WTF Is Wrong With My Dancing Edge Build?!

Heres my build:
http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=88878

5/5 str merits
8/8 dagger merits
5/5 ambush ( +15 ACC from behind)
4/4 crit

It jumps around so much no matter what im fighting.

Im using steak for food or something with att%, when I use sushi it stays around 900-1100 ish. When I use att% im 1200-1900+.

I just got some denali Gamashes http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=15734 and while I dont want to loose the dex from heca the +5 acc is hard to ignore.

Any suggestions?

When using att food you require more acc in your build. Put in acc slowly see if you can find a happy medium between the two.

Well have you checked your tp afterwards? It also might have to do with where on the pdif curve your falling. Different regions have much different slops and diffences between high and low.

*raises hand*
pdif curve?

Yeah I check my tp afterwards, sometimes its hard because I macro in my tp build right after and hit fast. But if I miss a few I can tell when its low.

But jumping around on the same mobs from farming between 200- 800 diff in damage with I usually let her fly @ 100ish tp baffles me.

IDK if something is off with me gear wise.

pdif is part of the dmg calculation. There are high/low crit/noncrit curves where you fall on them depends on your att vs mob def. They do strang things at certain points like go flat for awhile or change rapidly. Wiki has a pretty good explantion and heres the chart http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/File:PDIF.gif I'm guess attack food is putting you past the ~plateau which would me small changes in your attack and mob def would have much bigger effect on dmg then it would at the plateau.

A decent way to test this might be go fight a high def mob and see if you get more consisency with meat... and with sushi your likely to get the same problem if that is the issue lol.

Testing it out so far im averaging higher consistent numbers with the +5 acc from DG vs HCT. Wonder if I could sqeeze some acc into ears or something n keep HCT n use DG for higher mobs.

Thanks for the incite.

Well if 5more acc is helping especially at the loss of all that str and dex you clearly were missing at least some hits. Maybe only 1-2 most the time but yeah

Think im going to try n save up for some oily trousers. +5 acc + 5dex should be a good thing.

Thanks for the help <3.

i dont see anything wrong with your build o.O

Few things that shouldn't be too difficult to obtain (some might be tougher than others) to improve your build:

Ammo: Fire bomblet
Head: Voyager's Sallet / N.head
Earring: Brutal Earring
Earring: Pixie/Hollow
Body: N.body/Enkidu's/Antares
Hands: N.hands/Denali Hands/AF+1 (Anything to lose the relic hands in ws)
Ring: Blood/Woodsman/Sniper/Toreador/Sniper+1 (That 1stp ain't doing anything for you)
Back: Cucuhlain's Mantle
Legs: Enkidu's Subligar

As for Feet I would stick to the Hecatomb Leggings as the Dex is going to help your damage and still provide moderate ACC. Also if you are serious about a DD build on your thief I would look into getting a higher base D main hand dagger and putting Blau into offhand.

Need Hecatomb :)

Your setup is very mod heavy which if I'm not mistaken only applies to the first hit. So especially if you're eating meat, you should put more emphasis in accuracy. If you're fighting something ridonkulously evasive to begin with stick with Shark Bite or Mandalic Stab. DE is reserved for exp like mobs that have low to medium evasion assuming you'll be be geared it to match against it.

If you eat sushi feel free to have a majority of your gear cater to DEX, STR, Atk, etc. However, if you're a meat eater, stuff like N.body, Enkidu's Cap, Chiv chain/PCC, Denali feet, etc. would help significantly to land all 5 hits, since that's how you get max damage to begin with.

Isn't it CHR based? Or is that just for dnc? lol, i don't have any job that can use dancing edge but always hear ppl say its chr based so i dunno. just my 2 cents..

It is 20% dex modded and 30% chr modded... however dex helps SA and acc too... maybe even crit hit rate theres some debate over that. Putting in chr just for 30% tp mod is kinda silly especially on a 5 hit ws

I believe the secondary mods are: 30% DEX, 40% CHR... STR caps pretty easily on daggers due to their lower base DMG compared to two handers, but it never hurts to have a handful in there. The nice thing though is DEX doesn't cap, and along with adding slight base dmg to the calculation it slightly enhances accuracy as well. CHR is too insignificant to worry about adding it intentionally over acc, atk, str or dex but if there's nothing else CHR is good. However, you really should only go mod heavy on DE if you're very confident you'll land all 5 hits on whatever you're fighting. If there's any doubt, then accuracy is a must.

