THF Merit Suggestions

[LordMagnus]

I leveled Thief to 75 a long time ago, and then quickly merited until I had capped Triple Attack. After that, however, I couldn't decide on how I wanted to setup the rest of my JSM1. Capping either Sneak Attack or Trick Attack recast down was tempting, but I couldn't decide which, or if I should simply get one to level three and the other to level two. Also, the only group 2 merit I've gotten is Feint level 1, which I do not regret. I thought about getting Feint to 3 and Ambush to 3, but I still don't know exactly what Aura Steal does, so I can't judge whether or not it's worth getting that to at least level 1.

Others must have experience with how useful particular merit setups have been, so I come here seeking some suggestions as to how I should assign my THF JSM1 and 2. Any and all recommendations will be greatly appreciated. ^^

[Yutuyu]

Aura Steal = Dispel + Chance of receiving dispelled buff. Kinda like Voracious trunk. The chance of receiving the dispelled buff goes up with extra merits.



The goal for (just about) any melee is to get enough accuracy to eat meat and still maintain an 80%+ hit rate. I think Ambush helps here a lot. Each level has a steady gain, there's no monumental bonus on the first merit (unlike a lot of skills which are amazing for level 1, and level 2 are incremental upgrades).

Feint/Aura Steal are kinda incremental. Sure your chances of stealing the buff goes up, but the majority of the times you're going to use Aura Steal, you're doing it for the dispel not for the buff.

And lowering Feint's timer is pretty useful compared to other Category 2 merit timer reductions, though. You shave more of a percent off, and the effect is huge, and very useful in places like Dynamis on THF mobs, etc.

However Assassin's charge is very useful too (though it's one of those you wanna level at level 1).

Personally I'd go: 3 Ambush, 1 Feint, 1 Aura Steal, 1 assassin's charge..



As for job-specific category 1, you might wanna consider hide merits. I doubt the 4-6 second reduction on SATA is really gonna make that much of a difference (if any at all) and the reduction of 50 seconds on hide would make a big difference. Why?

If you use SATA then hide, you can get a frontal SATA on your tank, no matter how the mob detects, if you do it before you have any hate to the creature. So you can basically start every fight (unless you're pulling) you have hide up with a nice SATA in a merit party. 1/6 shaved off of the timer gives an extra hide out of every 6. Very useful in my opinion.

Then again if you're a guy who's using SA or TA right when they're up and ready you might get more milage out of meriting those, depends on your level of attentiveness/playstyle.

[LordMagnus]

Aura Steal = Dispel + Chance of receiving dispelled buff. Kinda like Voracious trunk. The chance of receiving the dispelled buff goes up with extra merits.

So does that mean, if I get Aura Steal, I'll never be able to steal an item again? Or if the mob has a buff up, I'll dispel instead of stealing an item? Or I'll steal for the item and dispel?

[archibaldcrane]

Feint is the Angon of Dragoons, but pumping merits just means you get to use it more often. For most endgame situations it's about as useful as thief gets other than Treasure Hunter. 3 merits in it is the way to go. 1 in Aura Steal is definitely a must, as a non-mage dispel can be invaluable, and if you use it right you can really negate a lot of what a mob can hurt you with. Beyond those two, it doesn't really matter/shit is situational.

Pumping 3 into Ambush is kinda LOL in my opinion. When do you get to chill behind a mob for long periods of time? Merits? No. Anything with Spike Flail? No. Sky gods I guess, just doesn't seem particularly useful to me.

3 Feint and 1 Aura Steal are musts, whatever you do after that is fine.

BTW, Aura Steal checks in the following order:

Can I steal the mob's item? If no then:
Can I steal the mob's buff? If no then:
Can I dispel the mob's buff? If no then:
Fail.

It won't hurt your ability to steal items at all, items are the first check.

[Eaglestrike]

What to do with SA/TA recast is up to you, it really depends on what you do with your thief the most. If you live in Aery, TA recast, if you want to maximize your damage and don't take too much hate, SA recast since your DEX should be higher than your AGI, making SA the stronger JA.

