Give Thief a StanceFollow

not sure if you misread what i wrote or mistyped what you wrote, but in this thread at least you said increased critical hit rate (coupled with other drawbacks/benefits) in JA form, while i said a trait that increases critical hit damage.

if you still don't see the difference, its like comparing heartsnatcher to x's knife.

You weren't paying attention.



Edited, Nov 2nd 2009 4:42am by Lobivopis

You see while Buront's idea is simple and realistic, Lobi's idea is too strong and overpowered. That's the difference between my arguments against his and the OP's proposed buffs versus the ones I said I like. I am not against thief getting a buff, but often times when players come up with ideas on improvements they dream big and throw out ideas that just get grander and grander as they go.

Buront's idea was simplistic in nature, and my idea on implementing it would be something like a simple 5%, 10% and 15% increase to critical hit damage, scaling according to level. 15% increase in crit damage at level 75 is getting pretty strong, but within a reasonable bounds for being grounds for fair play. Similar to x's it would act as a straight multiplier so a crit that did 500 damage now does 575 damage, and etc etc. It will bolster our weaponskills without breaking anything, and a non critical melee receives no benefit. Similarly in a tp burn it won't go too far because of the aforementioned crits meaning less anyway.

Lobi's idea on the other hand is COMPLETELY overpowered. First off... he proposed HUGE boosts to our damage while trying to balance that with the drawback of lowering our evasion and defense by 20%. Here's a hint Lobi: Within the god scenario you want to make us stronger in we will have a dedicated tank so we should never get swung at to begin with, and in a tp burn environment we will have shadows and companions to kill the beast too quickly for it to do much damage (and of course a mage to repair said damage). Trying to balance that kind of power with lowering our evasion and defense isn't a check at all... heck our defense ALREADY sucks but our evasion is naturally massive and we can gear swap to raise it to astronomical levels anyway.

Now as for the buffs you proposed a 1.5 attack boost to crits. That's WAY too much. On G colibri my attack for a solo crit is around the 500 mark and I do approximately 450-500 damage, but if I have a cor/bard and cap my attack that same critical hits for 750+ damage.. and 1.5 x 500 == 750 (basically capped). If a 1.5 attack boost to crits will cause such a grand change on lolibri just imagine what it would do on HNM. A boost to crit damage is fine but not THAT huge. That essentially combines merit style ta/sa solo damage with the massive attack multiplier of mandalic stab and the monstrous 50% dex modifier of shark bite. You'd easily be throwing out shark bites in the 1600-2000 damage range and that just isn't happening. The other accompanying buffs just make the already overpowered even more ridiculous. You are now adding an innate haste for us to make us attack even faster... and not only are you raising the damage a critical does by too much but you're also raising the frequency of which they happen as well. That just screams... BROKEN!!!

Contrary to what Lobi says I have never argued that I wouldn't LIKE a buff to my job. I'm all for making thief a bit stronger if done within reason. The problem is that every time Lobi comes up with an idea to "fix" thief he takes it so far out of the realm of reality that the game would fall to our knees if it was implemented. And I'm talking worse than sneak attack from the front and then some. However while Lobi's version is really bad I LIKE Buront's idea. A standalone boost to critical damage akin to what he or I threw out would do just fine. That's a type of change I WILL accept (and even wish for) with an open mind.

Edited, Nov 2nd 2009 10:47am by Melphina

Yes, it is true that you generally dont "need" more than 1 thf in most events. But you also dont "need" ANY sam. You just need "some" DDs of almost any kind. While i do acknowledge there is some problems if you came 5 min late and someone else already has the thf position filled. It sucks, (and especially for a new Thf without other jobs and trying to get into a group to GET the cool gear that gives us what DD potential we DO have).

In my particular LS, we have a number of TH4 options, but usually, it is either me or one of the sacks that goes thf. It works well for times we need more than one because we are both pretty good THfs. One goes to sky, the other sea, etc. If you have a 6 man going to farm stats in sky, at least send a TH4 whore that knows how to DD on IT mobs. If we only need one, he has nin, i have drg so we can flip flop based on if we need a tank or a DD more for that situation.

