I was reading Unne's thread and thinking, wow, how totally misguided some people are!
Anyway, thieves suck. As Unne would say, discuss.
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I was reading Unne's thread and thinking, wow, how totally misguided some people are!
Anyway, thieves suck. As Unne would say, discuss.
Thieves will save your life many times, yay for being a cowardy thief!
Thieves save my ass in the Earth Cave!
Thieves are vital to any party. They die all the time and never kill anything. They bring a welcome sense of realism into the game.
Ninja is a valuable member.
These threads are always amusing. Any party that isn't 2 Fighters, 2 Red/White Mages or 3 Fighters, Red/White Mage is just handicapping itself. Fighters are superior to every other fighting class in every way. They are the most broken class.
Yes, having a Thief to run away with is great and adds some flavor to the party, but again, Fighters rule the day when you get right down to it.
I used to love Black Belts, but the slight damage edge they have over the Fighter does not compensate for their horrendous defense and that whole "we're almost as bad as Thieves until we hit Level 10 and start getting 4 Hits" thing.
Putting Black Belts and Theives in the party is a great way to add flavor, but strictly speaking that spot would be more effectively filled by a Fighter instead.
The only things that Thieves contribute are the ability to run away (sort of nice for a Low Level game or those who can't handle the encounter-happy dungeons in FF1) and the ability to cast Black Magic that can BE DUPLICATED BY THE ITEMS YOU ALREADY HAVE IN YOUR INVENTORY. Be still my beating heart. Running away + Haste + Item-duplicatable spells doesn't stack up to Excalibur, more Healing, and a lot more HP.
Sure, you can make a party with three fighters and a white mage - but where's the fun in that? All you have to do is hold down the A button for random battles. And that's just plain boring. Besides, there's only one XCALBER, so even if you do have three fighters, only one could wield it - which is the same end result as if you had a Fi/Th/WM/BM party.
I like thieves, but only because they become Ninjas. Taking one turn instead of two to FAST your attacking party is a great benefit. The ability to run well and a fairly solid attack are a bonus.
Plus, as others have said, fighter-heavy parties are just boring.
Well yes, of course multi-fighter parties are dull - but they're still the most effective. And yes, you do only get one excalibur - but you still have the Defender and the Sun Sword for your other fighter(s), both of which are better than the pathetic Katana, plus the fighter always gets more hits than the Thief, due to his 10+3 Hit% vs. the Thief's 5+2 Hit%.
My parties aren't really geared towards effectiveness, since variety and strategy are what make the game fun, at least after your first completion.
[QUOTE=Marak]
Putting Black Belts and Theives in the party is a great way to add flavor, but strictly speaking that spot would be more effectively filled by a Fighter instead.
What in the... Who uses Black belts and a thief in the same party? That's just stupid. No one is capable of using both. You have to be biased against one. Besides, they are complete opposites. The thief runs like the wuss he is, and the black belt pounds the crap out of everything he meets. Can you imagine how bad that would be? Two enemies, BB kills one, the thief runs away, neither gets experience or gold! BBs can run almost as well as thieves can, when/if you need to run away. If they can't run, then they, I reiterate, pound the crap out of stuff.
As for sticking in the fighter, I agree it might be more logical, but it is also really expensive to pay for fighters. Stupid steel armor. The BB, however laughs at the really slow, low evade fighter, whales on the fiends, and the thief runs away with his pitiful dragon sword.
Oh, and I would just like to say that the katana is a trash weapon. The Ninja is a piece of garbage until that point, and still a wuss afterwards. A fasted ninja with a Katana will do about as much as a Master will regularly.
Perhaps, but the Ninja has the advantage of offensive Black Magic spells, too. The Master doesn't, and is therefore nothing more than a poor substitute for a Fighter. At least the thief has some versatility.
I dunno... I find it to be more fun to beat the game at Level 19 or so with my Fighter x3/White Mage Party than to stick a BB/Thief in there and have to power up an extra 10 levels just to keep all my characters alive.
And Bottled, I never said anything about putting BOTH a BB and a Thief in the party at once... that would be quite silly. Of course, I used to like Fighter/BB/WM/BM as my Party of Choice, but I've seen come to realize that BM are next to worthless (so I fill that party slot with a Fighter instead) and BB are totally usurped in every conceivable way by the Fighter (so I fill that party slot with a Fighter instead), and there you have it: the best Party, although some will argue a case for having a RM instead of a WM. I got one word for them: FADE/Holy. GGNOREKTHX.
