Dual weild

[Glamdring]

yes, thief need DW IX so I can sub paladin! get a life people, thief has plenty of abilities to make it unique and a strong job in it's own right. Triple attack puts end-game thief in the top damage dealers even without Atma, TH means we can actually afford to play (even if it doesn't work as well as we think it should). Flee|hide so we have an out when it all hits the fan and hate stealing abilities that would actually work better on a designed tank job-or at least on both.

Seriously, not every job should simply have every other job's signature abilities-and thief's signature abilities are steal, SATA and TH, not Dual Wield-otherwise we could simply redesign the game with no classes and you basically merit up every ability the game has to offer. Personally, I would quit.

[Laphine]

Seriously, not every job should simply have every other job's signature abilities-and thief's signature abilities are steal, SATA and TH, not Dual Wield-otherwise...

I do agree a lot with this.

We got a positive boost for TH on the last update. This was of course necessary because everyone else was getting TH2 access, and the gain from TH3 to TH2 is most likely smaller than TH1 to TH2 (decreasing returns like most things in the game). Now we just need a SA/TA and Steal fix (and who knows, fixing things like lockpicking would be awesome too) and i'll be a proud and happy thief.

All these abilities worked in one way or another back in 2003. Update after update the game evolved and most of them died out. Back then, considering how unique thief was, i would have seen no reason for us to deal big damage. After all we had much more to make it "fun" for us. Now if we consider this completely different game, with so many jobs that make it difficult to keep each one unique, stepping on each others business is inevitable.

[Alaik]

Counterstance a horrible ability?

I really don't know what to say....

[scaevola]

Counterstance a horrible ability?

I really don't know what to say....

Yes, an ability that stops half of all incoming hits in a game with a spell like Utsusemi available to all classes via easy customization is terrible design.

Sorry that you somehow managed to read that wrong, but I'm not sure how anybody could not think Counterstance is broken just from looking at the help text.

b-b-b-but monks

counterstance is a terribly-designed ability and while we're at it H2H damage calculation is pretty messed up, too, but i have never claimed every other job in the game is not pretty bad compared to MNK


also, if you're feeling saucy you could sub MNK yourself to tank


(it is actually pretty good for aga-heavy NMs with lots of debuffs, like Fuath, for instance)

math that leaves out weapon skills so as to ignore how much better Twashtar is for THF than DNC, and also assumes a Twashtar THF or DNC has any reason to bother doing anything meaningful without WHM or BRD support, making up the delay reduction deficit as they both hit the cap

oh and also i guess that either of these hypothetical dudes WILL be tanking whatever they fight (the DNC, who can't TA/Rudra's, will be doing so immediately) and the THF's higher evasion makes him less likely to have to worry about taking AO out for GH, but whatever

Three things.

1) I said initially I believed the solution was an increased utility for SA/TA, so that they could be used more readily.

2) In any real-world situation, you are not endlessly swinging in perpetuity. The less your time on target, the better SA and TA become; downtime between pulls while meriting is less an issue now and Abyssea lets you be lazy about endlessly TPing on NMs, but we'll be leaving there soon and will be back in a world where you actually have to try not to feed TP or get drilled by AoEs. This is why X's/blau was better than blau/sirocco, even though the latter was mathematically more DPS with the added effect factored in, as somebody on alla figured out a few years ago and no, I won't go dig up that thread, because holy crap waste of time.

3) Perhaps more importantly, if either THF or DNC, hell, if ANYONE is doing around 200 DPS, which is enough to solo down Raja, iirc the highest health mob in Abyssea at 150k, in 12 and a half minutes, does it really matter who is doing more? It's like arguing whether level 99 Steiner is better than level 99 Amarant when they can both kill Ozma in like 3 turns.

[Alaik]

Counterstance a horrible ability?

I really don't know what to say....

Yes, an ability that stops half of all incoming hits in a game with a spell like Utsusemi available to all classes via easy customization is terrible design.

Yes when asked, "Counterstance is a horrible ability?", also the way you're comparing it to utsusemi (One of the ackowledged best forms of damage mitagation in the game) also implies it's terrible in comparison. It would be like someone saying, "Cars being able to take you 360 miles in 6 hours when a jet can take you 2,000 miles is terrible design." did you flat out say cars are terrible? No, but it's sure implied.

counterstance is a terribly-designed ability and while we're at it H2H damage calculation is pretty messed up, too, but i have never claimed every other job in the game is not pretty bad compared to MNK

Again, "While we're at it" implying both are in similar states in your opinion and then stating, "Not that I'm saying others jobs have it better." which, "while we're at it", double negatives are typically a no-no.

Of course that's based off the fact I have never heard someone say, "Man, having a million dollars is so great, not that I never said that other income classes don't have it worse than them."

Yeah, but if everyone thought it meant one thing, it's their fault, not your poor wording choice.

EDIT: Karbuncle, lay off my word. I am the only one allowed to say "Indubitably", and am in fact required to say it 5 times per sentence. Read ffxiah!

