The thief is a waste of space

In FF1 NES, the thief was a justifiable addition to a party. He was the best to run away with, he was a passable attacker, and he dodged alot of attacks. While he was still more of an investment plan towards a ninja, he didn't hold a party back.

In FF1 PSX, this is all changed. What IS the thief good for now? His running ability is all but gone - it seems even among all the classes. His attack power seems to be even worse than the NES version. He doesn't even dodge all that often.

My point isn't to bash the thief as to wonder why they destroyed only this character. Has anyone else noticed this? No other class was neutered to this degree. My standard team of Fighter, Thief, Black Belt, and Red Mage really puts the weakness of the thief to light. He can't hold his own. Well, at least his outfit is improved...

To people that use thieves in Origins, do you do it for any other reason than getting a ninja at class change? Please, enlighten me.

I *used* a thief on my run through, and noticed this too. He's now getting the boot for a Red Mage. Even though he'll probably still suck towards the end of the game, like I hear he did in the NES version.

>>> Yes, in Origins they destroyed him .. :mad: stupid square..

*Never used thieves anyway*

Ah well. I guess thief had no choice but nuetralization, considering the changes to running/evasion rate/crumminess of daggers.

I always said they sucked compared to Monks, Now they just suck period. (I'm using the Origins translation when talking about FF1 from here on in....)

I always thought that the theif wasn't that great. The purpose of the thief seemed to be to have an agile fighter on the team, as opposed to a strong, endurance fighter. If he stole from enemies as theifs do in later games it would be worth while, but now I'd rather have the hit points and attack power of a figher or the magic of a red mage. The theif is a redundant character that is even more obvious now that they cleaned up the game for it's re-release.

I certainly noticed that fact. My Warrior, BMage, WMage, Thief combination no longer works. I think I'm gonna switch him out for a redmage. The thief in origins is COMPLETELY pointless.

He's not completely pointless, you just have to level him up. I think it's horrible though that your "swift agile fighter" has lower accuracy than the f..... I mean warrior who should just be bogged down by all the armor. I never noticed a huge difference between the NES and PSX, but maybe I'm just bad at these games, wouldn't suprise me much.

Yea, the thief did suck, but ninja seems to be upgraded... I'm using Kn/Ni/Bw/Ww party and they are awesome. I'm at level 29 and at the Temple of Fiends Chaos

OOC:	What is the code for the line through a word!?

Thanks Indel - that's what I was hoping for, a reason to keep this green waste of space on my team.

OOC:	< strike > < /strike > (without the spaces, of course.)

Even if the Ninja still rocks somewhat, I don't think it's worth having the Thief drag you down for the first half of the game. I'll just have to compare when I've finished it with a Red Mage instead.

In the WSC, the thief/ninja is totally worthless.

I played a party with a fighter, theif, BB, and RM in order to compare them.

Fighter: best all around before and after class change. Always does great damage, always has best armor, has highest hps until rather high levels (30+).

Thief: worthless. Can't run better than anyone else (unlike in the NES version). Attack damage far worse than the RM, worse armor until you get bracelets, and no magic. When he becomes a ninja, he gets slightly better armor than a RW, but his hps are about the same as RW, and he does about the same damage. Only the RW has more spells, more useful spells, and wasn't absolutely worthless for 15 levels or so. There is no reason to take a thief over a RM.

Blackbelt: worthless before level 10. RM has better damage and better armor. After level 10 he finally starts doing decent damage. However, he never really surpasses the fighter at anything until level 30+. His average damage is no better than a fighter, his high hps are worthless as he takes gobs of damage from every hit and drinks oceans of tonics, and he looks silly. There is no real reason to take a BB over a fighter. Note I say average damage...he is capable of occasionally getting a lot of damage in one attack because he attacks a lot, but he rarely gets all his hits in. So while he can do more damage than the fighter, he also often does less, and it's more or less even on average until you get to really high levels...far more than needed to beat the game.

Red Wizard: nice class. In early levels (up to about level 15), has as many spells as WM and BM (fewer higher level spells, but you rarely use level 4 spells at that point anyways), and has better hps, armor, and attack damage. Fights better than the theif, as good as the ninja, and about 1/2 as good as a fighter or BB. And early on he has pretty good armor, making him tougher in those tedious early levels when the BB and theif are totally worthless and getting mauled.

So that's it really. Figher > BB, and RM > thief. No doubt about it.

I think I'm gonna use thief in PSX anyway. Why? Because of nostalgica i guess...

the Ninja is good and really what does it matter if you have a crappy party member? If you have a fighter or two then the game is not that difficult regardless of your remaining party members.

