So why all the hate for Ambush?Follow

I hate it because when I played you only had 6 upgrades, 3 were feint, 2 were spent unlocking the other abilities and that final point was basically a waste no matter where it went.

I often tank on thf so an ability that is often not working isn't high on my list of things I want.

The only problem that I ran into when considering these merits were fights that involved mobs that shouldn't be attacked from behind, eg. Fafnir. Adding that extra 9 ACC is awesome, I agree. I personally vote for it compared to the other abilities receiving more attention. It's an extra 9 ACC for free. There's a ring that gives 7 ACC that cost close to 3 mil on my server ...

My solution for the problem was to build TP from behind but to make sure any spike damage that could pull hate be done from the front. You will probably get screamed at, /slapped, and everything else but I'm sure you know what you are doing regarding hate on these mobs.

I understand merits are chaotic, but to say you are never or can never get behind the mob is kind of unrealistic. Especially when all your SAMs are going to be lined up in front of it.



This I can agree with. Dynamis is a lost cause for positioning.



I hear what you are saying, but even with changing hate, its not hard to swing around behind long enough to SAWS or Solo WS. Unless you never SAWS? But I never seem to have problems land a solo TA on the right person and quickly SAWS or SA, then WS from behind.



Not all of them Flail. And even the ones that do, you can build TP on. If your thf is taking hate from reg melee hits on an HNM. Your LS has bigger problems.



My point is essentially that AC and AS aren't worth putting extra merits into. And having extra Acc, even in the situations you mentioned, is worth more than putting more merits into either.

I honestly see it as the least appealing group 2 merit ability because like other thfs that have posted, I can't realistically see myself behind a mob as often as I would like. In situations where there is no designated tank to hold hate and mobs are bouncing around to all the melees I think it is more of a hassle to chase the mob's ass than to sit in one spot and watch the hate shift so I know which way I need to turn for my next SA or SAWS.

At the same time however I think the other 2 abilities have far greater use out of the extra 3 merits (after 5/5 feint and 1 in AS and AC). I myself chose AC to dump the other 3 merits in because I feel it is the second best job ability worth meriting as much as possible. I didn't choose AS because the only use from it I feel is worth it is the dispel. I've never done sea, stealing JoL's boost sounds awesome, but since I've never been in that situation AS lost it's appeal to me after unlocking it.

I love AC and its not about the epeen shots either. I feel the ability to pop off triple attack WS every 7 and a half minutes a great asset towards THF DD. It's our only other DD'ing job ability outside of SA and TA so when putting myself in the DD role i feel it deserves as much attention as them as well. I've also been considering taking the merit out of AS and putting it in AC finishing it off 5/5 but haven't made that final decision just yet.

This question probably depends on playstyle more than anything else. I didn't take Ambush myself because I didn't like it's conditional nature.

Ambush
Merits
Usually ACC isn't an issue. If songs/rolls/haste are applied there is a high chance that the target may be facing me >50% while TPing and prevent me from actually getting behind the enemy. I usually use MS as a weaponskill; Sneak Attack and Trick Attack ensure it's accuracy @ 100% for the most part.

HNM
Usually HNMs would allow a great use for Ambush, but I find that there are many cases where I'm either not allowed to melee fully on the HNM (Tiamat/Dark Ixion) or I must melee it from the front (Fafnir/Nidhogg). It may be a fulltime ACC bonus for the THF, but Feint's evasion reduction has an effect on everyone hitting the HNM (which may justify your position in an HNM zerg more than a great ACC).

I'm not saying that the ability is bad at all. The accuracy boost is pretty nasty, especially due to the fact that it doesn't require gear to enhance ACC/RACC.



I took a different approach with my merits and would hope that anyone wanting to merit their THF would take a look at how they play before deciding their allocations.

Assassin's Charge
I use THF as my merit driver normally and take it to the majority of HNM camps I attend. I chose to take Assassin's Charge to 5/5 in order to reduce the amount of time required to cool down my ability to force a triple attack.




Feint
Feint is an awesome skill. If I had more points (or they open up the tier 2s to include more in the future) I'd increase Feint and reduce my timer. Right now I have Feint at 1/5 and have it's cooldown at 10 minutes. Most of the time if used in HNM zergs the enemy isn't up for longer than the 2 mins it'd require for a cooldown. I took one to unlock Feint and left it there.

Aura Steal
I took Aura Steal and put it at 4/5 to use the remaining points. Buff steals are supposedly 80% and allow a great opportunity to use them against the enemy.

Saying Ambush sucks is like saying "I never use sneak attack"

Its a fail argument.

Ill take 9 accuracy guaranteed every sneak attack I do if that allows me to put some dex or something in that slot instead.

