Crafty individuals from the underworld, who obliterate their enemies by any means necessary.
A people hidden from the pages of history,
inheriting battle skills in a unique fighting style
far more complex than simply dealing mere blows to the enemy.


Universal Skills

Name Effect MN Cost SP Usage Max Level Prerequisites
POW Bonus (POWボーナス) Raises physical attack and defense. - 2 10
SPD Bonus (SPDボーナス) Raises agility and evasion. - 1 10
INT Bonus (INTボーナス) Raises magic attack and magic defense. - 1 10

Dagger Skills

Name Effect MN Cost SP Usage Max Level Prerequisites
Sword Mastery (ソードマスタリー) Raises the ATK of equipped swords and daggers. Required for higher level dagger skills. - 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10
Tarantella (タランテラ) Small damage to one enemy, and small chance to inflict Paralysis. 2 (lv1~5), 3 (lv6~10) 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10 Sword Mastery 1
Scorpio (スコルピオ) Small damage to one enemy, and small chance to inflict Poison. 2 (lv1~5), 3 (lv6~10) 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10 Sword Mastery 3
Vampire (ヴァンパイア) Small damage to one enemy, and recovers LF based on the amount of damage dealt. The recovery is doubled if enemy is Bleeding. 2 (lv1~5), 3 (lv6~10) 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10 Sword Mastery 3
Dagger Fetish (ダガーフェティッシュ) Increases the ATK of equipped daggers only. - 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10 Sword Mastery 5
Sword Trap (ソードトラップ) Counterattacks any enemy that damages the Rogue with physical damage. The damage of the counter is entirely based on damage the Rogue received and Sword Trap's skill level. 8 2 (lv1), 1 (lv2~5) 5 Sword Mastery 5, POW Bonus 5
Masked Pain (マスクドペイン) Damages an enemy and inflicts Masked Pain. During Masked Pain, each status ailment the enemy receives is converted into a Pain Counter. 5 (lv1), 4 (lv2~3), 3 (lv4~5) 2 (lv1), 1 (lv2~5) 5 Sword Mastery 8
Triple Kiss (トリプルキス) Large damage to an enemy with three or more Pain Counters. 4 (lv1~5), 5 (lv6~10) 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10 Masked Pain 3
Ecstasy Kiss (恍惚のキス) (EX Skill) Extreme damage to an enemy with five or more Pain counters. 0 (EX) 3 1 Masked Pain 5, Unlock by talking to the soldier in Imperial Territory Pa-Ho (帝国領・パ=ホ), or by talking to Jekke during the Mission: Subjugation of the Unknown Emperor Dragon

Bow Skills

Name Effect MN Cost SP Usage Max Level Prerequisites
Shot Mastery (ショットマスタリー) Raises the ATK of equipped bows. Required for higher level bow skills. - 1 (lv1~5) 2 (lv6~10) 10
Seeker (シーカー) Recovers the decreasing hit rate of bow attacks. 0 1 1 Shot Mastery 1
Sleep Shot (スリープショット) Small damage to one enemy, and small chance to inflict Sleep. 2 (lv1~5), 3 (lv6~10) 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10 Shot Mastery 3
Panic Shot (パニックショット) Small damage to one enemy, and small chance to Confuse. 2 (lv1~5), 3 (lv6~10) 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10 Shot Mastery 3
Head Shot (ヘッドショット) Medium damage to one enemy, and small chance of Instant Death. 4 (lv1~5), 5 (lv6~10) 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10 Shot Mastery 5
Sonic Shot (ソニックショット) Large damage to an enemy that attacks the user with a projectile or magical attack. 4 (lv1~3), 5 (4~5) 2 (lv1), 1 (lv2~5) 5 Shot Mastery 5
Dual Shot (デュアルショット) Attacks a single enemy twice for small damage each hit. 4 (lv1~3), 5 (4~5) 2 (lv1), 1 (lv2~5) 5 Shot Mastery 8
Falling Star (フォーリングスター) (EX Skill) Extreme damage to a single enemy after three turns. Similar to Etrian Odyssey's Apollon. 0 (EX) 3 1 Shot Mastery 10, Unlock by talking to the soldier in Imperial Territory Pa-Ho (帝国領・パ=ホ), or by talking to Jekke during the Mission: Subjugation of the Unknown Emperor Dragon

