For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

I stand "Corrected" :)

I was trying to keep it "simplified", because Math.... yeah.

I do, I just don't know what the fTP value would be for 1250 TP. Regardless, with my current gear set, the damage difference at 1000 TP is so small, they are basically the same, and as TP goes up, the DEX wins more and more. I went ahead and made the change last night.

Well that settles that then. The bolded section clinches the argument for me. My personal preference if given the choice will be crit rather than sTP for TP phase. Rudra's is just so damn powerful I hardly use evisceration when I'm grouped, but it's nice for solo. These two gearsets have served me exceptionally well. Rudra's averages 25-30k with mage buffs and evisc averages 6-7k ish with this setup. Highest rudra's spike so far is 47k with 1 houred mage goodies and a triple attack on both hands.

TP ItemSet 342123
Rudra's ItemSet 322885

Adhemar hands body and hat are path B for pure damage, legs are path A for accuracy. Herculean feet is auged with 31 attack 31 accuracy and weaponskill damage +3%. Taming sari is Dmg +8 and Dmg +3 with fairly weak strength/dex boons. Karieyah is weaponskill damage +3%.

Now here's a question. Which do you think is a better rudra's piece? The lustratio leggings with 40 dex and 39 strength, or herculean boots with 24 dex, 16 str, 43 agi, 41 attack and 3% weaponskill damage?

Melphina, where does the Seething Bomblet come from? It isn't on DB, BGwiki or either of the other wikis?

I've readjusted my sets based on recommendations yesterday. So here are the new sets.

THF TP:
ItemSet 343261

Max Haste
ItemSet 343288

Solo Rudra's
ItemSet 343262

SA Rudra's
ItemSet 343265

I managed to get a +14 acc/atk aug on my Taeon Tights last night, so they have 5 DW and 14 acc/atk. I also swapped out the Raider's Boomerang for a Ginsen. Lastly, I took out canny cape for Toutatis full time. It seems like the extra 20 atk, and 25 acc wins right now for me over 2% dual wield, if I can get a max DW aug on it, maybe I'll change my mind.

For max Haste, I am doing Heartseeker/Dudgeon with Taeon Tights for DW and swapping Patentia out for Windbuffet +1.

There is 1 Ramuh +1 ring for sale on Cerberus, but its some amount more than the last one to sell was and I don't know about spending 7M plus right now, which represents more than 25% of my total funds, so I still have Epona's in for now.

The unity ranking should give you a clue. Seething bomblet is listed on BG wiki's Unity page. It comes from Grand Grenade.


My canny cape has 4 DW and 5 dex and I still use toutatis full time. It's that good.


That's a large waste of money IMO when you have so many other things you should upgrade first. I recommend starting with adhemar, and those cursed pieces are kind of expensive. They're worth it though. Try and get some of the accessories I listed from escha too. grunfeld rope, caro necklace, lissome necklace, and ishvara earring are all pretty reasonable. You'll notice most of my gear comes from escha ru-an, and some pieces are fulltime. I only have one piece of herculean, but I don't feel like I'm missing out on all that much.

Btw you can probably get jovian abjuration body merced for about the cost of a ramuh ring +1. If you're willing to spend the coin and can find someone willing to sell then buying that body paper would be a far better use of 8-10 mil.

What sort of augments have you guys been putting into Toutatis? Seems like there's so many viable options for different situations.

(which explains why people want to have multiples...)

Dex20 attacc20 wsd is only sensible first choice

Yeah, I found it on the Unity page not long after I posted that. If you do a search for it, it comes up with no hits or page references.

Looking for advice on my current setups as well. I don't get to play much, so must Reisenjima stuff is harder to get my hands on.

Daggers: Mainhand 119 Mandau, offhand switches between Taming Sari (DMG+8 STR+6 DEX+4) and Sandung (R15). When soloing I use Wingcutter+1 for pulls, otherwise it's Mantoptera Eye.

TP
ItemSet 343295
Adhemar Jacket: Path A
Adhemar Wristbands: Path A
Toutatist's Cape: DEX+20 Accuracy/Attack+20 Critical Hit Rate+10
Samnuha Tights: STR+10 DEX+10 Double Attack+3 Triple Attack+3

Accuracy
ItemSet 343296
Taeon Tights: STR+4 Accuracy+20 Triple Attack+3
Taeon Boots: DEX+6 Accuracy+22 Triple Attack+3

Rudra's Storm
ItemSet 342885
Lustratio Cap: Path B
Moonshade Earring: TP Bonus+250
Herculean Gloves: DEX+6 Attack+30 WS DMG+4% Critical Hit Rate+3%
Lustratio Subligar: Path B
Lustratio Leggings: Path B

Evisceration
ItemSet 343299

Mercy Stroke
ItemSet 343298
Rawhide Mask: Path A
Rawhide Vest: Path A
Samnuha Tights: STR+10 DEX+10 Double Attack+3 Triple Attack+3
Rawhide Boots: Path D

I can't seem to solo the Caturae effectively in Escha-Ru'Aun, so Caro Necklace, Grunfield Rope, and Petrov Ring are all items I would like to get my hands on.
Tenzen refuses to give me a Ginsen, and I'm 0/96 on Cessance Earring.

