Is THF useless?

[Akashimo]

Re: Is THF useless?

Yea, after a few parties in bibiki bay for the first time as thf, i knew i'd needed to get some atk gear and/or use a sub that'll get me an attack bonus. Single handed Hoplites Harpe with strike shield and a rapparee harness for a mini self haste give good DoT, about 20-40 points with Dragoon subbed. Plus it's easy to land hate when i'm in a skill chain, TA Jump ^^300 booya >.>;. From theives i've partied with, most don't carry attack gear on them or use anything other than nin sub. Most just use an off hand garuda's dagger with a higher delay dagger, which is good for some dmg and tp gain. Only useless thf is one who doesn't make the most outta what they can do with main job abilities/traits and likewise with sub.

[tdh]

Re: Is THF useless?

I'm a big fan of THFs. Allows me to go crazy with my damage and not hold back. (Well to a point.) They're great for closing Skillchains until Lv.65 for the most part. Not many can close like THF can until you start working with Lv.3 Skillchains.

I'm only THF32, but I tell you 300~400 Fast Blades are AWESOME! It requires more skill than other jobs, and it does require competent party members, but when it works it RAWKS!

[Lmnop]

Re: Is THF useless?

Sadly most thfs do just that though.

that sums it up.

My THF experience was actually very similar to Ziero. I only took it to 45, but I basically tried to play it a lot like I play my WAR main. Which means remember that DoT is still king. Even with end-game melee that consistently hit 1k+ dmg each and every Weapon Skill, the parsers always show that some crazy number like 70% of their damage comes from normal melee. I can see THF's numbers being different, but I bet a good thf's would be like 50/50 or even 60/40. Most THFs treat it like 1/99.

I was by no means a good thf, but I had good equipment and did my best. So many equip swaps that it was lagging my macros :/ which is one of the reasons that I think that THF's biggest problems is game design (another example, as I've vented about many times before, is the freeze glitch from getting spells cast on you. That kills thf's fun real quick when Minuet causes you to hit VB for 42 damage).

I would like to hear more about high-end THFs embracing the recently increased dagger damage. Before update, if you compared thf/nin to nin/war, a nin/war has lower base delay (something like 40% dual wield or something rediculous vs 20% a thf/nin can get) and an average of 10 higher base damage on weapons. Then add on how much more readily available haste gear is for NINs than THF. Now add Berserk, better debuffs that take less time to get off and higher chance of success (I'm talking about debuff bolts vs Ninjutsu, here) and superior blinks and it kinda makes a THF wanna cry (or at least makes me want to). With the dagger update, I think the DoT should come close enough that SA and TA may actually break the tie. It's just wrong for Nin to be one of the most desired tanks and be a better DD than jobs that do little else.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Is THF useless?

Hate Control {Yes, Please.}

If you have someone who can do first voke, someone (possibly the same) who can open Distortion, and someone who can MB off of Distortion, you can not only plant insane hate on the tank w/ SATA Viper Bite, but have the mob down to 2/3 HP about 30 seconds into the battle.

The difficult part of this is the coordination, I have had my share of uncooperative parties. But it is possible to work around this somewhat, even though you won't be at full potential (parties that don't coordinate generally aren't anyway). First, Trick Attack w/o Sneak Attack is nigh useless, but occasionally can be useful in combination with a WS. SA has a much higher tolerance than TA, so if the player you want to TA on is not quite behind the mob, stand directly behind them anyway; you'll lose a bit of SA power, but it should be less than what TA grants. If the tank is good at keeping hate, you may choose to SATA onto any handy melee; if the tank is not good at keeping hate, you may want to stand behind them and spam SATA the moment they lose hate, but most of the time I'd say just forget TA and stay behind the mob for SA. Particularly if you have /NIN, you can usually afford the hate spike for a bit.

If the mob turns as you're about to hit for SA (regular melee, not WS), kill target lock and hit the backward direction; you'll generally be able to hold your attack. Circle around the mob, then close in for SA. Or, if appropriate, wait for hate to normalize and turn back, but chasing the mob will usually be necessary in my experience.