I'm not a fan of ambush. Maybe it's because I take hate all the time on my thief but you have 350ish or more accuracy with good gear end-game, +3 is less than a 1% boost to that. I'm a fan of 3 Feint, 1-2 Aura Steal and 1-2 Ass Charge. Ass charge while also not that amazing can be quite useful to get a better burst in damage to start a fight or finish it, or put more hate onto a tank that just had it reset, etc. I have 1 AS and 2 AC on my thief.

I don't see why any thief would skip Aura Steal, we're the weakest job against spikes and that can help remove spikes asap (since Steal is basically instant, unlike Finale/Dispel). The success rate on HNM's isn't amazing, I think I'm something like 15-20% on dispelling Cerb's spikes, but those things kill me and he resists dispel/finale a ton from what I've seen, but it's an added utility to the thief job and is very nice, imo. And stealing attack bonus buffs from mobs can give crazy amounts of attack. A besieged bomb gave me +100% attack with no loss to defense a while back, lol. Lasted like 3min.

[Wintermute]

I capped Triple Attack then did:
2 Aura Steal
1 Ass.Charge
3 Ambush

After coming back to the game and deciding I wanted to do more HNM/End-Game it became apparent that Ambush was a pretty moot ability. The Acc/R.Acc bonus is nice but you need to be behind the Mob for it to work, and on many HNM you don't get that luxury. Only time I really used it was when I was meriting on THF, and even then you get mobs breakdancing so running around behind the mob all the time gets fast quick.

Now I've got
2 Aura Steal
1 Ass.Charge
3 Feint

Cap merits in Feint puts it on a 6min timer iirc. Which is quite broken when you're fighting High Eva mobs or when your DDs need to kill shit quick. It's really quite stupid to see what the Eva down on Feint can do on shit like Byakko.

Make sure you do get at least one level in Aura Steal though. An MP-Free Dispel with a chance to absorb a buff is too spiffy to pass up. Especially on HNMs.

Imo you don't need more than one Merit in Ass.Charge. You only really use it for E-Peen shots when you want to guarantee a Triple Attack proc on your next WS. And truth be told I never use the thing. I keep forgetting it's there.

After I did Cat 2 merits I did two in SA and TA then one in Hide because I had nothing else to spend it in really. I could've gone the full 5 in Flee but like Ass.Charge I don't use it much.

[Eaglestrike]

Same can be said about putting more than 1 into Aura Steal. Absorbing ice spikes 20% more often doesn't really do anything for me

[Tradition]

Feint and Aura Steal are high on my to-merit list, but I play solo THF

I second the capping Feint, it's stupidly useful endgame and solo. Assassin's Charge is just fine with one merit, it's great for making sure your tank gets more hate with AC+TA+WS. Ambush is meh because you'll never be behind a mob in a merit pt and a lot of endgame mobs have some sort of terrible move if you attack from behind. Here's what I want to merit for THF, ymmv:

5 Triple Attack
5 Hide recast
3 Feint
3 Aura Steal

I suggest capping out Hide merits so you can release your hate or simply just Hide+SAWS on Greater Colibri more often. However, I'm still debating over this because I'm nowhere near to capping THF merits, I just got 75BRD a couple days ago and I'm currently working on sword and shield merits for my upcoming PLD :B

[Vedder]

As has been stated, maxing Triple Attack and Feint are pretty much "musts".

Beyond that, it's mostly personal playstyle preferences with Ambush being LOL.

The one thing I can't get with is lowering both SA and TA recast... it seems to me that most good THFs split SA and TA, but due to style of play one is going to be used more often than the other especially if you gain TP very fast and stack your WS. Maxing one or the other to -10sec seems like the way to go to me.

[Archain]

I'll tell you what I did with my Tier I merits and try to justify it, you have to make the choice based on your playstyle though, not mine.

Tier I
5 Triple Attack
5 Hide

• Triple Attack was a pretty obvious choice, it's going to help with both TP gain and the possibility of getting a triple proc internal to a weaponskill. The base rate for THF appears to be 5%, this should jack it to 10%. Homam Corazza should be in the 2-3% range.

