Why the THF hate?Follow

We hate your high damgae and the fact your the only job that keeps ninja a tank :P

hmmm... I like the THF class and would like to have more thfs in party....

But the truth is 90% of thfs wont SATA till the first voke is half dead or dead. I'm really confused about why its so hard to charge up SATA before and just hit the mob as its lined up. And yes its not the tank being slow its the damn thf using ages to charge up so healer get agro when our drk has taken quite a beating and our tank has to voke of healer. And this is on lvl 62 not on lvl 32.

I'm 67 THF <.< I never had a party problem O.o

Well thats becuz everyone know razzledazzle is the greeatest THF :D (jk :P)

I think its mostly because of people seeing THF's damage per hit being low, and for SATA to work (until assassin kicks in at least) its best to have a 2nd tanker (even if its just warrior) to allow THF's to do their jobs at their fullest...

mostly i think its because of the lack of knowledge.. people are biased on THFS for what people say about them because their lack of knowledge.. then not all THFs themselves know their stuff either :P



being a ninja.. i have to disagree!!! ninja don't need thfs :P

Thanks for the replies.

Basically what I get out of it is that THF isn't invited because of ignorance about the job, specialized party setup, and a misconception of low damage. There's also a stigma of bad players out there that the good THF has to overcome. I'll deal with these in order.

As for the 'bad' THF; everyone can have off evenings, I would hope that anyone playing this game would give a second chance unless of course the lack of skill is painfully obvious. I'm a god THF, but I still have off nights. Pulling links, SATA not hitting, or being on the slow side. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. (Of course, if I'm having one of those nights I usually start looking for a replacement to save myself and the party further frustration.) Just as in real life, you cannot judge an entire group of people based on the behavior of one or two. When you pt with a good THF, write their name down, hell, add them to your friend list. Don't continue to reward players that have no skill. This goes for PLD, NIN, WHM, RDM etc. I'm amazed at how many of the other jobs have bad players that just keep rising to the top.

The low damage I would like to laugh at. From 30-45 I was running a parser, and would consistently (not always) out damage war/nin, mnk, blm and rng. It starts to taper off after that, and I would imagine that it's going to spike again after 55 and 56, when I gain access to Triple Attack and Dancing edge, respectively. Yes, our per hit dmg isn't on par with a DRK, but you have to remember that we're using toothpicks here. A good THF can pull of 3 SATA's in a 90 second fight. If you take my average (Elvaan) SATA score of 400, that's 1200 dmg in one fight. If of those is a SATA + Viper Bite, that's another 200-300 on top of that. The majority of that damage (hence the hate) get pinned on to the main tank. When the tank has all that extra hate, it allows other jobs to ramp up their performance. Let the DRK berserk + souleater, let the BL overnuke, or the RNG spam arrows/bolts. The tank no has all the hate he normally generates, plus all the hate the THF just pinned on him.

Specialized party setup. Yeah, we need a tank, and someone else to get hate first. Back before I took a 1 year break from this game, there was never an issue with finding a /war. Seems that the side effect of SE lowering Xp requirements is that people are crutching themselves with /nin. I'm all for experimenting with subjobs, but /nin, /rng, /sam, and /blm have their places, and it's not ALWAYS in an XP party. All I need is for someone to grab hate for a second. If there's no one else with provoke, than all that has to happen is my trick partner has to hit the mob. As long as the tank lines up and doesn't engage until I've SATA'd him/her, it will work fine. It takes skill and finesse to play without a second voker, and it's a challenge I like to overcome when I have good players in my party. Fundamentally, FFXI is a game of TEAMWORK, once a party learns to play together, lots of new possibilities open up.

THF is all about hate control. We're here to allow you to do more damage than you ever through possible. We're here to close skillchains with big numbers, and inflate your MB numbers. We're here to pull, and control your XP flow. We're here to control MP usage. A fast THF will keep their trick partner from getting their *** handed to them while they set up.

Remember though, THF can only be as fast as the tank they need to line up behind.

For the record, NIN don't NEED THF. Until they have access to Ni spells, a THF helps, but a good nin will keep hate regardless.

