Thie... Treasure Hunter ideas

[AyinDygra]

Steal and Mug have been put on a very long recast timers making Thief into more of an assassin during gameplay. I say we need more stealing or shall I say, "Treasure Hunting" by Thieves during battle. To avoid impacting the economy with all those new items being stolen, the stolen items don't have to be real items or have gil value.

Job Ability: Snatch
Level 10
Recast: 1min (or less)
This version of steal allows thieves to acquire "temporary items" from monsters, like potions or grenades.
* These items will disappear once you change zones.
* Temporary items can be stolen numerous times during the same battle, if it goes long enough. Only one of each temporary item can be held at any one time.
* All Thieves can steal these temporary items from the same monster. (no limit aside from the recast timer, and the chance to get the item each time)
* Certain actions performed against a monster might change the temporary items available from them.
* Not all items need to be useful to Thieves. Since the ability is usable as a subjob, a whole variety of items could be obtained.

FF Tactics and FFX/X-2 both introduced several things that thieves can steal that are not items.

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Job Ability:Borrowed Time
In the past, this has added Stop to the target. In FFXI, this could add slow to the enemy, and haste to the thief. (small amounts, roughly 5% max to each) With multiple thieves, there should be a cap on how much slow can be added to the enemy, but each thief should benefit from the haste even if it doesn't add the slow in those cases.

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Job Ability:Stolen Heart
In the past, this has been a version of charm. It has been suggested by others, that this would be a form of hate manipulation in FFXI, causing the enemy to love instead of hate the Thief. This could simply be a way to stop a battle and get away. The enemy may give the Thief a gift.

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Job Ability:Pilfer HP
Job Ability:Pilfer MP
These would be physical ways to steal HP and MP, instead of magical. They wouldn't be nearly as strong as the spells Drain and Aspir, but could prove useful in certain situations, especially if they were usable as /Thf also (some jobs have more use for MP than others)

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In past FF games, Thieves protected the entire party from "back attacks" with this trait:

Job Ability: Caution
Level 30
Reduces the chance of being hit by critical hits. (greatly lower enemy critical hit rate)
* Effects the entire party, like "circle" abilities.
* Perhaps add: Increases defensive skill activation rate. (Shield, Guard, Parry, Evade)

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Job Ability: Entice (or Lure)
Level 10
Effect Duration: 5sec Recast: 3min
Ranged job ability, like Provoke.
This ability claims the enemy like provoke, without as much hate generation. For the duration of this effect, the enemy will not link other enemies and will not attack or cast on the person it now chases.
* The effect wears off once any other aggressive action has been performed against it.
* Only works on monsters without hate of any sort.
* Anything "Impossible to Gauge" is immune to the effect.

Many times people have to wait for monsters to wander far enough away from each other before pulling to avoid links. This time spent waiting can easily break XP chains. Any monsters aggressive to sound are especially annoying. The purpose of this ability is to allow Thieves (or people who sub thief) to pull monsters that would ordinarily link.

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Job Ability: Distract
Level 40
Duration: 30sec
Recast: 2min
Removes position restrictions on all actions taken against the distracted target. (Sneak attack, Overwhelm, Closed Position, etc)
* Allows solo thieves to use sneak attack.
* May disable or lower the enemy's defensive abilities for a short duration (Shield, Guard, Parry, Evade, Counterattack).
* Increases success rate of stealing abilities. (Steal, Mug, etc)

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Adjustment: When Thieves get Treasure Hunter II, allow Mug to inflict an attack while stealing. (does not apply to Thief used as a subjob)

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Just some ideas I had to make thieves more "Treasure Hunter"-y and less Assassin-ish.