[Karbuncle]

Yes when asked, "Counterstance is a horrible ability?", also the way you're comparing it to utsusemi (One of the ackowledged best forms of damage mitagation in the game) also implies it's terrible in comparison. It would be like someone saying, "Cars being able to take you 360 miles in 6 hours when a jet can take you 2,000 miles is terrible design." did you flat out say cars are terrible? No, but it's sure implied.





Again, "While we're at it" implying both are in similar states in your opinion and then stating, "Not that I'm saying others jobs have it better." which, "while we're at it", double negatives are typically a no-no.

Of course that's based off the fact I have never heard someone say, "Man, having a million dollars is so great, not that I never said that other income classes don't have it worse than them."

Yeah, but if everyone thought it meant one thing, it's their fault, not your poor wording choice.

EDIT: Karbuncle, lay off my word. I am the only one allowed to say "Indubitably", and am in fact required to say it 5 times per sentence. Read ffxiah!

Interesting.

So my Original post still applies!

WOO!

[scaevola]

Yes when asked, "Counterstance is a horrible ability?", also the way you're comparing it to utsusemi (One of the ackowledged best forms of damage mitagation in the game) also implies it's terrible in comparison. It would be like someone saying, "Cars being able to take you 360 miles in 6 hours when a jet can take you 2,000 miles is terrible design." did you flat out say cars are terrible? No, but it's sure implied.

The quote means Counterstance is made horribly overpowered by the existence of Utsusemi. Though certainly an open question, I think there's an argument to be made that Counterstance would be balanced and fine if Utsusemi did not allow MNK to basically ignore its pretty huge penalty. I am not evaluating the effectiveness of each against the other, at least not in that quote. There may be other ways to read it but given the context (especially the context to which you originally replied), none of them strike me as particularly reasonable.

Again, "While we're at it" implying both are in similar states in your opinion and then stating, "Not that I'm saying others jobs have it better." which, "while we're at it", double negatives are typically a no-no.

The strength of language lies in its versatility, and double negatives are sometimes useful as a rhetorical flourish. The person who told you they were bad was a 7th Grade English teacher who (apparently correctly) thought they were too subtle for you to handle.

Counterstance is broken, and the scaling of hand-to-hand damage calculation is also messed up. This does not mean that they are messed up in ways that are bad for the people who use them.

[Laphine]

Anyone can tank today. Thief isn't used because it's good, it's used because it's convenient. Nothing wrong with that anyway. We get the job done, just really not with the same success rate of a mnk that has more dd power and survivability. Most times a thief is only able to tank due the lack of this better option. This was my case. I've tanked almost every nm from abyssea as thief because we didn't have a mnk. In big groups, no way a thief will ever get to be the main tank (which is reasonable after all), and before the last update, i wouldn't even doubt of the existence of groups that didn't allow their thieves to melee.

I've also invested a lot of time to get my thief together. Imagine now a new player as a thief. This guy wouldn't even have a chance among the big boys. In a big shell he would just sit in a corner, if lucky to get into a shell because he has no TH+ gear.

As i've said before (not exactly in these words) i don't want thief to become a mnk, i can just go out and level mnk if i felt like it. This is not for me though. I love this job called thief, and really wish for it to grow and evolve with the game. And i'm sure many here, if it isn't thief, have those jobs they relate with the most. Everyone deserves some patting from SE.

Anyway, saying "give us power!" is an easy thing to be said. This is the current hype in the game. I don't think it's too much too wish for since in 9 years of the game we have received 1 damage boost. And a indirect one at that. The dagger damage boost in 2006. And we did receive nerfs: SA positioning restriction and removal of tp floor ( that pretty much only affected thf and nin back then) are two i can think of.

You can get to that 80% cap through the sacrifice of fewer gear slots than other jobs. DNC does okay, granted, but MNK is pretty screwed IIRC.

Naked monk vs naked thief should have a difference of evasion rate of about 34% on average. If a thief has a bit more than 50% evasion rate against high level nm, it's not far fetched that a mnk would have about 20%. Monk does have his own unique damage mitigation tool: counter. 70% counter is easilly reached with 10% base, 10% GH (maybe 15%?), 50% counterstance (far from horrible). With 20% evasion and 70% counter a mnk mitigates 76% of the melee damage he receives. The other 24% damage the mnk receives would have increased multipliers due low defense though. Still, the mnk can mitigate this even further with perfect counter ( its own TE+Seigan) and not to say a better pdt selection (who wears this anyway).

Having an over the floor evasion also means that any extra point of evasion added will be put to use. So it's not unreasonable for a mnk to use an evasion set while casting utsu:ichi (but wait, what mnk does /nin anyway?).

No, a DDing DNC keeps Saber Dance up because healing at all is a huge damage loss, so nothing is lost by locking out abilities you weren't going to use anyway.

Using JAs "sparingly" is a recipe for failure on any DD. That's pretty much why people stopped making skillchains in 2005.