SA+WS, on the other hand, is generally doomed if hate shifts as you're pulling it off, the animations will root you to the spot, and being out of range of the mob when a WS instruction goes off will kill your TP.

Finally, if you have someone who can cast Haste, try to make sure you're in their Haste cycle; As you gain slightly less than 5% tp per hit, generally, hitting as often as possible to build TP back up is important, particularly if your SC opener is SAM and can be counted on to be ready to start a SC before you are, no matter what. Always being ready to open the battle with Distortion can make things work much more smoothly. The more successful your opening move, the more difficult it will be to get in enough hits to hit 100%, so Haste counts. (Ranged Accuracy doesn't exactly hurt either, if you're puller; actually hit the mob on the way in and you'll find yourself that much closer to WS readiness.)

In the worst case scenario of no cooperation at all: Take TA when you can--this may mean some judgement calls on when it is or isn't okay to plant hate on a DD rather than the tank--but focus on getting SA in. If you're not asked to be part of the SC, solo your WS with SA to maximize your damage. If there's no SC at all, be opportunistic about closing a SC off of a WS you see someone pull when you can; I managed to close Scission off of the PLD tank's Red Lotus Blade in my last party.

[Asir]

Re: Is THF useless?

I enjoy having THFs in my parties. They're all kinds of crazy fun regardless of which job I'm playing. For example; before I retired BRD on my dead taru, I would use SATA to scare the hell out of my mages. Sure, my life would flash before my eyes as my microscopic HP went into the deep red quickly but I was always a good SATA partner for the tanks. I only died once doing that, my party was stunned and looking for a supposed link attacking me that they forgot to cure me and voke off me.

As for playing THF, I don't have any real experience with it but I've enjoyed the 20 levels I've gotten with it so far. SA is fun and I'm looking forward to getting it high enough to use TA as well as all the other fun job skills that go along with it. Now if only SE would rename the 2hr to something more appropriate... Not So Perfect Dodge sounds good to me.

[Kaickul]

Re: Is THF useless?

Thf DoT.... Thief isn't normally a DD job. Thf/nin and Thf/war are both melee support for the most part. We lower enemy defense, add poison-like DoT to mobs we fight and can throw in a major damage spike every minute or so. Our only true DD quality is our WS which we can only effectively use once every minute (every 50sec if meritted). Our DoT in comparison with other jobs, especially melee DDs is irrelavent.

Not sure how you play THF, but this statement is not true for all THFs. So let me clear something up quickly.

Thief isn't normally a DD job.

Let me fix this statement. If you are /nin and eating sushi for exp, merit, gods, hnms, etc then this statement will apply to you. If you /drk or /war and build up your gear to DD standards then you can crank out numbers like this and make other melee hate you.

Our only true DD quality is our WS which we can only effectively use once every minute (every 50sec if meritted). Our DoT in comparison with other jobs, especially melee DDs is irrelavent.

Let me quickly state something concerning this.
THF is not the best DD by any means.
Will a THF out DoT a WAR/NIN with /war or /nin? Depends on a few things including, whether or not they suck, the mob type (weak to pierce?), and your gear vs their gear.

With the right setup of gear/sub/food a THF can easily crank out some high end numbers on DoT and WS. A good THF earns his DoT with his number of hits and not just how much they hit for. From there a THF cranks out WS.

Last, the WS every 50 seconds is not true either. A good THF splits SA & TA for use. Most THFs know this and with the right setup have TP ready when their respective timers for SA/TA are ready.

With the recent changes to daggers and THF merit abilities your perceptions will more than likely change in the future.


I just want to ask you Ryddr...

We lower enemy defense, add poison-like DoT to mobs we fight...

