ranged pulls as thf?

S

Sculli

Guest
So I am levelling this thief, and I quickly remembered what annoyed me about FFXI the last time I played. I need to chase mobs down, you all know it, sometimes it runs for like 5 seconds to who knows where before I get a hit in to tag it.

Does it make sense to get a bow and just range pull? It's not even about damage, it's really just about lazyness to not have to chase a mob? ;)

The problem I can see is that caster mobs will just stand at range and do their thing.
 
If you're gonna take THF up as your main, you probably want to start working on your ranged skill early, because THFs are pretty weak solo melee. Weapons like sleep/acid bolts can be very helpful when trying to solo NMs like Valkurm Emperor.

So yea, dish out the gil and buy a crossbow!

As for the caster mobs just standing there and casting.... yea, that just sucks lol. But usually they'll cast like 1-2 spells and then come over and melee you, I don't think I've seen a low lvl caster mob stay at a distance and just nuke... ranged mobs are a different story tho (Orc Stonechuckers & Gobby Ambushers) you just gotta run up and fight them, or stand back and have an old-fashioned shoot out.
 
One way I avoided that was draw my weapon, unlock, and run in front of the Mob I was chasing with my weapon still drawn. I would then hit it and it would stop it's casual little stroll.
 
Theres really no downside to ranged pulling. Even against Caster mobs, that gives you that much of of a distance to get out of range of their initial cast.
 
dont bother with archery just do marksmanship status bolts are the greatest thing in the world.
 
next question would be; take up a craft to make bolts, or just buy bolts?
 
You'll need to take up a few crafts to make bolts. Mostly alchemy, with smithing sub(14 Smithing should suffice) to makes bolt heads, and Woodworking(14 again) to make the bolts. Higher woodworking to HQ more bolts, higher Alchemy and Smithing to HQ boltheads.

The main one though, Woodworking.
 
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Unless you're constantly gonna use Ranged attack, there's no real reason to take up woodworking. That's the only reason I even bothered getting woodworking to 69 or wherever it is now.
 
Sculli said:
next question would be; take up a craft to make bolts, or just buy bolts?
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well, if your going to be using bolts all your thf life, take up woodworking, and get one of your friends to make u the bolts at a discount price ;)
 
Sculli said:
The problem I can see is that caster mobs will just stand at range and do their thing.
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If you do enough damage to them they wont stand there for long. A spell and/or a few ranged attacks will bring them mob into melee
 
A lot of the time with a caster mob, if you hit them when you're just at the edge of range of your weapon (crossbow, boomerang, whatever) you can then run out of their spell range before they even manage to land a spell on you. Then they have no choice but to chase you back to camp. ;)

Also, those "ranger" type mobs that like to stand just within arrow reach and hit the party with ranged attacks, there's a simple approach to those- but it does take a little coordination with a tank (or first voker) who doesn't have their head up their ass. Simply have the puller grab hate, and pull it through and then past the campsite. The mob will continue to follow the puller, and eventually walk right into the middle of where the melees are waiting. When the mob is in the right spot, then you have your tank voke it off the puller. Voila, no need to reposition camp. Only problem with this is I've seen far too many tanks who will listen to your telling them to do this and nod their heads, then voke immediately when the mob is within range but not yet in position, making everyone have to run up to the mob to attack it.
 
All ranged is good, but Marksmanship is what you should focus on.
The bolts you'll use cap at 16 Wood.
 
About pulling...No one cares if you connect with your silly boomerang and do basically jack and shit to the MOB. Land an Acid Bolt and you're helping the team.
 
Haubergeon said:
lol agree.. pulling is not even hard.. stop crying
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No one's crying. Reading works wonders. Ask Lamar Burton D:


Anywho, yeah. I don't know how many times it's been nice to see the THF pop out one of those Defense Down bolts before we start a skillchain. So do archery, it is really nice, this coming from a THF's SC Partner ^_^
 
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