[nefarious.lover]

Preamble
We want you to be good at thief.
We want you to be armed with knowledge, and accurate, up to date information, be you level 1 or 75, be you a new player or a veteran of many years. Thief is a job we are passionate about, a labor of love; we want you to represent us well, be you on our server or a different server. The hope is that with guidance, people who pass through the proverbial doors of the thief forums will leave here with the condensed knowledge of veteran players and years of experience, like a creepy bottled version of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into learning how to play this job the hard way for most of us.

This guide currently covers an overview of the job, but not how to play it
Sooner than later we will cover subjobs, and your role in parties, and a go into a bit of detail on how to actually play the job.
Eventually we will cover endgame gear.
And someday we might possibly update leveling gear.


Disclaimer
We the People, or maybe just me and Treelo, have been complaining about the stickies and lack current up to date guides for a long time.
Others who frequent the THF forums have echoed these complaints.
After unsuccessfully rallying support and contribution for a collective effort to rewrite the current guides, I decided to take a pass on simply updating people's guides for them. Instead, with Treelo as my editor and to keep my ass in check when I spout off for no good reason, I decided to write a guide. Now, we may not be the nicest people all the time, but the information you find here is serious information. I cannot offer classes in common sense, nor can I force myself to be devoid of humor or snuff out all my satirical tendencies. When you read below about the skills THF has and what their rating in them is, and see comments like Things. Evade them., smile, its a joke, its meant to be funny. Its me telling you I dont think youre totally devoid of thought, because Im going to assume that you know what words like Evade and all its glorious tenses such as Evasion, Evaded, Evading, Evasive, all mean, and that youll draw a logical conclusion that as your skill in something called Evasion rises, you may be more prone to do exactly what the word suggests you do; Evade. Were going to treat you like adults, and assume you know the most basic of basics, where things are too complex we will edit, elaborate, and explain. Where you have feedback or suggestions, post it. And if the response isnt nice, dont take it personally. Thick skin isnt a forum requirement, but it helps. Remember that bottle of blood, sweat, and tears? It may taste bitter, but youll be all the better for having swallowed every last drop.




Combat Skills


Useful skills
Dagger
Skill Rating: A-
Notes: You use these once you have access to Viper Bite.
You rarely use anything else.

Marksmanship
Skill Rating: C+
Notes: Crossbows. Use them.

Evasion
Skill Rating: A+
Notes: Things. Evade them.

Parrying
Skill Rating: A-
Notes: Stuff. Occasionally parry it.

Situational skills
Archery
Skill Rating: C-
Notes: Situationally useful for landing paralysis on non-immune enemies with the appropriate arrows.

Sword
Skill Rating: D
Notes: Viable weapons to use until Viper Bite.

Club
Skill Rating: E
Notes: Limbus and Bones if you really care that much.
Treelo Notes: Everyone should have clubs leveled even if their use is situational, it is virtually required to be useful on the bone floor of SE Apollyon.

Hand-to-Hand
Skill Rating: E
Notes: Viable weapons to use until Viper Bite.

Throwing
Skill Rating: D
Notes: This is not for pulling, but useful to have capped for situational instances where you need to land a special throwing item.

Worthless skills
Shield
Skill Rating: F
Notes: You might block something. Maybe.
But if you're /war or /sam or anything besides /nin you should probably avoid having hate for more than a few moments.



Job Abilities/Traits

Job Abilities require activation, and are put on a cooldown timer.
Job Traits are always active.

Perfect Dodge
Level: 1
Recast: 2:00:00
Target: <me>
Notes: You perfectly dodge all melee attacks for 30 seconds.
You are still vulnerable to ranged weaponry, and magic.


Steal
Level: 5
Recast: 0:05:00
Target: <t> <st> <stnpc> <lastst> (<stpc> in Ballista)
Notes: Steals an item from a monster. +steal gear improves success rate.
In Ballista it can be used to steal the Petra thingy from other players.


Gilfinder
Level: 5
Notes: Increases the amount of gil dropped by enemies.
Will not cause enemies who do not normally drop gil to drop gil.