Ninja edit: My bad, turns out CHR does have a 10% higher mod difference but read my above statement why DEX is better overall.

Element: None
Skillchain properties: Scission / Detonation
Modifiers: DEX:30% ; CHR:40%
Damage Multipliers by TP:
100%TP 200%TP 300%TP
1.1875 1.1875 1.1875

this is the Wiki posting for DE

Might also be worth noting that since TP doesn't contribute twords damage multipliers, any additional TP over 100% will aid to accuracy. Doesn't hurt to go a few dozen TP above a spam rate to assure maximum contact.

dont use the gorget, use a chiv chain, and get a dex ring instead of the acc ring

Ammo: Fire Bomblet or Bomb Core
Head: Optical Hat
Neck: Perfect besides Love Torque
Earrings are fine, perhaps Brutal
Body: Hecatomb Harness, Antares Harness, AF+1 body... Dragon Harness should be sushi/feint DE only.
Hands: Enkidu's or Hecatomb
Back: Amemet+1/Forager's/Cuchulain's
Belt: Warwolf or Potent depending on the rest of your build
Legs: Fine, look for Dusk Trousers/Enkidu Subligar possibly too.
Feet: Good.

Stat mods apply to all hits, but DE is multihit. Therefore it is very sensitive to changes in gear and your most important stat is ACCURACY and from it, CONSISTENCY.

Accuracy > Attack > Mods etc for multihits generally.

Despite CHR adding more raw damage there is nowhere you'd want to give up DEX/STR/Acc/Atk for CHR, making it a moot point.

To clear up some misconceptions,

Weaponskill mods apply to ALL HITS. The only native term to a first hit in a weaponskill is fTP, and possibly any pdif/accuracy boosts (unconfirmed).

Gorget > all for any affected weaponskill unless you are using a Love Torque for THF/DRG ones sometimes.

Thanks for the clarification. I was under the impression that stat mods applied strictly to the first hit. But even though that's false, assuring maximum contact is key to pinnacle damage in multi-hit weapon skills.

I have HCT hands but I nvr swap AA out when farming.

RA needs to be something I can use to pull since im always pulling for DYNA etc. Bomblets (etc) are out of the question.

I will nvr use anything for any WS besides gorget, its supposed to add acc to every hit and adds .1 to base mod which I always notice helps. My Sharkbites land for an extremely consistent number. I also have soil that I use for evis. Gorget ftw, no debating that.

I only use DE for farming TW-DC mobs, or vs birds since I usually have a bard n can easily break 2k.

I dont think acc in Ohat with no other mods is worth the slot if I can find something with dex + acc. 1 dex = 3 str according to wiki but dex does more then base mod, it adds acc n crit as well.

Im just trying to even out my numbers instead of throwing out odd lows and highs.

Optical Hat is a perfect sound suggestion and its not completely eliminating mods if you swap out a few other pieces.

Consider this:
With your current hat and ring you have +5 dex and +4 acc.
If you used O.hat and Thunder Ring you would have 5 dex and +10 acc. A net gain of +6 acc over your current build.

Can't crit on DE :(

The only head gear worth using over an Optical Hat for DE is a Hecatomb Cap because everything else is a tiny tiny offensive benefit compared to the accuracy.

For instance, you could swap that Ecphoria Ring for a Thunder Ring and Assassin's Bonnet for Optical Hat and come out of it with more DEX and more acc. It's a powerful piece.

Didn't see your post when I posted ;; funny how we posted the exact same thing though!

Not a bad idea, ill swap it in n run some parses.

How about the best of both worlds?

It's like Ohat and Emp pin had babies :O

Ahh yes, that's very nice. Forgot about that piece; it's very good.

I dont like it... hecatomb or maats cap yes please

Yummy piece, looks like hell to get. Gonna have to rally the troops.

Tinnin is not that hard and it dropped more then anything else the times I've fought it by alot but no one really wanted it that bad.