THF Gear Advice

TP:


WS(Dancing Edge):


WS(Evisceration):


Augments:
Hecatomb Cap +1: (Attack +6, Double Attack +3%)
Hecatomb Harness +1: (DEX +4, Attack +4)
Hecatomb Leggings +1: (STR +3, Attack +5)
Kila +3 is DEX.

Any and all constructive criticism is welcome, but if you feel certain pieces are better than what I have please let me know why if you can.

It's easy for me to change gear if something else is better, but I like to understand why I am wearing the gear I use. Not just use it b/c it's what the masses where.

Understanding why I am using one piece over another will help to make better gear choices in the future.

PS: I know my Hecatomb augments aren't at there peak, I am working on getting better sugments when I get the chance.

EDIT: Fixed, Thank you for telling me about that, I was wondering how people got the little boxes like that.

Use the bbcode on the bottom of your sets as links instead of the url

Rancor > gorget for evis.
Justiciar's Torque > love torque > gorget (for non crit hit ws.)
Aesir > hollow for evis and DE

I assume gorgets are not as good as they used to be at 75 anymore?
I remember back when elemental gorgets were kind of a must have for most WS's.



Yeah, I would kill for an N Legs right about now, lol. It's the only N abj I don't have.


THF is fairly new for me, had it up for less than a year. I remember a lot of people frowning on STR for THF back in the day. It was always DEX, DEX, DEX w/ some attack I thought.
I guess that's not the case any more.


A friend of mine who has been THF for a very long time suggested Nifty Mantle to me b/c of the mix of DEX and attack. His THF is decently geared and I respected his opinion enough and have been using it for WS ever since.

I used to use Atheling Mantle for TP until i saw Vimukti Mantle, I can't remember exactly where, but I thought I remembered reading somewhere that Triple Attack takes priority over Double Attack when proccing. And since my TP set currently has a 19% Triple Attack proc rate (includes base trait and merits). That would mean the window for chance to double attack is only at 81%/100%. So some of thos double attacks that would have occurred during that 19% period would be overwritten, So the 3% double would technically show up less often than than it actually shows, so I figured the 5 extra attack on each hit might be a better trade off, especially w/ all the triple attack procs.

Some of this logic I have may be flawed, I'm not perfect, I don't claim to be either. But I like to learn from my mistakes. If am incorrect on any of these points let me know, it's just little things I've picked up here and there browsing random forums and such.

The key is which type of WS. Gorgets give FTP, but whether or not fTP is the optimal stat is dependent on the job and WS in question.

For Evis, the number 1 factor in damage since it was changed to be a crit WS has always been the crits. Therefore Rancor edges pretty much anything when it comes to Evis. In comparison though, consider Ukko's Fury which is also a crit WS but has a +30% base crit rate, which puts gorgets ahead due to decreasing returns.

Ire beats Gorget because the Mercy FTP and WSC are so high that the benefits of 7 STR mathematically come out greater than the .1 modifier. Justiciar beats Ire because the 15 attk is generally worth 3 STR.


For WS damage, stacking STR isn't going to be nearly as effective as stacking DEX. However you have to consider STR Kila's attack bonus. THF is generally attack starved, so the attack helps quite a lot. And it's not like STR is worthless; even for jobs based around other stats, STR is always involved in the backend in some way.


3A does take priority over 2A. Your base logic is right, 3A rate overriding 2A increases the diminishing returns of 2A. But it shouldn't be that significant, except in Abyssea where Atmas allow your 3A rate to get out of control.

But Nifty doesn't have a 5 attk advantage over Atheling. Atheling has an 11 attk advantage; Nifty has +5 dmg when using Sneak Attack as well as +5 to WSC.

I'm not sure on this particular match-up when you are stacking Evis, but I definitely would lean towards Atheling for unstacked.

the 5 att is the vimukti, not nifty.

Oh. Hm. I think outside Abyssea the 2A is probably still significant enough to pull Atheling ahead then or in a situation where you are getting Minuets.

I bought a Jusicier's Torque and was playing around with it in Dyna while duo'ing coins with my friend. Just eyeballing, it felt like my unstacked DE's were duoing a little bit more, but I think my SA DE's went down.

I'm gonna try it out a bit more before I rule it out, But I used to see a lot more 2600-2800 SA DE's with the gorget, and I didn't see more than 2200-2500 with the torque.