Anything else I should focus on?

Wait so, you can get all three on a single cape?
I thought you were forced to choose between one of the three different aug items.

***, never mind then, lol

Hey guys, this may sound stupid.. but spending 99% of my time in the game as either BLM or PLD means I haven't been able to focus much on thf. Ironically, a lot of the gear I'm seeing as BiS I have or is easy to get at this point.

My question is.. seeing people talking about Mandau.. is it that good after the update? Does it beat Vajra.. or is that still the benchmark?

Please feel free to be lengthy in your response, I want to learn as much as possible in a short amount of time.

Thanks in advance.

It's the worst acceptable dagger for the time being.

Of the 4 big daggers (all of which are far better than other options), they all have their strengths and weaknesses, and overall they're not that far apart in terms of potential. Some notes:

Mandau: Best melee DPS when aftermath is down, simple to make and use properly. Mercy Stroke is ok. Lowest overall potential, but barely.
Vajra: Best potential overall, less practical in situations where WSs are infrequent/overkill or SA/TA are not feasible. Mandalic gets enough of a boost to regularly overtake Rudra's unless enemy defense is really low. Weakest melee DPS when aftermath is down.
Twashtar: Best melee DPS with aftermath 3, but suffers tremendously without aftermath. The only one worth using offhand, and best for accuracy regardless of whether it's main or sub.
Aeneas: Hard to quantify since one of its boosts is SC damage, but overall I'd put it on par with Twashtar due to the TP bonus being amazing for Rudra's. Exenterator is downright awful, though.

remember when Exenterator was great?

(like a week after it came out)

i wanna go back to those times so i could at least have any idea what the *** was going on ;_;

Mythics are such a pain.

Bear in mind that the potential for any of those 4 daggers depends on your playstyle. Vajra and Aeneas are only better choices than Mandau if you're aggressive with your WSing. The reason is that they had some updates where WSs (notably for daggers) were given really good boosts. Exenterator didn't change much, but Rudra's and Mandalic are extremely potent now.

There's pretty much no reason to ever have Twashtar AM down. Even if you don't have AM3 up, AM1 is something you can maintain essentially indefinitely. The WSD gear we have access to pushes unstacked Rudra's above Evisceration in my experience, so it's really not a sacrifice to activate AM1.

That being the case, the hierarchy simplifies:
* Vajra - Theoretically good, particularly if a lot of your damage comes from SA/TA WS, but AM3 is hardly worth activating anymore so consider using AM1 for extra Accuracy. This is probably a good mainhand dagger for very high tier fights, but I've never brought THF to one so I don't really know.
* Twashtar - Best mainhand for everything else. 50 DEX is 37.5 Accuracy. AM1 is awesome. AM3 is awesomest. Useful as an offhand when it's not in your mainhand.
* Mandau - Lacks a niche. Even the iLvl 121 version might be a worse offhand than a perfect Taming Sari or a good Skinflayer. If you have free access to any weapon, this weapon is not worth having.
* Aeneas - This dagger exists for Aeolian Edge. For single target physical damage, Twashtar is going to beat it every time. For SA/TA-heavy situations, Vajra is probably still going to win. Aeonic aftermath SC/MB potency boost caps out at 10% and Umbra does double the damage of Darkness. You could instead use Vajra and have a 30% stronger closing SAWS (and thus 30% stronger closing skillchain as well).

In messing with the spreadsheet, if your tp set gears less triple attack/multi hit and more STP in it's place, where the tradeoff is "good" (i.e. as a made up example 1 STP for 5 triple attack is bad obviously), you can get a lot more out of am3. A lot of thf gear has it baked in, such as some adhemar pieces where it has both, but there's still lots of places you can load up on STP and make am3 your friend and it boosted the dmg on the spreadsheet for Vajra with am3 up quite a bit.

Vajra is also just an amazing weapon, I've seen it do 50k Mandalic stabs to the ambuscade dragon and that's without an idris geo or chaos roll or even blaze of glory, was just normal fury + frailty. I wouldn't be surprised if you could get that over 70k with idris and chaos roll.

