Here are the pros of being a bandit:

Flashy skills - ok.. so its after level 30, and after you get to a decent
level(meaning 50+)
but who cares.. it will all be worth it trust me.
Noobs will go “wow.. do that skill with the many many chinese words in it
-Savage blow”
or “haste! Haste! Haste!” Add that on with many MANY flashy skills in 3rd job
(assaulter, mesos explosion, pickpocket, band of theives, meso guard and even
chakra, erm.. i think i just listed all the skills) ,
a bandit is totally pleasing to the eyes ^^

Consistent damage - there’s a bit of controversy here.
After having maxed mastery and savage, the damage you do will be pretty much
consistent on every enemy.
The main exception being those with high weapon defence.
(however you disorder takes care of that)
So if say, you can 1hko a 1100hp jr kitty at lcvl 35, you
can most probably do a 1hko on a jr leatty as well.

Here are the cons of being a bandit:

Lack of knockback - even with savage blow and dagger mastery maxed you won’t
be able to make those large monsters flinch in the way that a warrior, mage
or archer can, not until the third advance. While your attacks aren’t weak,
they do work in a different way to the attack skills of the other classes.
Lack of a critical hit skill means lower damage too (though to be fair, only
the shooting classes get that).

The problem with savage blow - when it’s maxed, this skill will deal 80% of
your damage range * 6 hits. 480%, sounds nice, but you have to bear in mind
that it works out as 6 individual hits, not one large one. That means that
enemies with high defence may give you a few problems. Savage blow also has
a fairly long animation until you get dagger booster, which can leave you
open to attack, and is rather expensive, 27 mp per use when it gets to level
21, so you’ll need to keep the mana potions flowing. Even when you do get
booster it takes about half a second or so to pull a savage, that’s why
people jump attack so much as bandits, you can keep moving as you stab since
you have the momentum to propel yourself forwards.

Ranged magical attackers - while you can run rings around most opponents on
Victoria island with haste, when you move to Ossyria many enemies will have
a ranged magical attack that you can’t dodge, though your evasion may well
kick in against. Nothing you, or anyone else, can do about this, but it’s
something you’ll have to prepare for. Haste helps against these kinds of
enemies, but only in that it allows you to make up the distance that you were
knocked away by so they won’t get quite as many shots off while you
recover. Tauromacis/spear are an exception to the whole out outmanoeuvring
thing, they’ll just fry you as soon as you stab them from any distance.

Bandit or banditsin
BBBAN
—

If you didn’t already know, banditsin is the nickname given to a rogue that
starts out by following an assassin’s skill build but become a bandit at the
job advance. This means that you get the benefit of ranged attacks, high
attack throwing stars and the lucky 7 skill (which is just as strong with
mastery as without), but you get all the bandit benefits at level 30.
Considering how long getting a pure bandit to level 30 can seem to take,
this is an attractive option and it also makes getting savage blow a little
quicker, but if you take lucky 7 and the keen eyes needed to support it
you’ll miss out 2 things: several points to disorder/dark sight and the
double stab skill.

The disorder/dark sight thing isn’t so bad, as bandits get a few spare
points at the end of their jobs anyway so you can fill out your old skill
book if you feel you want to, but double stab can be quite useful. As an
example, if a dark stone golem takes 2 savage blows and 2 regular attacks to
kill, you’ll save yourself either 13 mp or a few seconds by using double stab
instead of that 3rd savage or those 2 regular hits. Might not sound
like a lot, but when you need 1 million or more experience to level up it
adds up quite quickly, and we do use a lot of MP, after all. It’s also
handy when you go to places like the deeper parts of the dungeon when you’re
a fairly high level and quite powerful, but it’s infested with weak enemies.
No sense in wasting all that mp, right? Kinda handy if you’re the kind of
person who kills anything that moves and gets in their way on instinct, even
while travelling. That might just be me, though…

The other thing to consider is that once you hit level 45, possibly 40,
you won’t ever use lucky 7 again. Never. Not having access to critical
shot makes it much weaker than an assassin’s lucky 7, making savage blow the
better option.

