Tips For A New Rad THF.

The title pretty much says it.
I just recently started THF, and have to say I'm loving it.
I'm probably one of the few people who haven't leveled it yet, so I now know what I missed out on.

My THF is currently 25.

I want to ask, does anyone have any guides, nor any tips on how to play the job better?
I have all the equipment I need so far.
I know, and people have told me I need tons of DEX, and evasion. I'm not sure about it, but if anyone has anything to add on for me, please do. I would greatly appreciate it.
( this will be my second 75 )

I'm going to go ahead an bump my self one time, its 1:50 am.
I hope to come back to some help : ]

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/How-To_Guide:_Thief

Pretty solid guide for a beginner thf^^.

Many thanks bro. \,,\,

i feel like that guide explain very well how our abilities work. Does it explain how to use them better?

You might have thought of this already, as its not something unreasonable and they pretty much work your whole career.

The first tip is charge SA before a pull. If you are pulling or not, you will maximize the damage you can do by doing this. Lets you are pulling and charges SA just before hitting you ranged macro. If you take 30 secs to get to camp, that's 30 secs less you have to wait before using SA again. I'm not sure how hard it is to pull it off hate wise, but after you can TA (pre charging both) you can do this without consequences (getting hit).

The other tip i can give is you don't have to be /nin your whole career. Actually on the lvl you are right now /rng or /mnk might be better.

Surely though /nin will help you pull of the pre SA charging safely. It also protects you while pulling depending on your pulling ability. If you are experienced with pulling from max distance (windower distance plugin can also help out here) you wont need /nin at all to protect you until you get to aht urhgan (or any place you fight mobs with increased movement).

With /war you get berserk at lv30 so this is a sub you might consider. You will do insane damage sata with zerk up and without any consequences on yourself (death~).

Another tip i can give is don't ever split sata. This is actually until you reach 60 and get assassin. TA alone can miss and its not a forced critical hit until you get to 60, and by splitting it you will loose a huge chunk of your total damage. So try to always have a trick partner so you can give 100% of your performance.

Keeping marksmanship close to cap can help your parties damage incredibly with acid bolts. Defense down that stacks with dia is amazing.

Every time I look at thf end game it makes me really feel like levelling it.

BAH I NEED MORE TIME!

This! Keep your marksmanship leveled and it'll serve you well. Not only is it a defense down effect, it'll also overwrite defense boosts (Crawler's Cocoon for example), saving your mage(s) a bit of mp. Also, the acid effect is wind-based, so don't bother with Colibri and other wind mobs.

You can also be a cool hero and save your party from a link with sleep bolts. The effect doesn't last that long, and it's not a 100% proc, so be careful not to wake the mob if someone's already slept it.

Another tip: Don't get frustrated in exp parties.

There's gonna be times where people haven't the slightest clue how to line up SATA pre-Assassin. DDs will mess your SATA up often on your journey to 75, but keep your cool and just try the best you can. Sometimes you will get a good party that intuitively knows how to line up properly without you having to ask. These are the parties that will help you retain your sanity >:P

Just want to put some thoughts in here.

Most ppl when they think about THF is to stack as much eva as possible. This imo is wrong. Sure you need an EVA setup for soloing/tanking, but when leveling THF in regular exp pt's eva is pretty much unnessesary. You'll be pulling mobs, the mobs will be voked off you before your shadows goes down, even without stacking eva in every slot.

I'd say focus on ACC and haste, DEX for SA(TA), after lv 60 you when you split SA & TA you can stack AGI for TA, or STR > AGI for TA WS. STR ofcourse as well for WS's.

my 2 cents

What about stacking Attack also? I myself am curious, soon to be leveling THF also.

Until 40 to be honest i would recommend /war for one major reason...

Provoke/Flee

Parties will link, unless you have a blm or rdm with mp to spare, provoke/flee will save your pt.

Try to pull from maximum distance.. but don't do what I did and go lose half your pulls because I was just simply too far from mobs. (this was a few years back, not sure if they've fixed pathing on mobs)

Finally.. Save your tp for SATA or TA WS.. although yes, you can deal massive damage with SA WS, your job isn't geared toward being the biggest dd, it's to control hate. NEVER FORGET THIS.
I love thfs because of thi, if i'm healer, i can toss ES Cure ## and not worry ever, I can use curaga to safe mp and such. Or I can spam ws as dd and kill mobs faster.

And finally do TA Before SA on your macro, it is a tiny bit faster.

You will find that some people on this game have no clue how @ low lvls line up for SATA. Then at higher you'll get assassin to break SATA apart.

hm? Sorry but doing damage is the best way to control hate. TA or TAWS before 60 is not good advice at all.

Thief before Dancing Edge and after Viper Bite has no need for attack on WS set. VB is basically a normal hit with 2x attack boost, so you stack it with sata and equip a full dex/agi set to maximize damage.

You still equip attack stuff on tp set.

