Thief Job Ability Synergy: This is not 2005

[Nebo]

The positional and “only useful in groups” requirements imposed on Thief abilities do not make sense in 2011.

When parties consisted of Paladin, Thief, Samurai, White Mage, Black Mage, Black Mage, spending several minutes to kill one IT+++++ crab by closing distortion skill chains and magic burst was good strategy, Sneak Attack and Trick Attack made sense. The payoff for your party to meet these positional Thief job requirements was VERY high damage relative to what any other job could do, and was well worth the effort.

2011 FFXI does not work this way (and hasn’t for many years). Party dynamics have changed drastically. The relative damage payoff is not anywhere near as high as it was in 2005. Additionally, no group is going to form a strategy around allowing the Thief to perform Sneak Attack and Trick Attack. But here we are in 2011, and Thief is still forced to play like it is 2005. As a result we unable to make use of Sneak Attack and Trick Attack an unreasonable majority of the time.

What does a Thief do in 2011?:

• Endgame Experience Parties/Alliances: Damage Dealer, Evasion Tank
• Low Man Notorious Monster hunting and events (2-3 players): Damage Dealer, Evasion Tank, Treasure Hunter
• Solo: NM hunting, Farming and otherwise Thief-like gil making endeavours: Damage Dealer, Evasion Tank, Treasure Hunter
• HNM and group events: Damage Dealer, Evasion Tank, Treasure Hunter

It is important to point out that playing solo, damage dealing and small group evasion tanking are important roles to career Thieves. Treasure Hunter is an important part of this and requires us to be dealing damage (with melee hits, sneak attack and trick attack) to effectively reach higher levels of treasure hunter. The ability to apply treasure hunter, deal damage and use evasion to tank should work together but they don’t.

The real problem with Thief is that its job abilities lack synergy.

Signature abilities like evasion and survival are in direct conflict with abilities that deal damage. The more powerful you are as a Thief, the more limited your options become. You are putting out great damage? OK now you have the monster’s attention and your ability to land sneak attack is gone. As well, trick attack becomes very hard to land, compounded by the fact that Damage Dealers are constantly moving around and/or will move out of the way if you try to land it on them.

Why should performing your role well prevent you from performing your role well? The costs are too high:

Sneak Attack

• Must be behind the monster to land: Attempt to position yourself behind a monster that is constantly changing directions due to enmity spikes and fluctuations
• Requires an unreasonable level of party cooperation that a Thief is never going to get
• Requires the Thief to constantly run around in hopes of landing the critical hit before the monster changes direction.

Sneak Attack is very limited and often impossible to use when playing solo. (Significantly limits damage dealing and the ability to enhance treasure hunter).

Sneak Attack cannot be used effectively for low man or “tanking” purposes. (Significantly limits damage dealing and the ability to enhance treasure hunter).

This is a fundamental job ability that is unreasonably difficult to make use of in group situations, severely limited and most often impossible to use in solo and low man tanking situations.

Result: Sneak Attack often misses and/or is just not usable most of the time.

Trick Attack

• Must position yourself behind a party member to land.
• Said party member will never stand still for you (Why should they have to? Why should it be their job to make sure you can do yours.)
• Said party member neither wants nor needs additional enmity to be placed upon them (if they even understand how Trick Attack functions at all).

To land Trick Attack consistently in a group:

• Requires an unreasonable level of party cooperation that a Thief is never going to get.
• Requires the Thief to constantly run around in hopes of landing the critical hit before either the monster moves or the player moves or both.

Trick Attack cannot be used when playing solo. (Significantly limits damage dealing and the ability to enhance treasure hunter).

Trick Attack cannot be used effectively for low man or “tanking” purposes. (Significantly limits damage dealing and the ability to enhance treasure hunter).

We should also be very clear about this: due to the enmity cap, and every job being able to reach it easily, Trick Attack is never sought after or used soley for its enmity transfer….. for any event or notorious monster…..ever. In fact, party members in endgame groups will proactively move out of the way if they see you ready trick attack behind them because they do not want to be trick attacked.

Trick Attack has one useful purpose: It deals damage (and recently has an increased chance to enhance treasure hunter level.)

This is a fundamental job ability that is almost always unwanted by parties, unreasonably difficult to land in group situations, as well as impossible to use effectively in solo and low man tanking situations.

Result: Trick Attack often misses, is unwanted and/or is unusable most of the time.

----

I Suggest:

The positional nature of Thief can be kept and synergy can be achieved by simply changing the positional requirements to positional enhancements.

