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SAM/THF isnt only for hate mitigation. For low-man fights where you want to do the maximum amount of damage while feeding the bare minimal amount of TP, SMN takes the cake.
Fixed. Unfortunately, if you're concerned about feeding a mob TP, you aren't going to be doing the maximum amount of damage, your logic is flawed. In lowman situations where meleeing is an issue, SMN will bring a lot more to the table than a SAM will; Hate free damage for practically 0 TP, an assortment of useful buffs, the ability to cure and remove status effects, not limited to Meditate timers. I dunno about you, but I don't knonw many SAMs who just quietly sit around with their thumb up their arse waiting for Meditate to come up again.
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If Dark Magic Resistance isnt an issue, then by all means, DRK it up, but other melee jobs, even with /sam, do not have the ability to pull TP out of their ass and most DD jobs, aside from MNK, do not have the store tp/subtle blow traits to ensure they're either getting the most tp possible or feeding the least tp possible.
This was just laughable. QUICK, WHAT CAN I THINK OF, UM, UM, YEAH THROW DRKS AT SHIT, IF ERRR, NO WAIT, I GOT IT! OTHER JOBS DON'T HAVE MEDITATE LOL. OH SHIT, KINDA FLAGGING HERE, STORE TP! STORE TP!
We'll work through this in order shall we? I sub DRK on THF all the time. Every piece of HP gear used in a DRK zerg build is available to THF. DRK is forced to resort to using weapons they have little skill in, which is why you
always see a THF standing nearby ready to pop Feint. I have a Ridill, a Sirocco Kukri, and access to an M.Kris if I ask nicely enough. This will allow my "TH whore" to surpass your average DRK, and keep up with a competent one. Oh sure, the good DRK will always win, but mostly because they aren't whiffing like a motherfucker with their K.Club or M.Kris because I've made it possible for a short-sighted quadraplegic to effectively melee with Feint, which I can do every two minutes.
Store TP traits? Clearly you've never looked at equipment added since WotG. You can see Shamaya's livejournal for more information on THF and Store TP, I think you'll be rather unpleasantly surprised. Either way, if you're trying to manage TP and still effectively deal damage, Summoner will do it much better.
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As for THF... personal experience has shown that I've never needed one with a PLD tank around, or as a PLD tank myself, and any job with THF sub can spike damage and shed hate just as well, with faster tp gain and higher damage in between WS.
Please, I'm
dying for you to explain how a WAR/THF, SAM/THF, or anything /THF can "shed hate." Oh that's right, they die. I find the bolded section quite amusing. Not better than, but just as well as. Also, I can match or beat what most SAMs can put out on HNMs or non-squishy mobs, and I'll do it every minute, without fail. Go ahead and bring up melee damage, I left the opening there deliberately. I'm also interested why you would think a THF would
want to lose hate. In most situations, a THF can tank better than any other job out there. Dynamis, Limbus, Nyzul Isle, merits, anything outside of HNMs/Gods/Jailers
(Oh, we can evasion tank most of those too you know), I don't even look at my Trick Attack macro. Why? Because sooner or later, one of the people I plant hate on is going to die. I don't go to any of those events for TH, I go to tank for SAMs, DRGs, and WARs. Also, since you probably aren't aware of this fact, I don't have TH4, and I don't touch my THF Knife 90% of the time either. Oddly enough, I still keep getting asked to come THF. Never needed a THF on PLD? I beg to differ, it's simple enough to find out why. Go find a mob with plenty of HP (I frequently trioed Behemoth with an Aegis PLD and RDM), tell the THF not to TA you, and to go all out on damage. For a while, things will go as planned, and you'll feel secure in your PLDs abilities. A short time later, when your handful of JAs are cooling down, you'll be generating a lot less enmity while the THF is still thraping the shit out of your mob, they
will pull hate from you. Atonement has gone some way to remedy this, but I can assure you, it will still happen more frequently than you'd like to imagine.
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I'm using sam/thf as an example to argue against the need for THFs in a group. If not doing HNM by all means sub WAR. Certain things will shine in certain situations, but if you consider all that a SAM has to offer versus other jobs, it's obvious that the bandwagon SAM is most frequently at the top for any drawn-out fights. DRGs have meripos, MNKs have salvage, but I digress.
