

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THF was supreme in all aspects? When was this?

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Prior to abyssea, who, besides THF, reigned supreme at making items drop? No one.

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Actually, they can both reach the -50% MDT cap with gear and shellra V so...no. They don't. The point of that was in response to the comment that "THF should not get updates and is fine because it is a defensive job." Which is not true.

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Read carefully bud. I said easier access. The number of MDT pieces for THF outweighs WAR.

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This is why I think you aren't reading what is being written. No one is crying "overpowered" at WAR. That comparison I used to THF damage compared to other WAR DD can be used for any other DD.

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You would have to be blind to not see the number of posts directed against WAR.

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Its just today the gap between a Good THF and a Good WAR has widened to a point where the THF is largely undermined as a DD and defaults to TH whore. Closing the gap a tad won't nerf other jobs or make them less desirable.

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Stacked THF WS are not even as strong as WAR WS.

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This one cannot apply to all melee (BST, and mob depending, DRG).

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war getting the ability to force crit outside abyssea without a positional restriction is just wrong

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I agree its complete bs that war gets everything and other jobs get ignored.

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So uh... no one is complaining about WAR huh?

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In the DD department, we are not saying we want to be the best, or on top of the pile, or a heavy-DD or any herp a derp nonesense. What we HAVE been saying for quite a while now is that the gap is currently too large.

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Show me where I said THFs are looking to be the best DD. Having trouble finding that part? That's probably because I never said that. What I did say is that THF should remain at less than suboptimal damage. This means you need to stop using WAR as your example and compare the lesser tier DDs such as BST. Even your buddy RNG gets rocked in the DD department once we start stacking haste buffs.

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Especially given that our enmity utility is not useful to anyone, from the response we just got, our steal abilities are going to stay useless because SE is afraid of them. And Treasure Hunter is going to remain marginalized due to Weakness trigger procs, and being given away to other jobs.

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TH only remains marginalized to the extent that the proc!! system remains relevant to content people do. Abyssea's proc!! system will soon favor TH as people begin to focus solely on Empyrean weapons. VW I already said is the bane for THF and suggested that THF be given the ability to affect casket rewards.

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Actually THF was skewed towards parties with tanks, SATA lines, closing distortion skillchains and raping faces with......DAMAGE!!!!! YAY!!!!!! SATA damage and stacking WS was a MUCH bigger relative damage payoff than it is today. THF was a great DD for all of its early life.

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Yes, SE look at THF and gave their WS distortion property so they could be awesome DDs. That clearly didn't happen by chance. Know what THF did with those tanks? They managed enmity, so hey, you can get all the enmity quarks you need! The best part about THF as a DD was SATA, but that was merely because pDIF was ridiculous business for DDs back then. If anything, the abilities had more to do with lore than with a concerted effort towards THF's melee capabilities. The introduction of sub THF further marginalized their role as DD as DRKs and WAR came to dominate the SATA WS scene.

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Going from the origional description of the job...SE described THF as a "stealthy attacker," that looks for the perfect opportunity to attack from behind and suprise its enemies.

And we've been over this about a million times on this forum. You are barking up a very wrong tree if you are trying to argue things like gilfinder, steal, despoil, mug, coffer picking to help your case. All of these things were taken away or made useless because SE is afraid of them. Whatever their "vision" for the job was then, it has most certainly changed.

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Do you not read? The entire reason we're reviewing those is because the person made the claim that THF is a DD because a majority of their Traits/JAs are centered towards DD. Turns out that's not the case though!

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I don't buy that you actually believe what you are saying. I feel like you are just here to argue. Accidentally making things drop is not the answer to a job being fun and in the end SEs first priority on all jobs needs to be making them fun to play. Yes it gets at least 1 THF involved in most group events but in most cases they have less fun than anyone else there because their "specialization" is standing around and their mastery of that specialization is measured only by a flip of a coin and the contents of a loot pool. You can't rationally compare that to being the best DD or the best healer or the best tank. It's just not the same. TH is not an excuse for the mediocrity of our damage and the near uselessness of almost all our JAs.

