Forum Discussion
Feel free to ask questions about Thief or the guide in the Forum Discussion.
General Information
Thief is a non-buff support damage dealer in FFXI. It will largely be played as a damage dealer and specifically a skillchain closer as they have some of the strongest WS's in the damage. They can also plant hate on a player of their choosing as well as steal hate from other players to help maintain control of battle.
Roles
The two most common roles is that of damage over time by dual wielding daggers and gathering rare items due to the Treasure Hunter ability.
Abilities and Traits
Your high damage will be from using the tried and true Sneak Attack and Trick Attack. In the old days you would stack them and use both at the same time. Nowadays it's better to use each with a weapon skill since you can build TP quickly and help the tank maintain hate.
Job Traits
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Lvl.
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Name
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5
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Gilfinder
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10, 30, 50, 70, 76, 88
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Evasion Bonus
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15, 45, 90
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Treasure Hunter
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20, 40, 66, 75, 81
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Resist Gravity
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55, 95
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Triple Attack
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60
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Assassin
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75
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Ambush
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75
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Aura Steal
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78, 84, 91, 97
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Crit. Atk. Bonus
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83, 90, 98
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Dual Wield
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Merits
Group 1
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Name
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Description
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Level
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Notes
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Flee Recast
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Shorten recast time by 10 seconds.
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0/5
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This is not really a needed upgrade and the points are better spent elsewhere.
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Hide Recast
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Shorten recast time by 10 seconds.
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0/5
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This is not really a needed upgrade and the points are better spent elsewhere.
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Sneak Attack Recast
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Shorten recast time by 2 seconds.
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0/5~5/5
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This is situational for ideal with TA recast. You can prefer SA or TA or do a little of each.
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Trick Attack Recast
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Shorten recast time by 2 seconds.
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0/5~5/5
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As stated for SA recast, this is situational, often easier to find a target to meet TA requirements so 5/5 is easier to manage here.
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Triple Attack Rate
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Increase triple attack rate by 1 percent.
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5/5
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This you want to max out. That 5% you get adds up especially when you have gear that raises it even more.
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Group 2
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Name
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Description
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Level
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Notes
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Assassin's Charge
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Will triple your next attack. Recast: 5min. Increase chance of fourfold attack by 5 percent.
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0/5
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This JA didn't scale well, we TP so quickly and TA does little for WS damage it's not worth it.
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Feint
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Your next attack will greatly reduce an enemy's evasion. Recast: 2min. Increase chance of Treasure Hunter level up by 25 percent.
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4/5
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Helps with Treasurer Hunter gain. So good idea to max this. Can go 5/5 and lose an Ambush if you want.
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Aura Steal
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Adds a Dispel effect to Steal. Occasionally absorbs dispelled effect. Increase absorb rate by 20 percent.
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1/5
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Always go 1/5 to add more utility to the job. Dispelling an Ice Spikes move can solve headaches for you and the group.
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Ambush
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Grants an accuracy bonus to melee and ranged attacks from behind an enemy. Increase accuracy bonus by 3.
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5/5
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This isn't amazing, but a passive minor bonus is better than nothing.
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Support Jobs
This is the highest damage option for sub jobs. However, it lacks Invisible, Sneak, and healing, and as such is only viable when you have reliable healing or are fighting a monster with no Area of affect moves/spells/abilities.
This offers sufficient utility, as well as healing should you be doing an event where trusts are not allowed. Also provides Sneak and Invisible. This is one of the main subs for soloing as a Thf. While leveling, the time to start using Dancer as your Support is at 40 so you have access to Dual Wield.
For enemies with TP moves that don't simply wipe shadows. This also offers sneak and invisible. Since Thief doesn't get native Dual Wield until Level 83, subbing Ninja starting at Level 20 is the best option until you reach 40. You may then use Dancer as your support.
From 50+ /NIN will still provide another tier of Dual wield until 90/98 when a third is granted and then natively gained.
This is the defensive subjob of choice if shadows aren't viable, which is a lot of endgame content. Magic defense bonus will mean you take less damage from all sources of magic and runes will offer you 58 resistance of an element of your choice.
Equipment
Weapons
Eminent Dagger
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- More than likely your first ilevel weapon.
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Homestead Dagger
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- This is the most easily obtained ilvl 119 dagger. It will provide you a solid accuracy boost for early levels.
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Atoyac
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- This is from a Wildskeeper Reive so shouldn't be terribly hard to acquire. It can be augmented with occasionally attacks twice. This will be your best in slot farming dagger and best offhand when you aren't hurting for accuracy.
