Thief Job Ability Synergy: This is not 2005

[Pesh]

Or you can have an arrangement with one of your damage dealers where after you Trick Attack him or her, you instantly Collaborator. If they're a decent enough DD, you're going to steal more hate then you placed on them.

Also find the guy you know is going to be pulling the mob's attention and stand ACROSS from him. You'll land more Sneak Attacks.

The biggest problem is the hate cap. It's set entirely too low for Abyssea standard and DDs are able to cap out hate way too easy. This cause a problem because the mob spins around not really knowing who to attack and potentially screws up your SA.

I'm talking from an event standpoint with LS members that I know and trust. Exp wise, I don't even bother fighting the same mob as my alliance, just solo 2 1/2 of them while the other idiots monkey around with one .I open with a SARS, take the mob down 50-75%, then just switch to Evi during Aftermath while SA is down.

Is positioning annoying?: Yes, but it keeps the job from getting passive and boring.
Are you overreacting a little?: Also yes.

[Nebo]

Thief/Rogue Has never been a pure heavy DD in final fantasy games. They have always been lighter DDs who you brought along for extra utility. The exception to this is probably Zidane in FF9 but he had to be pretty powerful as he was the main character and you couldn't swap him out.

Not true. Locke was pretty powerful in FF6. Zidane also as you mentioned in FF9. There was no Thief in quite a few of the FF titles. In all the customizabe ones (like tactics) Thief can be leveld up with weapons and armor to be very powerful DD's.

Ignoring that, think about this utility you are talking about for a second. In almost every other FF game with a thief class or steal ability, stealing was a way to get the most powerful weapons and armor in the entire game. If we could steal D rings from KB, abjurations from Fafhog and a completed Mandau from Dynamis Lord this argument will be valid.

Every specific "Thief" ability in Final Fantasy 11 is a joke. I'm not sure how you can argue that. They have tried and failed to give us more relevant steal stuff. Aurasteal, Despoil, Accomplice etc. Collaborator is useful for THF tanking but is someting we aren't designed or intended to do.

The FFXI develepment team has made a pretty clear statement on this with their updates over the years. They took everything that was valuable out of chests and coffers THF could lock pick (and haven't added anything for lock picking since). They nerfed the stealing of beastcoins from beastmen. Mug steals like 3 gil on a 15 minute recast (That's ok though. They just STOPPED giving gil to NMs for us to Mug). Aurasteal, for some wierd reason, was just arbitrarily attached to (item)Steal (this should have never happened). Despoil is a heaping pile of failure that, just to add insult to ridiculousness, also shares a recast timer with steal. Accomplice and Collaborator share the same recast timer....its just absurd.

A thread on this page said it best. We are not Thieves. Our steal abilities are trash. All the other incarnations of Thief in past FF games are laughing their asses off at FFXI Thief.

Clearly Square Enix thought that powerful Thief utility like this is over powered in FFXI. That's probably why they decided to go more the route of DD with FFXI THF instead.

Obligatory FF11 is not any other FF game and is really not comparable in the way you are attempting to do.

I don't know why you think thief is purely a DD and should be able to keep up in DD potential with the other pure DD jobs. Thief style jobs have almost always followed the trend of a lighter DD, trading off pure power for speed and utility. FFXI is no exception.

I find it fascinating that you think that there is such a mythical creature as a pure DD job. Or that such a thing would be a reason to purposefully make thief a gimped damage dealer. No job is purely a DD. Every DD job has support and job specific utility abilities.

If you just look at all of our DD specific abilites compared to everything else, I don't see how one can conclude that we are not designed as a DD job.

[Arcon]

This is really reaching. Accomplorator, Sneak/Trick attack aren't controlling the flow of any party.

They are. The fact that currently (especially inside Abyssea) the flow of a battle is so chaotic (mainly due to flaws within the enmity system) changes nothing in that regard. The capabilities are there.

The only one that applies to your second grouping is Treasure Hunter. Come on. Really? You are using gilfinder, steal and mug to argue that THF is a support job? Seriously?

Yes, because those are supporting abilities. How else would you classify them?

Ok I'll bite. Gilfinder does not work in parties, only solo (even thought we were designed not to solo lol). Steal, despoil and mug only steal (useless) things and give them to you, not your party.

