Mandau Vs. Twashtar.

I said I'm sorry, but it kinda had to be said >_<

AF3+2 TAKES SO MUCH TIME TO GET

Specially compared to a Mandau!

It does when you are solo!

I have both 90. Get a Mandau, it is better.

Sure if you are going for mandau you are accepting the fact of using evis forever. No reason at all to use Mercy in abyss. And if are getting Mandau to spam Mercy, you are better of getting Twash to spam Rudras. Mercy damages a very small bit harder (with Mandau90), but you gain much more dps with Rudras in the end.

And if you can work on Mandau, why not work on Twash as well? Coupled they are unbeatable, and Twash is way easier to get.

If you have the right jobs between you and your gf, you should be able to finish Twash 85 in 5/6 days. This accounts to about 50h of work, and to complete Mandau you need much much much much more. Specially if you are getting most of the currency straight from dyna.

edit: oh yeah, you asked but i didn't see any reply on this. The best atma combo for thf, no matter your weapon choice, is Razed Ruin/ Alpha and Omega/ Apocalypse. Granted it's not always possible to use said combo. You can find some posts about this on this forum, mostly made by me lol, i'm an avid defender of the combo.

All the redhead cat says is correct. A&O should be swapped to Gnarled Horn in cases where -hp/loss of dAGI "Subtle Blow" are not practical.

The talk about how long it takes to finish a stage is a joke.

Especially with cerb.
You can kill the tiger 20 times and get 5 hides.
Even then you can walk in, and within 3 minutes with base lights, get a double hide out of chest. At the same time you could go in for 3 hours and not see a single one of the chest.

And an even bigger LOL at the guy claiming to do 85-90 solo in a day.
That would mean brewing them all? and only holding one pop at a time, thus 1 brew per pop? did you have enough cruor for 30 brews. That and the time it takes to gather the pops? /sigh

If i had the numbers and math to help justify which dagger was better. I would. But i dont. So i would make both if i were you and brag ^^

also for atma, i agree that Razed Ruin/ Alpha and Omega/ Apocalypse is very nice. I even use this setup on drg sometimes. Simply to increased my TP dps. hehe i love seeing tripple attack frenzies with aftermath up

He 4-boxed, but that's kinda crazy.

It's reasonable if you buy all/most hides. It could still take 10h+ to fight all the damn nms tho.

Even the other pop items can take awhile if you don't buy them. Even if you buy all the pops and have someone else going to get more while you fight so there is 0 downtime farming you are still fighting a good 80 or so nms. Between time it takes to proc and running and just getting hp down that's easily a good 10hr of abyssea time. Which is alot of time using several people mostly for your benefit and alot of money lol

As far as atmas idk hp loss on AaO really kinda hurts me since I only sit at like 2k hp as is. And Dagi and crit hit rate really helps alot. Plus ya know the fact that with GH I pretty much never need any evasion gear to cap evasion

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. :3 Decided that Mandau is at least worth more to work on compared to the other possible relics I would be able to use (if not very often). Twash will maybe come later whenever I am able to get my gun and Shadow's Kannagi completed.

Oh yeah, i pretty much only factored Amarok+Orthrus fight time there. There can be plenty more down time. Still, whoever did that was a machine. I can't even take stay sitting for 3 straight hours lol.

And ouch @2k hp lol. I have around ~2.3k with AO inside heroes zones. Damn galkas got the benefit from abyss <.< hp bonus being a relative increase and stats being absolute...

Had to be said

Factors to consider:

1. Mercy smokes Rudra at the 90 stage; they essentially interchangeable until the 25% damage boost. However the style of play that is becoming dominant disfavors Mercy/Rudra. They are best stacked and the timers of SA/TA are too high compared to how low our TP cycles are now that everyone has capped haste.

2. The gap between Evisceration and Mercy/Rudra is lower outside of Abyssea. While Evisceration still wins (easily), the gap is much smaller without giant Atma bonuses to crit rate and damage. Mercy's aftermath still sucks too much *** for this to be relevant, but it helps Rudra's aftermath be a factor. However consider that to maintain Rudra's aftermath you're either using it unstacked or saving SA/TA. In either case you are losing some damage. I'd say it's probably made up for in the long run from the aftermath, but it's not going to be as much as you believe.

3. Orthrus is going to be easy at 99 cap. If Twashtar gets 95/99 stages they will most likely be the same style, however there is a chance they stay pat at 90. Remember Empyrean Weapons are tied storyline to Abyssea. If Abyssea is done, then it makes sense it stops there. It's reasonable to think that they will stay balanced as a top tier weapon without upgrades given their aftermaths. Chances are the Mandau trials to 99 will be Animated Dagger/Dynamis Lord.