I swapped to Atheling on my WS set too. I generally use DE outside of Abyssea, I feel I do better with that. I only use Evisceration inside Abyssea.

why Vimukti Mantle over atheling? +5 atk doesn't cut it vs "Double Attack"+3%, (for tp)

Even outside Abyssea, Evisceration should be vastly superior with our new traits that focus on crits and the gear that augments criticals. For that you should be using Rancor.

Justiciar is sort of a Mercy piece imo.

Also you should parse the results to be sure, keeping in mind that you won't see a noticeable difference on targets that are low defense to you anyway. The point of attack stacking isn't spikes, but consistency. If you consistently do better, even with a lower ceiling, you should still switch.

As has been said, swap

*Vimukti back to atheling. 3DA>5atk. Thats 1.66atk per point of DA. Thats like replacing brutal for an 8atk earring. No bueno.
*Rancor for Evis
*Demonry to Rajas outside abyssea. TA rate isnt high enough outside to justify it). 5str raises base damage by 1-2 and atk by 2-3 on EVERY hit you land, not to mention 2-3 acc and stp/subtle blow. 7atk doesnt match up well to that at all and 3A isnt high enough to make up the difference outside abyssea. (also str is often capped in abyssea, but not outside making rajas weaker inside).

It might sound contrary after the mantle discussion, but Dex earrings beat brutal on WS. Its unintuitive, but its true. You can only even proc a DA on 2 hits of a WS (main+offhand) instead of any of the 6 hits. As you said, TA overwrites DA, and on a 6hit WS any TA will cap you at 8hits (Cap for WS hits). So if a TA procs, NO DA can proc. IIRC Brutal works out to be less than a 1% boost to WS damage over time. Even less if you stack it with SATA. Thats a really low bar for dex to match. Brutal can only proc if you dont land a 3A, only on 2 of 6 hits, and still subject to acc check. +1 or more base damage from dex on EVERY hit ALL the time can edge that out rather easily.

The WS gorgets are basically good for 1hit WS (for the FTP bonus) and multi hit WS because they add 10 acc. FTP bonus on multi hits doesnt really do much of anything, but at 75 it was all about the acc. We are fortunate that we get love torque. The 7skill and 5dex=8-10 acc depending on combat skill and dex rounding and 5 dex+7atk beat the tiny 0.1FTP bonus on gorgets easily. So for thf with L torque, gorgets are pretty much out. Even more when stacked with SA (5 more dex for that).

I have to disagree with justiciars. For both DE and Evis, 1str=1dex for raising base damage almost exactly (until str caps of course) so 5dex>4str. This leaves 17atk justiciar vs 7atk, 8-10acc and 1dex for unstacked DE/Evis. Stacked with SA love wins by a mile thanks to the dex counting for both SA and WS. Unstacked its 10atk vs 8-10 acc and 1 dex.
*SA stacked: love wins.
*Capped Str(abyssea/trash mobs): love wins.
*Acc uncapped: Love wins
*Evis: Rancor wins

Only time justicars wins is if all the following are true. Using only DE without SA, Fstr isnt capped, Acc IS capped, the 1 dex doesnt give you +1 damage (~25% chance for 1 dex to give +1 damage) and/or mob has high def.

While justicars 'can' win, it will be on a mob outside abyssea that has both high def, but low evasion without stacking with SA and only for DE. Thats 'situational' enough that I cant wholeheartedly get behind justiciar's. Love will 'generally' beat it in most situations, while justicars will rarely have the stars align in its favor.

So would you say a +3 or +4 DEX earring will outperform Brutal in WS consistency?

Im thinking of the Thunder/Jupiter Pearl Earring here.

Oneiros helm for DE. My damage improved by 15% over my heca cap. I swear by it.

Amazing post, thank you so much for your help. I'm gonna do a small rework on my TP set and Evis/DE sets.

Over the next few days I'm think about turning it into this.

TP:



WS(Evisceration):



Based on what you said about the DA on WS, I'm thinking about going back to Nifty on WS, or do you think the 10 attack and diminished chance to DA on WS would be better than 5 DEX? I can't really see using Cuchulain's Mantle or Aife's Mantle unless I'm using Trick Attack the WS, or really need the acc.

There's obviously other items too, but for now this is what I'm thinking of settling with for now. I'll work on a STR Kila as time permits as well.