Evasion Bonus I
Level: 10
Notes: +10 Evasion.
This assumes that Evasion follows the same numerical formula as all other more easily testable tiered traits.

Bonuses to Evasion, be it skill or just +X Evasion, increase your chances to evade attacks.
The ingame text will list it as your attacker missing, so maybe it would be most accurate to say that bonuses to evasion increase your chances of having an attacker miss you when using physical attacks.

Evasion is one of the staples of THF solo.
It's also very handy in group situations for pulling, duoing, trioing, etc. THF can more than ever now, with decent gear, and Collaborator/Accomplice, tank monsters in a lot of non-merit and non-HNM situations.
While this is not a primary dynamic or feature of the job, and is seldom utilized, it's none the less valuable and there should people choose to make use of it.


Sneak Attack
Level: 15
Recast: 0:01:00
Target: <me>
Notes: Deals critical damage from behind enemies.
Behind is defined as approximately a 45 degree cone in back of the mob. Meaning you can stand slightly off to either side and SA will still connect. Stacks with all non-elemental WS. When used alone it bypasses shadows. When stacked with WS it will not bypass shadows, even on the first hit, all hits can be potentially absorbed by a mob with shadows.

Sneak Attack gets a DEX bonus towards the base damage of your main hand weapon, at a 1:1 ratio.

+50 DEX on a 35 damage weapon operates as if you scored a critical hit with an 85 base damage weapon.

Non-THF do not get a DEX bonus from SA. But that doesn't matter, since this is the THF forums.

If you are successfully hidden via JA against a mob that is not true sight, and has not agro'd you/tracks by scent, SA will work from anywhere, as long as you are hidden at the time of attacking.

You can read some slightly less important notes here;
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Sneak_Attack


Treasure Hunter I
Level: 15
Notes: Makes stuff drop more often. Yay.


Resist Gravity I
Level: 20
Notes: Increases your chances to resist the effects of gravity.


Flee
Level: 25
Recast: 0:05:00
Target: <me>
Notes: Increases movement speed by 100% for 30 seconds. AF1 feet increase the duration by 15 seconds.
Used for sac pulls, and getting around faster.


Trick Attack
Level: 30
Recast: 0:01:00
Target: <me>
Notes: Used primarily for enmity transfer, pre-60, and enmity transfer/extra damage 60+.
Claims to deal extra damage when attacking from behind a party member, seems like a normal melee hit to me, until you get Assassin trait.

TA is modified by AGI. TA is pretty worthless with a WS attached to it pre-60.
Trick Attack for thieves pre-60 adds AGI to weapon base damage. It's the same as post 60 except it doesn't auto-crit meaning it can miss too. (Clarification by BuGGaTon)
For this reason it is most often stacked with SA, so that it crits, and transfers the hate of SA onto another party member, most often a tank. Can be solo-stacked with WS, even pre-60, but there are no THF WS before Dancing Edge worth using with just TA, it's largely a waste of TP.
AF1 hands +1 grant an additional 15% AGI bonus to TA, it is for this reason that you will pretty much never use anything else for TA or SATA in this slot once you have the +1 version of Rogue's armlets.


Evasion Bonus II
Level: 30
Notes: +23 Evasion.
This assumes that Evasion follows the same numerical formula as all other more easily testable tiered traits.


Mug
Level: 35
Recast: 0:15:00
Target: <t> <st> <stnpc> <lastst>
Notes: Steals gil. Worthless on anything that's not an NM.
Recast is offensive. SE can go fuck themselves.


Resist Gravity II
Level: 40
Notes: Increases your chances to resist the effects of gravity.


Hide
Level: 45
Recast: 0:05:00
Notes: When used outside of combat the effect is identical to invisible, with one significant difference;
If you use Sneak Attack first, and then hide, you can strike any non-truesight mob from anywhere and have it work as if you struck from behind.