Footwork Skills

Name Effect MN Cost SP Usage Max Level Prerequisites
Footwork Mastery (フットワークマスタリ) Increases the Rogue's SPD. Required for higher level footwork skills. - 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10
Sand Kick (サンドキック) High chance of inflicting Blind on a single enemy. 4 (lv1~5), 5 (lv6~10) 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10 Footwork Mastery 3
Replace First (リプレイスファースト) Gives up own turn to let an ally go first this turn. 4 (lv1), 3 (lv2), 2 (lv3), 1 (lv4), 0 (lv5) 1 (lv1~5) 5 Footwork Mastery 3, SPD Boost 3
Escape Stance (エスケイプスタンス) Chance of escaping from battle increased, and reduces damage taken when trying to escape. 5 (lv1), 4 (lv2), 3 (lv3), 2 (lv4), 1 (lv5) 1 (lv1~5) 5 Footwork Mastery 5
Hiding (ハイディング) Shifts to Ambush stance, which decreases the frequency the Rogue is targeted by the enemies. While in Ambush, regular attacks have a chance of becoming an Ambush attack, which deals critical hit damage. Being hit may cause the Rogue to be forced out of Ambush. 5 (lv1~3), 6 (lv4~5) 2 (lv1), 1 (lv2~5) 5 Footwork Mastery 8
Sacrifice (サクリファイス) (EX Skill) Extreme damage to all enemies, and heals all allies. The Rogue will be irreplaceably gone forever, along with his equipment. 0 (EX) 3 1

Other Skills

Name Effect MN Cost SP Usage Max Level Prerequisites
Killer's Attract (キラーズアトラクト) Increases encounter rate. 5 (lv1), 4 (lv2), 3 (lv3), 2 (lv4), 1 (lv5) 1 (lv1~5) 5
Rogue's Eye (ローグズアイ) After battle, there is a chance of finding money on each enemy you've defeated. - 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10 INT Bonus 5
Casual Behavior (行往坐臥) Increases the Rogue's ATK if a Samurai is in the party. - 1 (lv1~7), 2 (lv8~10) 10 POW Bonus 3, INT Bonus 3
Trick React (トリックリアクト) The React status lasts for 5 turns. While the React is active, the Rogue gains an extra turn whenever Sword Trap successfully counters an attack, or when an Ambush attack is made from Hiding. 4 2 1 SPD Bonus 5


Dagger and Sword Skills

Sword Mastery

+10% to your weapon's ATK at Lv. 1, +30% to your weapon's ATK at Lv. 10. This only works on swords and daggers.


120% damage with a 30% chance of Poison at Lv. 1, 150% damage with a 75% chance of Poison at Lv. 10.
The Poison lasts for 5 turns. It affects bosses with decent regularity as well.
The Poison damage at Lv. 10 is around 110, so for 5 turns it racks up 550 or so damage. This will be good damage throughout mid-game.
This lets you deal steady damage without having to worry about Pain Counters.
You can start out with Scorpio to Poison your opponent, then switch to Vampire when the Poison hits. Once the Poison wears off, you can go back to using Scorpio again.
With a Healer's Venom Amplif, you can have your Rogue do something else once the enemy gets Poisoned while the Healer keeps it going and makes it stronger. This might be good enough to make the final boss cry tears of hurt.
In case it might convince you to use the Scorpio + Venom Amplif combo, amplifying Scorpio 13 times pumps its Poison damage up to 3300.


120% damage with a 30% chance of Paralysis at Lv. 1. At Lv. 10, your damage multiplier increases to 150% with a 75% chance of inflicting Paralysis.
Even if Paralysis can stop an enemy from acting, it doesn't happen all the time when they're Paralyzed, so don't count on your enemy doing nothing.
You can use this with Tarantella for some extra defense, though. This works on the bonus dungeon's boss with surprising regularity.
Paralysis will not overwrite Fear, but will be overwritten by it, so if you've got a Princess that relies on Fear, you won't inadvertently take her source of usefulness away.


At Lv. 1, this deals 120% damage and absorbs 15% of the damage you dealt as LF. At Lv. 10, this deals 150% damage, and you get back 50% of the damage in LF.
If your target is inflicted with Bleeding, the amount of LF you absorb doubles.
Even if your target isn't Bleeding, the LF recovery on this makes this skill pretty useful. Dagger Rogues have to stay on the front lines, and can take quite a bit of damage.
Rogues are usually faster than their enemies, so they can use this to recover some LF before the enemies can attack him.
This is really useful if you don't have any good way of recovering LF. Some players even say this skill is a must-have for any Dagger Rogue.