P.S. How does having a Thief of BB add "stragety" to a Party? If anything, a BB is more singular in purpose than the fighter (no magic, AT ALL, EVER) and the Thief, as I said before, gets some Black Magic - but it doesn't count, really. You could have the Ninja cast LIT2, sure, but in MY Party I could have Fighter#2 use the Zues Gauntlet. Guess what? Both parties achieve the same results - except that next round, my Party will do more damage thanks to thier superior Weaponry and Attacks/round.
>>> Thief rule, and Black belt suck.
I guess we just play the game very differently.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marak
I suppose. But I could equip my Ninja with a heal staff, and then have healing, black magic, and attacking ability, just like your Fighter. Yes, the attack power isn't as high, but he has a far greater range of offensive magic, and thus can take advantage of the enemies' weaknesses more effectively than any fighter.Quote:
P.S. How does having a Thief of BB add "stragety" to a Party? If anything, a BB is more singular in purpose than the fighter (no magic, AT ALL, EVER) and the Thief, as I said before, gets some Black Magic - but it doesn't count, really. You could have the Ninja cast LIT2, sure, but in MY Party I could have Fighter#2 use the Zues Gauntlet. Guess what? Both parties achieve the same results - except that next round, my Party will do more damage thanks to thier superior Weaponry and Attacks/round.
Still, I understand why you use the Fighter, and agree that it does make the game easier having him around. On the other hand, I like the thief, because he makes the game a little more challenging, and a little more interesting, in my view. Again, it all comes down to how you play the game.
The thieves do suck.... but the Ninjas are awesome. ;)
Hmmm.. I find it amusing that people come into these threads to express an opinion, and leave more biased than they were before.
I think most of what I was going to say has been said already, but it seems that the magic ability is the one thing going for the thief. His attack and defense reek, as do the black belts, I admit. The black belts, however, increase both stats with each level gained. Their HP is a good deal higher, which is always nice, and the damage they do once you break level 21 is ridiculous. No need to drag along a thief until you get class change, where he can then use his best weapon, which is found at the end of a dungeon, still inferior to the black belts attack from oh so long ago. I suppose, if you wanted you could run from every battle in the mirage tower and the whatchamacallit dungeon that Tiamat is in, but then not only do you feel so bad, but you've missed valuable experience. There are items that do the magic, except fast, which I will admit, is one wonderful spell, but if I wanted fast, I would take a Black Wizard and nuke my way through everything. Even Marak can't try to compare the Ninja to the Wizard.
Speaking of which, Marak, I was playing your mod, and the BW does look pretty smooth. Marsh cave was hell, though. I'm still deciding whether I should try a single character party. Well done from another person who's gotten way too familiar to all the dungeons. :shame:
Yes, I must admit that I'm biased towards Fighters... but only because of their built-in, massively broken superiority. It's pretty much impossible to make a legitimate claim that picking a BB or Thief instead of another Fighter is, overall, more beneficial to the Party. Yes, the BB and Thief have one or two CERTAIN, SPECIFIC advatages over the fighter, but that's offset by the Fighter's insane superiority in every OTHER aspect.
Glad you like my Mod. I tried to make it so that you couldn't do every dungeon in a single trip down (as you can currently, escpecially if you have it mostly memorized), but instead would have to leave at some point to heal up.
One of these days I have to go back and simplify some of the maps: I tried to put in too much detail in some maps and now the file is getting too big, and I keep getting funky errors whenever I try to edit the Sea Shrine (which is all the farther I've gotten, sadly).
Theives can run, and that's about it... oh wait, no... they can turn into Ninja's, and THAT is what makes them good. Ninja's can equip many things and can kick butt like there's no tomarrow. Maybe not my first choice, but then again, I'm a Black Belt fan.
Thiefs are only good for one thing and that is - RUNNING !!!!!
So true, So true. Thieves are extremely useful with their running away ability, and if you have a Fighter as well, they'll be an awesome balance when you get job class up to Ninja and Knight, with black and white magic on either side.Quote:
Originally Posted by black orb
Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotic
Nah no its not. Like I said before BB strength is more important then the Thiefs ability to run. Is running going to help you in boss battles? No, but the BB strenght will. BTW In the NES version yes the thief can run but not on the PSX version. BB> Thief. BB have more HP and better attack and magic defense.
Why do people put crappy choices that only pertain to their choice? The MUG ability in FF8 kicks ass.
Thieves...
Ya see, you're all going about this all wrong.
Thieves have blue hair. Not only that, but, if you try to envision it in a higher graphics setting, it's a pretty badass style.
Thieves look totally badass. And so what if they'd rather run than let their badass hair get messed up.
Black Belts are plain ugly. So they don't compare.
Ninjas are ugly. And they don't seem to run as well. (Or maybe enemies in the later game are harder to run from?)
But thieves, they're like the Elvis of FF1. I wouldn't sacrifice one for anything.