Thief's knife upgrade

[FrankReynolds]

i'm mad that my ptd sword doesn't out dd my almace

I'm mad that your a galka. Who cares what you think? What does that even have to do with thief knife? and again? How does a change to Thief Knife effect that?

[Arcon]

i'm mad that my ptd sword doesn't out dd my almace

Duh, you're Galka. You're all mad.

[Scribble]

The upside is that people get their Placebo hunter +1 and I don't have to deal with a crappy dagger to do it. It's pretty clear by the heated debates, that this thing annoys the crap out of a lot of people. In all of the pages thus far, I have yet to see anyone post a reason against it that didn't boil down to "I just don't want thieves to have their cake and eat it too".

I'm not against it. As a matter of fact I'm almost certain it will come along in a future update. I just don't see why people feel it's so important. It does nearly nothing for you aside from increasing your DPS which, again, can be achieved already. Why bother?

Why not work on some abilities or changing mechanics for THF that push it further away from being pigeon-holed into the TH whore? I don't get it. Most of the people here arguing in favor of an upgrade are also staunch advocates for de-mystifying TH so they can actually participate in LS events beyond poking a mob every 30 seconds.

FYI having a differing opinion from someone regardless of whether or not that person is in the minority or not doesn't make them a troll. Everything I have said here is on topic, is logical and backs up my position on the topic.

[Lokithor]

Scribble, your posts seem to be deliberate trolling. You know that the prevalent perception of TH is that the highest degree of TH must be applied to any mob that is being fought for drops. As far as most in this game are concerned, the only purpose for Thief is TH - regardless of whether it is really a placebo or not.

There is not another single job in the game that is expected (more like REQUIRED) to equip a specific, single piece of gear for every fight. That piece of gear limits us from our other potential. All we want is to have that limit removed.

In your post above you state that we can increase our DPS (by refusing to use the thief's knife). For many thieves, this would get them kicked from events.

You also say we should work on abilities that push us away from only TH whore. We all agree! However, we are limited in what we can do while continuing to be shackled to that one damn dagger.

I'm glad that you have a different perception regarding how important that extra +1 of TH is. The fact is, you are a very small minority in that view (I happen to share it btw). I think it is far easier to remove limitations due to the current thief's knife than it is to change the perception of 99% of the playing community.

[Arcon]

[..] I don't get it. [..]

That about sums up your post. Not being insulting, it's not your fault. The fact is, a lot is wrong with THF. And a lot has been discussed already, however, it's scattered throughout many a thread, with many an idiot coming along and posting garbage, then derailed the respective threads. It happened so much, it's hard to filter out what's productive and what's just flame war between disagreeing parties (and, sadly not too rarely, also agreeing parties).

To answer some of your questions:

Why not work on some abilities or changing mechanics for THF that push it further away from being pigeon-holed into the TH whore?

Yeah, why not? Do you think any of us would mind that? We have suggested and begged SE for years to do something about this, because let's face it, we've never been much more than TH whores (and occasionally Charby tanks). Abyssea was our brief moment of glory, when we could tank and DD on par (using that term very loosely in this context) with comparable tanks. But now we're in the same spot we were before. Did SE do something about it? Well, let's sum up the changes SE has applied to THF in the last few years:
- Dual Wield. A godsend. Yet, borderline useless, because it's such a low tier. It still almost dictates /NIN. While /WAR is feasible, it's not a major boost (if any, often even a loss), at a significant cost of survivability.
- Modified TH system. TH now has a chance to upgrade. Higher chance for SA and TA hits (relevant for Bully).
- Higher TH tiers from both gear and trait.
- Bully. Every three minutes we can land a SA when soloing or solo tanking. Minor increase in damage, chance to upgrade TH
- Conspirator. The only somewhat useful ability we got in a party situation. Unless it's solo-tanked, and DDs only run in to stagger mobs, which is still the majority of content. The one single restriction on this ability makes this, again, borderline useless.
- Despoil. Sad to even have to mention it. But running out of things to say.
- Critical Attack Bonus. Useful.

So that's it. How much of this actually helps THF outside of TH? Only the Critical Attack Bonus and to some degree Bully (although still mainly for TH). Everything else is just an extension to the existing TH system. And the problem is, that is what SE thinks will fix THF, adjustments of TH. They don't seem to get that that's not all that THFs wanna be. Call it selfish, because it is, but we wanna do more than just apply TH and gtfo. Every job wants an actual role they play in a party, they want something to do and something to achieve. And THFs do not have that, at all.

Oh, and since we're on the TH topic: the current TH system blows ass. Which is the main part of what's wrong with SE's approach of trying to fix THF instead of fixing TH. Because they don't wanna fix TH at all, they wanna make THFs better at it. But they don't seem to realize (or realize that we realized) that TH beyond tier three is barely worth it. In most situations all you'll have is a waste of a slot. Sure, there are still times when you want max TH on a mob (empyrean weapon farming and similar things), but for most purposes /THF or BST or RNG get the same effect with a lot less effort and a lot more options to do during a battle than just stand around and SA every now and then.

