For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

What is "real DD" in FFXI.

THF: not real DD
MNK DRG WAR DRK SAM RNG (pup): not real DD

Real DD jobs <where?>

Ive yet to be alienated on THF for not being a "real DD", Its unfortunate Kiyara gets the shaft ._.;

Most people actually quite like THF due to SA/TA Rudra's and its Skillchain closing potential...

I've been around way before the whole Rudra thing. This was back when a thief NEEDED a Mandau to be even be considered decent (started back around Rise of the Zilart). It was harsh as hell then. Then the whole Rudra's thing happened which I honestly didn't care for. Making something broken to compensate for everything else lacking doesn't really solve anything in my opinion.

The biggest problem facing THF...is BLU. It's just too powerful, all other DD's are pointless. I'm pretty sure I could keep up with any other job in the game, but I just don't have a chance against a good BLU.

The inevitability of shout groups is that their lack of established efficiency necessitates them to cling onto the setups that are inherently stronger and safer to use. It's far easier to expect a certain value from certain jobs in certain situations, and whether or not you could actually support what's needed with the job you want to use is highly impractical for a group of strangers to test out based on your own self-evaluation (too many people are overly confident based on parses with bad DDs).

There's also the issue that even if a THF is sufficient in a given scenario, it might not be optimal. This especially applies to the time before WS update, since you seem to be reminiscing. Some people don't care, others do.

If you find that you are being ostracized as a THF, you'd likely either need to find a group who accepts your THF, or build a reputation. People will be more willing once you've proven yourself to be effective. However, you're going to have to be at a certain level gear-wise (and "skill"-wise) to do that, and that level will depend on whose approval it is that you're seeking.

If you're finding it difficult getting to that level, you should probably level another job in order to gain access to the gear you need.

I definitely can pull my own weight. My thief, in my opinion, is by no means a pushover. I can definitely hold my own and dish out the damage very well. I have proven myself multiple times in the past to groups. Hell, I've even outparsed samurais and monks on some occasions in Delve (back when it was more relevant) which did give me some acceptable to those few and my friends always accepted me for whatever job I played.

In the end, I never expected thief to be the fill-in role for every situation (i.e. you wouldn't bring a thief to replace a black mage) but I do feel I should be an acceptable replacement for any melee DD (such as monk, samurai, dark knight, etc) in most scenarios.

THF still has niche use due to SATA WS can land 100% of time. Back when nobody can hit sovereign behemoth without super buff, THF is a good job to open SC for leaden. (Although most jobs can land ws on it with minimal buff now so you can kinda go with many jobs)Also people do Erinys with THF SATA.

IMO it's other none blu DD job that gets replaced by BLU easily, except MNK when you need formless. At least THF isn't in bottom tier DD IMO.

But then again, this "niche use" argument is probably not acceptable by career THF lol. Everyone wants their DD job to parse top, but only one job can parse top.

I think the two arguments that irritate me the most is thf shouldn't be a good DD because it has treasure hunter, and daggers are smaller than great axes. Both of which are HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE reasons.

2H WS balance problem aside, THF isn't a pure DD, not when compared to things like WAR / DRK / MNK / DRG (now)/ RNG (when distance is needed) / BLM or SAM. Each has it's own pros and cons, but they all have the focus on making whatever your fighting dead ASAP. Those jobs are purpose built to kill ***. BLU is configurable and gets to configure itself into being a pure DD while DNC played properly can also be a pure DD.

What THF is really really good at is being a powerful SC partner / closer. This puts them in a similiar category as COR but with far more versatility. When paired with another melee they can coordinate their WS usage to form a long four step SC with the THF finishing it with a powerful stacked WS that results in ridiculous SC damage. THF is uniquely positioned for this role because it has a solid WS in all four major T2 categories along with the ability to form a stacked Light or Dark SC. The recent pDiff update was also a major buff to THF via Mandalic Stab's 75% attack bonus.

THF + WAR for Light

Upheaval -> Evisceration -> Ukko's Fury -> Stacked Mandalic Stab

The SC will have 200% base damage of the closing stacked MS, then multiplied by SC Bonus should have ridiculous damage.

THF + BLU for Darkness
CDC -> Mandalic -> Requiescat -> Stacked Rudra's

You can insert a lot of jobs as the partner and the final SC will be quite large. This is sufficient to kill any content you would actually take melee's to. Unfortunately this won't matter to 140 and 145, but those are SCH SC + BLM MB only nowadays so it's not even about who's the highest parsing DD. So while THF may not be a "high tier DD", they have an extremely potent role to play in a coordinated group. Which I will then ask, how many of the current THF's even know the SC properties of their weapon skills? The SC properties of other DD jobs weapon skills? And how to link those SC properties together in a functional chain? Practically everyone I see only knows how to spam RS, and when I ask if they have Mandalic they frequently respond that they never even bothered since they only need RS, which is a shame considering how powerful the job can be in the right situation.

Out of all the jobs, the only other ones with as many SC options as THF is SAM and BST (Axe) with most of them being weak. Seriously THF is one of the most versatile skillchain jobs in the game, it's a pity that SE gave SC Bonus to DNC instead of THF where it belongs.

