Thief guide

'Thief is designed to survive in FFXI, as they have the highest evasion skill and job traits that further enhance this. The job ability Flee enables a Thief to escape from most monsters; in addition to this, the Thief two-hour, Perfect Dodge, enables the user to dodge all melee hits for a short period of time.

Job Abilities

Perfect Dodge - 2 Hour - Allows the user to dodge all physical melee attacks. Ranged attacks and magic are unaffected, however.

Steal - 5:00 recast- Steals an item from an monster, if it has an item to steal. Coupled with Aura Steal, this job ability often dispels and, at times, absorb a buff from a monster.

Sneak Attack - 1:00 recast, 1:00 duration - Deals a critical hit; damage calculated by adding the DEX stat to WDMG at the time the blow lands. This bonus applies only from behind the mob unless the character is invisible by using the Hide ability. This ability guarantees 100% accuracy when an activation condition is met. Accuracy bonus also applies to the offhand hit when dual-wielding. Ability remains active until the first melee swing following activation. Ranged attacks are unaffected, and do not cancel the ability.

Flee - 5:00 recast - Duration :30 seconds (45 seconds with AF1 or AF1+1 feet). Increases movement speed by 100% but does not stack with any other movement speed boost. Overwrites most forms of gravity.

Trick Attack - 1:00 recast, 1:00 duration - Deals a higher damage hit; damage calculated by adding the AGI stat to WDMG at the time of the next melee swing. This bonus applies only when a player in the user's party is between the user and the monster being hit. The enmity generated from this attack is transferred to the player between the monster and the user. This ability can be stacked with Sneak Attack. Ability remains active until the first melee swing following activation. Ranged attacks are unaffected, and do not cancel the ability. With Assassin (available to Thief at level 60, this attack is also a critical hit and 100% accurate if the conditions for activation are met. The off-hand weapon when dual-wielding will also be 100% accurate.

Mug - 15:00 recast - Steals gil from a monster, when applicable.

Hide - 5:00 recast - Makes the user invisible. Hide negates all enmity the player currently has on a monster if it tracks by sight, or the player has white HP and uses it on an undead monster.

Assassin's Charge - 15:00 base recast (Merited) - Next attack will triple attack. Can be stacked with Sneak Attack, Trick Attack, and a Weapon Skill; 100% accuracy is not guaranteed for the Triple Attacked hits on a WS.

Feint - 10:00 base recast (Merited) - Next melee attack that hits gives the monster a significant evasion down. This effect lasts for roughly 30 seconds. Feint will remain active until a melee strike lands or one minute has passed since use, missing will not cancel the ability.

Job Traits

Gilfinder - Increases the amount of Gil dropped by a monster (if it can drop gil).

Evasion Bonus - Increases character's evasion.

Treasure Hunter - Increases the chance of treasure dropping.

• This seems to increases the number of slots in the treasure pool; it does not make the items that share a slot drop the rarer/better items (ex: Fafnir will be more likely to drop a weapon, though not necessarily a Ridill).

Resist Gravity - Increases the character's resistance to Gravity effect.

Assassin - Makes Trick Attack 100% accurate and a critical hit when it's conditions of activation are met.

Aura Steal (Merited) - The job ability Steal can now dispel and gains a 20% chance absorbs a monster buff. Each additional merit increases this chance by 20%, for a maximum of 60%.

Ambush (Merited) - Increases a character's ranged and melee accuracy when attacking from behind.

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Leveling Basics

Before acquiring Viper Bite at level 33, a thief normally uses subjobs completely different from what they use above 33. Most notable subjob choices are Ranger, Monk, and Dragoon. Monk gives the Martial Arts trait for increased attack speed if you use H2H and SA+Combo is a powerful combination. Ranger gives an accuracy bonus when subbed at 20+ and can help maximize the effectiveness of a Thief's crossbow at low levels with Sharpshot. Dragoon is also a viable option at level 20+, as it provides an attack bonus and the ability Jump, which is useful for TP gain and additional damage, especially when stacked with Sneak Attack.

