Best Dagger For Thief

I'm honestly beginning to think that the majority of the people on forums use light bulbs in their home without knowing anything about electric current or photon emission

The audacity

can you provide a screenshot or a parse to show that light bulbs are even better than candles?

Laughed aloud. Thank you.

I downloaded the Thf.dps google docs. Browsed the forums and selected what the community boast as the best gear sets for exenterator ad well as evisceration. I also looked up what are considered the best sets to stack said WS. Using the comman daggers I see being stated are best out side relic and empy Aluh + Thokcha. After doing that I clicked on all the setting from fodder - Ig-Alima. on monsters under lv 100 the merited ws wins for damage but once you get over 100 evisceration wins. Easy enough to plug everything in and turn off all buffs only using Thf/Dnc solo.

The way it was stated is as if the merits ws was leaps ahead of evisceration but they seem to break even across all content. Would a non career Thf even merit it in that case? If you where a career Thf would you not just make relic and empy daggers?

Exenterator is more consistent, evis relies on crits and more importantly has a much lower mod. On average exents should be superior...unless aby.

And Mandau/*** owners use exent as well cause it can beat Mercy/Rudra on occasions.

Would a career thf use it over relic and empy WS then? I guess they would only solo since "relic and empy ws are best stacked".

EDIT I honestly ask because I play Thf 90% of the time. and I often put out more DPS across content from dyna, salvage, VW, using Evis and Rudra. then most "True DPS" classes. I use 90Twash/Corusacanti.

Then again I do not use all the bells and whistles of spells cast and what nots. but I do run parser often and look and results vs other DD and what gear/weapons they are using.

Also my Sheets have evis solo and using rudra stacks beating ever using merited WS stacked or solo. Could this be due to my dagger selection and being man-thra using red curry with 12/12 Str/Dex merits? I never parse abyssea content. Only out side abyssea. I also never set sheets to abyssea content only out side. I do not use buffs or often have buffs out side of haste samba from sub and a mage haste if I am lucky. I have speant countless hours swapping out gear on this damn spreadsheet inputting every possible WS stacked and unstacked every piece of gear. and I come up with what I currently use to be the top out put using 90 twash and off hand Canti. in the majority of situation the 99Str dagger does not beat that set up for me in off hand. Yes I own it but I do not use it for that reason.

Having 30 dex from daggers alone will certainly skew results in favor of evisceration.

Just to be clear, the point of this discussion is to figure out which WS that "non career" thieves should be using, right? Because we really have to define what that means if this whole thing is meant to be meaningful. I don't really like the term because it will likely mean "whatever seems to hard to get" to everyone, regardless of the level of their THF's gear.

Is no Khepri what it means to be a non-career THF? Having no 99 weapons? Having no empy or relic? No NNI gear? I don't know where you watn to draw the line.

Obviously this stuff matters a lot when comparing weaponskills since when we say "this weaponskill is better than that", the goal is to compare under realistic conditions while gearing as optimally as possible.

For example, looking at Ig-Alima with all of its level correction and not adding at least Stalwart's and Braver's is a ridiculous case. DPS drops to something nonsensical like 10 and one can hardly make a decent comparison in such a range.

Ignoring this whole "what's the definition of a non-career" THF problem, I tried to set up a reasonable scenario for Qilin with gear to make each weaponskill as strong as possible in this context.

So, for me, that means:
Mithra
DNC subjob to help with procs
RCB
STR12, DEX12, Crit 5%, Dagger 16, TA 5, AC 1, Exent 5/5
SA and TA are "None" to get the best unstacked WS numbers
No Berserk, no aggressor
This is Voidwatch, so Stalwart's and Braver's are included

Using Twash90/Coruscanti and...

This set for Exenterator:


and this set for Evisceration:


Exenterator is favored by 7.5% in WS damage (1554 vs 1445). If we add Blood Rage or Rogue's Roll on top of this (Rogue's Roll being highly unrealistic), then Evisc finally overtakes Exenterator. Boost-DEX would help Evisc as well but you won't be receiving that either. Champion's is another buff that will benefit Evisceration but even if you're able to full-time it, Exent should still barely edge it out (to the exent that I'd call it a wash).

Like Deci said, having 30 DEX on daggers is about as good as it gets for Evisceration (not to mention the crit rate boost on Coruscanti), but additionally, the value of crits goes up as your melee pdif gets crappier, so it's no surprise you see Evisc performing well on higher level targets if you are lacking standard melee buffs. This brings back the question of what are realistic buffs for a THF across all contexts but that's another debate.

Then we can make a few changes that will favor Exenterator rather than Evisceration in this context:
- Mandau/Pugi instead of Twashtar/Coruscanti
- Capped attack however you like (Chaos Roll, Berserk, or whatever)
- Swap most unnecessary attack-heavy gear to pump up WSC

Then the result is Exenterator ahead by 20% at 1997 vs Evisceration at 1656

I have to run if you guys want to try to debug discrepancies but I was pretty explicit so you should be able to reproduce all of this. My overall point is that, while Evisc is obviously awesome inside Abyssea, it's only going to do well outside if the buffs very heavily favor it. Even in the case where buffs/daggers were mostly to the advantage of Evisceration, Exenterator's still right there with it and even winning most of the time (unless Blood Rage or Rogue's Roll), yet in cases that favor Exenterator, we see substantial boost in WS damage.

