First, a little background.

My group consists of:
21WHM/10BLM
21RDM/10WHM
20MNK/10WAR
15WAR (currently playing catchup)
And me, with the job levels 21 thief, 16 warrior, and 10 monk.

I know I'm going to be a thief as primary job... but a few questions.

In your opinion, which would be the better subjob for me? The monk is currently working towards taking damage well, if I sub in warrior I can always provoke it off him in case there's a problem. If I sub in monk, I'm not entirely sure what I can do. (I can always level up the subclass... that's not a problem.)

What's a better weapon for a thief? A dagger? Or a sword?

Should I use a bow? Or should I not waste my time on it?

I like opinions on how to improve myself...

Purely my opinions:
Warrior is a more useful sub if only for the abilities it offers. Even as a thief, we take hits better than a black mage and better than the white mage that heals us. So Provoke is an extremely useful skill. For any meleer.

On the other hand, boost comes earlier than beserk and I believe it stacks with sneak attack (and it can up to double your damage). Truthfully though I don't think this is that useful. If you really want to double your attack I'd just use fast blade. Stacking boost, sneak AND fast blade seems needlessly complicated and time-consuming for the reward. It's easier with beserk because it lasts longer. Monk bonuses to HP and defense aren't as useful as they seem. If you're taking enough hits for them to matter, something is wrong...especially without provoke.

If you use hand-to-hand, monk may be helpful, but it doesn't sound like you use hand-to-hand. I'm not sure if monk has double attack or not and if that carries over as a sub-job, but they may.

Swords to 30 (well, 33), then daggers. Don't forget to work dagger up, but until 30 swords will generally be superior.

I don't bother with ranged attacks. I bought a boomerang (the level 14 one is very cheap) only for pulling (though I don't really do that anymore). I don't know if bows are all that worthwhile for thieves. Really.

[ 12-01-2003: Message edited by: Suddar ]

Personally, I use a dagger, simply because I just feel dirty when I'm a thief using a sword. The sword is probably actually better though. As for sub, I don't know since I'm going main ninja sub thief. Warrior might be good since you can Provoke, flee, and perfect dodge so you can escape to the zone with things and have a little extra tanking power.

For ranged, probably throwing. Unless you want long range, then you can go bow. Personally, I want to get a pistol at some point, just for the sweetness of being able to whip out a flintlock at random and blasting something. I can't get the only one I've seen for thief until lvl 15 though /=. For now, to raise ranged, I'm using a boomarang with a lvl 14 cap on it. It's cheaper than having to buy throwing ammo all the time.

First, on to what Suddar said about Boost, don't be fooled into thinking boost being an allmighty, magical, damage doubler. It takes several uses of it in a row(7 times[Which is atleast 1 minute and 45 seconds of using the skill] as monk main, and I believe how much it ups Attack by is based off monk level,) without being in combat, for it to pump your Attack up high enough to do double damage, so you'll only see it on the first hit(First 2 if you're a Ninja or mainjobbing Monk). However, you can time it well with sneak and trick. But after the fight has begun, boost is absolutely useless.

And never, ever, use any weapon type your job sucks at. Stay clear of Hand to Hand. Thieves and Ninjas get the worse possible skill in it, while Warriors get slightly better. Leave it to the Monks. Attack is base off your skill in the weapon, your Strength, and any Attack modifiers you have in there. Attack is one of 2 things. Damage, and chance to hit. The worse the skill, the less you contribute to a group as a melee

So aside from the activateable abilities the job offers, it boils down to "Do I want more HP?"(Monk) or "Do I want more Defense?"(Warrior)

Otherwise, compare and contrast. Monk abilities are usually defensive(Counter, Dodge, Chakra), and few offensive(Focus). Not to mention Martial Arts passive ability is only useful when using hand to hand, and that makes up alot of the ability rewards we get from leveling. Where as Warrior abilities are a pretty balanced mix of both. And as a thief, getting hit should be the last thing on your agenda, unless its to shield the casters.

I'm not going to tell you to not sub monk, just advising you that Warrior is probably going to end up being a better choice.

If you're in it for damage though, Subbing monk will increase dexterity, which is your chance to critical, and avoiding critical hits. But Warrior will increase your strength alot more, so your individual attacks will see more damage, which in turn, will increase the amount of damage your critical hits can do. So, like I suggested, since Thieves get very little strength, and more than enough dexterity, Warrior would be your best bet.

[ 12-02-2003: Message edited by: Skaw ]

After experimenting quite a bit... I think I'm going to sub warrior.

As Suddar said... it is too complicated to use boost, sneak attack, and fast blade... and not really worth it.

Swords seem to be doing it right now... but I still use my dagger.

Thanks for the advice.