[Gothic]

BuGGaTon :
Woot for the obligatory pre-update praying thread.

Not much else to do, square pretty much refuses to release any information on the upcoming expansion. x_x

[Flapalaculas]

Rangers are praying too, since if THF's get an update, RNG's get an update also.

[Eaglestrike]

Flapalaculas :
Rangers are praying too, since if THF's get an update, RNG's get an update also.

Not necessarily. That works better the other way around though. If they make ranged attacks more potent we benefit, but if they make our daggers more useful that doesn't really effect RNG much.

RNG needs an update more than THF though, I think it's more likely there's some boost to ranged attacks than anything else.

[Bjond]

Putting yokodama back in game would rock. THF was actually a desired job back then! I can't imagine SE restoring it, though. That would be like them admitting they did something wrong. God forbid! SE is perfect in everything it does. :plain

The reasons I add a THF to a party are ... well, none. Everything a THF can do for an XP party, some other job can do better. I only add friend-THFs because it's all they have (or myself to recap XP from dynamis). For XP, THF's big drawbacks are TP-feeding combined with a low expected dps and also extra positional discipline to support having a THF in a party. More work, less dps, no thanks.

The reason I add a THF to an alliance are: Feint & TH. Damage from the THF is not on the list. I'd rather add the THF, have him Feint, then punt him for a real DD job, then add the THF back for the kill.

IMHO, THF needs some compelling reasons for people to add them to a group. The only thing that impresses a group is dps. I could see something like a JT that increases damage from behind by a great deal -- even to the point of doubling it; eg. adding 10% of Dex+Agi to base damage when behind. If the THF pulls agro, no more increase. It's basically a self-regulating dps boost that makes the THF only as good as the tank and also provides some justification for THF having such amazing defensive abilities when for the most part they only use them when solo.

[Spider-Dan]

At this point in the game, Yokodama wouldn't really help; the only real bonus to THF would be LV30-54. Yokodama is not very useful in TP burn parties, completely useless in merit, and duplicable by any /THF post-60. So in fact, the biggest beneficiaries would probably be HNM SAM/DRK/WAR... and we all know how badly those guys need a boost, amirite?

[Shamaya]

The reasons I add a THF to a party are ... well, none. Everything a THF can do for an XP party, some other job can do better.

Call me stubborn, but that's exactly what I think should be resisted. Take a completely peaked out Axe/Axe or G-axe war, Mnk/Nin, or any other DD other than Sam, probably, and pit them against an equally peaked Thf, no relic considerations. In all honesty I think the Thf parses higher. In my experiences the only way a War or Mnk should outdamage a fully-peaked, skilled Thf is by going Mnk/War, or having Ridill. And even then, at camps like Birds and lolMire the Thf should still come out on top against even those DD's.

So damage-wise, I don't think there is much argument. Of course, if we're talking about poor Mnk, War, Sam, w/e vs poor Thf, the former classes will do the most since they're easier to play and easier to max. For skilled players and peaked out equips, I don't think this is the case. As far as utility goes, the only real utility I can see is an argument from vokes. C-stance Mnk/War and first-voke seigan Sam are kind of like...really rare exceptions to this, so the only classes that I see as having a definitive utility are Nin and War under most circumstances. And then, in conditional situations I think adding TA to the party is more of a boost to the party than another voke. Ever pt'ed with a 4 DD party with an E-Body Ridill, thf, and 2 mediocre DD's? I have done a few. What's a second voker going to add to the party that wouldn't be better than trick attack? Edit: other than voke an add that the thf could have taken off of the puller with a single swing, to which A+ evasion will be quite nice while melee attention goes back to the mob that the others are fighting.

I mean, compare Mnk/Nin to Thf/Nin, for example:
Mnk/Nin - Chakra, conditional counterstance, hundred-fists, high hp.
Thf/Nin - Feint, aura steal, trick attack, high evasion.
This isn't a comprehensive list, but some of the more useful utility traits of the jobs that they can bring to the party. Make further comparisons with other jobs, and you can see that the real definitive utility-booster is having provoke.

[Bjond]

I've yet to group with a THF that outparses my NIN, including my own THF. My nin is basically "standard" geared. It's a fair bit better than your average NIN, but then all NINs use pretty much exactly the same gear eventually. There just aren't any choices to make when it comes to gearing NIN. So, after enough time playing it, they all look identical. My THF lacks sirocco & homam, but otherwise has all the expected gear (blau/etc).

I have no doubt that a very well geared THF could outparse my NIN, but if I can't expect to pull one out of the LFG-bag every time I reach into it to build a party, I'm going to ignore the job completely. I can pretty much expect any 2H'er job to do at least as well as my NIN and good ones do a lot better.

