For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

Those sets arent aiming for maximum dmg off the 1 SA hit they are aiming for maximum DPS i think. I'd personally go with sa rudra and ta exent.

Correct about the solo SA / TA sets and using things like Epona's ring. It makes more sense to me to gear those sets as if you're planning to continue DPS'ing after the SA / TA, because if you're doing a single SA / TA then running away you're there for TH, and then your damage really doesn't matter. Attempting to optimize them for SA / TA usage will also help determine if you should use them solo or save them for WS's (save them for WS's).

Also, quick list of new items for THF for my personal reference, along with sources and what set I'll gear them against. Ones marked "--" aren't for DPS sets.

Melee Weapons
Mandau (119) Vajra (119) Twashtar (119) atoyac blitto needle camaraderie dagger vivifiante hoe kaidate	R/M/E update R/M/E update R/M/E update Tchakka - Foret WKR unknown, AH 30K bayld, Peacekeeper's Coalition -- -- --	QQ QQ QQ QQ HQ NQ -- -- --
Ranged/Ammo
phulax bow One-eyed aqreaqa bomblet jukukik feather dosis tathlum (some grips)	SKCNM, AH SKCNM, AH Achuka - Morimar WKR, AH Hurkan - Marjami WKR, AH -- --	HQ HQ 0Q 0Q -- --
Head
enedron glasses ejekamal mask pillager's bonnet Thurandaut chapeau +1 bomb masque (+1)	SKCNM (Mandragora 10), ty Jnc Tchakka - Foret WKR SKCNMs 18K bayld, Peacekeeper's Coalition --	likely QQ QQ HQ NQ --
Body
pillager's vest Thurandaut tabard +1 alliance shirt (+1)	SKCNMs 25K bayld, Peacekeeper's Coalition --	HQ NQ --
Hands
pillager's armlets boor bracelets Thurandaut gloves +1	SKCNMs unknown, AH 15K bayld, Peacekeeper's Coalition	HQ HQ NQ
Legs
quiahuiz leggings kaabnax trousers pillager's culottes Thurandaut tights +1 alliance pants	Kumhau - Kamihr WKR Colkhab - Ceizak WKR SKCNMs 18K bayld, Peacekeeper's Coalition --	QQ QQ HQ NQ --
Feet
pillager's poulaines Thurandaut boots +1 alliance boots	SKCNMs 15K bayld, Peacekeeper's Coalition --	HQ NQ --
Neck
pentalagus charm huani collar tlamiztli collar atzintli necklace cuamiz collar some monstrosity torques?	Unknown, AH Colkhab - Ceizak WKR, AH Kumhau - Kamihr WKR, AH -- -- --	HQ 0Q 0Q -- -- --
Waist
kasiri belt cetl belt chuq'aba belt	Unknown Kumhau - Kamihr WKR, AH Yumcax - Yorcia WKR, AH	QQ until more is known NQ 0Q
Ear
dawn earring phwaylla earring friomisi earring	Unknown Colkhab - Ceizak WKR --	QQ until more is known 0Q --
Ring
cho'j band paqichikaji ring kunaji ring resist rings	Tchakka - Foret WKR, AH Hurkan - Marjami WKR, AH Yumcax - Yorcia WKR, AH --	0Q 0Q 0Q --
Back
buquwik cape kayapa cape ik cape tuilha cape iximulew cape toro cape earthcry mantle	Achuka - Morimar WKR, AH Hurkan - Marjami WKR, AH Colkhab - Ceizak WKR, AH -- -- -- --	0Q 0Q 0Q -- -- -- --

Just curious why Iuitl Headgear beats Thurandaut Chapeau+1 considering in one-handed DD guides(DNC, BLU) on FFXIAHBLU it's regarded as best in slot for DPS

two reasons:
1. I don't know for sure, since I haven't updated this guide for November gear.
2. BLU doesn't get access to patentia sash and Nusku's sash. I don't see anything on the DNC guide that suggests Thurandaut +1 is best, but I didn't search very hard. iuitl headgear with the 2% DA augment and patentia sash is a better combo than Thurandaut chapeau +1 / Twilight belt if you just compare stats.

Does triple attack really only happen once every 50 seconds?

?

