What Job is Thief the Best Support Job For?

[Aelith]

In xp parties, that is. We all know how incredibly cool a thief sj is for farming ^^.

And I guess, to make answering this easier, let's split up the levels.

So, what (in your opinion) is thief the best sub job for from levels 1-30, 31-59, and 60-75? And why? Just curious about how I could use my existing thief well to help support another job. Thanks for your thoughts.

[711rocks]

I can't comment on higher levels, and I do believe /WAR is better for most melee, but I see a lot of WAR/THF around 30-60 and from what I've seen, it's great. SA Sturmwind seems to do some awesome damage and can rip hate from tanks pretty easily. I can't comment on how much damage; because I have it filtered out when I play, but it does seem to take a nice chunk out of the mobs HP.

[Ixaera]

1-30: please don't sub thf ; ;
30-60: an ok subjob for warrior
60-75: drk, mnk, maybe sam (though I haven't seen those in action)

[Novac]

War/thf: 30-death of game. Unless you're tanking. Not for strumwind. But for sure-hit shieldbreak. Only noobs use strumwind anyway. Shield-break for the win. Besides, it's really embarassing when asked to do distortion chain and you miss the double thrust and had to swtich to a sure-hit raiden thrust instead. In addition, I've seen SA double thrust hit more than penta, go figure.

Drk/thf: 30 to 50. SA slice can hit upwards to 300 with souleater, last resort in the jungle. From 50-60, sub war for double attack. At 60, if you're elvaan, galka, hume, you might want to sub thief because you'll be doing too much damage for your own good; use TA. Taru and mithra can still sub war and not get themselves killed.

Sam/thf: Same as Drk.

Drg/thf: Same as sam.

Mnk/thf: Not too sure, I would guess the same with the rest of sam/drg/drk, but most monks are suicidal anyway; Raging fist when they already got hate and stuff

[Ixaera]

lol. Mithra and taru don't do that much less damage than others, actually. Yes, Elvaan/galka do more. But not so much more than omfgbbqwtf they will die more often than mithra/taru.

And...thf sub at 30 for sneak attack, well...

It's nice, but for a mere guaranteed crit hit, how is that better than berserk? >.> It just seems that you get very little from a thf sub for what you lose by not subbing...something else.

Anyway, I usually find that pre-60 non-wars subbing thf are usually just trying to weasle out of first voke duty anyway >.> I've yet to see better damage from a war/thf (60+) or drk/thf, mnk/thf, and so on (pre-60) than from other subjobs.

Post-60, the thf sub isn't about guaranteed hits, but transferring the massive hate attracted by high-hitting ws to someone else. Which is a good idea and helps the party, btw...a dead member is just downtime.

Which is, besides berserk, another reason many melee sub war...for provoke to help a trick attacker, because having a hate controller in party also helps the group. More so than a guaranteed crit will.

[Novac]

A taru drk hits as hard as a hume war. My hume war friend told me this from experience. Those STR from rase bonus does make a HUGE difference.

SA is more about garrentee hit than crit. Miss WS = no skillchain = no effect = no mb. That could be as high as 700 damage down the drain. Missing shield break is also a big deal. Everybody crys when the war or drk misses shield break, even the mages.

Obviously subbing thief isn't about damage, double attack from war alone is enough to justify both TP gain and damage over thf. However, nobody likes to do enpi, vorpal, double thrust, shield break and miss.

[DrSerpico]

Subjob progression

Warrior.
1-23 War/mnk (mmmbooost.)
24-30 war/nin or /mnk
30-74 war/thf
74-75 war/whatever. ^^
(if tanking /nin, otherwise /thf. No brd, /mnk tank)

Drk
1-67 Drk/war
67-75 drk/thf
Berserk > Sa unless you have ungodly amounts of +str on a switch macro. Not really worth the hassle until Spinning Slash. Unless you need hate control.


Sam
1-60 Sam/war
60-75 sam/thf
Same as drk, only sam get their big onehitters already at level 60. If you have millions in +str, feel free to /thf from 30 to 50.

Mnk
1-75 Mnk/war
Thf sub should only be used if there are hate issues. Since monk attacks so damn often, there's more chances for Datk to kick in, + kick attack. That + berserk gives more dmg than any /thf can produce, even post-level3 skillchain.

Drg
I have no idea.