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What I have said is where I think THF is realistically going. Statistically, having more THFs should improve drop rate, so where secure/timely victory is not of concern, THF provides more utility than any other DD in TH applicable situations. I don't know where you all get this notion of THF sitting around. THF's new system encourages melee; you all are just too into the LV75 era to recognize this. In fact, THF is the only member I'll allow to melee against risky targets such as Pantokrator and it's precisely because of the new TH system. Any other melee (Perhaps there for blue!! on a non-blunt proc) I'll tell to gtfo and after they've proced blue!! on the mob. Their specialty is measured by improving the odds of gear dropping such that you can do the coin analogy rather than a 1/52 card analogy. What you fail to realize is that there is only one best DD, one best nuker, one best TH, one best support, and one best healer. What about the other 15 classes that don't have this luxury? Also, the game revolves around obtaining gear. It doesn't matter if you do 90000000 damage if that means you floor drop rates. It doesn't matter if your healing practically makes them invincible if you floor drop rates. This reality is actually the sole reason why classes that would normally benefit greatly from abyssea, such as DRG, haven't played a primary role.

I don't know if I should just ignore this guy for being so silly, or assume he's trolling.

PS Mister Frank, that's my thread. See how the signature now says Alaik? :P

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Originally Posted by Alaik

PS Mister Frank, that's my thread. See how the signature now says Alaik? :P

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I didnt really feel like checking to see if I could link a <div id="Mypost"> tag to this forum, so i just linked the whole thread. guess i shoulda just quoted the whole wall of text i wrote.

Oh, and for the people that keep saying that Thiefs are now allowed to dd all they want in order to increase the drop rate....

NO. You just get to run in when SA/TA are up and hit the mob once, then run back out and wait for the timers. You will reach max procs with just that and avoid the TP spam. No TPing on NMs with no subtle blow thief.

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Originally Posted by Yugl

This means you need to stop using WAR as your example and compare the lesser tier DDs such as BST.

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I lol'd. BST was never a job meant for party play. They just, in the last couple years, started shifting it over to being able to participate in party exp. If we're comparing THF to BST we might as well start comparing NIN to BLM. If you wanna talk about RNG we can talk about how it can proc TH, is getting subtle blow and enmity tools, and takes no AoE damage to do any of it. At the same time they are actually there to do damage as well. In the fights you want RNGs for they are gonna do more damage than a WAR does over the course of the battle and they are going to require far less support to do so.

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Originally Posted by Yugl

Read carefully bud. I said easier access. The number of MDT pieces for THF outweighs WAR.

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I was fairly sure it was the other way around.
Both get:
Coral harness set
Merman's Earrings/Rings
Dark Rings
Shadow Ring
Twilight Torque

Thief gets:
Lore set
Denali Hands
Avalon Breastplate

Warrior gets:
Coral scale set
Askar feet
Valhalla breastplate

Looks pretty even but war also has:
nirenschuz
Valhalla helm

Warrior also gets these for MDB:
Medb Gauntlets
Noesis Helm

Edit: I also forgot to add the Iron Ram hauberk set. Warrior probably has one of the best selections of MDT and MDB gear in the game.

Interesting to see that 90% of the responses to Camate's thread are negative. I bet when they sent him to post in the forum they were all smug and thinking "that'll shut them up for a while!". My oh my, how wrong they were. I hope they're starting to realise just how unhappy the thief playerbase is becoming.

I feel sorry for camate, as many have said: you're just the messenger. But as a messenger, I hope you relay back to the dev team just what a load of absolute garbage they are throwing at us.

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Originally Posted by Camate

We believe making Aura Steal a separate ability would be over-powered.

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Absolute bullshit. Steal doesn't work on 99% of NMs. You would go from:
Using Aura Steal, and not being able to use Steal
to
Using Aura Steal, and still not using steal because it doesn't hold anything anyway.

