Who is NOT a THF/NIN?

[Ixaera]

The weaker the monster, the higher chance of proc. The chance is pretty high, anyway...it's just with thf's C+ skill, even capped (which I am) you won't always get proc :/ Which sucks because I already felt like I was wasting gil anyway, shooting bolts and not hitting, and then not proc'ing when they hit. :/ I went back to cc boom +1 and lightning bow. /sigh

I love xbow for solo though.

[John Doe III]

Originally posted by Spider-Dan

I think /RNG is arguably a legitimate subjob in later levels too (particularly post 60), though I've yet to actually put it through its paces. ACC+22 from Accuracy Up II is obviously nothing to sneeze at, and reliably landing Acid Bolts will make more of a difference than Berserk will; even though Acids are only -12.5% DEF and Berserk is +25% ATK, that -12.5% is multiplied by however many people in your party are attacking, which is guaranteed to be at least 3 (in a THF party).

First of all, /rng before 60 is basically pointless. Why would you do that? You get Sharp Shot? Hopefully all Thieves use Xbow to pull now. If you dont, your really hurting your party. Why not? I think your Tank would like that acid bolt or maybe blind bolt.

If you did /rng before 60 you wouldn't catch up with your other PT members TP because your probably too busy doing /range and missing. Your not a ranger. You dont have all the ACC you think you have, even if your range is capped. But with you subbing /rng at 60 you get barrage and can get that added jump needed to catch up. I dont really remember how much you get after barrage, but it's somewhere around 50 correct? If you get each one down, if you miss half of all of them or all of them then that just sucks.

Even if you have a bunch of ACC equip that you switch to before renkei then that's great! I used to do that to. Depending on what mob your fighting and how much ACC+ you have then it may help. If not then you may find yourself lacking and not wanting to /rng anymore. It would also be best to have DEX equip to go with your ACC equip. I doubt your party would like you using ACC equip while doing the only thing your there to do lol.

And I know /rng has a refresh time of 5 minutes on barrage. But there is so much more you can do to benifit your party. As Spider said about the Acid bolts those will always help of course. The others will to...I dont really want to go into them all..-_-. Sleep bolts are a must though. If you have Sharpshot, ACC+, and with all the AGI you have then you should hit the mob with the sleep bolt if your party links and hopefully you save your mage some MP.

Thats what I think and hopefully it made sense. And as many of you said the bolts dont work every time, I guess it depends on level? Dont know. If someone has anything to change or say about what I said please do.

[Dragonhope]

I prefer THF/WAR over THF/NIN. I've been using THF/NIN more though lately since i've been either soloing or fighting fast monsters. I'm Elvaan and i've been doing around the same damage as /WAR and /NIN. My TP gain has also been pretty close contrary to popular belief that /NIN has faster TP gain. Maybe it's because I go for +acc and +att on my offhand (Bone Knife+1) instead of a Hornet's Needle...

[Sabastion]

Originally posted by John Doe III
Hopefully all Thieves use Xbow to pull now. If you dont, your really hurting your party. Why not? I think your Tank would like that acid bolt or maybe blind bolt.

I really dissagree with this 100% IMHO.

Chances are only 2/5 pulls you'll connect anyways and not to mention you loose stats like +3dex or acc+ if you use the boomerang.

[guyincorporated]

Originally posted by John Doe III
First of all, /rng before 60 is basically pointless.

If you did /rng before 60 you wouldn't catch up with your other PT members TP because your probably too busy doing /range and missing. Your not a ranger. You dont have all the ACC you think you have, even if your range is capped. But with you subbing /rng at 60 you get barrage and can get that added jump needed to catch up. I dont really remember how much you get after barrage, but it's somewhere around 50 correct? If you get each one down, if you miss half of all of them or all of them then that just sucks.

It seems like you contradict yourself. /Ranger is useless pre-60 when the skillcap gap is smaller, but after 60 when "your probably too busy doing /range and missing", suddenly a 2/5 hit on barrage every 5 minutes is going to make up the difference?

I haven't gotten to level 30 ranger, nor do I party with many, but my understanding of barrage is that it actually benefits the ranger to have the slowest weapon possible for tp gain. You get your standard tp multiplied by the number of hits, so if you have a slow powerbow, barrage does way more damage and you get way more tp. Now factor in the fact that thieves can't use powerbows or heavy crossbows and I really don't see barrage being useful in an xp party. Now soloing is a totally different matter. There you barrage is more or less guaranteed to hit, so /ranger is a badass combo.

Anyhow, if I had to level thief all over again, I'd go thief/ranger until level 15. Sharpshot is a level 1 ability, and there isn't any +racc gear available until level 14 anyhow.

[Dragonhope]

I left the Bow behind for when I decide to level RNG again. I've been skilling up both throwing and Xbow up a bunch though. I'll be taking a Boomerang as backup for each XP session so I have something to use to pull if I run out of bolts. Plus...something about that Comet Tail that just makes me want to use it sooo much. It's probably that +20 ranged attack...

I know what some of you are thinking...that +20 ranged attack isn't doing to do much. I can't say I care as pulling the monster is more important then doing damage with a ranged attack is. But I like keeping it as backup and I can throw (Thieves get B in throwing I think?) it around when i'm soloing for fun without any ammo drain.

