Ideas on THF job ability adjustments.

Bully
Like most other players, I solo a lot. Especially so in areas like Dynamis, Limbus, etc. where Trust NPCs are not available. It's really annoying to NOT be able to use one of the THF signature job abilities (Trick Attack)... like, ever, in these situations.

How come Bully allows for Sneak Attack to be used in any direction, but has no effect on Trick Attack? Couldn't they adjust it so when Bully is used, Trick Attack is treated as if you were striking from behind another player/NPC? Or is this not possible at all due to spaghetti coding/PS2/whatever else?

The recast time is way too long, too. Sneak Attack is ready in a minute... fifty seconds with 5/5 recast merits. Bully takes 3 minutes to recast and the intimidation rate is very poor unless you're dumping 15 JP into it and even then it doesn't work well on anything you'd actually want to intimidate. It's real purpose is to use Sneak Attack from any direction. If my Sneak Attack is ready in a minute, I'd like Bully to be ready with it.

Despoil, Steal, Mug
Besides being generally useless in almost every situation in the game (sans JP enhancements, but even those are sort of trash), the recast time for these are way too long. Honestly, they should be on a 1-2 minute recast time.

It's just really annoying going from a job like WAR, DRK or SAM who have pretty decent/really good job abilities to THF and getting to use... Bully once every three minutes, Sneak Attack every minute and Trick Attack never... I guess Assassin's Charge is okay once every five minutes.

Am I the only one who is put-off by this?

It's funny I think originally Bully wasn't going to allow you to sneak attack from any direction. I could be wrong about this as I was not playing ffxi at the time it came out. Even though now bully is little more than the thing you use to make sure you don't waste your sneak attack if the mob turns. Anyway having it work with trick attack really doesn't make sense as who is it tricking into thinking the attack came from if no one else is in the party.

As for making it so the timer for bully and sneak attack are the same, if they were to do that they might as well just remove the position requirement for sneak attack all together. A better solution is changing hide to function better for this. The way hide works now is pretty much useless. The only time I can make use of it is hiding from a regular enemy who detects only by sight, which rarely comes up. What hide should do in cases where it would normally give the fail message is reset the thief's enmity and still give them the hide status letting them sneak attack from any direction. This adds to thief's hate control which is pretty lack luster at the moment, and aids in sneak attacks. Of course if the mob is still aggressive and hits the thief it wears off.

I do agree with the lowering the timers on despoil, steal, and mug. Their abilities even with the job points and merits don't warrant a 5 minute timer, and honestly would lean towards a one minute timer. If steal does get put on a one minute timer then the steal job point category could be changed to something that enhances accomplice and collaborator further improving the jobs hate control. Speaking of which accomplice and collaborator need their timers separated like when steal and despoil did.

Feint and Conspirator needs adjusted as well. I used to think feint was good. That was back when I thought it gave evasion -50%, however testing was done that showed it really does -150 evasion that decays by 10 every tick. And since it conflicts with distract most of the time you are just stepping on the toes of your red mage. So one of three things need to happen to make it useful. It could last 2 minutes so it could be kept up constantly, it could not decay and just only be up for 1/4 of the time, or it needs to be separate from evasion down so it can be used in conjunction with distract. Conspirator is just pathetic, 15 accuracy 1/5 of the time? might as well not even bother.

However I wouldn't hold my breath for any of this.

I think Thief should be able to steal actual equipment the monsters have other than crafting items they carry. Or introduce items into the game that are only obtainable through stealing/mugging.

The 5 minute recast time on steal and mug is very ridiculous. For what monsters have on them, it is NOT worth the effort to even gear up +steal gear.

This would definitely make thief more of a required job in end game events if it actually required a thief to get specific gear.

Treasure Hunter could even come into play. The higher the treasure hunter level you have on a monster, the higher chance you have of stealing equipment.

As for mug, thiefs should be able to mug everything for gil, and really hard NMs should be able to be mugged for 100,000 or more in gil. If thief is truly master of items, then it really needs to become that in reality.

Few quick ideas

Steal/dispoil/mug should always steal a random temporary item along with the regular steal items at normal steal rates. Maybe even have the current Treasure hunter number effect your chances at stealing multiple temporary items each steal.

Trick attack should transfer not just the damage done's enmity but also a % of the thief's current enmity to the trick attack partner. So you could steal Enmity from fellow party members with accomplice and such and then dump it on the tank.

