SwagVault MMO Blog

FFXI Thief Class

In FFXI, Thief is very utilitarian job and a class you are able to play from the start and do not have to unlock to play. It is handy both as a main and as subjobs. It can be used effectively in full parties, small parties and solo play. The role of a Thief may be a lot different than you might think. For those that haven’t played you may think about stealing, for those with little experience with Thief you may think damage dealing but Thief is more than the sum of its parts, it’s about control. Thief gives you some nice options when facing down monsters that can really keep things humming in a group or give you the option to leave the situation in solo. Evasion and Agility are your friend and when others rely on heavy armor, you will really on speed and dodging incoming attacks.

But in fact, the Thief class has less to do with actual stealing and more to do with hate management. Early on, you may do some thievery against mobs in solo play to pick an odd item here and there but overall that isn’t your main purpose or even secondary. The thief has the ability to do some solid damage dealing and then place all the hate it just generated back on the appropriate tank. It works as both a damage dealer and support job through hate control. Thieves are known for their SATA, which is a combination of Sneak Attack and Trick Attack job abilities.
Thief has a decent selection of weapons and armor that are in the medium range spectrum. Your melee weapons selection will be hand to hand, daggers, swords, and clubs. Though your first instinct will be to go for that dagger in the beginning you are probably better of sticking with sword for higher damage output or hand to hand for more damage over time. Sub Warrior for swords or Monk for knuckles or claws. Daggers are very weak in the beginning and can frustrate the difficulty of getting through your lower levels.

It has some great traits that serve them well in this capacity like high evasion, average armor and the ability to leave the scene completely with Flee if things go awry. Flee is very handy in solo play of the battle isn’t working out in your favor, you can trigger Flee and you get a 2x boost to your run. Good to have if you get a nasty link on a pull and you need that extra distance to slide into that zone crossing safely. Lastly, a Thief can aid in enfeebling a target as they have decent marksmanship that will allow them to use status bolts to help weaken them. As you can see, the Thief plays several roles in a party such as damage dealer, hate manager, enfeebler and puller.

In thief class, subjobs play an important role. Early on Warrior and Monk can be used to boost damage output in conjunction with your weapon choices. Warrior has more to offer in terms of abilities and probably your strongest choice until 30 when you can unlock Ninja. Even later, Warrior is a good choice as Ninja can get expensive. The main advantages with Ninja are Utsusemi: Ichi (damage mitigation) and dual wielding, both of which you will find are more effective later in the game. In particular, Ranger is a great subjob for camping notorious monsters by using Widescan and increases your ranged damage output significantly. It’s not a bad subjob choice for parties depending on the setup and needs of the party. Dancer is a nice choice for Thief especially solo as you gain the ability to heal and some status aliments. Samurai is best for endgame so you can get the TP needed to keep your damage output high. As a subjob Thief is a great addition especially for high level melee jobs that need the ability to dump hate. The SATA combo is a very efficient way to keep enmity under control.

As you can see, there is more to Thief than merely damage dealing and they can play a vital role in a successful party. From pulling to hate management, Thief has several roles to play in the course of a battle. It is flexible in solo play and the best choice for farming and increasing your bottom line.