Thief>Ninja/Dancer Class/Job

[Duelle]

I'll echo the sentiment that THF should be a job with its own crystal.

As always, here's a concept:

Rogue:

Highwaymen, assassins and thugs all fall under the label of the rogue. Where the upright gladiators, marauders and fencers of Eorzea can battle their opponents face to face, rogues prefer to remain inconspicuous during fights until they find an opportunity to deliver deadly and effective blows to their enemies.

To the untrained eye, this may seem as a random and unrefined combat style. In reality, there is a method to the madness created by the rogue, from swiftly sidestepping around enemies' attacks to disabling them with quick tricks before landing a critical blow to the enemy's weak point. And while some individuals have moved on to more honest fields of work, the training undergone to master this style seldom fades and even proves useful where a direct approach may be prone to failure.

Concept: Front line combatant that relies on guile and agility to outmaneuver their foes. Capable of staggering and disabling their enemies for short periods of time.

Mechanics: Rogue's primary weapon is the stiletto knife and kunai. They can dual wield and rely on flanking their opponents to maximize their damage.

Abilities
01 Quick Strike: Deals melee damage to enemy.
02 Puncture: Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Places a DoT for 15 seconds on the target.
04 Shark Bite: Stab and slice the enemy. Combo => Quick Strike: Increases Skill Speed for 20 seconds.
06 Blindside: Delivers an attack with a potency of 225. Can only be used when behind the target. 60 cooldown.
08 Shiv: Delivers an off-hand attack with a potency of 90. Combo => Quick Strike: Recover X TP.
10 Knife Throw: Delivers a ranged attack for 80 potency. 15 yalm range.
12 Dirty Kick: Stuns enemy for 4 seconds.
15 Dodge: Increases your evasion chance by 40% for 10 seconds.
18 Whirling Blades: Delivers an attack to all enemies within 8 yalms with a potency of 100.
22 Sucker Punch: Silences target for 3 seconds. 45 second cooldown.
26 Coup de grace: Delivers an attack with a potency of 150 (200 if used behind the target). Can only be used when the target has less than 20% HP. 45 second cooldown.
30 Evisceration: 5-hit weapon skill. Combo => Shark Bite: +X% critical hit chance for 15 seconds.
34 Sneak Attack: All attacks performed from behind the target for the next 10 seconds will critically hit.
38 Flee: Increases movement speed by 50% for 8 seconds. 90-second cooldown.
42 Mutilate: Delivers an attack with a potency of 120. Extends the duration of Puncture by 20 seconds.
46 Stagger: Pacifies target for 3 seconds. 45 second cooldown.
50 Draw-Cut: Delivers an attack for 150 potency and repositions you on the opposite side of the target.

Gameplay
Quick Strike => Shark Bite => Evisceration
Quick Strike => Shiv
Keep Puncture up.
Use Mutilate to extend Puncture's duration.
Use Blindside.

Traits
08 Enhanced Dexterity I (Rogue): Increases DEX by 3.
14 Flank Bonus I: Increases damage caused by weapon skills used behind the target by 4%.
16 Enhanced Blindside: Reduces the cooldown of Blindside to 30 seconds.
20 Hemorrhage: Puncture now increases damage taken from your attacks by 10%.
24 Enhanced TP Regeneration: Increases the amount of TP recovered by X.
28 Pressing the Advantage: All your attacks deal an additional 10% damage when the target is below 25% HP.
32 Enhanced Dexterity II (Rogue): Increases DEX by 6.
36 Enhanced Dodge: Dodge now increases your evasion rate by 50%.
40 Flank Bonus II: Increases damage dealt by weapon skills used behind the target by an additional 4%.
44 Improvisation: Sneak Attack increases the critical chance of all attacks to 40% when not flanking the target.
48 Cunning Combat: Decreases the cooldowns of Sucker Punch and Stagger to 30 seconds.

Rogue Notes
- Rogue gameplay should obviously encourage the player to stay behind the enemy as much as possible.
- Between Dirty Kick, Sucket Punch and Stagger, Rogues would be the only class in the game that can reliably cover all modes of interrupting.
- Puncture and Mutilate are obvious key aspects of a Rogue's DPS rotation due to the damage increase, along with Shark Bite's skill speed increase.
- I originally wanted to combo Shaek Bite to Mutilate as a secondary combo to extend the skill speed buff's duration, but decided against it since it didn't seem to mesh well. Not to mention I would want Mutilate to be an off-GCD ability with a cooldown.
- Improvisation is there to deal with the expected issue all dagger classes run into, in that bosses with forced positional limitations (Demon Wall) and bosses that require you to stay to the sides and avoid their back (chimera, hydra) cost them a lot of DPS in the long this. This is also why only Blindside has a positional requirement.
- Draw-cut would be useful in PvE as well as PvP. In PvE because it might help them avoid an attack that is ground-targetted by quickly moving the rogue to the opposite side of the target, and in PvP by allowing them to reposition as a way to confuse their enemies.
- I'm iffy on whether Draw-Cut should be usable on mobs where you cannot get behind them (Demon Wall, possibly really big mobs like Ultima Weapon).
- Flee helps with mobility by being usable in-combat without costing the rogue all their TP by using Sprint.
- While not mentioned in this version, I was also considering giving rogues the ability to pause their own combos to allow weaving in of more abilities that are on the GCD. I think that approach was reaching a little too much, which is why I decided against it in the end.

