Octopath Traveler 2 Thief Job Guide

This is an in-depth guide to the Thief job in Octopath Traveler 2. We’ll break down the Thief job including Skills and interaction with the other Jobs of Octopath Traveler 2.

Role of a Thief

Thieves are a physically offensive job that specializes in Daggers and Swords. Thieves are also capable of debuffing the physical stats foes, letting them also play a supportive role as well.

Thieves lack multi-target attacks and spells, making them much stronger in boss scenarios, especially after any summoned adds are dealt with. However, the inherent damage that comes from most single-target attacks means they can dispatch foes fairly quickly.

In Octopath Traveler 2, Throné Anguis has Thief as her main role. Throné was taken in at a young age by a thieves guild known as the Blacksnakes. The Blacksnakes control the city of New Delsta from the shadows. Throné sets out, determined to set herself free from the cycle of bloodshed created by the nature of the Blacksnakes.

How the Thief Job Changed for Octopath Traveler 2

Every job in Octopath Traveler 2 has received changes, the Thief is not an exception to this. In the case of Thieves, they’ve shifted from a more supportive role to a much more offensive one.

They’ve lost access to the SP Thief skill, which was replaced by Surprise Attack. This new Sword Attack not only gives them a Sword-based skill to use, but also packs a lot of power that utilizes the Thief’s Speed stat. The Earlier this attack occurs in a turn, the higher the damage.

Their supportive skill SP Share was replaced by a much more selfish skill in Swift Step. Swift Step boosts only your speed, which results in Surprise Attack and Aeber’s Reckoning being able to take full advantage for huge damage.

The bigger changes for Thieves lie in their new Support Skills. They lost Snatch and Insult to Injury, and in their place got Ensnare and Life in the Shadows. Ensnare gives them a chance to apply debuffs in retaliation to attacks. Life in the Shadows grants a huge bonus to EXP and JP gain, stacking with the likes of Hard Worker and Extra Experience.

Thief Skills

Like all classes, the Thief has both Active Skills and Support Skills that can affect their combat ability. Below you can read the overview and recommendations for each skill individually, followed by a segment with recommendations on which skills to pick first and why!

Active Skills

Active Skills are skills used in battle, to either attack, provide buffs, or apply debuffs. Below are the Active Skills available to Thieves. Thieves have access to Steal and Darkest Night by default, the other skills require the use of Job Points, or JP to unlock.

Among the Active Skills are Divine Skills, which are powerful skills that are unique to each class. These however cannot be unlocked until all other skills have been unlocked first, which requires a large amount of JP, in addition to their own unlock cost.

Steal

• Skill Type: Acquisition
• SP Cost: 2
• Effect: Attempts to steal an item from a single foe. Chance increases as target’s HP is lowered.
• Boost Effect: Increases success chance per BP Spent.

Steal is useful for getting a stockpile of items very quickly. While you often won’t get high-value items, what you can get varies from enemy to enemy. This often means bosses will have stronger items to steal but are also harder to steal from.

Darkest Night

• Skill Type: Dark
• SP Cost: 7
• Effect: Deal dark-based damage to a single target.
• Boost Effect: Increases damage per BP spent.

Darkest Night isn’t the strongest spell out there, but it still does decent damage. Though it’s overall less effective due to Thieves generally being more focused on physical damage.

HP Thief

• Skill Type: Dagger
• SP Cost: 6
• Effect: Attack a foe twice with a dagger, recovering 50% of the damage dealt as HP.
• Boost Effect: Increases damage per BP spent.

This skill gives thieves a reliable method of self-recovery that doesn’t rely on items. It can also serve as a cheap break skill for foes that are weak to daggers, giving it a solid use even if at full HP.

Surprise Attack

• Skill Type: Sword
• SP Cost: 12
• Effect: Unleash a sword attack on a single foe. This attack deals more damage the sooner you move in the turn order.
• Boost Effect: Increases damage per BP spent.

Surprise Attack can deal some serious damage, especially when you can move very early in a turn for maximum damage. The nature of this skill allows Swift Step to be a worthwhile buff in a lot of cases, as well as provides the Thief with some strong class synergies.

Swift Step

• Skill Type: Buff
• SP Cost: 4
• Effect: Increases your speed for 3 turns.
• Boost Effect: Increases the buff duration by 2 turns per BP spent.

