Pipe Dreams: Thief

[Eliadil]

So after going through the whole thing, I admit I quite like the rendition you've made of this class, you should maybe emphasize more the similarities between Upper Hand and Gunbreaker's cartridge as they're basically the same for me, except you don't obtain them the same way.
I'm trying to figure out the way you could use the job gauge of the job now, the only two things that could be worth tracking are Upper Hand and Obfuscation levels so two different thing, which is what most job gauge have nowadays so it's all good.
As for the accomplice procs, I think the proc chances may be a little high tbh, although I quite like the increased chances in case of missed proc, but this could lead to wasted ressources as well, which is a thing that Square is really carefull about. Wasting ressource is always a bad thing but you always have the option of avoiding it if you play well enough, so if you don't have a way to "waste" an upper hand proc off gcd, I don't think that the 100% proc chance can be a good thing.

I quite like the fact that you only buff the damage from your accomplice and not your own damage as well, and the stealing spell is really well thought. Although from a technical standpoint, you gotta figure out a way to make True North work with it.
As for the 10% determination buff, this is imo a bit of an arbitrary choice, I'd like to know why you chose this stat to be enhanced, by 10% for 20sec. I fail to see how big of a damage buff this could be, but I always sucked at math and stats.

[Duelle]

So after going through the whole thing, I admit I quite like the rendition you've made of this class, you should maybe emphasize more the similarities between Upper Hand and Gunbreaker's cartridge as they're basically the same for me, except you don't obtain them the same way.

This is a fair comparison, though I was thinking more along the lines of stacking Bloodletter procs. >.>

I'm trying to figure out the way you could use the job gauge of the job now, the only two things that could be worth tracking are Upper Hand and Obfuscation levels so two different thing, which is what most job gauge have nowadays so it's all good.

The gauges I imagine would be a big eye that closes more the higher your stealth level, and maybe coins or little daggers below it per charge of Upper Hand.

As for the accomplice procs, I think the proc chances may be a little high tbh, although I quite like the increased chances in case of missed proc, but this could lead to wasted resources as well, which is a thing that Square is really careful about.

Hmm...I guess I could cap the Accomplice proc chance to 50%. Like have it start at 10% proc chance and have it increase by 10% on subsequent attacks/spells until you get a proc.

Wasting resource is always a bad thing but you always have the option of avoiding it if you play well enough, so if you don't have a way to "waste" an upper hand proc off gcd, I don't think that the 100% proc chance can be a good thing.

Noted. People usually like consistent things with mechanics, but yeah I'll make adjustments to the proc rate.

I quite like the fact that you only buff the damage from your accomplice and not your own damage as well, and the stealing spell is really well thought. Although from a technical standpoint, you gotta figure out a way to make True North work with it.

Yikes, I completely forgot about True North. Since the rear bonus is supposed to be the one the player wants to prioritize, I guess I could have True North grant Steal the rear bonus regardless of where you're standing while the effect is active.

As for the 10% determination buff, this is imo a bit of an arbitrary choice, I'd like to know why you chose this stat to be enhanced, by 10% for 20sec. I fail to see how big of a damage buff this could be, but I always sucked at math and stats.

Well, I wanted something that increased damage dealt while at the same time not falling into the trap of having it do something that affects anyone else in the group. For example, I could have called it "Steal Attack Power", but that means I'd have to apply a Damage Down effect on the target (which in turn means I'd have to increase the cooldown on Steal and we might end up with another Trick Attack situation). I guess an alternative would be changing the effect to Steal DEX, though that could cause problems because of how powerful main stats are. An alternative would be to buff the Determination increase.

This is one of those situations where I really wish the devs didn't hide how secondary stats scale.

Thanks for the feedback!

Perhaps they should have made Rogue> Thief and Ninja it's own job to begin with.
Glad they no longer do classes but that was not planned out too well i think.

Well, this could go either way. As I mentioned before, tying traits and job adjustments to the job crystals instead of the job crystal doing nothing but adding 5 (or 10 during Heavensward) abilities would have made enough of a difference. I once wrote a thing on how you could hypothetically apply that to Archer to let it specialize as Bard or Ranger, and I'm of the belief that approach would have worked for ROG splitting into THF and NIN.

