For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

1) You're gonna cap CE quickly and need to get hit (and possibly killed) to reduce it. Unless you /DRG and spam high jumps or something? But then you're probably gonna die by not having /NIN anyway.

2) In a fight with a PLD, you're likely using RNGs. If given a choice, another RNG or a COR is better than a THF, because:

(a) a decent RNG adds more damage than a decent THF (contribution of COR buffs+damage is likely also greater than THF DD),

(b) RNG make it EASIER for the tank to hold hate thanks to planting it on the PLD with Decoy Shot, as opposed to a setup of PLD+melee (including THF) making it harder for the tank. And if you're using a PLD in the first place, hate control is probably an important consideration.

(c) Treasure Hunter from THF is not very important, since RNG can already get adequate TH levels with Bounty Shot.

(d) THF runs a much greater risk of dying and being useless for 3~5min. Even if a RNG does get killed, they can do normal damage immediately after getting up, even while (single) weakened.

No one's saying that THF is the undisputed best job to take to these events.

You're making quite a few assumptions, and maybe not entirely right or wrong... but if i can rebut?

1) True, can't argue that, but even RNGs will occasionally get hate, and often times thats a 1-hit KO deal. Least a THF can have shadows, perfect dodge, and can be covered with no risk of moving the AA in range of other DD.

2) This is your opinion, but not the popular opinion of shout groups, and even of organized groups, because most people would prefer TH10 instead of TH4 for obvious reasons.

(A) Irrelivent, they aren't invited for DD, they're invited for TH, and while I may not fully recognize the % values, TH10 > TH4~5/wasting time using Bounty shot.

(B) You can bring a THF with a RNG set up, and the THF can Trick attack. THF Getting hate doesn't hurt anyone (minus the THF?), and the THF has the added bonus of Collab on a RNG who might unfortunately get hate.

(C) TH10~12 > TH4~whatever. Any player given the option would take a THF to D fight for the extra TH. know why? 2 RNGs can easily take down any AA on N or D, adding a third is just speeding up the kill slightly at the cost of higher TH. No ones doing this fight for the shits and giggles to get top kill speed, they're doing it for drops, they're bringing THF.

(D) Useless is a subjective term. You say useless cause they'll not be able to DD as well? I say they're still upgrading TH and adding what damage they can. They're there for TH, the damage is a bonus, being dead doesn't prevent their primary task. Useless they are not.

...

That all said, I want to say I see exactly what you're getting at and where you're coming from... but most people bring a THF because not many people spam AAs on end, so if they're going, they don't mind spending an extra couple minutes fighting it if it means they have a higher chance at drops with higher TH values.

Anything after TH3 is really superfluous, even SE kinda told us that, so RNG TH is perfectly sufficient.

OBVIOUSLY more is better... but it's not significantly better, or as enough to justify it's use as it were.

Even as someone who considers their "main" to be thf, I can agree with this.

This post did a good job:

Not arguing significance, in fact i'm one of the bigger advocates of hating how "useless" TH feels past TH4.

But if people want TH8, 9, 10, or whatever, it gets me an invite on THF, i won't argue... so why a THF is invited is irrelevant, how usless you(or even I) think they are past TH3 is also irrelevant... they are invited, and all I'm arguing is once there their job is limited to upgrading TH, and damage as a bonus. popular AA shouts always ask for a THF, even if its only 0.05% more drop rate.

And discounting Bounty Shot as TH4-5 is silly. A single Bounty Shot from one RNG with Empy+2 hands gives TH3. Multiple tries in a fight that's long enough to warrant a PLD+RNG setup generally nets me more like TH7-8 final tally, even without really riding timers and just having the RNGs occasionally use it. It's not a major DPS loss, and in fact it's kinda nice to have some abilities to use while Decoy is down and you want to keep damage under control a bit anyway.


I almost never see non-Taru AA shouts asking for a THF on my server (and people who bring THF to TT are doing it mainly for Larceny on Manafont). One THF in a DMv2 alliance is pretty common though.


No, they're not.

But someone trying to build the best possible Phantom Orb setups for any PLD-tanked fight is likely to prefer a RNG over a THF if they can get it. Maybe they bring a THF if they're bringing a friend, doing an easier difficulty fight, or just can't get the jobs they'd prefer (WHM, PLD, BRD, RNG, COR, BRD, RDM, SMN, etc.), but if you're trying to get into shout groups as THF surely you're at a disadvantage.