• Hide was a bit different for me. I looked at the SA and TA timers for a while and only saw an adjustment of 2 seconds for every mod I upgraded it to. I've levelled and merited with THF with the standard 1 minute timers for so long that I'm used to them where they were at. The only skill I'd constantly be checking my job menu for would be the availability of Hide. Taking 50 seconds off of the job ability has really allowed me the opportunity to crank it up a little more in merit parties and even on endgame enemies. I love the skill and utilize the hell out of it.

Tier II
Aura Steal at least 1

• Aura Steal is a dispel effect attached to your Steal ability. The Dispel effect is the main draw of this trait, I recommend a minimum of at least 1 into this one. Adding more gives you a higher chance of absorbing buffs, this trait is a fun one. It will not fuck your ability to steal an item, but sometimes you'll wish it did. I can't count the amount of times I accidentally stole a Quirin Cape instead of the Wind Wall buff from those Wyvern types at the Mamool Ja camp.
  
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  Aura Steal - Proteus
  
  Aura Steal - Apis
  
  Aura Steal - Om'Yvora
  

Assassin's Charge at least 1

• Assassin's Charge doesn't really give you something you didn't have before, it just allows you to control it. You've seen the peak WS screenshots people have shown you and they've almost always had a Triple Attack fire off if they've taken the time to screenshot it. Assassin's Charge is sexy when you just have to slam everything you've got into the target.
  
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Ambush not really recommended

• Ambush would have been okay had it not taken possible upgrades away from the other skills. As it sits right now it's too conditional for my taste to be worth the upgrade. Accuracy to me is viewed more as an equipment problem and I don't consider my accuracy to be personally lacking. The only thing this would give me is a few more percentage points on a parse if I drive myself insane attempting to remain behind every single enemy I encounter.

Feint from 1 to 3

• Feint is hot! You already know how wonderfully potent it is. It's amazing how one skill can effect an enemy so harshly. I don't really have much more to say about this one except that more merits allow you to do this wonderful /ja with a higher frequency.

[ringthree]

For the love of god and all that is holy, get Feint and take it to level 3. With Feint up a DD can get like 90% accuracy on Byakko with no food. All the people in your LS will love you for it.

[Slott]

As said before, feint is awesome - definitely get 3 points in it.

I used to have assassin's charge, but removed it - it's pretty worthless (I already triple or double attack on a weaponskill very often from capped merits + brutal, and a 15 minute timer isn't anything fun)

Aura steal is one of my favorite abilities - If you solo a lot, or duo...or depending what you fight, aura steal can be great.

Versus bombs, you steal a 2x damage mod (berserk), dhalmels in limbus provide the same, wyverns provide evasion boosts, etc etc. These are all mobs I fight often, and having dispel at your side in an instant always helps (Especially if you dont have a bard, and it's something a redmage cant dispel - psycheflayers, cerberus etc) - hell in imperial code, i've stolen their utsusemi when mine was down, which helped out

I started with 2 points in aura steal and 1 in assassins charge, but removed the AC for 3 in aura steal, and don't regret it.

As for tier 1's, triple attack obviously

Rest is up to you, I started with 3 in sneak, 2 in trick, then found myself to be dying too much from SA mercy strokes as /war on some hnm, so I switched to all trick merits. It's helped since I can shift damage to a tank quickly, but there are some instances(like in salvage) where sneak attack is infinitely more useful because I want to have hate, not give it to someone else) It all depends on your play style.

I can see how hide is useful (If you pull salvage, it actually works on a lot of different monsters, which is very useful) But as for SA+TA+ Hide? I dont usually lump sa + ta together, since then i'd be sitting on tp for 20-25 seconds with neither up, so that's not for my type of play style.

Currently I'm at 5 triple attack, 5 trick attack, 3 aura steal, 3 feint.