The only time THF really becomes even slightly attractive for XP is on piercing-bonus fights. It's not because the THF players suck. It's because it takes such insane effort to gear it to be competitive with other jobs that the "competitive THF" might as well not exist.

Fixing the problem is even harder. Add a lot of gear that makes it a great deal easier to make a hot THF and you've just cheapened the effort of every existing true THF out there. I don't want to see another fiasco like the Thief-Knife change where you have a piece of gear that dedicated THFs spend a ton of time and effort to obtain only to have it devalued to the level of a stack of earth crystals. If they wanted to swat the RMT, they should have just made the knife ra/ex overnight.

IMHO, the only fix is to do it with job traits and abilities that shift the entire job up a notch. This way the relative difference between the cheaply geared and expensively geared is maintained.

[BuGGaTon]

If RNG got the update they needed i wouldn't care about THF getting an update. And i'm not even a RNG.

[Raze Dragmyr]

Spider-Dan :
At this point in the game, Yokodama wouldn't really help; the only real bonus to THF would be LV30-54. Yokodama is not very useful in TP burn parties, completely useless in merit, and duplicable by any /THF post-60. So in fact, the biggest beneficiaries would probably be HNM SAM/DRK/WAR... and we all know how badly those guys need a boost, amirite?

Make Yokodama a main-only job trait then? That'll cut out the SAM/DRK/WAR /THF boost nonsense, and give THF another helpful ability in hate control, which is the main cited reason why we're invited in the first place. That helps boost THF 30-60 the most (which would be a welcome change), true, but it can also help out in TP burn/meripos IMO. I dunno, but Alexander meripos are a lot different than what a lot of other people are saying about meripos. There's actually a dedicated tank and the mob isn't spinning like a top all the time from hate bouncing in all the meripos I've been in.

[Lavik]

ive had merit parties with tanks and without
unless you are TAing the tank or the tank is really good
mobs do seem to spin everytime people WS
i like tank pts
tanks dont try to escape TA
but there are always elitists who will go lolthf in meripo
4DD 1 brd 1 rdm onry
and by 4DD
4DD that aren't thfs
but a pt with a thf can easily get 25k+ an hour just like the rest
people are ignorant and silly

[Gothic]

And what about mug? Seriously... Nobody even *mentions* mug, because its so useless people just ignore it <_<. I mean, yeah getting 4k gil on a NM is great and all, but what about in normal situations? How does SE even try to justify 15 minute recast just for 13 gil? It'd be nice if they turned it passive and gave each attack a chance to steal money, that might actually be useful.

[Shamaya]

The way I had always looked at it, mug was always useful as a time marker xD. It was always something that would tell me when the next 15min-spawn mob would pop, if I was too lazy to look at the clock. Little known fact about mug, that LW showed me recently - you mug more gil from Thf mobs than other mobs. Interesting eh?

Bjond, I think I know where you're coming from. I have and have had a fair amount of friends who had nin and thf at 75, and felt the same way about their nin over thf. If by standard/above average gear you mean something like - Senji/Unji, Core, Turban, Chiv/Cock, brutal, suppa, af/haub, dusk, rajas, sniper/ulthalum's, amemet+1, swift, byakko, fuma - being your tp-set, I think that if your thief gear is anything like mine (although I do have sirocco), you should be able to definitively outdamage your ninja, as long as you have some nice swap macros (preferably windower), you're skilled at splitting/stacking your ja's and ws, and looking at recasts, and you're skilled at landing the SA's and such when the mob is spinning. And of course if your thf merits are as good as your nin merits. I feel that way, and yet, think about how many more improvements you can do to your nin. Then think about how many you could make to your thf (ie full homam).

Imho (ridill = mnk/war) >= leet sam > leet thf > leet axes war > leet mnk/nin > leet nin. I haven't parsed with a good drg or drk in awhile, but as far as 'AH-builds' go since 2h update, I've been impressed with Drg but not with Drk for some reason. This list is non relic, and by leet I mean ~capped merits, ~peaked gear, and ~great skill. And this is for non-piercing camps.

Edit: Just curious, Bjond, have you tried a dagger build at colibri before on nin? Well, not really much to say about a dagger build other than blau, lol. One of my friends that I mentioned who prefers Nin to Thf, and actually the only non-relic thf to outparse me, showed us a 1600 evisceration on greater colibri on his nin with 2 hour minuets (still impressive). He had blau and love torque, but I can't remember anything else specific. He thinks that his nin dagger build would probably outdamage his thf at greater colibri. Curious if you ever thought about trying that.