During combat it can shed hate, provided the mob is unable to track or otherwise detect you.
You can hide from mobs just using hide, provided they only agro to sight, and do not track by sound or scent.
You can lose mobs that track by scent by walking through water, hide is not needed. If there is no water, if you can somehow deodorize yourself, which requires fleeing or sleeping the mob, you can then hide.
If it agros sound, or tracks by sound, you must sneak first, which again requires fleeing, or sleeping the mob, and once you are snuck, you can hide.


Treasure Hunter II
Level: 45
Notes: Yay, more shit dropping.

On a serious note:

Treasure Hunter I, II, III, and IV
By 75 you should have a thief knife.
You now have TH3.
If you do dynamis and get AF2 hands, you now have TH4.

You're now a Treasure Hunter Whore.

Try to just be indifferent to it. As awesome as THF is, some people hate being "Used" for TH.
But it's part of the job, and complaining about it is like a RDM who wont refresh people.

These traits and items provide a significant enough boost to the drop rates on items, for farming, limbus coins, dynamis drops, NMs, etc, that people swear by it, live and die by it, and in some cases wont do things without it.


Evasion Bonus III
Level: 50
Notes: +35 Evasion.
This assumes that Evasion follows the same numerical formula as all other more easily testable tiered traits.


Triple Attack
Level: 55
Notes: Occasionally causes you to attack 3 times instead of 1 time.
Base rate of activation is 5%
Can activate on weaponskills.
When /nin both weapons have a chance to triple attack each attack round.


Assassin
Level: 60
Notes: Assassin is a change to the way Trick Attack works.
TA now operates identically to SA, except with an AGI mod instead of DEX.

TA is at this point worth using alone, you can pop behind any party member, preferably a tank, and use TA, dink the mob, and go SA>>WS. Or SA solo, and TA>>WS if you're feeling generous.


Resist Gravity III
Level: 60
Notes: Increases your chances to resist the effects of gravity.


Accomplice
Level: 65
Recast: 0:05:00
Target: <t> <st> <stpc> <stpt> <lastst>
Notes: "Steals" 50% of the target's enmity.
(Additional Notes: See Collaborator)

Collaborator
Level: 65
Recast: 0:01:00
Target: <t> <st> <stpc> <stpt> <lastst>
Notes: Steals" 25% of the target's enmity.
Accomplice and Collaborator share a recast timer.
Collaborator was added after Accomplice, presumably after SE realized that Accomplice alone was too limiting with a 5 minute recast.
1 minute recast means you can use Collaborator to steal double what Accomplice can steal, in terms of enmity, in 4 minutes, instead waiting on a 5 minute cooldown.

Accomplice/Collaborator can be used on any party member from 8.8 distance or less away.

The maximum distance at which the THF abilities Collaborator and Accomplice work at is 20.6'.
Only the distance of the THF user relative to the mob matters - target distance plays no role.

What this means is that you need to be about 20.0 or less away from any monster that you want this to affect. If a BLM casts sleepga, and has hate on a dozen mobs, but the BLM is in a spot where, at 8.8 away, you are only within 20.0 of half the mobs, you will steal enmity from the BLM but only with the mobs within range, so half the mobs will have reduced enmity toward the BLM in question, and half will remain unchanged.

Additional testing/notes can be found here:
http://kanican.livejournal.com/28541.html

Regarding Enmity In General
I strongly suggest reading ALL of Kanican's LJ entries in the Enmity Testing series, if you want to really know your shit with Enmity. And the wiki for that matter.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Enmity
http://kanican.livejournal.com/13235.html


Evasion Bonus IV
Level: 70
Notes: +48 Evasion.
This assumes that Evasion follows the same numerical formula as all other more easily testable tiered
traits.
For more information about how Evasion works;
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Evasion
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Accuracy
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Hit_Rate

And in some recent and preliminary testing, we see that Evasion Skill does not perform as well as normal +X Evasion against high level monsters on a 75 job.
Source: http://killingifrit.com/forums/index.php?s...t&p=3707266
More testing is needed, but at this time my personal suggestion would be to stick with normal +Evasion gear, as +skill gear is usually much more expensive and usually gives less +Skill than you could get +Evasion in that slot.