Dagger Fetish

+5% to an equipped dagger's ATK at Lv. 1, +70% at Lv. 10.
This bonus is added to any bonus you get from Sword Mastery (so having both at Lv. 10 will give you +100% to an equipped dagger's ATK).
The bonus increases faster than Sword Mastery's, so if you have to choose between the two, give this priority.
This will not work on swords, only daggers.

Sword Trap

You'll counter every physical attack you receive in this turn you use this. At Lv. 1, you return 200% of the damage you took. At Lv. 5, your counter deals 350% of the damage you took.
This only works on physical attacks, and the damage you deal depends on the damage you take. ATK Ups like Scorching Rhyme and even Mastery abilities like Dagger Fetish or Casual Behavior (行住坐臥) won't increase the damage you do with this skill.
You still receive all the damage you take. Unlike the Samurai's Unarmed counters, Sword Trap doesn't nullify or even reduce the damage you take.
Even if you get hit for all your LF, you'll still counter. You'll fall down Unconscious after you counter.
Whether or not you use this often will depend on your stategy. Like all counters, your Rogue has to be targeted with an attack for this to work, and the MN cost is really steep. If you use this, be sure you don't have someone else Provoking.

Masked Pain

110% damage at Lv. 1 with an 80% chance of inflicted Masked Pain. 135% damage at Lv. 10 with a 100% chance of inflicting Masked Pain.
Masked Pain (the status ailment, not the attack) will last for a number of turns based on your enemy's level.
For example, with a Lv. 14 Rogue at Masked Pain Lv. 1:

  • Rabi, Masked Nuts - 3 turns
  • Murder Bear, Harpy - 5 turns
  • Young Leo, Sprintaurus - 7 turns

Any status ailment you inflict on an enemy with Masked Pain will increase the number of Pain Counters that enemy has instead of inflicting whatever status ailment.
Whenever Masked Pain wears off, the enemy will take a good chunk of damage based on the number of Pain Counters that have been accumulated. If you have 0 Pain Counters, then no damage will be dealt.
You'll be able to tell how many Pain Counters you have by the icon next to the enemy's life bar. It will show a number, which is the number of Pain Counters that enemy has.
You can rack up Pain Counters really quick with Hiding and Trick React if you have a weapon that inflicts a status ailment. You can even have a Princess along with Princess React and Training Whip for faster Pain Counter accumulation.
If you want to have a really good shot at inflicting a status ailment, then you might want to get Sand Kick. It inflicts its status ailment more often than any other attack in the game.
Instant death also counts as a status ailment and will add a Pain Counter to the enemy. The enemy will not die, though.
Also, Stun does not count as a status ailment, and won't give you Pain Counters.
Using Masked Pain (the attack) while your opponent is in Masked Pain (the status ailment) will overwrite the status ailment with itself, and you'll lose all your Pain Counters.
You can have up to 15 Pain Counters on a single enemy.

The damage of Masked Pain when it wears off is: (POW + (Weapon ATK x Weapon ATK Multiplier)) x Number of Pain Counters.
POW Bonus, Dagger Fetish, and Sword Mastery will all affect the damage done by this, but Casual Behavior (行住坐臥) and Scorching Rhyme will not.
The most damage you can do with a single Pain Counter seems to be around 340.
Depending on your party, you might be able to make do without many Pain Counters.

Triple Kiss

250% damage at Lv. 1, 500% damage at Lv. 10. Only works on enemies with 3 Pain Counters (in Masked Pain).
It seems like you can Critical Hit with this skill, so sometimes you'll get an extra 130% damage.
You can use this as long as your target is in Masked Pain.

Koukou no Kiss (Ecstasy Kiss)

EX skill. 400% damage to an enemy in Masked Pain with more than 5 Pain Counters.
You might notice that the damage this does isn't as much as Triple Kiss at Lv. 10. It does as much damage as Triple Kiss at Lv. 7.
This doesn't cost MN, though, so if you're running low on MN you can use this skill. You still need 5 Pain Counters, though, and racking them up will be hard if you're low on MN.
If you don't want to spend many skill points on Triple Kiss, you can pick this up as well.
All in all, though, you should EX Triple Kiss if you've got it maxed rather than use this skill.