...what are you being asked to land poison bolts on endgame? Poison bolts from THF dont even begin to compare to Bio II (or III), Poison II... etc. Also, for a THF to even land a bolt on something that requires more than 6 people to take down is an accomplishment in itself without bringing every type of RNG ACC gear you can find and eating sushi. Who would ask a THF to do something that a RNG would do 10x better...

I could just see some HNMLS leader shouting:

Alright Tiamat is at 10%... get the THFs in the alliance. THFs, get your THF knives in your MAIN HAND and start supporting us with your acid/poison bolts. Did everyone remember their Millionaires Desks?

[Sodo_Leviathan]

Re: Is THF useless?

Well Sorry to burst ur bubble but thf is great they get ok pt invites When u hit 15invites go up and at 35 people perfer having thf for SATA so Tank has more hate

[Lmnop]

Re: Is THF useless?

...what are you being asked to land poison bolts on endgame?

I think he meant more of a break-down of what DoT is. "You know, like Poison? gradually lowering HP by small amounts?" like that. Also, for a very large portion of your career, you were poisoning every mob you fought with your old pal Viper Bite.

Also, the design of THF was supposed to be DD + support, just as Ryddr said. Not pure damage like - say - a monk.

At any rate, your accounts of having good DoT is exactly what I was hoping to hear. For a year, I've thought that THF DoT was underrrated and I'm glad that you're making good on it.

Kinda funny that you argued everything Ryddr said and yet completely ignored Tevabond's flame-bait post of a THF-bash.

I mean, just look at that post. You seem like the perfect candidate to help set him straight.

Double Post Edited:
Ok fine, I'll do it.

Yes they can. DRG Jump High Jump Penta Thrust Super Jump No hate and 7 Hits with a Polearm is de roxorz

No, it isn't. Because now you're not skillchaining, and probably only 4 of those 7 actually connected. Also, Super Jump is on a 5 minute timer, don't expect to rely on it all the time. Don't get me wrong, I love DRG, but Penta Thrust just isn't that great. Nor does it plant hate on the poor Ninjas. Tp burn parties, OK We'll let you penta thrust. I've always been a big fan of skewer, myself. Seems around same dmg and opens the lovely distortion for the thiefies.

Also Any job can sub thf lvl 60+ and go ape with SATA <insert name of strong 1 ws here> and not get hate.

Too true, but only THF can effectively plant hate even w/out TP. This would be a moot point except every job that would sub thf 60+, needs /war to get 100% tp every minute (I suppose this may not be true for DRKs any more, but I doubt it).
Also, there's that whole "Assassin" trait thing, which really enhances functionality.

And in the grand scheme of things a thfs dmg sucks. their DoT is atrocious but they give those hate spikes to keep hate on a tank.

Hardly. I was outparsed once in my time as THF (and I parsed religeously during that time). That was by a buddy of mine on his mnk with rediculous amounts of merits and about 12+ mil in gear vs me, with no merits, and about a million in gear. The point? well, I never really have a point but it's not like THF damage is low. For most of the game, it stays right at the top. Hovers around the same region as Mnks, drgs, rngs, wars, sure, whatever. In my (mid-level) experience, Samurais never seemed too high on the damage totem, hence I left them out. That may have been SAMs who suck at Meditate though.

IMO THF i can take or leave them. they are useful sometimes but sometimes ur just like wtf did they invent that job for.

I agree 100%... but I take it one step further. Honestly, just give R3 and RR3 to Red mages, then we'll only need: rdm, brd, nin, blm, and smn. Smn only so we can continue to effortlessly kill every HNM in the game, since the job sucks in every other aspect of the game. NIN DD kicks the shit out of DRG end-game, since they're invulnerable while dealing the same amount of damage as the drg, so I don't see the point in the rest of these melee jobs.

PS this is not a flame im just being blunt because when this got moved to the THF forum everyone sugar coated the job.

Dude, the first reply was "moved to THF forums." That's like saying a marshmallow got sugar coated. This thread doesn't know what it's like to exist w/out sugar.

[kuu]

Re: Is THF useless?

A thf is a bit more technical then some other DD jobs, so performance can ratically change.

