SO... what were the benefits of thf sub?

[Wings of Icarus]

Title says it.

In like 99 % of the pts I ended up in, they've always asked me to sub thf.... I personally hate that... the slow tp building and lowered damage were too much of an impact for the job combination to be useful, imho.

First issue I'll address:

1. Hate Control: Since I started subbing thf 66 + I've encountered this problem; I'm partying with a Ranger, and by the time I have enough TP built up to skillchain with thf sub, the Paladin has so much hate built up that the Ranger can't pull the mob off of the PLD, so I have to end up either A. Sneak Attack + Spinning Slash (which promptly puts the mob on me, forcing me to bust out my phalanx rings and carapace armor and hope I don't get smacked around too hard, like some bastard child) or B. SATA Spinning Slash the Ranger (which they will NEVER agree to). If I do a normal Spinning Slash, the mob almost never turns, if it does, ( WHICH IS RARE)it's usually dead a few seconds afterwords from the MB (versus the mob turning on me everytime I do a Sneak Attack + Spinning Slash, the mage spends more MP healing me)-- more MP would've been saved versus a situation where SATA Spinning Slash is part of the renkei and "save" is called: more time is spent killing the mob, more MP is spent healing the tank.

If the PLD has no problem holding hate, then why the hell do I need to sub THF for a 900 + dmg WS every other battle when I can do a 600 dmg WS every battle? Hate control is useless in this situation. The only time I see that the "Hate Control" argument actually is valid is when I'm in a PT with a Ninja, and how many Ninja do you think I party with? A Thief doesn't have this issue... they have triple attack & dual wield/double attack depending on what subjob they use... they'll gain tp almost every round of damage, whereas us DRKs have a high delay weapon, we cannot afford to miss, and miss we do.

2. Damage: By subbing THF, we lower our DoT and reduce the number of times we're ready for SC, lowering the max xp/hr we can gain. When I sub thf and I see the Ranger never missing a hit, hitting harder than I do by atleast 50 dmg and gains TP insanely fast, why the hell am I even needed ?

Samurai sub allows DRK: to be ready for one or more renkei every battle, upping the XP/HR and DoT we're capable of...
14 TP per connected hit (with great sword) and 60 free tp is hard to argue with.

Warrior sub: Berserk, Double Attack -- With Double Attack you're already gaining TP faster as opposed to thf sub, and you're upping your DMG per swing with Berserk.

So what's the point of doing a pretty skillchain with decent numbers every so often, if you're severly gimping yourself?

I'm sorry to say, because of many parties asking that I sub thief, and thus leading to incredibly poor xp/hr, thus leading to my never being invited again, I've retired DRK.

I'm going WHM/BLM, now.

EDIT: I don't hate DRK, in fact I loved the DRK job class until i reached the level where conventional wisdom states that every drk must be drk/thf.

[Vicynax]

Your paladin is suppose to hold enough hate to keep on him at all times until the ranger bust out arching arrows. 99% of the time when I partied with pld/rng/dk, ranger has the aggro after using /ws. Then when you do your SATA+Spin, it's almost gonna be permanently pld's hate for the rest of the battle, which should last for most 10+ seconds.

Either your pld doesn't know what he's doing, or your rangers purely and most pathetically suck at putting out dmg at turning the mob. As for TP building, I've always reached 100%+ at about 40-50% of mob's hp. So I really don't know how you can be doing /WS every other battle. That is way too slow. If you were doing /WS every other battle that would mean all dmg were outputted by rng during those rounds, then I doubt even the greatest pld can hold aggro off that ranger which contradicts yours statement of pld holding too much hate.

There's a reason for subbing thf.. and the reason is....

No one besides the damn pld is getting hit. It's not always about your dmg. It's about combined dmg. Maybe you don't get the concept.

[Wings of Icarus]

Sure, I get 100 + TP every battle by the time the mob is at 50 % health or so, (if starting from 0-12% tp at the start of the battle) but what's a 500 + dmg arching arrow + a 900 Spinning Slash + up to 900 dmg or more light dmg + a 1000 dmg BLM MB gonna do to a mob? Can you say overkill ? Not to mention renkei'ing every battle with thf sub is a nice way to set yourself up for never making a chain #5 (Unless you build tp on #4 and use souleater to close it in time for #5, but it seems to never happen this way, and chain is lost on 4).

Sure if RNG subbed war they could probably pull the hate from the PLD, but most of the RNG population only subs Ninja, so what am I to do? Simply put, a RNG/NIN WILL NOT pull hate from a PLD even half trying to hold hate, a circa 500 dmg Arching Arrow/Heavy Shot can't do it.