People use Aura-Steal 90% for the dispel. Not the absorb. Bard and Red Mage have sub-30 second dispels. Blue has 2 sub-2minute dispel/absorbs. If you think absorbing all these supreme mob buffs (what are they by the way? Last I checked you can't steal 2hrs. All I can think of that's awesome is JOL's Boost) is overpowered then change the absorb properties of the ability.

It's nice to see you ignored the fact that Steal and Despoil are 90% worthless abilities due to the fact that important monsters don't hold shit. Despoil? Well as a NM doesn't have anything to steal, we can't inflict a status. Even if we could, what kind of stratagy is going to include a 5 minute recast random status ailment?

What is the point of upping the success rate of steal if there's still nothing actually worthwhile to steal?? (outside of plat beastcoins and dyna currancy)
If you want to avoid the beastcoin fiasco of the past, how about you take one of the supremely great ideas from this very forum and make steal steal tempory items??

I mean seriously, what the hell is up with this?
You don't want to add useful things to steal to avoid the gold beastcoin fiasco again.
You want to up the success rate of steal, which is only used on dynamis mobs for currancy.
So you don't want to steal good things, but you do want to steal good things.

I sware the only logical thing in your post was that you didn't give Thf Subtle Blow because it gets En-Treasure Hunter.

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Originally Posted by Yugl

A few issues with your argument:
1. If we agree with SE's original plan for THF, I don't see how it's a problem to maintain that track

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Said that already, but reading I've come to terms with said original Plan. But said Original plan also included DD, which we are not considered, While I'm not as upset about this as i used to be, i still see why THFs would be upset.

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2. People invited people for TH purposes, why is that not listed?

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I was talking about Exp-Party Situations. I acknowledge its uses end-game. My argument was an addendum to when i mentioned THF not being prepared for its end-game role throughout the game.

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5. The RDM community believed they would be on track as melee RDM, should we then give into their demands as well because they "believed this is how SE would develop them"?

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I don't know what RDM has been advertised as. If from the beginning they have been advertised as "Combat ready" or some form of "Uses their weapons" then it would technically fall in line with a vision SE had, and me denying that would be hypocritical.

We were advertized as Stealthy Attackers, We're Treasure Hounds at this point. I'm okay with a vision including Enmity control so long as its done right.

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6. THF's abilities were actually more prominent as a sub rather than as a main, which means SE should focus on features of THF as a sub right?

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This is a lie, SA and TA were always more powerful as a Main job. Your argument would be valid if SA and TA received DEX/AGI bonuses while subbed still, or if Trick Attack subbed had Assassin qualities.

DRG jumps work better with a Great Axe, and as a SAM, because it gives those jobs more TP, DRG should be sub only too now? Dodge worked better for THF and NIN, Boost worked better for jobs with higher base attack power, They should focus MNK on support job too?

That argument is silly, even if it was correct, which its not.

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That really makes no sense. TH is irrelevant for XP mobs, but THFs need XP nonetheless. What else were they going to do in PTs? If they expected enmity control, then how is the community's original expectation different from SE's plans? The truth is that even if one considered how underdeveloped the TH system was back then, the playerbase made arguments for THF DD, not in the name of damage, but in the name of TH. Remember the beliefs about TH approximating the damage done by THF? Remember the beliefs about THF needing to get the last hit? Even though these were false, they were beliefs and TH bolstering strategies upstarted by the community.]

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Early on we weren't the best, but we were darn good DDs, Today the gap has continued to widen and it feels THF is standing still.

I'm not sure if you even believe what you're saying, I don't think Ignorance is a good argument. "Belief THFs needed to get the last hit?" yes, This is ignorance, and only idiots believed it.

How is this remotely related to us wanting improvements to the job that go above and beyond TH in whatever way?

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Then make plans to develop the TH system further (And SE has already started that). For example, make TH apply to caskets and so forth. I've seen very few "ideas for SE" that compliment this notion.