Hide would be nice if it gave you the damage buffs of both Sneak attack and Trick attack without even touching Sneak attack or trick attack cool down timers....like can use them back to back once every 5 minutes. If hide was a 5min cool down that is


if SE really wants them to be masters of enmity control.....give them a 1hour ability that resets the party's enmity to 1. Healer stolen enmity to a very dangerous degree? reset enmity and have tank get enmity back easier.

Thief is only good for Treasure Hunter at this point. No one in the right mind would want you to full time DD in Escha - Zi'Tah and Escha - Ru'Aun S3 NM because you end up dead and a waste of MP curing thief when they can focus more on paladin.

Make Thief a Better Job:

Sneak Attack and Trick Attack at this point should be lower down to 40 or 30 second.

Sneak Attack should work on all direction without the use of bully.

Bully should be change into a different kind of effect because it's a 3 minute wait time and that's a long time in a fight. Maybe a increase in skill chain damage or increase in sneak attack and trick attack damage.

BST bandwagon with the help of Geo and Cor take out Escha - Zi'Tah S1 in less than 1 minute. So thief need a lot of support and others like Warrior job that no one care about. Make it happen Grekumah and Camate anything will do. =)

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Originally Posted by Sogoro

I think Thief should be able to steal actual equipment the monsters have other than crafting items they carry. Or introduce items into the game that are only obtainable through stealing/mugging.

The 5 minute recast time on steal and mug is very ridiculous. For what monsters have on them, it is NOT worth the effort to even gear up +steal gear.

This would definitely make thief more of a required job in end game events if it actually required a thief to get specific gear.

Treasure Hunter could even come into play. The higher the treasure hunter level you have on a monster, the higher chance you have of stealing equipment.

As for mug, thiefs should be able to mug everything for gil, and really hard NMs should be able to be mugged for 100,000 or more in gil. If thief is truly master of items, then it really needs to become that in reality.

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If steal did steal some equipment it would need to either be thf only equipment or not exclusive. If it was exclusive then everyone would need thf to get it and there is no reason anyone should have to play a job they don't like. Being able to mug for that amount of gil would cause some problems. For one it would lead to rapid inflation as gil farmers would pop the mob all mug it and then wipe and pop to mug again. Also people who play other jobs are going to feel cheated if thfs are getting tons of gil and they are getting nothing. Old event like sky where mug could net you a couple thousand gil was okay because the mob would drop much more than that to everyone in the party.

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Originally Posted by Omen

Few quick ideas

Steal/dispoil/mug should always steal a random temporary item along with the regular steal items at normal steal rates. Maybe even have the current Treasure hunter number effect your chances at stealing multiple temporary items each steal.

Trick attack should transfer not just the damage done's enmity but also a % of the thief's current enmity to the trick attack partner. So you could steal Enmity from fellow party members with accomplice and such and then dump it on the tank.

Hide would be nice if it gave you the damage buffs of both Sneak attack and Trick attack without even touching Sneak attack or trick attack cool down timers....like can use them back to back once every 5 minutes. If hide was a 5min cool down that is


if SE really wants them to be masters of enmity control.....give them a 1hour ability that resets the party's enmity to 1. Healer stolen enmity to a very dangerous degree? reset enmity and have tank get enmity back easier.

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Temporary items seem like more trouble than they are worth. Lots of places like escha already have temporary items, and with temporary items being rare I can see it not working out so well. Also a lot of temporary items are either total junk like potions that don't heal any amount of health that would keep you from dying or extremely powerful and resets your 1 hour abilities.

Trick attack lowering the thf's enmity isn't a horrible idea. Keeping enmity off yourself isn't as hard as it used to be since they changed the amount damage gives, and nerfed our damage by about a third... However if the tank is struggling it could be pretty useful, and thf is lacking in hate control when it comes to removing their own hate.

Your suggested change for hide completely changes the function of it, and isn't as useful as you might think. Pretty much all the impressive amount of damage of sneak attack and trick attack comes from forcing a crit. Since you can't force a crit twice together they don't really do all that more. It's why they are best used separately. I like the idea of it being a personal hate reset for thf since that was closer to it's original purpose and name. Way back when, when you pulled on thf you could use flee then hide when you got far enough away to hide from a bad pull that got too many links.

A hate reset for the whole party is just a bad idea. That's actually something mobs do to make fights harder. If it just gave all the enmity to one player it would be a good thing, but that ability already exists as sch's 1 hour Caper Emissarius.

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Originally Posted by Ataraxia

Thief is only good for Treasure Hunter at this point. No one in the right mind would want you to full time DD in Escha - Zi'Tah and Escha - Ru'Aun S3 NM because you end up dead and a waste of MP curing thief when they can focus more on paladin.