Honestly, this game is so friggin old, its VERY hard to feel 100% useful all the time if you only have 1 job. If your a sam only, you dont get to go to non-melee mobs. Thf still does due to hate tools and TH. My drg isnt always in its prime. Those instances i can go thf and vice versa. A blm doesnt do sh*t for zergs. Oh well. Thf has limitations but so does every other job.

Honestly, as much as some people hate this, i say the solution is to level another fun job that does something a bit different than thf. I realize many people dont do this by choice or time restraints or whatever, but that really is the solution in this multi-class game thats ancient when most people DO have multiple jobs. Otherwise, you must learn to cope with your jobs weakness or overcome it as best you can, but there will be times you just sit out. Sure, "all" jobs "should" be used for "all" events in a perfect world and im copping out by settling for the junk design on SE's part, but i suppose ive just gotten used to the idea that this is no longer a 1 job game. It is best enjoyed with flexibility and the great motto of FFXI. "$#@% is situational." So is your job class.

By decently geared I mean the equivilent of what a decently geared war or sam can do. I don't want to out damage them. I just want to be useful. If you look at the AH and Nyzul gear availible to 2hand jobs vs 1hand dot jobs you will see what I mean by decently geared.

Readies SA
Readies TA
moves behind BLM at max WS distance
400 base x 5 mod gaurenteed hit WS
Success.

Would be awesome if you could stack SA/TA where it would get acc bonus and normal unmultiplied SA/TA bonus, plus would be amazing to random kill people. Mostly the latter.

Maybe a stance that had some sort of pure damaged, unmodified by stats/attack, but set rather low. Letting a thief always poke for their base damage or a third their dex etc. Something that was consistent so that you wouldn't use it on things you could already poke hard. If people are fond of crits, could add in a bonus as well.

Any sort of stance that increases damage seems iffy for weaker mobs. Anything with a big swap/negative will end up like footwork. In the end the job can't be a one handed sam, no matter how fond of it you are.

To help accomplice's recast, an alternative would be to have several JAs with a charged system. Collaborator 1 charge for 25%, accomplice 2 charges for 50%, and some new ability that could completely wipe someone off the hate list.

It could be coupled with an ability to also give someone your own accumulated hate with an opposite ability for 25/50/100. Or rather than creating more abilities, you could have some sort of effect that if TA is up while you use collab/acomp it could buff your TA to be able to transfer that hate. It seems silly that thieves can steal hate, but can't really get rid of it.

Coupling hate control with damage, make it so thieves could somehow transfer the hate to someone else in a charged attack, similar to an atonement proc to TA. Double enmity strike mentioned earlier could work, though thats creating new hate rather than transferring.

SE is very fond of charges on top of stances, seems like an easy way to improve an already useful ability. Damage boost coupled with better hate control would definitely make thief more useful end game.

Better to do 75% the damage of an equally geared DD while contributing hate control than to be some dagger/SAM bastard child.

I seriously doubt that SE will ever lower Steal recast, but it would be nice to be able to merit Steal accuracy and be able to pick between trying to steal a buff or an item if you have Aura Steal.

Just playing devils advocate here but...how are we a thief?

I love this job. But I have always been very dissapointed that Square Enix didn't do more with the abilities that would make us distinctly thief. And that they made the ones we do get have recast timers so high it's laughable.

Mug is one of the most useless job abilities in the game...and its 15 minutes??

Steal item on a 5 minte recast....are you kidding me? Thats ok though...there's nothing really worth while to steal anyway.

I'm with you on accomplorator...but really even those recast timers are too high. And they shouldn't be shared. Its great that you can save a mage with accomplice for one nuke....until they nuke again and get hate right back....or hate goes to the next highest mage on the hate list...while you still have 4:50 on your accomplice timer and can't to anything for them. Things happen too fast in this game for a 5 minute recast timer on accomplice to be really useful.

I think the things that Square has introduced to thf have been good ideas...that were screwed up in the implementation.

Edited, Nov 6th 2009 3:10pm by ThiefKiller

Edited, Nov 6th 2009 3:10pm by ThiefKiller