That said I totally agree on Mandau. I know it has some historical reputation but pretty much all relics are inferior to their much more expensive counterparts, as it should be. If you have one already and want to upgrade it, I wouldn't blame you but as it is now, the upgrade cost to 119 III is a quite a bit more expensive than the mandau itself. I also show Shijo path A as an excellent offhand, it has lower accuracy but for pure dmg the lower delay and crit dmg and STR at least on the spreadsheet show it surpass even sari and skinflayer (which I'd suggest you keep for high acc situations unless making the empy).

Twashter should always have aftermath up. Is there really much reason to spam evisceration anymore? I've found that evisc tends to cap out around 5-8k no matter what I do, but Rudra's.....



Now granted this was with strong mage buffs and I believe I got a triple attack on both hands, but I've been averaging roughly 25-30k at 200-250tp when I go to events. I've found that storing tp to roughly 250% and using rudra's twice a minute at group events is far more efficient use of my resources than spamming evisceration at 100%. Since twashtar's aftermath is just SO DAMN GOOD and a level 1 aftermath lasts a full minute now there is zero...literally zero reason to have it down.

Now I know there are plenty of people who can top what I did and then some. My character is nothing special and that screenie is really just an attestation to the current state of rudra's storm. I only have 250 job points so far, my lustratio is just normal quality, my two tamings have low end augments and I only have one piece of herculean, plus mage buffs do silly things. Top that with the dexterity Twashter adds and I can only imagine what an I119 empyrean would do. Actually scratch that. I KNOW what an I119 empyrean can do. During a few of my sinister reign runs I've had the distinct pleasure of grouping with a certain dancer who owns 119 III Twash, and it was a beautiful sight to behold

If that's your play style I think you would be much better off Aeneas main hand and spamming at 1000TP.

Sneak and trick attack timers are the reason I find it more beneficial to wait for higher stored tp values when I use Rudra's. Aenias won't change that. And mainhanding Aeneas means I wouldn't get Twashtar aftermath, or any aftermath at all unless I use exenterator. Seems like a waste.

Empy aftermath has no value add to anything but autoattacks though. It won't work on weaponskills at all. It also doesn't have the 30% multiplier to trick and sneak attack that Vajra does or the 30% damage increase to mandalic stab giving you a fusion WS that can compete and even outperform Rudra's.

In a good tp set you can get to 3k tp 2x a minute and still have time for 1k evisceration (multiple of them in fact and you don't really need to get to 3k ever unless you don't have moonshade set to tp bonus) unless the mob doing something to make it so you can't. If you factor closing skillchains in too, Vajra will have bigger stacked WS, it just will so the skillchain damage just more too, on top of the fact with STP set for it you build tp faster. Also, AM3 does help weaponskills especially ones like Evisceration.

Evisceration at 1k tp vs Rudra at 1k TP. Well with just geo and cor I was doing 17k eviscerations to Qirin. I was also doing about that to the Behemoth in Escha Zi'Tah. Evisceration what you use when your job abilities are down, Rudra or Mandalic when they are up. If you can get 50k Mandalic on Sombra Dragon VD, with only frailty and fury from non idris you should be able to cap out around 70k, I'd like to test for sure sometime but, Twashtar and Vajra have almost the same damage, with Vajra the winner. 50 DEX is a lot, but it is no 30% multiplier to stacked ws damage. The 50 Dex, 500 TP bonus, and 30% SA/TA multiplier all help for doing big stacked WS. Of them all though, the 30% multiplier is by far the winner. For auto attack damage, aftermath Twas wins. Aeneas wins for spamming WS, but Vajra will always have the best TP gain with am3 up.

That's all the reasoning but really, if you want to know, plug it into a spreadsheet and see yourself that's why they exist. That is where I get most my info, that and playing THF and watching some Mythic THF in action.

For doing evisceration you have to know how much your evisc will do to that mob and how much holding your tp would gain you and choose the one that does more. Without Frailty I can't get near that high of evisceration. But either way, it outperforms a 1k unstacked rudra and I can use both job abilities within a 10-20 second window under optimal conditions so what to do with the rest of the 50 to 40 seconds? Evisceration better than sitting on it, and it's not quite a CDC tier WS but it's pretty darn good. Your thf gear wise would probably beat me if you have a 119 III dagger and the gear to match, but if you losing those 8k-17k eviserations on top of your stacked WS I would pass you.

I wasn't making a weapon comparison, just agreeing with Byrth that a Twashtar owner should always have up aftermath. I also never said that I don't still use evisceration, just that in groups I find it more beneficial to use Rudra's at high tp values than low ones. I still throw in an evisceration or two between timers. Trust me, I understand how the different daggers and weaponskills work just fine. I've been playing thf since 2004.

The reason I'd choose Twashtar over Vajra is because I already have one started from the abyssea era with only 800 HMP to go, and I'd have to start vajra from scratch. I rank Twash and Vajra in a similar boat, definately the top 2. Aeneas is IMO the 3rd most powerful of the 4 legendaries and Mandau is the weakest of the 4. I actually agree with you on the playstyle issues. The only statement I have a problem with is this one.