Bow Skills

Shot Mastery

+10% to an equipped bow's ATK at Lv. 1, +54% to an equipped bow's ATK at Lv. 10.
The effect is better than Sword Mastery, but this jumps up to 2 SP per level at Lv. 6.
Bows have higher ATK than daggers do, and for sheer damage, Dual Shot can do two shots of regular (100%) damage when it's maxed.
This can get you through early game pretty easily.
The hit rate of bows decreases as the battle drags on, though, so be sure to pick up Seeker.
The ultimate dagger with both Sword Mastery and Dagger Fetish maxed will give around as much ATK as the ultimate bow with Shot Mastery maxed.
The big difference is that you don't have to raise two skills. Sword Mastery and Dagger Fetish cost 26 SP if you want both to be at Lv. 10. Shot Mastery by itself costs 15 SP to max.


Recovers from the ever-decreasing hit rate of bow attacks.
This skill only has a single level at 1 SP, but it's a must have. Bow attacks will decrease in accuracy as battles go on. It's cheap enough to not hurt anything.

Sleep Shot

120% damage at Lv. 1 with a 30% chance of inflicting Sleep. At Lv. 10, this deals 150% damage with a 75% chance of inflicting Sleep.
This will put your enemy to Sleep and damage him at the same time. The next attack towards that enemy will deal more damage, and he won't act until he wakes up.
The Sleep effect has a really good chance of hitting if you have a Princess' Angelica Cage up.

Panic Shot

120% damage at Lv. 1 with a 30% chance of inflicting Confusion. At Lv. 10, this deals 150% damage with a 75% chance of inflicting Confusion.
Depending on your enemy's resistances, this may have a better chance of getting its status ailment off.
Enemies won't use skills when they're Confused, so you can use this to protect yourself for a few turns from the worst an enemy (i.e. symbol encounters) can throw at you.

Head Shot

130% damage at Lv. 1 with a 30% chance of inflicting Instant Death. At Lv. 10, this deals 165% damage with a 75% chance of Instant Death.
You can use this attack as your mainstay if you're a Bow Rogue. You can combine this with the Fighter's Arrow Follower for more damage.

Dual Shot

Fires off two attacks at an enemy. At Lv. 1, both attacks deal 70% damage. At Lv. 5, both attacks deal 100% damage.
If the first shot kills your original target, the second shot will go to a different target. This is good for picking off enemies with low LF.
This is the other bow skill that can be used as a mainstay.
It isn't known whether or not this will decrease your bow's hit rate twice as fast with its two shots.
Against bosses, you'll have to use Seeker every so often to keep your hit rate up.
Arrow Follower (a Fighter skill) will only follow this once.

Sonic Shot

Nullifies damage from projectiles or magic from one target and counterattacks with a shot of your own. The counter deals 110% damage at Lv. 1, 135% damage at Lv. 5.
If you don't get your counter off by the end of the turn, then you'll do a small attack at 90% damage (at Lv. 5) after everyone else has acted.
Even if it nullifies damage, you still might be inflicted with any status ailments the original attack came with.
The amount of damage this does pales in comparison to the rest of your skills, but the selling point of this is that it nullifies damage.
You can use this instead of Guard when you know your enemy is going to launch a ranged attack.
Even against ranged attacks that hit multiple times (e.g. 30mm Cannon), you'll only counter once.
The Fighter's Arrow Follower will not fire off a counter, either.
You can use this as to go last in the round, in case you're Cursed and need some healing before you can attack.
Also, it seems as though if you EX this skill and don't counter anything, you'll lose an extra EX (for a total of 2 EX) when you fire off your shot at the end of the turn. If you do counter an attack, you'll use 1 EX as normal.

Falling Star

EX skill. This deals 170% damage to one enemy after two turns go by.
If your enemy doesn't have really high DEF, then an EX Dual Shot will do more damage than this.
You can use this to fire off a Fighter's Arrow Follower. If you use a bow attack on the turn this hits, Arrow Follower will fire twice, once for each attack. To make the damage worth the wait, you'll have to EX Arrow Follower.
The description says that Falling Star will hit in 3 turns, but this includes the turn you fire it. If you use this on turn 1, then Falling Star will hit on turn 3.