This may or may not work againist you.

The weakest link in a thf is setup. You can't really work a thf effectively if your battle plan isn't geared towards setup.

Reason CoP BCNM missions really didn't like thfs. Loosing control, and lack of time to set up is pretty normal in a 6 man + enemy maze of movement, AoE, kite, generally fighting for survival, is not the best environment to work some thf magic.

xp pt setup suffers same way. A thf can't really work his best when everyone is spaming WS at 100%, throwing their weight around, not having hate control, and general chaos.

Chaos is sometimes bad, but as TP/Mana burns have shown, a little chaos is nothing to the time gained in kills.

[Karinya]

Re: Is THF useless?

Assassin allows you to mitigate this somewhat, I think. Most of the CoP missions are capped too low to use it, though.

Anyway, I can't answer the question because it's too vague. It depends too much on how skilled and well-equipped the THF is, what kind of monsters you're fighting, what the rest of the party is, how well they work with the THF...

A party that isn't good at working with the THF will destroy their effectiveness. And often claim "THFs suck" because every thief that's ever been in one of *their* parties hasn't been that effective. Duh, maybe because you were screwing things up for them, idiot?


Unfortunately team tactics seem to be obsolete in merits atm. I don't mind seeing *some* shift toward kill speed and away from maximum exp per kill, but the current situation goes way too far with no-tank tp spam parties pulling in twice the exp of setups that use real teamwork to fight monsters that hit back.

High level monster exp values need to be adjusted so weak monsters are worth less exp than presently and challenging monsters are worth more. There's just no way in hell a heraldic imp (for example) is strong enough to be VT to 75s. When that happens, and when more camps for fighting ITs are introduced, a lot of secondary imbalances will fall into place, and THF's hate control and SC-closing role will become valuable again.

Making HNMs less melee resistant, and/or making melee DDs better able to hit kited HNMs, would be nice too. (Maybe for extraordinarily large monsters, the range at which you can hit them with melee should be longer?) The magic resistance patch doesn't seem to have done anything to displace "all BLM and SMN, except maybe the 2 SAM we swap in to skillchain" tactics in pretty much every HNM fight. But in that respect THFs aren't suffering any worse than DRGs, DRKs, MNKs, WARs etc.

Until then, enjoy your DoT on all those colibri and puks and flies with the improvement to high-level dagger dmg.

[Vyuru]

Re: Is THF useless?

Also Any job can sub thf lvl 60+ and go ape with SATA <insert name of strong 1 ws here> and not get hate.

Last I heard, when Trick Attack is used from a subbed thf job it only transfers 30% or so of the hate, so that drk that just did 1k damage planted 300 damage worth of hate on the tank, and kept 700 worth of damage hate for himself.

Originally Posted by Tevabond
Yes they can. DRG Jump High Jump Penta Thrust Super Jump No hate and 7 Hits with a Polearm is de roxorz

Pre lvl 60 at least, typical party situation:

Dragoon: Provoke
Thief: run behind tank and setup for SATA + WS
Dragoon + thief: SC
Black mage: MB
1 Minute later.....
Thief: Run behind dragoon
Dragoon + thief SC, thief using SATA + WS on dragoon
Dragoon uses Super Jump, Black mage magic bursts

Typical party situation > some dragoon trying to show off

No, it isn't. Because now you're not skillchaining, and probably only 4 of those 7 actually connected. Also, Super Jump is on a 5 minute timer, don't expect to rely on it all the time. Don't get me wrong, I love DRG, but Penta Thrust just isn't that great. Nor does it plant hate on the poor Ninjas. Tp burn parties, OK We'll let you penta thrust. I've always been a big fan of skewer, myself. Seems around same dmg and opens the lovely distortion for the thiefies.