Question is could they turn passed classes into jobs? I know there would be more involved into this.
Not saying i would want this, just putting the idea out there.

Storywise they'd have to establish that the classes we know are diluted or bastardized versions of jobs that existed before but are not the current jobs we have. Like GLA would have to be established as a watered down version of something other than PLD and go from there. Then you'd have to create gameplay while keeping overlap with the existing jobs at a minimum. I mean, it is possible but would take a bit more work than SE seems to be willing to do.

[Eliadil]

Hmm...I guess I could cap the Accomplice proc chance to 50%. Like have it start at 10% proc chance and have it increase by 10% on subsequent attacks/spells until you get a proc.
Noted. People usually like consistent things with mechanics, but yeah I'll make adjustments to the proc rate.

Well, I wanted something that increased damage dealt while at the same time not falling into the trap of having it do something that affects anyone else in the group. For example, I could have called it "Steal Attack Power", but that means I'd have to apply a Damage Down effect on the target (which in turn means I'd have to increase the cooldown on Steal and we might end up with another Trick Attack situation). I guess an alternative would be changing the effect to Steal DEX, though that could cause problems because of how powerful main stats are. An alternative would be to buff the Determination increase.

This is one of those situations where I really wish the devs didn't hide how secondary stats scale.

For Upper Hand, the hard part is finding a sweet spot between getting a decent number of procs, and having them tied to something balanced. If you tie too much proc rate to a single "waste" ability then this ability might become overpowered, or if it isn't (or you cannot spam it) you can lose ressources, well damage in that case. Maybe start with a 25% proc chance from your accomplice that doesn't go up with time, but increase it later to a 50% proc chance. This way, upper hand procs stays "meaningfull" (you enjoy having a proc and do not want to waste it immediately because you'll overcap soon) and you don't have to tie 2 billions abilities to Upper Hand. I think the amount you have is fair, but you had too much proc chances in order to be both meaningfull and leaving a bit of choice to the player. But that's just my opinion

As for the DET increase, why not use a more generalized damage increase ? The issue is that every stat curve gets changed when you level up and when there's an expac released. So that would be a nightmare to balance, as the spell would need a change at every expansion at least in order to stay somewhat relevant at every level which is something really important. I would suggest going for the more straightforward route of "increase your damage dealt by 2%" maybe more, maybe less, depending on what you want. Most damage class do not stack DET that much too, so depending on the BiS this buff can be both amazing or completely useless.

Hope this helped Keep up the good work

[Duelle]

For Upper Hand, the hard part is finding a sweet spot between getting a decent number of procs, and having them tied to something balanced. If you tie too much proc rate to a single "waste" ability then this ability might become overpowered, or if it isn't (or you cannot spam it) you can lose resources, well damage in that case. Maybe start with a 25% proc chance from your accomplice that doesn't go up with time, but increase it later to a 50% proc chance. This way, upper hand procs stays "meaningful" (you enjoy having a proc and do not want to waste it immediately because you'll overcap soon) and you don't have to tie 2 billions abilities to Upper Hand. I think the amount you have is fair, but you had too much proc chances in order to be both meaningful and leaving a bit of choice to the player. But that's just my opinion

I think we have a misunderstanding here. Accomplice's procs increase your Stealth level, not generate Upper Hand charges. The idea is that your accomplice is keeping the target busy, making it easier for the target to lose track of you. Stealth level isn't about being invisible so much as the enemy not being able to track you in the chaos of battle.

Upper Hand charges are only generated from your attacks (at lv80 its 10% chance for all weaponskills, 15% chance if executed from the rear of the target), Runaround, Underhanded Tactics, and Sneak Attack (provided you use it while under the effect of Minor, Major or Complete Obfuscation). You do bring up some good points on the frequency of Upper Hand proccing at a reasonable rate, so I'll look into raising the proc rate or doing something like allowing auto-attacks to also proc charges of Upper Hand.

As for the DET increase, why not use a more generalized damage increase ? The issue is that every stat curve gets changed when you level up and when there's an expac released. So that would be a nightmare to balance, as the spell would need a change at every expansion at least in order to stay somewhat relevant at every level which is something really important. I would suggest going for the more straightforward route of "increase your damage dealt by 2%" maybe more, maybe less, depending on what you want. Most damage class do not stack DET that much too, so depending on the BiS this buff can be both amazing or completely useless.

