Final Fantasy Hacktics

Well, since Archer has its own thread, I decided it was time Thief got one as well. This question has been bugging us (me, PX and Aero) for quite some time now. Thief's skillset is at this point completely outclassed by Knight, meaning the only ability it has is Steal Heart =/ We really need new abilities for Thief, or maybe even throw out Thief completely (I would rather not have to do that).

Got any ideas guys?

Thieves also get Steal Accessory while Knights can't affect accessories at all. That said, yeah, they need more useful abilities simply because Maintenance Support still owns them, especially with the current lack of movement and the fact that their Reaction and Supports have always sucked on top of not being compatible with an AI tournament.

Unfortunately, as I know first-hand, it's rather difficult to think up new (useful) abilities for Thieves, especially given our limitation--how I would love if we make Gil Toss and other money-based moves. I know philsov gave them Muddle, which is basically a gender-less Steal Heart that inflicts Confusion. Personally, I just borrowed a lot from FFX-2 Thieves since most of the other Thief classes in FF history have at most Steal and Mug and nothing else, which is hardly helpful (especially since we can't even replicate Mug). (http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/jobs/thief.shtml) (I've yet to test these new abilities and I recall being unable to decide whether they should use MP and go on MA and PA considering I remember going overboard in On the Skulls of Dragons.)

That said, there are ways to make them decent that don't involve giving them Concentrate back innately. I think a few of these would make them decent:

• Give them innate access to Crossbows ala 1.3.
• Give them one of the more useful Reactions or Supports like HP Restore or Attack Up since Catch sucks and Caution is...sketchy at best, especially for a class that doesn't get to use Shields innately.
• Give them a greatly boosted chance to Steal. Currently their success rates are all below the respective Break skill (when you factor in WP and then the lowered SP). Either make Steal physically unavoidable or give it a higher variable across the board.
• Give them more MA. Their most useful ability is MA-based and yet they have less MA than Knights and Archers who couldn't care less about that stat. Um...what? Not saying that's something you did that, much less did intentionally, but it's just odd, really. I think 5 MA would be fine.
• Give them more class evasion. As I see it, they could stand to have more evasion since they're hardly as "smash your face in" as Ninja are.
• Give them less vulnerability to Reactions. Basically make it so that Steal attempts don't set off Counter Flood or Dragon Spirit or maybe even Counter (Tackle).

I don't think they need all of these to be competitive.

That said, you do bring up a good point that Steal is almost completely useless and redundant. Even with Concentrate, Steal would be redundant. In an (AI) tournament, it literally has no difference from Break skills outside of being in the only human generic that can cause Charm and "destroy" Accessories. Steal similarly has useless Reactions and Supports, especially for an AI tournament--who would have thought that Gilgame Heart would have become even more worthless.

I'd be interested and supportive of replacing it wholesale now that you mention it (especially since I don't have the luxury in my patch since Steal is a very necessary part of FF). That of course raises the new question of what exactly to replace it with and that...is a difficult thing to stay, especially if you still stay on the physical side of things. I'm just going to link to FFCompendium again and end this post here since it's getting long enough as it is. (http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/jobs.shtml)

Out of the link, the only thing that seemed usable was copycat, since it seems like the AI keeps the last action stored for mimes (I guess?). But I'm not even sure it can be copied.

The concept of a thief in my head:

 Thieves don't fight. They run. But there will come the situation when a thief does have to fight, and, when doing so, he is gonna take advantage of anything and everything. That means he will fight as dirty as possible just to get an edge. He'll kick you in the balls, throw sand at your eyes, stab you in the back, and constantly use poison to make his fight easier. With such in mind:

Poisoned Stab(or attack, dunno a good word since we'd allow it with ranged weapons too): Normal attack that deals poison status at 100% (maybe lower if it sounds op, around 70+MA~). Costs 6 MP.

Throw Sand:Melee range, makes the target blind at 100% and has a high chance to reset his CT (thinking something like 60+MA). Costs 4 mp.

Pot Shot: Leaves unit at critical status (is dealing 75% of a unit's current hp viable?). Chance should be X+MA, but I'm not sure how much, factoring in evasion...

just buff steal as above -- make it unevadeable, up its success rate, and/or make it not trigger counter.  Also 20 C.Ev is a good idea.

Knights at least have their damage and health and evasion to see use, and the ruins have 3 range, plus the breaks have synergy with ranged weaponry.  I don't mind Steal being better than Battle Skill for equipment breakage since knights > theives, as a class.

And in addition to a Muddle effect (gender-neutral Steal Heart, adds confusion, same success rate), the theives in ASM'd also gain an ability called "Last Laugh", that inflicts poison, don't move, and something else at a decent success rate, but its only useable while the theif is critical.  Just throwing that out there.  <3 ARH.

Guys, these discussions should all go in the Stats/Abilities Discussion Thread; otherwise theres no reason to have it and it should just be consolidated with the other discussion threads into a master guide if people are just going to start new threads for these subjects anyways.

I like Zidane's abilities, I'm sure we can use some of them in a thief.

〇Soul Blade - Inflict the status attributed to sword on enemy

Many ways to go here, random status effect, ARH with multiple skills of the same name using different weapons

〇Sacrifice - Remove self from battle to restore HP and MP to allies

Super giant wish

〇What's That?! - Turn enemies around to create Back Attack scenario

Knockback skill?

....

But looking at the X-2 girls' Thief skills, those are just awesome.

contray to archer, I completely agree that thief is pretty much completely useless in these tourneys.

I agree with pretty much everything The Damned listed for ways to perk up their class, ESPECIALLY EVASION!  The values for thief should be much more generous considering their low pa and crappy innate weapons.

as for abilities, it would be nice to get a few usefuls in there besides steal heart, but im assuming that's quite a bit of work so... im not going to suggest anything since I cant help do it