So what's wrong with Thief's Knife? Well, it is required. Those max-TH situations, for one, will always call for, well, max TH on it, which means Thief's Knife. For farming? It's a simple decision, higher TH vs. faster kills. In this case, faster kills will win because of the severity of the damage loss by wielding that cursed knife. But that's where the frustration sets in, and it comes in two parts.

First, there's the social aspect: people, and often people in charge, will want highest TH on. They don't know/care for the loss of damage, or consider THF a subpar DD in the first place (which, sadly, it is), so does the additional loss of damage really matter? Well, usually it does, unless you have 10 other good DD who completely overshadow the difference in damage to the point that it's lower than the increase in drop rate (which is < 1%). What event are you doing these days that you bring more than 2 DDs to? (And where TH actually matters?) It's hard to play with people who disagree on your playstyle. Sure, one solution is to get new people. That's a very honest reply I've heard often in here, and it's equally absurd, because it implies that you'll only enjoy a game if you find a perfect match in players to do it with, which is impossible and rarely even helpful, because in a social game, not all you care about is finding players matching your playstyle, but players you can have fun with.

Secondly, there's the frustration that something that's unrelated to the actual battle is suffering from a pure battle-related game mechanic, namely the loss of TP on swapping the off-handed weapon. It's supposed to restrict the effectiveness of gearswapping for damage dealing purposes, and for that it's doing a good job. However, the TH effect suffers from it, despite being unrelated to the battle itself. We have the capability to apply higher TH, but we can't use it to play efficiently, we're actually punished for using it. So why have it in the first place? Sure, another "solution" to this is to "just don't use it, duh". But if you can't understand why we're frustrated by it, then either you don't care about perfecting your THF or you're too lazy for it.

Or, you're holding out for SE's "real" updates, that give THF another role besides TH whore, but you can't blame us for having given up that hope, because SE hasn't tried very hard to convince us that they're looking into it. So the reason why we're bitching about this "unimportant" issue is because bitching about other things didn't help. And we're still bitching about other things, too, as much as that makes us sound like the DRK forums. SE has shown us (repeatedly) that they don't get what the issues are, and we're trying to point them out. If they address even one of these things, we'll be happy. I'd probably completely shut up about this if they gave us DW3, as would most others. At least until we get over our new toy and realize we're still only (almost useless) TH whores.

tl;dr, we'd love more updates that aren't related to TH, but we don't see it happening anytime soon. If we're proven wrong, awesome. If not, please fix TH, including Thief's Knife.

And for the love of fuck SE, don't think that giving THF higher and more TH options is any kind of fix if you're not adjusting the TH effect itself. If all THF gets at 99 is TH4 and +2 on AA+2, I'll kick someone in the balls.

Edit:
And for the record: a solution (which is admittedly extremely unlikely) I would be completely happy with would be if SE removed the TH+1 on the Thief's Knife completely. Make it an ordinary knife, or remove it from the game entirely, I wouldn't care. Yes, I'd actually be happy with less TH, as long as it would put us out of this misery. Having a cake and not being able to eat it is the problem. Not having a cake no one would be complaining about not eating it.

[Scribble]

Scribble, your posts seem to be deliberate trolling. You know that the prevalent perception of TH is that the highest degree of TH must be applied to any mob that is being fought for drops. As far as most in this game are concerned, the only purpose for Thief is TH - regardless of whether it is really a placebo or not.

Having a different point of view doesn't constitute trolling. You'd have a point if I was here mocking THF, but I'm not.

In your post above you state that we can increase our DPS (by refusing to use the thief's knife). For many thieves, this would get them kicked from events.

I never suggested you refuse to use it. Unless they ninja'd it you only have to equip your TH+ gear for the first proc. Each successive proc beyond that will increase it from the initial stack.

If you had to full-time the dagger I would completely agree, but since you don't have to the amount of DPS you are losing isn't really significant. We've seen the parses of how little the extra TH procs effect drops; I'd also like to see some parses of average DPS lost in that generally small window of time that people actually have to leave their TH gear equipped before they can swap to normal TP gear sets.

I'll leave it here because it's obviously a sensitive topic, but I just think that if people could see just how much DPS they're missing out on they'd realize that it's hardly worth the tears.

[FrankReynolds]

Your not a troll because you have a different opinion, you are a troll because you continue to derail the thread with stupid comments about how thieves can swap out daggers (like your the first guy to think of that in the years since the knife was introduced) because the damage loss is not significant. It is significant. Thief Knife is only necessary because of tools like you who think that its fine to make the thief use that dagger, because the damage loss is insignificant. Furthermore, you have no reason to be here. you have contributed nothing to the discussion other than argument. The thread is about adding a trial to fix the problem. Not about whether the problem in fact exists (HINT: it does. that's why there is so much interest in this thread).

We all know there are better daggers.

We all know that the difference between treasure hunter 5 & 6 is virtually nothing.

The problem is that any time there is more than 1 DD, people are gonna expect the Thief to Hit shit with that crappy knife.