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The reason you probably don't see a lot of suggestions like that is because they still don't help THF at all in endgame content. We want more involvement outside of that. Even if that means Enmity control in a meaningful way.

We just want to participate more than 2 times per minute, whatever that means or involves. "Melee for TH upgrade" is not great, You'll end up eatin AoEs, being an MP sponge, and feeding the mob full of TP, beyond that the chance to upgrade is incredibly low after the first upgrade

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EQ was successful prior to WoW and given the similarity in FFXI's and EQ grinding system, the connection has been made. Quite frankly, the role of additional debuffs should go to other melee whom neither have TH nor will compete with WAR. It's unreasonable to demand that WAR, BST, DRK, SAM, DRG, RNG, MNK, BLU, and NIN DD at the same capacity. Some of them will ultimately have to default for suboptimal positions, and in doing so, will need features that make them worth inviting. Siphoning RNG into the TH realm may not be a bad idea, but it will not work for the rest of melees. For those that will be difficult to buff to the realm of top DD, it is more practical to have them function as supportive melees, such that we have...

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Who says THF cant be updated and those jobs? How many Defense down abilities/WS/spells do we have? Evasion down? Attack up? Accuracy up? You can give THF one thing and still be able to give it to another DD in another way. Just because a THF gets the ability to do xxx doesn't mean another job can't get a meaningful buff in the same area.

If you want to use Everquest as an example, Rogue class was the best DPS class that was "in some cases was outclassed by Berserker(WAR)"

It had a lot of abilities related to lock picking and disarming traps, but also a lot of Support/damage (like Poisoning the Mob, Intimidation/etc) and was a solid capable DD. It could do all that, Why is asking for it in FFXI insane?

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People rejected players for not having ACC rings way back. People rejected others for not having Turban during the ToAU era.

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This is true, but you're lying to everyone, including yourself, if you honestly believe this kind of thing happened as often as a THF being declined for not having TH4. Shouts actually including along the lines of "BRD, WHM, TH4", We weren't a job, We're a number.

Even you know THF was judged far more strictly and unfairly based on TH, This here is another reason I don't think you believe the crap your saying.

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And without acceptance of soft cap TH, you have the duty of pumping TH from start to finish.

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So my duty is to stare at a mob for 55 seconds each minute, riding the SA/TA Recast. that doesn't sound exciting. we just want more involvement. Melee is not an option as i told you above on any meaningful endgame content, We can bring up abyssea where I admit THF is glorious, But outside on Harder content like Voidwatch, our melee is more of a detriment than an improvement.

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Shell/Prot V is the same for WHM as it is for RDM and SCH (AoE version is what's different). Any sub WHM (And soon sub RDM) member can toss out hastes. None of this response means anything with regard to the central point. If TH becomes irrelevant, then so does THF. However, this is true for the aforementioned classes. If healing is irrelevant, then WHM is is too. If melee damage is irrelevant (Think manaburns), then so is WAR. That's the price of specialization, but as you can see by the examples, specialization is much more significant in this game.

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A good argument.

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Ok, lets try this with other classes then.

WHM acknowledges its superior healing capabilities and general enhancements, but would like more than that.
WAR acknowledges its superior DD capabilities, but would like more than that.

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Okay? Let them have it. Why is it you people seem to think because we're asking for a THF update means we're asking all other jobs stop getting updates?

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And guess how many Ambusher's Hoses that person wants to get after obtaining theirs? Compare to how many buds a person starting X Empyrean items wants after obtaining 1-2.

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How is this relevant at all? Stop changing your arguments. You said something regarding ambushers hose, I said "If you had to pick between a THF and a MNK for Ambusher's Hose, you'd chose the MNK", and you would, and i was right, Which is why you decided to change the argument to Empyrean weapons.

I know Empyrean Weapon Upgrade items are vastly effected by TH, That was not the argument. Everyone reading this knows TH is the best thing for Empyrean Weapon upgrades.

