Best Dagger For Thief

I can understand that train of thought since it's a slightly altered version of what im aiming for, There's a new legion dagger coming out that's D37 150 delay triple attack +5%

Im thinking the mandau + that might edge out on alot of things since im sitting on full haste and around 35% triple attack with my final build outside of abyssea with some odd double attack and quadruple. Im really just aiming to give the mandau more hits hoping that would outdo the Mandau/twashtar. I cant see myself dumping that much gil into 99 my twashtar since im in the middle of 99 my mandau currently.
I will eventually have to 99 the twashtar for DNC though >.>

I knew and understood the answer you gave before I even asked myself but ive been running a few thoughts through my head as well. Even with the twashtar at 99,its barely a leg up over the coruscanti since that is now 5 dex less but 5% more crit, can you really say the twashtar is better than the coruscanti?

you're looking at 6 damage 5 dex and 13 delay vs 5% crit + severe damage.

Since we all seem to agree that the main hand is the mandau the offhand weapons I'm looking at are...

(new legion dagger with no name yet) D37 Delay 150 TA +5%
99 Twashtar D55 Delay 176 Dex +20
Coruscanti D49 Delay 189 Dex +15 occ deals severe damage +5% crit

This is my target TP set, I still need the gloves and body but otherwise im pretty solid currently.

Now that we have an idea what the 'severe' damage effect is on coruscanti, at least we can really tell, although if were getting that detailed, we need to know the proc rate on lv 99 mandau triple damage and also note it cant proc on any but the 1st hit (/sad panda). Basically, we need to check out the whole picture of Thf DD to figure this one out. WS damage, frequency, TP overshoot, total gear sets, SA/TA usage (stacked/solo/frequency etc).

Thats gonna take a lot more work to look into and i havent done it yet, though I probably will eventually just because I am actually working on 90>99 twash as we speak and my LS does ADL so 95 mandau will eventually be 99, so it will directly affect me.

But for starters, just basic DW DPS and TP gain, Man/Legion is actually nearly 11% in the hole for DPS (more than Corus/thock), but has the obvious TP advantage of about 5.5% over Twash. Then the 5% TA (from 35% base you mentioned) adds 5.8% more hits. Less depending on your DA and /war status, so ~5%+. That jumps teh TP up to nearly 10% more than twash and easily counters the 10acc when uncapped. 5% more Dot also digs that 10% hole to a ~5% hole. Then theres the triple damage procs being slightly more frequent. I forget what someone parsed the 99 mandau at on teh test server though.

Not nearly detailed enough, but it is at least in the same ball park to consider. ~5% Less DoT, but ~5% more WS. If your at a 50/50 WS split then it could work out pretty even. Its close enough that it will take some really in depth analysis against a few different hypothetical mobs and buffs to set some baselines for when and if 1 dagger overtakes the otehr.

Looks promising and no one could fault a mandau owner for using legion offhand instead of another 2 relics worth of effort making a 99 twash for a 0.1% increase. Im curious how this all plays out with all the additional new gear in the pipes. Should be fun to figure out :) (at least those weirdos like me that actually enjoy mathing junk out for optimum performance :P)

:O Do you have the source material for where you found this out?

Its from some of the dat mining thats been done. I remember seeing that one too. BG usually has it.

Haha I like you Aanalaty. Someone who takes thf as serious as I do!

Yes in the end I do plan to take mandau and twash to 99 and i even want to get a 99 vajra for thf completion purposes.

But when it comes down tot he wire its a very small difference between those mentioned daggers. I think it all comes down to play style (i want all the daggers either way for the i win factor) and what events you do the most.

Can i befriend you? haha

Ah, sweet. I'll have to check it out.

Sure :)

Ive always been intrigued by vajyra. I cant help but think its been underrated. The combo of atk bonus(on M.Stab) and SATA bonus V and 30% boost to M.Stab has to make it really competative with rudra/mercy. Just the aftermath would be a big fat pain in the arse for any 1handed job. maintaining aftermath on Drg for example is ludicrously easy. 2:50/3:00 10sec left on aftermath: WS>Jump>Jump>200-300 TP. Med if needed. Done. Can really ride it out to the end without 'holding' TP very much and just go all out with it. Saving back to 300 every 3 min would just piss me off to no end on thf. But thats why i got Ryu instead of Vaj :P Mythic is such a monster on drg I couldnt justify doing thfs instead :(

Playstyle will always play a role. Fun fact: last time i checked what ws to use while unstacked with a hypothetical 99 mandau, mercy even wins unstacked with that 40% boost over evis/DE/Exen(using existing gear sans NI). The only issue is that the str build dumps a lot of acc so that could be mildly problematic on higher end stuff that Evis doesnt have issues with. I hadnt fixed my acc calcs in my SS yet, so evis might still work on more evasive mobs with all the dex stacking, but i wouldnt mind finding out that mercy can just be the goto WS at 99 for everything. I really hope it is so i can actually use that 5% free crit rate aftermath full time :)

Edit: Thought just occured to me. With the way coruscanti severe damage works, I wonder if it works on mythic aftermath. Mythic aftermath is already unique in how it functions as it doesnt follow any other multi hit weapon/traits template, so it may or may not work with coruscanti. But if it did, Vaj/Corusc may be interesting. Vaj is already on the slower side of daggers so a slower offhand isnt as detrimental as it would be for twash/mandau. That is a WHOOOOLE lot of multi attack for coruscanti to proc on.

