From Final Fantasy Wiki

See also: Thief.

Thief is a basic job in Final Fantasy XI. It is one of six jobs available to all players when they create a character. Thieves in Final Fantasy XI excel at "spike damage" since they get abilities like Sneak Attack and Trick Attack which can be combined with a weapon skill for massive damage while their normal attacks are noticeably weaker than other damage dealers.

They have a high rating in the use of daggers and can use swords with moderate effectiveness. They also have an A+ rating in evasion on top of a passive evasion bonus to make them difficult targets to hit and make up for their light armor.

Thieves, of course, gain abilities like gilfinder, treasure hunter, steal, and mug and special abilities like hide for stealth. Thieves are also the only job in Final Fantasy XI that have the job ability flee.

Becoming a Thief

Thief is one of the six basic jobs in the Final Fantasy XI. As such, players can choose to become a thief at any time. If they choose to start the game as a thief, they will be given an onion knife in addition to the adventurer certificate and national ring (if applicable).

Combat Skill Ratings

Thieves in Final Fantasy XI

Thieves are uniquely useful in Final Fantasy XI. Their abilities are largely geared for out of combat uses. Their utility with treasure hunter is used to increase the likelihood of getting a rare drop.

Strengths

• Thieves create good spike damage with the use of Sneak Attack.
• Thieves help control enmity among party members with Trick Attack.
• Thieves have the best attack rating with daggers.
• Thieves are sought after for a lot of special events where rare items may be found.
• Thieves have the highest potential of Evasion in the whole game.

Weaknesses

• Compared with other jobs, Thieves, on average, do less damage and are correspondingly not sought after for direct damage jobs.
• Thieves have low defense and vitality characteristics and lower hit point totals, which sometimes hurts their survival.
• Thieves have the lowest charisma of all jobs. Ironically they got the the Weapon Skill Dancing Edge, which gets more powerful, the more charisma the character has.

Subjobs

Ninja

Thieves, almost without exception, subjob Ninja from level 33 to the end of the game. Many even pick up the subjob at level 20 when they first get access to dual wield. Since thieves have a myriad of ranged attack options, they are often chosen as pullers for the party. Utsusemi will help negate attacks while bringing the enemy back to the party and the dual wield characteristic will allow them to build tp quicker.

Warrior

Prior to level 20, warrior is often used as a subjob for Thief. This is due mostly to their physical attributes aiding to dealing physical damage. Other than statistical bonuses, the advantages offered by Warrior are relatively few because by the time it starts becoming more advantageous, most Thieves will have moved on to Ninja and for generally good reason.

Monk

While it is not customary of other Final Fantasy titles, thieves actually have an acceptable hand to hand combat rating. Since Combo, a low level weapon skill can be combined with Sneak Attack, this is one of the highest damage subjobs to use up to level 33. The monk's high HP as a subjob will also help negate some of the lacking Thief defense.

Ranger

Ranger is an uncommon subjob choice, but viable for a couple of different circumstances. The first of which would be for camping creatures with a wide spawn range, where the use of Wide Scan would be useful for tracking down the prey. Perhaps less commonly, some Thieves who take up a ranged capacity will want to use Ranger in order to take advantage of Rapid Shot, Barrage, and Accuracy Bonuses as well as capitalizing on the Ranger's ability to do ranged weapon skills.

Dancer

Dancer is for most melee-jobs a very reliable subjob, due to the fact to heal themselves only with the use of TP, which are build up after every hit. Especially thieves, with their fast attacking daggers, and high evasion can store TP in a very fast time. The Fights against the monsters will take some more time, because of using the TP to cure yourself, instead of using it for a Weapon Skill, but it's a very safe way to fight.