Sadly my THF has been stripped of some gear, I have found that later on it's not too much more than a TH ***. Great for farming solo,duo NM camping etc but as far as some EG stuff goes my THF has'nt found it's home yet. Some tips that will help you along the way. Depending on what race you are accuracy accuracy and more accuracy, never underestimate how much you need. Stacking dex will help but make sure you use dex pieces for WS macro swaps, especially when you get dancing edge, but don't sacrifice too much acc for dex right away. KEEP MARKSMANSHIP CAPPED AT ALL TIMES!!! lol, it was something that I fell behind on and trust me when you are farming DC EM T mobs being able to stick sleep bolts and get shadows back up or pop a few bloody bolts into them to get some hp will help you tremendously, same with dagger try to keep it capped. Get a decent evasion set up for when you want to solo/farm stuff that could kill you. Wearing eva earrings in a party setup is a tad bit of a waste in my opinion as you wont really be pulling hate all that often if at all. Other than that just learn how to play it as you go and have fun with it. You are a ninja tanks wet dream when you get SATA :P

So.. by giving a minuscule amount of hate to the tank you control hate? Ta alone until 60 is well.. useless. I found that using SATA is not always an option, so at the very least you should be using TA WS to open. A party does well when a tank is tanking. Nothing sucks more than seeing a samurai open with skill chain and then seeing him die because the thf saves his tp to use SA WS.

If you just want to take up a job to deal as much damage as
you want, then take up blue, or dnc. Go solo, because a job that disregards the rest of the party is useless. Let the tank tank as much as possible, things die faster when the party is focused on killing and not surviving every fight.


A thf is geared for hate control, and pulling, not damage.

Dead mob isn't hurting anyone anymore.

Or you know, party with a SAM who isn't stupid enough to Blow a self-Skillchain at the beginning of a fight before the Tank can establish hate.


People need to remember parties work differently at lower levels (Assuming you meant pre-60 as assassin-less TA was the catalyst for the argument)

THF Can deal damage and control hate just fine if they're any good at their job, which is what this thread was apparently made for, telling him to toss the idea of DD out the window in-lue of Storing your TP as long as possible just for that perfect SATA moment to "Control hate" is bad advice.

Firing your SA/WS when you have TP is doing more for your party than saving a moron who will eventually die if he's firing WS at the beginning of fights without Shadows or Seigan/Third Eye ⌐ ⌐, on top of that most tanks worth their weight in a party would be able to get hate off those types of DD before they die.

If TA is up and you got TP and tank is having a hard time, TA/WS him, or SATA/WS Him, if hes doing fine Pump the DD and SA/WS as much as you like...

No tank should NEED a THF to control hate, its more of a bonus to the job, and using Trick Attack to that advantage IS one part of being a good THF, but you should never forget that THF is a good DD at the earlier levels and even higher up if played right... Sneak Attack and Trick attack are very powerful in the right hands.

wait so you were implying TAWS after 60? cause thats not what i got from your first post. Idk how did you get that i said you should solo TA before 60, as i clearly stated "TA or TAWS before 60 is not good advice at all". So there were two possibilities for you post, either you were giving advice for 60+ (and should have specifically said so), or you were giving a bad advice for 33-59. I took it as the latter because the OP was at 25.

Again if the thf is gearing to dd he is gearing to be best at the job he is needed for: hate control. 33-59 thf damage comes sata and sataws. 60-75 thf damage comes from SA, TA, SAWS, TAWS and even WS alone. TAWS will be the most common use until you hit merit level.

I wont even say anything about that "thf is not geared to do damage" bit of your last post.

Edit: Adding a bit to that sam argument

If there is a sam and a thf in the pt, why are they not doing sc together? I see no reason for a sam to self sc with that setup. THF is the best distortion closer until 60ish when every other job starts to get their main ws.

As a thf on that scenario. I would pre charge SATA, pull the mob, let the main tank voke, pop sata at the sam, then let the sam do enpi, and finally close SATAVB at the tank. OR the other way around, cause i doubt the mob would be able to live that much at 33-40. SATA + SATAWS + distorion is pretty much 1k damage at level 33. Mobs at garlaige citatel have around 1200-1400 hp iirc.

Learn to pull efficiently. Learn to judge your party setup and competency of your team members. I can't count the times I have looked for a THF for my parites not for the hate control capabilites, but only for the pulling nature that is THF.

Sure a bard puller would be great, but pre-merit parites it is next to impossible to find a bard who is willing to pull and keep buffs up on a party. 9 times out of 10 the exp/hr of my parties are lacking not because the mages are out of MP, the DDs are MP sponges, or not enough dmg output, but only because the puller fails and takes an absurd amount of time between pulls.

I have had amazing THFs who don't prioritize DD and don't pull until after the mob is dead. That is probably my biggest pet peeve. Don't take me wrong tho, a good THF should know when it's time to DD and when to run off to go pull the next mob.

*Edit

Be prepared to spend a lot of time LFP unless you make most, if not all, of your parties.

I'm no THF (it's only 11), but I loved the title of your thread so felt the need to contribute. The word "Rad" wins you my eternal respect. Good luck with levelling Thief! As a linkshell leader, perhaps the best advice I could give is don't be dismayed if sometimes you only feel like people are using you for your Treasure Hunter. It will happen alot!