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What I find interesting is how several THFs talk about proc!! undermining the role of THF in abyssea, but don't make that association with DDs. Brews and Atmas undermine melee equipment and MP management (Hello SCH!), but no mention of that. Why's that?

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Because Procs and Brews are entirely different things.

Edit: and to be perfectly clear, If they gave us some update to TH that truly made us participate in the fight more than twice per minute, I'd take it too. If they gave us meaningful Enmity control abilities, I'd take it, If they gave us a DD boost, I'd take it.

I'd take anything that helps THF as long as it actually HELPS them. Giving us Intimidation would not help us, improving Despoil and Steal would not help us (unless done right, Which according to them, Dividing aura Steal is far to broken, so i severely doubt any update to steal/despoil will be "right).

Even you have to see how depressing it is looking at what we have in store, and the responses recently basically describing Aura Steal and Steal as too powerful to adjust, and what that says for the future of the job.

Edit2: Also to the Reps i know reading this. I don't hate you. Its not your fault the Development Team thinks THF is too powerful to adjust, and that We're doomed to suck ass because RMT abuse our Abilities, so we're punished for it. Like Fishing, and Gardening.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

"Melee for TH upgrade" is not great, You'll end up eatin AoEs, being an MP sponge, and feeding the mob full of TP, beyond that the chance to upgrade is incredibly low after the first upgrade

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I can't really agree with this karb. I do think this is great; a step in the right direction. Melee is the second best thing we can provide to a party and something completely underestimated. Tying them was a very nice move. Also, THF is a tp feeding machine (and will stay like that it seem lol), and if ppl want drops, they will have to accept the trade-off. The only real problem for me is that these boosts doesn't seem to be as effective as the traits, which makes them not as necessary and the same goes to our melee. So imo what we have is a great concept but with an implementation that is okish at best.

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Originally Posted by Laphine

I can't really agree with this karb. I do think this is great; a step in the right direction. Melee is the second best thing we can provide to a party and something completely underestimated. Tying them was a very nice move. Also, THF is a tp feeding machine (and will stay like that it seem lol), and if ppl want drops, they will have to accept the trade-off. The only real problem for me is that these boosts doesn't seem to be as effective as the traits, which makes them not as necessary and the same goes to our melee. So imo what we have is a great concept but with an implementation that is okish at best.

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Well the problem is, Try meleeing on a mob like Voidwrought, You'll never upgrade TH and you'll like get 1 shotted by his first AoE. On Easier mobs, and in Abyssea, its not a big deal, But on soon to come strong End-game Content its where im worried.

Plus, as a THF You must know, You can solo a mob from 100% to 0% and you'll likely never see more than 1 TH upgrade from just meleeing, the rate is horrendous.. Any THF would be better off not meleeing, and sitting back using SA and TA when the timers are up, out of AoE range, not TP spamming the mob, and not being an MP sink

And most people think so too. (Again not in Abyssea/Weak shit, but on truly harder content).

Camate
I understand that you are just a messenger, but I don't believe the devs realize that their view of how thief should be played is not how the players view thief. You are living in fear of RMT so badly that you nerfed almost every selling point of the thief job. Your idealistic views of thief have been implemented in a functionally flawed way.

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The flaws within "the stealthy pickpocket"

Your devs believe thief should be "a stealthy pickpocket", however my only "pickpocket" abilities are steal and mug. Mug only works on beastmen and steals about 80-100 gil, or a few K from Nms once every fifteen minutes. I can average 3K cruor in a few minutes inside abyssea which nets me 7K, and many players are walking round with millions and tens of millions of gil in their pockets. Mug is worthless.

Aura steal requires me to spend my precious tier 2 merits to even unlock it, and I chose 5/5 feint and 5/5 assassin's charge because aura steal doesn't play out in practice as well as it does in paper. If by stealing a mobs "raw stats" you mean dispelling a random buff on a mob that uses many buffs, then ok? Aura steal almost never absorbs the buff you want, so instead of dispelling dread or ice spikes I'll probably hit the mobs protect/shell, and unless I sink five merits into aura steal I often won't absorb the buff. Buffs like ice spikes or metallic guard are worthless because I am using utsusemi with naturally high evasion to not get hit in the first place. there are literally very few mobs with aura stealable buffs that I care about.