^this

That's sort of the reason I was semi optimistic about the rudra nerf before it happened. I thought they would reel rudra's back a little and buff thf's ws with other skillchain properties. Oh what a fool I was. Who would have thought they would actually nerf sharkbite

What hold thf back is what holds all DDs back currently, aoe spams, low hp, devastating/irremovable debuffs, and high accuracy requirements.

That 71k skillchain is crazy though, people should actually find out how Inundation works because that was from a 15k weaponskill.

I think THF is fine. Not as strong as blu overall, but fine, since we can close SCs better.

I've been spamming VD Tenzen with a blu much of the time since the update. I've gotten Mandau and Twashtar done, 3k from finishing Vajra. He would 4 step and I'll close with Rudra doing 30-40k > 80-99k darkness, sometimes killing it before he invincible. That's plenty strong, even if his CDC does more than my unstacked Rudra.

And while I've become fond of Inundation, it won't give your skillchain that kind of a boost against a neutral target. If you're getting that kind of a multiplier, it's because it takes extra damage.

Is BLU "meant" to be a top DD? What the hell does that even mean?

And like I said, I feel I can keep up with any DD in the game right now aside from BLU, and the endgame (where melee is allowed) is BLU BLU BLU BLU BLU. Would THF be top dog if not for BLU? Probably not. But I feel if the gap wasn't so big between #1 and #2 that there'd be less an issue overall.

All this talk of blue mage in a thf topic thread...

THF is be pretty close to the pinnacle of melee DD at the moment if not for blu. Byrth says DNC is a stronger dd than THF, and I'll take his word for it.

WAR has fallen behind for some time now. Don't think DRK can keep up, nor DRG. MNK's always been meh other than high hp and formless strikes. Maybe SAM can keep up since, ya know, it's SAM, but even that's a bit iffy.

I'd say we're in a good spot.

Agreed. And if DNC is stronger than THF it's hard to tell, there are so few DNC's in the game.

The problem is BLU being far ahead of everything else. The flavor of the month jobs are getting more and more extreme as we finish out this game it seems. I was happy when they nerfed Rudra's (though unhappy they hit Mercy with it) because it was stupid how much damage you could do with it. The entire BLU job is that, all with about 75% more defense than other jobs and self-haste capped.

Actually not that unusual. Thf tends to require some dealing with other melees in one way or another normally as regard to skillchain partners. So it's good to know all about the others jobs their preferred weaponskills and the skillchain properties of them.

I wouldn't say we're in a bad spot, but I wouldn't be surprised if the order of DDs got shook up a little after the recent update. 2 hands got a nice buff and their relics are looking pretty shiny right about now. For all we know blu might not even be top dog anymore.

BLU's self-haste capping essentially removes a needed slot from a party, so it's going to be pretty hard to really tell in that if you try to bring in another DD you're going to need to supply different buffs and either way overcapping for one job or the other will deal with less. A BLU just needs attack buffs (and Store TP roll) and it destroys things. Other DD's need those things as well, but also need to configure how to get them magic haste cap, which means bringing a BRD (a what?) or swapping a GEO spell for haste (which sucks as they have much more useful spells). So it's extremely hard to make any direct comparisons because BLU's just make it so easy. Oh yeah and with MG and Cocoon a BLU has PLD-levels of defense.

A lot of things frequently dispel, so that self-haste capping ability isn't always ensured.

Self capping haste is less impressive if you have a bard with honor march. Also if I am remembering correctly blus can't full time mighty guard.

I know a lot of career Blu are going to disagree because they have high standard, but I'm still gonna say thf has higher skill requirement than blu, since you need to understand sc, positioning and stack JA.

Blu DD is mostly just CDC at 1000 tp for auto light sc after copy and paste DD job traits. There are so many blu that can DD very well, not many THF can.

Waiting for Saevel and Spicyryan disagreeing :p

2 Blus can.

I believe you can full time MG on yourself, or full time MG on the party with two BLU's. Which then removes the need for any other DD when the DD's themselves bring their defensive and haste buffs on their own.

And I really don't buy the "Well, with Aeonic bard it's not a problem!" There are how many aeonic bards in the game right now...?

yeah that's sort of ironic, if they lower the recast of diffusion to 5 minutes it would be a buff, but then no one would bring 2 blus because you only need 1 to full time MG. Then you could Honor march, MG, and haste 1 for full magic haste for the front line.

Edit:Eventually Honor March will be more common. I would put 99 harp at a higher difficulty than the Aeonic.

They're going to disagree, explain that BLU is so much more than CDC spam and can do so much more damage than CDC spam, and ignore the fact that BLU's can destroy every other DD with CDC spam, so if BLU is stronger than what destroys every other DD, what does that make BLU...?


For the top linkshells, sure. The majority of the playerbase will never see Aeonic weapons, though. You should not balance over an item (and from another job, no less).

In terms of raw damage, CDC is just a better WS at low TP values than any of ours, so it's worth spamming. For THF, we have the advantage of greater SC opportunities with powerful SC closers. You can't really compare the two jobs in the same party since both of their ideal strategies are contradictory (spamming WS vs. coordinated SCs). This isn't helped by CDC's SC properties being crappy for THF's uses; had it been Dark/Frag, it would be much easier.

Obviously I'm biased in favor of BLU, here, but they're both very powerful jobs. Their strengths just lie in different places. Combining the two can make for some incredibly efficient damage potential.