Footwork Skills

Footwork Mastery

Gives a +10% bonus to your SPD at Lv. 1, and a +60% bonus at Lv. 10.
This doesn't do anything else at Lv. 1, but it seems to give a 120% multiplier to damage done by Footwork Skills at Lv. 10.
The SPD bonus is really good at higher levels, but if you want your Healer to heal your Rogue before he acts, then this won't make it easy.

Sand Kick

50% chance of inflicting Blind at Lv. 1, 100% chance of inflicting Blind at Lv. 10.
Enemies that are Blind will have a very hard time hitting your party. This only seems to last 1 turn, though, and doesn't deal damage.
Its high chance of success makes it good to use with Masked Pain,.
You can use this to Blind a single enemy while you recover MN from Craft Mana (for Healers) or Poem of the Moonlight (for Princesses). The enemy will fruitlessly flail about, and you can gain back your MN without much trouble.
It doesn't matter if you're indoors or in the middle of the ocean, the Rogue will always find some sand to kick.

Replace First

This skill lets you give up your turn and let an ally go first. This costs 4 MN at Lv. 1, and 0 MN at Lv. 5. This will never fail.
This usually comes into use whenever you need to heal fast. Mages that get Cursed have to sit around for 3 turns or so until it wears off, and if they've used Mage's Concentrate before they got Cursed, then it'll be wasted. You can Replace First on your Healer to recover your Mage, then have him blast away like nothing ever happened.
You can also use this so that your Mage can rip off a full party spell, or so that your Princess can use a full party status ailment, at the start of the turn. This will affect the enemies before they can act, and can reduce the damage you take.
You can also use this when fighting Flower Seeds. You won't need to use EX, just Replace First some party member and have him attack.
Using this on a party member will let him go before anyone who used EX goes.

Escape Stance

Increases the success rate of running and reduces the damage you take when you try to escape. This costs 5 MN at Lv. 1 and 1 MN at Lv. 5.
This is useful if you ever run into a random battle that you have to get out of. If you can't take out your enemies before they do something bad, then you can use this to stay safe.
Your Rogue will not try to run away when you use this, though. If you don't have anyone else that can act before your enemies, the damage they do will be reduced.


At Lv. 1, you have a 40% chance of an Ambush attack activating off a regular attack, and you'll be targeted with attacks with 30% less frequency.
At Lv. 10, you have a 70% chance of Ambushing off a regular attack. Enemies will target you 50% less often.
If you're hit while in Hiding, there is a 30% chance of being taken out of Hiding.
Ambush attacks will deal as much damage as a critical hit.
This works really well with Trick React. You can keep getting extra turns as long as your 70% chance (if this is maxed) of Ambushing your enemy goes off.
Hiding can be canceled most often with full party attacks. Watch out for enemies that can pull those off.


All enemies 10 levels higher than you (or lower than this) will instantly die or take 70% of their Max LF in damage. Your party members will also be healed, though they won't be resurrected if they're already down.
The character using this skill will be irreplacably gone forever. All his equipment will go with him, and you won't get the character or his equipment back.
This will not revive any other party member, so if your Rogue is your only man standing, using this will give you a Game Over.
The damage on Knight's Anger (a Knight skill, if you couldn't tell) is affected more by a Rogue using this skill that anything else. For each Rogue that uses this skill, the damage on Knight's Anger will be multiplied by 1.5. Unconscious Princesses will multiply the damage by 1.3 each.

Other Skills

Killer's Attract

Increases your encounter rate.
At Lv. 5, it will take around 3 or 4 steps to get into a battle in a forest.
This can be useful if you're looking to run into enemies for their items. Since this increases your encounter rate, you can use this to run into more uncommon encounters faster.
Demonic Countenance (a Samurai skill) will take priority over this.

Rogue's Eye

At Lv. 1, you'll have a 20% chance of finding money after a battle ends. At Lv. 10, you'll find money after 42% of your battles.
The amount of money you find is somewhat small. Around Kazan, you'll find around 10G. Dragons in the latter half of the game will give you 400G. It does add up, though.
You'll usually have enough money laying around at around mid-game. There's no pressing need to take this - parties without it can sell the items they get from enemies without worrying about their wallet.
This might be useful in parties that have to carry a lot of healing items. They won't be able to spare as much inventory space and might have to throw away some of the items they find.
If you want to run straight to Aizen as fast as you can at the beginning of the game, then this might be able to make sure you can buy the equipment you need without stopping to do quests.
Also, if you don't like stepping on Flowers to reduce prices in a town, you could find some use for this.

