Post patch playing.

[Nodachi]

Well the dreaded patch known to "nerf" thief has landed. Honestly i suppoe i can't speak for all the things it effects as my thief is only level 25 but man has the space narrowed for sneak attack. Before you could easily get away with attacking from the side and in all honesty it was hard to miss a sneak attack unless your tanks are morrons. But now, different story. I suppose it isn't hard to lign up directly behind the enemy to perform it as long as no one's in your way but it def. poses much more of a challenge.

Anyways post your problems or things you've noticed to have changed along with the patch.

Oh and yeah SEX really messed up the macros lol they better fix them quick - everyone is complaining as to how sticky they are and some even say they can't use their macros atol =\

[zatteran]

i hear all you need to do is re type your macros and theyll be fine, but i havent tried it yet. worth a go though

[Deodorant]

The patch sucks.

The initial dama is easy to pull off, secondary attacker provoke, get into position, dama off paladin, paladin provoke. Foolproof.

Renkei is much, much harder. More than half the time the secondary attacker's provoke + ws doesn't turn the monster, so if I'm standing behind paladin I do crap damage.

So I've been standing beside monster for renkei and watching carefully to see if the provoke turns the mob. Problem is with the current retarded 2 second delay on macros it's all too easy to screw up something.

Maybe I suck at this, but I much prefer yokodama ~

[Ixquic]

Sounds hard, but not impossible. I guess we'll have to get used to it like this.

It would have been nice if they had strengthened mug (i.e make it not useless) in order to soften the blow though...

[John Doe III]

It will be fine, just have to tell your party or attackers that they need to get to the opposite side of you and taunt before renkei and not to taunt anytime 30 secs before hand. So, right when your ready the person your renkeing with is on the opposide of you and will taunt before WS, while your target is in front of you about to get hit with massive damage becuase he is the helpless victim in your PT who you decided to pick on. Still sounds ok to me.

[Deodorant]

Originally posted by Deodorant
More than half the time the secondary attacker's provoke + ws doesn't turn the monster

... is what I said.

It's hard. If the paladin is too efficient at keeping hate, the secondary attacker/renkei partner's provoke will not turn the monster. Well of course the paladin could skimp on the heals, shield bashes, etc, but that would mean a dangerous lack of hate that could easily send the monster flying all over. So there are 2 options:

1. Stand behind paladin, do 30 damage viper bite, and 10 dmg distortion. At least if you have blm's in party they can MB off the skillchain.
2. Stand behind secondary attacker, do 500 dmg viper, 200 dmg distortion, and blm's can MB. Monster will immediately start hitting secondary attacker, and it typically takes at least 5-10s before paladin can regain the hate, which is sometimes enough time for the secondary attacker to take a shitload of damage.

I for one would like to know how you pre-yokodama thieves got around these problems. I bet there's probably some other trick or strategy to it that I don't know of

[Nameless]

I wish THF's had some power to move the tanks into place (most of them stand clustered together infront of the monster, which is good for my level without trick) then bind them so we can fuidama easily

Anyway, I'm going to stay THF but I'm also gonna level RNG/NIN.

[John Doe III]

I remember the good old' days when I was around level 30 and doing yoko behind our 2nd attackers or...thief XP. Starv and I used to do it behind each other and the tank would regain hate..then I would use it after him.

[Neo Nanaki]

I have just chosen to go Thief as my main job right now, and while I have researched the thief job well enough, I'm not sure what was changed in the patch beside Sneak Atk must be behind the NME.

Can someone explain how this patch effects yokodama and such and such? (and the job as a whole..)

[kanomjeeb]

Here is how i did before the yokodama was discovered.

It was pretty much like Deodorant said but my delay was /wait 1 and /wait 2

/ja sneak blahblah
/wait 1
/ja trick blahblah
/wait 2
/ws blahblah

here is how i got ready for renkei

PLD
|
mob <-- Jeeb(thf)
|
Figther

I had more than enough time just to see which way the moster turned the face to.

When skillchain started, I kept my eyes on the monster and ran real quick to whicher the monster's back was(when my turn came).. either pld or the figther.. then blew my macro..

Seriously you really have enough time to do so...

Sure.. something you will be doing sneak+trick behind the figther not PLD.... and pld wouldnt be tanking.. in this case.. just let the monster beat the figther and pld cure.. the pld will get his target back sooner or later anyway...

[Awntawn]

Basically, during the fight, THF should stand at the side like this:

Tank

Mob THF

Attacker

When you're going to use sneak + trick, you run to one side depending on which side the monster is facing. Same as renkei, there should be enough time for you to run to either side. Right after the attacker uses WS, hit ur charge macro and move (while charging, slide if you will) and hit ur WS macro right when u get behind the dama victim. Given this'll need a little bit of practice, it soon becomes like walking. This is how everyone did it before yokodama was discovered

Safest strategy is wait until the monster's HP is down to 1/2 before renkei, then make it so that renkei + MB will kill the monster for sure.

[vudoodoodoo]

So much harder to use Sneak Attack now.
If the monster moves the slightest, Sneak won't work.
I hate it when I miss Sneak.

[Ixquic]

The range of sneak is way too low. They could have stopped people from using yokodama without reducing it so much. As previously said if the monster even moves a little you'll miss.

[Xeross]

Thanks to the new sneak, i've already added one War to my blacklist.

Well ok its not ALL because he was pissing me off, not taunting before his WS, not taunting every 30, forcing me to provoke cuz he wouldnt do SHIT when the whm is nearing death from the mob.

But the addition to the fact that I was having a REALLY hard time landing my sneak cuz the guy couldnt keep hate him worth shit, he would... at random, while he ACTUALLY has hate on him, start CIRCLING THE ENEMY!!!!?!?!!!!

God I got so pissed. This guy was level 19 with no sub and didn't know what a magicked skull was(and he was leveling in Dunes)

I wanted to slap him. Instead, when he started complaining about our low exp(which was us getting 3-4 exp chains on 60exp mobs), I just booted him out of the group, said find a different group then, and added him to my blacklist.

But when I have a good provoker in the group, like the paly who I had to replace with the war when the paly left, was one of the best tanks I've played with so far, and it made it quite easy to play my job.

edit:: i'm sure i would have blacklisted that War anyway, but the new window to hit just made it oh so much more annoying.

[Awntawn]

WAR: "Standing still is gay, I want to move around for fun"

THF: "You need to stand still or else I can't use sneak... it's screwing us over"

Some Random Guy: "God damn uberists. Don't listen to that asshole, play it the way YOU want to! It's all for fun!!! Not for hardcore!@!!#@$!!@dollaratpercentstar"