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Izhiikoh
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Sabebus
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- This dagger is able to serve you as a stop gap if you take a moment to get it. You may offhand it over Atoyac if you need the accuracy, but then again you can just use the Homestead Dagger for that purpose. At least until you move on to a better dagger like the Jugo Kukri or Shijo.
- Can't see a reason to get this over the Izhiikoh in the mainhand as they are roughly equal to obtain in difficulty; all things considered.
- Path B and C are both fine if you want to offhand it, take your pick it is only temporary.
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Sandung
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- A good choice for the Treasure Hunter +1 or accuracy, but is poor on DPS despite the bonus to Weapon Skill Damage. If you finished Rhapsodies of Vana'diel you may augment it for +50 Accuracy, +5% Critical Hit Rate and +3% Triple Attack.
Once augmented this is still only good dagger to help reach necessary levels of accuracy if you fall short, and even then that is an very poor excuse to use this.
- The bottom line is that there Skinflayer and Taming Sari are significantly better daggers.
- TL;DR:Absolute garbage, get a Shijo instead.
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Ipetam
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- Sure you may get this for free from Intermediate RoV objectives, but this isn't worth augmenting to make it worthwhile. Just get the Izhiikoh and save yourself time and money.
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Jugo Kukri +1
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- This dagger is fairly easy to acquire from the UNM Vedrfolnir if you have some friends and some baraera.
- This low delay dagger is a much better offhand than a Sandung and prior options unless you need accuracy, but that opens the door to other arguments like food, better gear, proper buffs, not being ready for the content in question, etc over using the Sandung.
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Shijo
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- This dagger may be more in reach for you than the Jugo Kukri +1. If so, just skip that Kukri for this weapon as it will be a big boost.
- If you can only obtain one of these then creating a path D will serve as an offhand until you obtain Taming Sari or an augmented Skinflayer.
- Pair this offhand with your Izhiikoh unless you obtain two in which case create a Path C for your mainhand with Path D in your offhand. Your Izhiikoh has really just about reached the end of it's mileage at this point.
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Taming Sari
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- This is the best dagger you can get that is not and Ultimate Weapon or a higher Escha drops, and at worst it belongs in the offhand. The base stats are solid, but the potential augments are icing on the cake. If you can put up with doing enough Sinister Reign runs you can try to get 2 since they are not Rare, only Exclusive. The Max Augments are Damage +15, Strength +10, Dexterity +10 and Treasure Hunter +1, but DMG +14, STR and DEX +9/8 are much more common and perfectly acceptable.
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Skinflayer
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- This is a bit harder to acquire for a new player, but if you have access to Reisenjima t2's then this is a great dagger if you play the augment game with Oseem. Aim for DEX+ and TA+, and with proper quantities this dagger will be the best off-hand and second-best main-hand dagger you can use before an Ultimate Weapon.
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Kaja Knife/Tauret
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- Ultimate weapons in all but definition, the final two stages of the Ambuscade dagger are the best you can get short of Aeneas and Twashtar. Evisceration+50% turns what's already a very good weapon skill into the best option when Sneak Attack and Trick Attack aren't ready. These are also very obtainable for all players given enough patience. It's recommended to only get one of them rather than dual wield stage 4 and 5 together since you can get slightly better off-hand stats on Skinflayer and there are other things to spend your Hallmarks/Gallantry on that will boost your Thief way more.
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Ultimate Weapons
Augmented REAM Weapon Notes: Aeneas is still the "best" dagger. Twashtar is also better than it was in the mainhand now, but will not win. Vajra is more competitive now, especially when attack is not capped for (only) solo WSs (still stack RS). For all intents and purposes nothing changed.
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Mandau
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- Oh how times change. Mandau was once a mighty weapon, but nowadays it is nothing except an ornamental time sink. Rudras and even Mandalic dance all over Mercy Stroke so the pittance of an aftermath from this weapon isn't even worth activating. Normally a Relic weapon is still at least better than other ordinary options, but even a decently augmented Taming Sari is a much better weapon than this for a fraction of the cost and work.
- That is right, this is worse than just using a Taming Sari , and the attack+ doesn't even work in the offhand.
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Vajra
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- It is okay to love the Vag, but not the Vajra as this weapon seems to have somewhat of a cult status. Where certain players will swear by it as the best dagger. Certainly it can be as well, but ultimately it is not the best dagger.
- A Thief already runs a high rate of multi attack, and the order of effects occuring is Quad → Triple → Double → Occ. Attacks twice or thrice. This means the gain in swings from activating AM3 on this weapon is greatly diminished which eats away at its performance. Roughly, you will only be swinging about +10% more depending on your gear and buffs.