The only thing I'm considering to change is 5 trick attack --> 5 sneak attack, or somewhere in between, but for now I'll leave it as trick (Easier to mpk people!)

[divisortheory]

Definitely take Feint 3. For the other I chose 3 Assassin's Charge. I had Aura Steal and removed my merit in it because mages were always dispelling things instantly, making Aura Steal fairly useless. Ambush nothx.

For Group I, Triple Attack 5 is obvious. Also, different than what some people feel, I chose to cap Trick Attack to enhnace my damage in merit parties. Some people say Sneak Attack, and while it will theoretically increase your damage, what I find is that I successfully land far few Sneak Attacks on mobs than I do Trick Attacks. This is due to lots of things, from people moving around in merit parties, to mob shifting hate, etc. With Trick Attack it's completely irrelevant, I don't have to line up at all I just fire it because someone is always between me and the mob. I always find myself taking 2-3 seconds to correctly line up for Sneak Attack, meaning that 1-2 merits would have been town the toilet.

[Loren]

- Feint Lv3. It can literally shave minutes off any time-limited instance situation (BCNM, Assault, w/e). It also lets you do little things like drop Acc gear from your WS set every 6 minutes.

- Aura Steal Lv1+. Extremely useful. It's a wind-based Dispel so it will work on things that resist light or dark (but not Air Elementals for instance). It also works on strong DEF buffs like Xzomits that cannot be acid bolted. It's also instant--keep in mind that RDMs and BRDs are often locked into 4-6 second casting animations which is enough time for spikes or evasion boost to derail a melee party. Dispel is not the fastest spell, nor can it strip all buffs at once so Aura Steal is a nice contribution after pulling some WHM or RDM mob. The stolen buffs are mostly goofy, but the occasional Enwater or Warcry/Berserk effect that grants 700+ Attack is entertaining.

- Last two group II points can go in any combination of Lv1 Assassin's charge, Lv2-3 Aura Steal. Ambush is resoundingly "meh" for the reason Eaglestrike mentioned. The majority of my time on small mobs is either delivering TA to the front, or tanking myself after a WS. There are already 1,001 ways to increase accuracy.

For Group I, I have Lv4 Triple, Lv3 Sneak, Lv3 Trick. Any permutation of those will perform similarly.

[Rem]

For THF JSM2

3/3 Feint - I like having the 6 minute cool down timer. Like some have said its great for timed events. I do a lot of Nyzul Assaults, its nice to be able to use feint on Leader fight a few floors before a king fight and not have to worry about the cool down.

2/3 Aura Steal - Was just a personal preference for me over a 2/3 or 3/3 Assassin's Charge. If you're in a situation where you're always going to have an assigned dispeler you may want to skip over this and go 3/3 on Assassin's Charge (Like Divisor). I usually spend most of my time duo'ing with a whm (no dispel) friend, even tho its on a 5 minute steal timer I still like to have it around.

1/3 Assassin's Charge - Just for the damage spike.

JSM1 - 5/5 Triple Attack and 5/5 Trick attack.

[Phraust]

I ended up with a kinda odd Merit settup based on my needs.
5 Triple attack, this is pretty obvious.
5 Trick attack, it's pretty damn inportant to place that hate as often as you possibly can.

1 Assassin's Charge. Wanted to merit this more, but Fights never lasted long enough to merit.
1 Feint. As with Assassin's Charge, Fights never lasted long enough to merit raising it's level, and the fights that DID last long enough to matter, Melee was not a major source of damage to warrent the drop in evasion.
1 Aura Steal. I must admit, I am yet to actually merit this still. I know it's benefit, and look forward to using it.
3 Ambush. For the way I play, this skill can actually come in handy during those SA+WS at Farming events, or when you use dual tanks on certain mobs(Flailess ones). and it's also a nice boon if you use a Crossbow and happen to pull things with thier back to you.

If I merited on my thief, and that was solely what I did, I'd likely max out Feint and get an Aura Steal, and blow the others on AC. Splitting 2/2 on SA and TA, while capping Trip. The last Area 1 merit I'd be torn where to go.