Due to the party dynamics, I guess it's not viable for ME to play a Dark Knight at the moment. Or maybe I just don't get the concept, like you said.

[iforget]

if you're doing the every other battle renkei thing, do the skillchain at or near the start of the fight so you can be assured the mob will turn. TP is erratic so you cant do it all the time, but it helps to do it whenever possible. Other than that there's not much you can do, other than find a blm who keeps aware of the situation and nukes harder on #0,2, and 4. Hopefully your ranger can time his barrages for non-chain along with ur souleater (plds nightmare i guess, but your tank sounds sticky as glue)

[gix]

a blm is key in the tp accumulation rounds, and also key in SC rounds. SC rounds is usually 1 shot, but chain 4 is tricky your PT will have to use most of the tricks in its arsenal to save the TP for chain 5.

[Amadeus]

I'm the other way around...warrior is a snooze-fest to play. I don't entirely see why you think a guaranteed critical hit is worse for TP gain than double attack, which goes off randomly and is not a guaranteed hit.

As for why thief sub 65+ is recommended, Sneak/Trick allows you to place the hate (obviously depending on party structure) safely on someone else who can take hits, doing 2 things:

1) Reducing the amount of damage the GROUP needs to heal you.

2) Allowing you to use Souleater for a full minute and not get hit once. (and even using Souleater upon skill to start it)

Then again, I like thief, and not warrior, so I'm a little biased.

[Awntawn]

RNG's around the world need to know this:

RNG/NIN is for parties without a hate controller. With a THF or /THF, they NEED to use WAR sub, else it fucks the PT over bigtime. I suppose with a DRK/THF and NIN tank, arching/heavy is enough to pull the hate for renkei, but for PT's with THF, they won't be able to use seperate sneak + trick, which really brings down the THF's damage potential.

[Zaptruder]

It's the paladin's job to make sure that he has just enough hate, until the thief's /thf's renkei partner is ready.

Otherwise, he has to create enough hate to hold past WS+WS+SATA... which is much harder and more tiring then the former.

[Stolin]

Hmm i'm with icarus here on this one. I think THF sub is most useful for the DRK if they are ending the skillchain. If his party isn't letting him TA on the tank there really is no point in him subbing thf. If they are asking him to sub thf just for the extra 300 dmg on the WS hes right its not worth it.

Icarus take a break from EXPing. DRK can be used else where. Do ballista a few times with DRK/NIN and soul eater+rampage spam. I know still a lot of people haven't tried ballista so im trying to spread the word lol.

[Stolin]

I'm really not understanding the party dynamics (der im stupid). So only one of the melees is subbing warrior? And you are ending the SC? If its like this the RNG really needs to sub warrior if your acting as the thf to get the hate off the PLD so you can SA/TA and end the SC on the PLD. If the RNG isn't pulling hate off the PLD its not your fault your unhappy with what your PT is doing.

[Langolier]

Meh, I personally don't want to sub THF at all, I can't stand anything about the class. This has given me the courage to try and get up to Spinning Slash and beyond without that damn sub.

[iforget]

Just as an aside, spinning slash seems even less accurate than vorpal scythe, so the SA really helps to avoid the "dammit missed ><;"

[Langolier]

I've never thought that Vorpal Scythe was that innaccurate. It only ever missed very occassionally. ..but I don't care, I think I'm about ready to quit DRK all-together, probably the whole game.

[BuriGuri]

Some reasons I see for sub thf :

1. You compare 600 damage with war sub vs thf sub, but you forgot to factor in the ws damage.
Simple facts :
for 2 part renkei : Assuming 600damage spin slash, and unresisted light damage, 900 or 1200 total damage with war sub.
1350 or 1800 damage with thf sub. That quite a big damage difference.

2. Due to nature of exp chain, big numbers are preferable over DoT.

3. Yes good Paladins can hold enough hate for whatever damage dealers can throw at him. However can they do that right at the start ? you dont have time to buildup hate when your aiming for that chain 5. Im pretty sure no matter how good the pld is that he wont held that 1300+ blm's MB right at the very start.

As to your problems, others have made some good suggestions.
asking the ranger to sub war, or asking the paladins to reduce his hate abit sounds reasonable to me. Hell my ninja have had ocassion when I have to hold back abit simply because 600 damage arching doesnt turn the monster. Alternatively like someone had suggested, you can ask the paladin to go all out.
Yes some paladins are so good that sneaked spinning slash mid battle dont move the mob at all. (experienced it before believe it or not).

[Mikasa]

Originally posted by Langolier
Meh, I personally don't want to sub THF at all, I can't stand anything about the class. This has given me the courage to try and get up to Spinning Slash and beyond without that damn sub.

won't ever happen.

level your THF sub asap.