---
Thief

The legendary Thieves' Guild has remained a topic of controversy within political circles in Eorzea and the authoritative entities under their employ. The guild's own existence is often called into question, as none within the Brass Blades, the Knights of the Barracuda or the Woodwailers have been able to delve into the web of intrigue and shadows cast by this organization in the last decade. Even today the guild's motives and goals are shrouded in mystery, but those unfortunate to find a calling card from the guild know the truth behind the individuals associated with it.

Some see these Thieves as folk heroes that will steal from wealthy despots and share the spoils with the downtrodden (which has made their legend that much more popular in places like Uldah). Others see them as daring treasure hunters that utilize their finely-honed skills to discover secrets lost to ages long past.

Regardless of their reputation, there is no question to the level of skill these individuals possess, exchanging durability and strength for nimbleness and quick hands. Of course, the sleight of hand that makes it easy to pick a pocket can also be used to inflict quick and deadly wounds, and woe to those who allow a Thief to get behind them.

Concept: Melee combatant that deals maximum damage from behind their target. Can Steal from enemies, ranging from items to "aspects" of the particular foe being fought.

Mechanics: Building on the burst damage windows native to the Rogue class, Thieves can steal temporary items for quick use from their enemies as well as one-use skills and buffs.

Mechanics: The THF crystal gives Evisceration, Mutilate and Draw-cut the ability to place a debuff called Expose on the target mob. Expose stacks up to three, increasing the rogue's damage dealt to the mob by 1% with one stack, 2% with two stacks and 4% with three stacks.

Storyline: (WARNING: Fanfiction advisory is in effect) The THF storyline would focus on Nanaa the Knife, a fugitive who claims to be the last surviving member of the Thieves' Guild. In exchange for some help exacting revenge on those who killed her comrades and nearly destroyed the guild, she's willing to teach the player character the intricacies of Thievery.

Support Classes: PGL (Featherfoot, Internal Release, Haymaker, Second Wind), LNC (Feint, Keen Flurry, Invigorate)

Abilities
30 Steal Item: Steals a "dusty" item from the enemy. Is replaced by Use Spoils when successful. The stolen item is of poor quality and will break/vanish after 15 seconds. Success rate is determined by melee accuracy rating.
---Use Spoils: Use an item stolen from the enemy.
35 Accomplice: Increases target party member's attack power by 10% and transfers 50% of your total generated enmity to target party member for 10 seconds. 60-second cooldown.
40 Aura Steal: Steal a beneficial effect from target enemy. Success rate is determined by melee accuracy rating.
45 Viper Bite: Delivers an attack with a potency of 80 and poisons target for 15 seconds (poison potency: 10). Combo => Shiv: for every VB poison tick, you recover X TP.
50 Throat Stab: Delivers an attack with a potency of 120 (300 if behind the target). 2-minute cooldown

Thief Notes
- Steal Item came about when I looked at some interesting mobs from WoW. Mobs that could steal your weapon from you. While this was a clever way to disarm your character, I did like the concept enough. Of course, THF in FFXIV would fight more than enemies that used weapons, so the idea evolved into Steal Item. Examples of temporary items you'd get from Steal Item include Dusty Potions, Dusty Grenades, Dusty Poison Bombs, and Dusty Brew (random positive effect on you when used). The idea is you'd steal from the enemy and have to use the item right away or within the 15 seconds allowed before the item breaks/vanishes.
- Most of you who have played FFXI probably hate me for mentioning Aura Steal, as the ability was mostly useless and a waste of a merit ability. The main issue is that Aura Steal was tied to Steal, which in itself is horrible seeing how horribly low Steal accuracy was (not to mention the asinine conditions needed for Aura Steal to proc). If it worked more like a melee range Spellsteal with its own cooldown and determined by accuracy rating, you would have a very useful ability in hand. It would also mean that you could design bosses with buffs that can be dispelled or stolen to help the raid win.
- Accomplice is less the forced enmity transfer gimmick THF was saddled with in FFXI and more of a way for THF to assist the tank by transferring some of its enmity. Ideally Accomplice should be used alongside other DPS cooldowns to maximize the amount of threat transferred to the tank.

---
Ninja

It is said that the style employed by rogues and brigands is a bastardization of the bigger tradition known as Ninjutsu; the art of swift shadows and silent strikes. Indeed, there have been tales of common criminals who found a greater calling and trained in this shadowy art in order to serve their true purpose and shed the traces of their old lives. In some cases, former criminals became respected warriors to those who knew of their actions.

Unlike most melee fighters, Ninja do not shy away from the idea of opening distance with their enemies, and at times do so only to catch their enemy by surprise when they quickly close the gap and return to the offensive. Running from a ninja can be seen as futile between the shuriken and jutsu that can reach a foe where the precise strikes of their kunai cannot.

Concept: Melee and ranged fighter that can open and close gaps with foes. Where melee is not an option, the ninja employs throwing skills and jutsu to damage their foes.

Mechanics: Equipping the Ninja crystal renames and changes Blindside and Knife Throw into Satsu and Fuuma, respectively. The only key difference being increased range.

Using certain abilities and combos place a token on the Ninja, allowing them to use the ability Jutsu. Jutsu consumes all tokens and has a specific effect depending on what charges the NIN has stored on themselves. A NIN can have only one token stored at any time.

Support Classes: ARC (Raging Strikes, Quelling Strikes, Hawk's Eye), PGL (Internal Release, Featherfoot, Chakra)

Changed abilities
06 Blindside => Satsu: 8-yalm range.
10 Knife Throw => Fuuma: 120 potency. 18-yalm range. Builds one wind charge

Jutsu Tokens
Quick Strike => Shark Bite => Evisceration = Jutsu (Katon): Fire damage.
Fuuma x 2 = Jutsu (Fuuton): Knock back target enemy.
Satsu = Jutsu (Suiton): Applies weight to target enemy.
Quick Strike => Shiv = Jutsu (Kurayami): Inflicts target with Blindness.

