NINJA and ROGUE confirmed

[Exstal]

Knight and Paladin are the exact same thing... In Japanese Paladin is called Knight, Paladin just came about on western shores with FFIVs localization for some reason, and it just stuck ever since. So... The "logical" counter, is exactly what I said? Thanks for backing me up there.

Exactly. You're fighting for a name.

However, this whole argument is foolish.

There isn't a single good reason from a *developmental* standpoint for THF to be its own class if NIN is also implemented.

The reverse is also true if Naoki decided to go ahead with Thief instead of Ninja. Think about it logically. You'll need a LOT of different skill to differentiate Thief from Ninja. 5 isn't enough. If they continue the current trend of 1 job skill every 5 levels, it'll be L80~L100 before Thief could be sufficiently different from Ninja to justify its existence.

I also notice that Kitru posted a challenge for Thief advocates to make a Thief job that isn't overpowered or worthless and there was only one challenger. Why is this?

[Alkar]

Exactly. You're fighting for a name.

However, this whole argument is foolish.



The reverse is also true if Naoki decided to go ahead with Thief instead of Ninja. Think about it logically. You'll need a LOT of different skill to differentiate Thief from Ninja. 5 isn't enough. If they continue the current trend of 1 job skill every 5 levels, it'll be L80~L100 before Thief could be sufficiently different from Ninja to justify its existence.

I also notice that Kitru posted a challenge for Thief advocates to make a Thief job that isn't overpowered or worthless and there was only one challenger. Why is this?

SCH manages to be quite different from SMN with only 5 skills.

[Jandor]

I also notice that Kitru posted a challenge for Thief advocates to make a Thief job that isn't overpowered or worthless and there was only one challenger. Why is this?

Three Thief job ideas have been posted in this thread, that I've seen anyway.

Firstly, the Job gets access to a special inventory of reagents, which can be filled up with Steal and regular drops, each mob would have up to four possible reagents, ranging from common to very rare.
JA1: Use, uses a reagent.
JA2: Steal, steals a reagent from the target.
JA3: Treasure Hunt, Mercy Stroke, but increase drop rate if used as killing blow, rather than HP restore.
JA4: Mug, Steal with damage modifier, and lets you obtain reagents more often. Or Despoil, which inflicts damage/status effects based on a reagent while stealing another.
JA5: Mix, mixes two reagents for improved effects.3

That concept took me no time at all to come up with, and like that it certainly wouldn't work, but if someone puts some serious thought into it and balances it, it's certainly possible. It really wouldn't be much different to Bard in how useful the Job abilities are for the most part. You'd always be using three of them in order to keep your supply up though, and when you get to a boss you can use them fairly often and mix them for better effects, but for the most part you'd be relying on Rouge skills; just like Bard mostly relies on Archer skills.

1) Steal
Cast Instant, Recast 480, TP Cost 500
Can steal an Item, which would drop from the Treasure Chest, after defeating it. Chance of Success: 10%

2) Treasure Hunter
Cast Instant, Recast 720, TP Cost 250
Improves the successrate of Steal by 15%, lowers your defense by 15% in exchange.

3) Sneak Attack
Cast Instant, Recast 180, Duration 30 sec
Must be executed from behind, with PT member between you and the Target.
Increases your Atk by 15% if successfull, STR of the PT Member by 5%, lowers your defense by 15% if failed. Successrate: 70%

4) Trick Attack
Cast Instant, Recast 360, Duration 30 sec
Must be executed from flank, with PT member between you and the Target.
lowers your Atk by 15% if successfull, lowers Atk of the PT Member by 5%, increases Steal by 5% and next SA by 30%.

5) Gil Toss
Cast Instant, Recast 480, TP Cost 200
Does throw a random number of Gil out of the PT total pool ( max 50k ) at the Enemy and in exchange can incease the Droprate of rare Items. In example Mounts.

Lol.. i made those up in like what? 2 Minutes? The 5 Job Abilities can change the Class and its gameplayA LOT.

JA1: Steal. Steals a reagent from an enemy and a small amount of HP, MP & TP (can steal upto 10% of Thiefs maximum.)
JA2: Use. Uses a reagent to give any stolen HP, MP & TP beyond Thiefs maximum to an ally.
JA3: Trick Attack. Jumps behind target and does a high damage attack that stuns. Off GCD.
JA4: Mug. Steals a reagent from an enemy and does damage.
JA5: Mix. Uses 3 reagents and opens a bar similar to the pet hotbar with option to mix a MP restore potion, TP restore potion, Smoke Grenade (increases evasion of team mates in the AoE and gives sneak attack buff, damage on next 2 attacks increased.) or Invigorate potion (gives quick attack buff within AoE, improves spell and skill speed greatly for short duration.)

No exact numbers but the theory behind it is that Thief could use steal and mug to fuel various abilities to help the team out, however steal/mug are low damage abilities and working enough of them into play enough to be able to constantly mix potions would cause the Thiefs DPS to drop substantially.

[Duelle]

Three Thief job ideas have been posted in this thread, that I've seen anyway.

Add mine to that list:

Abilities
30 Steal: Steals a "dusty" item from the enemy. Is replaced by Use Spoils when successful. The stolen item is of poor quality and will break/vanish after 15 seconds. Success rate is determined by melee accuracy rating.
---Use Spoils: Use an item stolen from the enemy.

35 Accomplice: Increases target party member's attack power by 10% and transfers 50% of your total generated enmity to target party member for 10 seconds. 60-second cooldown.

40 Aura Steal: Steal a beneficial effect from target enemy. Success rate is determined by melee accuracy rating.

45 Viper Bite: Delivers an attack with a potency of 80 and poisons target for 15 seconds (poison potency: 10). Combo => Shiv: for every VB poison tick, you recover X TP.

50 Throat Stab: Delivers an attack with a potency of 120 (300 if behind the target). 3-minute cooldown

The basic idea would be the THF using Steal to take a dusty item from their foe and using it. Dusty items would always be beneficial on some level, but will vary between potions, grenades, and a special brew with a random positive effect. Accomplice would be a nod to how THF was originally designed in FFXI while giving it an ability more akin to the WoW Rogue's Tricks of the Trade (increases damage of target party member and transfer threat to that party member). Aura Steal would be very useful in a raid setting, provided THF is not the only job with the ability to effectively dispel enemy buffs (this would essentially be a melee version of WoW's Spellsteal ability).

Viper Bite and Throat Stab are mandatory to help THF in combat, because let's face the fact that the job's never had good melee options with the exception of Zidane in FFIX. Viper Bite is designed as an ability that increases TP regen (I originally conceived it as a combo ability for a Rogue ability called Shiv that also restored TP). Throat Stab could be a stand-alone attack like Dragonfire Dive, or an ability that teleports the THF behind the target before stabbing them in the throat.