I don't really much care for making a set of gear strictly for Abyssea, shits so old everything dies in there fast without even trying. It's just become repetitive ***. All my LS does in there anymore really is just spam Emyprean NM's. Or get +1/+2 for members who are just coming back from like quitting for years.

AF3 Legs +2 and their 7 Dex and +4% Crit rate are better than Tumbler for evisc. The next step would be heca legs with aug 4% crit rate

You have a point, Tumbler's seem more like DE legs.

I thought the discussion wasn't so much Love vs. Justiciar, but Sea Gorgets? Which is all a moot point because we come back to Evisceration being a fundamentally superior WS which brings Rancor into play.

Oh and use Rancor for TP as well as WS over Agasaya. I'm pretty sure the Crit Rate will beat the 2acc/8attk.

I see 2x Jupiter's Earrings are the prefered choice for earrings for Evis WS, Would thesame apply if using Thunder Pearls instead? Would either the Thunder or Jupiter's pearl out perform Brutal and Aesir Earrings?

There is a back coming out that will have Tonberry Grudge.

Tonberry Mantle: Mantle AllJobs ATK+17 "Everybody's Rancor"

No idea if it will stack with Collar, but I assume they won't, because it seems like Rancor is a status added onto you.

If so, the best Neck/Back will be Love Torque/Tonberry Mantle easily.

Sorry if this is a bit of a bump. Didn't really want to start a new topic. Got Toci's last night and was wondering if it was worth working into a tp build. This is what I use normally: (Athos boots would be in there if I had them yet).



And this is what I was thinking of using:


Basically just swapping around some stats to gain the 3DA off the body.

Thoughts?

This is very interesting for sure. Comparing the sets:

emp set
str 8
dex 18
attack 25 (str and dagger skill accounted)
acc 37.5 (dex and dagger skill accounted)

toci set
str 18
dex 26
att 19
acc 32
DA3

Ignored athos because both sets can make use of it.

Even tho we get less acc and att, we get more str and dex. That's more crit rate and fstr, which are back to being variables in the damage game. Oh, and of course, we also get a 3%DA bonus.

Kinda related, in another thread Asymptotic proposed to swap atheling for rancor mantle and use nefarious collar on the neck. This is a very interesting move too imo. Although love torque will always have a spot in our thief hearts.

I tend to avoid rancor for tp'ing for the most part cause dc mobs in dyna can hurt. Dyna pretty much the only thing I thf to :(

I too am interested to know whether or not you can make a TP set with Toci + Oce +1 head. Has anyone tested this before or run the numbers for it? I'm terrible at this kind of math or I'd do it myself.

Rancor collar and Nomkahpa mittens?

Edit: Could even go with Rancor mantle + Nefarious collar

Is what I use now. Over the haste cap I know, until Nom mittens get stuck in a bazaar or on the ah I'm not sure what else I can swap out. I'm pretty sure the above set is ideal with the exchange of brego for nom mittens, and rancor if it's not going to get you killed.

Using Nom mittens in the tocis build will put you at 25% haste.

According to Motenten's DPS spreadsheet the difference between these two sets would be minimal:

Set1: <- winner
Melee DPS 136,55

Set2:
Melee DPS 135,14

In order to boost the dmg output in the first set replace Homam Gambieras with Asn. Poulaines +2 - then the first set would give 142,87 (Thokcha (Fire) as main / Triplus in offhand).

My friend and I were playing around with different sets and came to the same conclusion, even though that's only 23% haste. I was under the impression that 25~26% should be your main goal and your biggest dps gain? How accurate is that spreadsheet?

Does anyone even know how much the 'enhances triple atk damage' is? Im sure someone must otherwise all these comparisons are completely moot without knowing wtf they do. BG doesnt have anything yet and i havent personally seen a single test on them.

Related: AC boost? What is it?

Whatever the ac boost is, it's nothing obvious that I've been able to spot from eyeballing. Made the augment a few days back and went and tested a few ws with and without feet equipped, although to be fair I suck at that kinda thing. Done a few dyna since and not noticed anything different in my ac'd weaponskills. Not sure what I can do to perform a more controlled test to figure out what the enhances ac does. If someone can point me in the right direction and I have some time, I'll see what I can do.

As for the feet themselves, I was assuming the spreadsheet was just taking the TA and stats (dex etc), as yeah, even asking my jp friend to look there's no info posted anywhere about what they do. Which is why I was kinda surprised.