For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

So now with the introduction of gear sets I have the following builds thus far for my THF/DNC:

TP

ItemSet 327495

DEX (Evisceration)

ItemSet 327496

AGI (Exenterator)

ItemSet 327497

I'm 3/8 Chapter 10's on the feet right now.

Any ideas of anything that could be changed?

Also keep in mind I'm still a long ways from the relic dagger and don't have the patience for Empy Dagger, although if there's another weapon skill I'm missing that's easier to get and worth it, let me know.

Change to a DW belt, obtain a UK cap. Change to DW earrings. moonshade.

Please for the love of Christ don't use Sandung.

Everything else is "OK" not the best, but acceptable.

Man, make one little comment about personal observations I've seen while playing on my THF and people react like I called their mother a dirty *** or something. Sorry for having an opinion, I'll just leave this conversation. <.<;

Just trying to help you out man. Rudra's is dat sickness. If your strokes are better, something is wrong.

What's wrong with off handing Sandung?

Because +5% on the first hit of your WS sucks compared to higher dps + dex/acc + triple attack

It offers nothing of value for one.

It's TH cannot be used (cap @ 8) Agi and Eva (ewww). 200 Delay.
The WSD is the only thing semi useful, and it's not bad.

Thief snob really. A bare sabebus is more beneficial.
Granted it's perfectly fine if you don't want to put money into thf. I just wish all thfs had Mandaus. But I also wish bad thfs didn't make it so sad.

I LOVE this dagger.

Well than tell me what I'm doing wrong. <.<;

Mercy Stroke:
ItemSet 327499

Rudra's Storm:
ItemSet 327498

Exenerator:
ItemSet 327490

Evisceration:
ItemSet 324968

Dancing Edge:
ItemSet 327511

I've yet to find any information on how to get a Sabebus tbh. Would be nice to get though.

Your gearswap script, probably.

I don't use GS, I use script macros. And gear changes out just fine.

Slowly working on it still.

I've been slacking at dynamis lately. Only at stage 3 atm currency wise, but at 23 100s bynes for last stage.

Then you're eye ball'ing it too much.

Look, this game's over a decade years old and it's been figured out. You didn't just flip everything on it's head because of a couple of observations.

get on my level son, 591 and 617 to go.

The sets look fine, here's what I would recommend.

Do an entire dynamis using stroke, and one using only evis, one storm.

Compare the parses. it would seem that you're just getting lucky strokes and unlucky storms.

Realistically, a mob is half dead by proc, and you shouldn't SAWS anything, you should be able to kill a mob from 80% ish with just storm/evis.

It actually slows you down to even bother getting behind the mob and using the ja.

Need an AGI belt too.

http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Ironbeak_Inguza

http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Forri-Porri

Oh sweet. Thanks. I wish BG linked their stuff better.

Dynamis isn't really where I noticed the difference between Mercy Stroke and Rudra's Storm. Like you just said, getting behind the mob is a waste. Most of the time. When I use Evisceration in there sometimes it 1-shots it, sometimes it doesn't. Depends on how many crits it gets. While Exenerator ALWAYS 1-shots the mob from any health.

The Rudra's Storm versus Mercy Stroke comparison come more from the DC Adoulin mobs and up. Whenever I SA or TA at about 1000~ TP my Mercy Stroke generally come out slightly higher. About 1000~ more on average than Rudra's. With the sets posted. Obviously the more TP I have when I WS the closer Rudra's comes to Mercy until it overtakes it at roughly about 1800~ or so.

I'm not trying to fight with anyone, just noting my personal observations over about the last month or so of playing the video game. <.<;

You weren't specific x_x see that's what I hate about thf suggestions.

Every minor detail changes things, in a big way. Most likely, YOU benefit from fSTR being Ilvl mobs. I thought you were talking dynamis. That's the context it was in. When the fSTR matters, it's completely different scenario.

@ Ilvl 110 mobs Stoke/Storm @ 1000 tp is almost negligible. But if you don't add str to the rudras set, it is behind stroke.
SA+WS Dmg: 7024
SA+WS Dmg: 7107

Unstacked @ the same 110 mobs
WSDmg:4128 Evis
WSDmg:3396 Rudra
WSDmg:2992 Exe

Some extra caveats on these comparisons.

If comparing two weaponskills at varying TP levels, make sure to set over-TP rounds to 0. The minimum TP is just that -- minimum. It's saying you won't try to weaponskill until it's higher than that value. The over-TP rounds then get factored on top of that. So comparing two weaponskills at 1200 TP min with 0.5 rounds over-TP is more like comparing them at 1400 TP (before Moonshade Earring). Even without that, though, with 0 over-TP rounds, you're still comparing them at about 1300 TP.

Note: This is a mistake I made when advising on this issue a while back.