Basically, banditsins are a time saver, though slightly flawed compared to a
full bandit. It’s not a huge flaw, but it’s something to think about. If
you’re into the whole perfect character thing, then the L7 points may irk
you a bit come level 50+.
—
Strength or pure luck
BBSTR
—

This gets asked quite a lot. A strength bandit is a bandit that adds to
their strength stat in order to equip, to use the formal names, daggers,
while a luck bandit uses cutters instead, which don’t require strength (I’ll
refer to both as daggers from this section on, it just saves confusion).
Daggers attack faster than cutters and they normally have one extra speed
rank (they’ll be faster where a cutter will be fast), so you can get your
attacks off a little faster, but by adding strength instead of luck you’ll
be losing some attack power. When you get to the later levels 40 strength
or more is a lot to lose, especially as your weapons get stronger (it’d mean
-120 from my upper attack range at the time of writing with 83 weapon
attack).

The weapons themselves have some important differences. Since strength
bandits are a little weaker you’ll get extra speed as compensation, as
mentioned above, but at higher levels the attack speeds of daggers and
cutters become the same. It’s kind of like becoming a banditsin, you make
one small sacrifice to aid leveling speed but lose a little power along the
way. Also to take note of, cutter users won’t get a weapon from level 35-50
and their level 50 weapon has a nasty flaw in it (more on that later), but
the level 40 dagger drops from a fairly easy to hunt monster.

If you made a strength banditsin, I suppose you’d have a really easy time
from level 10-60, but the combination of the two weaknesses would be
unpleasant later on, to say the least. However, daggers tend to have
different stats to cutters, cutters have a lower potential attack stat,
so it’s a little bit of a gamble for you weapon hunting types, and
by leveling faster from 40-60, it’s like a constant steady acceleration vs
crawling along then a huge boost, you’ll most likely be a higher level than
your luck counterparts when they hit 60 at last. Cutters are awfully
expensive too, and we’re generally not a wealthy class. Not until a noticeable
level anyway.

—
Funding (or lack thereof)
BBFUN
—
I will split this part into

Funding isn’t a huge problem for bandits at first. We do use a lot of
potions, no denying that, and we’re one of the 2 classes that need a pan lid
to have the best gear possible at first, which is initially very expensive.
Since you can hunt green mushrooms from an early level, though, you can try
and get a lid, and they drop mana potions so there’s a bit of a saving
there, too.

Funding will start to pinch a bit at level 35-40. First things first, we
pure luck types will need a good fan or a gephart. If you’re not too fussy
about weapon attack, then you can get a nice cheap geph from El Nath, but
considering how long you’ll have the thing, you really want to get the best
that money can buy, something in the 52-53 attack range, or higher if you
can pull it off. A little optimistic ligator hunting can help there, to
some extent. As for strength bandits, you’ll need a bazlud eventually.
Lupins aren’t friendly to the melee classes (or anyone, really), so unless
you can take a cleric or have a ton of potion money, you might want to
consider buying one. They’re not too expensive, to my knowledge, so don’t
worry.

If you’re a luck bandit buying an above average weapon, I’d go for the fan.
It doesn’t look as serious as the gephart, for sure, but the sheer mass of
fans in the market, vs the amount of gepharts makes it easier to find a
decent one and probably cheaper.
Luck bandits at level 50 start to get a major disadvantage, as our level 50
weapon tends to be expensive and has a flaw in it (mentioned elsewhere in
the FAQ), but strength bandits should be able to get a sai without too much
trouble. Generally, I really wouldn’t bother with a shinkita, but that’s
just me, the issue is covered in an appropriate section for you to make your
own decisions.

At level 60, luck daggers become really horribly expensive since there’s a
reasonable demand but a short supply, they only drop from yeti and pepe as
well as jr. balrog. If you can get someone to heal you while fighting those
guys, taking 16 hits to split them, then go ahead and try, but it’s an
expensive place to fight in and rather crowded, now. The strength dagger is
cheaper and actually affordable, I’m certain of that.

Kandines seem to be better than fins to buy, which may be a relief.
However, that’s all the relief you will get, as the dragon tail is another
bomb waiting to destroy your mesos pool. (a 104 wa 9 luck will easily cost
you 50mil)

So yeah, you’ll probably want to be funded, if you’re getting funding from
another character at all, if you plan to reach level 35-40. To save
yourself a bit more money, you might want to buy into prescrolled weapons,
they tend to be cheaper than buying 60% dagger scrolls (which have a HARSH
price tag, though aren’t as bad as they were).

As for making money, bandits aren’t great at it. Not at lower levels anyway.
Although we use potions of both types, the avoidability kicks in and half
the time, the monsters miss.
(This coming from a level 70 bandit with 190 avoid. I’m a proper bandit
[not low dex or anything])
So when you start training at mixed gollems, (esp. with a meso up hermit,
and you having pickpocket) you will start seeing a profit.