Nyzul Gear

Just a little review of things as I sort out what's likely to be useful. So, checking options for the value of the Thaumas set for mnk to see whether it's worth my time to try to get the gear.

Target 1: Dynamis DC mobs
Subjob: Dnc
Food: Bison Steak
Buffs: Haste Samba from sub; no Haste
Mob debuffs: 5% def down from Box Step

Weapons:
Vere 90 [Smite]
Oxyuranis (fire) [Shijin]


Standard AF3+3 gear set as baseline

Shijin
Thaumas head: bad
Thaumas body: bit of an upgrade over Loki's; Athos beats Thaumas; Toci's is well ahead of Athos. Loki's beats Euxine +3.
Thaumas hands: tied with Athos
Thaumas legs: bad
Thaumas feet: excellent; Euxine +2 beats Athos.


Smite
Thaumas head: bit of an upgrade over Aias; Aias ties/beats Euxine +3
Thaumas body: Tantra +2 body ties/beats Thaumas with Impetus down
Thaumas hands: bad
Thaumas legs: good; clear win over Usukane, slight win over Hachiryu; Euxine +2 or better win over Usukane.
Thaumas feet: about tied with Kacura +1, a bit ahead of Tantra+2 and Melee+2.


So for weaponskills, legs are good for Smite and feet are good for Shijin (carries down all the way to Euxine +2 for those slots; anything floor 60 or better will generally be an upgrade). The rest are pretty meh compared to available options.


TP sets

Oxyruanis
Thaumas head: bad; falls behind Tantra+2 even when haste is far past capped (ie: using Euxine/Thamas body)
Thaumas body: Exceptional. Even beats Tantra +2 with Impetus up. Euxine +3 ties with Impetus up. Euxine +2 ties with Impetus down. Assume head is changed.
Thaumas hands: Strictly weaker than Tantra +2 hands for TP.
Thaumas legs: Notably worse than Tantra +2.
Thaumas feet: tied with Tantra+2, or slightly ahead in some configs

Verethragna 90
Thaumas head: bad
Thaumas body: Beats Tantra +2 with Impetus up. Tantra +2 beats Euxine +3 with Impetus up. Euxine +2 ties with Impetus down.
Thaumas hands: Strictly weaker than Tantra +2 hands for TP.
Thaumas legs: Notably worse than Tantra +2.
Thaumas feet: Slight upgrade over Tantra+2.


Best TP set appears to be:

Weapon//Hagneia(Vere)|Thew(Oxy)
Ganesha/Rancor/Brutal/Aesir
Thaumas/Melee+2/Rajas/Epona
Atheling/Black/Tantra+2/Thaumas





Target 2: Pil
Subjob: War
Food: RCB
Buffs: Haste/Chaos/Miser's/Stalwart's/Berserk
Mob debuffs: Ageha or Dia III (ie: either sam or rdm present)

Verethragna 90/Oxyuranis:
For each gear option, going back to Tantra+2 is an improvement if Impetus is up. If Impetus down, Euxine+2 ties on the body, but other slots still want Tantra since (with the above buffs/debuffs) more attack has little value, while fStr is significantly more important.

With attack buffs/debuffs down, the Thaumas items would tend to return to their higher value as seen above.

The relative values on weaponskills remain roughly the same.


Overall, seems worth getting body/legs/feet, even at +2 or +3 levels. The lack of value of head and hands for mnk (aside from head for Cataclysm) isn't surprising, of course, though I want the hat for thf&dnc.

At least there isn't a bird on my head.

lolwideneck

1) For spiral I wouldn't necessarily say Thaumas hands are tied with Athos's gloves. The STR from Athos's is still relevant even though it isn't a specific WS mod. The accuracy from Thaumas hands is also attractive--but to be blunt, until we determine the base stat boosts to STR and DEX from the set, in acc uncapped situations my current default would be melee gloves+2 instead of using Thaumas to replace Athos's for SS.

2)Toci's/Ocelomeh headpiece+1 is currently the top body/head combo for impetus down VS, so Tantra+2 is kind of irrelevant there.

