Best sub?

[FFfan321123]

What is the best subjob for thief? Can you change subjobs any time you want?

[silentsteel]

Re: Best sub?

the best sub is probably ninja, and yes you can change it anytime you want

[Muu Yi]

Re: Best sub?

I level a variety of subjobs for I'm of the belief that the best subjob is the one that benefits your party the most, and in case of soloing your party consists of only you so choose one that benefits yourself. You can change your subjob from your Mog House at any time that you are there.

[FFfan321123]

Re: Best sub?

Interesting... thanks guys.

A little off topic, but how exactly do you level a subjob? Say I subbed ninja, if I change my job to ninja and level it up, then change back to theif, if I subbed ninja again after leveling it up would it be any stronger?

[Jei]

Re: Best sub?

only your main job gains level. so to level different jobs, you'll have to switch to the job in your mog house.

[Muu Yi]

Re: Best sub?

Okay, since you do not have Final Fantasy XI yet. I will give you a quick run-down of the subjob system with a Thiefly bent. But please do take the time to read your manual once you obtain it.

First of all, you do not start with a subjob. You start out with a Main job and no subjob - I think the actual manual term might really be Support Job but everyone calls it subjob or sub for short. You have to earn the ability to set your subjob by first completing the subjob quest. The earliest this quest can be done is level 18, and you will need other player's help to complete it. Now the first thing to realize about the subjob system is that only your Main job gains experience and levels. The second thing is that your subjob can never exceed /half/ of your Main Job's level. So for example if you had leveled Monk to level 18 and Warrior to level 5 then set Warrior as your Main Job and Monk as your subjob then you would be a Lv 5 Warrior/ Lv 2 Monk. If you were to use Monk as your Main job however and Warrior as your subjob you would then be a Lv 18 Monk/ Lv 5 Warrior.

Once you obtain the ability to set the subjob it is a very good idea to first change that subjob to your Main job and level it beforehand so that it is at least half your preferred Main job's level if not higher so that you get more abilities and bonus stats from it. My recommendation for any brand new adventurer is to pick Monk as your starting job. Monk is the easiest job to level up by yourself at first. You won't get a weapon when you start, but you will receive a level 1 Monk exclusive Waist Equipment White Belt which adds 1 Strength to your stats. This and your bare hands should be good enough to get you started fighting the low level animals just outside of town. Remember to talk to the guards with initials next to their names and choose the first option to receive the Signet. This allows you to obtain crystals when you defeat your enemies and can be sold in stacks to the Auction House for a good amount of money. Once you earn enough money (gil) start buying better equipment for yourself, fortunately low level Monk weapons are generally cheaper than most others.

Continue to level Monk to level 18 and perform the subjob quest. Now chainge your Main job to Thief and your subjob to Monk. You should now be Lv 1 Thief/ Lv 1 Monk. Once you reach Lv 30 Thf/ Lv 15 Mnk, you can activate the quest to obtain the Ninja job. You cannot complete it by yourself so make sure you have much higher level help if you want to complete it. Once you have obtained Ninja, set your Main job to Warrior and keep your subjob as Monk. Now level Warrior to at least level 18 and learn as much as you can about tanking at the same time. Now change your Main job to Ninja and your subjob to Warrior and level Ninja to level 37. And finally, change Main job to Thief and subjob to Ninja and level it all the way to the end level of 75. Do not expect to finish this quickly, and expect to do lots of heavy research and spend lots of time learning. There's much to see and do in Vana'diel so just try to absorb it little by little and take your time to learn all different sorts of aspects of it to make yourself a better overall player. Your parties will be happy that you did.

[Ziero]

Re: Best sub?

The best subjobs for thf are as follows

From lvls 1-20: Mnk and War are the best hands down.

Mnk will give you the ability Boost, which will increase your att stat by a small amount for your next hit. Which for thfs is great because Thfs best ability is one strong hit used every minute. You will also get a Martial arts trait, which will increase the speed of H2H weapon types(knuckles, claws ect). At this lvl H2H is pretty strong on thf, and the WS will d large amounts of Dmg if equiped properly.

War is the basic melee sub. It gives you a small amount of str and such but pre 20 it's best ability is provoke(an ability which makes the monster attack you). At this lvl a smart thf can have just as much Def as any other job, so using provoke can save some of the weaker classes lives.

from 20-30: Mnk and War are still great at this lvl, but some people will use nin for dual wielding swords and Daggers. To me, dual wield isn't that great at this lvl, but it does look cool.

30-75: War and Nin are the only really useful exp subjobs. War at this lvl will give you the ability berserk, which will increase your Att by 25% for 3 out of 5 minutes. This is an AWESOME ability as every hit you do will be that much stronger. At 50 you will get double attack, which lets you swing twice with no delay and you also recieve an att up trait and the Warcry ability later in the game. With all these abilities, a War subjob will allow you to do the most dmg of all the subjobs.

With Nin you will have dual wield and Utsuemi, a ninja spell which uses consumable items that create 3 'shadows' that take dmg instead of you. This is great for soloing and bad pts where you end up having to hold hate for some reason. At 50 you get dual wield II, which will make you swing a little bit faster and at 74 you get a second Utsuami spell so you can have up to 6 shadows up at a time.

A good thf will have both jobs lvled and have proper gear for each job. But nin and war both have their place in a good thfs arsenal.

[kuu]

Re: Best sub?

Thf/mnk is good till 32 even but that requires sushi( you're not hitting much with h2h) and compatible PT(not having utsusemi is going to hurt you badly)... also have to be a decent puller.

The damage of a boost SA combo or even boost SATA combo is mightly fine, the real down side is without a TA until 30, you're going to get yourself killed with that kind of hate.