You make it sound like Twashtar's aftermath is weak when it's by far the strongest aftermath of them all. The different daggers play on different mechanics.

I think they mean an rudra's with 1k tp unstacked, not it doing 1k damage.

Yeah. I think you might have misunderstood him (or maybe you just stated your opinion strangely.) The 1k rudra was in regards to TP not damage.

I don't believe there has been convincing analysis of THF weapons. THF gets a huge amount of triple attack that marginalizes Mythic aftermath. The SA/TA bonus on Vajra is great in some situations but less amazing on auto attack fights when you think about the lower weapon DMG and how that affects the overwhelming number of your weaponskills. If you're spamming Rudra's I would put my bet on Aeneas as TP Bonus +500 is a huge bonus (at 1250 TP it's a 40% marginal gain, higher than the SATA bonus.) Holding off doesn't make any sense unless you are stacking the weaponskill but again you can only stack 2 weaponskills every 50 seconds. Twashtar seems like a good option and is even more relevant now as the Ambuscade cape makes your melee strikes more significant. I don't think 50 DEX is going to beat DMG+16 and TP Bonus +500 on Rudra's unless it's a stacked weaponskill where you are fTP capped. The lower delay seems nice but Store TP +10 is often foolishly shrugged off as being insignificant too.

Spreadsheets are good but I think they often misrepresent reality (particularly when it comes to aftermath value). Still though they are much better than shitty ad hoc napkin math crap, I'd be interested to see what they churn out, I feel like the gap between all 3 weapons is probably very narrow.

Lol, I'm still so used to the 100% 200% 300% tp scale that I completely overlooked this. I edited that section of commentary out since it doesn't apply. My point was just meant to be that I think Twashtar and Vajra are both very similar in performance, and there's no point trivializing one players preference for one over the other. Both are amazing weapons and both play on different mechanics.

I agree it is kind of apples to oranges to some degree Melph, play what makes you happy, any of the 4 top tier daggers will out perform anything else on the market. As far as time and cost goes Mandau easiest and cheapest, Aeneas is a big question mark and depends on group you got, Empy is most costly gil wise but if you include time for tokens, ichor, assaults, alex and other pre-req Mythic is the hardest to make. I wouldn't really promote putting ppl in camps or making anyone feel bad about any of them :)

That is true especially if you consider skillchains and such, but it lets you know a lot.

Don't throw Evis under the bus just yet, skillchains are still a thing. Spamming Rudra exclusively is silly since, unless you're being lazy or have multiple DDs who aren't bothering with skillchaining, you should at least be doing evis > rudra > rudra.

Frankly, when I'm being lazy and just want to spam rudra, I put my Twashtar on, activate Lv3 and set my attention elsewhere. When I'm fighting something important, I go with the Vajra. When I'm alone with myself, I hug my Mandau tenderly and fall asleep, since there's no other use for it.

I don't disagree with Byrth's assessment on Mandau really, but it is a wonderful trash dagger. Farming merits when not leeching off a BLU I don't really need to WS, it's total overkill most of the time. Tossing on Mandau (no e/m/a done) and occasionally MS to keep Aftermath up just lets me rip through things a bit faster. As well in those few crit fights (Orobons) it can have more practical usage. I will soon-ish finish my Twashtar and my main setup will be Mandau/Twash for "trash" and Twash/Taming for "high tier content". Granted...I don't use THF on high tier content so...yeah.

As for Evisc vs Rudra...it depends on the content. I think with enough attack evisc can tear Rudra's apart. Farming Qilin and my unstacked Rudra is 12-15k but my evisceration spikes towards 20k. As well, if you're with the most common melee DD in the game, Evisc > CDC gives you constant darkness.

Ya, I feel like people just aren't seeing these big number evisc yet you can get now with geo-frailty and the new damage caps or they'd agree, it really is what you should be using if your ws isn't stacked. Rudra and Mandalic are pretty bad for unstacked (though I've been told with enough attack, because of how Mandalic gets a huge attack bonus it can also be good unstacked) unless you're making a skillchain, and Qirin is super easy but doing that same 17k to T3 Zi'Tah mobs, I mean, it's worth using. When I did Qirin my unstacked rudra was doing like 8-10k and evisc 17k every time. Granted was my crappy geo mule on qirin and idris geo on the T3 behemoth in zi'tah but the numbers were nearly the same.

I'm not saying Evisceration isn't worth using although I do want to point out that is an erroneous conclusion. The raised pDIF caps work to make Evisceration (and any crit weaponskill) less competitive than other weaponskills (especially Mandalic Stab).