Make Thief a Better Job:

Sneak Attack and Trick Attack at this point should be lower down to 40 or 30 second.

Sneak Attack should work on all direction without the use of bully.

Bully should be change into a different kind of effect because it's a 3 minute wait time and that's a long time in a fight. Maybe a increase in skill chain damage or increase in sneak attack and trick attack damage.

BST bandwagon with the help of Geo and Cor take out Escha - Zi'Tah S1 in less than 1 minute. So thief need a lot of support and others like Warrior job that no one care about. Make it happen Grekumah and Camate anything will do. =)

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Sadly thf isn't even that special for treasure hunter with rng's bounty shot, and dnc/brd getting +TH daggers from sinister reign. Honestly all front line DDs could use a lot more to help keep them alive. I personally think hp is too low considering the amount of damage nms do. However other things for staying alive would be changing parry and evasion to be more useful, as well as giving thf some better crossbows and ilvl bloody bolts to help them keep alive.

I don't agree with removing the directional requirement for sneak attack, as to me it's a lot of what makes thf thf. My opinion is if its enmity controls were fixed it wouldn't be such a burden as thf could just get the mob to face towards the tank all the time.

Be cool if Bully , Mug , Assassin's Charge were lower Recast ^^

Assassin's charge has really fallen behind since all the triple attack you can get from ilvl and gifts. Also merit points over 1 are pointless as where more of its use comes from getting the triple attack damage boost from relic feet, and probably won't trigger if it makes you quadruple attack instead. I actually don't even have a point in Assassin's charge because I currently have feint 5/5 trying to see if I can get to TH 13 and 14.

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Originally Posted by Ulth

Assassin's charge has really fallen behind since all the triple attack you can get from ilvl and gifts. Also merit points over 1 are pointless as where more of its use comes from getting the triple attack damage boost from relic feet, and probably won't trigger if it makes you quadruple attack instead. I actually don't even have a point in Assassin's charge because I currently have feint 5/5 trying to see if I can get to TH 13 and 14.

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It never really was great to begin with except low haste situations or pre fight buff I guess. For regular meleeing it incurs the full ja delay and losing a whole attack round or 2 for 2 extra swings actual resulted in less swings.

If you stacked it with ws for greater dmg increase and less ja penalty it didn't do much as if it was a SA/TA and/or single hit ws it didn't do much since and since almost all the dmg was in the first hit to begin with. But if you use it on say evisceration since it's 6 hits already the quad attack can't proc and always makes it so the 2nd chance to QA/TA/DA does nothing either highly lowering the real gains from it

Anyways on the subject of things like steal/despoil/mug part of the problem is timers and part of it is success rate. I say lower the timers to 2-3 minute and make the rates near 100%... and this includes any additional effects from merits/jps. Also make it do both. Ie steals item and buffs with aura steal. Steal item and tp with despoil etc. And make all buffs stealable with aura steal...

I think the merits and job point ones are 100% already. Aurasteal needs 5/5 merits but the other 2 are 100% all the time. Mug steals both gil and hp provided the mob has gil to steal, idk why they can't seem to get steal and despoil to work the same way. I don't like how the amount of tp stolen with despoil works though. I get that it's supposed to work like drk absorb tp but because it steals a percentage instead of a flat rate it makes it really difficult to get a good amount from tp especially when mobs get to the point where they tp at 1000 tp. Wouldn't mind being able to see the mob's tp either. Also agree that the rate of despoil needs to be improved. I had used it a lot in escha Ru'aun then was shocked to see I could despoil Clionid Wings. And I macro empy legs and feet for it too.

Aura steal isn't precisely 100%. What it is is it has a chance (fairly high chance on most stuff) to dispel and at 5/5 100% of the dispelled effects are transferred but if dispel fails 0% chance of course. Part of the problem is some buffs are basically undispellable and sometimes the buff move is several buffs so you often get just 1 worthless portion of it. Also if you steal an item you don't dispel....

But yeah I was mostly referring to the base abilities. Steal should almost always (or almost at least always on weak stuff) steal something in this day and age, despoil also steal something and apply debuff, mug always get gil. And they shouldn't have these effects as either or. It shouldn't be steal an item or buff it should be both. That's what I really meant by 100%

Not being able to absorb certain buffs is pretty annoying. For example you can dispel the blaze spikes from Batholithic Shell on Tojil but you can't absorb them. I mean really? Blaze spikes is too powerful of a buff? If it's an effect that can be dispelled it should be able to be aura stole.