[dev1019] When was the last REAL thf update?

[Karbuncle]

JT that transfers x% of the thf's enmity to the TA'd party member.

I liked this better when you recommended it as a piece of Equipment. I still stand this would be an unintended nerf for a THF in a low-man Tanking situation.

I agree with most other points, aside from a TH+ knife. Don't want another one of those >___>, just let us upgrade Thief's Knife to not suck D:

[Catsby]

In my opinion the best things that could be done to thief aren't to the job. A few adjustments here and there yes but as a whole you can't really ask for more. Thf has decent damage output, insane evasion, gear options out the ass and the benefit of (allegedly) increasing drops on monsters.

If I were to enhance thf it would be more to "treasure" chests/coffers and steal/loot pools on monsters. Believe it or not there were times when you would actually carry around tools to crack open chests because you were almost guaranteed to walk away with something nice. You could also make a ton of money stealing coins from beastmen if you were persistent enough.

Of course thf's hate abilities are kinda F'd but that's hardly thf's fault and the enmity system as a whole right now.

[Karbuncle]

Thf has decent damage output, insane evasion, gear options out the ass

I see your opinion, I agree in some ways, But i disagree in a few as well.

I don't think our DMG output is "decent". When it comes to Melee, Most people don't even consider THF a Melee DD, we are a TH-whore. Our "DD" Capabilities generally fall behind even SMN on anything worth a spit (Read: Non-abyssean HNM-level Content, Like VWNM). Inside Abyssea we do okay, Its outside is what I'm worried about.

On Our Evasion... It is rather pointless on HNM/Endgame content too as its unlikely we're tanking unless everyone else died, what with having the DD output and Hate-holding Abilities of a level 3 DRK. If we are tanking by some miracle, It probably wont last long as most new NMs/mobs have strong TP moves that either Ignore shadows or strip them quickly, and their Acc is too powerful to tank reliably, and our DD output would hardly let us keep hate.

I just want some sort of buffs to our Alliance participation. TH is nice, Coll/accomp are rather okay, in a very limited situational sort of way, I just want more reasons for us to be invited outside of Treasure Hunter, because thats all THF is good for on any real content (Read: Nothing Abyssea).

Inside Abyssea we're fine, But content is not staying there and its apparent once we step back into HNM level content THF is absolutely trash, and the only reason we're invited is for Treasure Hunter.

I know I'm talking in circles, but giving us an improvement to lock picking would be as useless as giving PUP an Attachment that made that let the Automaton have access to more /emotes. While fun, and neat, It wouldn't fix anything on the job and i would still be upset.

Don't get me wrong at all, I'd gladly take a Lock-picking "boost" if it came in the same update as our big DD potential/usefulness boost. Because lock picking fits the role of a THF, i Simply don't want our job to be a bucket of worthless Gimmicks.

I.E Treasure Hunter, Worthless Steal pools, 15 minute "30 gil" mug, Lock Picking, etc.

I'd take improvements to the above, I just would really like them to "Address the issue where in Thief is completely worthless in any realistic HNM Scenario outside of the Placebo Hunter effect"

[Alaik]

I personally wish they would just give DNC a TH one tier higher than our's. I doubt SE actually hates any job outright, so it's gotta be all they see is, "Well, every HNM alliance has had a THF in it for the last 8 years, THF must be fine!"

The moment we're not the TH specialists anymore, maybe we'll actually get something useful, be it DD or hate management or whatever.

On a more amusing note, a friend just quit FFXI after grinding up to 90. He wanted to be a THF. Before he started playing he asked me about all the jobs.
"Well, what about Thief?"
"Depends, do you want the real answer or what the manual says?"
"Manual, no offense but half the time in MMOs the 'real' view is BS."
"K, you're a hate specialist. You're supposed to direct the flow of battle by controlling enmity, delivering large criticals and ensuring the monster gets to your camp safely."

Fast forward 3 weeks.

