Screwed again: Proposed THF job adjustments.

[Alaik]

Paramedic, I get paid to try and get 8 hours at least. However most stations I work during the day keep me running around til at night. (OK so I don't get paid for 8 hours, but more like 5 naps that take 8 hours combined through the shift)

Posting from my droid after going to the hospital, coincidentally.

[Byrth]

Arcon! Quick question~!

Could you have your parser separate procced from unprocced monsters in Dynamis? You could tell which color proc it is by the KIs received so far. I can't imagine it would be that different from pulling out TH levels. That way I have a large TH2 sample (a lot of DNC/NIN + WHM/THF runs) if anyone has a TH3 sample to compare it against.

[Arcon]

Arcon! Quick question~!

Could you have your parser separate procced from unprocced monsters in Dynamis? You could tell which color proc it is by the KIs received so far. I can't imagine it would be that different from pulling out TH levels. That way I have a large TH2 sample (a lot of DNC/NIN + WHM/THF runs) if anyone has a TH3 sample to compare it against.

I'm sure I could. But I have no idea what you just said. I only did Newdyna about two times, so not really sure how it works. Could you /PM me details on FFXIAH?

[noodles355]

Wouldn't mind getting Widescan to be honest. Help with a few things, but not enough relies on it that it would be game breaking anymore.

[Laphine]

truth be told, it surely would fit us to have widescan for treasure chests~

[FrankReynolds]

you guys gotta stop falling for this crap. devs read my 1 negative comment and your 3 positive and think "well they don't seem to like bully much... lets give them wide scan instead...".

[Camate]

As there have been a lot of concerns and comments cropping up about thief lately, here is some additional feedback from the development team.

Regarding the Efficacy of Aura Steal
When compared to Voracious Trunk, Osmosis, and Absorb-Attri, Aura Steal’s superiority really shines due to the fact that it is possible to elicit a dispel effect regardless of an enemy’s inherent resistances. Also, depending on how many merit points you’ve used to upgrade it, when you consider that you can reach a 100% rate of absorption, despite the recast timer being slightly long, the effects of Aura Steal are by no means weak.

While this is only one example, it might be possible to make Aura Steal its own ability and keep its recast timer shared with Steal. However, there is a high possibility that we will need to balance this by reducing the absorption rate as a trade-off, and I don’t think this would be very desirable.

We will be carefully looking into things for the revamps to the merit point effects, so we would like to take a good amount of time and hear all of your feedback.

Regarding Trick Attack and Decoy Shot
Decoy Shot, which is scheduled to be implemented in the upcoming version update, has been balanced more around the idea of controlling your own enmity. (We understand that the effects of Yoichinoyumi/Annihilator/Armageddon are similar, but since this is comparing an ability to a relic weapon, we think that’s an entirely separate discussion.)

Let’s take a look at the below comparison:

• Decoy Shot
Recast: 5 minutes
A set amount of enmity can be diverted to another player and any excess enmity will remain on the ranger.

• Trick Attack
Recast: 1 minute
All of the enmity generated at that time can be diverted to another player.

In regards to determining the stacking of the Treasure Hunter effect via TA WS, SA WS, and SATA WS
The reason why you cannot tell if the effect is increasing is due to the fact that it is difficult to make the log display the Treasure Hunter enhancement effect during a weapon skill.

If we try to make the increase display in the log during a weapon skill, the amount of work would be on par with multiple job adjustments, so we do not have any plans of making this particular adjustment. However, the fact that it is difficult to tell when the Treasure Hunter effect increases, means that we will be looking into other adjustments.

[Karbuncle]

I thank you for a second Update Camate

That being said, With the RNG Ability, Even if its only 10% of the Enmity per shot, it was said it would last 3 minutes. a RNG Shooting that for 3 minutes will likely give their target many many many times more enmity than a Trick attack would in that time. (Assuming no WS' are involved)

This might not be because TA is bad, Its simply THF is laughably weak. In the interest of Making Trick Attack not terrible, are there in plans to boost the damage through those abilities?

Perhaps add an Attack multiplier to SA and TA? Since the problem with those on hard enemies is that your attack is so low the damage is not great. If you can add a 2.0 or 1.66 Mult. to SA/TA it could go a long way in improving those abilities.

Perhaps even look into making SA and TA like Feint too? Meaning, The effect stays on until requirements are met. Further example: You use SA and the mob turns, SA does not wear off if you hit it, it will only wear off when the SA is successful or 1minute has passed.

Could that be worked?

On the note of Aura Steal, I understand is uniquesness, But 5 minutes is a bit long. Realistically, How many fights last more than 10-15 minutes? not even voidwatch mobs take that long. being able to dispel a mob once a fight is not really as broken as the devs make it sound.

Could you at least ask them if they could introduce something to reduce Steal's recast timer... Maybe to a max of ~3 minutes? It truthfully wouldn't be a big improvement but it would help in a small way. I understand the idea of maintaining balance, But as it stands THF is a very undesirable job for anything outside of Treasure hunter, and even then, well.. I don't need to repeat why TH has ruined the job.

Either way, You talk of Splitting Steal/Aura Steal. If you could put Aura Steal on a 1min~2miin timer, and make it share recast with steal in exchange for a much lower "Absorb" rate, not a single THF here would object to that. No one uses that ability to really "Steal" the buff, Its more of a "Dispel" thing, the absorb is a bonus.

So yah, If you're talking about Making Aura Steal separate than steal with a much lower Delay, Have at it. .If you're saying split them but make them share timers and both be 5 minutes still? Then yah, Keep them the same, that would be stupid of us too want..

