Deadgye's Thief notes  

=Starting Information= This is still currently unfinished. I'll be updating it a little bit at a time. I wanted to do it all in a straight shot but doing the equipment lists really knocks a lot out of me lol..

Intro

I'll start with a little information about myself. I am, and have always been, a thief in the world of Final Fantasy XI. I had heard about the game from PlayStation Magazine and lucked out when my cousin's new Alienware computer came with a free beta account for FFXI. I played for a few hours at his house and was hooked. I researched the game until I obtained a computer on Christmas of 2004 and installed the game for myself. I started on the Ragnarok server since that's where my cousin was and I have been there ever since. Thief is my only 75 job and I try to be the best that I can be.

Thief

Thief is a very unique job. Back when FFXI was still young thief was considered to be useless. Other jobs like Dark Knight were able to sub thief at level 60+ and use our abilities just as well as we could while doing more DoT (Damage over Time) than us. After some a series of buffs and "nerfs" thief started to establish itself in the game. Overall a thief is most known for their superior evasion, their cunning ability to deal damage while "remaining in the shadows", and their ability to increase drop rates. It is also 'the' job of choice for controlling hate during the heat of battle.

The thief job is notorious for being badly geared and badly played, mostly due to a majority of the players who level it only using it as a "farming job". Certain thieves, myself included, have gone through great lengths to show everyone exactly what a 'real' thief is capable of.

Job Abilities:

At a glance:

In depth:

Perfect Dodge: This is a thief's 2 hour ability. When used a "SP" icon appears in the buff list and the thief dodges all melee attacks for the next 30 seconds. However, ranged attacks and magic attacks are not automatically dodged and can still hit the thief. This ability is best saved for a pinch and most effective when combined with Collaborator or Accomplice.

Steal: This ability allows the thief to attempt to steal an item from an enemy. Most enemies don't actually have anything that can be stolen from them, and even less enemies have something worthwhile. Beastmen usually carry beastcoins which can be stolen, and certain notorious monsters even have equipment that can be stolen from them. At 75 this ability can even be combined with a meritable job trait that allows steal to act like dispel if the thief fails to steal an item. There are a variety of items that contain the phrase "Steal+" which we assume increases the chance for steal to actually nab an item from an enemy. Some of us theorize that "Steal+2" would be about equivalent to a static 2% boost in success rate, but it's just pure theory and there's no actual proof behind it. For a list of steal+ items please check the equipment section.

Sneak Attack: One of the most important abilities a thief has. This ability substantially increases damage when the next hit is delivered from behind the target. Sneak attack increases damage by a greater magnitude the more dex you have, is 100% accurate, and forces a critical hit. As such it is usually very wise to macro in a lot of dex gear when performing sneak attack. In order to pull off this move correctly you do not have to be exactly behind the enemy, but you should not expect to make this ability connect by standing at the enemies side. Also know that this ability can be combined with non-elemental melee-range weapon skills. This ability also cannot miss, if dual wielding weapons it makes it so that the entire round cannot miss, and if combined with a weapon skill it makes it so that the first hit cannot miss. This is, of course, assuming the enemy has not used Perfect Dodge and that you are correctly positioned. (For more information on exactly how sneak attack increases damage please look at the mathematics section.)

Flee: The single most enjoyable job ability in the game. This ability causes the thief's movement speed to increase by 100%, equal to the speed of a chocobo. This ability normally lasts only 30 seconds, but when used while wearing their artifact boots, Rogue's Poulaines, it lasts for a full 45 seconds. It is useful in every situation imaginable, from running away mid battle to catching airships and boats on time. It is not possible to go any faster than flee speed without cheating. Even if you wear an item like Strider Boots while fleeing your speed will not increase anymore than usual. There are also medicines in the game which mimic the ability flee. The one most known for this is Hermes Quencher, which increase speed by 87.5% when used. Another use for flee is overwriting gravity. Whenever gravity lands on me all I have to do is use flee and gravity is gone. There was one instance were the gravity on me was so strong flee actually had no effect. I no longer remember what enemy did this, but it was not your normal foe.