Gyoujyuuzaga (Casual Behavior)

This multiplies your ATK if a Samurai is in the party by 110% at Lv. 1, and 140% at Lv. 10.
The bonus includes your POW, your equipment, and Mastery skills. All of it gets multiplied by the bonus this skill gives.
Like other Mastery skills, the bonus isn't shown when you look up your stats.
This brings the Rogue's ATK up to levels of ridiculousness if you've got a Samurai in the party, so you really should take it if you plan on teaming up with a Samurai.
If you don't have a Samurai in the party, this skill won't do anything. Don't take it if you don't have a Samurai with you.

The Japanese name for this refers to the acts of walking, standing, sitting, and laying down - what's called the Four Cardinal Behaviors that everyone does every day of their life. It can be used to figuratively mean things like everyday life, things you do everyday, and a host of others. Translations on this can be all over the place. If there's no context, even more so.

Trick React

If you successfully counter an attack with Sword Trap, or if you score an Ambush while in Hiding, you'll get an extra turn if this React is up. The React lasts for 5 turns.
If you used Sword Trap for your extra turn, then you can follow up with Vampire to recover whatever damage you just took (though the MN cost will be pretty harsh).
What this skill really works well with is Hiding. As long as you keep getting Ambush attacks, the React will keep firing, even on the same turn. This means that you could get more than one extra turn while you have this React up.

The disadvantages of Trick React are:

  • It only lasts for 5 turns. Go cry a river.
  • It needs two turns to set up - one to use Hiding, and one to activate the React.
  • It will eat up two of the five slots you can use for strengthening effects, and other strengthening effects might get shuffled out. This can make it hard to benefit from many things at once.

Also, the disadvantages of Hiding are:

  • You can't use anything but regular attacks to get your Ambushes. Use an item that puts elemental damage on your regular attacks if you want to aim for weaknesses.
  • You might be forced out of Hiding if an enemy hits you.
  • Ambushes activate randomly, so you'll be relying on your luck.

If you use a bow, your accuracy will also drop the more attacks you make.
If you want to rack up Pain Counters, then you can use a weapon with a status effect on it.
You can also use Princess React (the Princess' reaction skill, if it's not obvious) with this to give your Princess a slew of extra turns.


A physical attacker with high SPD. With a Samurai, your attack can really soar through the roof. Without one, you'll still be doing damage on par with any other front liner.
Bow Rogues are great at the alpha strike, but their accuracy will decrease the more arrows they fire. Dagger Rogues have lots of skills that are made for long battles.
Replace First can be used to support your other party members as well. In boss fights, though, its effects can be largely replaced by having whoever you want to go first use EX, so it's not a must-have.

The Rogue has a lot of useful skills, but you'll probably have to wait until late game to get all of them to high levels. If you're taking Casual Behavior, then that will also eat at the time it takes to get all your skills up.
If you don't put some thought into planning out when you want to raise skills, then you might end up with a character that can't do what he does very well until he finally gets all his SP in order.
Plan your Rogue around the rest of the party. Single out a few things you want to do, and how the rest of the party can help you do it, and focus on just those.
Rogues can be late bloomers, but if you work out your SP carefully, you'll be able to be effective from the beginning of the game. Focusing on Masked Pain can really drain MN quick, and needs a lot of SP, so if you want to be strong at early game, you might not be able to pull off a Masked Pain Rogue.

If you're a Dagger Rogue, keep an eye on your weapons.
Don't equip swords if you've got enough Dagger Fetish to overpower them, and look at the effects that your weapons come with.

Dagger Rogues can use Vampire to heal themselves, and Bow Rogues can take less damage in the back row.

Character Making

Dagger React Rogue

Against random encounters, use Vampire. Against anything that's really tough, you'll be using the Hiding + Trick React combo.

It's kinda obvious, but you'll be focusing on Vampire, Hiding, and Trick React. You'll also need some passive skills (Dagger Fetish, etc.), so balance your levels carefully.
Until you get all your skills up, you'll probably feel a little incomplete as a character. Once you've got everything, though, your firepower will be just plain awesome.
If you've got a Princess, then you can aim to put status ailments on your enemies, or you can give her turns to heal or use support skills with Trick React.

