Dancing Edge Question

Given Modifiers: DEX:30% ; CHR:40%

I have around +40 DEX with food and gear and barely any CHR +mods and I always wind up doing more damage than SB or Evis which are straight up modded by DEX.

How do people go about gearing up? Is it worth it to really trick out with +CHR gear? I'm still relatively new to playing THF and DD'ing on it. I just wanted to ask my peers out there what they thought.

Really if anything, I was wondering if anyone knew a really goo thread on the topic. I'm already reading through BG right now, and am conflicted.

Mods on DE are not as important due to DE being a multi hit WS. As with any mulit hit, the mod only counts towards the first hit with the remainder of the hits being attack based. As with any melee and multi hit WS acc is the foremost concern, as landing all hits will do much more damage than missing one with all the mods in the world. After that, try to get as much attack as you can get in there w/o sacrificing acc. Dex is also a good stat where you can get it as well, due to DE having it as a mod and also SA's natural Dex boost. If you are maxing out those three stats already, I can't imagine there would be much room left for any chr+ gear.

As I have learned, it partially depends on the mob, TP and triple attack.

Evis and SB can't stack with triple attack, while DE can.

TP wise-
I have learned that if I have 100% TP and I can hit the mob easily, always use DE.
If I have 300% TP and I can't hit the mob easily, SB will do more.
I only use Evis for skillchains.

Mob wise:
DE is a slashing type WS with piercing weapons.
Evis is piercing type WS with piercing weapons, so will do more damage on mobs like colibri.

I hope this helps some.

~Yote

Would being a Dancer and going Building Flourish-Wild Fourish-DE effect the rationale behind swapping in +att and +dex gear at all? I don't get to WS often (usually main healing in my static trio and hoarding TP) but when I can, like in campaign, I would like to get the most out of WS's as possible.

I'm not sure #2, but I would really like to know based on your evaluation.
Also, my gf has a 75DNC and I have a 75THF, so would be interesting to find out.

~Yotevol

I'll play around with things as I have time and see what I come up with...but it'll prolly be a while, got a lot going on in game atm ^^

BTW, DNC and THF duo is awesome, been running around in that configuration since the 30's for farming and such and I've never had more fun, trading hate back and forth is a breeze (unless I end up having to cure bomb myself lol)

One of the things I love the most about the combo is our skillchains.
Animated flourish, with her "chainbound" ability, allows me to SA DE for large numbers! :-D

~Yotevol

Oh, you know I've never tried it that way, usually I grab hate, do my BF-WF-DE and then he DE's after me for another SC (detonation? can't remember lol), but as he does more damage then I do maybe it'd be better to let him get the initial WS and have me follow him? Might be more damage overall??

At any rate, thanks for the food for thought ^^

(and sorry for derailing)

If your a dancer worry a little bit more about Chr. If your a thief forget it.

If by chance you fall upon a Delta earring or skadi body Sure the added chr bonus will be worth it but in my opinion don't go out of your way to accompany Chr+

TA+DE = Dex, SA+DE= Dex. Why? Agi mods Trick attack lower mathimatically than Dex Mods Sneak attack. not only that its a multi hit WS, and Dex mods the WS itself as well unlike Agi (chr also when taken into account further does nothing outside the WS mod, str or dex do more).

I find focusing on SA+DE and Solo TA provides you with optimal Damage over time. But thats just how i play. I wont take into account Str (every melee WS should have some str imo) people get why you should have it.

I use Allakzams Job help section at the beginning of their job forums for anything math wise. As someone said the more TP the better shark bite is. At one point in time i main handed Matrial knife and only used Shark Bite back in Lusafase (splol) meadows. Evis for darkness only.

attack+ count a lot for De too, if u go for best set, u'd want cerberus or forager, a friend of mine went with jaeger (+20attck) and look very happy with it...
I personaly go with cuchu but its mainly because i have dnc too and i dont want 100back w
Delta and skado body rox for De too yeah.

since when does SB and evis not stack with triple attack?

"As with any mulit hit, the mod only counts towards the first hit with the remainder of the hits being attack based."

Incorrect. WSC mods apply across all hits of a physical weaponskill, as does attack.

Dancing Edge's power relies on your attack/accuracy being high relative to your enemy; as soon as that gets lower, Shark Bite and Mandalic Stab pull ahead. Ensure you have enough accuracy to consistently land all hits (nowadays I tend to only use DE in very high-acc scenarios/when Feint is up, and use Shark Bite/Mandalic Stab otherwise unless I have too much TP in a semi-high acc/atk situation whereby I'll just soloDE).