Abilities

30 Jutsu: Consumes a Jutsu token to unleash an ability on the enemy. 10 yalm range.
35 Kaze to tomoni (風と共に): Teleport behind your target. 15 yalm range.
40 Utsusemi: Leap backwards 10 yalms from your current position, becoming invisible for 6 seconds, leaving a decoy that vanishes after 2 seconds and reducing enmity by 50%.
45 Tatsumaki: Delivers an attack with 120 potency to all enemies within 12 yalms. Animation note: The ninja spins very fast, causing shuriken and kunai to fly from the NIN in all directions.
50 Bunshin Sappou (分身殺法): Three-fold attack that deals heavy damage and repositions the ninja on the opposite side of the enemy.

Ninja Notes
- NIN as we can see is a ranged and melee job. It has abilities that also give it great mobility, allowing it to open and close distances.
- Those who saw my original idea may remember that I wanted to give NIN an elemental charge system not unlike combo points for Rift's Rogue classes or WoW's Rogue class. I decided against it seeing that elemental charges would conflict with the combo system and would require me removing all combo properties from rogue skills just to accomodate NIN.
- To give an example of how this works, if you do an Evisceration combo, you get a Katon token. If you decide to use Satsu because the mob is below 20% HP without using Jutsu, the Katon token is lost and replaced by a Suiton token.
- On a more subtle note, NIN scaling should be tuned down to balance out the amount of mobility and ranged capabilities it has. I would put it somewhere around 5% behind THF assuming equal gear and skill.
- Bunshin Sappou would have the NIN "split" into three, have all three images of the NIN rush at the enemy, with the two "fakes" vanishing and the NIN remaining on the opposite side of the mob.
- As always, Utsusemi is more an escape and gap opener. The invisibility is there to help it in PvP.

[Kitru]

- Improvisation is there to deal with the expected issue all dagger classes run into, in that bosses with forced positional limitations (Demon Wall) and bosses that require you to stay to the sides and avoid their back (chimera, hydra) cost them a lot of DPS in the long this. This is also why only Blindside has a positional requirement.

Flank and back are different positions. Flanking is attacking from either of the 90* arcs to the immediate left and right of a target; back refers exclusively to attacks from the back 90*. Right now, there are no fights where you can't flank a target and only one fight where you can't make back attacks (Demon Wall). Even those fights with bosses that use backside cones, mDPS still want to use their back attacks; the cones are simply there to force the mDPS to move around and dodge (and, on fights like Caduceus, you actually want to proc the Tail Swipe as much as possible because it stops Caduceus from attacks while it's performing it, which reduces the damage the tank takes).

The way the devs have set up mDPS, it's pretty obvious that they want to force a mixture of flank and backside attacks so that you're not just getting behind a target and spamming your rotation. You'll want to add in some flank attacks as such.

- I'm iffy on whether Draw-Cut should be usable on mobs where you cannot get behind them (Demon Wall, possibly really big mobs like Ultima Weapon).

You can get behind the Demon Wall (as a WAR, use Holmgang when you're right next to it; you'll be immobilized and immune to the repel so the Wall the moves right over you). As soon as you get behind it, it teleports you to the entrance of the room where the floor gets all poison-y (and, I believe it also stuns you; I'm not sure). Assuming that the game's engine allows for forced movement to different sectors of a target instead of just the closest location, Draw Cut presents no real problems, whether on large targets *or* Demon Wall: the Demon Wall for the reason above and large targets because you can't be moved to the area outside of a boss's arena area; if you try to use anything that could move you out of it, it stops you at the edge (or, in t5, just kills you).

Mechanics: The THF crystal gives Evisceration, Mutilate and Draw-cut the ability to place a debuff called Expose on the target mob. Expose stacks up to three, increasing the rogue's damage dealt to the mob by 5% with one stack, increasing everyone else's damage on the mob by 2% with two stacks and increasing everyone else's damage on the mob by 4% with three stacks.

That is a *huge* benefit. It would effectively force a THF to be part of every single group because, without it, you'd be shorting yourself of 20% of a DPS (4% of 4 DPS; tanks count as half of a DPS). Expose would work as a debuff they apply on their own an maintain to increase their own damage, but, as a group buff, it's hugely overpowered.

Use Spoils: Use an item stolen from the enemy.

You probably want to list some of the stuff you actually expect to use with this and whether it's completely random or actually dependent upon the target.

35 Accomplice: Increases enmity generated by your attacks by 10% and transfers 50% of your total generated enmity to target party member for 10 seconds. 60-second cooldown.

Even ignoring how pointless enmity assistance abilities are within ARR, I can assure you that 90% of the use for this will be in trolling people in your group.

40 Aura Steal: Steal a beneficial effect from target enemy. Success rate is determined by melee accuracy rating.

This is another one of those worthless abilities that just doesn't work the way that ARR is designed. There are not enough abilities that an enemy can use to buff themselves with to actually give this ability any real use (it'll be less than a gimmick ability since you wouldn't be able to use it on 99% of the enemies in game), and, if the devs did decide to include fights where buffs need to be removed, they would need to be so strong that the THF would never benefit from them. The buffs that bosses get have to be worried about because they're big increases. No one cares about the small ones that a player could actually benefit from.

Also, you didn't put a CD on this.

Fuuma x 2 = Jutsu (Fuuton): Knock back target enemy.