Thanks again for the second update, Even though its kinda... grim, in terms of where THF is going. very very grim. I can be a little upset at the direction THF is going....

----

Oh, Any more info on Bully? If its AOE, Single Target, THF only?

[Zirael]

As there have been a lot of concerns and comments cropping up about thief lately, here is some additional feedback from the development team.

Regarding the Efficacy of Aura Steal
When compared to Voracious Trunk, Osmosis, and Absorb-Attri, Aura Steal’s superiority really shines due to the fact that it is possible to elicit a dispel effect regardless of an enemy’s inherent resistances. Also, depending on how many merit points you’ve used to upgrade it, when you consider that you can reach a 100% rate of absorption, despite the recast timer being slightly long, the effects of Aura Steal are by no means weak.

While this is only one example, it might be possible to make Aura Steal its own ability and keep its recast timer shared with Steal. However, there is a high possibility that we will need to balance this by reducing the absorption rate as a trade-off, and I don’t think this would be very desirable.

We will be carefully looking into things for the revamps to the merit point effects, so we would like to take a good amount of time and hear all of your feedback.

Thank you for an update.
I assume you've read 64 pages of this thread and similar ones. Can I ask you how many Thieves have you seen talking about absorbing enemy attributes and using this trait as a viable battle strategy? I've seen none. There are Thieves that use this for fun on Jailer of Love Fluorescence to see a 999 Attack for once, but, as everyone repeats, it's used more for fun and nice screenshots. People who use Aura Steal (if you read carefully) mention dispelling effects at best. This ability is already broken and is not used as per developer's design, because that design was flawed, there is no need to nerf it any more.

In order to absorb something good:
- Steal (5min recast) must fail to obtain an item
- 1 to 5 merit points need to be spent for a 20-100% chance of absorbing an effect
- monster/NM can not be immune to Aura Steal (try stealing Blazing Eruca's Blaze Spikes, any Stoneskin effect, etc, there are surprisingly many examples)
- if lucky, one, randomly chosen of monster's effects will be dispelled or absorbed and will remain active on you for a minute or two (unless you make a trip to Sky and absorb Mother Globe's Shock Spikes, I give you that)
That's a lot of IFs and BUTs for THF for a chance to get something random, whilst, for comparison, anyone can use Elemental Seal + some dispelling spell for pretty much the same result. Hell, DRK will be able to Absorb-Arrb+Nether Void+Dark Seal (assuming fully merited) every 5min for almost guaranteed absorbtion of 2 effects and if Dark Seal is not merited, every 10min with Elemental Seal. Where's that Aura Steal's superiority you've talked about?

Lately you have been fixing many annoying things in this game that have been lurking around and taking away fun from people without any reason. You've fixed Kirin room teleport, made so that BLU set spells remain saved after changing jobs, you will be fixing Quicksand Caves doors, etc etc etc. After 5 years of begging PUPs were promised you will 'look into' Scanner being bugged (casting Silence on crabs and immune monsters) and Damage Gauge prioritizing Blindna over Cure when master is in red HP, etc.

When you have 60+ pages of Thieves repeating over and over again that Aura Steal, Steal, Despoil, Mug, Accomplice and Treasure Hunter III+ (and our damage output outside Abyssea) are broken and useless, could you at least stop and reconsider that maybe, just maybe you are wrong in your presumptions and your design has failed or there's something wrong with the spaghetti code? Many of us play Thief maybe even every time we log in into your game. You see THF from perspective of game code, excel spreadsheets, equations etc, we put your theory into practice in Voidwatch, Abyssea and any other new content. This is our feedback. And from our first hand experience, we tell you that many of the tools we were given to our disposal do not apply to the realities we currently play in. We give you feedback, alot of serious feedback, sometimes with good ideas and numbers behind them. We do not bother doing this because we want be top overpowered DDs etc (we'd go play WAR, SAM, MNK etc instead), but because what we have now is in many cases a bunch of fail. So we look forward to something useful and good and make reasonable (I think) proposals.

Be honest with yourselves and ask yourselves this question: "What current endgame content an ability like Despoil can be used to turn the tide of battle from looming defeat into victory?" What for did you add it, many of us keep wondering... What about Steal, Aura Steal, Mug, Accomplice, Ambush? When I use Conspirator on my party, I can not see any difference (accuracy wise), so I think to myself, why did I even bother macroing it in and why did you bother adding it? Maybe you haven't realized it yet, but there's something wrong here, hence we speak up.

(sorry for boring wall of text )

[SpankWustler]

Stuff the Development Team Said

Thanks for keeping in touch, bros, but I don't think the issue is Thief's abilities compared to similar abilities. The issue is Thief's abilities compared to functional abilities that can serve an intended purpose. Functional abilities that serve an unintended purpose would be okay too, I guess.

Five minutes is an eternity to wait for an ability that dispels an effect, even if it has a chance to place that buff on the player. I can count on one hand the number of times that I have used Voracious Trunk or Osmosis to take a buff from an enemy, and this isn't because of their success rate. It's just not that useful an effect.

Trick Attack is insufficient to control enmity to a reasonable degree, and I suspect Decoy Shot will be as well. The primary purpose of Trick Attack is currently damage, and the primary purpose of Decoy Shot will be to reduce the enmity of the Ranger itself. Even combined with Accomplice and Collaborator, this sort of ability just isn't as effective as it's envisioned to be.

The additional information about Treasure Hunter is good to know.