I didn't know about Gilfinder being solo only, and to be honest I'm not quite sure I should believe it. I'll have to test it myself later. Regardless, those abilities can hardly be classified in any other way. On an interesting (although probably unintended) note, Steal, Despoil and Mug all give some enmity and can be used as such. They're also nice claiming tools, especially Mug if your inventory is full, which actually would qualify as supporting the party.

Conspirator was just added, but they just had to put that "Won't work on the monster's current enmity target" extra Thief fail limitation on it before they gave it to us.

Aurasteal is also a pretty big stretch to be listed as a support ability. But I could see someone perceiving a lame 5 minute recast dispel (that for some strange reason was attached to steal) being a "support ability" in some sense.

Aside from the fact that it is no longer very relevant, Feint is pretty good.

I just can't see where you are getting the idea that Thief is a support job from? Or why you are so against the damage that we do?

I get the idea from the things you just listed, and from what I said before.

Think about what you are saying. By this definition Warior is a support job as well.

As I said in the post you quoted yourself, it's not just "damage dealer" or "not damage dealer", but various shades of gray. It's also the reason why some heavy damage dealers aren't the same as others. Not one job was designed to be purely damage dealer, with nothing else. WAR has Defender, MNK has Dodge and Counter, DRG has healing capabilities, SAM has Seigan/Third Eye, DRK has Dread Spikes, and so on. The question is simply where do we draw the line?

THF can barely deal comparable damage inside Abyssea, and there they still have a huge boost. Even in current outside-Abyssea content, THF performs subpar when compared to actual damage dealers. Imagine what it would be like on Lv90+ content without Atma and Cruor buffs.

Edit: I'm going to put this in here because it needs pointing out. Damage is the yard stick by which the utility of a melee class is measured. It seems to be a prerequisit. Damage 1st, utility second. You can see this happening with many jobs.

Sadly, this is often true. Especially lately, the strategic value of certain jobs and tactics is discarded in favor of brute force, because it works. It didn't use to, and I hope that will change again. On Byakko, you couldn't just throw everything you had on it and hope to survive. Well, you could, but wouldn't lead anywhere. These days you can. Will it stay that way? I don't know, but I certainly hope not. This is where it all becomes a matter of opinion again. I was very happy playing FFXI the way it was, and I don't see a reason to change it.

[Dragen]

The change to Trick Attack I'd like to see is it just allowing you to select the nearby party member you're applying the TA to. So long as they're nearby, say in Collaborator range, you can select them, then when the TA hits, they gain the enmity for it. That being said, I'd really like the range for Collaborator and Accomplice to get a much-needed increase. Aura Steal getting it's own seperate timer/ability away from Steal would be nice also.

[Nebo]

Yes, because those are supporting abilities. How else would you classify them?

Personally, I would classify them as useless. But to be classified as a support ability, I would think they should probably......support something?

I didn't know about Gilfinder being solo only, and to be honest I'm not quite sure I should believe it. I'll have to test it myself later.

It is. Lame isn't it? It's not that big a deal, though. Gilfinder isn't really relevant for anything.

Edit: To save you the trouble of tesing it:

Q: By having a thief in the party, how much increase is there in the Gil/Item drop after defeating a monster?

A: We are unable to give too many details with regards to the value of points. However, if the thief is skilled with the Treasure Hunter job ability, it may not be a bad idea to adventure with a thief. Also, with regard to gil, when a thief joins a party, there are no changes to the amount of gil obtained.

Regardless, those abilities can hardly be classified in any other way. On an interesting (although probably unintended) note, Steal, Despoil and Mug all give some enmity and can be used as such. They're also nice claiming tools, especially Mug if your inventory is full, which actually would qualify as supporting the party.

When you have to reach this hard to find uses and classifcations for these....they give enmity? lol. I agree, a good THF will use them as claiming tools (with severely limited range) but that doesn't mean they are support abilities.

As I said in the post you quoted yourself, it's not just "damage dealer" or "not damage dealer", but various shades of gray. It's also the reason why some heavy damage dealers aren't the same as others. Not one job was designed to be purely damage dealer, with nothing else. WAR has Defender, MNK has Dodge and Counter, DRG has healing capabilities, SAM has Seigan/Third Eye, DRK has Dread Spikes, and so on. The question is simply where do we draw the line?