Swift Step is a great way to get more value from most of the thief skills. With Surprise Attack getting stronger as an early attack, and your debuff skills being short duration before boosts, Speed benefits them greatly. This can also be an easy way to get more damage out of Aeber’s Reckoning.

Armor Corrosive

• Skill Type: Debuff
• SP Cost: 4
• Effect: Reduces a foe’s Physical Defense for 2 turns.
• Boost Effect: Increases the duration of the debuff by 2 turns per BP spent.

Armor Corrosive is a great way to setup your physical damage dealers to deal maximum damage. While the base duration of the debuff it quite short, it’s potent effect more than makes up for.

Shackle Foe

• Skill Type: Debuff
• SP Cost: 4
• Effect: Reduce the Physical Attack of a foe for 2 turns
• Boost Effect: Increases the duration of the debuff by 2 turns per BP spent.

Shackle Foe is a great debuff when facing a tougher enemy that deals primarily physical damage. This cuts their physical attack enough that it’s harder for them to overwhelm your party in most cases, especially if they do multiple party-wide attacks.

Divine Skill – Aeber’s Reckoning

• Skill Type: Dagger
• Cost: 30 SP + 3 BP
• Effect: Attack all foes with a powerful dagger attack. This skill’s damage increases with the user’s Speed Stat
• Boost Effect: Requires Max Boost to activate.

Thanks to Fleetfoot and some early gear you get, this skill has potential to hit the 9,999 damage cap very early on. Like many Divine Skills, it’s incredibly strong and can be a source of high burst damage. Unlike some other Divine Skills, it’s also multi-target which allows you to heavily damage a boss as well as take out any minions it may have.

Which Thief Skills you should take first

Since Active Skills can be taken in any order in Octopath Traveler 2, it’s worth considering the benefits of taking each skill. The cost for the next skill increases as you pick skills, so take the time to plan which skills you’d want to make sure you never feel weak.

For ease of going through Throne’s story, as well as the damage potential, Suprise Attack should be a high Priority. This skill is not only powerful, but also gives you a strong attack with the Sword.

If you find yourself constantly low on health, HP Thief can be a great option. This skill will also double as a good way to quickly break foes that are weak to Dagger attacks. It’s an excellent way to deal safe and consistent damage

Of the remaining skills, Armor Corrosive is worth getting early. This remains a consistent and powerful debuff throughout the game. It gives you more of a damage improvement compared to most other options.

Swift Step isn’t super important to get until later on. While it does allow you to move first more consistently, the Thieve’s high base Speed already does wonders for keeping Surprise Attack relevant. It’ll be more useful to you after getting Aeber’s Reckoning, or the last skill you’ll get from the Thief class.

While it has it’s uses, Shackle Foe isn’t great to get early due to the already low incoming damage. It’s better to defeat foes quickly and prevent damage that way. The only time it can be useful is for early bosses, but even then it feels lacking.

Support Skills

Support Skills are passive bonuses that can be mixed and matched with Support Skills of other classes after unlocking them. Support Skills are unlocked alongside your Active Skills, being tied to the number of unlocked Active Skills for the class. These provide stat boosts or other combat effects entirely passively and do not need to be activated beyond applying them to a character.

Incidental Attack

• Total JP Cost: 130
• Effect: Equipped character has a 50% chance to attack while using a non-damaging skill

This passive can be a little gimmicky, but early it’s not bad. Since the Thief has access to debuffs as well as Steal, it has a fair few options to work with. It’s much more helpful when a foe is weak to Daggers, allowing you to lower their shield and debuff at the same time.

Fleetfoot

• Total JP Cost: 630
• Effect: Increases equipped character’s Speed by 50.

Despite this being a flat boost, it lasts for much longer compared to other stats, as it’s not the most common stat to find on gear. This also boosts the power of the Thief’s Divine Skill, Aeber’s Reckoning which helps its viability.

Ensnare

• Total JP Cost: 1,630
• Effect: The equipped character has a 50% inflicting an attribute-reducing effect when taking physical damage.

This isn’t a super great passive effect unless you put it on a character that is built to just take damage. This also does not trigger when attacks miss, making very unpractical. The debuffs applied only last a very short duration as well, which hinders its overall viability.

Life in the Shadows

• Total JP Cost: 4,630
• Effect: Increases EXP and JP earned from battle during Nighttime. (This effect does not stack when equipped on multiple characters.