Edited, Sep 10th 2009 7:15am by Xellith

I don't require any more acc than i already have available to me.
In merit I have a hard time ever being able to even get sneak attack off let alone get behind the mob long enough for Ambush to even process/matter. So for that reason i have Assassin Charge fully merited. Purely my own choice. Since im tanking 95% of the time i may as well be able to get some sort of JA stacked with my WS off. You could argue that you could TA or TAWS and get behind the mob, but really i have an awful time trying to get people to get close enough or stop dancing around like an idiot that its just a pain in my ass. My second is fully merited Feint if you were wondering btw~

I'd love to have kept one in Aura steal for the dispel however over time i felt the Aura steal merit itself to be fairly... Abysmal... Sure for some monsters its fine and all But your limited to a 5Min re-cast. On a lot of stuff i really wanted it to process on you have a very low chance of Not stealing an item ie. Bone chip from a Ice spiked skully, If the AI of what your fighting has any intelligence at all it will probably recast anyways. My opinion on the matter is if you need a dispel get a bard or a red mage, don't fully rely on aura steal. I say that with full respect to Aura steals capabilities as i am well aware of what it is capable of.

If you want to merit Aura steal you should probably imo with the intention to maxing or near maxing it out, however keeping in mind what mobs your going to be fighting being fully aware of what reason you wanted it in the first place. If We were to fight things generally that cast zerk alot for example I'd most likely be all over aura steal.

Stealing the boost effect off Of JoL though has an INSANE dmg+ to it.. lol just Fyi. XD

The only real time i'm using status bolts is if i need to get rid of a Defense bonus when i'm duo/trioing and i have my own ranged acc+ gear setup for that if i NEED to use it. Or if im soloing, which... you shouldn't be behind the mob unless your sleep bolt Sneak attacking. I don't Status bolt in exp it slows my Dot.

I would have to say that ambush relies fairly heavily on your gear. For me personally i don't require its assistance. Its up to you if you feel you need these merits to maximize your own personal dmg. Sorry kinda jumped around there.

Edit: made a spelling error~

Edited, Sep 10th 2009 5:06am by MalicFayt

He's probably talking about stacking SA with DE, meaning not all the swings are guaranteed to hit.

But yeah, if you're doing SADE... DEX is a modifier for both the SA and DE, as well as giving at least some accuracy. I would think that as long as you're not blowing ridiculous amounts of ACC to get DEX it is generally best to pile on the DEX.

Still... yeah, constant focus of Ambush =/= once a minute focus of SA.

Quite an interesting setup. A unique way of not using 5/5 Feint, but still optimizing your Thief for the way you play.

I believe Xellith was talking about SA DE and SA EV.

And I think its worth noting that it seems like the better your gear is, the less valuable Ambush becomes. But...

For me...even the things that I would SA Multi Hit WS on or eve solo WS in merits...I wouldn't dare say I'm at "capped" Acc. And with the issue of AC, actually I've been wondering this. When you force a Triple Attack proc on a (solo multie hit) WS, is that triple attack guaranteed to hit (I think no)? With SA or TA WS is it guaranteed to hit then (I think yes on this one)? My intuition is telling me no but it just occured to me that I don't know the answer. But I think that was my origional reasoning for ultimately choosing ambush. That 4-5% hitrate on solo ws and SAWS would be better in the long run than a forced Triple attack every 7:30 minutes that wasn't guaranteed to hit. In merits I don't stack ws's much and when I popped merits into ambush it was to maximize solo DE damage.

And eveyone saying they are never behind the mob because you are always tanking. Believe me I know what you mean. But if you are in a good merit party, there is just no way you are always tanking. You may take hate with melee DoT, will for sure take hate with a WS, but as soon as one of the other DDs does (If they are geared well) they have hate. Its really not that hard to make good use of that extra acc boost. It takes next to no time to swing around and you still swing while moving to the back so I don't see that its hard to do. Especially if you are going for meat builds on birdies instead of spamming crab sushi.

If you are fighting an HNM/ZNM/Mission Boss/Whatever where you CAN melee behind the mob and or SA WS behind the mob (even SASB gains benefit of Acc for that 2nd hit to land). I also have this (unfounded lol) speculation that it works with Hide SATA WS.

I think the main arguement is that thf can never be CONSTANTLY behind the mob (which I agree with) so that ambush is not worth it. I guess I'm of the oppinion that you don't have to constantly be behind the mob for ambush to be worth it...when compared to a few more minutes recast on AC or more absorbtion rate on AS. But, is is aparent here my gear is inferior to the relic holders...and Melph's near perfect gear lol. And it seems to serve my playstyle. Although I might be toying with my group 2 merits soon to "prove myself wrong."

Edit: I also just thought its worth noting that, in merits in the like, I tend to be the hate manipulator so position the mob the way I want it. For example, DD1 WS, DD2 WS, I'll TA DD1, collab DD2, DD1 gets hate, I swing behind, WS, sneak attack - I have hate, etc etc. No, I don't wait on timers/hold tp for this to happen. But It's a constant paying attention to hate levels and seeing whos riding that hate line, and most merit level mobs only live long enough for this to happen once. Seems to always be one in the crowd that does that extra bit of damage so this is viable. So yeah, I guess over the years since I got ambush, I have been playing to it a bit.

Edited, Sep 10th 2009 1:25pm by ThiefKiller

I'm at 5 feint 1 assassin's charge now.

4/5 ac is 1/4 feint/ac ws's.
5/5 ac is 1/3 feint/ac ws's.

To me the question is if even 1 aura steal is worth it, as I can only see myself needing it to dispel things in sea solo which I'm never even at anymore.

1 per 3 ws feinted and ac'd, that sounds cool to me.

Rahkis, if you can only see yourself using aura steal in that situation, you're not using Thf in enough situations.