Talk:Accomplice
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There seems to be a bit of confusion about this ability. Only half of the target party member's enmity is stolen. This means that the Thief has X more enmity than the target party member after using Accomplice where X was the amount of enmity the Thief had before using Accomplice. Sadly, X is generally rather small. Thief has almost no way to hold onto enmity once the mob is facing them.
Unlike Invincible, Perfect Dodge does not generate large amounts of enmity. If you were to use Accomplice followed by Perfect Dodge, all other characters should cease generating enmity and use that 30 seconds or so to regroup and try to rest a little or else Perfect Dodge will likely be wasted.
The main way to lose enmity is to get hit by the enemy. If you only use Accomplice after your party member has been hit several times, it's probably too late because you won't be stealing much enmity.
NIN/WAR can only tank because of the enmity generated by Provoke. Their DoT while meleeing is very comparable to that of a Thief and much lower than most other DD. Generally, their enmity is only slightly greater than that of other party members. (This is why it's very easy to pull hate when you have a NIN tank.) If you were to Accomplice a NIN tank, it's entirely possible that the Thief will not have enough enmity to overcome that of the other DD or healers in the party. Using Trick Attack on the NIN may also not give back as much as you stole away. In effect, Accomplice could throw the delicate balance of enmity into complete disarray and get the whole party killed. For that reason, I would generally not recommend using Accomplice on a NIN tank.
I have used this ability in several situations which I would like to describe to shed some more light.
As 75 THF/NIN duoing with a 75 WAR/NIN, the WAR was obviously generating much more enmity especially when he decided to use Provoke for some strange reason. While standing on opposite sides, I could commonly hold hate for a large part of a fight by having the WAR go slow and not spam weapon skills, and I Sneak Attack and weapon skill if I lost hate. If the Warrior pulled hate and then I tried to get it back by using Accomplice, the WAR commonly got it back on their very next swing.
I have also used Accomplice while attempting to fight an NM by dual THF tanking it. At one point, things got a little scary and the WHM was out of MP so he used Benediction. I immediately used Accomplice and it worked like a charm, but the WHM did get hit once or twice first. If the WHM had any MP left and had immediately Cure IVed themselves, I'm pretty sure they would've died like normal.
I was merit partying against Greater Colibris, and was extremely fortunate to have both a BRD and RDM in party. The BRD was pulling, but at one point we got a link and a pop and both BRD and RDM were franticly trying to sleep all three (the pull the pop and the link). In desperation the BRD tried a Horde Lullaby only to have it mimiced and put the entire party to sleep. I was woken up either by a cure or naturally and the RDM had pulled hate by trying to sleep one of the Colibri. I Accompliced them, but rather than me pulling hate, it seemed to immediately go after the BRD. It killed them and turned back on the RDM who had cured themselves. Somehow the party was able to kill off one bird, but then most of the party died. The MNK and I were left duoing about 40% on the second bird. For one reason or another, the third one depopped about this point. (I may have used Hide around this point.) I had hate, and luckily the MNK refrained from using Asuran Fists so I was able to hold it. In the end, we killed two birds but four of our party members were dead, the MNK was at about 400 HP, and I was completely unharmed.
--Claquesous 18:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to add my two cents into the move, as I think the above annotations make it sound alot morehassle than it's worth and make it sound negative as well. I find both Accomplice and Collaborator extremely useful in party situations, and more so when duo'ing with a healer. When I duo with my SMN friend, I immediately start a fight with trick Attack, and follow while the Mob is on the SMN with a Sneak Attack + Weapon Skill. I immediately have well more than enough hate. I still Collaborator just to take hate away from the SMN and give it to myself. This works well for the two of us. Now with another DD job, I don't think it will change as much. Hold Collaborator or Accomplice until they use a large grabbing enmity move- not before. You want them to get a large amount of hate, 'cuz that's just more for you to manage for yourself.
The trick with this ability is to remember that you are taking 50% of the target person's enmity. Most of the time in a party situation, you are doing this move because the inidividual has hate already and you don't want it on them. Done properly, you can save a person a few hits long enough to let the people who we want to have hate get it back, or just kill the mob. No matter how much enmity that other person has, you will immediately be put above the enmity level of theirs. Depending on how much you started with and how much they had, you may have very little enmity more than them. But you have it. If you intend to keep it, you should unload the WS's. If you lose hate, sneak attack- you'll get it right back. When I first got this ability, I was discouraged that I wasn't manhandling a huge amount of hate. It made it seem like the effect wasn't there. You have to keep into perspective that you're not grabbing all the hate. You're grabbing half of their hate. If makes you more or less equals. From there, you can reestablish control of the activities going on in the group.
When links and pops occur (and this goes for anyone who cares about the hate of the pt, ie, THF's, DD, Sleepers, and tanks), you need to pay attention to who does what. Claq Accompliced the BRD, and the mob went after the RDM. This was an indication that the RDM had far more hate than both the BRD and the THF (the THF's enmity now equals THF + 1/2BRD). You should Accomplice who has the most hate, not who's in trouble at the moment (which I find hard to do now and then because it's hard to see things in an unlinear method sometimes).
This is a great move, but in complex situations, you'll have to do some quick thinking and may want to wait longer than others feel comfortable. This ability gives you control, all it takes is knowledge how to use it and what it's really for. --SongOfChaos 18:04, 30 May 2008 (UTC)(forgot siggy >.>)
For further commenting after having played alot with this ability, Accomplice really should only be used for emergency situations where you need to get hate off someone immediately. I've noticed that Collaborator is a ridiculously good 'preventative maintenance' move. While merit partying Greater Colibri for almost a month straight now, my strategy was to Collaborator every minute on the most hate grabbing DD. Not only did I prevent him from generating too much hate, it also gave me a powerful hate base that rivaled the tanks. I'd often pull hate back myself with SA+WS, although I did keep TA'ing the tanks. After pt'ing with RDM's, BRD's, and both, I've had a few scenarios that mirrored Claquesous', but because of the Collaborator base, if I had to hit Accomplice, I'd have no trouble keeping hate. A thing to re-point out is that if the RDM casts sleep on a link, or if I had my SMN friend pull and Carby tank a link while we killed ours, if I Collaborator/Accomplice, I gain the respective hate for ALL the birds. Once we had three links, and the RDM was being wailed on for all three (the mob we were killing, one the SMN was pulling, and a link). She was trying to sleep the link, and the SMN lost Carby and was needing cures. I Accompliced the RDM and got all three birds on me. A perfect dodge and conscious use of shadows got us out of a definite bloody mess- we killed the first bird while SMN got the link and we moved onto his first pulled one. We didn't even have to rest after the three were dead- SMN just keep pulling. They definitely have their merits for the consciencious THF. (And I'd like to note, after all this time pt'ing with my SMN friend, THF+SMN pulling > any other combination. Carby and Collaborator has been putting aggressive add-on parties' BRDs out of business.)
Forgive the long posts. I'm at work and bored out of my mind. --SongOfChaos 13:40, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
