Screwed again: Proposed THF job adjustments.

[Babekeke]

To Camate and all at the dev team: Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to our gripes and groans
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!

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!

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

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.

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

[Yugl]

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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".

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

[Insaniac]

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.

[FrankReynolds]

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.

[Nebo]

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.

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.

[Phen]

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.

[Yugl]

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

THF was supreme in all aspects? When was this?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

[Yugl]

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.

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.

[Alaik]

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

[FrankReynolds]

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

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.