Despoil is terrible. It only works on trash mobs which die in 20 seconds anyway. The random debuffs are worthless because trash mobs ar enever dangerous. Why would I want to lower the magic attack bonus on a hill lizard anyway? the thing doesn't even nuke.......

I will bold this section because it seems your devs have forgotten they implemented it. Thieves CAN'T steal a beastmans treasure pool and use hide then repeat the trend. You nerfed us in 2006/07 already when you made respawned mobs the identical mob that got despawned. If a thief steals a mobs beastcoin then flees and despawns him his will respawn as the EXACT same mob, and his beastcoin will be missing until somebody kills him. Furthermore, hide only works on sight ONLY mobs, and 90% of mobs track by sound/scent or use truesound/sight tracking.

You are so terrified of RMT that you can't fulfill the vision of the stealthy pickpocket. You're afraid if you do people may actually make money with thief....which ironically is the very vision you set for us.
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The flawed masters of enmty control.

You claim thieves are the masters of enmity control. I'll give you a hint. We're not. And I'll explain why below.

First and foremost the hate system itself is not conducive to our control. Paladins can cap their hate on HNMs and have been doing so since 2007. Taking 25% hate from ONE person once a minute or 50% once every 5 minutes is laughable when the tanks are capped on hate and melees are controlling their pummeling on the mob.

Secondly, you tout trick attack for its hate control. guess what, trick attack's enmity generation is only as good as the damage we can create with it, and if we're fighting HNMs that damage is... not much. I'm sorry, but when mages are nuking for 1500-2500 damage and melees are weaponskilling (often) for 2-3K damage my once a minute trick attacked weaponskills don't do crud for hate control.

Next, collaborater and accomplice need to be usable from MAXIMUM range. You slapped us in the face by expending accompolater by almost nothing. If I am supposed to be meleeing on the front lines to trick attack the tank while running to the back lines to grab hate, should the amount of hate I steal get me the mobs attention he will leave the front lines to come and get me. This results in his AoEs devastating the back line ranks. I have KILLED mages before because when I ran to the rear lines to accomplice them the mob chased me down and used an AoE which hit every back line caster and wiped my group in almost an instant. If you want me to be meleeing up front AND taking take from the back lines, I need to be able to steal that hate WITHOUT leaving my position alongside the tank. Anything less than maximum spellcasting range risks moving the mob and causing casualties.

The REALITY of thief is it doesn't control hate at all. We as players don't use tanks when fighting trash mobs, we use utsusemi and third eye (trash mobs never have dangerous attacks and we always have support anyway). Whenever we are fighting a NM we have a tank who will cap hate naturally, and because stealing enmity repeatedly can cap my own hate I have killed mages by running close enough to get in range to collaborater them only to see the NM charging at me and demolishing our support in one fell swoop. Trick attack doesn't cause enough damage to control hate, it is also worthless.

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Summary:

I have played thief for six years and it's my favorite job. Thief is a lot of fun in an experience party setting, but when we're fighting HNMs thief is the least fun job to be on. There is a problem when alliances will fight HNms with two or three paladins, five or six black mages, three white and red mages, .... they'd cram in dozens of warriors and samurais if they could fit them, but there will only ever be ONE single thief. Two thieves is always too many when you're battling HNMs.

The HNM role of thief is to hit the monster once to apply treasure hunter and then sit the rest of the fight out because we feed too much TP to justify being allowed to engage the mob. Our damage at HNM is pathetic and we cause more problems meleeing a HNM by making them spam TP attacks than we do any good with hate control (remember, trick attack weaponskills SUCK on hnms in comparison to the damage wars/sams/blms are creating, so it doesn't control crud). It is NOT fun to just stand there on the sidelines WATCHING!!!! your alliance kill the mob only to be swapped in at 5% to hit the mob once, but that is the role thief plays out in HNM. We don't deal enough damage, we feed a LOT of TP, and our hate control tactics are worthless because the hate system is set up in a way that we CAN'T control anything that the paladins aren't already taking care of themselves.