True. I guess I could just allow suspension of disbelief to come into play. I was concerned that if I did something like "Steal Attack Power", someone would be bound to ask why the mob doesn't have a penalty to damage dealt for the duration to show the THF stole that target's attack power to boost themselves.

Once again, thank you for the feedback.

[Eliadil]

I think we have a misunderstanding here. Accomplice's procs increase your Stealth level, not generate Upper Hand charges. The idea is that your accomplice is keeping the target busy, making it easier for the target to lose track of you. Stealth level isn't about being invisible so much as the enemy not being able to track you in the chaos of battle.

Upper Hand charges are only generated from your attacks (at lv80 its 10% chance for all weaponskills, 15% chance if executed from the rear of the target), Runaround, Underhanded Tactics, and Sneak Attack (provided you use it while under the effect of Minor, Major or Complete Obfuscation). You do bring up some good points on the frequency of Upper Hand proccing at a reasonable rate, so I'll look into raising the proc rate or doing something like allowing auto-attacks to also proc charges of Upper Hand.

you're right, I got confused between two tooltips, my bad ! Well in that case tbh I don't see much else to say, I'm sorry for all the confusion ;D

[Shurrikhan]

I think we have a misunderstanding here. Accomplice's procs increase your Stealth level, not generate Upper Hand charges. The idea is that your accomplice is keeping the target busy, making it easier for the target to lose track of you. Stealth level isn't about being invisible so much as the enemy not being able to track you in the chaos of battle.

Upper Hand charges are only generated from your attacks (at lv80 its 10% chance for all weaponskills, 15% chance if executed from the rear of the target), Runaround, Underhanded Tactics, and Sneak Attack (provided you use it while under the effect of Minor, Major or Complete Obfuscation). You do bring up some good points on the frequency of Upper Hand proccing at a reasonable rate, so I'll look into raising the proc rate or doing something like allowing auto-attacks to also proc charges of Upper Hand.
True. I guess I could just allow suspension of disbelief to come into play. I was concerned that if I did something like "Steal Attack Power", someone would be bound to ask why the mob doesn't have a penalty to damage dealt for the duration to show the THF stole that target's attack power to boost themselves.

Once again, thank you for the feedback.

I'd probably be that someone.

Though, as long as the theft were, say, item-based -- where the numerous flavor texts and icons for an effect each show an easily understood symbol in common (for Attack Power Up, etc) -- no one would likely question how you managed to literally steal an enemy's muscle mass or why that theft didn't cost the enemy anything at present. Only problem would then be the old "But, but, items are for Chemist alone!" (since Machinist has certainly never used, say, a grenade)...

[Duelle]

I'd probably be that someone.

Though, as long as the theft were, say, item-based -- where the numerous flavor texts and icons for an effect each show an easily understood symbol in common (for Attack Power Up, etc) -- no one would likely question how you managed to literally steal an enemy's muscle mass or why that theft didn't cost the enemy anything at present. Only problem would then be the old "But, but, items are for Chemist alone!" (since Machinist has certainly never used, say, a grenade)...

THF being able to steal the intangible is something I wanted to put on display with Steal's design. X-2's THF had something along those lines (Pilfer HP, Pilfer MP, Steal Will), as did Tactics' THF (Steal Exp, Steal Heart). One of XI's Ambuscade fights is also against a THF Qiqirn that does things like Steal HP, Steal MP, Steal Ability (he'll put a random ability on cooldown; imagine how that would mess up a tank here to discover a THF mob just put Hallowed Ground or another mitigation ability on cooldown without having to even use it) and so on.

That all said, if it comes down to it, I could change the rear effect to Steal Power Drink/Hero's Drink, giving the THF 15 seconds to consume it and boost their attack power by 7%. On the upside this would give THF a little leeway in when they get the attack boost, and I'm sure someone would find it easier to align with other group cooldowns.

...Well, there is another option. Make Steal item-based, and introduce a skill much later (with the current write-up, it'd probably be the lv90 skill) called Larceny that applies a stat debuff on the target while increasing the THF's own stats. Like Steal, make its effects vary depending on where they're standing relative to the mob.