All very good points. We just disagree where that line should be drawn. ALL of those jobs you listed are great DD's with defensive, support and utility abilities. Why should the same make THF a gimp DD?

I've always been of the mind set that most players that play melee classes want to be relatively competetive in terms of damage dealing capabilities, but differentiated with playstyle and job utility.

THF can barely deal comparable damage inside Abyssea, and there they still have a huge boost. Even in current outside-Abyssea content, THF performs subpar when compared to actual damage dealers. Imagine what it would be like on Lv90+ content without Atma and Cruor buffs.

This is exactly why I want this adjustment to Sneak Attack and Trick Attack. I'll point out again that this will NOT increase the damage potential of THF at all. It will allow us to utilize our current potiential easier (which as you noted is still lower than other heavy DD's). It will allow more flexibility when everything at an event is very chaotic, or when playing solo/duo, or in the abscence of cooperation to still use our fundamental job abilities.

Sadly, this is often true. Especially lately, the strategic value of certain jobs and tactics is discarded in favor of brute force, because it works. It didn't use to, and I hope that will change again. On Byakko, you couldn't just throw everything you had on it and hope to survive. Well, you could, but wouldn't lead anywhere. These days you can. Will it stay that way? I don't know, but I certainly hope not. This is where it all becomes a matter of opinion again. I was very happy playing FFXI the way it was, and I don't see a reason to change it.

It has been this way for a long time. Good linkshells have been using DD tanks YEARs before Abyssea because they can get the job done and deal more DMG than PLDs.

Even longer for THF when it was popular strategy to just have them tag HNMs with TH and sit out the rest of the fight. What job wants that to be their role? Furthermore, THF enmity utility is directly tied to its damage. Trick Attack utilty depends on the damage it does. THF being a gimped DD would just makes us less useful for our intended purpose and even less useful for killing things.

If SE introduces more battles, events and NMs where positional strategy is effective, going by my suggested tweaks, it would still be much more effective for THF to utilze SA and TA with positional enhancements or use stance B.

We just can't play anymore like its 2005 and be able to keep up. When the game goes outside of abyssea and challenging high level endgame content comes out without atmas like we have now...THF will be screwed.

Like this voidwatch stuff where it looks like Treasure Hunter will be useless. Rewards coming from treasure chests, enhanced only by !! weakness procs etc. Greeeeaaaaaat

[Zyla420]

this has been debated for the longest time, and i can see why. thf dd capability in most of the game content is sub par in comparison to most of the other melee/dd jobs. the reason? we're classified as melee/support/utility, and that's where the problem lies.

fact: we deal mediocre dmg in comparison to solid dd jobs.
fact: our utility abilities are some of the most useless abilities in the game.
fact: we have a grand total of 3 real support abilities, 2 of which are pretty much useless at this point. (we have 5 if you count TA and aurasteal)

imo either 1 of 3 things need to happen to balance this discrepancy out:

A. increase our overall dmg potential to at least come close to sold dd's.

B. drastically increase the usefulness of the utility abilities we have, and add more to compensate for the lack of dd.

C. give us more support abilities that are actually relevant at this point in the game.

and here's the kicker guys, i have solutions to for all 3.

A. in addition to the OPs suggestions for SA and TA, a new self buff ability on a 1 min timer that will double the effectiveness of your next SA or TA. call it deadly focus, or whatever name ya want, point is the whole idea of thf's SA and TA is they study the enemy finding a weak point and striking that spot for spike dmg. this would be like focusing extra hard to make that strike twice as lethal.