I am going to reiterate a point a colleague of mine on ZAM wrote.

Banalaty wrote

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TH is NOT an excuse for poor job design. Stop using it as a crutch to not do anything.

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S-E, you need to read.... and LISTEN to your playerbase. Thief is not that bad to play in an experience setting, although it's farther away from your pickpocket model than your devs can ever imagine. However when you're fighting HNMs thief is the ass of the FFXI world... we are the joke in the corner. Our HNM mechanics are broken, and we need to either be able to do better damage so that it justifys our meleeing, or be granted A LOT of subtle blow so we can actually engage a mob without it spamming TP attacks out the ass. Accompoloater is not at all the reason thieves are invited to HNMs. I've been shunted into the treasure hunter whore ONLY role at HNms for years now, and I'm tired of it. If level 99 HNM is more of the same old then I refuse to participate in your end game battles. I will never again be sidelined for hours doing nothing because I'm regarded as "too week to do battle" I just won't play the game.

Above is what Melphina wrote.

This is what the Dev's translate it as: "Hm, she's right. They do use utsusemi and evasion, so they don't need ice spikes. Let's nerf their evasion and utsusemi for Thief only so they can use them."

don't jinx it!

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Well the problem is, Try meleeing on a mob like Voidwrought, You'll never upgrade TH and you'll like get 1 shotted by his first AoE. On Easier mobs, and in Abyssea, its not a big deal, But on soon to come strong End-game Content its where im worried.

Plus, as a THF You must know, You can solo a mob from 100% to 0% and you'll likely never see more than 1 TH upgrade from just meleeing, the rate is horrendous.. Any THF would be better off not meleeing, and sitting back using SA and TA when the timers are up, out of AoE range, not TP spamming the mob, and not being an MP sink

And most people think so too. (Again not in Abyssea/Weak shit, but on truly harder content).

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Hmm i think one-shot is going to be an issue for most melees lol. On TH not upgrading, maybe it is currently related to damage? Because even on abyssea i have a hard time upgrading it on stronger stuff. Or maybe, more reasonably, it's just as passive to resist as other en-effects. The rate on normal melee is indeed horrendous >.<, yeah, more of a reason to ppl make thf only go in to sa/ta. More flaws added to the table.

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Originally Posted by Laphine

don't jinx it!



Hmm i think one-shot is going to be an issue for most melees lol. On TH not upgrading, maybe it is currently related to damage? Because even on abyssea i have a hard time upgrading it on stronger stuff. Or maybe, more reasonably, it's just as passive to resist as other en-effects. The rate on normal melee is indeed horrendous >.<, yeah, more of a reason to ppl make thf only go in to sa/ta. More flaws added to the table.

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Well yah, on the "1 shot" thing it would be a problem for any melee >_>, its the reason on stronger stuff like that its generally a "Meditate > WS" fight. Which is why THF would be demoted to SA/TA timers. Which is actually more involved than the other DD on most occasions in Voidwatch.

I think it is related to damage in some way, When they originally released it they did say during the SA and TA part "Further chance to upgrade through the damage of SA and TA" (paraphrasing). Could simply have been trying to clarify it would upgrade if the hits connect not when using the ability.

It was a wonderful idea for TH, and did level the ground between THFs (i.E a THF with TH4/5 could upgrade as much as a THF with TH6, the TH6 THF just had a head start), But the low proc rate makes it less of a reason to melee, and more of a "bonus" on mobs you'd already be meleeing. It doesn't create a reason to melee, just adds a bonus to situations you'd already melee in.

Its a step in the right direction, Hopefully the Updates they have for THF really look into what the job needs.