Most thfs will pick up nin as soon as they get utusemi...unless you're a first timer.

I wouldn't recomend /war for thfs as berserk isn't much considering you're using a dagger.. and forget about double attack.
Dual wield +triple attack all the way! Much better that way.

Edit: Also consider since daggers give the best bonuses(due to their lack of damage) having 2 of them is always nice.

[lionx]

Re: Best sub?

Doesnt like Triple Attack fire off so rarely that Double Attack actually is better..? O_o

[Muu Yi]

Re: Best sub?

Yes, Double Attack does activate more often than Triple Attack, but they both often seem to be completely random on activation. <.< If you manage to get Thief to 75 and do merits though, it's possible that you can merit Trick Attack to the point that it activates as often as Double Attack.

Really though, the major reason for me to use Ninja in most situations is for Utsusemi. You are much safer while pulling especially on mobs who run faster than you can flee and it allows you to blink-tank, which is very useful even if you are just soloing. Warrior on the defensive side only gives you Defender... more defense helps a little but in the long run Vitality becomes more important for taking less damage if you get hit. But as Thief Vitality is rather on the low side so taking advantage of our natural A rated abilities to evade and parry attacks and add on Utsusemi as a last line of defense works much better. Even Monk subjob adds useful bits of defense in the forms of Dodge, Counter, Chakra, and Max HP bonuses. The stat bonuses from off-hand weapons are pretty welcome additions as well when subbing Ninja.

[Ziero]

Re: Best sub?

Berserk and double attack are awesome with a dagger, and especially on SaTaWs. With a high Dmg knife a thf can put out some very decent DoT, as long as they have the +Att and +str to help. And Considering VB has a 2xatt Mod, the more att you have the more dmg you can do. And if you start to notice that your Dmg doesn't go higher with more att, it means you lack Str. A good thf knows how to balance Dex, Agi and Str. SaTa is only a once a minute hit, you have an entire 60 seconds of melee time to do melee dmg and Dex won't help that much.

A good thf will never get hit past 30 other then AoE or unless they pull Raptors or Couerls. A good puller will not take any dmg on the way back to camp making Utsu rather useless for much of the game. There have been plenty of times where I would cast Utsu at the start of a pt and it would eventually wear off with all three shadows in tact. And if you are requiered to blink tank a mob in a pt, that means something went horribly wrong if the only one who has hate is a Thf/Nin. Thf/Nin is horrible at holding hate, in fact many of their abilities ar designed to remove hate from themselves, especially after the last utsu 'nerf'. Nin is best used for pulling fast mobs, bad parties and soloing.

[Muu Yi]

Re: Best sub?

Berserk and double attack are awesome with a dagger, and especially on SaTaWs. With a high Dmg knife a thf can put out some very decent DoT, as long as they have the +Att and +str to help. And Considering VB has a 2xatt Mod, the more att you have the more dmg you can do. And if you start to notice that your Dmg doesn't go higher with more att, it means you lack Str. A good thf knows how to balance Dex, Agi and Str. SaTa is only a once a minute hit, you have an entire 60 seconds of melee time to do melee dmg and Dex won't help that much.

A good thf will never get hit past 30 other then AoE or unless they pull Raptors or Couerls. A good puller will not take any dmg on the way back to camp making Utsu rather useless for much of the game. There have been plenty of times where I would cast Utsu at the start of a pt and it would eventually wear off with all three shadows in tact. And if you are requiered to blink tank a mob in a pt, that means something went horribly wrong if the only one who has hate is a Thf/Nin. Thf/Nin is horrible at holding hate, in fact many of their abilities ar designed to remove hate from themselves, especially after the last utsu 'nerf'. Nin is best used for pulling fast mobs, bad parties and soloing.

Granted that Double Attack is a very useful job trait for any melee job. Berserk I don't get much use out of due to Mithra Strength being on the low end even with Savage Gaiters, Giant bracelets, 2 +Str rings, and eating meat.... I can just barely get it to 60 at the sacrifice of a bunch of Dexterity and Agility. But I don't really believe that the Viper Bite Secondary Attribute is actually based on your Attack score, otherwise why does Viper Bite only do 50-60 damage without Sneak Attack or Trick Attack? It seems more likely that Viper Bite is 2x of your dagger's regular melee damage, and that SATA Viper Bite is 2x of your regular SATA.

I also have had it happen to me many times that Utsusemi will wear off prematurely since I rarely take hits while pulling. However, I've found it is better to keep Utsusemi up at all times and be safe than sorry. One time I've had to blink-tank a Crawler by myself in Crawler's Nest when another one moved to block my path back to camp. I stood outside of the new crawler's link aggro range and blink-tanked my original pull for almost a minute waiting for the new crawler to move so I could continue with my pull.

Holding hate as Thief/Ninja over non-damage dealers is generally not a problem for me either. My favorite duoing partner is a Red Mage, I just let them enfeeble the stuffing out of the mob, they haste me, and I let loose a bunch of status bolts and I'm able to generate more hate than my partner. Occasionally sometimes the Red Mage gets hate if they try to do something like nuke the mob or Cure me after I take a particularly bad hit. But they keep Stoneskin and Phalanx up most of the time so they can take a few hits while I ready Sneak Attack so I can turn the mob back onto me.

In any case, I level a bunch of subjobs, including Mage jobs for various purposes. Others may find it a more efficient use of their time to just stick with the one that is useful in most situations (Ninja). But I like having variety, plus it teaches me about how to operate as and with other jobs. I'm working on Ranger subjob at the moment now for use in NM hunting.