All this being said I would say they are roughly equal but there is a better chance that Mandau will come out on top. For work to product, Twashtar is definitely better.

Yeah taru hp sucks :(. Even with hp merits

Emps aren't directly tied to abyssea, they just happen to have a few trials there. All the VNMs and NMs prior were not abyssea related. Even w/ the Walk of Echoes version, there was only 1 trial there and then it moved on.

While its a possibility, there is no reasonable expectation for Emps to stop at lv 90. I see all magians weapons, emp or not, going all the way to 99.

Hmmm.....ok.

Mercy doesn't outdo Rudra by any wide margin. Outside of Abyssea, Mercy's roughly equivalent to Rudra at 100% tp. Under capped atk and unbuffed, the first hit will do roughly 2-2.2k for both. Inside of Abyssea, you'd have RR to buff up Rudra. You'd have to cater to Mercy, atma-wise, to bring it up to the same level, which hurts your melee dot. As of now, Twashtar is the stronger dagger.

And you're out of your mind if you think Evis' average can come close to either Mercy's or Rudra's outside of abyssea. Occasional spike, I can see, given the nature of the WS. Average, on the other hand, not a chance in hell.

Also, it's not that Orthrus will become easy at 99. It will still be easy at 99. You can blood tank this, THF+WHM duo, and win with full DD gear setup and DD atma.

The websites for the add-ons when they introduced the weapons talked about the weapons' history in the Abyssea world.

Is it a big deal? No. But given the fact they said they wish to strengthen mythics/relics to match Empyreans, rather than gimp Empyreans, one way to do that would be to hold Empyreans at the current stage while they adjust relics/mythics up.


I'd say 25% is a rather significant different when they are otherwise comparable.

I'm not taking Atma into account. As I signified when I made a point comparing MS/RS to Evisceration outside of Abyssea, I'm looking mostly outside (post-) Abyssea.

I am going to take it for granted that with an investment like this in question, future-proofing is significant.


Unstacked Evis vs. unstacked MS/RS? What are you testing on because that is definitely not my experience with MS.


OP already established that, for them, the Orthrus stage was unrealistic. I am only pointing out that if they are unable to do it now (and yes, for the record, I agree that Orthrus is not hard) the game only gets progressively gimpier as our levels rise.

You didn't even begin to refute what I said. It doesn't seem like you said anything other than give the misconception that Rudra and Mercy were comparable pre-90. They're not; Rudra will always outdo Mercy by a wide and noticeable margin, pre-90. My post clearly outlined how the two WSs behave both inside and outside of Abyssea.

I'm not even sure why you would mention anything about unstacked Mercy/Rudra. There was nothing about it being unstacked in your previous post other than having to use it to keep aftermath up. That has nothing to do with the actual damage of the WS.

Actually I did. I clarified that we were using the same conditions (unstacked) to compare Evis and MS/RS, then I went on to ask what further conditions (what mobs) you are testing on. I specify that this line of questioning arises from my personal skepticism because my first hand experience is that Evisceration is the best WS for spamming in regards to pure DMG output.


Actually by your own admission they do, in the context with which I was arguing they were comparable ["Outside of Abyssea, Mercy's roughly equivalent to Rudra at 100% tp."]

Don't say you didn't know what I was saying, I clarified the context in my followup post, which you claim said nothing. ["I'm not taking Atma into account ... I'm looking mostly outside (post-) Abyssea."]


With natural synergy from Atma, yes I agree. However I never claimed otherwise.


I'm considering unstacked damage since with the speed at which we gain 100 TP you will be a) performing some RS unstacked to keep Aftermath up, b) sacrificing Aftermath time by doing Evis whenever the timer is not appropriately aligned. Either case affects your overall DPS which is something to consider when weighing ODD. However I only said that it compromises expected gains from ODD, it does not eliminate that advantage.

I'm trying to look at the bigger picture if things follow the current pattern your looking at +45 att from mandau and +25 dex from ice cream cone come lvl 99. As a twastar owner not gonna lie 45 att sounds awesome for an attack starved job like thf, but i love my ***! its hits like a truck and the milkshake brings the boys to tha yard


also where does this leave Vajra? at its current form its up to enhances SA/TA 4 going up to lvl 6 prob in the future im thinking the thing could produce sum crazy e-peen numbers. does mandalic stab get a 25% boost as well?

