The future of Thief and Ninja (minor 2.2 spoilers)

[Ranek]

Given what we saw with Thancred and our veiled assasin we can make the safely say Thief and Ninja will be along soon, the question becomes what will be the starting class?
We know Squeenix isn't stupid enough to piss off players by making Thief a class given its history in the series, and we know that the thieves guild was introduced in the final story cut-scenes.

I'm predicting Brigand as the base class, with Thief being a damage dealers and Ninja......well I'll be honest even in 11 they were never meant to be a tank so I have no clue what they will be here.

Thoughts anyone?

[blackjackets]

TBH, I think thief is going to be the class? I'm not sure, but that's what it feels like to me. Thief the class and Ninja the job, with Thief DPSing and Ninja Tanking. I don't think they'll introduce another class with two job tiers.... Mostly because there'll be too many DPS classes if they do that, and that might unbalance the game, especially since they're also introducing the Musketeer class or job?

[Lusavari]

It's been loosely hinted that the base class would be Scout.

Ninja will probably be more magic melee while Thief will be a speedy melee DPS. I'm figuring Steal won't be a waste of an action slot that simply takes an item though. It will probably function like Aura Steal in XI and also take a buff as well as a chance at an item.

14 is much more thought out than 11 ever was, so balance will prevent Ninja from becoming the odd tank it was before. Scout may have natural evasion bonuses, but it won't be able to hold enmity easily. Here's the thing though. A lot of actions Thief will have have been in the game forever. Steal was a PUG action in 1.0 Alpha. Warriors had Collusion in 1.0 which took 50% of a party member's enmity, though Thieves may do something more with it.

[Lusavari]

I'm also predicting that just like SCH has exclusive books, Ninja will have more exclusive weapons, while THF and SCT will share weapons.

I'm also predicting that Thief will have Buff abilities that give it enhanced damage based on positioning. Not like MNK where the positioning is built into the attack, but buffs or stances that you need to swap between based on there you stand.

Ninja will probably have a warp or movement ability that douses enmity, like Elusive Jump.

[Endemerrin]

Time to put on the ol' speculation hat.

Purely from a mechanics standpoint, I'm honestly imagining Ninja to be a tank. SE is already desperately trying to push people into playing tanks by offering mounts and bonus gil, and there's still somewhat of a lack. If they were playing their cards right, they'd make Ninja a tank as a means to coerce more people into playing the role.

That being said, I could see them playing it off by giving them a sort of passive HP buff they can flip on, like Warrior. Maybe call it Shadow Clone, and have it increase their HP and evasion by a certain percentage, as well as enmity generation. Various "ninjitsu" abilities to increase defense and evasion, etc. Ultimately, it would give FFXIV the three staple tank archetypes. Sword and board, two-hander, and evasion. I feel like them adding two more DPS classes into an already DPS heavy game would be a mistake they're smart enough not to make. But, who knows? Only SE at this point~

I could imagine Ninjas as having been sort of the "protectors" of the Domans, which Yugiri is a shining example of. Using their superior agility and ninjitsu to distract and disable enemies and the like. In line with that, thief would be much more of your stereotypical damage-dealing dagger wielder. Sneak attacks, backstabs, dirty fighting, all that good stuff that you might imagine a shadowy Lominsan organization might employ.

[Nifixe]

Uetsumi power, a tank with a lot of evade but who are a lack of defense can be fun to play. I think the ninja must be a tank to save the game (the lack of tank) and maybe the thief will be a job too, in ff14 the classical classes of FF are jobs and the thief is the most classical job of all (with warrior, monk, blm and whm) so it will be very strange to see thief as a beginning class.

[Vladislav]

i pretty much sure that there will be class like "Rogue" and 2 jobs from it THF and NIN (like SCH and SMN)
THF may be will have "Treasure Hunter" trait like in FFXI and few party enchance something like BRD support , when NIN will be more like MNK .

[Nahara]

I don't think they'll introduce another class with two job tiers.... Mostly because there'll be too many DPS classes if they do that, and that might unbalance the game, especially since they're also introducing the Musketeer class or job?

I disagree, because adding classes that can branch off into two different roles is something that SE wants to do (and may potentially do with the current classes at some later point, such as DRK coming out of GLD). To me, it seems stranger that SE would forego introducing more classes like this (which adds more possible variety).

As for what to name the base class, Yoshi-P mentioned "Scout" a long time ago in an interview when talking about new classes, but I think "Rogue" may be a better pick. We'll just have to wait and see.

Time to put on the ol' speculation hat.

Purely from a mechanics standpoint, I'm honestly imagining Ninja to be a tank. SE is already desperately trying to push people into playing tanks by offering mounts and bonus gil, and there's still somewhat of a lack. If they were playing their cards right, they'd make Ninja a tank as a means to coerce more people into playing the role.

That being said, I could see them playing it off by giving them a sort of passive HP buff they can flip on, like Warrior. Maybe call it Shadow Clone, and have it increase their HP and evasion by a certain percentage, as well as enmity generation. Various "ninjitsu" abilities to increase defense and evasion, etc. Ultimately, it would give FFXIV the three staple tank archetypes. Sword and board, two-hander, and evasion. I feel like them adding two more DPS classes into an already DPS heavy game would be a mistake they're smart enough not to make. But, who knows? Only SE at this point~

While I think it would be cool to add more tanks, evasion tanking is (for lack of a better phrase, please don't hit me) hit-or-miss. You don't control when you dodge and attack, and the RNG could make you miss attacks that would hardly scratch you, but make you suffer attacks that would be very deadly. SE would need to balance dodging very carefully so that it wouldn't be useless, but also wouldn't be more powerful than the current tanks.

I could imagine Ninjas as having been sort of the "protectors" of the Domans, which Yugiri is a shining example of. Using their superior agility and ninjitsu to distract and disable enemies and the like. In line with that, thief would be much more of your stereotypical damage-dealing dagger wielder. Sneak attacks, backstabs, dirty fighting, all that good stuff that you might imagine a shadowy Lominsan organization might employ.

I think it should be mentioned that Thancred and Yugiri may have similar fighting styles, but they can tell the distinctions between them (Thancred being taught by unsavory folk and Yugiri no-doubt having some more formal training). I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this was fairly accurate to what may come.

[TinyRedLeaf]

...evasion tanking is (for lack of a better phrase, please don't hit me) hit-or-miss. You don't control when you dodge and attack.

Well, in FFXI, it'll be more accurate to describe the ninja as a "blink tank", rather than an evasion tank. In case you've not played the game, FFXI's ninja is capable of casting "shadows" of himself, each of it would disappear after absorbing a "hit". So, in that sense, the ninja can control when to dodge an attack. Of course, a ninja that's excellent at evading attacks would be able to keep up his shadows for a longer time, so evasion remains a very vital stat for the job/class.

[Pots_Talos]

If Ninja did end up being tank, would they have all new armor sets? I mean I can't imagine them wearing current tanking gear.