[John Doe III]

Originally posted by guyincorporated
It seems like you contradict yourself. /Ranger is useless pre-60 when the skillcap gap is smaller, but after 60 when "your probably too busy doing /range and missing", suddenly a 2/5 hit on barrage every 5 minutes is going to make up the difference?

I haven't gotten to level 30 ranger, nor do I party with many, but my understanding of barrage is that it actually benefits the ranger to have the slowest weapon possible for tp gain. You get your standard tp multiplied by the number of hits, so if you have a slow powerbow, barrage does way more damage and you get way more tp. Now factor in the fact that thieves can't use powerbows or heavy crossbows and I really don't see barrage being useful in an xp party. Now soloing is a totally different matter. There you barrage is more or less guaranteed to hit, so /ranger is a badass combo.

Yeah most of what I said didn't make any sense..I tried the best I could.

But during a PT at level 60 you can use the DEX+3 bow and or a high level Xbow. I currently am using it but dont remember the name (On vacation or I would look it up). Using /rng isn't suppose to be doing damage, your suppose to still be doing your THF purpose.

If you duel two daggers and are using a xbow. Depending on how much you spent on your xbow and the if it's the best one out there then you can most likely get (if hit) more tp after hitting with the xbow than one turn of the daggers. Daggers = 10 TP and Xbow = 12? I think. I doesn't matter how faster your bow is or how much damage it does. You being the THF/RNG aren't there to do as much damage as you can with barrage. Your just there to get TP, status damage if possible, and THF job. And barrage solo is very much badass, leveling skill with it is even more badass.

suddenly a 2/5 hit on barrage every 5 minutes is going to make up the difference?

Please explain this more if you can. Have you tried barrage after level 60? You can still hit every hit on barrage. It may not be 2/5 in every case. Even if you do hit 2/5 it's about 25~ TP depending on what your using. Which is almost faster than 3 turns of dagger attacking.

[Tokitoki]

I dont use Xbow to pull... why would i want to? Marksman is at 123 skill, Bow is at same and bow gives +3 DEX, Crossbow can give +1 agi... WHOOPDEEDO. Not like you're going to be landing all teh bolts you shoot anyway.

[DelennFFXI]

Originally posted by Spider-Dan
even though Acids are only -12.5% DEF

Sorry to jump in, but I'm really curious where you got that number. I always believed it was -25% (yes, super crazy), but now I can't find anything to substantiate either claim. A link to testing would be great

In any case, it's a (very) significant effect. I just prefer to have the record set straight, one way or the other.

Thanks in advance,

[John Doe III]

Originally posted by Tokitoki
I dont use Xbow to pull... why would i want to? Marksman is at 123 skill, Bow is at same and bow gives +3 DEX, Crossbow can give +1 agi... WHOOPDEEDO. Not like you're going to be landing all teh bolts you shoot anyway.

Status bolts?? Switching Equip??

[Spider-Dan]

Originally posted by Sabastion
Weird. If the bolt connects you get a proc. Well majority of the time unless the mob is resilant to it, i.e. bones = no bloody.

That depends on the mob.

If you are fighting IT++, your proc rate (even as RNG) will drop noticeably. Against VT, sure, everything sticks every time.

[Spider-Dan]

Originally posted by John Doe III
First of all, /rng before 60 is basically pointless. Why would you do that?

ACC+10, Sharp Shot + Acids.

But with you subbing /rng at 60 you get barrage and can get that added jump needed to catch up. I dont really remember how much you get after barrage, but it's somewhere around 50 correct?

Max TP return for /RNG Barrage is the TP from /ra x4 (/RNG cannot get more than a 4 arrow Barrage).

Anyway, the main point of /RNG post-60 is the insane melee accuracy bonus, not trying to land your C rank ranged.

Sleep bolts are a must though. If you have Sharpshot, ACC+, and with all the AGI you have then you should hit the mob with the sleep bolt if your party links and hopefully you save your mage some MP.

Even as a RNG main, I found using sleep ammo on adds to be a pointless waste of time.

1) Sleep effect on ITish mobs is pretty unreliable and short.
2) If I'm standing there pumping sleep ammo into an add, then I'm not fighting the original mob. The party is better served by me killing the <bt> while a mage sleeps the add.

[Spider-Dan]

Originally posted by DelennFFXI
Sorry to jump in, but I'm really curious where you got that number. I always believed it was -25% (yes, super crazy), but now I can't find anything to substantiate either claim. A link to testing would be great

I can't find the link anymore (it's buried in some unsearchable board) but Ballista testing confirmed that it's -12.5%.

[Dragonhope]

Didn't SE change something in one of the previous patches so that the effects of things against other players are less effective then on mobs? Like...I don't think mobs start off with the same Sleep Resistance that other players in Ballista do...

[Tokitoki]

Originally posted by John Doe III
Status bolts?? Switching Equip??

Switch equips and lose the TP im gonig to use to stick ahte to the tanka t start of fight with SA/TA/DE? {No thanks.} And witht eh average skill of most THF's crossbow and the rating that we have, you arent going to be hitting a whole lot either way. The PT shouldnt rely on you to debuff a mob.