If I had more time to solo, I'd cap Aura Steal and Assassin's Charge, trip and Flee most likely. Mainly because I'd have no TA partner, no view of the back of the mob, no worries of accuracy (T or Lower), and Flee merited is just a Damn luxury =]

Thar be my inputs...
It's pretty situational, But Assassin's Charge and Feint are good choices no matter what.

[Delenn]

What to do with SA/TA recast is up to you, it really depends on what you do with your thief the most. If you live in Aery, TA recast, if you want to maximize your damage and don't take too much hate, SA recast since your DEX should be higher than your AGI, making SA the stronger JA.

Point taken.

I had the same dilemma, until I realized my Trick Attacks consistently deal more damage than my Sneak Attacks due to more AGI gear and Rogue's Armlets +1 (+15% AGI), when not using Assassin's Armlets of course. This made the decision to max Trick Attack much easier. It's also nice that Trick Attack can be used when you have hate, unlike Sneak Attack.

thf75-th4-ta: acc(0) agi(40) atk(28) dex(13) eva(10) evask(0) haste(0) racc(0) ratk(15) str(5)
thf75-default-ta: acc(0) agi(40) atk(28) dex(16) eva(10) evask(0) haste(0) racc(0) ratk(15) str(5)

Equipment

• Head "Dragon Cap"[/*:m:23362]
• Neck "Spike Necklace"[/*:m:23362]
• Ear1 "Genin Earring"[/*:m:23362]
• Ear2 "Drone Earring"[/*:m:23362]
• Body "Dragon Harness"[/*:m:23362]
• Hands "Assassin's Armlets" (th4) "Rog. Armlets +1" (default)[/*:m:23362]
• Ring1 "Breeze Ring"[/*:m:23362]
• Ring2 "Breeze Ring"[/*:m:23362]
• Back "Amemet Mantle +1"[/*:m:23362]
• Waist "Scouter's Rope"[/*:m:23362]
• Legs "War Brais +1"[/*:m:23362]
• Feet "Drn. Leggings +1"[/*:m:23362]

Notes

• Mithra thf75/nin37 base agi is 76[/*:m:23362]
• In my TH4 set, my effective AGI is 116 (76+40)[/*:m:23362]
• In my default set, my effective AGI is 133 (floor[(76+40)*1.15])[/*:m:23362]

Current thf-specific merits

• 5 Triple Attack[/*:m:23362]
• 5 Trick Attack[/*:m:23362]
• 3 Feint[/*:m:23362]
• 1 Aura Steal[/*:m:23362]
• 1 Assassin's Charge[/*:m:23362]
• 1 Undecided - I'll choose after I max Marksmanship[/*:m:23362]

Side Notes

• I use War Brais +1 over Dusk Trousers since the pDif increase is already small compared to the guaranteed critical hit due to Assassin.[/*:m:23362]
• No hope torque, since I don't have the time to participate in a Sea LS [/*:m:23362]
• No Assassin's Cape, since I don't have the time for Wednesday CoP Dynamis runs
  (Sunday's usually have more than 36 people)[/*:m:23362]

[Keston]

Hey guys, I'm fairly new to Feint usage (only unlocked it last nite). The description says "Your next attack...". My question is, can it miss, or it it a gauranteed hit when the JA is used? Or does it need to be stacked with sneak attack or something?

Thanks in advance.

[Eaglestrike]

Hey guys, I'm fairly new to Feint usage (only unlocked it last nite). The description says "Your next attack...". My question is, can it miss, or it it a gauranteed hit when the JA is used? Or does it need to be stacked with sneak attack or something?

Thanks in advance.

Feint stays active until a hit lands (or 1 minute is up).

[Keston]

Hey guys, I'm fairly new to Feint usage (only unlocked it last nite). The description says "Your next attack...". My question is, can it miss, or it it a gauranteed hit when the JA is used? Or does it need to be stacked with sneak attack or something?

Thanks in advance.

Feint stays active until a hit lands (or 1 minute is up).

Sweet. Thanks for the info :D