This is why I'm comfortable saying Exent > Evisc as a general statement. If you really find yourself as /DNC without Berserk while wielding Twash/Corsucanti and with a bunch of crit buffs but awful attack buffs, then go for Evisc by all means, but I think we have to consider realistic buff setups.

We can do this over again if anyone wants to throw out a more clear definition of what it means to be a non-career THF, but any choice is going to be a bit arbitrary since what's difficult for one person may be easy for another and vice versa.

Apologies in advance if I missed something silly while drawing these comparisons but I'm rushing because I have to head out for a few hours. Be back later tonight.

All Copy/Paste from freshly downloaded Thf.DPS Google Docs.
Haste Set:
Evisceration:
Melee DPS 89.559
WS Dmg 1256

Exenterator:
Melee DPS 77.851
WS Dmg 1015

Other results not changing anything for sake of consistency.

Content under 100 Merit - Higher End content Evis when solo. Next topic. Stack TA & SA Mercy Stoke vs Rudra's Storm. RS will beat MS in most cases when stacked with optimal gear or vise versa? Yes/No? Beyond pure WS damage IF keeping up OOD rate on Empy dagger full time, will DOT out parse relic ODD? consider also the poison addition effect. The end result will near* always be both daggers lv 99 are the best 2 daggers you can have. But if you only where going to make one which would it be and which off hand then becomes the best?

It seems to me that Evis will begin to win when your PDIF starts hitting below 1, which'll put more value into critical attacks. But as Suji already explained, you'd be using Stalwarts and Bravers in VW (and realistically won't be DDing in a situation where your PDIF is that low otherwise), pulling Exen back ahead.

I notice you say Stalwarts is 1, but I wonder if you turned Voidwatch to 1 as well? Otherwise, it still won't count the Stalwarts. Also, why Rancorous on Exen >.>

Holy freaking moldy brain fart. I had no clue turning VW on actual did anything as atmacites are N/A. What is VW adding exactly?

I have several rank 15 atmacites: But I commonly use these listed below as the work across other jobs I play. Esp. as primary DD 99 Apoc Drk.

Atmacite of the Valiant: HP+10% All attributes +15 Accuracy+5 Haste+5% (I have Different gear sets I use to compensate for haste)

Atmacite of Imperium: All attributes +8 Enmity-30 Enhances "Resist Charm" effect +25 Enhances "Resist Amnesia" effect +25

Atmacite of Persistence: STR+15 Accuracy+5 Physical damage taken -5%

Sometimes:
Atmacite of Coercion: STR+5 AGI+5 Accuracy+10 "Regain"+3

Sometimes change back and forth between last to have not fully decided which I prefer. But been sticking with Persistence lately.

EDIT: I been manually adding these into my personal sets to decide which is best. Once again did not know the VW option did anything. I am very interested to know what it adds.

As far as I know, its only working purpose at the moment is to enable the Stalwarts toggle to register. It's similar to how Berserk/Aggressor will not work unless you have WAR sub and Haste Samba will not work unless you have DNC sub. I suppose the reason it's not directly underneath Voidwatch would be because Stalwarts is also related to Abyssea.

I see, has anyone else bother to manually input their 2-3 atmacites either?

So had a buddy of mine, who is a lot better at this stuff then myself, add Atmacites to Thf.Dps Sheet; as well added braver's drink option. 3 Top Atmacites for Thf seem to be Coercion, Valiant, Imperium (I had assumed Persistence would be in top 3, I was wrong). Also with the included stat boost across near all levels of VW evisceration only leaps exenterator on Ig-Alima, at which point it truly leaps by shy of double WS damage. However it is very well true - exenterator is the Superior WS on anything below Level 110~. Goodbye Shoha, as I am not dropping resolution or Entropy. He also point out how ever if in event Thf is fighting Arch Bosses or Higher "End game" bosses in general evisceration may still be the best way to go. Most 90% of what we kill is NOT that high of a level though.

With Leisilonu added to the mix, is Mandau/Twash both at 99 still the best option ? and how close is the gap?

are people forgetting ?

The fact that no one has posted in this since that update, no, it's not forgotten, in fact it's been heavily mentioned in the guide thread.

Nice it surpasses excalibur sword when it comes to DMG lol
Man I can't wait for SE to sort the relics out ^^
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/31485-New-weapons-with-higher-base-damage-then-relics

Izhiikoh is a nice looking dagger for main handing. I'm looking forward to seeing what the augs are on it. I'd definately replace my eva thokcha for aphotic. I kept the eva thikcha for the base dmg and not having to spend a mil+ on a new ah dagger.

Before I rep my aluh as a sub, I'd like to see comparisons. If the added str and acc from aphotic beats the crit dmg from aluh for evisc. I imagine it would, or the dps from double the dmg would make up for the lack in ws dmg.

I don't think you'll have to worry about what to pair with Izhiikoh based on everything you just said.

Yeah I got to thinking about that and numbers wise aphotic should kill aluh. Still, I'd get an aluh until you can get izhiikoh or aphotic.

Below is what I'm going after. I still need to run NNI for thaumas, but the rest I have besides the daggers:

ItemSet 299830

The evasion on the gear is generally there to make up for the skill and innate base stats you don't get by being capped at lvl99. You still need to compete with the hit rate of high level adoulin mobs if you are an evasion job.

That's where Josiah lives...

THF/DNC actually has a bunch of solid uses in Ceizak fracture. Steps for Mastop and Scorpion, piercing to help pwn Muyi. Best of all, your Feint timer should be up every time the stupid zone evasion thing happens, so that can speed up runs considerably.