This is the new final passive for thieves, and it’s pretty great. That can allow a thief to assist with any grinding much easier. It’s especially good on Throne, who also increases the party’s offensive stats at night. It stacks with Hard Worker and Extra Experience, making it exceptionally valuable.

Thief Job Synergies

Below you will learn which secondary Jobs best complete the Thief as a starting Job and how the Thief Job synergizes and performs best as a secondary job with other starting jobs!

Throné’s Synergies with Other Jobs

Through the use of her Latent Power, Leave No Trace, Throné can excel as a damage dealer, being able to debuff a target and immediately attack a target. Alternatively, she can also debuff and Attack twice the following turn.

With the Apothecary as a secondary job or in the party, Throné would be able to use Dohter’s Charity for the full 3 turns. In combination with powerful items like Revitalizing Jam, Reinforcing Jam, or even just Energizing Pomegranates, she’d be able to allow a stream of powerful attacks from her allies, while keeping them topped off. Any items like Reinforcing Jam Also will allow her to get extra use of the buff through additional uses of Leave No Trace.

With a Merchant in the party, Throné can very easily use a debuff, and follow it up with a fully boosted physical attack or Divine Skill. The Merchant would be able to restore their BP and allow them to get a second fully boosted attack the following turn before an unboosted debuff would wear off.

Leave No Trace also makes Throné exceptionally good with the Inventor Job. It can allow her to use a Skill, and start recharging it in the same turn. This can allow you powerful skills like Changeable Catapult twice in a row. Additionally, it can allow for two gadgets to be built in a turn allowing for more uptime in general as an Inventor without having to rely on All-Purpose Tool.

Check out our Throné Character Guide to learn about this character and their unique actions within the game. You can also check out our Walkthrough of their story, for hidden items in their story and boss strategies.

How Thief Synergizes with Other Jobs

Pairing the Dancer with the Thief can allow them to buff themselves and their allies, in addition to weakening foes. The only downside to this combination is that you’ll only be gaining Wind as extra breaking potential. However, Ruinious Kick can make up for this shortcoming by being a fairly reliable source of breaking power.

The Dancer’s Stimulate ability can also be used as a means of empowering the Thief’s Suprise Attack skill. Since Surprise Attack scales with how early a turn it’s performed, Stimulate can reliably make sure the Thief goes first alongside their high base Speed stat.

The Thief’s final passive skill, Life in the Shadows, stack with both Hard Worker and Extra Experience. This results in very high EXP and JP gain quite early on, so long as you get the other passive from the Dancer (Hard Worker) and Scholar (Extra Experience) jobs.

Combining the abilities of a Thief with a Hunter increases their potential for both damage and debuffing greatly. Leghold Trap and Abating Orb are both great tools for debuffing and removing buffs respectively. It also gives them two additional weapon types and second element to break with.

The Hunter can also increase the ease of Stealing items from a foe. This is due to Mercy Strike never dealing lethal damage, allowing you to get the maximum possible chance of acquiring an item.

Combining the Warrior and the Thief, you have a fairly strong and high physical damage job combination. Between the ability to boost your own physical attack while lowering your foe’s physical defense, you’ll be able to hit exceptionally hard.

You can also make yourself exceptionally durable by reducing the foe’s physical Attack and increasing your own defense. This can be further capitalized on by using Incite to draw Attack to you and using Vengeful Blade to counterattack.

Considering advanced jobs, Throné makes very good use of the Armsmaster job. In addition to her relatively high Physical Attack and high Speed, she’s able to very easily make use of Leave No Trace to debuff, then follow up with a variety of powerful attacks. In particular, Leave No Trace can directly increase the damage of the Cosmic Roar skill, giving it an extra turn to charge while debuffing or guaranteeing a break.

As an Arcanist, Throné is able to reliably set up the Seal of Diffusion and then follow that with the Seal of Immortality to provide a potent defensive support option to her team. Her high Speed ensures she moves before much, if any, of the damage comes your way, which ensures you’ll survive at least one big hit. With both being set up in the same turn, you’d also be able to follow this with Seal of Eternity to extend the effect until it triggers.

While Conjurer isn’t a perfect fit for Throné, her latent Power can still allow you to get an element conjured and Prayer for Rain going immediately. This keeps her flexible, and while it’s not a great overall pairing, it does expand her utility a fair bit.

This concludes our in-depth Class Guide for the Thief Job in Octopath Traveler 2.