[Entropy]

...Except for when it isn't.

I'm not going to pretend i'm a veteran of this game, but i've taken to playing a destiny engineer/spellthief, primarily showing up to events and using primarily a mix of support with robots and Final Flare memes. (Brick!)

While this is an absolute riot to play, it's made to light a large amount of quality of life issues with Spellthief. I can't speak for the class's current 'issues' at it's max potential, but I can speak for the hell it is to actually get things fighting fit.

Final Flare and Hot Potato are incredibly janky. Certain spells absolutely don't work with them, such as Air Pressure. While others, such as Titan Gale, awkwardly target and fling around. This is fine, it's hard to make this move work with everything.

My issue arises from how it absolutely REQUIRES you to use spirits to get the most 'bang' for your buck. Causing a constant slog of regaining my spirits anytime I get my ass kicked.

Alongside this, non-destiny spellthieves are required to level up OTHER CLASSES and 5/5 their skills to get the most out of them. Again, a constant slog. Not fun.

These are the two main issues I have with Spellthief, but the general quality of life of the class leaves much to be desired.

[SolAndLuna]

I've made a thread on the matter in the past indicating some of this, actually. Though, even without those two things, there's a few things Spellthief has issues with, particularly when it comes to any degree of actual offensive ability. I won't write down the entirety of what was said on that thread, but the issues that were noted were these:

1. As mentioned here, you're almost expected to have spirits at your disposal. Without them, you have 6 spells with you, and when each one has a 3 turn cooldown, you're very likely to end up in a spot where you can't use what you need right then, even without accounting for things like Final Flare.
   
2. On top of the cooldown, most spells are simply less effective in a Spellthief's hands due to a lack of other skills, with Overload Copy being the only thing to try at making up the difference, which usually isn't enough. (Lantern Bearer's and Ghost's spells get less range, no Auto-Enchant for Mage spells, no Mass for Curate spells, no Payback and Dark Invasion for Hexer spells, etc.)
   
3. The majority of the illusion spells they have are... passable, but occasionally frustrating for both sides. Create Shade works well enough, even if it gets concerning to deal with if one side uses it constantly. Invisible Weapon and Distortion work fine, too. Smokescreen is pointless at the moment, however, and Confusion needs a status inflict check to land it on one target, with the actual effectiveness you get out of it being considerably limited.
   
4. The dagger skills are generally underwhelming. Throwing Dagger is okay, since it's 1 momentum, and Goose Bite can be useful on occasion with the damage reduction. The rest, however, aren't particularly great. Final Flare's had some of the issues mentioned in this thread already, on top of just how much of a last resort it is for something that effectively casts 3 spells at reduced effectiveness, 4 only if you take spirits. Mystic Dagger is pretty much a waste of FP if you land the first hit anyway, and doesn't really do enough to justify it if you land the second hit.
   
5. The key thing the class is known for - stealing spells and using them - is pretty difficult to do in an actual battle. You need to get within 1 range in a class with no cheap movement option, likely costing you 3 momentum just to do that, then you need another 3 momentum to take a spell. And most people will have at least 8-10 spells if they have any on them at all, making actually obtaining a spell you can use a pretty challenging endeavor. People have normally taken to just stealing spells OOCly from people to put together their list and then don't bother using any of the steal skills except *maybe* Blue Steal if they have no other option, which... kind of hurts actually using the class ICly as well, in this case.
   

Really, I love Spellthief as a class, and I'm probably going to keep using it until the end of time, and I do appreciate that it's theoretically capable of supporting whatever build you need. I also don't particularly mind the extra grind, either - since Spellthieves are normally supposed to actually learn the way the spell works before they can get more out of it ICly, I don't have any issues with that also being shown mechanically.

In practice, though, you always have better options than Spellthief, so it's a bit rough to do. I had a bit of time where I decided to swap out Spellthief for a few other classes as a test, and generally, pretty much all of them worked better at the time. One thing or another was missing compared to Spellthief, but they were usually better at everything else, which was enough. 

Alll in all, I do agree with what Entropy's saying on this. While not really something I'd consider a priority compared to some other classes, I'd appreciate some sort of changes to Spellthief whenever possible.

[Shujin]

Having a downside, for the massive damage potency and one hit kill power Hot potato/final flare can pull off, is not a problem.

I get though that its annoying to lose spirits, having a talent thats like, giving youa big chance to not lose spirits would be nice, else I suggest getting a frosted dog collar for grinding.

I am indifferent towards it, mostly cause most things get dumbed down to handhold levels, so why not this too?