Trick Attack: Probably the most important ability to thief. This ability allows the thief to deal substantially increased damage when the next hit is delivered from behind a party member or ally. Trick Attack increases damage by a greater magnitude the more agi you have, as such it is usually very wise to macro in a lot of agi gear when performing trick attack. But that's not the only thing, when used the enemy thinks that the party member or ally who was in front of the thief did all the damage from that strike. When combined with weapon skills this plants a decent amount of hate on the party member or ally. Before level 60 this ability is pretty much always combined with sneak attack, but after 60 thief obtains a job trait that makes trick attack more powerful on it's own. At 75 there is an item called "Rogue's Armlets +1" obtainable by trading in your artifact gloves with some ancient beastcoins and items from limbus. These gloves increase your agi by 15% during trick attack which is a very large boost. (For more information on exactly how trick attack increases damage please look at the mathematics section.)

Mug: Ok.. truthfully this ability is almost useless. On normal enemies that drop gil this ability will steal anywhere from approximately 0-200 gil. On notorious monsters you can actually mug upwards of 4,500~ gil. Still you have to remember that the recast timer on Mug is 15 minutes long. It's a nice ability to have, but it's not really an important one. Also something to note is that a piece of our relic equipment, Assassin's Bonnet, increases the amount of gil we mug. It's useful to macro in and may increase your mug by 1,000~ gil on notorious monsters but don't expect it to do much on normal enemies.

Hide: Personally I love this ability. Hide turns it's user invisible for a random time between 15 seconds and 3 minutes normally, but if you're wearing our artifact body, Rogue's Vest, when you use hide it normally lasts at least 2 minutes and can even stay on for ~6 minutes. That is only the tip of the iceberg though, hide actually causes certain mobs to lose track of you and as such they will stop chasing you. Some enemies cannot be tricked and certain enemies can sometimes continue to track you through other methods. I will give a list of enemy types I know hide works on and some of the requirements for it to work on other types later on in the notes.

Collaborator: I was already 75 for a long time when this ability came out and I must say I absolutely love it. Square-Enix originally intended for thief to be the master of hate control and with this ability we really are. When used you select a party member and steal 25% of their total enmity. It has a recast timer of only one minute making it a great tool when a party member goes a bit crazy, and an even greater tool when placed in a party with black mages or rangers at an endgame event. When used this ability also sets the recast timer for Accomplice to 1:00. An important thing to note is that this ability requires you to be within about ~21 of the enemy for the hate to actually transfer. (For more information about enmity please look at the short section on enmity.)

Accomplice: This ability came out slightly before Collaborator and is just as useful. When used on a party member this ability will steal 50% of their total enmity. The recast timer on this ability is five times longer than the one on Collaborator, putting it at 5 minutes long. When used this ability also sets the recast timer of Collaborator to 5 minutes. The only time to really use this ability over Collaborator is when the shit has hit the fan and only a 25% reduction in enmity for the party member just won't do. An important thing to note is that this ability requires you to be within about ~21 of the enemy for the hate to actually transfer. (For more information about enmity please look at the short section on enmity.)

Feint: A very sweet meritable ability. When used a buff appears on the thief that gives him one full minute to make an attack connect with an enemy. When that attack connects(weapon skills and ranged attacks don't count) the feint debuff is applied to the enemy for 30 seconds drastically lowering it's evasion. It takes 3 merits to unlock this ability, 4 more merits to reduce the recast timer from 10 minutes to 8 minutes, and 5 merits each to reduce the timer from 8 minutes to 6, from 6 to 4, and from 4 to 2. At maxed level a single thief can keep feint on an enemy for 25% of the battle.

Assassin's Charge: This meritable ability forces the next attack to triple attack. It works with weapon skills and melee attacks, although it's best saved for weapon skills. At the start when first unlocked with 3 merits the recast timer on this ability is 15 minutes, but through a progression similar to the one shown on feint above the recast timer can be reduced to 5 minutes. Some thieves like to cap this ability, some like to only put one point into it, and others don't even touch it. Exactly what you do depends on your play style.

Job Traits:

At a glance:

In depth:

Gilfinder: This job trait slightly increases the amount of gil you receive whenever you kill an enemy that drops gil. There's really not anything more to it.

Resist Gravity: Resisting gravity.. how often is gravity cast on us? It may not be a lot but it's still nice to have this trait when it is. Aside from slowing your movement speed down a considerable amount gravity also lowers evasion by 10. When anything ever casts gravity on me I usually end up resisting it or I watch it wear off very fast. That or I use flee to overwrite it. Basically, we're built to not be slowed down.

Evasion Bonus: This trait enhances thief a lot. At 75 we get a boost of 48 evasion from these traits. The seperate values are all undetirmined and the ones I've used are from www.ffxiclopedia.com, I personally have a feeling that each one is +12 but this is close enough anyway. Combine that +48 evasion with our 276 evasion skill at 75 we already have a capped evade rate of 80% on a large majority of enemies in the game. Utilizing this evasion is how thief manages to solo a lot of tough enemies.