We want a fix to the problem. We don't want to try to convince the world that Thief Knife is not needed. We can't even get 1 troll to shut up about how it's fine.

Don't want to be a troll? Make a suggestion or comment that actually attempts to solve the problem being discussed. Don't just POP in and go "HEY GUYS! Thief Knife is fine. stop whining.".

Personally I'm all for a quest that makes Thief's knife a Key Item at the end. If you would care to make a better suggestion, then feel free. otherwise troll on.

[Lokithor]

I never suggested you refuse to use it. Unless they ninja'd it you only have to equip your TH+ gear for the first proc.
.

Do you actually know what that means? If I'm sitting at 90 TP when we pull a mob, I need to lose all of that in order to ensure that the first hit establishes my baseline so that I don't lose a quick subsequent proc. So, every other DD in the game can build TP before engaging except thief.

If you had to full-time the dagger I would completely agree...
.

This is exactly the situation for fast kill events like dynamis.

... it's hardly worth the tears.
.

And here is where the trolling returns. Your closing argument suggests that everyone that does not agree with your position is simply being too emotional to understand your infallible logic. I really do hope you leave it here because you are obviously just trying to stir things up.

[Karbuncle]

Unless it's being required by your LS, thieves are gimping their dps of their own accord

This is the entire reasoning behind the request. actually. When we have a choice, 99% of us are smart enough to simply dequip the THF's knife knowing its not worth the sacrifice.

but most of us do not have such a choice. Its during events and what have you, where we're either forced to wear it, Or we don't come THF. Or during multi-kill Events like Dynamis. A lot of people do have the pleasure of working with people smart enough to not worry about the 1 extra TH that won't likely matter by the end of the kill (Because of TH upgrades...), But a lot of us don't have that luxury either.

And Its not really a huge problem We've mentioned that, in fact comparatively its very under-talked about here. The discussion keeping this alive is really only a feel people trying to explain all of this. Most of the conversation regarding this is "I don't understand" vs "Here, let us try to explain".

Its not like we're demanding it happen right now, We're making suggestions for the future. Some time in the future, As 29 Levels out of Date is getting out of hand. it was gimp at level 75, Its just that much gimper now.

Again, Not a super-dooper pressing issue. Simply something that most of us believe should be looked into in the future. Which is why we made these suggestions, and as a core, why these forums exist. Suggestions

[Scribble]

Your not a troll because you have a different opinion, you are a troll because you continue to derail the thread with stupid comments about how thieves can swap out daggers (like your the first guy to think of that in the years since the knife was introduced) because the damage loss is not significant. It is significant.

I'm not a troll because despite your position being different from mine, I haven't strayed from the topic which is DPS loss from using a low damage dagger. The namecalling isn't necessary.

I don't see the damage lost being significant because it doesn't save you any great amount of time. You might have saved a few minutes over the course of a month if you never had to equip the dagger before proc. You will never wipe to a raged HNM because you missed out on a bit of damage at the beginning of an encounter.

We want a fix to the problem. We don't want to try to convince the world that Thief Knife is not needed. We can't even get 1 troll to shut up about how it's fine.

I'm guessing that because it's been the same for nearly a decade that people have given up on it, but if you want to fix the issue then you don't need a new knife, you need to fix the mechanic.

Don't want to be a troll? Make a suggestion or comment that actually attempts to solve the problem being discussed. Don't just POP in and go "HEY GUYS! Thief Knife is fine. stop whining."

This community cracks me up sometimes. It's like you're not allowed to have an opinion unless you have some 'constructive criticism' to support it even when people can agree with what you said. Fair enough, here goes...

Dear SE,

Please add a buff to TH that actually makes it do something. Anything is better than nothing but since everyone seems to agree that DPS is the problem, that's a good starting point.

I propose that when a THF procs TH on a mob they are granted a buff that increases [insert DPS buff here*] by a percentage equal to the amount of stacks applied. (*Crit rate, crit damage, WS damage, Regain tics ect.)

In this way us THF who gimp ourselves to whore out our TH get a buff which will allow us to recover the damage we would have lost by not using a proper gear set.

Problem solved? Not hardly, but at least the DPS gripe goes away.

Just curious but why isn't anyone calling for replacements to all of the TH+ gear? Yes your knife makes you dump TP on occasion and limits the damage you do, but isn't the rest of your TH+ gear gimp compared to what you would be using as well? Why stop with the knife? It clearly isn't the problem.

This is exactly the situation for fast kill events like dynamis.

In dynamis, pretty much all you need is the trait. !! proc is exponentially better than TH procs.

And here is where the trolling returns. Your closing argument suggests that everyone that does not agree with your position is simply being too emotional to understand your infallible logic. I really do hope you leave it here because you are obviously just trying to stir things up.

Hindsight. I probably should have said something like "hardly worth losing sleep over". What I meant was crying over spilled milk because it really isn't that big a deal. I wasn't implying that anyone who disagrees is emo and curls up into a ball.

Anyhow, I don't think my logic is infallible but based on TH testing already done and my suspicion about DPS/Time / Lost/Saved it seems like a solid stance from here.