The way you'd implement this is having Fuuma combo with itself to provide the relevant Jutsu, though I'm not sure why you wouldn't just have it give the Jutsu as a non-combo benefit. Even if the Jutsu abilities are supposed to be especially strong, you could just as easily put something like a 7.5-10sec CD on it to prevent Fuuma>Jutsu spam (assuming that the Jutsu would actually do enough damage to make that viable).

30 Jutsu: Unleashes an ability on the enemy. 10 yalm range.

You haven't listed any of the abilities that would be used or if they're even attacks/debuffs/buffs/utility.

50 Bunshin Sappou (分身殺法): Three-fold attack that deals heavy damage and repositions the ninja on the opposite side of the enemy.

You're just doubling up on Draw Cut, which you *also* provide at level 50. Not entirely sure I see the point unless you just want to give NIN another use of it with a separate but fancier animation.

- On a more subtle note, NIN scaling should be tuned down to balance out the amount of mobility and ranged capabilities it has. I would put it somewhere around 5% behind THF assuming equal gear and skill.

The advantage of pseudo-ranged damage capability (it's hard to say exactly how much you're giving them since you didn't define Jutsu in the least) doesn't really outweigh a dramatic loss of DPS, especially since you're already giving THF a 5% increase in damage as a passive benefit along with 2 attacks that would directly increase it's end DPS (you're giving NIN 2 movement utilities, a pseudo-nuke copy of an existing attack which is presumably on a long CD to justify the high damage, and an AoE; none of which are really going to provide an appreciable increase in DPS).

On a more abstract note, you're providing 2 DPS jobs off of the same base class, which doesn't make any sense really. They're going to play pretty much identically with only tiny variations (THF is gonna use steal/stolen items on occasions which is pretty much what you're having NIN do with Jutsu), which really doesn't justify creating a second job. I *highly* doubt that the devs will *ever* double up roles on the some class for this very reason (and it's also another reason why I see THF being the base class for NIN thanks to all of the other similarities).

[Duelle]

The way the devs have set up mDPS, it's pretty obvious that they want to force a mixture of flank and backside attacks so that you're not just getting behind a target and spamming your rotation. You'll want to add in some flank attacks as such.

That's something I'm hoping they'll realize is a bad idea to force on all melee at some point down the road. Hell, the pos reqs are the main reason you get either super awesome MNKs and DRGs and ones that barely pull their weight. You can try to get all e-peen about it but should also realize the performance difference shouldn't be as huge as it is.

That is a *huge* benefit. It would effectively force a THF to be part of every single group because, without it, you'd be shorting yourself of 20% of a DPS (4% of 4 DPS; tanks count as half of a DPS). Expose would work as a debuff they apply on their own an maintain to increase their own damage, but, as a group buff, it's hugely overpowered.

I agree. I forgot to tweak that before I pasted it on to the post. The only issue with making it self-only is that as you can see, my Rogue and THF have several passive damage boosts. Not sure if someone would actially find a reason to complain about those.

You probably want to list some of the stuff you actually expect to use with this and whether it's completely random or actually dependent upon the target.

I mentioned some examples in the notes. I would want it to be random, as otherwise you'd have to divide it by mob type or species or something along those lines. Problem with doing so is that the ability becomes "useless" or very situational. I hate playing to the skinner's box model, but if say Dusty Brew gave you +attack, or +skill speed or restored some TP you'd at least have to find a way to squeeze Steal into your rotation to get that Dusty Brew. Even if you don't, getting a Dusty Grenade or Potion is not much of a loss.

Even ignoring how pointless enmity assistance abilities are within ARR, I can assure you that 90% of the use for this will be in trolling people in your group.

The point of Accomplice is to act as a substitute to an aggro dump. I will admit that if I were to design THF I would want a Tricks of the Trade-type of ability. It's inclusion would also play on people's FFXI nostalgia because most do remember it for being able to transfer aggro.

This is another one of those worthless abilities that just doesn't work the way that ARR is designed. There are not enough abilities that an enemy can use to buff themselves with to actually give this ability any real use (it'll be less than a gimmick ability since you wouldn't be able to use it on 99% of the enemies in game), and, if the devs did decide to include fights where buffs need to be removed, they would need to be so strong that the THF would never benefit from them. The buffs that bosses get have to be worried about because they're big increases. No one cares about the small ones that a player could actually benefit from.

Dispelling at some point will enter the field of mechanics the devs use for boss fights. I am anticipating that. The goal here was playing into dispels without actually giving THF a dispel. Not to mention I'm sure someone out there wished to be able to steal stuff like King's Will or Celerity.

Also, you didn't put a CD on this.

I'm up in the air on that one. No CD but with a big TP cost, or moderate TP cost but 45-second cooldown. Thoughts?

The way you'd implement this is having Fuuma combo with itself to provide the relevant Jutsu, though I'm not sure why you wouldn't just have it give the Jutsu as a non-combo benefit. Even if the Jutsu abilities are supposed to be especially strong, you could just as easily put something like a 7.5-10sec CD on it to prevent Fuuma>Jutsu spam (assuming that the Jutsu would actually do enough damage to make that viable).

I wanted Jutsu to be more about utility, and admit Katon is there as a damage Jutsu purely to keep someone from complaining that Jutsu is just utility and situational.

You haven't listed any of the abilities that would be used or if they're even attacks/debuffs/buffs/utility.

It's right underneath the description. Jutsu Tokens.

You're just doubling up on Draw Cut, which you *also* provide at level 50. Not entirely sure I see the point unless you just want to give NIN another use of it with a separate but fancier animation.

