64 thief and I have a fair amount of experience subbing things besides /war, so I believe I can give good advice from experience.
First off, /nin. I highly recommand it for any level as a possible sub post 24. But where /nin really shines is 50-59 in my opinion. This is a level range in which you can use bone knife+1 for +5 acc and +5 attk in the offhand at no penalty, and yet the subs /war, /sam, and /drk aren't yet fully developed.
Against raptors in the late 50s-early 60s, /nin is pretty much required not only because the pulls are fast creatures, but fairly longer as well most times in comparsion to the camps.
Warrior, an excellent sub job choice from 30 to 75. This sub easily gives the most overall added dagger damage over time as long as you're hitting ok, although this fact is debatable post 60 and party dependent.
-/15 you get berserk, an ability that needs no introduction, obvious benefits.
-/25 you get Double Attack. Due to double attack, the tp gain between /war and /nin is hardly noticable. /nin is probably slightly faster if any faster. If your concern is tp gain, post 50 /war and /nin are pretty much exactly the same, UNLESS you have a dagger in either hand on /nin that has acc plus, such as the bone knife +1, then it's a slightly larger gap depending on your acc before the +5 is added in.
-/30 you recieve an Attack bonus job trait which I find is the most overlooked part of the warrior subjob. Having around +10 attack stat adds up from that 1,2,3 more damage per normal hit, excluding berserk. This job trait is definitely not a burden for dancing edge either, that's a little more attack 'each' of the 5 hits, attack up+ berserk=noticablely stronger WSs given you dont' have major acc issues.
-Samurai is a situational but very viable sub 60-75. The Benefits are clear, store tp+meditate. Thing is, you won't always need these traits to catch up in tp, thus you'd be giving up valuable things you could actually bother to use from other subs. /sam is useful for when your SC partner is a very good tp gainer. The SC melees I prefer to sub /sam with for more SCs are rangers, samurai, and maybe monks and dragoons(Yes dragoons, acc up trait, harness,snipers, neck piece,belt, +3 jumps), depends if we have a blackmage or not.
/samurai has it's placed for a well prepared thief, but use strategicly. In good parties when you kill something every minute-2:30 minutes it'll eventually cause your meditate recast timer to fall too far behind so here is what I do in decent parties that kill alright.
-Chain 0 fight, gain tp naturally or use meditate before fight if available, since there was a chain 5 all out fight before this one, normally gain naturally.
-Chain 1, use SC+MB, meditate right after WS because there won't be enough time to get that many swings in if the SC+MB is very good.
-Chain 2, from the few hits in the last fight + the meditate, you should be a little bit more than ready to SC once again, meditate as soon as timer is ready to go for next fight.
-Chain 3, Use the tp you get and SC, chances are if your group has had good pace you won't be able to meditate very soon although you could easily do it later in the fight for chain 4, this you shouldn't do so you can have meditate ready at the start of chain 5. Just gain tp the old fashioned way, it's not too bad from store tp.
-Chain 4, finish gaining tp through normal hits and SC as soon as you can. Still, don't use meditate on this one if your goal is chain 5 and you're with a samurai(whom can meditate themselves for chain 5), otherwise use meditate and get ready for chain 5. Gain back as much tp as possible from normal hits
The exception is having a blm, otherwise meditate ASAP because thf+good SC partner+blm of reasonable skill/gear=Most certain chain 5. But if you're with a samurai and no blm, I'll clear that up in chain 5.
-Chain 5
-If you're with a samurai, finish gaining tp then SC, both can meditate then SC again if the SC is a weak one or if you have no blm(although it probably won't be), if you're with a blm you probably have no need for 2 SCs on the chain 5 enemy. The only time you'll really need the 2 SC strategy is if the partner is samurai and there is no blm or even smn to burst.
Darkknight- /10 you recieve attack bonus I
-/30 you obtain attack bonus II, overall this helps a little bit.
-60-75 you can stack SE+LR, VERY handy for a huge SC, which might be very favorable on a chain 5 fight or whatever your chain goal is. Thing is LR+SE is a ton of hate, so someone else will have to pull for the fight you want to SE+LR+SATA(WS) on to safely avoid the chance of pulling hate before SC thus ruining it.
-Done successfully though, as said earlier you can break will over 1000 on dancing edge given 4-5 hits connect.
-The sub has some disadvantages: First off no bonuses in terms of gaining tp, zero, absolutely nothing; Second, may take a little bit more teamwork to pull off properly, although this shouldn't be an issue for everyone; It's true usefulness isn't shown every fight or nearly every fight, it's a once in awhile thing; You'll lose about half your hp and maybe then some from the all out SC.
-Although, in sky there are xp spots in which you xp on arcana based enemies, while not a big deal, arcana killer and arcana circle would be nifty and at least not useless.
All and all though, /drk is fooling around sub in more ways than experience point ways. It can have practical uses post 60, but less than any other subjob.
/rng- This one I have no experience with unlike those others I've tried many several times. The practical aspects of this sub seem iffy at high levels although a thf/rng post 60ish could prove me wrong. I'm guessing the C- or C in archery and the C+ in marksmenship would show by 60 though.
I've read about this subjob before, there is reason to believe when equipped well this sub has the most damage over time for thief midgame, from very low levels into the midlevels of the game. Between SATA, very good rng acc gear, and the ranged attacks, I've heard this job combination reaches overall damage levels passing or barely behind that of a ranger in the 30s and 40s, that's pretty darn impressive to even be close to ranger in the theif job.
I think if you decide to try thf/rng, go with marksmenship though, not archery. For one thing, thf has access to all the good status bolts, I can't start to say how much blind, bloody, acid, and venom bolts will overall help your party, not only in helping your xp parties DDs,tanks, and mages, but solo as well this is an incredible advantage thief has over other jobs. Also C+ in marksmenship is thf's second highest weapon skill, take advantage of that. Even if you don't go /rng, uses status bolts duringpulls with maxed out skill will net you a nice helpful acid bolt-defense down on the pull once in awhile.
I'd imagine the C+ catches up to thief against inc tough++++++++ mobs by 60-75, although you could now use this for pulling and soloing with your maxed out skill.
Dont know if its true or not, but as a say im not a Thf, i'll try and post the URL of that topic for you.