For example:

Sneak Attack:

• Performed behind the monster: Guaranteed critical hit + Increased Chance of Treasure Hunter
  
• Performed in front of the monster: Critical hit subject to a melee accuracy check. Small amount of additional enmity is applied to the Thief when landed + Increased Chance of Treasure Hunter

Trick Attack

• Performed behind a party member: Guaranteed Critical Hit and Enmity Transfer + Increased Chance of Treasure Hunter
  
• Not performed behind a party member: Critical hit subject to a melee accuracy check. Small amount of additional enmity is applied to the Thief when landed + Increased Chance of Treasure Hunter

(Edit) Another suggestion:

They could adjust Thief to have stances.

Stance A:

• Sneak Attack and Trick Attack are Guaranteed Criticals with increased chance to enhance treasure hunter.
• Sneak Attack and Trick Attack can be landed from any position.
• The critical hit from Sneak Attack and Trick Attack generate slightly more enmity than normal toward the THF
• Sneak Attack and Trick Attack become instant attacks without Job Ability pause that cannot be combined with weaponskills.

Stance B:

• Sneak Attack and Trick Attack function exactly like they do now and can be combined with weaponskills.
• Trick Attack transfers enmity.
• Sneak generates a decreased amount of enmity (in this situation you won't want to take hate from the tank etc)

The beauty is that these will not raise Thief damage potential at all. If this was 2005, parties used Paladins, SATA lines, and took 5 minutes to kill one monster, Thief would be able to have consistent success with all of its abilities as the recast timers would allow.

This is not 2005. The player base does not want 2005 style parties back. Thief has to be able to adapt to 2011 FFXI. This means not forcing us to play like it is still 2005.

What this tweak will do, is allow Thief to play to its potential by creating synergy between existing job abilities for soloing, low man tanking, applying/enhancing treasure hunter and dealing damage. All of this while staying true to the positional nature of the job and balanced with an accuracy check.

On difficult HNMs etc, groups are still likely to control the monster positionally, and a Thief would still better off to use sneak attack and trick attack behind the monster/party member (or use stance B) to make the critical hit guaranteed.

Edit:
I will say that I disagree with lowering the damage of sneak attack if the hit if it's done in front because this actually lowers the over all damage potential of the job (which is the last thing we need). It makes sense to me that A Thief could land the same strength of critical hit in the front as he did from behind (using the same weapon, same muscles etc), he would just be less accurate with it if the monster could see him.

[Laphine]

i liked this, rate up!

[Alukat]

yeah the hate cap has a really good point. i was trioing nin + thf + whm. only thing i could use was trick attack + ws.
sneak attack + ws was almost impossible due to the fact that the mob turned after each hit or even if i just used sneak attack.it is totally annoying.

[noodles355]

You're really overplaying the whole people moving out of the way of trick attack thing.

[Glamdring]

You're really overplaying the whole people moving out of the way of trick attack thing.

I don't know about that, when I announce a TA generally the player in front of me runs like hell, including the tank. How about an autostun effect on the to be affected player like is inflicted by an offensive spell where they can't move or take any meaningful action?

[Bulrogg]

I think it would be interesting if landing a trick attack on a player would give them a buff like maybe attack power or something.

[thefinalrune]

Okay, as a career thief I have two points.

1). I love the adjustment ideas.

2.) I both sneak attack and trick attack constantly, even while solo. Well, trick attack is not so much solo as it is making my fellow tank for a few seconds. Anyway. I understand how thieves have it hard positioning as well as anyone, but there's really no excuse for a thief not to SA every sixty seconds in solo play. As long as you maintain a supply of sleep bolts solo SA is not only extremely possible, but usually vital in speedy killings. Using words like "often impossible" is misleading and clearly incorrect. However, I will eagerly concede that landing SA or TA in parties can be a nightmare.


Also:

...when I announce a TA generally the player in front of me runs like hell, including the tank. How about an autostun effect on the to be affected player like is inflicted by an offensive spell where they can't move or take any meaningful action?

That would hilarious, but mean.

[Nebo]

You're really overplaying the whole people moving out of the way of trick attack thing.

In my experience, the better your Weaponskill gear and the more powerful your trick attack critical hits are....especially in abyssea.....the more Damage Dealers take notice that they are getting more attention than they want from the monster after they see big trick attack damage from you.