Fancier animation and better mobility. The whole idea of NIN is mobility and having more ranged options than a DRG or MNK would. Or should I say, stronger ranged options. Fighting a NIN would be difficult knowing they can give you the runaround or open a gap. I also never really gave Draw-Cut and Bunshin Sappou cooldowns, though they definitely would have them. As an added bonus, NIN would have the easier time LoSing spells. thanks to being able to reposition themselves while dealing damage.

I could change THF's Throat Stab back to being 120 potency unless you're behind the target (then it would be 300 potency) to further accentuate this.

The advantage of pseudo-ranged damage capability (it's hard to say exactly how much you're giving them since you didn't define Jutsu in the least) doesn't really outweigh a dramatic loss of DPS, especially since you're already giving THF a 5% increase in damage as a passive benefit along with 2 attacks that would directly increase it's end DPS (you're giving NIN 2 movement utilities, a pseudo-nuke copy of an existing attack which is presumably on a long CD to justify the high damage, and an AoE; none of which are really going to provide an appreciable increase in DPS).

If THF and NIN ended up doing exactly the same damage, NIN would overtake THF based on the ranged advantage both in PvE and PvP. NIN also has more utility and mobility, which in PvP alone are incredibly powerful. I'll admit this is a tough balancing act and sort of wish I had a better frame of reference for DPS in that regard.

On a more abstract note, you're providing 2 DPS jobs off of the same base class, which doesn't make any sense really.

*shrug* I hate evasion tanks and blink tanks, and from a concept standpoint I don't see THF and NIN working as anything other than DPS. That said, I also know there's a lot of THF fans (including those jaded by how badly it was treated in FFXI) that would balk at the idea of THF being a class.

The underlying goal of my suggestion was to deal with the issue of "where NIN would come from?" while giving the people that want their second shot at THF what they want. NIN's aesthetic is too unique to be easily placed anywhere other than a quick-moving dagger class. That's largely why my suggested Rogue can equip stiletto knives and kunai. Sure, someone will be mad that NIN wouldn't get shinobigatana or a crapton of jutsu like in FFXI, but as is always the case, something's gotta give.

[jomoru]

The underlying goal of my suggestion was to deal with the issue of "where NIN would come from?" while giving the people that want their second shot at THF what they want. NIN's aesthetic is too unique to be easily placed anywhere other than a quick-moving dagger class.

Asside from the fact that Ninja have traidtionally not just in FF but in most media been you know.. sword users.

[Kitru]

That's something I'm hoping they'll realize is a bad idea to force on all melee at some point down the road. Hell, the pos reqs are the main reason you get either super awesome MNKs and DRGs and ones that barely pull their weight. You can try to get all e-peen about it but should also realize the performance difference shouldn't be as huge as it is.

The entire point is that there *should* be some aspect of skill to playing a class properly. Half of the reason why the average person looks at a BRD as being the best DPS is because it's ridiculously hard to *not* play a BRD well given how ridiculously simple they are. If you look at what the devs have changed in 2.1, they actually want the flank/back aspect to matter *more*. It's not like DRG even has all that stringent positional requirements anyways: Impulse Drive requires back and Heavy Swing requires flank; everything else simply doesn't care. MNK is the only one that really has complicated positional requirements. Having a single positional requirement is effectively the same as having no positional requirements because it still allows the player to just stand still for the entire fight if they don't have anything to explicitly dodge.

I mentioned some examples in the notes. I would want it to be random, as otherwise you'd have to divide it by mob type or species or something along those lines. Problem with doing so is that the ability becomes "useless" or very situational. I hate playing to the skinner's box model, but if say Dusty Brew gave you +attack, or +skill speed or restored some TP you'd at least have to find a way to squeeze Steal into your rotation to get that Dusty Brew. Even if you don't, getting a Dusty Grenade or Potion is not much of a loss.

Steal is the single most defining feature of the THF, no matter what game it's coming from. As a job, since jobs don't have to cover the same breadth of functionality as a class does, you can focus on that one attribute rather than spreading it thin. A more interesting variation on what you plan here might be a variation upon what I'm did with Pilfer/Ill-Gotten Gains, wherein the stolen items become a resource to fuel your other abilities. Furthermore, because jobs have the benefit of being able to add additional effects to existing abilities, you can add "Mug" style procs to combo finishers (since "Mug" has always been pretty token as well) where you are either guaranteed to gain a steal resource or just have a change at it. You could even allow for the accumulation of multiple stacks (I'd cap it at 3 at most) so that you can save up to spend on burst or have some abilities consume multiple stacks.

By doing so, you can provide multiple ways to consume the stolen resources that the player can actually choose: one ability could recover hp/tp (possibly hp with 1 stack; hp and tp with 2 stacks), another act as an AoE, and another act as a damage buff (poss req 3 stacks and consume all of them). Fill it out with one CD that deals a bit of damage and provides you with a stolen resources guaranteed so that players can have direct control if they so choose, and you just have to add a fifth ability to round out the entire job.

The point of Accomplice is to act as a substitute to an aggro dump. I will admit that if I were to design THF I would want a Tricks of the Trade-type of ability. It's inclusion would also play on people's FFXI nostalgia because most do remember it for being able to transfer aggro.

I think it's less important to play to someone's nostalgia than it is to ensure functional performance. Enmity transference/utility *really* isn't all that useful and you're already providing Quelling Strikes as an enmity drop via ARC. It's redundant as a personal enmity tool and unneeded as an group enmity tool (and, once again, eminently trollable). You would only be including it as an artifactual ability from a single game within the series.