- The next caveat of this weapon is that it is very dependent on successfully utilizing Sneak and Trick Attack. Every time the monster turns during SA or a player moves during TA it is a bigger deal than with other weapons.
- Bottom line, this weapon is better than most, but generally not the best. If you are in serious need of only the fusion property from Mandalic to close skillchains or in some situation where you are holding TP to 3,000 regularly then this weapon has a chance at beating out the rest. Overall, these are not a common occurrences, and the bonuses of Aeneas will carry the day time and again.
- Vajra is not a weak dagger or even far behind. The issue is that Rudra's is a beast, and Aeneas feeds that beast better.
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Twashtar
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- This is the Empyrean dagger and will be set to one of your two hands if you acquire it. It beats out any competition from ordinary weapons, and best sits in your offhand if you acquire it and either the mythic Vajra (Level 119 III) or ideally an Aeneas.
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Aeneas
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- Rudra's spam with Aeneas is stronger than Mandalic with Vajra is the headline of this weapon. That and the fact everyone calls this dagger "anus".
- While the TP Bonus is not a 30% boost to the WS, it also cuts into that bonus while using Aeneas to close Light with Mandalic Stab. This weapon excels both while ignoring skillchains and while performing them.
- THF also has the ability to either create solo Umbra or Radiance as well with Aeneas, but this is more often a gimmick or situational need than a practical one.
- Radiance:
- Umbra
- These skillchains are still valid for general use without Aeneas, but simply create double light or dark instead.
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Armor
There are two main sets a THF needs. The first major one is the TP set in which you first want to cap your delay reduction.
This requires 26% equipment haste (pretty easy with light armor THF gets), 44% magic haste (marches from bard, haste from mages) and a certain amount of dual wield based on the buffs you have. You can go to Attack Speed for the more intricate numbers. If you're fully buffed though, you need DW+11, of DW+6 if you've acquired 550 JP (since the 5% delay reduction is the same thing as DW+5).
After you've reached that (or very close) you need to stack accuracy until you are around the accuracy cap for the content you're doing. This is going to vary, but sometimes other players or pages on the wiki will explain the accuracy required. Parsing with third party tools is the best way to get this right otherwise.
Next step is to stack Triple Attack and Store TP. I'd value +2~2.5 STP similar to 1% Triple Attack. This comparison is going to change based on your gear and buffs, as the more TA you get, the more STP helps, and vice versa, so try for a general balance around that ratio.
If you can't decide between two pieces after all of that is considered, choose the one with more magic evasion or defensive stats, as you can't deal any damage while dead.
For weapon skills you largely need one type of gear, which is to stack DEX and Weapon skill damage+. Rudra's Storm and Mandalic Stab are our two strongest WS and both scale nicely with just those two main stats. Evisceration needs crit rate and crit damage gear as well as some more ACC to consider. For Exenterator, just stack AGI/ACC/ATT as it doesn't crit and doesn't scale well with WSD. Rudra's is your bread and butter WS, strong both stacked and unstacked, but you need attack buffs to really make it work. In a scenario where you have to deal without attack buffs, Mandalic (which has a native attack boost to it) can outpace Rudra's.
TP Sets
THF sets by Spicyryan.
- I wanted to make up some good tiered TP sets for THF. The following tries to balance progression while avoiding pointless time sinks like augmenting full sets of skirmish weapons and armor.
TP Sets last Updated: --Spicyryan (talk) 23:30, 8 October 2018 (EDT)
TP sets abide with the following criteria:
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- Lowest Tier: Basic/pre ilvl stuff or things purchased from the AH.
- Lower Tier: Delve and WKR equipment, but no Delve Bosses.
- Low Tier: Delve Bosses, Alluvion Skirmish, Ambuscade NQ Armor, Reforged Armor ilvl 109, High-Tier Mission Battlefields, easier UNMs
- Mid Tier: Ambuscade +1 Armor and Capes, Reforged Armor ilvl 119, Sinister Reign, Incursion, harder UNMs, Vagary, Escha, 119 Abjurations (NQ), AF +2 Omen only
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- Includes the 5% DW+ gift, anything lower doesn't.
- Max Tier: 119 Abjurations (HQ), Divergence +3, Expensive HQ Synths, and ridiculous augments are considered.
- Includes the 5% DW+ gift.
- Since Abjuration +1 gear has fallen in price so much due to Escutcheons I may start putting it in the high tier, but I want to avoid muddying the waters or needing to add lots of notes.