There are disadvantages to making your character like this, though.
Of course the SP cost is going to be pretty high, which will make this Rogue effective only once he gets quite a few levels under him.
It might be good to concentrate on Vampire and Mastery skills for the first part of the game. Letting Vampire sit at Lv. 5 for a while will be better for MN consumption. Wait until you can take the MN cost, then raise it when its MN cost rises to 3 (at Lv. 6).
While you're letting Vampire wait, you can raise up Dagger Fetish and Casual Behavior. That will up the damage on Vampire and allow you to recover more from it.

Bow Rogues will have to give up a turn every so often to use Seeker, so Dagger Rogues might be more suited to using Hiding + Trick React.

Masked Pain Rogue

Vampire will be your mainstay for random encounters. Against tough enemies, you'll want to go for Masked Pain -> Triple Kiss.

The skills you'll focus on will be Vampire, Masked Pain, Triple Kiss, and either Scorpio or Tarantella. You can use the same status ailment to get Pain Counters, so you can choose one or the other.

The effectiveness of this Rogue will depend on what other party members you have. If your party has characters that take skills that inflict status ailments, this will be easier to pull off.
To increase the success rate of your status ailments, Axe Fighters have Balance Kill and Princesses have Angelica Cage.
Using Trick React and a weapon that inflicts a status ailment to build up Pain Counters might not be reliable, even if it might help save some SP.

This is another Rogue that will come together pretty late.
You might want to get Vampire up to Lv. 5 early on, then focus on Dagger Fetish and Casual Behavior. If you can stomach the MN cost, you can put more points into Vampire (the MN cost rises to 3 at Lv. 6).

Three Skills Dagger Rogue

Scorpio Lv. 10 -> Vampire Lv. 5 -> Dagger Fetish Lv. 10 -> Tarantella Lv. 5 -> Vampire Lv. 10, Tarantella Lv. 10 -> Sword Mastery Lv. 10.

This Rogue uses Scorpio, Tarantella, and Vampire as his mainstays.
From early to mid-game, you'll want to focus on Scorpio for the Poison damage and Vampire for the LF recovery. Past mid-game, you'll be focusing on Tarantella and Vampire.

This Rogue is really easy to raise, and can still be effective from the beginning of the game.
Unlike Hiding/Trick React Rogues or Masked Pain Rogues, this Rogue doesn't need to set anything up, and doesn't need to plan out his battles.
He can just continually use his skills for a constant barrage of damage.

Scorpio will deal a good 500 damage at max level. It's not hard to max it at the beginning of the game, and 500 damage is a lot at that point.
Using EX will make dragons and bosses in the early game fall to your Poison easily.
You'll also be able to get Dagger Fetish to Lv. 10 early on.

Tarantella's Paralysis works fairly often on dragons and bosses, and can get its status ailment to hit more often than a Samurai can get Zeppa-Uchi to seal skills.
Once you've got your enemy Paralyzed, you can switch to Vampire and be fairly safe.

Late-game, Scorpio's Poison damage might just not be enough to be worth it. The 13 SP you spent to max it might go to waste, so you might want to use a skill reset to get those points back.

If you have a Samurai with you, then you might want to drop Scorpio altogether so you can use points for Casual Behavior.
With Dagger Fetish, Sword Mastery, and Casual Behavior maxed, the damage on the Rogue's attacks can get to around 450 with the ultimate dagger. Even if you don't have Trick React or Masked Pain, you still won't have any problems.

Bow Rogue

This Rogue focuses on dealing a lot of damage in one go. He hangs out in the back row, and is pretty well protected there.
Bow Rogues can get all the firepower they'll ever get faster than Dagger Rogues can, even if bows can be hard to come by.
Axe Fighters work well with just about any of their skills, so feel free to pair them up. They alone can make Falling Star worthwhile.
For damage, use Dual Shot or Head Shot.
For support, you can use Sleep Shot to stop an enemy completely (or until he takes damage), or you can use Panic Shot so that he doesn't use skills for a while.
Sleep Shot and Panic Shot will stop random enemies from using their worst skills (like full party Confusion). If you've got Poem of the Moonlight (a Princess skill), then you can use those in every single battle you face. Their MN cost is low, which helps.
Seeker is a must-have since your accuracy decreases with every shot you make. Dual Shot seems to decrease your accuracy faster than other skills or regular attacks.
If you want to stick out battles for longer periods of time, then you might want one point in Head Shot even if you don't plan to max the skill.

