A Message From the Thieves Part 2, The Mechanics of the 'SATA'.

[Voila!]

It's painfully clear from level 30+ that people don't understand how Sneak Attack (SA) and Trick Attack (TA) work (SATA). I've decided it would benefit everybody who reads this. Sneak Attack is used from behind the monster and guaruntees a critical hit. Trick Attack is used from behind a tank(or other player), does not guaruntee a hit, but will be a bit more powerful and trick the monster into thinking the tank did the damage.

Let me direct your attention to this handy-dandy printable chart:



So, SATA means the thief is behind the tank, who is behind the monster, who is attacking the Trick Buddy(TB)*. 2+2=4

First, let me describe the party set up. You'll notice the players V(Thf), W(Blm), M(Whm), E(Pld), R(Mnk), and M(Rdm). It's an average set up for the Crawler's Nest, not optimal but it covers the basics. I'm V(oila) the thief.

Because of the lack of a Ranger, I'm pulling, and R(Mnk) is provoking so I may SATA off E(Pld). It's seemingly the perfect plan, and the most common way of setting up a SATA.


I'm using a SATA akin to this:

/p Sneak Attack & Trick Attack Alert!
/wait 0
/ja "Sneak Attack" <me>
/wait 1
/ja "Trick Attack" <me>


In the event a Ranger is pulling: The ranger will pull back a monster, run to or past the tank. The tank will line up behind the monster, then the thief will line up behind the tank. The thief will activate the SATA macro, it will go off and everybody will be happy. In this event the Ranger is the puller and the TB.

In the event the Thief is pulling: The thief will pull as usual, and another character will provoke the monster and the line-up will ensue. SATA etc...


These in-game pictures should help:







Yes, the pictures are of poor quality, but they can still help. Remember, E is the Paladin or Tank, R is the Monk or Trick Buddy, and V is I, the Thief. R provokes so V may trick off of E. These are pictures taken from SATA attempts, and you can see why they did or did not succeed.

Thieves: Make sure everybody in your party knows you're going to SATA. In most parties it's assumed that you'll begin the fight with SATA. You can even ask Mages/DD to wait until SATA goes off before they attack if you're having trouble.

Tanks: Sit still. This was mentioned in the first message from the thieves with can be located in the Warrior forum. That message should have gone into War/Pld/Nin forums, not just warrior. I apologize.

If you still don't understand SATA post and I'll try and make more diagrams, charts, and other thingies. I don't see this post as flammable, so I expect to see nothing such.

Thank you, and good luck.

*'Trick Buddies' is the term used for the extra person in the SATA trio that helps the thief SATA.

**Spelling, grammer, I don't care, whatever.

[Cali]

1st, let me clarify, I am not saying you are wrong in any sort of way, I, myself hate it when the tank dance around when we have a THF(why invite a THF when you don't let him/her SATA!?)

I just want to ask something, since I am planning to get a THF sometimes, and I will have to lvl THF anyway for my MNK....

I read somewhere, that you can actually use the wall trick, when you are fighting in a narrow space for whatever reason, your tank cannot position the mob better...

||WALL||
||WALL|| (Tank)(Mob)(Trick Partner)
||WALL||(Thief)

with that kinda formation, it was said that SATA would still work, but since I am not a thief nor a tank, I had never tested that, just want to know if that trick works or not

[Voila!]

You don't have to be directly behind the the tank, and the tank doesn't have to be directly behind the monster. The closer the better though. If it's too crooked, then only SA might go off and you'll grab the hate, or it wont go off at all.

Being behind the monster has a lot more degrees of freedom then being behind the tank though, which basically means there's a lot more room to be behind the monster then behind the tank AND the monster.

I'm not sure if your situation would work; I havn't attempted anything like that because to me it looks like it just wouldn't work. If you're in a hallway you should be doing this length-wise, but mistakes do happen. You'll figure it out as a thief. ^^

[Aiarin]

When FFXI was first released in the US, there was a trick called, if I recall, "Yokodama". This involved a positioning where you could unlock from the monster, aim yourself at the tank, and hit a SATA onto the person who is being attacked by the mob. Soon after the US release though (When my first Thief was about Lv. 24), SE fixed the glitch by narrowing the acceptable angles for SA and TA.