What exactly does SAM offer outside of exceptional TP gain? I'm actually in the process of levelling SAM at the moment, and had a delightful party at MMJ Staging Point today. While I may have ended up on top of the parse, I was also informed of another rather interesting fact; I took over half of the damage taken by the party. This was while full-timing Seigan. Now I'll admit, I don't have enhanced Third Eye, or a -pdmg set for when I do pull hate, but either of these will put a dampener on any DDing potential you might have. I suppose you could sub NIN, and further gimp your damage. My THF suffers from none of these problems, most of the time I can just keep on ploughing through mobs, without sacrificing attack speed and power, or a chunky boost to one of my major stats. I'm not saying SAM sucks or anything, just that your perception of how useful they actually are, and for what reasons, is horribly flawed.
Oh, I almost forgot. Enjoy claiming your HNMs as SAM/THF. Oh wait... You can't. Back to the drawing board eh? Try actually stepping into a HNM related zone once in a while, you'll notice that nobody is subbing THF, because it's fucking useless. You can't deal damage to something you have no chance of claiming, as such, common practice is to sub WAR, if you're a pussy, you sub WHM, if you're me, you sub DRK.
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On top of that, the master is weak themselves and have to usually wind up doing some alternate role. -cough- SMN heals between blood pacts.
You say this like it's a bad thing. Personally, I've main healed DD parties for just about every HNM and endgame mob you can think of as SMN. I still managed to BP every minute too. So not only is the weak pet and weak master dealing consistent damage, they're keeping the DDs alive while they do it. I'd hardly call that a problem. You've been rambling on about the flexibility of a pure DDing class for some time, and then pick faults with the genuinely flexible jobs because you have no idea what they're actually capable of doing.
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Not just exp mentallity. A THF deals spike damage and transfers hate. A SAM/THF can do the exact same thing with more damage, and more survivability. Again, the sole advantage is TH4.
Survivability? Brilliant.
SAM pulls hate.
Seigan/TE.
Anticiapte a couple of times.
Face tank waiting for TE to go back up.
Get cure bombed.
WHM pulls hate.
WHM goes down like a sack of shit.
Mob returns to SAM.
Anticipate a couple of times.
Die.
We'll see just how well those Evasion Bonus traits work out for you.
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SCH came close maybe to whm but WHM was still better even before that update.
A WHM cannot give me Phalanx on top of a reliable Stoneskin, nor can they boost my DEX or STR by +7, nor give me en-spells. While your point about lack of haste is a valid one, you are rarely in a position where you have just a SCH in your party, there is usually a RDM or BRD as well. To be honest, in a few situations I'd take a skilled SCH over the WHM, they just bring that much more to the table. The few times I've been without haste and found myself with just a SCH, I think things actually went smoother.
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Also, I kinda DO see THF as a failed job seeing as people only want you for one thing (lol don't women say this?) so they should work on job purpose instead of buffing whatever 2 jobs they believe should be buffed at a time.
A lot of this is due to the general view of THF, rather than any actual downfalls in the job itself. I couldn't think of much that they could add. Collaborator and Accomplice were a surprise when they first came out, and they've gone a long way to enhancing the hate management capabilities of THF. The only problem? Most mages don't consider this when they pull hate, given half a chance, they will turn tail and run, making it virtually impossible to hit them with either ability. Instead, they run around madly screaming for vokes, when the solution is most likely too busy trying to catch up to tell them to stop moving. Increase the range on Acc/Coll and I'd be happy even if they never gave THF another JA. A lot of THFs are demanding a Hasso like ability, a stance of some kind to increase some aspect of THF damage, personally, I find it quite refreshing that we're one of the few jobs that doesn't have to sub SAM for Hasso to do anything meaningful these days.
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This little "ranking" system doesn't seem well thought out at all...
All ranking like this is effectively useless, since they're based on very limited personal experience. I'd be quite happy to put THF in the lowest tier possible, because 99.9% of them suck donkey cock for pleasure, likewise I could argue that SAM only comes into a middle tier position because of all those DOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU/Shinsoku SAMs. Very few people have the ability to discuss such things objectively, because they will usually rank their main job higher than it should be, just because they play it. It's just one of those things, you can't rank jobs effectively when a supposedly gimp DD can outperform the best one, player ability is just too much of a deciding factor.