Thf Tanking

[Bobz]

I know this is the advanced forum, and although Thf tanking isn't something new or advanced per say it is a tactic that i thought could use some advanced discussion.

Last night i was farming sky and as it got later people had to log out / sleep / do shit. Ended up only having a pld/war to tank and rdm/whm to heal with a blm to do what ever along with sam/thf drk/thf and a ranger, well MG was up and we decided to give it a try. Needless to say with having so few people we got raeped.

I managed to convince every one that if we had the Pld (Thanos) invincible and just spam spells to spike hate i could acomplice him to take hate and tank. With support from the /thf DD to ta ws me. It worked flawlessly. With my haste gear and haste i was able to get 18 sec ichi and 28 ni (or there about) (+21% from gear + 15% from spell). Although i did die right before MG died due to me being stupid and cancelling ichi because i was too slow to get rid of ni.

Tanking MG on THF and having no hate issue, ( huuur acomplice invincible) it got me to think, what else would be a good use for thf tanking? We have Evasion bonus 4 at level 70. Thats ontop of the A+ Evasion skill. And access to haste gear thats rather easy to obtain. (+22% haste, or +25% recast with loq and homam pants) With haste + march = shit ton of haste.

I understand thf's do not generate much hate, but with people trick attacking the thf i could see thf being a nice tank for certain NMS.

So, yea. What are your guy's thoughts and opinions about thf tanking? I want to do it more often; i'm going to try and get my ls to let me tank more things. just see how it goes. Its fun to do things differently then do the same drill for 2+ years. I know ninja tank or pld/nin would better is most cases, but they get to do that shit all the time.

Also Acomplice recast should be lowered / meritable.

[Tubbers]

It works well on lesser HNM, like the Beastmen Kings, Charybdis, etc. On any serious HNM, it doesnt work extremely well, because A you can't evade them, and B Accomplice is your only hate tool besides random Ninjutsu.

[Sepuku]

You will need massive evasion gear and maybe evasion merrits for the higher tier HNM and they will still just occasionally miss you, which affords you to do flawless Utsu casting and overwriting.
Also you need a RDM that knows his job and will debuff and maybe a whm that can and will flash on the moment when your shadows are all down.
Remember THF Utsu NI only has 3 shadows and hate management can be better dealt by Ninja/warrior.
Whereas a thf will need someone to put hate on him constantly since thf dmg output without SATA is not enough to hold hate on an HNM ,plus you permanently loose shadows lowering your enmity.
And the moment someone else in the party does a ws that deals good dmg , you ll have lost hate again, if that someone is too stupid to stand opposing you , things will go haywire.
There is a lot of things you have to take care of when thf tanking.

[altwight]

Thief tanking works really well in small parties. For instance 3man behemoths and duoing simurgh and stuff. If you throw more and more melee in with a thf tank that'll just mess up everything. Stick to the low manning it's much more fun as thief ^_^.

[Wizerd]

It works nicely if you have a strong Darkness skillchain opened on you for Seiryu or Byakko, they just won't hit you; and that was before Accomplice. The started 4k damage secures a lot of hate, but on anything where that kind of start isn't an option and the battle is longer than say, 3-4 minutes, it's just not really feasible(sp?).

Also, Perfect Dodge for Seiryu's HF is better than Invincible unless you've hit it with wind, obviously (until the last 15 seconds).

[Phraust]

I was/am (on the fence) a career thief and been doodling numbers about thf tanking since I was a wee thief. The only thing that Thief Fails at for tanking is the maintainance needed to keep hate. Your hate source if generally a result of groups of melees TA'ing you, which is TP spam in general for you. The system is set ot where you can't do enough melee damage because you need the evasion gear, and you can't accomplice everyone. Nin rise to the tankign role thnaks in part to thier Melee damage, Spell set, sub job oportunities and ninjitsu skill aiding in their spell interupts. All major things missing from thief tanking. It's sad, and it's awesome we got accomplice, but if you were to tank on thief, it would most likely be in emergency situations, or an experimental setting where time and reliability are not concerns.

For lesser shit like lil HNM's and such, absolutly awesome. As the group shrinks into a trio, you realize that you really can do a lot with only 2 other folks helping you out. I am sure you already know this.

There is definately one thing that Thief Tankng would probably really be an awesome tool woudl be in HNM claim and control, like Cerb/Khim/Wyrm, but I really do not know. I would only assume it could be a containment situation relying on minimal support that act as your hate source, while you wait for more people to arrive. But again, ES sleeps do the same thing.

