Mandau & Offhand Dagger

With all of the new weapons being released via both drops & Trials, I'm really not sure of what dagger option is best for offhand in the situation that I don't need Thief's Knife. I currently own X's Knife and Rapidus Sax to use for offhand purposes, but with X's knife not gaining any damage and new daggers getting stronger and stronger, I'm hoping that someone may know what I should be looking at for my offhand. Can anyone give me any possible ideas possible offhand combinations for my Mandau? Thanks in advance for any advice!

I would imagine it would be Auric Dagger for the dual wield bonus (and nice high base damage) I could be wrong though.

kila+1 STR 8

The thought of more Trials each update in addition to upgrading my relic that I thought was done, frightens me... lol

Auric Dagger, Kila DEX, can't go wrong, useful for thf and dnc plus Mercy stroke is garbage, Evis ftw.

Auric is already obsolete for thf.

Currently i would go with either rapidus sax or clement skean, leaning towards sex~. But if you wanna think about the future, magian trials is the only solution.

Now why auric is obsolete:
(176+201)x 0.05 = -18.85 delay to your total. Thing is, clement is an automatic -25 delay with the same base damage. And Rapidus combo is -51 delay, with a small bit lower dps traded for a way higher ws frequency.

Auric is still good for dnc tho, cause dnc has access to so much more dw than us ;-;

Thank you for this comment, as this was partially my point when the Dual Wield enhancement point was brought up. Furthermore, is there really any point to X's knife anymore? I imagine that the Crit Damage Increase is outshined by either base damage (ToM dagger) or highly reduced delay. (Sax)

That and Atmas reduce it's only redeeming quality.

Also


:D

Am trying to think outside of Abyssea and in alike, as it's not the "only" thing that's left in the game... or at least I hope it won't be by level 99... lol

Yeah pretty much this. Higher dps from higher level weapons will overshadow that crit damage. Not only that but our own crit attack bonus 2 (seems to be +8%) overshadows x's knife bonus due decreasing returns.

I've seen somewhere someone talking about using x's knife on battles where you don't really melee. For example, a nm where you build tp from weak mobs around and run in just to ws. But does this really happen anymore? lol - still, a valid point anyway.

i have a mandau aswell...still think its best option. not hard to make either.

Not questioning the response - simply dreading the thought of every update to trials, having 2 daggers to upgrade.. lol

Someone PM'ed me a question on auric vs rapidus and my reply was,


"Obviously your level of DW and even haste should go into this. Perhaps the biggest selling point on the rapidus is that it also has accuracy. I think if you needed all 12 accuracy it'd be hard to turn the rapidus down. Let's pretend you don't tho.

And let's say you've got DW2 with suppa, DW mirke and AF boomerang (5% right?). Let's say you've got a prior 24% gear haste and you've got haste spell on.

Kila+1 & Auric DMG/Delay 80/159.8 - 0.50063
Kila+1/Rapidus DMG/Delay 73/146.9 = 0.49694

In this situation, the Auric combo is only ~0.75% stronger DPS-wise. That's not even a full %. Given that Rapidus will give you more TP gain and has accuracy just in case you'd ever need it, I'd argue for rapidus unless you were minimizing your TP feed.

Favor would swing towards Auric though if you incorporated the next level of dual wield at level 90. Pre-90, rapidus is favored even more with marches, or a little less with no haste spell."

* * *

I wonder how things will be with the next update though. Shizznit is getting replaced too quickly, so I'm not even gonna play this game until level 99 comes out. All the work I put into my pre-80 gear, so much time and effort. No way am I gonna waste my time on ***that's going to be replaced in a couple months.

If they don't improve the current daggers though, Auric will become quite powerful again post 90 Thf/Nin. But who knows what'll be out then.

You'd love THF so much at the moment though! With Razed Ruins etc around, those of us who actually nurtured and developed our THFs are finally being rewarded with a powerhouse. So much fun.

As I had originally stated, I don't know how the math end of this all works, but I'm now intrigued as I've seen several places the mention of additonal dual wield being more potent than a matching % of haste, mention Dual Wield III tier, etc. What is it about Dual Wield III, that would make a bigger difference be shown by the same reduction from a weapon vs. Dual Wield II etc. Are the calculations linear as in add all the + DW to come to a final % and reduce the delay by that amount, or does it go piece by piece etc... sorry for any stupidity, but I just want to understand the numbers so I can better realize potential gains or losses for myself.

Shamaya: I will have the gear mentioned in your post once I complete the +2 versions of Raider's Head/Pants, but for now if I use the Mirke w/ Dual Wield, I'm only sitting @ 22% Gear Haste. Bonnet +1 5%, Homam Hands 3%, Bullwhip 7%, Pants +1 4%, Homam Feet 3%. 23% if using Rapidus offhand obviously.

Dual Wield works in a similar manner as Haste- that is, the returns are not linear. It also works separately, so you tend to get better increases by adding to whichever you have more of, although there are some other factors at work.


You do simply add it up, it's the marginal benefit (on attack speed) that isn't linear.

