It's good, but it's not great or awesome or omgwtfamazing, just simply good... if you have a good player.
So basically what sucks about Thief is that it doesn't have crutches to protect the stupid like Ridill-WAR and MNK do or GA-WAR/SAM/DRK/DRG got after the 2H patch?
Even with the advantage in the THF's favor on merits with colibri where they get a damage bonus, THF still can't out DD higher tier jobs and thus usually ends up on the sidelines.
The whole point people are trying to convey is that they *can* out DD "higher tier" jobs. The empirical fact that many of us have done it proves that much.
Is it common? No. That's why everyone admits that THF output is much more conditional on the player than any other job.
I almost always outparse *very* well geared 2H DD (DRK, SAM, GA WAR, DRG) with my Ninja in merits. Most of these people don't believe the parse when they see it; they go "But you only hit for a third of my damage and your WS suck!" But the math doesn't lie. Why do I win parses?
Because in merit situations the mobs are sufficiently weak enough that my pDIF and fSTR penalties using a one-handed weapon are far outweighed by the delay reductions I get given the quality of my gear. THF functions in much the same way. Because the mobs are not overly hard to hit (evasively or defensively), a well-geared and skilled THF will do very well because the environment is favorable to them.
The place where Thief has an actual and real handicap is HNMs. Because the damage formulas are curved speed wins out in merits, but flat damage wins in HNM. This is especially true because of how Mob TP works (we feed 8 TP to get 5, a SAM feeds 20 to get 17; this is the difference between 60 free TP and 18 free TP for the mob). This problem was aggravated by the ridiculous crutch that was the August 2007 update to 2H ftp and pDIF formulas. Honestly if SE is buffing 2H to compete in merits, they should buff 1H to compete in HNM (note I said buff 1H weapons, I didn't say buff the mechanics of dual wield. I am specifically thinking of situations like THF/WAR in HNM or BLUs on HNMs, not Ridill WARs)
But THF's performance in HNM is far from being atrocious if the THF knows what he is doing. My WS are only 200-300 less on Fafnir compared to SAMs, and I would blame a lot of that on the restrictions of Fafnir positioning: I have to use TA+WS which is a handicap to my DMG compared to SAMs getting Overwhelm which is a bonus.
You can say you outparsed a ridill warrior, a black belt monk, a relic samurai, or whatever, it's all the same and it's not representative of the whole. Give those same people either time to catch up in terms of gear, merits or playstyle and they'll beat you hands down the other 99% of the time.
A Ridill WAR, BB MNK, and Amanomurakumo SAM are pretty much the top of the grain from these so called "high tier" damage jobs. I fail to see how they need to catch up in gear, merits, or play style.
I mean shit if you are bringing the Relic Great Katana into this, you have to assume Relic Dagger as the appropriate counter-standard. And I would argue that is a better situation for THF because Mandau is a bigger increase over the best non-relic dagger than Amanomurakumo or Spharai are over their nearest non-relic competitors.
Moreover your logic since these players can't keep up with my THF that should mean WAR / MNK / SAM are bad.
We try to say we should evaluate THF based on the best rather than the marginal. Yet you you argue we should hold jobs to the potential and limits appropriate to the retards, and not appropriate to the actual job. But now when a WAR/MNK/SAM is the one losing the parse you blame the actual player not the job, and are trying to argue based on the (mathematical) merits of these jobs over THF.
That's not a fair standard. You can't argue that Ridill WARs are the best or BB MNKs are the best because they are mathematically superior, yet argue that THF are not the best based on your perceptions/experiences of bad THF rather than the mathematics.
If we go into mathematics, I will easily agree with you that Ridill WAR, BB MNK, and Relic SAM are all ludicrously strong. But I also believe, at least in a merit situation, a THF can be very close to that level: much better than your cookie-cutter 2H DD that relies on crutches. And if you are willing to grant Mandau as the standard of comparison (which again, is only fair since you introduce Amanomurakumo SAM), then honestly THF *is* within that upper echelon. Mandau lets you lay the biggest WS bombs all the while keeping the inherent advantages of Dual Wield (in a merit situation)