3)I'm not sure about using Thaumas feet for VS; this one is a bit tougher though.
Kakura+1: 6 STR/6 DEX/2% crit rate
Thaumas feet: 9 DEX, 14 attack, 3% DA
So effectively; it becomes 6 STR/2% crit rate VS 3 DEX/11 attack/3% DA. Thaumas really may come ahead since the 3 DEX will boost your crit rate as well, which as we know is crucial for VS. To re-emphasize, if we know we will be WS'ing in Thaumas legs, we also need to keep in mind whatever the STR/DEX boost from wearing 2 pieces of the set will be if we are considering including feet. In the end, I'm thinking that you will be right that Thaumas will become the new VS feet.

4)Also, I am very skeptical about the idea that Thaumas body beats Tantra Cyclas+2 with impetus up for TP; although the augments impetus effect will continue to boost your attack/crit rate/crit dmg as you land consecutive hits (even after you remove the cyclas), once you whiff, the effect resets and you would then need to re-equip tantra body for 1 attack round for the effect to start building up again. In short, to keep your boost to crit rate/dmg for smites, you are going to need to keep tantra cyclas on during TP phase. For impetus down though, this may become the new standard for TP phase over toci's.

5) For TP sets, I really see no utility in Hagneia for mnk. Even if you are /dnc and the only DA/TA you get are from Atheling/Epona/Brutal, that's still an 11% DA rate and 3% TA. Since you have two swings per attack round, and each of those swings can DA/TA (not to mention the occasional kick attack), I really don't think sTP is going to provide any type of reliable boost to WS frequency.

So, in short; legs/feet/body seem to be the primary pieces of interest. Legs being great for VS WS, feet for SS WS and potentially VS, and the body potentially for TP phase impetus down for VS, and possibly even impetus up on SS. I am still quite hesitant to undermine the additional dmg from the impetus crit rate/dmg during WS phase, even for SS. That would require math though, which I frankly don't feel like doing atm.

The comparisons were a little rough, there, but with Shijin it's that the +1 dex from Thaumas gives you about the same as 4 of the str from Athos, and the 3 str/3 att of Athos won't make a substantial difference in damage. Thus, very close to the same damage as with an existing piece, means the hand line provides no substantial benefit even at the HQ level, and I'm not going to check the +2/+3 levels.


Tantra's hardly irrelevant given the rarity of Toci's. However since Thaumas didn't even beat Tantra +2, I saw no need to check against a Toci setup.


Yeah, lot of extra factors on this one, making it difficult to be certain.


Doesn't quite work that way. Doesn't matter if you're wearing Tantra body or not, a miss will always reset the accumulated bonus. The only difference in wearing the Tantra body is whether you get the crit damage bonus as well. If you hit 20 times in a row, your next hit will get +40 att and +20% crit rate; if Tantra body is on, it will get +20% crit damage; if no Tantra body, no crit damage. Taking the body on and off just toggles that bonus; it never resets until you miss.

And you don't need to be wearing the body while you hit mobs to build up the crit damage bonus. You could hit 20 times without the body on, put the body on, and the full +20% crit damage bonus will be there. As such, if you weaponskill in Tantra body, there is absolutely no requirement that you were wearing it during the TP phase for you to get the crit damage bonus.


Hagneia is verrrry touchy. It can be the best option, or the worst option (of the typical Thew/Potestas/Hagneia choices), based on completely random elements (regain, save tp, average over-tp rounds, etc). I probably shouldn't have listed it in there, but it came out ahead in this particular combo, and I wasn't quite up for digging deep into where its valid benefit was being sourced. You can ignore it if you like.

1) You have a good point with the gloves; I know I said it before, but I am quite curious to see what the set STR/DEX boosts will be.
2) Good point.
3) ~('.')~
4) Yeah--I did a very poor job of describing the cyclas now that I re-read what I typed; but thankfully, you described it correctly. :p However, I wholeheartedly did not know the crit dmg. bonus was applied retroactively if you TP without the cyclas, and then put it on for WS.
5) Yea, I can see how sometimes Hag would randomly come out ahead.