Pre-update I would have agreed with this, but since the WS update you can kill any DC Dynamis mob 95% of the time with just a plain unstacked WS. Now it really is just plain faster just to Evisceration(or Rudra's if your over 1200 TP) from the front. It will kill the mob either way.

That's... unusual, The only times I can recall wanting a thf is:

A) It doesn't matter, I can go on any job and the outcome will only be slightly slower.

B) Feint will have a significant effect on zerging/killing whatever (which is RARE in this day in age with all the pre-buffing from extra bards/cors ((which needs to be nerfed)).

Really, I see no logical reason to bring a thf to an AA persay, unless you have like rdm pld brd 2 rngs who dont mind wasting the extra bullets, and you can toss a thf cause why not. but I don't like wasting the extra bullets with 2 rangers, vs 3... though that 3rd ranger is almost always a slacker and that argument becomes invalid... the premise still stands.

I was lowballing, you're probably right about being able to get up to TH7-8... I imagine we could argue in circles about it and we'll each come up with something. But yah, THF is popular in AA shouts still, maybe one day the status quot will change, but for now THF is popular in all the fights I've listed, and all those fights you could get use out of Ambush.

Rather its good or bad... IDK, just arguing THF is invited to many events where you can make use of Ambush.


You're probably not alone, but every AA shout i see on Asura, N or D, i've seen THF being wanted. So you play differently and thats okay, or maybe Asura plays differently, either way, the point still stands that THF is invited to these events regularly... useless or otherwise.

Also, can we stop acting like TA is really useful for any semblance of enmity control in this day and age? It's not 2005 any more. Spike enmity is fairly meaningless when any DD can cap CE easily.

Decoy Shot DESTROYS TA as a way to plant hate on a tank. It's 3 minutes of planting hate from all ranged attacks (non-WS/Barrage) on the tank, and with multiple RNGs can be staggered to constantly have someone feeding enmity to the PLD while generating minimal hate for the RNGs who are doing great damage at the same time. The ability also gets better the more RNG you have, since it's more people giving that constant enmity feed to the tank - another reason that RNGx3 is a better choice than RNGx2 THFx1.

TA is a 1min timer, and while it's a nice ability to boost WS damage with no hate generation for the THF, the enmity spike on the tank does nothing to account for the fact that basically any non-RNG DD (couple exceptions for PUP Ventriloquy, DRG or /DRG High Jumps) is gonna cap CE anyway and pull hate just due to FFXI current enmity mechanics. TA is useful for damage, not for helping your tank keep hate.

Perhaps this will change with the supposed upcoming changes rumored to allow tanks to somehow exceed the normal CE cap (via gear, traits, adjustments to spells/JAs, whatever). Until then, THF as an enmity control job is a total joke.

TA/SA really REALLY need to be stances. To even get some semblance of usefulness.

I'm not saying they should remain at the strength they are, and be stances... that'd be *** AWESOMELY BROKEN! But like... 25% Agi/Dex mod* on every swing (still with full enmity transfer on TA stance)(and maybe just 100% crit rate on SA stance)... maybe even 10% or somewhere in the middle, would be butterzone. It'd give some long overdue glory to thf.

It'd make thf actually wanted for almost anything, notable exceptions would be crazy ***like AAEV, incarnate is broken.

I mentioned TA because its still there and worth at least 1 sentence, not because its an end all awesome Enmity Control job.

Idk whos acting... we all know Decoy Shot blow anything THF can do out of the water

I almost never see Thf being asked for on Asura for D level AAs, maybe N but come on that is just silly. Probably about 5% of the shouts I see ask for a Thf, and that's a high estimate. Unless during JP time the shouts are radically different I'm not really sure what you are talking about.

Hmmm, almost the entire time i go to AA's I'm on THF, and I only join shouts (Hate organizing).

Maybe I'm remembering (D) wrong, but can you corroborate N?

Well, YOU get it. But I see a whole lot of people who still act like having a THF is going to be a significant help to a PLD's ability to keep hate. These are the parties who bring PLD MNK DRK THF to an AA and are for some reason surprised when the PLD can't keep hate and the melees end up dead.

Some of those people might be reading this, I hope they learn that's just not the case in 2014 FFXI.



That's a pretty good idea...

Maybe a slightly less radical proposal:

Keep SA as-is (I kinda like the idea of being sneaky and getting behind the opponent for a big splashy hit).

Adjust TA only to work a lot more like Decoy. 5min timer, 3min duration, all hits divert 90% of the THF's enmity to the player in front of them (same positioning as current TA). Make it not affect WS, to keep it somewhat unbroken.