2% triple attack on Iuitl head would imply 1 triple attack every 50 melee swings, or once every 25 rounds when dual wielding.

Or are you confusing it with TA=Trick Attack? Which you can use once per minute, or merited down to once every 50 seconds.

As MOt said, the "TA" likely referred to with 50 second timer is "Trick Attack", not Triple :D

Also Mal, THF Upgraded AF is really that good? Thats interesting to know...

Huh? No, I'm just saying what gear sets I will *compare* things against. I have no idea if THF upgraded AF is any good. Flippant did some great testing with it though (see previous page of this thread, and here) so we at least know the crit bonuses on some pieces.

I would honestly consider upgrading them anyway in the anticipation that they'll make it to ilvl 119, even if most of them aren't worth equipping now.

Head is +3
Body is +5
Hands is +2
Legs is +3

Body is best in slot right now for SA Mercy, Khepri Jacket for TA/Mercy; hands for TA/Mercy, still AF3+2 hands for SAMercy. Head/Legs are sidegrades right now; best if you're fighting low defense mobs, not as great if you need the extra attack from Whirlpool Mask/Manibozho brais.

BTW

Cavaros Mantle is now a thing

I refuse to believe this.

Anywho, the THF+1 armor looks nicer... i wonder how thats going to stack up, I imagine quite well. Words.

Recently restored my mandau, a quick question, was wondering if mercy nowadays was worth to use unstacked or just keep up exent like old 99 days. TY

I haven't verified the claim but 3% does gets bigger with the amount of statgasm on ilvl armor. Back armor selection must strengthen proportionally with ilvl pieces for Cavaros to stay in storage.

I still have mine and was mostly being "I DISBELIEVE THIS MALARKEY" kind of doubting, not so much srsly refuting btw :P

Still, I'd be kinda shocked if that thing came out of left field.

I went back to Buquwik cape because optimizing for fodders is a stupid idea.

But Cavaros does win if you have capped attack.

Mercy is worth using, but only when stacked. Exenterator is your best bet when you can't stack with SA/TA.

I'm curious, what do you optimize against? The August version of the guide was optimized against 102 Chapuli, and that's becoming dangerously close to "fodder" with current gear.

I have my own spreadsheet, so I don't know about any of that. Fodder means just me setting mob def to 1.

I recently used Thf/Mnk for some coffer keys farming. I noticed that using emiance h2h with /mnk will give me a roughly 150+dmg/200 delay weapon. I lose about 150+ attack switching to H2H and can only use Raging Fists.

I wonder have anyone tried this in abby?

When you don't have a 119 Mandau, or when you need to gravity something to get the hell away.

According to my calculations, Rudra post-AF119 now does as much as Mercy Stroke pre-AF119. At capped attack, first hit of Rudra should do 4.5k, every other hit should add about 550 damage.

What are you looking for? THF has never been any good at H2H, and this weapon doesn't change that. It's cool that we get a H2H weapon, but I don't see any reason to use it besides skillups and maybe punching skellies. I'm sure it does great in Abyssea, but I'm also sure the eminent dagger does even better.

Preview for the December guide update!

Well I'm fed up with how useless my guide is with current gear, AND I finally have a bit of time to actually sit down with a spreadsheet and figure out some things. So to give an idea of what I'm doing with this iteration, here's the raw data for the QQ Exenterator set I just crunched:

99 Mithra THF/DNC, NO FOOD, no buffs except Ionis, vs. Delve fodder:
Izhiikoh / Eminent Dagger (latent activated) / Raider's Boomerang
Felistris 2782 > Lithelimb 2775 > Whirlpool 2765
Justiciar 2782 > Tlamiztli 2779 > Gorget 2766
Tati +1 x2 2782 > Tati x2 2776 > Bladeborn / Steelflash 2749
Pillager +1 2782 > Mani R15 2764 > Espial 2760
Pillager +1 2782 > Thurandaut +1 2774 > Iuitl +DA/NQ 2760
Stormsoul / Epona's 2782 > Cho'j / Epona 2776 > Stormsoul x2 2775
Vespid 2782 > Vassal 2752 > Canny 2748
Prosilio 2782 > Caudata 2761 > Elanid 2759
Quiahuiz 2782 > Nahtirah 2779 > Kaabnax 2765
Pillager +1 2782 > Iuitl +DA/NQ 2741 > Espial 2730