I'm mentioning this because that's the only thing I can think your "wall trick" might be referring to. SA requires you to be within a certain angle behind the mob, and TA requires that you be facing another player. You MIGHT be able to work the formation you posted if you lock onto the tank and get close enough to him, but the only reason I'd do that is if he's an idiot and doesn't understand SATA enough in order to not stand next to a wall.

Last night I had a particularly bad group. Two tanks in a row that wouldn't even acknowledge that I was talking to them. I ended up SATAing off the Taru Drk/Whm for the first half of the PT, then after a few close calls, we stopped the party and demanded that one of the Samurai let me trick off him (The Tank still wasn't acknowledging our existence-- and yes, he was NA and spoke english)

SATA isn't usually a problem for me, but one ignorant player can make it like trying to nail Jello to a wall.

In retrospect, actually, it's probably best I didn't SATA onto the "Tank" (Hume PLD?). When I did, his HP didn't seem to last very long o_o

[Balgas]

Voila! I love it!

I am going to direct all stupids that don't understand the simple concept to this thread.

I was always told "It will get better when you get to 40" well now I'm past 40 and people are still dumb about it. Rar!

I just don't understand why people think it's so hard.

[Aiarin]

Originally posted by Voila!
In the event a Ranger is pulling: The ranger will pull back a monster, run to or past the tank. The tank will line up behind the monster, then the thief will line up behind the tank. The thief will activate the SATA macro, it will go off and everybody will be happy. In this event the Ranger is the puller and the TB.

This probably doesn't need to be said, and wasn't really noted because this is a post for non-thieves, but unless your first SATA is going to be a SATAWS, you should always, always hit your SATA macro as long before the pull comes in as possible. If you're pulling, hit it before you pull (Ranged attack won't affect it), if you're not, then hit it when the pull notification comes in. This is to minimize the delay on your second SATA, the worst case scenario is that your SATA timer will run out right as the mob comes in, in which case, you can simply hit it again as if you hadn't had the foresight to hit it early (The SA and TA effects last just about exactly as long as the refresh timer).

Of course, doing this, you also won't want to engage the monster as soon as it comes in. Select it and hit * on your numpad to lock on to, get into position, then engage.

-- edit --

Also: Am I the only one who has this problem? My SATA (And other) "countdown" timers are way off. That is, you hit ctrl-j, highlight Sneak Attack, and it'll be counting down a minute from your last SATA, I can typically hit my SATA macro when it says 7 seconds, and it'll go through. Easier way to test this is to just hit your macro early. You hit it at 10 and it'll return "Cannot use Job Ability, time remaining (00:03)" or something similar. I believe the /recast command uses this same client-side countdown.

I assume it's just lag, but it's pretty annoying -_-;;

[_11of8]

[i]Also: Am I the only one who has this problem? My SATA (And other) "countdown" timers are way off. That is, you hit ctrl-j, highlight Sneak Attack, and it'll be counting down a minute from your last SATA, I can typically hit my SATA macro when it says 7 seconds, and it'll go through. Easier way to test this is to just hit your macro early. You hit it at 10 and it'll return "Cannot use Job Ability, time remaining (00:03)" or something similar. I believe the /recast command uses this same client-side countdown.

I assume it's just lag, but it's pretty annoying -_-;; [/b]

This happens for any job ability, though the "lag" difference varies depending on the ability. If I macro steal, I can do it roughly 30s before my Job Ability timer says I can. I reported it, but I never heard back other then they would look into it.

It's a minor bug that can be useful to take advantage of if you know how. Getting that convert or barrage off quicker is always nice.

[711rocks]

I made a thread about pts not knowing how to do this when i was a lower level >< It's not hard at all, but eh, people just don't understand it. However; since level 40 or so every pt I've had has known what to do with np at all, and alot even add a renkei woot (I know that every pt should have one, I was kidding there)