The reason why dancer can't spam JA is because this does decrease their dps. Each JA used locks the dancer dagger swing for 2 sec. And each JA used after the first one adds another second. So if you use 2 JAs one after another (like sata) you lose 3 secs of damage. Sure there are dances that can be used to increase the dps (which might or not counter the lost seconds), and those that obviously won't. Thief is also affected by this with sa/ta, but we don't get to spam them like dancers do with their dances.

Let's math something out just for the sake of it.

Some considerations:

-Thief using Twash+Triplus, Dancer using Twash+DA Parazonium (not sure on best dnc off hand weapon).

-Thief with 33% DW, Dancer with 48%, and both with 25% haste (not even going to use haste samba).

-Thief with 44% TA and 13% DA, Dancer with 28% TA and 23% DA(no saber dance). ->This also means RR/AO/Apoc atma combo.

-Thief with 1.8 cratio, and since dance has about 30 less attack, dancer cratio is 1.725. Thief has 58% crit rate (with 38% extra damage) and dancer 54% crit rate (with 43% extra damage).

THIEF
Attack round base damage: 80
Round base delay: 352 ||| DW delay: 235 ||| Haste delay: 176
TP/hit: 4.4
TP/s: 2.256
Dps:29.31
Multi hit average: 1.9528
Multi hit modified dps: 57.23
TP/s (after STP and multi hits): 6.12
Attack modified dps(Attack + crit bonus 2.99 multiplier): 171.12

Calculating SA/TA gain:
(Using 60 70 secs being a humanly possible average usage with an aggressive stance)
SA @ 280 dex = +336(20% boost) base damage every 60 secs.
Base added dps: 5.6
Crit modified dps (4.0 multiplier ) = 22.4

TA @ 230 agi.= +264(15% boost) base damage every 70 secs.
Base added dps: 3.77
Crit modified dps (4.0 multiplier)= 15.08

SA/TA dps: 37.48
60% hit rate: 22.48 (it's not uncommon to miss sa/tas)

Thief SA/TA modified dps: 193.6 (or 208.6 by never missing a single sa/ta)

DANCER
Attack round base damage: 93
Round base delay: 387 ||| DW delay: 201 ||| Haste delay: 150
TP/hit: 4.3
TP/s: 2.554
Dps:37.2
Multi hit average: 1.7256
Multi hit modified dps: 64.19
TP/s (after STP and multi hits): 7.17
Attack modified dps(Attack+ crit bonus 2.89 multiplier): 185.51

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So there we have it: 193.6 dps to thf and 185.5 dps to dnc. This is only the dagger swing damage for both; i didn't factor ws damage. Things might or not change if we add ws to the mix. To calculate ws damage contribution to dps i would need ws sets, and oh well, i'm not really in the mood to check these out (maybe later). But thief will need to ws quite a bit harder to counter the dancer tp gain.

And finally this calculation simulates a dancer that only hit stuff and ws. At least i don't feel so humiliated by being outdamage by an "afk" dancer. We still have to work to reach this dancer damage performance tho <.<

[Laphine]

Yes, utsusemi is certainly the most broken thing in the game in terms of defense. Still, in the current state of the game, it's hardly necessary. Thief is even among those that can brag about not needing it, being that i've heard accounts of thieves tanking things like orthrus as /war. Mnk is on its own level though (b-b-b-but monks indeed). Again: great damage mitigation without sacrificing dot in any way (which anyone is doing just by casting utsusemi), high hp pool to afford being hit, and the list goes on.

I agree with you that we could make /mnk work. But we are still working with trade-offs because +10 DW it's a very big deal. The day we get natural DW3 this sub will become very interesting.

1) Agreed.

2) Agreed. SA/TA doesn't get better though. It's % on our total damage does increase, yeah, because we decrease the normal dot.

3) 200dps, but this method doesn't provide very realistic numbers but it's good enough as a mean to compare them, as it simplifies things. Two things that would reduce these numbers are considering 95% hit rate and using pdif instead of cratio. So the reason why we don't have 200dps on Raja is because we simply don't have 1.8 cratio and 100% hit rate.

My idea on that math was to use evisceration to compare the jobs. This of couse, favors dancer, since as you have said, thief can put RS to better use. But this simplifies the calculation because i didn't have to worry about reducing SA dps and increase ws dps. And because evis is taken as the better option when soloing a ws i decided using it full time. Why are you crying anyway? Thief won. I lost the discussion that dancer could beat thief with a hand tied.

This doesn't change my belief that we deserve a damage boost. Even SE promised it last year saying something like increasing thief damage on hnms or something. We have forgotten about what's hnm today, but i still don't see much that contributes to that finality today.

[Alaik]

No, counterstance is not underpowered. At all. You don't block 100% of attacks, only 75-80%.. And increasing your DoT every single time. Utsusemi is casting and losing a more damaging sub. This isn't 2004 where MP was like gold. Give me a choice between a MNK with relic feet, merits and GH and a MNK who's subbing NIN and not using counterstance... The goal isn't to make the healer able to sleep, and if we've learned anything it's DEF/VIT aren't even in the top 5 defensive stats. My wife actually complains about not being able to heal enough with MNK/WAR tanks.

You know what, forget it.