Merits

Tier I
Flee Recast
Level: 75
Notes: -10 seconds per upgrade
While the idea may seem cute to knock off almost a whole minute from your flee timer... there's really no value to be gained here. Go buy a bunch of flee boots if moving fast gets you that hot and bothered. The rest of us will be over here meriting something worth a damn.


Hide Recast
Level: 75
Notes: -10 seconds per upgrade
No. There is no excuse to merit this. Ever.
You would be laughed at less for meriting VIT on an account with only BLM leveled.


Sneak Attack Recast
Level: 75
Notes: -2 seconds per upgrade
If, like myself, you foresee yourself caring most about solo, this is an awesome thing to merit.

Treelo Notes: Keep your sa/ta timers roughly the same with merits, there are only a few times you'll not be using sata that i can think of if you're planting hate that is but that's a personal preference.
(This is primarilly with HNM in mind. If you're not doing HNM this is not as much of a consideration.)


Trick Attack Recast
Level: 75
Notes: -2 seconds per upgrade
If you foresee yourself being a very linkshell and event oriented THF, this is not a bad idea to merit.

Treelo Notes: Keep your sa/ta timers roughly the same with merits, there are only a few times you'll not be using sata that i can think of if you're planting hate that is but that's a personal preference.
(This is primarilly with HNM in mind. If you're not doing HNM this is not as much of a consideration.)


Triple Attack Rate
Level: 75
Notes: +1% activation rate per upgrade
This is practically mandatory. Out of every 100 times you attack, you will attack 2 extra times, on 5 of those attack rounds. So 10 total extra attacks. That's 10% additional damage. And 10% additional TP gain.


Tier II
Assassin's Charge
Level: 75
Recast: 0:15:00
Target: <me>
Notes: -2 minutes 30 seconds recast per upgrade
Turns your next attack into a triple attack.
Max merit reduction is down to 5 minute recast.
I honestly never saw the value in this JA.
E-peen damage at best ... wasted potential at worst.
If you are only interested in doing damage on THF and do not foresee much solo in your future, I'm disappointed in you, but, it's not my character to play, and I'm not endorsing cookie-cutter thieves, so go ahead and full merit this and go wild.


Feint
Level: 75
Recast: 0:10:00
Target: <me>
Notes: -2 minutes recast per upgrade
Decreases the targets evasion greatly.
The effect gradually wears off over 30 seconds.
It has been tested and suggested that the EVA down effect is at least 40, based on a mob conning low eva when first applied at high eva as it wore off.
Max merit reduction is down to 2 minute recast.
This is frankly one of the most useful things THF has.
I cannot strongly enough recommend full merits here.
This will be demanded and expected of you by most linkshells for big fights where you're zerging.
It's also pretty handy solo for needing to absolutely without fail land a bolt, or just some nice spike damage on a WS.

Treelo Notes: Feint is 100% essential if you're in a HNM shell.



Aura Steal
Level: 75
Notes: +20% absorb rate per upgrade.
Adds a Dispel effect to Aura Steal, occasionally absorbs dispelled effect.
Can dispel almost anything that other spells and abilities can dispel.
It can, also, if I recall correctly, dispel some things that can't normally be dispelled, and dispel some things that are normally very hard to dispel.

See here for a list of absorbable effects:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Aura_Ste..._stolen_effects

I have found this at max merits to operate at a 100% absorb rate, though you may still fail to dispel and thusly to absorb.

There are certain buffs such as Stoneskin that can be dispelled but not absorbed.
You are not witnessing a failure to absorb but rather an inability to absorb.

Unfortunately one of the shortcomings of this ability is that commonly stolen items will take priority over absorbing a buff, so while you meant to steal ice spikes from that damn mage skeleton, you now have a worthless bone chip in your inventory instead.

None the less, I 5/5 this and Feint, personally. And will be doing so again.

Not too many reasons to merit this more than 1 point unless you're a career solo thf.


