Screwed again: Proposed THF job adjustments.

[Insaniac]

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

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.

[noodles355]

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

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.

[noodles355]

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.

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

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.

[Karbuncle]

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

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.

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

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.

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"?

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.

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 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.

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.]

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?

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.

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

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...

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

A good argument.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

[Laphine]

"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

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.

[Karbuncle]

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.

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).

[Melphina]

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.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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

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

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.

[Alaik]

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."

[Laphine]

don't jinx it!

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).

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.

[Karbuncle]

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.

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.