Even a solo Trick Attack critical hit for over 1000 damage will make the monster turn their way. A weapon skill combined with Trick Attack usually means that the damage dealer has the monster's full attention until the monster dies.

This is just an annoyance and hinderance for the player you just trick attacked. Your average WAR/SAM is trying to ride hasso/berserk/agressor and maximize his damage....now he has to change this and gimp his damage so you could land trick attack on him. Your NIN is just as frustrated as you are, trying to slip around the back to take advantage of their positional job abilities, now they have the monster glued to their face. God forbid there is another Thief in the party doing the same crazy run around dance that you are.

Trick Attack is an upset to the ballance of enmity, creating a situation where each damage dealer is not only responsible for their damage but part of yours as well. When every damage dealer counts on hate bouncing around so they can all mitigate their share effectively, having too much attention on one can be dangerous, limiting and frustrating for them. Who can blame them for not wanting that?

Those are just examples of people TRYING to move out of the way of Trick Attack due to unwanted enmity. It speaks nothing to the fact that damage dealers are always in a constant state of moving around the monster for no particular reason at all. Not to mention dealing with rapid enmity fluctuations causing the monster to move a little bit this way or that way, or just deciding to run toward your mages....you will just miss the Trick Attack critical hit constantly due to common normal circumstances.

I have been a THF since I started FFXI in 2005. I am a good THF. I love the job. I am dilligent with landing sneak attack and trick attack as much as super humanly possible and I have magnificent sets for landing both in a variety of situations.

I just strongly feel that the hoops you have to jump through to land them are unreasonable. Even at the highest level of Thief play they miss too much, or are just not usable in various situations.

[Nebo]

I both sneak attack and trick attack constantly, even while solo. Well, trick attack is not so much solo as it is making my fellow tank for a few seconds. Anyway. I understand how thieves have it hard positioning as well as anyone, but there's really no excuse for a thief not to SA every sixty seconds in solo play. As long as you maintain a supply of sleep bolts solo SA is not only extremely possible, but usually vital in speedy killings. Using words like "often impossible" is misleading and clearly incorrect. However, I will eagerly concede that landing SA or TA in parties can be a nightmare.

Landing sneak attack when solo via sleep bolt methods is possible, but this falls under "unreasonable" in my oppinion. I land them quite a bit. I am so good at it that I can land a sleep bolt, and SAWS betwen one attack round without disengaging, unlocking from my target or losing ANY melee time at all save for the JA pause of sneak attack (plus the recovery time from firing the bolt).

Most Thieves I know do not do this. And disengage instead to run around to the back, reengage and then SAWS. In this case it isn't even worth it for you to waste the melee time it takes to fire the bolt, unlock, run around, reengage, SA, WS.

I use the word "impossible" for situations like dark based sleep resistant monsters, of which there are plenty. But most importantly for real "treasure hunter" gil making situations when playing solo, namely sleep immune notorious monsters, which are abundant.

There is also the situation where a lot of Thieves I know don't have merited marksmanship like I do, or a near perfect racc set like I do and landing bolts consistantly is a problem on high level monsters.

Soloing fodder mobs is less of an issue in my oppinion. They die quickly anyway. Soloing Notorious Monsters and monsters you can't land sleep on...sneak attack is impossible during the fight.

Regarding trick attack solo, yes, you can trick your fellow. But they JUST made it possible to call them in ToAu field zones, you could never call them in dungeons, and you cannot call them in abyssea. Not to mention the limited amount of time you can use them in the areas where they are actually available.

What if you don't have a fellow leveled? What if their retarded mage AI frustrates you so much you don't even want to see their face? Why should being able to use a fundamental job ability solo be soley based on having an adventuring fellow to use it with?

Such limited situations where using these abilities is possible (or useful) is unreasonable. I question why Thief must be so creative and still restricted just to work around the hoops we must jump through to use 2 fundamental core job abilities.

[noodles355]

I don't know about that, when I announce a TA generally the player in front of me runs like hell, including the tank. How about an autostun effect on the to be affected player like is inflicted by an offensive spell where they can't move or take any meaningful action?

1) Don't tell them you're going to do it.
2) Get a linkshell or make friends with good players who realise that TA both increases damage output and also increases chance to raise the TH level
3) Remind Mnks and Wars that Counterstance and Retalliation increases their damage so it's worthwhile to be tanking.
4) Remind them that Trick Attack has the same recast as Accomplice

Most people who are idiotic enough to move out of the way of TA are usually pretty shitty players too, and not generally worth spending your time with (See point 2)