When making a choice based on your actual TP at a specific moment, it looks like Rudra's matches Evisceration at about 1300 TP at capped attack, and at 1700 TP with uncapped attack. (Using Izhiikoh/Atoyac)

For Evisceration vs Exenterator, I can't come up with an Exen build (at 5/5 merits) that can beat Evisceration even at min (1100) TP and capped attack (worst case for Evisceration). Anecdotally, the random Exens I've tossed out in the last couple of months have always been extremely weak compared to Evisceration. I haven't de-merited it solely because I haven't been inclined to merit up other weaponskills lately.

On the spreadsheet, I even get Dancing Edge as pretty much always better than Exenterator.

Note: I haven't done Dynamis since the weaponskill change, so can't provide any first-hand observations on that.

However one thing that must be remembered is that the Evisceration averages include notable spikes -- the crits. If I set the crit rate down to 0 to simulate weaponskills without any crits, Exenterator does substantially better than Evisceration.

That in itself is an interesting research area -- spike damage vs consistent damage. For example, a Garuda +1 ring has almost the same long-term average as an Epona's Ring. Which one is better to use? Epona's, with a few points higher average damage, or Garuda with an improvement you'll see in every single weaponskill, instead of just one out of every 16 or so?

While we can simply assert that number A is bigger than number B, and therefore better, that's applied to an imaginary mob with infinite hit points. With real mobs, that spike damage may commonly be wasted in overkill. If you know that you can kill the mob from 40% HP, and always do so, that means the few times you'd do 50% or 60% of the mob's health, you'd never see that damage.

Always insightful, good to know about the over-tp rounds, though I mean .5 is more realistic, than saying ws at EXACTLY this tp, that's never gonna happen. It's good for finding an absolute minimum at which one one becomes better though, certainly.


I would love to see a poll on this; spike/consistant/gimp(don't care)/sheep(i use what people tell me is best)

Just this part of the post, wanted to note, that I almost always go with the Consistency. I don't care that 1/20 ws winbuffet will make a 10k spike. I'd rather use the ele belt and see the improvement on every ws than the spike, for example. Same with epona, I generally only tp in it. Multi-hit ws,
I'm still not sold on the:
"Multi attack can only proc on the first hit" So I assume that something that is 5 hits, has a 5x better chance of DA/TA vs a single hit ws. Maybe I'm wrong. You have an answer for that one for me by chance ~<3

That's incorrect. A one-hit weaponskill only has one chance to proc DA/TA/QA. A two-hit weaponskill (or a one-hit with an offhand weapon) or higher always only has two chances to proc DA/TA/QA (up to the 8 hit limit). This was shown long ago with a statistical analysis of Penta Thrust TP returns.

Sorta ninja'd the post while you replied, I edit alot.. I'm never satisfied with what i put

ws gear poll;
I would love to see a poll on this;
spike/
consistent/
gimp(don't care)/
sheep(i use what people tell me is best)/
"that guy" I use my friends set cause he parsed better than me this one time

And I always assumed that multi attack should proc on every hit, but still widely thought that it can only on the first hit (like WSD).

This actually explains a lot of what I have been see'ing in Dynamis with Exenerator vs Evisceration. Basically, if you are geared well enough that your Exenerator can do enough damage to 1-shot the mobs in there, Exenerator is better than Evisceration in that type of situation just due to the consistency.

I may start messing around with Dancing Edge as well in Dynamis just to see how consistent it is after this post.

Thank you so much for your insightful post, Motenten. You always know how to clear things up rationally. =)



EDIT: One more question, on the WS Adjustments page on SE Official Forums, this comment was under notes for Exenerator.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/42615


Exactly what does that mean? Does it mean it can only proc a multi-Attack on the first hit now? Or something else?

The first hit of Exenterator will be calculated using 2x your attack.

Edit, might affect Wak's follow-up post: I can't find the source where I found the statement above, so suddenly, I'm not too sure about it anymore. ;-(

So basically, if you're capped Attack already. that function does nothing. So, wouldn't change anything from Exenerator pre-update in Dynamis to now.

Does the spreadsheet for Exenerator actually reflect that double attack value on the first hit for uncapped attack situations?

Like Valli already said for TP. New DW belt or P. Sash will do so much more than windbuffet for you. Plunderer Feet are nice, Manibozho feet (auged) when you need accuracy.

I currently have a really nice Leisionu +2 with +7 dmg, 1% DA, 5% WSD that outparses my naked sabebus until I can get it aug'd.

Evisceration:
Soil Gorget probably will give you more benefit than the 5 dex on the neck. Uk' Cap, Pillager's Armlets +1. For back either stick with Atheling or pick up a Bukwik Cape (8 STR, 10 atk). Legs Manibozo is -9 STR, +1 DEX, -5 acc, +30 atk over Plunderer. Just because we are attack starved I would use that. Once you get Pillager +1 as well those are better. Moonshade earring for extra crit chance or bladeborn/steelflash for the 8 acc/atk 7% DA.

Exenterator:
Soil Gorget and Belt are a must. Belt is really easy, gorget is easy too, but belt is like a 10 minute thing. Quiahuiz pants unless you need the acc from Plunderer's.

Actually, no, it doesn't. I forgot to try to build that in after that was determined. I'll get that done.