"FFXI? Fuck that game. I wanted to play a Thief but all I was wanted for in big events was Treasure Hunter. Enmity management my ass. Why is enmity even an issue if a Thief is in the party? That's our job I thought. To let everyone else say f*** enmity."

"So how's that manual working out for you?"

Not that it'll change anything, THF is only going to get useless steal and TH crap forever and always, but I had a good laugh at him after his saying, "Oh well the dev's ideas are always right." Silly man, maybe for most companies, but not SE.

[Nebo]

•Adding an ability that allows for a triple attack.

Well, they plan to give them assassin's charge. Maybe they will give them TH and call it a day.

[user201108211515]

How about other jobs get crappy equip they have to wear at all times... Then they can have an idea of how bad it sucks to be thf now.

Its worse now then ever really.. Thanks to a visual proc for all to see.. It use to be.. have all TH gear on.. hit the mob once.. swap gears for DD thf mode...

DD thf is dead. Untill th12 is proced no one wants or cares to hear about how much damage you can do.

As stated many times over.. If thf didnt have TH.. pups would be sayn lolthf...

thf either needs timers for sa/ta reduced to 30 sec or we need more gurantted crit hit moves.

Money shot(lol) range crit hit much like bounty shot.

A crit hit based on current hate.

Enfeebling crit hits.. weaker then rdms of course

have to have hate, face to face with the mob, no one in the way

throat stab- crit hit+ silence
eye stab- crit hit+ blind
arm stab- crit hit+ amnseia
leg stab- crit hit+ gravity

could make more Im sure but need at least 4, shared timer @ 30 sec perhapse.

[Karbuncle]

I'm personally against anything that is restricted by Direction or Enemy hate. Because it would only benefit you inside Abyssea or when Solo or low man tanking, and with Abyssea ending, and real difficult content becoming more common, THF won't be a tank, nor something with high hate.

I like the general idea of Inflicting Ailments, However maybe tie them to Despoil? Reduce Despoil to ~1min, Have it inflict damage and debuff an enemy...

THF needs a lot of attention, But i doubt we'll see any. We may as well just settle in our lovely little role of being crap. Heck, even TH is pretty much pointless. TH2, TH12, Anyone wanna tell me the difference? Nope? no one knows? exactly... giant placebo.

[Vold]

I can't deny it. My THF has basically been a farming tool for 6 years. Kind of ticks you off when you look at the other jobs getting shit that's useful left and right and it's like they just can't think of a damn thing for THF or they're content with THF being ensured a spot because of TH and consider it more important to boost unpopular jobs with offense in mind. I don't feel they will ever give THF the royal treatment so I just accept it and that's all I have to say on the matter. However....

Heck, even TH is pretty much pointless. TH2, TH12, Anyone wanna tell me the difference? Nope? no one knows? exactly... giant placebo.

The more time I spend in sky the more I believe THIII and beyond really ups the drop rate on crappy drops. But I'm rolling with two characters these days so I don't expect anyone else to have as much experience as I do on my THF hunting stuff that can technically kill me without a healer duo. I also don't have a weak attention span so I can literally spend 8 hours in Sky and not even blink while other people would have logged long ago out of boredom.

Right now my belief is that with TH7+ you can expect to not have a big difference with common drops(which is what any TH testing data has been on so far) but it will increase rarer drops vastly. Now, I'm going to go ahead and respond to the inevitable mention of modern day end game stuff like voidwatch and Dynamis currency w/o proc drops, if SE wants us to slave over content then we are going to slave over it. They need this stuff to last who knows how long before real expansion content comes around again. I would not put it past them to have coded this stuff so that there's like a 0% drop rate to force people to do TE farming for Dynamis and all that bloody work in voidwatch. The key to seeing the TH differences is in older content. Does it really matter since it's working like crap on newer content? Nope! Unless you're doing what I am, making gil off of god scraps and abj tatters which requires some pop item farming, which BTW I am seeing quite a lot of item drops per God kill, too. Like v claws and behemoth hides. It's quite often. Did anyone know Byakko can drop 2 hides? Or 2 hides now? I didn't, but he does apparently since I saw it last week.