My white wizard runs better than thief. My thief is decent now though. When you get later in the games he can equip better weapons. And as a ninja he does decent damage. He's a level behind my knight and does little less than the knight. I think the knight does around 300 and the ninja anywhere from 250-270. So I think he's decent, and his magic is usefull when you're up against monsters with high defense.

Eh, I don't know. He seems pretty much the same other than the part with the running. I noticed that sometimes he did some really crappy damage, but the other times he deals the damage that I expect out of him. When I played on NES, I used White Mage; for PSX, I ditched her and used Red Mage. I could have used the White Mage and Red Mage along with Fighter and Black Mage, but then Theif can take more hits and he does better damage, even if it is crappy at times.

If you have many fighters the you need thief so you can use katana because you wont have enough good weapons.

Well, if you have two fighters there's the Masamune and Excalibur, and if you are playing with three or four(?!?), then I guess there is the Sun Sword or Defense - all quite good weapons.

Using 3 or 4 fighters is ridiculous. What makes FF1 so fun is the challenge. At least for me. 1 fighter is more than enough.

I always take a Thief, guess I'm just big on the underdogs (I'm a Garfunkel fan myself :p ).

What bothers me is that the PS version takes away his livelihood. In the NES days of yore my Thief would NEVER fail to run, he was perfect. He was already the worst class why oh why was he the one who was downgraded??

I'd just like someone to answer that. The instruction manual insultingly refers to him as a nimble rogue with percise attacks. WHich is a lie seeing as accuracy is based on strength.

He just doesn't have anything to set him apart from the others, as is he is just worse at doing everything than everyone else. What a shame. Give him the ability to use either one sword or 2 daggers or something. It's just stupid the way it is now.

BUt of course I have a Thief now. He just looks so damn cool.

I disagree. In the NES version, Try to run when you are at LV. 6, and try to fight the Power Peninsula monsters with a theif on hand. You'll find the oh so lovely theif to fail at running. Yes, fail. Every time. Download the ROM and try it if you don't believe me.

And with running, you don't need a theif no matter what version of FF1 you play. Leveling up also increases your chances of running. I never take a theif because I never need one, personally. The Ninja isn't that great, either. That's just my style of play, though.

mr. graves is right, even though the theif is my favorite class, my red mage has nearly a good of chance as getting away. so he is pretty much useless

My Thief in the #2 spot RARELY ever failed to run. I'm basing this on years of playing and replaying that game and always taking a Thief.

Perhaps I just had some bugged out copy of the game but taht's how it went.

The PS Thief is a mere shadow of his former crap self. What a shame.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Dunbar
So that's it really. Figher > BB, and RM > thief. No
doubt about it.

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*Nods*

Thief is ok if you want a challenge but the best class in FF1 in undisputedly Fighter:)

Quote:

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Originally posted by Hatu
If you have many fighters the you need thief so you can use katana because you wont have enough good weapons.

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If you have many Fighters (let's say 2 or 3) then you won't need any more attack power. People usually take two mages when they take 2 Fighters since no more physical support is required.

Quote:

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Originally posted by StormyV
My Thief in the #2 spot RARELY ever failed to run. I'm basing this on years of playing and replaying that game and always taking a Thief.

Perhaps I just had some bugged out copy of the game but taht's how it went.

The PS Thief is a mere shadow of his former crap self. What a shame.

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Agreed. That's what this thread is all about, the fact that the theif used to be good for running and he's not even good for that anymore.

Seriously... Am I just incorrectly remembering Wm being good at running in FF1 NES?

WM was better than everyone but the Theif at running... or so I recall.

From my experience I remember that the Thief was tops followed by the Black Mage, then the Fighter.

I do recall the Black Belt being the most horrendous runner of all.

my black mage NEVER gets away. well he has i reckon but he's horrible at it. yup. my white mage does a little better than him but not much. and lastly: my black belt gets away about half the time

I can't say much about the Thief, first time I completed the game I used White mage, Red mage, Warrior and Monk. Now I'm playing it over again with a White mage, Black mage, Warrior... and yes a Thief... I'm at the earth Cave and I haven't found anything good with him yet so I take that what everyone had said about this class is correct, will see if he gets any better as a Ninja with some black magics.

Edit: Thief sucks but Ninja owns :)

In Origins, I got to the Marsh Cave with my F/T/WM/BM party, before the Thief's castration became too painful for me to continue.

Now I use F/RM/WM/BM with much success, right now I'm at the Earth Cave.

BB's still suck, btw.

I made a thief just so I can kill it and let it knows its worthlessness in life. :bigsmile:

At least the Ninja upgrade gets a full set of LV1-LV4 magic spells.

I always disliked the arbitrary spell list of the Knight;
like, seriously, he can learn ALIT and AFIR, but not AICE or AMUT?
And he also cannot learn the very basic spell PURE for some reason.