Dispelling at some point will enter the field of mechanics the devs use for boss fights. I am anticipating that. The goal here was playing into dispels without actually giving THF a dispel. Not to mention I'm sure someone out there wished to be able to steal stuff like King's Will or Celerity.

I'm doubtful. Silence is *already* limited to only 2 classes (MNK *can* silence, but it's expensive and requires a specific form) which forces stringent requirements on group composition for any content requiring regular silencing. As it stands, the only class with any kind of purging capability is MNK and *that* requires a specific form. The more "required mechanics" that they add to content, the less real choice players have in setting up compositions. If the devs add purging as a requisite mechanic, they're going to need to give it to a lot more classes. Even then, the ability to steal buffs is a pretty worthless gimmick, given how rare NPC buffs are.

I'm up in the air on that one. No CD but with a big TP cost, or moderate TP cost but 45-second cooldown. Thoughts?

A lot of it depends upon whether it's on or off the GCD, how often the devs intend purge mechanics to be needed (the CD on stuns was set based on this), and what exact limitations are placed upon the stealing of the buffs. The ability to steal buffs opens up a whole can of worms that has to be tackled (and even adds to the de/buff database size since you need to label every buff as to whether it can be stolen or not; there's already a purge attribute on them because some debuffs can be cleansed while others can't).

I wanted Jutsu to be more about utility, and admit Katon is there as a damage Jutsu purely to keep someone from complaining that Jutsu is just utility and situational.

If the non-fire Jutsus don't deal damage, they'll be pretty much worthless, which means that NIN itself is going to be pretty much worthless since there isn't really anything else that you're giving NIN to increase its damage while giving THF some pretty impressive buffs. KB, weight, and Blind are all relatively mediocre as status effects so there's really not much that they're doing if they're not doing damage on top of it at the very least. They're even less useful given that you have to use 2+ abilities at a time in order to access the desired secondary effect.

It's right underneath the description. Jutsu Tokens.

You didn't really describe them. No durations/potencies/distances at all.

Fancier animation and better mobility.

Except that it's still the *exact* same ability. It does the same thing with a fancier animation, and you're *still* giving it to them at the exact same level as the ability you're cloning. Either give it to the class or give it to the job. Doubling up on an ability just because you want one job to have a fancier animation is just lazy design work.

The whole idea of NIN is mobility and having more ranged options than a DRG or MNK would. Or should I say, stronger ranged options.

Except you're not really providing additional ranged damage. The only improved ranged capability that you're providing is the fire jutsu which requires a full melee combo access it and a slightly extended range on an attack with a 60 sec CD. You didn't give NIN stronger ranged options. You gave them stronger options to keep them at range where they end up dealing negligible damage (their auto-attack will be melee and their entire ranged "rotation" is Fuuma>Fuuma, which is a monumental 120 potency/ GCD).

Ranged/melee fusion classes never work out well because they always end up being melee classes (if they need to be in melee to maximize damage) or ranged classes (if they can deal sufficient damage at range). It works out even worse when you're trying to staple it to an existing class that's already entirely melee based, which is what you're doing here.

Fighting a NIN would be difficult knowing they can give you the runaround or open a gap.

Which is only remotely useful in PvP. Since PvP gets its own bonus abilities, it would work out better to have the bouncy abilities that you seem to want NIN to specialize in be PvP abilities rather than actual class abilities that take the place of real functionality that they need.

As an added bonus, NIN would have the easier time LoSing spells.

NIN isn't a tank so...

If THF and NIN ended up doing exactly the same damage, NIN would overtake THF based on the ranged advantage both in PvE and PvP. NIN also has more utility and mobility, which in PvP alone are incredibly powerful. I'll admit this is a tough balancing act and sort of wish I had a better frame of reference for DPS in that regard.

If THF ends up doing more damage, since you're basing them off the same class, no one is going to bring a NIN because THF would just be more useful. At the same time, NIN becomes the de facto PvP job because you're providing so much annoyance/mobility that allows them to say "fuck you!" to the world. You're not creating 2 jobs so much as a PvE job and a PvP job.

*shrug* I hate evasion tanks and blink tanks, and from a concept standpoint I don't see THF and NIN working as anything other than DPS. That said, I also know there's a lot of THF fans (including those jaded by how badly it was treated in FFXI) that would balk at the idea of THF being a class.

As I said before, this is exactly why I see THF leading into NIN. The only reason that anyone can ever come up with for THF to not be a class is because they just decide by emotional fiat that it shouldn't be. There isn't a single good reason from a *developmental* standpoint for THF to be its own class if NIN is also implemented. There are *loads* of reasons that they *should* be. It's just kind of arbitrary stubbornness (generally by people that played THF in XI and want THF to be just as important as every other FFXI class in ARR no matter what).

as is always the case, something's gotta give.

And in pretty much all of the cases where people separate THF and NIN into separate jobs, the thing that gives is the quality of the developed class itself. I'd rather tell the people who are hung up on THF as a job to stuff it and make a class/job that's well designed and fun/interesting to play.

[Sypherblade]

Nice ideas Kitru, you put a lot of thought into this. (go team thief as a class)

I do like the idea of ninja being a ranged class tho from Duelle. Since its "thing" was always "throw" and "duel wield"

Rough idea for Ninja job (not based off any class)

1.Throw-ranged attack based on equipped weapons (Katanas/daggers have status effects build into them that are applied with the throw as well) - no cool down
2.Ninjutsu - some magic based ranged attack that does something - generates 1 shadow orb for the user - short cool down
3.Some ranged AoE move
4.Shadow Strike- ranged -consumes all shadow orbs to do burst damage to the target-damaged based on number of orbs consumed- animation would be clones of the caster appears around the target and attacks for each orb.
5.Assassin -ranged -a clone appears behind the target do do heavy damage then disappears -15min cool down

[Duelle]

Asside from the fact that Ninja have traidtionally not just in FF but in most media been you know.. sword users.

