thief merit points

[Rewdawg]

yes i am new to playing thief and i am wondering what i should use my merit points on . any suggestions?

[Alaik]

5/5 TA in group one, generally some combo of SA and/or TA for the other 5 points. 1/5 Aura Steal, 5/5 Feint, and 4/5 Assassin's Charge. Some people will tell you feint is pointless, they're retarded. For procing, some of the new zone NMs, etc feint is still amazingly useful and the alternative is what? Ambush? 5/5 absorb a buff every 5 minutes? 15 acc if you're behind a mob? I'll take a capped hit rate for my WAR trying to TP with a D ranked weapon on a mob where they're evasive. Also, some of the new NMs show a much higher evade rate, so it's safe to assume the new revamped content is going to need it also.

[Nebo]

Here's a pretty good recent discussion on this:

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?fjob=10&mid=1306740654228649128&page=1

Some good basic info/oppinions on THF merits in that thread.

Edit: My personal Merit Choices

Combat Skills
8/8 Dagger*
8/8 Marksmanship
4/4 Evasion
4/4 Parrying
8/8 Archery (for paralyze arrows, can leave free for some other job combat skills)

Atributes
8/8 DEX
12/12 HP

Other
5/5 Critical Hit Rate*
5/5 - Spell Interruption

Group 1
5/5 Triple Attack Rate*
3/5 Sneak Attack recast
2/5 Trick Attack recast

Group 2
For a long time I had:
5/5 Feint
5/5 Assassin's Charge

But switched for a while to
1/5 Feint (due to feint being less relevant inside abyysea)
5/5 Assassin's Charge
4/5 Aurasteal

I have a slight hate on for Aurasteal though. I think it is a really cool idea with failed implementation. Being bound to a five minute timer and tied to the success rate of (Item)Steal seems a bit absurd for this ability.

I'll be going back to 5/5 Feint and 5/5 Assassin's Charge when the character reactivation service comes back up. Feint is a very potent ability to have on a 2 minute timer. It is easily the most powerful ability we had before Abyssea and likely will be again once endgame moves out of Abyssea.

I've done mine in attempts to maximize DD potential and NM soloing capability. Merits are so easy to get, I'd suggest trying out which group 1 and 2 merits work best for you and switching them around as needed. The system is flexible that way. You aren't bound to them once you place them.

*I'd suggest starting with the bolded ones as a prerequisit, followed by your preferred combination of group 1 and 2.

[Arcon]

Mine are as follows (all fully merited, no compromises):

Group 1:
Triple Attack
Flee
- Makes running around on THF even more of a pleasure than it already is

Group 2:
Assassin's Charge
Aura Steal
- Not many better options, I never considered Feint massively useful

HP
- This really depends on if you play mages as well, generally though max HP matters more
STR
- From WAR mainly, but doesn't hurt much either
Critical Hit Rate
Enmity
- From PLD mainly, but doesn't hurt, and nothing else worthwhile meriting here
Dagger
- finally, this used to bug me because not many Combat Skills were available, so if THF wasn't your main you were screwed
- If you really have the points, could even consider Marksmanship as a secondary skill
Parrying
- skillup purposes mostly, also helps slightly on mobs against which you have capped evasion, which isn't uncommon these days

Some things are arguable. Most people consider SA/TA for the second group 1 merit (after Triple Attack), but I don't see much use for either, I rarely get to use them on timer anyway. It may not be optimal, but I'm willing to sacrifice the few amounts of extra damage for faster movement speed. And the recast reduction is quite noticeable too.

[thefinalrune]

I went with the STR merits myself for THF. Other than that my list doesn't vary much from Nebo's.

[Alaik]

STR vs DEX has been a very hot topic since merits came out. The general rule of thumb is if you will ONLY have THF as your melee, then DEX is (only slightly) better, if you plan on levelling any other, STR is the way to go. Outside of benefit we debatedly benefit more from fSTR then any other job since or dmg rating is so craptastic, but on the other hand, outside the DEX's crit rate and acc is needed. (Assuming we get outside abyssea/no atma content of higher levels), inside abyssea DEX is used for SA and WS mods and STR is +att, that's about it.

Group 1 SA and TA are.... marginal, so flee is an option IMO, even though I merited TA.

Aura Steal? You made me cry abit Arcon. It's a 5 minute timer. Of course you'll laugh all the way to the bank if SE makes Aura Steal a usable ability and it comes on a 30 second timer, steals no items and you're now ganking buffs while we feinters are just giving the WARs and WHMs a hand.

EDIT: My relevant THF merits.

HP 12/12
STR 8/8
Crit Rate 5/5
Spell Interrupt- 5/5
Dagger 8/8
Sword 8/8
Marksmanship 4/8
Parry 4/4
Evasion 4/4
Triple Attack 5/5
Trick Attack 5/5
Feint 5/5
Assassin's Charge 4/5
Aura Steal 1/5

[Arcon]

Outside of benefit we debatedly benefit more from fSTR then any other job since or dmg rating is so craptastic [..]