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- Yes, you don't cap haste in this set.
- No, no one cares. It is base gear :P
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- At capped haste you want ~11% DW before the Job Trait gift.
- Canny, Suppa, Brutal/Cessance should still win at ~15% DW over using Bleating Mantle and the Dudgeon pair, assuming you have some sort of Crit damage on your cape.
- Overall it is close and the DW+ on the Canny is the wild card, don't go nuts since you replace this junk soon. Canny should generally win despite your augments.
- Max Taeon Tights and Chapeau with +2 TA are better, but are a waste of time and resources.
- Just skip Taeon it is a waste of time and resources
- 119ing your the Poulaines would bring you closer to parity though with a lot of saved effort.
- The feet do lack accuracy though which could hurt you. Crappy Mummu Gamashes would help with that need temporarily.
- Overall don't get caught up in the low tier. The mid tier is more your goal.
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- Just keep your DW level between your ear, waist, and offhand in this set.
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- It is tight on the feet here, but this is what I think is the case.
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- In general it should be slightly better when attack isn't capped, and always better when making use of the augment.
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TP Accuracy Sets
Based off of the Max Tier set.
Accuracy sets last updated: --Spicyryan (talk) 14:14, 8 July 2019 (EDT)
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- Yes, the hands change paths here.
- May simply ignore this, still almost +100 acc
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- Last set you should rarely need to hit.
- Plunderer's Bonnet +3 is nice for situations where you need accuracy (good chance you need attack too), and may be used in a "mid-size fits all" set.
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- Other slot options, more so for newer players.
- Pillager's +2 instead if you have it.
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- You should never need really need this set.
- DPS starts flying downhill at this point for less gains in accuracy.
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DT Sets
Philosophy: You are still fighting in a DT set so there is no good reason to wear worse pieces for gains in magic evasion or other stats.
- E.g. Mummu Kecks +2 have magic evasion while Meghanada legs do not, but are a better DD piece.
- So IMO the Mummu should be saved for an MDT set, MEva set, or a set for being terrorized, stunned, petrified, etc.
- Why? Well all the other pieces aren't focusing on magic evasion as it is, so you aren't going to get some universal best set.
DT sets last updated: --Spicyryan (talk) 13:08, 6 September 2018 (EDT)
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- If you are a new player, you may simply use the Meghanada/Mummu +1/2 pieces.
- DW Earring if you lack JPs.
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- Just a better DDing set than the previous, but since it requires more work/gil, lets make it a separate set.
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- Oddly enough without the Epona's ring, Samnuha were very narrowly underperforming Meg. Chausses +2.
- So you may put on Moonbeam/Moonlight Ring with Meghanada legs +2 and pick back up your ammo for a little less DPS with a lot more DT and Acc.
- However, -28/29% PDT is already sufficient for a hybrid set. Goal is to keep the highest DPS with the most reasonable DT gains without going too high.
- The ammo is a weak slot though so picking up 2-3% there is ideal.
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WS Sets
WS Sets by Spicyryan
WS Sets last Updated: --Spicyryan (talk) 13:04, 8 August 2018 (EDT)
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- Moonshade Earring is not optional. It is one of the single largest boosts to your Rudras at any tier.
- WS at about 1570-1750 TP, aim for the 1500s.
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- NQ Lust < Plunderer +2 < Lust +1 < Plunderer +3 for unstacked solo Rudras
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- Moonshade Earring is not optional. It is one of the single largest boosts to your Rudras at any tier.
- WS at about 1570-1750 TP, aim for the 1500s.
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Mid SA RS|
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- Grunfeld Rope is the superior choice throughout your sets for Rudras if you are not capping attack.
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- +2 Plunderer's pants never come into play over +3 Pillager.
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- Meghanada +2 if you lack the Plunderer +2.
- The higher your TP, the more dex/crit dmg+ herc boots are valued, but this assumes you aren't holding TP.
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Mid Solo Exenterator|
- Infused Earring over Tati if attack is capped.
- Mummu +1 body, hands, and feet over Meg. if attack is capped.
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- Meghanada +2 if you lack the Plunderer +2.
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- Use Hachirin-no-Obi when applicable.
- Focus on WSD, MAB, and INT with lesser importance on DEX since you aren't going to be capping INT on anything that isn't fodder.
- For example Apex mobs in Doh Gates have around 256-300 INT depending on the mob and level. You wont hit even 288 INT in gear to free up room for DEX.
- Feel free to just use your 30 DEX 10 WSD Rudra's Cape and save a slot too.
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