Ambush
Level: 75
Notes: +3 Accuracy Bonus per upgrade
Gives an ACC and RACC bonus while behind mobs.
This is a REALLY nice trait ... if Feint wasn't so good, and Aura Steal so useful, and Assassin's Charge so fun... It's underrated because the other areas you can merit are just so much better.
In theory ... this would be good for people who merit on THF a lot, and/or fight gods/jailers/HNM on thf... and don't have any obligations to have Feint, or don't feel the need to E-Peen it up with Assassin's Charge. (I dare say that consistently meleeing from behind, Ambush would add far more DPS at full merits than Assassin's charge would every 5 minutes. But people love their WS damage.)

To each their own. There's worse things you could merit, in tier 1. In tier 2 this is the worst, even though it's pretty decent.

It's utterly useless solo though.

[nefarious.lover]

Reserved.

[nefarious.lover]

Reserved.

[nefarious.lover]

Reserved.

[pathwriter]

Just a thought, but if you're actually interested in being helpful, you might cut down on the "I'm a dick" factor.

[nefarious.lover]

Ok I guess not reserved.



Path...


You know my posting fairly well.


That IS cut back on the dick factor.


Me and Treelo don't see anyone else stepping up to re-write the garbage that's stickied so we're doing it.

You can have Suck with a gallon of Nice or Useful with an ounce of Dick.

No skin off my back, I'm already good at the job.

[pathwriter]

You know my posting, I assume. Have you seen how I wrote my guides? They exist to help people. Putting in useless information like "Things. Evade them." says to any newbie "Move along, nothing to see here." If you actually care about guiding, then do it constructively, otherwise this is just wank.

[ziero01]

Honestly, I say be dickish when you write these things. It makes it more interesting to read when you can get a few laughs from it. Plus, do you really need detailed notes and explinations as to what you do with Evasion Skill?

[nefarious.lover]

Honestly, I say be dickish when you write these things. It makes it more interesting to read when you can get a few laughs from it. Plus, do you really need detailed notes and explinations as to what you do with Evasion Skill?

Amen.


THANK YOU

[Konda]

nice guide.

should point a few people in the right direction.

Sticky<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

[Ture]

To be a career thf you need to have thick skin and a fair amount of "Fuck you I am better" ego. This guide exemplifies that.


The one suggestion I would make would be a change to your throwing. Its about as useful as club skill in my opinion. If your ever small manning a sky god and don't have a rng handy its great for sticking a wind on seiryu or byakko because we all enjoy how much the added effect procs are.

[pathwriter]

Ego doesn't make your Eviscerations hit harder. It might be good for getting into a party (though apparently not for getting into a linkshell, if Treelo's current homelessness is an indicator). Anyhow, I clarified myself in PM.

[nefarious.lover]

Such is the culture of the THF forums. For better or worse, lol.



Me and Path did indeed discuss his points via PM.

He did have some valid comments. But I'll keep that to myself until I have more time from home to look stuff over and work more on the guide.

[rambus]

what aobut stff i been trying to get adressed here? the whole do i AGI ring or dex ring for ta ws or do i need thf hands to use agi more and so forth.

same with dex and sa

[Arcsol]

what aobut stff i been trying to get adressed here? the whole do i AGI ring or dex ring for ta ws or do i need thf hands to use agi more and so forth.

same with dex and sa

I think the THF population as a whole would die from happiness if you didn't level THF.

[Doodlebug]

Good job Nef^^

[rambus]

I think the THF population as a whole would die from happiness if you didn't level THF.

someone is out of date.

[nefarious.lover]

I'd use mostly AGI either way.
Hands down if you have af1 hands +1.

[Arcsol]

My apologies for derailing/flaming, but at least Rambus used proper english in his next post. Good job overall nef. ^^

[nefarious.lover]

Meh. I can't believe I'm saying this but, lets take a cue from Path and at least attempt to not be as much of dicks as normal.

Rambus isn't even half bad at Thf, I've partied with him. He may not be stellar, but he does demonstrate a willingness to learn.

And thank you arc and doodles.

I'll be updating as I find time and confer more with Treelo on priorities for what topics to cover next.