Will the incoming thief job be a DPS or tank?

[Altijacek]

It makes sense as a DPS class more than anything and I honestly cannot see it being a tank...but due to the fact that there are not many tanks, and the fact that many will flock towards thief at release, means it might potentially be a tank. Give it a high party/evasion rate, steal HP abilities, and steal enemy strength etc, it can be a great tank.

Maybe it'll be rogue class and thief DPS job and ninja tank job or vice versa. Any thoughts?

[ispano]

It makes sense as a DPS class more than anything and I honestly cannot see it being a tank...but due to the fact that there are not many tanks, and the fact that many will flock towards thief at release, means it might potentially be a tank. Give it a high party/evasion rate, steal HP abilities, and steal enemy strength etc, it can be a great tank.

Maybe it'll be rogue class and thief DPS job and ninja tank job or vice versa. Any thoughts?

Not likely. Evasion tanks don't fit well with a balanced game.

[CYoung187]

THF makes no sense as a tank. Heck, they didn't expect ninja to be a tank. It worked in FFXI mostly because it was single-target tanking.

[Altijacek]

I thought so, but maybe perfect dodge or artful dodger an be the level fifty move, and the evasion rate is good but not that great, and instead they will have great parries, plus they can steal stats from enemies temporarily or something. I'm sure it's possible to make it balanced. Artful dodge will be like hallowed ground or holm gang, not that Op really

[Gilraen]

No, with how they were portrayed by their particular NPC specialists it's clearly a DD class/Job not unlike lancer/Dragoon or pugilist/Monk with thief being straight melee and Ninja being a hybrid caster melee.

[Aegis]

Thief class to Ninja job would make sense mechanically: Both are suited to dual wielding short blades. The thief class could have Evasion enhancing skills while the ninja job could add enmity generating skills to that.

As for a DD class becoming a tank job; well, we already have similar with a DD class (ACN) becoming a Healer job (SCH). Ideally, though, THF would have a second, DD, job also (assassin?)

Lore-wise, it's still up in the air.

FF purists would probably balk at Ninja being a tank again, though. But it's no more sacrilege than the almighty SMN becoming a DOT job.

[Radacci]

Uhm, how much sense does it make for a thief to tank? a thief isn't supposed to get *caught*
a thief wont use heavy armor, or def skills, so they will get 1-shot=bad tank, unless they get 100% dodge chance, which wont happen (maybe 1-3 hits, like mana wall, or such, but that wouldn't be enough, for same reason BLM don't make good tanks)
and how much sense does it make for THF, to aggro? more likely they would get aggro-reduction skills.

[Aegis]

Uhm, how much sense does it make for a thief to tank? a thief isn't supposed to get *caught*
a thief wont use heavy armor, or def skills, so they will get 1-shot=bad tank, unless they get 100% dodge chance, which wont happen (maybe 1-3 hits, like mana wall, or such, but that wouldn't be enough, for same reason BLM don't make good tanks)
and how much sense does it make for THF, to aggro? more likely they would get aggro-reduction skills.

I don't know if you ever played XI, but the Ninja job there was a highly evasive DD that became a tank through popular usage. It managed this by use of two spells: Utsusemi: Ichi and Ni that created 'shadows'. Each shadow took a hit that would have hit the Ninja and disappeared. Ichi created 2 shadows and ni created 3. Ni shadows could overwrite Ichi, but not visa versa. The trick to tanking as Ninja was managing your shadows so you rarely got hit (especially because getting hit with your shadows down could interrupt your casting of the next set, while maintaining enmity abilities.

Eventually, SE gave in and gave Nin some enmity+ gear, but it was an effective tank anyway for single mobs that hit slowly, but hard.

As for the Thief class itself, it's role in XI was enmity-management. It could take hate from other party members (with merits). Also, it could plant hate on others (and doing so increased the Thief's damage)

[Saziel]

Thief won't be a tank. Even if they had high evasion, it wouldn't work. They'd also need high armor and high HP, and that would pretty much just make them better than Paladins and Warriors, rather than equal. So for balance reasons, they wouldn't have high armor and HP, and even if their evasion is high, all it would take is getting hit once and they'd be dead.

[Rissy]

Ninja tank didn't make sense in FFXI either, it just existed because of terrible balance and class design. Samurai honestly makes more sense as a evasive, but heavy armored tank. Thief/Ninja are going to be DD no matter what, but perhaps some amount of support like bards.