Ninja have actually had several weapons associated to them. Shinobigatana and kunai are only two of them. There's also Kama, Bo staves and a claw-hand weapon whose name I cannot remember. The devs will have to stick to one because of the armoury system. That said, the alternative to tying NIN to a rogue-type class would be making a class entirely built around one of the aforementioned weapons. The problem there is that you'd run into the same issue of not knowing what other job should sprout from this class because, as mentioned, NIN's aesthetic is very unique.

The entire point is that there *should* be some aspect of skill to playing a class properly. Half of the reason why the average person looks at a BRD as being the best DPS is because it's ridiculously hard to *not* play a BRD well given how ridiculously simple they are. If you look at what the devs have changed in 2.1, they actually want the flank/back aspect to matter *more*.

And I'll predict that we'll continue to see this alpha-omega split between DRGs and MNKs, unless people get fed up and simply roll BLM, SMN or BRD. It's not fun getting a MNK or a DRG in your groups and wondering if you got the awesome alpha or disappointing omega. Hell, for all the flack huntards used to get in WoW you could at least count on them to shoot at the mob and kill it in a decent amount of time (trapping, kiting and other things, not so much).

Steal is the single most defining feature of the THF, no matter what game it's coming from. As a job, since jobs don't have to cover the same breadth of functionality as a class does, you can focus on that one attribute rather than spreading it thin. A more interesting variation on what you plan here might be a variation upon what I'm did with Pilfer/Ill-Gotten Gains, wherein the stolen items become a resource to fuel your other abilities.

This just feels inorganic. I'll admit that there's no easy way to implement Steal in a trinity MMO without feeling token, but making it part of a resource system strikes me as odd.

I think it's less important to play to someone's nostalgia than it is to ensure functional performance. Enmity transference/utility *really* isn't all that useful and you're already providing Quelling Strikes as an enmity drop via ARC. It's redundant as a personal enmity tool and unneeded as an group enmity tool (and, once again, eminently trollable). You would only be including it as an artifactual ability from a single game within the series.

You forget that tank swaps will likely become more common in 8-man content (and, as 24-man content grows it may play a role there too), and with Provoke not keeping you at the top of the hate list for 6 seconds like in other MMOs, the enmity boost will have a purpose and be very helpful.

If the devs add purging as a requisite mechanic, they're going to need to give it to a lot more classes. Even then, the ability to steal buffs is a pretty worthless gimmick, given how rare NPC buffs are.

I never said anything about THF being the only job that can remove enemy buffs. That's part of why my Astrologist => Time Mage/Green Mage also has Dispel.

Since you touched on player choice, the same thing could be said for interrupts, where BRD's entire selling point to many seems to be Blunt Arrow.

The ability to steal buffs opens up a whole can of worms that has to be tackled (and even adds to the de/buff database size since you need to label every buff as to whether it can be stolen or not; there's already a purge attribute on them because some debuffs can be cleansed while others can't).

What made spellsteal great was that it gave players access to unique buffs that you could get nowhere else, in some cases stealing buffs was key to winning the fight and/or notably increased DPS.

If the non-fire Jutsus don't deal damage, they'll be pretty much worthless, which means that NIN itself is going to be pretty much worthless since there isn't really anything else that you're giving NIN to increase its damage while giving THF some pretty impressive buffs.

I wouldn't risk giving NIN 4-5 abilities that do the same thing but with different particle effects. And I think people would be more miffed about that over having utility available to them.

KB, weight, and Blind are all relatively mediocre as status effects so there's really not much that they're doing if they're not doing damage on top of it at the very least.

Even without damage, I can't help but see a NIN dominate Wolves' Den and The Frontlines just based on the insane amount of utility they could provide.

They're even less useful given that you have to use 2+ abilities at a time in order to access the desired secondary effect.

This point I'll grant you. I was looking at Jutsu as follow ups do your DPS rotation rather than standalone abilities (the original charge system was also conceived around this idea).

You didn't really describe them. No durations/potencies/distances at all.

I purposely left those open for discussion. For example, Fuuton's knockback is intended to give you room but also to peel, but I'm not sure if it should have a bind attached to it like Fluid Aura.

Except that it's still the *exact* same ability. It does the same thing with a fancier animation, and you're *still* giving it to them at the exact same level as the ability you're cloning. Either give it to the class or give it to the job. Doubling up on an ability just because you want one job to have a fancier animation is just lazy design work.

Good point. I did think of this along the lines of how WoW warriors worked, since they also had two abilities that did the same thing (Charge and Intercept). I've thought of giving Bunshin Sappou a 10-yalm range, but I felt I'd have to lower its damage potential if that were to be the case (can you imagine a NIN landing a 300-potency attack from 10 yalms while teleporting behind you?).

I also did it to avoid the unquestionable pointlessness of Mijin Gakure.

It works out even worse when you're trying to staple it to an existing class that's already entirely melee based, which is what you're doing here.

Aside from the fact that none of the potency numbers are set in stone (keep in mind my main is a tank, and don't have much of a frame of reference for what ability potencies should be for DPS classes), I may be inclined to agree here. I could focus NIN entirely on mobility and just scrap the attempt at giving them more ranged abilities.

