Thief (Dark Souls III)

For the Dark Souls class, see Thief.

For the equivalent Dark Souls II class, see Explorer.

"A common thief and pitiful deserter. Wields a dagger intended for backstabs alongside a military-issue bow."

— Character Creation

The Thief is one of the classes in Dark Souls 3.

It is a class focused on Dexterity and Luck, making it good for a build focused on light or status inflicting weapons, such as the Scimitar or the Uchigatana, or weapons with the Sharp, Blood, or Hollow Infusions. It also has just enough Attunement and Intelligence to immediately use supportive Sorceries such as Spook for increased stealth or Magic Weapon for extra damage without additional investment in those stats.

The Bandit's Knife has low damage per attack but can mostly make up for this against enemies that can be afflicted with Bleed, since the dagger's rapid attacks can proc the status effect quickly (even more so with a Carthus Rouge on it), and its Quickstep will let it maneuver quickly around foes or in areas that slow movement such as the swamp in Farron Keep. Otherwise, a flat attack buff such as Charcoal Pine Resin or Magic Weapon will help the most in increasing damage dealt.

Of the other two pieces of equipment, the Iron Round Shield is a small shield with a decent amount of physical defence (if not elemental defence) and a fairly high amount of Stability, along with a Small Shields improved Parry Weapon Art. The Short Bow on the other hand, is a fairly weak weapon with decent range (if a bit short for a Bow) that is best used for pulling foes from their starting location or to whittle down strong foes from just outside of their reach, instead of as a main weapon. As a light bow it has the advantageous quality of being able to fire directly out of a roll or sprint, and its Weapon Art, Rapid Fire, lets it potentially Poison easier with Poison Arrows. The starting Wood Arrows can be resupplied from the Shrine Handmaid, and will most likely have to be so fairly often if used for attacking since they have low damage.

Though it has decent physical defence and dark defence for light armor, thanks to its Thief Mask and partial Deserter Set not covering its hands slot the Thief effectively has a flat defence penalty, since filling an armor slot gives a small bonus to flat defence. This is most easily fixed by taking the Master's Gloves from the Sword Master outside of Firelink Shrine, or by buying the Leather Gloves from the Shrine Handmaid.

It's more of a hard to use class, owing to its short and fairly weak weapon, asking for greater skill in dodging attacks to get close.