How's the life of a THF these days?

[Chances]

I'm an old player (pre-CoP), started out as a THF, quit as a THF.

My question is, how are THFs today compared to what they were when I played? Still the same? Still those hellish waiting times for PuGs?

I'm most likely not going to be playing a THF if I pick up FFXI again, but I'm still curious as to how things are nowadays.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: How's the life of a THF these days?

THF is both better and worse than it was.

People don't value SATA setups like they used to due to various EXP trends, SE has implimented Job Abilities, such as Accomplice to compensate for these trends, but THF remains low on the food chain in terms of invites and are really just wanted to make drops happen.

I know several that do well and are great DD, but even with all the changes, for THF, not much as gotten better.

[Pteryx]

Re: How's the life of a THF these days?

Life for THF currently sucks. ToAU made high-level meleeburns in which people sub /NIN, spam weaponskills at 100% TP, and let hate bounce easy, practical, and extremely effective at raking in XP/hour. Nobody skillchains anymore or even acknowledges the possibility, so THF isn't invited to close them (to be fair, imps make skillchaining highly impractical...). Nobody tanks in meleeburns, so THF isn't desired for hate control (though it got a couple of neat new high-level abilities to help with it even if no one cooperates). Worst of all, meleeburn attitudes frequently leak into lower-level parties where they're entirely inappropriate. Thus, not only are invites rare for THFs, but you can't even do your real job anymore... -- Pteryx

[Aksannyi]

Re: How's the life of a THF these days?

THF not good for merit parties and a lot of other things (endgame fights, for example, they get you in at the end so you can hit it twice and put your TH on it) but I've seen some well geared THFs do some seriously disgusting damage in parties. Out-parsing many other DDs. If you love THF and you put your all into the job, you can and will come out as a top rated DD even though THFs are supposed to be mediocre damage dealers at best.

Can't have it better though for farming, especially if you get Assassin's Armlets.

[Sevv]

Re: How's the life of a THF these days?

Thf /wait /wait /wait HNM/God @ 5% join pt leech th done.

[Aksannyi]

Re: How's the life of a THF these days?

ROFL yep Sevv and then get bitched at when nothing drops.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: How's the life of a THF these days?

It's sad, but it's very true that THF is more useful than ever--yet, not much wanted.

For merit and high level exp parties, the trend for some time now is reduce number of mages, so often there's only a single person with any cure. If a DD gets in trouble, his only hope is the single mage has MP and can cure dump fast enough. Unless there's a THF to use Collaborator/Accomplice.* And, those parties often target critters weak to piercing weapons, like Colibris and Imps, which favor THFs.

When I merit on RDM, I am always glad to see a THF. Yet, what do parties want? WAR, SAM, and MNK. ._.


* Technically, a Provoke from someone else can also save a DD in trouble, but no one brings /WAR, and most WAR/NIN's rarely use Provoke for some reason.

[Lunaryn]

Re: How's the life of a THF these days?

My invite rate on THF actually hasn't been all that bad. Just that there's usually not a clear idea what I'm there to do. Pulling wears me out fast enough as it is, but also many camps people ask for /NIN I could still pull okay as /WAR, and I perform a lot better with the resources from /WAR. That said, I'm generally either puller (and caught in a tug of war between under-refreshed healers who have minimum MP thresholds to meet and impatient DDs who resent every second there isn't a mob there to engage... even when four parties are pulling from an area that nominally supports two) or a second-tier DD whose best tools for spike damage are thwarted by shifting hate between DDs who insist on standing at odd angles to the tank... and the impossibility of getting anyone to open a WS for you (though I try to opportunistically close Light if I see a SAM do Tachi: Kasha). Even the rare party that does allow me to /WAR will no doubt disappear entirely once I hit 74.

[Wise Donkey]

Re: How's the life of a THF these days?

It hasn't been that bad for me. Invites are hit and miss, but the parties I have been invited to have been SATA friendly. Granted, I am still in the 50's.

[711rocks]

Re: How's the life of a THF these days?

invites are alright
events generally suck
today we had low numbers though so i got to be in the MA for fafnir and KB
best day of my life basically
but yeah normally thats last 5% thief knife/assassin's armlets thing
and maybe feint every 6 min
the new hate control abilities were excellent, this was one of the first times i could test it on a big mob
its a really fun job but its frustrating =/