anyway gl on whichever path you choose

so has anyone actually parced mandau vs twashtar on a dot basis? It just seems like to me that in abyssea with an almost capped crit hit rate and tripple attack like crazy that the dot from twashtars aftermath would be insane. just curious, havent done alot of research, but i would like to see some parse results and not just someones opinion xD

don't forget mandau's triple dmg / poison (which triggers quite often)

edit: u need 7,5% DD proc to do the same dmg as mandau with 5% TD proc

My personal opinion toward the makers of this post would be that if we are comparing Mandau 90 to Twashtar 85, Mandau would likely win due to the 4 DMG and attack+35 on its side. However, Twashtar 90 I believe would even out the playing field due to the double damage aftermath. Although I have not parsed the rate with kannagi, i would say its easily higher than the 10% required to negate mandau's triple dmg and Rudra's Storm I am fairly certain is better than Mercy's regardless of inside or outside abyssea. However, Rudra's will not beat out Evisceration inside abyssea, but it should outside with legitimate ease.

That being said, the way the Delay/tp gain curve works...Combined both weapons will be one of the best combo's you can get. Since Mandau takes money and dynamis, you could easily get Twashtar then get Mandau and when you're inside abyssea you could main mandau if you think the evis dmg will be better than the aftermath for rudra's and you can main Twashtar outside abyssea and neither would be a loss.

Skinner has both. I'm not quite sure the extent of his personal parsing but I assume he has some rational basis for his opinion.

It's hard to parse these days because the need for XP is so much less and the style of parties isn't nearly as conducive to ideal testing.


Aftermath is the same between 85 and 90, the relevance in Mandau being 90 is the upgrade to Mercy Stroke which I still don't see being beaten by Rudra's. However I personally don't see the dmg differential outstripping the Double Damage Aftermath. Mandau's aftermath or triple damage needs significant adjustment to compete.

That being said ideal playstyle, inside or outside, will vary between the two slightly based on the emphasis on using Evisercation. With Mandau you should only be using Evisceration inside. Outside Abyssea you'll still want to use Evisceration whenever timers are down (and not worth waiting for). With Twashtar you also want to use Rudra's whenever aftermath needs to be replenished. It is definitely worth the aftermath, but it means to an extent you sacrifice higher WS numbers.

I'd say Twashtar currently comes ahead in both circumstances, but the differential isn't simply just the lump extra damage from aftermath. You have to adjust it to subtract differential between EV and RS inside, and differential between MS and RS outside.

Sorry, I got a little ahead of myself. The reason was the dmg on the 90, not the double damage aftermath, i know the effect is the same. Closing the cap from 4dmg to 1dmg makes the superiority of the double damage aftermath clearer.

Also, outside abyssea I would think that the rudra's numbers would likely still trump evisceration if one was to gear properly for it, the mods are just far too heavy to be outweighed. Same logic behind using say gekko over rana for SAM. If you pump enough dex/str/att onto the ws, its going to overpower evisceration heavily outside where crits are no where near as abundant.

MS and RS are roughly mathematically equivalent before the 25% boost to MS, and playstyle around MS has long revolved around stacking it. The problem is that we're at levels of delay far lower than before now so stacking everything will be super inefficient.

I don't get how you can say they are mathetically equivalent when dex is so much more readily available, specially inside abyssea. Even if their availability was identical, chances are dex would be higher because thief has better dex than str. A mithra for one, has almost 20 more dex than str. So Rudras was certainly always superior with an extra 0.2 ftp and a stat that is naturally higher for us, and only now MS started effectivelly beating it.

Inside abyssea things are more discrepant. We have an atma that is a "must equip" which boosts dex even more. If you equip a second atma to increase str you will only be losing, because the standard second option (GH) probably boosts evis (the real bread and butter) more than a str atma would. Or if the second option happens to be alpha and omega, 10% triple should boost the MS damage close to what 40-50 str would. So RS damage should always be higher than a nonlv90 MS.

RAGEEEE ask;hflda

I had a giant math'd post using the formulas to show "rough" equivalence. But FFXIAH logged me out while I was typing and it went poof when I tried to submit and it told me I wasn't logged in.

The WD differential was 57, which is basically 60-100 DMG in Rudra's favor against a decently difficult mob outside Abyssea (pDIF multiplier wouldn't get much higher than 2 for a mob that gives the fSTR I assumed). That is around what I expected from what amounts to a .25 FTP multiplier gap between the forumlas and double dipping benefits from sneak attack.

Key finding: Post Abyssea, most of the best DEX gear is no longer also the best STR gear. This makes the DEX differential higher than I expected (+30), especially with the multiplier effect of the AF3+2 hands, but it also made the Rudra build lag behind in STR (-40) and consquently in fSTR. Since this becomes moot inside Abyssea, so one would expect the difference between the two to increase inside Abysssea (in addition to aforementioned buff from RR)