Bow React Rogue (and Princess)

This Rogue abuses the Hiding + Trick React combo with a Princess around with Princess React.
Hiding does take a while to get, though, so this Rogue will grow slower than the regular Bow Rogue above.
Princesses also take a while to get their damage going, so in the early game, your damage might not be that astounding.

Once you get to mid-game, you'll be getting some better whips, and some will have status ailments on them.
Even against dragons, getting your Reacts to fire and just hitting them over and over will eventually get the status ailment on them.
If your Princess can increase her ATK, then she'll be doing some nice damage every extra turn your Rogue gets.

Of course, since everything hinges on Trick React and getting Ambushes, you're going to be relying on luck to get a lot of your damage out.

All Rogues

Any Rogue you make, you might want to get Replace First.
Mages can rip off their powerful full party spells in the blink of an eye, and you can take out Flower Seeds without spending EX.
The Fighter's Element Follower will go off as fast as a Mage can throw his spell out, so you can get a nice blast of damage right as a turn starts, as long as you've got all the preparations done.

Whatever weapon you use, if you've got a Samurai, you'll want Casual Behavior. Multiplying your entire ATK by 1.4 is just too awesome.
Your Rogue's damage is: (POW + (Weapon ATK x (Sword Mastery + Dagger Fetish))) x Casual Behavior.

Job Combinations

Rogue and Fighter

Bow attack (Rogue) + Arrow Follower (Fighter)
Arrow Follower was made to go with Bow Rogues.

Falling Star (Rogue) -> (wait 2 turns) -> any Bow attack (Rogue) + EX Arrow Follower (Fighter)
The EX Arrow Follower will follow both Falling Star on the turn it hits and whatever attack the Rogue uses that same turn, so you get two EX attacks out of spending 1 EX.
For the most damage you can get, use Dual Shot or Head Shot (Rogue).

Balance Kill (Fighter) -> Scorpio/Tarantella (Rogue) + other status inflicting skills (other jobs) -> Masked Pain (Rogue)
Balance Kill will increase the chance status ailments take effect. If you're going for Masked Pain, then this will get you Pain Counters faster and more reliably.

Rogue and Knight

Replace First (Rogue) + Provoke (Knight)
When you absolutely need the Provoke to go off before your enemies can act, Replace First your Knight.

Hiding (Rogue) + Provoke (Knight)
It goes without saying, but the Rogue will hardly be attacked here, unless by full party attacks.

Hiding (Rogue), at 50% or less LF + Guardian (Knight)
The Knight will take all the hits for the Rogue, protecting him from full party attacks or single target attacks. The Rogue can stay in Hiding while the Knight takes the hits for him.

Rogue and Samurai

Casual Behavior (Rogue) + Samurai
This will give you a hefty bonus to your Rogue's ATK. It won't do anything for the Samurai, though.

Rogue and Mage

Replace First (Rogue) + Full Party Elemental/Mana Spell (Mage)
This will take out random encounters on turn 1, before your enemies can act.

Rogue and Healer

Scorpio (Rogue) -> Venom Amplif (Healer)
Scorpio will Poison more often than any of the Healer's Venom skills. After the Rogue hits the enemy with Poison, have the Healer use Venom Amplif over and over to increase the damage.
The more Healers you have using Venom Amplif, the faster the damage will pile up. The Poison damage can get pretty high after a few Amplifs.

Replace First (Rogue) + Recovery spell (Healer)
If you're willing to burn one of your characters' actions, this can let a Healer cure someone fast without using EX.

Rogue and Princess

Angelica Cage (Princess) -> Scorpio/Tarantella (Rogue) + other status inflicting skills (other jobs) -> Masked Pain (Rogue)
Like the Balance Kill strategy (Rogue and Fighter), only you've got three turns to benefit from Angelica Cage.
You can use both Angelica Cage and Balance Kill to get the highest chance of inflicting status ailments you can possibly get.

Hiding (Rogue) -> Trick React (Rogue) + Princess React (Princess) -> Regular bow attack (Rogue), getting Ambushes