Once level 33 comes around the two generally contested subjobs come into play, warrior and ninja. Warrior is the general subjob used by most melee classes because it increases attack with berserk and at 50 the Double Attack warrior trait is now active. It is a solid subjob choice for any melee and thief is no exception. Ninja adds two notable things, Dual Wield and Utsusemi. Dual Wield allows the use of a second dagger with a slightly lower delay then both of the weapons combined, though at the earlier levels the attack speed is not great and not many daggers offer great bonuses for the offhand. Utsusemi is used to not take as much damage or none depending on the monsters weapon skills and how much you draw hate. This keeps the healer(s) full of MP to cure the tank and haste the party instead of using it to keep you alive. Utsusemi is also useful if the thief is pulling mobs that run faster than normal speed, but it is entirely possible to pull without getting hit if the mobs run at normal speed assuming. Both of these subjobs can last you until 75. Overall the difference is that /nin will offers you a higher maximum potential and damage mitigation. While /warrior will allows you to reach your damage potential sooner. Warrior is generally superior for overall damage unless you have very good gear and a bard or two buffing you.

It is recommended to make separate macros for Sneak Attack and Trick Attack; this is to prevent lag within a single macro. Above level 66, you will want to make separate weapon skill macros. For example, this can be additionally useful to quickly jump between Shark Bite and Dancing Edge if someone else uses a weapon skill that will skillchain with either.

For pulling, the most important factor is knowing your surroundings and the mobs. Knowing if the mob links and how it links can be important. If two mobs that link by sound are next to each other, you will get both if you pull one. If they link by sight, you can wait for one to be looking away from you and the mob and pull it safely without links (most of the time). Stay at max range whenever possible to avoid getting attacked on the way back to camp. Also if over hunting it'd be wise to understand the timing of EXP chains. After the first kill you have a LOT of time, second time is still a good amount, so you can take your time resting mp between chain 0 and 2, chain 5 and above you have roughly a minute to kill the next mob so resting isn't allowed and pulling needs to be very quick.

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End Game Usage

Thief, in general, is utilized most often in endgame to increase treasure pools. However, they are not entirely limited to this. They are also used to skillchain in order for Black Mages to make magic bursts, and for their Feint ability, which enables other melees to benefit from the significant Evasion Down effect put on the monster. Another place in which thieves are used regularly is Dynamis for pulling monsters. Thieves often are asked to death pull, or use Flee and/or Perfect Dodge to pull monsters to a certain location, in turn keeping the alliance safe from unnecessary deaths. A well-geared Thief can also be an asset to a merit party, but is often bested by the more mainstream DD jobs.

Thief

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Group 1

• Flee Recast (-10 seconds per upgrade)
• Hide Recast (-10 seconds per upgrade)
• Sneak Attack Recast (-2 seconds per upgrade)
• Trick Attack Recast (-2 seconds per upgrade)
• Triple Attack Rate (+1% per upgrade)

Recommendation: Triple Attack rate should unquestionably be taken to level 5 before any others are upgraded. After that, only Sneak Attack and Trick Attack merits are useful. The remaining 5 merits should be used based on your own playing style. These extra 5 will be some of the last merits you do so take your time and get to understand how you play Thief and which would help you the most.

Group 2

• Assassin's Charge (-2 minutes 30 seconds recast per upgrade)
• Feint (-2 minutes recast per upgrade)
• Aura Steal (+20% absorb rate per upgrade)
• Ambush (+3 Accuracy Bonus per upgrade)

Recommendation: Feint is very powerful (the most powerful Thief merit), and should get at least one point. Further merits can cut the recast down as low as six minutes. Aura Steal is also very useful to provide a very fast Dispel that has a good landing rate, and should get at least one point. Assassin's Charge is marginally useful, but it's recast is detrimental. Ambush has the least utility of the 4 except in some merit party set ups. It is recommended that you do 1 Feint upgrade and 1 Aura Steal, and 1 Assassin's Charge "minimum" for an HNM Thief. This leaves 3 upgrades depending on the role your Thief plays in HNM. Mostly Dynamis, Limbus, and Einherjar types should do Feint to 3 first and then rest, but a Thief that does not need to Feint every time the timer is up, has other thieves at those events commonly, or has the mobs drop dead in 5 seconds will be able to do a build for meriting by taking an Ambush or two.

Necessary Subjobs

Ninja for general purpose staying alive and increased attack rate from Dual Wield.

Warrior for the ability to boost damage output with Berserk, Warcry and Double Attack. Provoke is also useful for claiming mobs.

Samurai for Meditate, if you are unable to gain TP on a monster due to AoE or not being in the party for TP gain.

White Mage for soloing weaker monsters to make gil generally at low levels.

Dark Knight for Stun, Souleater and Last Resort.

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Thief