Take 13% DW reduction from gear (suppa, boomerang, mirke):

Final delays:
DW2 (mandau + auric)= -33% delay = 252.59
DW2 (mandau + rapidus)= -28% delay= 234.72
difference = 17.87 delay

DW3 (mandau + auric)= -43% delay = 214.89
DW3 (mandau + rapidus)= -38% delay= 202.12
difference = 12.77

So by adding 10% more DW the difference in delay between the combos decreased.

Just like kyle said, dw works like haste. But dual wield is weaker than a matching % of haste. Even tho both increases our dps (dagger swings damage) in the same way, DW lowers our tp per hit. Still, more DW also increases our tp gain just like haste does.

Just as an example, i hope this image can help lol:


You can think of that "throttled" curve as haste tp gain, and the "system curve" as dw tp gain. The "head" coordinated would be our tp gain, and the "flow rate" coordinated the varying % of haste and dw.

What i wanted to show is that haste reaches higher values of tp gain sooner than DW, because the haste tp gain curve is steeper. So if dw was only a bit higher than our total haste, probably equiping more haste will win overall. But as the difference between them increases - we get access to more and more dw, and/or we are not buffed with haste at all - equiping more DW can certainly be better.

OH god pump curves... I hate you. I thought I'd never see that again

lol sowy, first thing i found on google lol

I thank you for the explanation - that definitely helps... sadly it seems that the safe bet for me is to do the damn Kila +1 for the future use purposes and the fact that they continue to grow them with each update, whereas all other items, similar to my once beloved X's Knife, are getting obsoleted with each new release of trials and level increase.

Time to killshot about 1300 more dragons for Mandau, and sit around waiting on Fire Weather/Day with a brand new Peeler! >.>

>.> Rapidus Sax is hands down the best dagger for off hand in this situation. I wouldn't even bother making the peeler because you have the current best off hand weapon. I find it difficult to believe other non-magian daggers won't be released within further updates that remain better then magian.

I dunno, I'm not a big fan of Rapidus Sax. Not always practical to make use of the 1% Haste, accuracy is rarely needed (and if it is, DEX Kila+1 has more) and 32d vs 41d is a huge difference. Low delay is nice but... yeah, just not a huge fan. Certainly amazing if you don't have fully upgraded magians though.

What about X's while under the affect of Razed Ruin?

Too low DoT to be worthwhile I'd say.

Thanks Raen,

My biggest problem is that thf is my 4th string job lately. With as little as i get to actually use thf lately, and as far behind as i am with other job trials, it's hard to justify doing trials for a job im on for 1 NM day a month. I have auric and rapidsex but with all the work i put into getting X's, it is REALLY hard to let go.

I can imagine! My bitterness towards it however makes it very easy to dismiss it >:3 though my opinion on it there is free from bias. Happy to be proven wrong, but 32/201 is just horrible these days. Contrary to intuition, Critical Damage+ gear gets less effective as you stack it too, so its bonus is comparatively weaker.

Offhand dagger would seriously depend what damage type you wish to aim for - DoT or WS.

Mandau/Sax is about the best DoT combo you can get but lacks boosting stats for ur WS.

Total delay 176+150=326. Base thf dual wield + raiders + suppo would drop it to 260.8dly. Looking at your gear im assuming you will be hitting 26% haste, which then drops your overall delay to 194.3~. Assuming you have RDM haste at least your base delay works out at 155.1~. Not included /nin into this, delay ends up at 145.5~. Lack of boosting stats on Sax is helped by the acc tho, as you could lose the acc back in place of an att back. Only thing i will say is that using homam would over shoot the haste cap.


For a WS build DD, get a trials dagger.

Hellish but...your best evis offhand dagger is Twash+1...+10dex.
Dex kila+1 comes second.
With razed ruin, evis is the best dagger WS, especially stacked with SA.

Outside of abyssea, Mercy Stroke can be nice if you can build enough STR for it - STR Kila+1 goes. In general though, stick to evis or mand. stab. Exception to this is if your Elv, in which case Mercy can be much easier to gear for. Only downside is that it shares a different mod to SA, which is why i'd say stick to mand. or evis most of the time.


Edit: Overall DoT build usually works out the best unless your vs higher def mobs, as your WS dmg wont be much weaker and your overall DoT dmg will outweigh. Harder stuff, higher base dmg on kila comes out trumps.

Further edit: Oddly enough if you use can make good use of Rudra's storm, mainhanding Twashtar+1 and actually OFFHANDING Mandau may be a better option. Both have 176 delay, and mandau (85) only wins on dmg by 1 point. In these situations, Mandau becomes scarily close to obsolete in a capped build, but not quite :D.

Let's just say that offhanding Mandau is NOT going to happen. My hope is that SE will pull their heads outta their *** and fix these new weapons or upgrade the relics... about the only reason I upgraded a Mandau was the promise of it not being beat, and I'll QQ myself to the grave with it if I must.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I pretty much use Evisceration solely in Abyssea as you stated. Sadly, missed the 4k dmg mark today by hitting 3987 with my gimpy level 80 Mandau. Either way, I'm still happy with my THF and being able to beat out most other AH DD's that are in the xp pts I'm in =)