I, as a 75THF, do not like other thieves for the most part. Lower levels, a THF can be awesome for skillchains. Pre-charge SATA, pull a mob, SATA after first voke, then have SATA ready for skillchain. Simple enough eh? Unfortunately, THF is very reliant on gear swaps (which not many people use on THF, from my experiences). Attack gear for TP gain, DEX/AGI for SATA, and post-60, AGI for TA (with assassin).

In the rampant burn-party infatuation, THF has to alter itself into a DD and not just a SC partner, and post-60 when other jobs can sub Trick Attack, THF loses its role as a primary hate-controller. This means focusing on DoT instead of just large weaponskills. Most thieves I've seen don't adapt. Instead they continue on, hitting for mediocre damage and putting up weaponskills that seem nice because they're stacked with SA. As far as damage goes (in burn parties), most thieves are a waste of party slot. This goes for most jobs; unskilled players will do crappy in burn parties, the effect is just more pronounced on THF.

I see that the OP is in the 50s. The best way to effectively up your damage in a skillchain-setup is to sub warrior. Dual-wield is a nice decrease to delay, but double attack comes close to it as far as TP gain. Berserk is amazing, and shadows aren't really "necessary" (though in places like valley of sorrows and labyrinth of Onzozo, they can save mp for the mages).

For burn setups, I have a DEX set for SA, an AGI set for TA, and my TP set (which I usually ws in). Currently I use a meat build with 55acc and capped dagger merits, and 3/5 triple attack merits. I also have a sushi build with ~400 base atk and 11% haste. Overall, meat outperforms sushi from what I've seen. It'd take more haste than what I currently have to close the gap between a meat and sushi build. I outparse most of the people I party with (exceptions are Jerlina, and sometimes Puga when he's on WAR).

So, if any of you aspiring THFs on Cerberus have any questions feel free to PM me or send me a tell ingame and I'll help you to the best of my knowledge.

Overall, sushi is fine for traditional parties before 74-75. Especially if you're still fighting low ITs and such, since it can be tough to get enough accuracy for a meat build before 70. Merit parties also tend to fight mobs that are T-VT, so meat is more viable.

Awesome to hear that you're macroing gear :D so many thieves don't even bother at 75 >.<

Personally I love Thieves. I love the idea of fast and critical. And when I make parties, I'll always try and make it fit the THF if there's one available.
THF, SAM and BLM or SMN makes for some lovely damage with:

Tachi: Enpi > Sneak Attack > Trick Attack > Viper Bite > Distortion > Blizzard (or whichever spell you have of that element).

At level 37ish, that setup was doing 100+ off the Enpi, 500+ from SATA VB, just below 300 from the distortion. I don't remember how much the mages bursted for, but I imagine it was pretty sexy.
That was on bats in Gustav.
Before the magic burst, you've already done damn near 1,000 damage in the first move. For level 37, that's really very good and can only be accomplished with a THF.
And also, there's no chance of the bat losing hate against your tank for a while.

As a tank this is my greatest frustration with THF before level 60 and DDs with THF sub after 60. Add into this the realization that SATA provides no real gain, in my experience, to hate control if you wait longer than a good 10 to 15 seconds and you wind up with someone who makes my job harder and expects me to thank them for it.

I'm perfectly happy with someone who can pull an initial SATA off quickly, and it can be a help to me, but seriously when the mob is almost half dead and the first voke is nearly all dead, I find myself wondering what the point is. Furthermore you really can't say that you've done anything useful by adding hate control so that a DD doesn't nearly get themself killed during some fights because you nearly get them killed every fight.

To sum up: I like a thf or /thf who can do their job well, they just happen to be in a very small minority.

From a non-thf standpoint, my opinion is that theres so below average thf out there, that yall get a bad rep. I mean not many other jobs can have such an impact on a pt. A thf can make or break a pt and most times now days, I hate to say, they break it. Ive partied with excellent thf and would keep inviting them, but then you get the one who refuses to save sata for 25 seconds and mpks the mnk. I think thats 90% of the problem.