Well, I wouldn't want it to be an exact Decoy clone, it would have to be better, as thf is the lesser job, to balance it out.

It would still have to work on ws's, no skirting that really.

You know what they should really do... give dancer enmity samba. Whenever you hit the mob, it drains your enmity away. PLD swings slow enough to not REALLY effect them(AND!!! can use enlight to cancel the effect!), and everyone else swings much faster and has their enmity drained quicker.

Though this would be a reverse of traditional samba, (and doesn't belong in the THF thread! just musing.)

I do think a well geared thf who takes the job as a DD seriously and doesn't just see themselves as a th *** can hold up pretty well. I'd personally be really hard pressed to bring a badly geared thf to something important/hard just for TH/Larceny.

I do still have a parse, but I'll be the first to admit it's a little skewed. A) It was nearly my first time playing the game in a little over four weeks, and I didn't have well spreadsheeted Rudras's sets done yet. B) I always dualbox and with how quick things die, by the time I'm done setting up my alt, sometimes mobs are down 10-20% already. C) The two dds who were underneath me, one was a War who pretty much exclusively plays on brd, and the other was a cor who was having problems with the GS working the entire run. The person above me is a Koga/Yoichi sam. So be gentle!

N shouts tend to just allow whatever in, Thf does seem more popular for N but again...that's content that is soloable by many jobs at this point.

Er... we're talking about AA's still right? IDK you can solo AA normal...

Maybe also give it some amount of crit rate+ for the duration of the ability... 100% is certainly overpowered (can't have Mighty Strikes up 60% of the time you're TPing), but maybe something like 10% crit rate is a nice balance.

I see where you're going with this though, pretty clever idea!


Totally agree. And there are some things a THF shines on more than others, Ceizak delve is a good example where THF can hang as a DD pretty well. I would be much less enthusiastic about bringing it to something like Yorcia or Kamihr delve though...

I was wondering where you were going with all this.

If your goal was to regurgitate the same rhetoric repeated on these forums ad nauseam for the last couple of years, then mission accomplish.

Jesus christ guys we have enough jobs out of service stop trying to advocate another. Everything but sam rng pld whm brd is becoming extinct

It started as a simple question about which body to use

Which turned into "do you actually have ambush?" "where could you use it?"

Which turned into well... where can you use thf at all?

Which turned into thf is a terrible job

Which turned into the same thing it always does when not discussing the current best job.

Was it the intention, no, does it always happen regardless, yes.

The whole last pages aside from montenten could be wiped out and nothing of consequence lost.

People take THF to AA's and DM2 for TH People don't take THF to anything that they don't want TH on unless you're one of those people where your LS doesn't care what job you turn up as.

RNG should have never been given bounty shot in my opinion, it is the whole reason the question of why should THF get a spot in RNG events when RNG has TH. Because it's not RNGs job to TH stuff.

SE are always playing down any suggestion about a DD buff for THF no matter how minor because it has TH. Well so does RNG and they`re one of the most powerful DD's around right now. Decoy also shits on TA for hate control.

Nobody is taking THF to events for enmity control, they`re taking it for TH.

Also on the DM 2 setup why wouldn't you take a THF? what else are you going to put in the last slot in the tank pt? PLDx2 WHMx2 BRD and THF is fine.

They probably using the last spot for a 3rd pld for insurance reason when doing D and above.

and bounty shot will not replace thf's high TH when you doing normal DM2.

For what it's worth, I woulda given Bounty Shot to CORs. At least it fits with the gambling pirate kind of theme. And at least it doesn't take ONE job (RNG) and give them two of THF's abilities (TH and a way better version of ranged Trick Attack).

Still think Ambush is silly. But what do I know, I solo Salvage with my THF lately.

TA stance, lol, not a chance!


As if THF needs another ability *** stolen from it... I guess we're red mages now.

Well it would be pretty stupid to give it to ALL attacking jobs, but they only have to leave out PLD and then this is officially still true. Awesome.

That's the best news ever, right guys, can't wait for that massive improvement!(sarcmark.)

they are boosting thf now, when sam will get some much needed boost?. SE hates sam.

anyway back to topic, THF need HP boost the most. the problem with thf is surviving aoe dmg, then next issue is producing enough DoT to warrant that spot in the group next to Heavy DDs. it just sad when every DD are parsing 30% range and that thf just barely hit 10%, need to close the gap a little. As for Hate control, they need to lower recast on TA, Accom, and Collaborator. pointless to have long recast when every DD can cap enmity like 10 seconds into fight.

Wait, what?

lrn2thf