So all and all it comes down to a "Yes it can be done, but Why?" situation, where the answer typically would be "Because I can". But would you hold up your friends, and make them watch you wash your car using Q-tips, just because you can?

[Wizerd]

So all and all it comes down to a "Yes it can be done, but Why?" situation, where the answer typically would be "Because I can". But would you hold up your friends, and make them watch you wash your car using Q-tips, just because you can?

Threads about WHMs tanking would say yes, yes you would. <_< They do it because they can. It's fun.

[miokomioko]

fun.

I think you're on to something.

[LD]

fun.

I think you're on to something.

[Eaglestrike]

Any mob that takes decent melee damage can be tanked by a thief with maybe a few certain exceptions (like maybe Ix'Mnk? Might attack too fast and hard for a THF, but haven't tried it myself so not sure).

MG is actually one of the poor cases for a THF tank because meleeing it gets you stunned, so it's not exactly good to be meleeing for hate. Relying on others and Accomplice for hate isn't exactly for the best.

Also, /nin is not needed for thf tanking. I've tanked Zipacna as thf/drk with 7 people, two-ish healers just fine. It gives me some added hate generation and since I had a hax brd I had wonderful evasion. Arcana Killer + Stun was good to help reduce damage taken.

[aurik]

Thf is a great tank if they can hold hate. Starting a fight with a big WS and accomplicing your highest hate competition can help you secure hate for a short time, but over the long haul you're going to lose out to the bigger DDs.

What thf is better for now is mediating hate, with the ability to both add and subtract hate, as well as accumulate and handle hate themselves, they're a very versatile job in the right hands.

Yesterday we killed Roc with 4, mnk/nin, mnk/nin, war/nin, thf/nin: no healer, no debuffs. And it's mostly because the thf could participate in hate management, so that no one melee got overwhelmed with hate.

[Eaglestrike]

Yesterday we killed Roc with 4, mnk/nin, mnk/nin, war/nin, thf/nin: no healer, no debuffs. And it's mostly because the thf could participate in hate management, so that no one melee got overwhelmed with hate.

I love fighting Roc/Simurgh because I totally control hate in that fight. Granted they are on 5min timers, I can wipe half of one persons hate and all of my own. I've certainly had my fun against Simurgh when we had 3 melee on it by Accomplicing one DD and then using Hide, leaving the final DD with the only significant amount of hate

Also, considering the hate cap it's entirely possible that a thief can sit at or near the top of the hate list. The only problem case really would be a monk who hits very quickly to keep themselves at the hate cap often.

[Royal]

THIEF SUCKSplease don't ban me

[Max™]

As a psychotic little taru who likes to war/thf in sky, packin an Mbhuj, my shiny new snow gorget, and something like +60 Str and +30 Vit, one of the thieves there is my friend.

They like tanking, so they line up fast for SATA (the way NO Nin or Plds ever do, close to the mob, just perfectly setup, wonder why a Thf would be good at that) and I drop 1500-2200 Dmg Steel Cyclones on em all night, it makes them happy, it makes me happy, and it makes me not dead.

[Gergall]

On the King Goldemar assault, I was like 3/11 or so with a PLD tank. After reading a thread in the events forum, I decided to try it with a THF tank and even though we didn't know exactly what to expect, we went 1/1.

[Medivac]

as some1 all ready said, its only good for lesser hnms. thf/war on behemoth is fine etc but they can't generate enough hate to tank well, and accomplicing a tank removes there emnity which isnt good at all, and with a thf on a hnm it spams tp moves anyways.

[vagus]

Thf can tank due to there high evasion and parry. Sadly keeping hate is there biggest problem. Like Aurik said, a thf is best for managing hate. :D

[Tulun]

I guess, if you could find a way for him to hold hate. I think it's been proven most jobs /nin could tank, as long as they have enough hate to last however long the fight is.

But I think it plays to the THFs strength to do other things, no?

[Croaker]

So, yea. What are your guy's thoughts and opinions about thf tanking?

Overall my thoughts on THF as main tank are the same as my thoughts on PLD as a main healer.

[Afrohatch]

Any job can tank anything, as long as it has a way to mitigate/absorb/blink damage, and has tools to hold hate. THF's only real tool to holding hate would be melee damage, and trick attacks on said THF. Back in one of my first HNM's, I was the main tank for my shell on THF >_> i.e. double mambo, haste, yadda yadda etc etc on mobs like Bune, Behe, Serket, Simurgh, Amikiri...the lesser "HNM" Was a starting shell, so stfu! i can't see THF doing anything crazy and tanking melee-resistant mobs, wyrms, basically any endgame mob now, without a TON of support.