Like I said before...

I had plenty of pts that took a full minute for the tank and the sata partner to set up, This meant that the partner took far too much damage, meaning that the healer would have to rest mp after fight. Other times, you just simply do not have a partner to sata with, cause no one wants to. You will find that once again..


A good party will skill chain and magic burst and such.. but this is not always the case. Best pt I had with thf did get to sc with sata vb. But those parties are rare, I've leveled sam, thf, brd, and rdm. and learned one thing..Most dds focus on doing as much damage as they can solo, this is not always the case.

Wow thank you everyone so much for the great responses.
An Acid bolts and blood bolts will be the best eh?
I mean blood bolts for soloing of course, but acid bolts for partys?
Sweet deal!


@SephrinI totally understand what you mean, I usually like to pull the next mob when the previous is at 10% or lower hp. An yeah, I'm planning on making my parties, I love it!


@AeyelaThanks for the compliment! An of course the TH tip haha. Why cant more cool people like you be on my server?!

An many thanks to the rest of you who have added to this thread, this helps so much. Going ahead and bookmarking this page now.



-Knarley Andy

ah now you made sense. My previous post was a waste of time, since we fall back to our usual disagreement.

Schatten in such situation you described i wouldn't simply solo TA or TAWS the tank. I would try my best to get ppl into positioning. A leveling thf can't give up on this. It's not simply about max damage/epeen, cause loosing 1min with positioning it's damage loss. A full blown sata will fix hate better and will make everything smooth.

Not having someone to trick into is a big issue indeed. A leader that invites a thf should think about this. If he doesn't, then you can be sure that this pt will suck, and not just for the thf.

Specopsz, as even Schatten said, most dds focus on doing as much damage as they can solo, this is not the case at all for thf. We need the pt members cooperation, and we also have to be patient if they lack knowledge. I hope you follow you career with max performance on your mind. How you are going to avoid using solo TA/TAWS depends on situation, party pacing etc. On fast paced parties you can even sataws away anything in front of you. Slower ones you will make even better use of pre charging, so you can sata the partner and then sataws the tank. If there is a PL, sata away. And so it goes...oh well, at least for me.

The real trick is communication.

Only advice I can truly give you is regardless of how many people say THF sucks endgame, if you're really devoted to the job, don't give up. The job has its places, regardless of what people may say.

Thief is a lot of fun. Concentrate on dex, agi for TA, eva and haste.

Also, it's very important to skill up your marksmanship. Shadows, high eva and bloody/sleep bolts can make you nearly invincible.

Expect pt's to stop inviting around 65 or so. You can sync down or do campaign.

I wouldn;t go as far as to say thief sucks endgame. It has its uses. It's just that people don't seem to have leniency and only want sam, rdm and brd for the most part. There is room for a thf in just about any pt. JUst have to find people who think outside of the box. Or make your own pt's.

Thief is a very deceiving job. Whack whack whack for little dmg. It looks like its very weak, but my LS has 2 decked out thf's that always pull #2 and #3 on the parses for any event. I always thought thf sucked until i started parsing.

Put at least 1 merit into Dagger skill. Viper bite at 32 and Dancing edge at 59 is awesome.

Use SA as much as possible. Use SA before you pull. That way you land a big crit as soon as you get the mob back to camp, and your SA is rdy to use again right away.

After VB at 33, if your party doesnt understand SATA or the tank likes to stand 50 feet away, give up on it. Play kinda like a blm. Wait till you know you can kill the mob with a WS and SATA VB anyone that is stupid enough to stand behind the mob. East ron is a great example. SATA VB hits incredibly hard on those colibri. Until around the 50's, THF has the hardest hitting WS.

Carry as much DEX gear as you can for SA. Its a 100% hit and not based on accuracy. ACC ACC ACC for tp, Swap dex for that 1 hit, then go back to ACC. After 60, you sholdnt need any more advice.

So far I'm loving it, I'm at lvl 40 now.
I have +15 to dex with no food.
And +20 evasion I believe, I know the main things I want is optical hat, and scorpion harness which I have.
I keep blood bolts, acid bolts, and sleep bolts for soloing.
Is there anything else I need in the future?
I saw two rings at 50 which I had before.

But long story short, THF is probably by far the funnest I've had in the game yet.
I've been playing on and off for 3 years, and cant believe I just now decide to level it!

At level 40 you shouldn't just focus on DEX. AGI is just as important if you're stacking TA with SA. Why are you worrying about evasion? Its not important at that level. Farming I could see, but meh, bloody bolts aren't THAT expensive, and + you can rest your HP without having to waste Bloody Bolts in most cases anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying evasion isn't important... its just not important at that level.

Basically 'til late 50's/early 60's, you're pretty much going to worry about DEX/AGI most of the way up. This changes drastically when you learn Assassin/Dancing Edge. Your entire strategy changes.

Just keep dagger skilled and marksmanship capped at all times. Though Acid Bolts don't proc that much on birds (from experience), its still such an important skill to keep leveled.

you put on evasion gear when you want to evade things. when you don't need to evade things, then evasion is not important.