Thief - My thoughts as I approach year 7 of being one

[LeaderofAtlantis]

Even after all this time, this is the job I love the most. My initial response, while taking it from 1 to 75, to everyone saying "/NIN?" all the time was "I'm fine without it, thanks." The challenge was to take it from 1 to 75 on /WAR alone and I did, but I eventually stopped being stubborn (semi-lazy I guess) and leveled up /NIN which I now use more than /WAR, but if I have a good Bard for when I pull hate, I'll bring /WAR back out from time to time. Now, at level 90, the job is as good as it's ever been in team combat, but the main idea of a thief is that we are able to get what we want using our skills. So I would like to post my suggestions based on my experience with this job after all these years of doing it.

First off, Thief's Tools are something I rarely have used. My success rate with them has been less than impressive to me, and I enjoy killing things, so I've worked to farm keys when I need them. It would be nice to see a system introduced along the lines of say, fishing or Abyssea pyxides, where we can actually open them through skill using tools, skeleton keys, or living keys. Each key would require different things from us. I haven't completely thought this through about what could be done, but having 3 types of keys that we just use like a regular item and hope for the best hasn't impressed me much.

Second, Treasure Hunter against some monsters (like Aht Uhrgan Beastmen) seems like a waste. Why is it that none of those Beastmen have scrolls like the Beastmen of Mindartia and Quon? I know it's minor, but it was always something that bugged me a little bit so I thought I'd get it out there.

Third, Mug... why 15 minutes? I assume the original thought was "we don't want people just mugging 1 thing after another and getting gil that way and exploiting it", but seriously, few things can be mugged more than once, and aside from Notorious Monsters (which all respawn more than 15 minutes later), you can't mug a significant amount from a monster assuming it even drops gil (which are the only things that can be mugged). Heck, even if you dropped it to a 5 minute recast, I mug anywhere from 1 to 100 gil for the most part even with my Assassin's Bonnet equipped, so, at best, I could make 2,000 gil in 1 hour from this trait just from normal monsters. Nothing all that game breaking as far as the economy goes wouldn't you say? Or, if you want to keep it at 15, could we get a job trait that would cause it to do damage of some kind? We have Assassin job trait that affects our Trick Attack ability, so I know that can be done at least.

Fourth, why are Steal and Despoil on the same timer? I have Aura Steal merited just in case stealing an item fails. However, if Despoiling an item fails, I lose Aura Steal anyway and I've done nothing. Then I must wait 5 minutes to try again for any of them. I'm a thief so why couldn't I attempt both? It just seems debilitating to the main idea of the job to not allow us multiple ways to take something if the first way fails. Also, why is it only on very rare occasions that Notorious Monsters have items to steal (using Steal to get the weapon needed to kill Brigandish Blade was a brilliant idea, for example) and it seems that no Notorious Monster has anything to despoil? Perhaps it's a temporary oversight... or at least, I hope it was.

Finally, my ideas for job traits/abilities. Again, I don't think they're game breaking and it would help to add to the uniqueness of this job:

(JA) Vigilance - Temporarily increases evasion and parry rates. Duration: 30 seconds Recast: 5 minutes

(JA) Con - Not sure of a good in game description for it, but it would be similar to Hide in that it drops all enmity, but this would be used on things normally not fooled by Hide. In the case of Con, however, we would need to be face to face with the "mark" as it were. So it would be ineffective in a "run away" scenario. I would see this as being useful when say, using Accomplice on a WHM that just used Benediction and you just got the monster's attention. Duration: Instant Recast: 5 minutes

(JT) Gilgame Heart - Occasionally converts a percentage of damage taken to gil. Activation rate: 3% Damage to gil: 10%

This might be able to be abused, so activation rate and damage to gil conversion might need adjusted, but again, the whole idea of a Thief is that we know how to acquire things of value.

[Karbuncle]

Some of your Ideas are peeves of mine as well, Especially Despoil/Steal sharing timers... which is BullS...crap... And the fact Mug is on a 15 minute timer (Only use i get is using it while Camping NMs inside Dungeon areas, Mug the PH before it dies, Mug is up? Placeholder should be too !). With Mug, It doesn't bug me too much, They could stand to lower it, But i would much prefer the ability to Mug Cruor (It IS the currency of Abyssea) Rather than a lowered timer.

Despoil/Steal need to be split, They have 2 entirely different Secondary function (Despoil Inflicts Ailments, Steal <with merits> Can Remove mobs buffs), and entirely different Steal-Pools. The reason for them being linked is mind boggling. Despoil doesn't even work on, If i recall, Any NM at all, any good one anyway, Despite them sharing family types.

Like for instance, I Can Despoil a Buffalo Horn off any Bluffalo, But i can't Despoil one off of the NM Bluffalo? It makes no sense, Was SE too lazy to add a Despoil Pool to Abyssea NMs? Its just always irked me we got this new Ability that in itself i was like "What the crap? More Steal? really?" and it doesn't even work on 99% of the mobs You'd want it to work on. What with the mobs it does work on (Normal mobs) Die within 10s of engaging, making whatever Debuff you put on pointless.