Dancing Edge is not an incredibly damaging WS unless you really stack all of the factors in its favour, so don't worry about it too much. CHR is in theory your strongest stat for raw damage but it's not worth bothering with because it provides no secondary benefit (str gives attack, dex gives accuracy). If you are stacking it with SA, put a bit more emphasis on DEX and if you are stacking it with TA, hybrid pieces do well (Denali Kecks for instance) of DEX and AGI, but don't use AGI rings for it.

ALWAYS USE THIEF AF+1 HANDS FOR ALL TA-RELATED STUFF WHICH ISN'T MERCY STROKE SOMETIMES. If you don't have them already, work really hard on them; they are simply amazing and definitely worth your time.

If you can post your gear etc for a bit of constructive critique it could be helpful :)

Thief is one of those unbelievably hard jobs to gear if you want to be a stand alone.

Your Enkidu's Is an outstanding Hybrid gear though Malekith just fiddle around with it. All those pieces have multiple uses and are great. I just disagree with the color scheme. Bust out the .DAT's haha ...

Assuming I had enough ACC from gear/ sushi. Would wearing STR rings be better than DEX? I'll post my gear build soon. I just have to paper-doll it on the item set side and then I'll post.

Generally STR will give the same actual damage output of DEX unstacked (less when SA-stacked)... however, fSTR (the function of STR damage) caps very low on THF and so focussing on it can actually add no damage after a point (especially with Hecatomb pieces).

I would use DEX for rings going for maximum damage, certainly. By the way, if you can build for meat that adds a hefty amount of attack and Dancing Edge, being a multihit WS, relies heavily on accuracy/attack -- the latter sushi does not provide much of.

Do you happen to know what fStr caps at for thf Raen? I believe its 103 for my personal fav combo/attainable daggers of the moment, Blau / S kukri On Greater colibri. 107 i think for non-relic or P. harpe also on greater colibri. I ask because i could be wrong.
It's factored in depending on the Mobs Vit yes?

edited stuff~

all WS that do not exceed 8hits in one attack round( also in 1 WS) will stack with triple attack and or Double attack. CHR mods are useless since having DEX mods also adds acc, the most important part of DE. Get as much acc as you can and in everything you cannot find acc for get DEX. STR is useful solely for when correlating your STR and attack versus your targets VIT and def. It is an infinitesimally complex formula with countless variables so just get DEX and ACC.... lol.

have fun with it, and if your DE sucks who gives a flip... your THF, TH is your onry purpose. ~.-

I recognize your name Ryu! Did you use to be on Kujata? or am i mixing you up with someone else with a similar name =/?

TH ONRY?!? /Emo4lyfe it hurts because its truuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuue~~~~~~ /sadface

lol

Str does cap lower on daggers compared to other weapons. However, some daggers are hard to cap on (like P.harpe and Relic). Have to consider attack to help balance out the damage variation the higher Str you have.

An example about the cap. When I used Blau/sirocco my wss were hitting for almost the exact same amount every time for each # of crits proc'ed the same. This was due to the fact I was over Cap in STR, yet I still got the attack bonus that came from all my Str. Once I obtained P.Harpe I was no longer capped on Str. My output potential was much higher, but my highs and lows were all over the place. +attack from Minuet helped it stay consistantly higher, love torque and N.legs would help some as well in this matter.

for 33~34 dmg daggers play with your +Str equipment until you see your weaponskill numbers becoming very close to one another, this will be an indication you have reached cap. At this point focus on adding Dex to the rest of your slots. Only exception to this is to have both your earrings and rings +Dex. Even though +Str is benifet as primary modifier Thief is unique in that sneak attack is often incorporated to the weaponskill, Making the Dex in weaponskills' secondary modifier and sneak attack's Dex modifier more important to Str's characteristic Primary modifier to weaponskills. Trying to obtain your Str to at least near cap though is still advisable.

Is there any reference online that has this information (re: STR cap) captured in a table?

At what level base + extra (from gear and food) are you considered capped?

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/STR_-_VIT_Difference_Function

Varies based on mob VIT. DEX and STR impact damage on THF by roughly the same amount so might as well get DEX which;

a. Gives accuracy as a side benefit whereas STR gives attack, and accuracy>attack;
b. Never caps;
c. Becomes even stronger when stacked; STR is relatively static.

Not saying STR isn't good, but focus on DEX out of those two.