Actually, our craptastic damage makes fSTR not quite as important on many things (especially inside Abyssea), since low weapon rank makes it cap a lot lower than a two-handed weapon's fSTR.


Aura Steal?

As I said, no alternatives. I only merited Feint back in the day, when it was occasionally semi-useful for zerg tactics (to which I was mostly WAR anyway). Now I see no use in it anymore. Since merits are easy enough to get by these days, I might undo it again if the need arises.

[Karbuncle]

My Personal Merit choices are:

8/8 Dagger
8/8 STR

Triple attack 5/5 * This is a must of course
Flee 5/5 * I don't personally recommend it, but I did it because.. well... because.

Aura Steal 1/5 * Yes its Situational, But having just 1 merit in it is a good idea.
Feint 5/5 * Because We'll be outside Abyssea eventually
Ass.Charge 4/5 * Because yah.

[Nebo]

Actually, our craptastic damage makes fSTR not quite as important on many things (especially inside Abyssea), since low weapon rank makes it cap a lot lower than a two-handed weapon's fSTR.

Inside Abyssea its kind of moot (and why I switched to DEX for a while) . fSTR is going to be capped.

Outside, THF is going to have a harder time capping fSTR. The reason people say it's relatively more valuable to us (up to the cap) is because of the fact that our weapons have a lower base DMG rating, but swing faster. Which is just to say that improvements in fSTR are a larger percent increase for daggers than they are for 2 handed weapons with much higher base damage/delay values.

[Alaik]

Inside Abyssea its kind of moot (and why I switched to DEX for a while) . fSTR is going to be capped.

Outside, THF is going to have a harder time capping fSTR. The reason people say it's relatively more valuable to us (up to the cap) is because of the fact that our weapons have a lower base DMG rating, but swing faster. Which is just to say that improvements in fSTR are a larger percent increase for daggers than they are for 2 handed weapons with much higher base damage/delay values.

^

DEX is still better, even though we debatedly "get the most from fSTR", SA's mod being DEX and our WS being DEX mods make that important. But it's still true, we do get the most from fSTR, even if it's only because our base is so crappy to start with.

[Babekeke]

I actually still have 1 merit in Hide (Iwas going to 5/5 it before aby when Coli camp was the in thing. Meant I only had to shout at the PC because mob moved 3 out of 4 SAs, instead of 4 out of 5 lol. When I get around to it (I'm meriting a few other jobs simultaneously right now) it will go.

5/5 Triple Attack (some people wrote 'TA'. be aware they meant triple, not trick)
4/5 SA
1/5 Hide (as I said)

5/5 Aura steal
5/5 Feint

6/8 STR (so far)
10/12HP (started doing mp then changed my mind after 2. SMN then BLM were my first 2 to 75)
5/5 crit
5/5 spell interrupt
8/8 dagger
8/8 marksmanship (not capped yet though)
3/8 H2H (not sure if I'll go 8/8 or 4/8 leaving merits for parry. Bearing in mind that H2H merits get the largest benefit of all combat skills due to it also adding to base damage and all others just add acc/att, unless I missed something)
4/4 eva

[Eeek]

I'm really late to this party, but since the job forums don't move too quickly, I'll throw my hat into the ring.

I allocated Stat and HP/MP merits to my mages.

Combat Skills~

8/8 Dagger
8/8 Sword
8/8 Marksmanship
4/4 Evasion
4/4 Parrying

Other~
5/5 Crit Hit Rate
5/5 Spell Interruption Rate

THF Group1~
Triple Attack 5/5 (I believe this is the only THF Group1/2 merit that's 'mandatory')
Sneak Attack 5/5

THF Group2~
5/5 Feint
4/5 Aura Steal
1/5 Assassin's Charge

I actually do get a fair amount to use out of Feint these days. I use it mainly whenever someone, especially a mage, is building TP for a trigger WS when using a weapon with a low skill cap on their job. Feint is such a powerful debuff that I can't imagine taking out those merits despite how many people deem it 'useless' these days. I will always want it on a 2 minute timer.

I believe Aura Steal vs. Assassin's Charge comes down to preference. I personally love stealing crazy powerful mob buffs, so that's why I picked it over Assassin's Charge. To be perfectly honest, I don't use Assassin's Charge that often. I usually forget that it's there. xD

[noodles355]

I think I have 5/5 Feint, 1/5 Aura Steal, 1/5 Ass Charge, 3/5 Ambush.
But that was when acc was more important (And this gave you an acc boost when not tanking and also let you swap out acc gear for more damage gear on SA DE/Evis). It's not as relevant now.
I should probably change it to 4/5 Ass Charge 0/5 Ambush, but first I need to do all the merits after the cap increase, and finish up my war to 90 and fully merit that, so it's on hold.

tl;dr I have ambush merits, but I dont see that much worth in them. Tougher, outside abyssea content might make them worthwhile again, so they're still worth a quick mention.