Here's what I'm thinking with these sets:
* I spend most of my time solo as THF/DNC, no food, no offensive buffs (as far as I can tell trust NPCs don't give offensive buffs). I want this guide to be useful for me, so that's what I'm going to use for the base character setup.
* I also spend most of my time soloing in Adoulin, in areas often harder than Ceizak / Yahse, so the 107 Delve Fodder level is most appropriate.
* I would still like to publish Delve sets, as a THF/WAR with food & haste vs Tojil, but it's not the top priority.
* I would like to spend less time trying to editorialize gear choices, so I'm just going to list the top 3 I found from spreadsheeting plus their DPS / Damage value when swapped in. This should also be useful when you don't have best-in-slot but would like to know what's close.
* I don't think I'm going to spend any time thinking about attack-capped or similarly easy scenarios.


I think it'll still be quite some time before I start publishing updates, but at least I'm starting in earnest now :)

... and I just realized a QQ level THF would probably use Mandau mainhand, guess I'll have to do this set again :p

I thought I had read somewhere that the Eminent weapons' latent can't trigger if they are off-handed.

They can.

Sigh, aren't our WS numbers pretty pathetic. Look at those numbers. <_<

Also, why aren't you using Pillager+1 head

20agi/25atk puts you at 2765
23agi/10atk puts you at 2782
27agi/0atk doesn't even register
31agi/0atk puts you at 2775

Pretty weird numbers.

pillager's bonnet +1 gives me 2719. felistris mask wins in this case because of the 2% triple attack; without that it would only be at 2746. But yeah, there are simply too many stats to consider these days to give simple explanations for what gear is better.

Although you may not want to go into that much detail, you should probably be somewhat aware of why one piece of armor is coming out ahead so that you can truly judge it being better or not. For example, Caudata Belt should not be better than Elanid unless there is unfavorable rounding on fSTR and WSC. This can happen from something as simple as being a different race or fighting an enemy whose VIT is 1 off from the spreadsheet estimate. You could call them essentially equivalent, which is nice because you're probably carrying around Elanid for TA WS. Same goes for pretty much anything you mentioned with less than 10 points of difference.

And as for setting the buffs/enemy for itemsets--instead of going into so much detail, I'd suggest basing sets off of relational stats, like cRatio and hitrate. This is for a couple reasons: First, most equipment is going to stay the same between similar situations (cRatio against a debuffed Tojil with buffs and food is going to be around the same as against fodder with no buffs or food--the game does not care that Tojil is technically a harder fight). Second, most people are not rearranging their sets based on more than that.

Personally, the only time I use THF is attack capped scenarios, so I put far more effort into those sets. I have most of the stuff I use in my profile, so you can use that as a foundation, although I'm sure there are things I've overlooked, and unfortunately I didn't take any notes on sidegrades or downgrades.

Interesting points. Your note about caudata belt vs. elanid belt is actually more relevant than you may have realized; that set I posted was accidentally using 1/5 Exenterator merits. When I switched the spreadsheet to 5/5 Exenterator, Elanid pulled ahead (3046 vs. 3042, which is equally insignificant). Either way, you're absolutely right about one thing - anything mentioned with less of 10 points of difference is functionally equivalent.

I want the detail, though, because some readers care about what assumptions I make when I do these itemsets, and I want to be clear about those for them so they can reproduce / debate my results with precision. The details also help me remember relationships between various pieces of gear, so I can judge if an upgrade is worth the price. That "10 points of difference" threshold you mentioned is useful information.

You mention basing a set off relative stats like cRatio and hitrate. How does one determine that relative stat in game? By just saying "hmm this enemy is kinda hard but I'm not missing, so I'm guessing middle of the road cRatio and capped accuracy? And now we're fighting Tojil, so I'm guessing low cRatio, at least until I get some buffs?" That's not all that different than what the guide currently does, and what I was planning to do. The set I just published and expect to integrate into the guide is the "middle of the road" set, and because low cRatio is so different, I'll include a "Delve" set for that. Attack capped, well, you're on your own, but it doesn't strike me as a situation needing optimization. You clearly disagree about that, but I don't mind linking to your stuff for those sets if you're OK with that.