Edit2: I actually just brainfarted. Coruscanti only works on that hand? Or did they find out it can proc on both hands? Vaj/Corusc may not work at all if it doesnt transfer to both.

Vajra is about as useful as it was at 75. Mandalic Stab's fTP is pitiful, and the current boost to it with a 99 Vajra doesn't really change that.

I think i read that it only procs on the hand that wields the coruscanti. I too have always wanted the mythic dagger but on paper its sooo...doesnt seem worth it compared to the other things you can do with that much gil.

Right now I'm still pretty much going to Rudra's until my mandau hits 95, it out does my evis since im almost never without sneak or trick.
With the addition of bully its pretty nice.

I am curious still though as if i offhand the vajyra and do mandalic stab would i get the aftermath?

unfortunate as for holding tp on thf it is indeed pretty painful for me as well, as rule of thumb i do 300% WS @ 100 x2 and hold till 300 again, which usually by the time i get to 300 aftermath has just worn out.

If i can force Mercy stroke to DA or TA consistently it might be worth dumping str gear for DA/TA gear. Thus why I think the legion dagger might be worthwhile?

Please tell me I misread that, and that you didn't actually say you save 300 TP for an ODD aftermath.

I said i do 300% to start and WS at 100% twice before doing another 300%, since with aftermath up im hitting for half of what rudra's does or evis yeah? if im in abyssea and swinging for 600-700 per attack x3-6 id say that works pretty well? ODD + set bonus from TA actually puts out some pretty good stuff. Works pretty well for me.

It works worse for you(read: game mechanics don't bend for individuals) than it would if you were to simply being WSing at 100% every time.

That would mean I would rarely rudra's since the damage on it at 100% is pretty poor, which would mean i would never have aftermath up and defeats the entire purpose of the dagger?

fTP is pretty poor at 100% compared to 300%, dunno all im really seeing from your posts are "you're wrong and stupid" but nothing really discussed here showing me on how I'm doing this "wrong" Its not like almace or ukkon where the WS itself does decent damage, id be doing evis/ext and not getting any aftermath at all if that was the logic you're going for and never using rudra's

Bingo.

And I'm not going to explain to you why three WS are better than one. Instead, I'm going to direct you here. Before considering the part WSC, fSTR, and weapon damage are playing in all of this, rudimentary addition(or multiplication, if you're feeling brave) should tell you exactly why three 3.25 ftp WS are better than one 5.25 ftp WS.

Well in abyssea, its just better to spam evis because unstacked rudras is completely worthless in there. Stack when bully is up. Then Evis your way to the finish line.

Outside, I just spammed rudras in general when I offhanded TP bonus 100 magian. 200TP rudras (225 if you have earring)+overflow are really solid and only a TINY hair behind evis outside abyssea. 1-2 ODD procs easily makes up the dif in WS damage between evis and a 200+TP rudras. Also, lv 1 aftermath can be refreshed so you basically just have near evis level damage and lv 1 aftermath 100% of the time and never worry about holding TP. Stack when convenient, otherwise just spam. Thats the style i used. Without the TP bonus magian, rudras takes a giant to damage, but I didnt mess with that much since I only got and used a corusc for a little while before getting mandau done so never really looked at TP bonus fusetto vs corusc paired with twash.

Now I just spam mercy or evis depending on my mood since mandau basically has the ODD built in via ODTriple.

Unless ur in VW I'd say just Rudras when u have SA or TA up and ride out the T1 aftermath.

Nvm what the alien above me said.

That really begs the question of why a dagger-wielder, much less a thief, is in Voidwatch. That's not me being petty, that's just reality. Thief is absolutely atrocious by comparison to almost every other job with moderate weapon proficiency.

Lucky you that can go with 18 perfect jobs.

It's not hard to find people to do VW with. Someone responds saying that THF is their only 99 job? Shout again. Even the half-competent, regular pickup VW organizers on my server are well aware of the job hierarchy. It isn't elitism to suggest that people should show up on appropriate jobs to things that you don't always have a 100% success rate with.

Some NMs it is hard to find people for. Also most fights are so easy you only need 12 people so if a guy wants to go thief then fine idc.

If said person is your friend or part of your group anyway you're not leaving them home.
Or at least I hope you value your friends enough to do that.

I don't play with stubbornly inadequate and/or stupid people. Leveling/gearing good jobs takes a few days.

I dunno, Novion sucks. :(

At least Novion has the sense to show up on thoughtless proc jobs.

Glowbo though.. Man, sometimes I just don't know about him..

you're comparing straight WS damage and completely ignoring the TP phase.

I understand that 3ws @ 3.25 > 1@ 5.25 but you're completely ignoring the TP phase.

In the end it is all moot once mandau comes into play.

Such a 2handed mentality with the WS spammage. I dont really see why you came in here to start with though since you're clearly just here attempting to crap all over people.

I do agree about the voidwatch bit but you seem like one of those "OH MAN WAR WITH UKON? MUST OUT DD X job even if X job is geared that much better. Too much textbook theory and not enough real word numbers here sir. Need both not just one.

abyssea mentality.

and it's because of abyssea that it only takes a few days to level/gear.

Telling you that you're wrong isn't "crapping all over people". Learn how to be corrected.

And spare me the one-liners. If you have a reasonable objection, make it.

Wanted to reply, but given who I was going to argue with I changed my mind. Not worth the time.