Super Jump is a 10 minute timer, and yeah, Skewer > Penta thrust IMO. If 4/5 hits from penta thrust hit, they will do the same damage, if all 5/5 hits from penta thrust hit, then penta thrust will be slightly stronger. It also seems to me that while we may only get 1 tp back after the first hit for each hit of a multihit WS, the mobs seem to still get 12 tp per hit from our WS, I could be wrong though, it's just a trend I seem to notice while soloing. Regardless, skewer hits fewer times, for equal or more damage than penta, while having a SC placement in more skill chains that parties typically favor.

And now, getting back on topic >.>

I like thiefs, they keep the hate on the tank, they skill chain well with my Dragoon, and they put out some decent numbers. Sure, they may not be hitting for 100+ per hit, but they attack damn fast, and the last thief I partied with against a high defense crab was doing 20-30 damage per hit, which really adds up. A good thief is an incredible thing to see.

And as far as the usefulness of SATAing onto a tank, alot of people seem to think that is only optional, and it's not really needed unless your melees are going all out or something.

Well....

Too many ninjas from my experiance, to be perfectly frank, cannot tank without a thief. Too many paladins have also gotten too used to tanking with a thief, so while they can hold hate better than a thiefless ninja, it's still a challenge for some to hold hate, and I haven't even touched the gimped/bad ninjas or tanks. Hate and heads are going to roll if you have a bad tank, with so many TP burns nowadays, tanking has gone the way of the Dodos, and I keep getting crappy tanks in my parties, worse yet, there are never any thiefs LFG!

So basically... I consider thiefs almost as essential to parties as the whm, tank, or myself! They're as useful as having a bard, or a red mage in the party IMO.

[Dagon]

Re: Is THF useless?

Personly I like the DRK job , but a THF has it ups to like there are alot of things that a THF can do the party he/she is in or just on thire own! So no a THF is not useless and if somebody disagres I'd say don't knock it until you've tried it!

[Eauijhkuu]

Re: Is THF useless?

Let's see...
It's probably already been said before, but to sum it up...Thieves are capable of...

Pulling, DD (Even if it's DoT is not as great as MNK or WAR), hate control, SA / TA WS for huge burst damage, Increase odds of drop rates, Enfeeble, Pick treasure chests and coffers (Only job that can actually pick their own AF), Steal items...

Sounds far from useless to me.

Any party that wants to magic burst/weaponskill without any hate bouncy-death might want to consider adding THF to their ranks.

Double Post Edited:

[/color]Let me quickly state something concerning this.
THF is not the best DD by any means.
[/color]

I'm not sure how it is at 75 or endgame,
But with the recent change in basedamage for all daggers 68+, I'm having an awesome time dishing out above average DoT (For THF) with my Harpe as THF/WAR

+Berserk, +ATT macro, +Assassin. /drool.


In a PT of PLD THF DRG RDM BLM SMN
Finally got to see a chains above 5 @ Mount Zaylom because we were taking out crawlers in less than 40 seconds, much thanks to Light SC.

[Dagon]

Re: Is THF useless?

Exactlie! THF are very helpful to other party members if he or she is in a party!

[Tevabond]

Re: Is THF useless?

Ok Lmnop I cant figure if your against me or not on half your posts....

I wasnt trying to tell all thfs they sucked... I was trying to give a realistic view of thf.

Most people would rather have another job over thf. Im not saying they should....

I also wanted to add one more thing.... Thfs dmg is like a rollar coaster through the lvls... At there major ability levels they get great dmg but then it dies off.. Let me explain:

Lvl 15 ppl r like ZOMGWTFCHEESEBALLS when a thf hits 100+ fastblades/combos/waspstings

then its not as impressive as other jobs catch up in WS dmg and as other jobs begin getting better DoT

Lvl 30-32 SATAVB ZOMGWTFCHEESEBALLS once more for about 15-20 lvls then other jobs cathc up dmg wise and tanks get better and there is less need for a thf.

55 (i think not sure on Dancing Edges' skill) ZOMGWTFCHEESEBALLS for SATADE for a lot of dmg then that dies off its a pattern.

Thfs have their ups and downs but once again i cant take them and leave them