Which is only remotely useful in PvP. Since PvP gets its own bonus abilities, it would work out better to have the bouncy abilities that you seem to want NIN to specialize in be PvP abilities rather than actual class abilities that take the place of real functionality that they need.

Except said PvP abilities are riddled with lousy gimmicks with a few fundamental skills (Purify).

As far as actual class abilities, NIN doesn't have much to stand on based on how it was built in the FF series. FFIV's Edge didn't have much other than throwing skills and AoE black magic with poor scaling. FF1's NIN was a thief with black magic. FFT's NIN was basically all throwing. FFVI's Shadow was throwing and a dog. FFXI's NIN became a caster with dual wield and token throwing skill.

You have to reinvent NIN either way for it to work in an MMORPG. The major hurdle is the fact that the armoury system combined with the 5-ability rule severely limits how far you can go with it. You can't give it a massive list of standa-alone Jutsu because you can't really squeeze it into 5 abilities. You can't give them a monopoly on dual wielding either. You're limited to the type of weapons they can use.

At one time I was thinking of suggesting that almost every rogue skill change when equipping the NIN crystal, but I somehow don't see SE doing that when they do get around to giving ARC, THM and CNJ their second jobs.

As I said before, this is exactly why I see THF leading into NIN. The only reason that anyone can ever come up with for THF to not be a class is because they just decide by emotional fiat that it shouldn't be. There isn't a single good reason from a *developmental* standpoint for THF to be its own class if NIN is also implemented. There are *loads* of reasons that they *should* be. It's just kind of arbitrary stubbornness (generally by people that played THF in XI and want THF to be just as important as every other FFXI class in ARR no matter what).

You're treating this as if it were unreasonable, when it is more than reasonable to want THF to be a job like it was in the past. With the discussions I've seen about THF, yes I can picture people being VERY pissed if they decide to make THF a class so that NIN can sprout from it.

THF is one of the original six jobs of the series, and I don't see why it should be doomed to obsolescence (which is what happens to GLA, MRD, CNJ, THM et al) and vanish off the map once you hit lv30. If it were one of the oddball one-appearance-in-15+-games jobs, I might incline to agree with you, but one of the original six jobs?

And in pretty much all of the cases where people separate THF and NIN into separate jobs, the thing that gives is the quality of the developed class itself.

That only gives because the developers involved were obsessed with being different for the sake of being different. That's the reason THF in FFXI was reduced to Treasure Hunter whore while NIN went on to deal damage and shrug off hits that could tear a PLD to shreds. It makes sense to extremely separate classes in single-player games (FFT's Thief stealing everything not nailed to the ground while FFT's Ninja throwing and dual wielding), but MMORPG should not be afraid of design that overlap. We're going to see overlap when ARC's second job gets introduced anyway, so it's not as big a deal as some may think.

[jomoru]

Ninja have actually had several weapons associated to them. Shinobigatana and kunai are only two of them. There's also Kama, Bo staves and a claw-hand weapon whose name I cannot remember. The devs will have to stick to one because of the armoury system. That said, the alternative to tying NIN to a rogue-type class would be making a class entirely built around one of the aforementioned weapons. The problem there is that you'd run into the same issue of not knowing what other job should sprout from this class because, as mentioned, NIN's aesthetic is very unique..

IF it went two handed sword one could do Ninja as DPS and Samurai as Tank. Or.. dare I say it. Two ninja jobs.

[Kitru]

IF it went two handed sword one could do Ninja as DPS and Samurai as Tank. Or.. dare I say it. Two ninja jobs.

Yoshi has already said that NIN is never going to be a tank in ARR so the chance of there being 2 ninja jobs is so minute it's almost laughable. As to SAM and NIN being drawn from the same class, the only thing that links the two is the "Japanese" theme; it's like saying that THF and PLD should be based off of the same class because they're both (in the way they're implemented) European archetypes (many of the classes that FF uses are Western archetypes as opposed to Eastern ones because the devs drew a *lot* of inspiration from D&D, which is *very* much fantasy derived from European myths rather than Asian).

When discussing a NIN using a katana in two hands, you have to abandon a *lot* of what has classically defined NIN in the FF series, which have almost always been dual wielding combatants that used a separate category of weapons when possible (Edge uses katanas in FFIV because there isn't a SAM; in FFVI, where you've got a NIN in Shadow and a SAM in Cyan, they use completely different weapon types: Shadow uses daggers/ninja daggers and Cyan uses katana; the same holds true in the FFT games). About the only thing that's "ninja" about a katana is the shared Japanese origin, which, to make a similar simile as before, is like asking for a THF to use a greatsword.

[Kitru]

We're going to see overlap when ARC's second job gets introduced anyway, so it's not as big a deal as some may think.

That's a huge "if", not a "when", and I'm pretty sure it is never going to happen (at least until the game has entered its death throes and the devs become willing to do just about anything to keep their players). Any extra job that ARC gets is going to have to be DPS because there's nothing else that ARC could turn into without turning a number of its abilities into completely and utterly new abilities (at which point, if it does happen, sets precedent for any job being able to be turned into anything because you could just rebuild the basic class abilities completely to suit your needs) at which point you run into the inevitable issue of one job rendering the other redundant. There isn't a support primary role and BRD is explicitly balanced against the DPS capabilities of the other classes (it has the lowest DPS standing still, but that's because it has the absolute best DPS in any scenario that involves movement because they don't have to stay in melee or stand still for extended periods) so, if they *did* get a new job, it would be *required* to have better DPS than BRD to offset the "loss" of support, which would put it outright above the effectiveness of the other classes (since it still has all of the mobility that BRD has).