Tonight so far: 35 Aura statue kills: 3 raxa, 1 diorite. This is with the intent of getting procs which means no speed killing, only melee hits with SATA as much as possible. In comparison, two nights ago I did this farming with speed kills. 1 raxa, no diorite after 30 kills at which point I got tired and went to bed. I started way too late on it. Now, this has been my experience more or less since 90 came around. And I expect it to continue until proven otherwise with a 0-100 diorite trip like years past. But honestly I look at the raxa drops more than I do the diorite as evidence that TH7+ is working well for older content. I just wish it'd proc more often. Most kills I'm getting is 0-1 procs, sometimes 2.



As far as the THIII trait goes, I am undecided if it is making a difference in Sky or if it's the TH6 in gear and beyond with procs. Frankly, I don't care so long as my TH3 + 3 in gear and procs are getting what I want done, done. But I have not seen drop increases with TW farming targets like orcs for gold orcmasks, for example. I don't get procs with those so I expect the THIII trait alone isn't worth jackshit but there's much testing to go before I can make a call with that. Masks always were a very big hit or miss for me in the past. Sometimes they never drop and sometimes they drop like frickin' candy.

I have been incredibly lazy about trying to proc on Dynamis NMs due to time constraints but I will up my game on that and see the outcome. I've just about given up farming them because it seems like a giant waste of time that could have been spent getting another 20-30 singles from trash in a different camp. But I also typically speed kill Dynamis as I proc them then SA RS to kill. I stand to lose quite a bit of drops by taking my time on NMs for procs but I suppose if it gets some 100s more often than not it might be worth it...

[Insaniac]

Too long to quote

I gotta say I feel the exact opposite. I noticed no change in drop rates since TH3 was added. It's what drove me to start the TH testing in the first place. As I've said before even if TH3 does only kick in on low drop rate items.. with the current path of end game it does almost nothing. TH is worthless in voidwatch, einherjar, BCNMs, and WoE. Based on your theory, in abyssea TH3 would be worthless assuming you have procs which you hopefully do so as not to waste your time. Nothing in abyssea has a low drop rate with procs.

As for byakko and 2 B hides, yeah that happened to me a few times before TH3 existed. Most of what I have killed in sky recently has been suzakus and not a single one has dropped shining cloth and almost all of them have been single drop abj. Believe me, I have been looking for evidence of TH3+ actually doing something but I just don't see it.

[Karbuncle]

I gotta say I feel the exact opposite. I noticed no change in drop rates since TH3 was added. It's what drove me to start the TH testing in the first place. As I've said before even if TH3 does only kick in on low drop rate items.. with the current path of end game it does almost nothing. TH is worthless in voidwatch, einherjar, BCNMs, and WoE. Based on your theory, in abyssea TH3 would be worthless assuming you have procs which you hopefully do so as not to waste your time. Nothing in abyssea has a low drop rate with procs.

As for byakko and 2 B hides, yeah that happened to me a few times before TH3 existed. Most of what I have killed in sky recently has been suzakus and not a single one has dropped shining cloth and almost all of them have been single drop abj. Believe me, I have been looking for evidence of TH3+ actually doing something but I just don't see it.

I've been doing salvage lately and i share this sentiment. My brother during salvage goes DRK/THF (hes a E-peen number guy, SA > Torcleaver... don't ask), and I've seen more Double/Triple Alex drops from Gears he touched and i didn't (I.E only TH2, compared to my TH6+). This is of course nothing but small sample sizes and mere eyeballing.

But I've also killed Stupid No-Drop Turtle a good dozens times with TH9+ on every kill and still no Usukane item. (yes, Im aware this is also a small sample size).

IF you want to test the theory of "TH3+ effects Low Drop rates", I'd say head to salvage, its king of Low drop rates, i think after about a month or two you'll probably be as sure as we are :|