B. raise the base success rate of steal to 25-35% chance, put it on a 1 min timer, and add in special ex items that can only be stolen from mobs that can be used to trade to a npc for special thf only gear/items/ammo/whatever that helps with our utility in general (i.e. key ring belt?). also separate the timer from despoil (should also be on 1 min timer), which should also see a drastic increase in effectiveness. add more things to chests and coffers that only thf can get that can be used in pt situations for additional benefits (i.e. aoe based ex items that can only be used on thf to boost the pt's parameters, kinda like the temp items but aoe).

edit: also adjust mug to a 2 min timer, and allow it to steal cruror from aby mobs. (nothing broken, 200-300 cruror on normal mobs, 2-3k on NMs or somethin)

C. give us more support abilities that debilitate the enemy (att down, def down, acc down, enemy tp wipe, etc...) that run in line with the stealing theme or that stack on SA or TA (2 short term defuffs every one min ain't that bad or broken). steal again should be on a 1 min timer, mainly for aurasteal. increase our marksmanship ability to B or B+, and give us access to new status bolts that induce stun, silence, addle, tp drain, mp drain, amnesia, etc...

edit: also thought about alot of the daggers thf can use that have add effect procs that would be useful to a support role, so maybe a new job trait that boosts proc rates on these types of weapons by maybe 25% or so?

only one of these options would need to be implemented to balance thf out a bit more, but these are just my own opinions and nobody is inclined to agree or disagree with them. just the things i feel that would help thf as a whole.

[Babekeke]

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?

MNKs tank with counterstance; WARs (mainly in abyssea, but are sometimes used for tanking outside of abby) use retalliation for extra tp; SAMs like to have the mob facing them for extra damage from their ws (if they merited overwhelm); No reason for any PLD to not want hate; DNC is often unused, but make a great evasion tank with fan dance and are generally happy to take hate; BST when set up for pet tanking welcome extra hate (if /nin) so they can stick it all onto their pet via Snarl; DRG have high jump and super jump to allow them to avoid large amounts of hate when it's unwanted; THF if you have another thf in the pt then you should arrange to TA each other alternately.

That's 8 out of the 20 jobs, and I didn't include nin, who might prefer to be using Innin, but if fighting anything significant (NMs and such), they would possibly be the designated tank so they should welcome a TA. When you're not fighting something significant (regular exp mobs etc.) they tend to die so fast that 1 recast of utsu:Ni, or 1 use of seigan third eye is sufficient to last out the fight, so your DDs should just STFU and suck it up. If they consiistantly keep moving, either kick them; leave yourself; or just sit down and watch them kill mobs for you until they cotton on and listen XD

[noodles355]

Not true. Locke was pretty powerful in FF6. Zidane also as you mentioned in FF9. There was no Thief in quite a few of the FF titles. In all the customizabe ones (like tactics) Thief can be leveld up with weapons and armor to be very powerful DD's.

That doesn't change the fact that the purpose of the thief, with their base stats and abilities always follow the same pattern: They are fast attackers, with less physical strength, who also have utility abilities like steal and flee. This is always the case. Even excptions like Zidane and Locke still have those utility abilities. The only reason they are made physically strong is because they are the main character and you have to use them. Although in the case of Zidane, Amarant, Freya and Steiner are still more powerful. And more useful.

Ignoring that, think about this utility you are talking about for a second. In almost every other FF game with a thief class or steal ability, stealing was a way to get the most powerful weapons and armor in the entire game. If we could steal D rings from KB, abjurations from Fafhog and a completed Mandau from Dynamis Lord this argument will be valid.

Congratulations, you've pin-pointed bad game design. Steal is useless, well done sherlock. That doesn't change the fact that that is still how thief was designed for this game. And actually as far as utility goes, the argument is valid. What is treasure hunter? You may not be able to steal an abjuration from fafhogg, but your Treasure Hunter makes it significantly easier to get those drops.

Every specific "Thief" ability in Final Fantasy 11 is a joke. I'm not sure how you can argue that. They have tried and failed to give us more relevant steal stuff. Aurasteal, Despoil, Accomplice etc. Collaborator is useful for THF tanking but is someting we aren't designed or intended to do.

I'm not sure I ever argued against that.

The FFXI develepment team has made a pretty clear statement on this with their updates over the years. They took everything that was valuable out of chests and coffers THF could lock pick (and haven't added anything for lock picking since). They nerfed the stealing of beastcoins from beastmen. Mug steals like 3 gil on a 15 minute recast (That's ok though. They just STOPPED giving gil to NMs for us to Mug). Aurasteal, for some wierd reason, was just arbitrarily attached to (item)Steal (this should have never happened). Despoil is a heaping pile of failure that, just to add insult to ridiculousness, also shares a recast timer with steal. Accomplice and Collaborator share the same recast timer....its just absurd.

You do realise that nerfing coffers, lockpicking and steal wasn't because they wanted to move thief in a different direction right? You do realise they were anti-RMT measures? And the coffer nerf was to make getting your AF easier without some thief taking your coffer every 30 minutes.

A thread on this page said it best. We are not Thieves. Our steal abilities are trash. All the other incarnations of Thief in past FF games are laughing their asses off at FFXI Thief.

What's your point? Se designed us as a utility job and light DD. Yes they designed us badly, but that's how they designed us. We are not heavy DDs. Stop thinking we should be.

Clearly Square Enix thought that powerful Thief utility like this is over powered in FFXI. That's probably why they decided to go more the route of DD with FFXI THF instead.

Obligatory FF11 is not any other FF game and is really not comparable in the way you are attempting to do.

DD route? What DD route? Everything they've added for thief has been more utility than DD after Lv76 with the sole exception of Dual Wield.

I find it fascinating that you think that there is such a mythical creature as a pure DD job. Or that such a thing would be a reason to purposefully make thief a gimped damage dealer. No job is purely a DD. Every DD job has support and job specific utility abilities.

There are jobs that were designed to be primarilly a DD. There are jobs that were designed to be less of a DD whilst adding more utility. Thief is the latter. Maybe my use of "pure" was wrong, but "primarilly" works.

If you just look at all of our DD specific abilites compared to everything else, I don't see how one can conclude that we are not designed as a DD job.

[/quote]
Warrior
DD specific abilites: Berserk, Warcry, Agressor, Restraint, Blood Rage, Warriors Charge
Utility abilities: Retalliation, Provoke, Defender, Tomahawk
More DD abilities than utility.
Monk:
DD spefici: Boost, Focus, Chi Blast, Footwork, Formless Strikes, Impetus
Utility: Dodge, Chakra, Countersstance, Mantra, Perfect counter
More DD than utility
Dark Knight:
DD specific: Last Resort, Souleater, Dark Seal, Diabolic Eye, Nether Void
Utility: Arcane Circle, Arcane Crest
More DD than utility.

Thief!:
Pure DD: Sneak Attack, Assassin's Charge,
Utility: Trick Attack, Flee, Mug, Hide, Acocmplice, Collabarator, Feint, Despoil, Conspirator.
Significantly more utility than DD abilities. I don't know how you can argue our primary role was obviously that of a DD. We have much more (theoretically) utility than DD potential. The fact that most of it is irrelevant is down to poor game design doesn't change the fact that that is how thief was designed.

[Phen]

I really dont mind us going more USEFULL utility and light dd (something like dnc is to whm as thf is to rdm). Despoil was a step this way... but besides way to long a cast its functionally useless on anything you would want to use it on (read: any nm)

Really though what we need are group/solo stances. Many of the other jobs get things that function this way: nin/sam stances, whm--misery/solace war-various abilities, monk-various abilities, sch-arts.

[Nebo]

Congratulations, you've pin-pointed bad game design. Steal is useless, well done sherlock.

Thanks . I'd like to think it was obvious but some people just like to keep arguing that this "utility" is somehow a good reason for keeping THF as some kind of weak Damage Dealer.

And actually as far as utility goes, the argument is valid. What is treasure hunter? You may not be able to steal an abjuration from fafhogg, but your Treasure Hunter makes it significantly easier to get those drops.

You are really getting the hang of these overstatements. I'm proud of you . What is Bounty shot? Did that fix RNG?

Should THF just be happy and secure in their "utility" now that the Developement Team just gave Treasure Hunter (The ONE thing that groups actually WANT us for) to RNG and BST as well? And just gave RNG the ability to enhance it without feeding TP and safely out of AOE range?

You do realise that nerfing coffers, lockpicking and steal wasn't because they wanted to move thief in a different direction right? You do realise they were anti-RMT measures?

The fact that Square Enix has SAID themselves that they are looking to increase our damage dealing potential and looking for ways to allow us to take control on the front line is what makes me think they are moving THF in a different direction.

Everyone realises that those nerfs were anti RMT measures. RMT were able to exploit them and SE concluded that the level at which these abilities could be exploited by FFXI THF was OVERPOWERED. Does this somehow make those things NOT a direct and significant nerf to Thief utility? Or does it just make it ok that they took those things away without compensating?

What's your point? Se designed us as a utility job and light DD. Yes they designed us badly, but that's how they designed us. We are not heavy DDs. Stop thinking we should be.

"Thief is designed badly but it is not a heavy DD! Stop thinking we should be!" lmao.

I find this wildly amusing that you think you are an authority on the subject such that your oppinion is fact and you should be able to tell people how they should think (or not think) about it.

I don't recall anyone in this thread asking for THF to be a "heavy DD" either. The sugestions that I made wouldn't even increase our damage potential by .0000001%. They would simply allow us more opportunites to fulfil our current DD potential when the situation calls for it (which is still lower than your so-called "heavy DD's").

DD route? What DD route? Everything they've added for thief has been more utility than DD after Lv76 with the sole exception of Dual Wield.

So quick to try and prove me wrong that you forget simple things. Critical Attack Bonus? Need I mention the awesome DD stats on our Empyrian Armor? Powerful Magian daggers? Enhances critical hit damage armor? THF specific Dual Wield gear? Increases triple attack damage gear? And native dual wield.

Dual Wield and Critical Attack bonus alone are significant steps in the DD direction.

There are jobs that were designed to be primarilly a DD. There are jobs that were designed to be less of a DD whilst adding more utility. Thief is the latter. Maybe my use of "pure" was wrong, but "primarilly" works.

This should be fun.

Warrior
DD specific abilites: Berserk, Warcry, Agressor, Restraint, Blood Rage, Warriors Charge
Utility abilities: Retalliation, Provoke, Defender, Tomahawk
More DD abilities than utility

Thief!:
Pure DD: Sneak Attack, Assassin's Charge,
Utility: Trick Attack, Flee, Mug, Hide, Acocmplice, Collabarator, Feint, Despoil, Conspirator.

.
Lets try to make your lists a little more accurate shall we? Let us compare WAR and THF:

Warrior

• WAR DD: Berserk, Aggressor, Restraint, Warriors Charge, Double Attack, Critical Attack Bonus, Fencer (DO WAR's use this? Lets count it anyway)
  
  
• WAR Support/Utility:Blood Rage, Warcy, (can't put conspirator here unless we put these here), provoke, defender, retaliation, Tomohawk

WAR DD: 8 Vs WAR Support/Utility: 6

Thief:

• THF DD: Sneak Attack, Trick Attack (We list Trick Attack here because it deals direct damage and its utility depends soley on the DAMAGE that it does), Triple Attack, Assassin, Critical Attack Bonus, Dual Wield, Ambush, Assassin's Charge.
  
  
• THF Support/Utility: Treasure Hunter, Flee, Hide, {Aurasteal/Steal/Despoil}(Count as one because they have the same timer), Feint, Accomplorator (Accomplorator counts as one because they share a recast timer), Conspirator, mug, gilfinder.

THF DD: 8 VS THF Support/Utility: 9

Significantly more utility than DD abilities.

Unfortunately this is not the case (in theory OR in practice). And the fact that most of THF utility stuff is either useless or extremely limited in use compared to EVERYTHNG WAR gets for support/utility being quite useful should tell you something about what the true spread is between DD and utility for Thief.

The fact is, that in practice, we are more DD than utility. You say we should be utility and gimp DD. I say a slight DD tweak to SA and TA or stances to enhance them makes more sense. We disagree and that's fine.

I don't know how you can argue our primary role was obviously that of a DD.

That is because you are trying make a one sided argument that intentionally ignores the big picture. Not to mention grossly understating THF specific DD abilities to make it.

We have much more (theoretically) utility than DD potential. The fact that most of it is irrelevant is down to poor game design doesn't change the fact that that is how thief was designed.

We don't have more theoretical anything. Even Warrior has more ACTUAL utility than Thief does. You can cry to the heavens about the fact that we have more utility-like abilities and ignore the fact that they are useless if you want. That doesn't make your point valid.

Poor game design....Poor Thief design is the very definition of a good reason to want job adjustments for change.