So what this rant is suppose to say, If they do split Despoil/Steal timers, I hope at the very least they give Despoil a effect similar to Aura-Steal, Where, Even if an item is not stolen, Perhaps it still has a chance to inflict a Status Ailment.

Now, I know the Ailment is Generally based on whats stolen (I.E, if you Despoil a Tusk from a Bluffalo, it lowers their Attack, If you despoil their Hide, it lowers their Evasion, etc), But Maybe a "missed steal" Despoil could have a smaller Status-Ailment Pool. Limited to perhaps Slow/Paralyze/Blind or some other basic forms of Debuffs...

I can admit my ideas are far-fetched, and they are a long way from improving THF in any meaningful aspect, But the Despoil/Mug/Steal thing were always a little pet-peeve of mine. :|


Edit: Also, In terms of Vigilance, I'd rather SE not add an Ability at all than add an Ability with 30 Second Duration and 5 minute recast, Its just insulting to think it'd ever be useful. If we did get an Ability like that (Which i doubt, Cause stupid MNK has Dodge), I'd like it to be maybe 3 minute Recast, 1 minute duration. Effectively be able to keep it up 1/3rd of the time. or even 5rec, 2dur like Dodge. But IDK, I'm still blinded in rage at our last Ability "Conspirator". I mean, Not because its a terrible ability (Even though it mostly is), but because its 100% Completely useless in a Low-man Situation, as it doesn't work on the Target of the Enemy. Which i guess makes sense from a Wonkey "Roll Play" Perspective, But its just another Job ability in the list of Job Abilities for THF thats completely worthless Solo or Low Man (SA, TA, Hide, Conspirator, etc. TA/SA is an exception if you're not the Tank, But i generally am :|)

[LeaderofAtlantis]

The idea was this for Vigilance - you've just grabbed 50% of the WHM's hate after they used Benediction and it moved you to the top of the hate list. I guess making the duration 1 minute, but keeping the recast at 5 minutes wouldn't be too overpowered.

[Ryozen]

if I have a good Bard for when I pull hate

.....What?

[LeaderofAtlantis]

.....What?

Mambo x2. Long gone friends of mine on Unicorn server and I used to EXP on Tavnazian Rams. The Bard I had was one of the nicest guys on the server and a great friend in game. I tanked Rams and Birds on THF/WAR with Mambo x2 in full evasion gear and with Tatami Shield. If I grab hate now, and continue to hold it, I've had Bards use Pianissimo on me and Mambo to help boost my evasion to help me live a little while longer hopefully.

Just an extra FYI - I haven't touched /WAR in 6+ months for THF, so not sure how well this would work now, but just a general statement of my experience.

[Strify]

I've been a THF since '06 and I love it. My favorite job also.

I also agree that the Mug timer is far too long, and steal and despoil don't make sense sharing the same timer IMO. Would be more useful JA's if they didn't so you could alternate if one fails.

Vigilance is a JA I'd like to see!

[Laphine]

Cool ideas, and there is a number of them in this forum indeed.

I'm with Karbuncle on Vigilance. It's really not a needed ja. If we have capped evasion most times, why bother? I'm in for a ja that would increase our damage mitigation beyond our current 80% cap(considering only evasion here). If we could randomly dodge attacks (like sam can randomly anticipate and mnk can randomly counter) it would be the best approuch to our problem. Sure we can cap pdt for a final 90% mitigation, but so can everyone. And actually every single job can cap evasion given a weak enough target. Why should a lv1 mob ever be able to hit a lv90 thf, the one master of evasion?

[Delvish]

I agree with the concept of Vigilance as putting it on par with Perfect Counter and the like. Laphine posts a valid point towards the capped evasion. Definitely wouldn't mind a Parry version though.

[LeaderofAtlantis]

My main thinking with Vigilance is I have an evasion gear build that I can swap to quickly if I pull hate (which does tend to happen when I use Collaborator every 1 minute on mages to keep them low on hate), but swapping back to my TP gear takes another swap when I might need to switch back again to evasion right away. I would rather be able to hold my own in my TP gear for a bit since I do notice a difference. My evasion skill is capped with Lv4 merits as well. Also, adding parry to the mix with how high our skill caps is a nice way to supplement our evasion I think. Like, if the evade failed, we can still parry the attack to save ourselves. Yeah we can do that naturally, but it would help if our high parry skill came into play more than it does.

I also had another idea based off a Final Fantasy Tactics ability:
(JA) Caution - Temporarily increase the parry rate of the party.

Increase: 10% Recast: 5 minutes Duration: 1 minute

[Pesh]

I'm still blinded in rage at our last Ability "Conspirator". I mean, Not because its a terrible ability (Even though it mostly is), but because its 100% Completely useless in a Low-man Situation

I used to be pissed about Conspirator because I was always tanking, but now I love it because it means the other guys are feeding the mob less TP to wtfpwnshot me.