Triple Attack: A great trait to have, easily rivaling warriors double attack trait. This trait gives us a 5% chance to swing 3 times when we attack instead of 1. With merits we can increase this 5% base rate all the way up to 10%. It can also activate on weapon skills causing a very noticeable difference in damage. The meritable ability Assassin's Charge also forces our next attack to triple attack.

Treasure Hunter & Treasure Hunter II: These abilities have been a mystery to the entire FFXI community for years. Back when I started people claimed that TH had no effect on rare/ex items. Those rumors were of course false. For a long time nobody know exactly how TH was activated either, but recently it had come to light that all a thief has to do to activate TH is generate some enmity on the the enemy so that the thief in on the hate list. There's still some mystery now over exactly how much TH helps. Tests by Divisorytheory have shown that the items that list "Treasure Hunter+1" only increase drops by a static 1%. This means if ridil has a drop rate of 3% and Wyrm Beard has a drop rate of 50% then adding Thief's Knife to the picture will increase their drop rates to 4% and 51%. Some tests by whatshisname also show that TH+TH2 basically double drop rates on most mobs, and do a little bit more on some others. Other than the tests performed by these two people I have not seen any other testing that seems reliable.

Assassin: An amazingly magnificent ability. When this ability was introduced it completely revolutionized the way thief worked. Previously thief only weapon skilled once per minute and always stacked sata together with their weapon skill. After this ability was added thieves 60+ began splitting up everything. We can now use SA solo, TA solo, SA with a weapon skill, and TA with a weapon skill. Exactly what assassin does is this: Trick attack normally just uses agi to enhance the damage done, but with assassin trick attack makes the hit 100% accurate and forces a critical hit as well just like sneak attack. (Assuming your positioning is correct.)

Aura Steal: This job trait makes it so that when you use steal and no item is stolen you instead dispel a buff from the enemy. At level one there is a 20% chance to steal the dispelled buff and at level 5 (capped) there is a 100% chance to steal the buff. These buffs can range anywhere from as boring as a orcs warcry to as awesome as Jailer of Loves Fluorescent Boost (Insane damage boost) or Mother Globes thunder spikes (High damage and lasts for an hour.)

Ambush: When attacking from behind this trait provides a 3 acc/ranged acc boost at level 1, and 15 at level 5 (capped). Like Assassin's Charge some people love it and some people hate it. Whether you should use it or not depends on your play style.

Sub Jobs:

Warrior:

White Mage:

Monk:

Ranger:

Ninja:

Samurai:

Beastmaster:

Dark Knight:

Dancer:

Skills & Weapon Skills

Merits:

Equipment:

There are a lot of different types of equipment for thief. Not to mention that there are zillions of different gear sets to use, especially at different level ranges. I'm only going to discuss special sets for thief and high end armors that are useful in endgame situations. My personal experience with thief pre-75 is very rusty and sadly not as applicable as it used to be.

Steal Gear:

It is possible to get a maximum of Steal+18.

Triple Attack Gear:

Gilfinder Equipment:

Artifact Armor:

Relic Armor:

Homam:

Hecatomb:

Dusk:

Enkidu:

Skadi:

Haste / Fast Cast:

Regen:

Other Notable Equipment:

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Tips and Tricks / Strategy:

Enmity:

There are a couple of short things to note about enmity. Enmity is the same thing as hate, it's how much a mob hates you. The person who has the highest enmity value at the time is the one the mob attacks. There are three important terms to remember. Volatile Enmity (VE) is enmity that decays at a rate of 60 enmity / second and has a cap of 10,000. Cumulative Enmity (CE) is enmity that doesn't decay. It can still however be reduced by having the enemy hit you and etc. CE is also capped at 10,000. Then there's total enmity (TE). Total enmity is sum of Volatile Enmity and Cumulative Enmity.

How Enmity+ and Enmity- items work is that every action has a base CE and VE value generated when performed and enmity+ multiplies that by 1.xx while enmity- multiplies it by 1-.xx.

All credit for knowing how enmity works and everything about enmity goes to Kanican. His Livejournal link is http://kanican.livejournal.com/21727.html and that is the best place to go if you have any questions about enmity.

It was through his testing that it was found out that Collaborator and Accomplice require you to be under 21~ distance from the enemy. I really recommend you read through all his enmity testing.

Mathematics: