For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

Just a quick shoutout to shadowmeld for the artifact hat +3 suggestion. I suspect you're right on with that one. When I added relic hat +3 to my evisceration set I was looking at not just the accuracy, but also the attack. The thought process was that the attack would affect all hits, whereas relic hat's crit damage would only affect crits. However, with a minimum critical hit rate in the 50% range the artifact hat should easily easily easily win. I had forgotten just how much crit rate there was in the build. Additionally, critical hit rate from dex CAN be measured through melee crit rates.

Base crit rate from dDex == 5%
Maximum crit rate with capped dDex == 20%
Critical Hit Rate from general merit category == 5%

The maximum native critical hit rate we can get is 25%. Tauret adds an additional 25% crit rate. So if I'm capped on dDEX my melee critical hit rate should hover at the 50% mark. That's easy for kparser to see. Since my evisceratipon set has more dex than my tp set, if my melee crit rate from dDex is capped so too will my evisceration rate dDex be capped.

Preliminary data also shows a very small difference between path B adhemar feet and head and mummu feet and relic head. I've currently got a sample size of over 100 eviscerations with the relic/mummu combo, and 70 sample size with the adhemar combo. Relic/mummu is sitting at 19,500 average, and adhemar is currently sitting at 19,800. That's a 300 average difference, with adhemar sitting at a mere 1.5% difference over relic/mummu. I'm going to finish the sample to 100 and move on to test the artifact cap.


Prediction: Mummu feet and Artifact Hat will end up being the ideal combo. Additionally, I also suspect the ideal ring combo will be Mummu and Begrudging. I don't currently have begruding, but I can change that really easily. If the artifact hat +3/ mummu feet +2 do wind up pushing the averages I expect them to, then the next logical swap is to test that same setup with illabrat swapped for begrudging. All in all, a capped crit rate should hover around 60% with the following major players

Relic Body +3 -- 6% crit rate
Mummu Hands +2 -- 6% crit rate
Mummu Ring --- 3% crit rate
Begrudging Ring -- 5% crit rate
Toutatis's cape -- 10% crit rate
Mummu feet -- 5% crit rate
Yetshila +1 -- 2% crit rate

That's 37% crit rate from gear alone, which added to the 10-25% rate varying by dDex is a range of 47% with floored dDex and 62% at capped.


Crit damage would be

Artifact Hat +3 -- 5%
Relic body +3 -- 5%
Artifact legs + 3 -- 5%
Yetshila +1 -- 6%
Critical attack IV job trait - 14%


so up to 62% critical hit rate with a 35% crit damage bonus.

I'll post the hard numbers later next week once I have the full sample sizes collected for the remaining pieces.

You can certainly measure the crit rate with a parser, my only point about quantifying dex for crit rate is you have a very small window where adding dex can provide a significant impact on your rate. That is when you are between 40-50 dDex. Over 50 you are capped, under 40 the bonus to crit rate is very minimal (dDex 6-39 only increases your crit rate by 4% over that range). You would need to know going into the fight that additional dex would take you from < 40 into or beyond that 40-50 range. And that would change from fight to fight.

The logical assumption for Evisceration is that you are stacking enough dex that you are guaranteed > 50 dDex in whatever set you're WSing in.

That's the critical takeaway. Different mobs are going to have different stats. But there shouldn't be many that have so much agility that dDex won't be capped. For the purpose of the bonnet selection I also don't think it would matter even if you don't cap crit rate. Even at 47% crit rate artifact hat would be better than relic. When I threw the relic in I was using logic from the 75 era (attack affects everything, crit damage only affects crits). Gear is so much different now though that the sheer volume of crit rate stacking we have access to can push eviscerations crit rate beyond 50% natively. My original deviation from adhemar was to keep accuracy more consistent, so I threw the relic +3 hat in. But the Artifact hat has even more accuracy than the relic does, and it gets the set bonus from the presence of the legs as well. And with the crit damage bonus it should make evisceration hit harder too. The added 6% weaponskill damage on the first hit is an added bonus, but I think that'll be enough tp push its damage output to the same level as adhemar bonnet +1.

Basically I'm agreeing that artifact hat makes a LOT more sense than relic does.

Its like a 5th time I see aomeone saying 6% is max. Its not, 5% is max with fern.

Personally I would check adhemar path b head + hands option too.

Weapons have different caps

As far as what melphina is doing, what he concludes is best is best for what he's fighting under his conditions. Not "highest output". Not 3 bolstered GEO 8 rolls and 5 soul voiced songs. Commmon trend with his sets/posts is needing accuracy.... or to be more precise, being uncomfortable with lower accuracy. It's not going to be something you should immediately replace (your) sets with.

Does anyone have a newer spreadsheet that has the REMA augments in it?

It's true that I do prize accuracy and value consistency, but I also appreciate maximum damage output. There are several pieces within an evisceration set that have uquestionable "best in slot" choices for everything. Those are

Ammo -- Yetshila +1
Neck -- Fotia (or shadow)
Body -- Plunderer's vest +3
Back -- Toutatis's with crit hit rate
Belt -- Fotia (or shadow)

The remaining slots have a few viable alternatives and aren't as straightforward. Adhemar and Mummu pieces also have the set bonus to consider

Head -- Adhemar +1 and Artifact +3 both fit the bill
Earrings -- Mache +1, Sherida, and Moonshade all make sense
Hands -- Adhemar +1, Mummu wrists +2
Rings -- Ilabrat, Regal, Mummu, and Begrudging
Legs -- Artifact +3 and Ludstratio +1 stand out above the crowd, but people have generally concluded that artifact +3 is flat out better and I do agree with that.
Feet -- Adhemar +1 and Mummu +2

In addition the Herculean set is a bit of a wild card because its augment strengths can vary so much, and if you get something esspecially great with the dark matter campaign it can be in a class of its own. I'm excluding herculean because dark matter augmentation is so random, but if you get a high dex bonus and crit rate or damage +5% then that's another viable alternative.

With that said though, if you had two options that data showed a probable difference of 1-2% in maximum damage output range, which is generally about as much as a single hit from one of our daggers, but one had over 100 more accuracy than the other, would you choose the one with the lower accuracy anyway? Evisceration has 6-8 hits depending on triple attack activation or not. It's not like rudra's where you can go all cow on damage stats because it won't miss. I didn't swap out adhemar JUST because I wanted more accuracy in my evisceration set. I genuinely thought the alternatives were viable for max damage output as well. And if you're in a situation where you're getting "3 bolstered GEO 8 rolls and 5 soul voiced songs", the extra dexterity between the mummu/relic versus adhemar would have a more profound impact on damage than other situations too.

I don't think herc hands or feet are going to compare very favorably without a near max augment. The cap for herculean in both crit rate and damage is 5%, but you can only have one or the other with normal augments. Stacking critical hit rate is generally going to be more effective than stacking critical hit damage. The stat comparisons for hands and feet versus mummu are

Herculean hands

16 Str, 39 Dex, 12 accuracy, 2% triple attack

Mummu Wrists +2

16 STR, 53 Dex (61 with set bonus), 43 accuracy, 6% double attack rate, 6% critical hit rate


Herculean Boots

16 Str, 24 Dex, 10 accuracy, 10 attack, 2% triple attack rate

Mummu Gamashes +2

16 Str, 37 dex (45 with set bonus), 42 accuracy, critical hit rate + 5%


Mummu is already pushing the upper limits of normal herculean augments all by itself. It would take an extremely powerful augment for herculean to catch up. Simply adding 5% crit rate or damage isn't enough. You'd need a strong dex and acc/attack mod as well, and even then it would be very close.

Eww that's some bad luck, I've done around 50 or so and I have staff club hands and legs so far.

Oh I did get the earring and the weapons during those runs, just no malignance armor. I don't have any of the jobs the sword is on geared so I've thrown it 4 times now and it keeps coming back like a boomerang. It wasn't that I wasn't getting drops, just none of the ones I wanted most (I do appreciate the earring though). Funnily enough over the next 40 runs I ended up seeing the head, body, and hands drop. Luck streaks happen both bad and good. I'm hoping to finish the set by 200 *ish* runs, but I'm reluctant to get my hopes up since the last few unique drops should theoretically take the longest to see amidst a bunch of repeats. The fact I'm able to keep myself occupied with a pet project makes the process so much more bearable. Waiting in line for the queue doesn't bother me all that much (I can easily watch youtube or do some housework), and the fight is fast and clean, but farming the merits over and over gets kinda grindy.

I've been going to the mosquito camp on WAR/SAM and slaughtering the mosquitoes there (and beetles when they are available). I can get 75 merits in 20-30 minutes and my WAR still needs JP so it doesn't feel like a waste of time.

Evisceration Testing Results

So I got a chance to collect some statistically significant sample sizes on a few potential evisceration swaps, and there is some useful information to be gleaned from it. Shortly after I began collecting data I realized that lady Lillith wasn't actually the best target for data collection. I wanted a larger sample size than 100, and with the lines to enter the fight that would take a long time. Plus, she also has a Bio attack which affects numbers. So rather than test on Lady Lillith herself I found a better camp to get my numbers. I wanted a mob that could sponge enough hits like Lillith that I could get 5 or 6 eviscerations off per mob, and I wanted its tp move set to not include anything that influenced its own defense or evasion, or my attack or accuracy. I found my camp at Moh Gates. Apex Raptors Were everything I was looking for. Their TP move set is only capable of inflicting direct damage, stuns, knockback, or plague. None of these affect damage, so I was able to collect a clean dataset for each gear swap.

I monitored the average damage closely and found that by 180-190 weaponskills the average results were insanely consistent. At no point in time beyond then did my average numbers deviate by more than double digits for every 10 dditional weaponskills I added. My first dataset only differed by about 50 average damage going from 200 to 250 weaponskills. So I'm confident that anything beyond 200 was just extra padding. These numbers still have a small amount of variance and aren't perfect, but there's a very high probability that the numbers are within 200 points or less in either direction of their true average values. That's more than good enough for our analysis. My trust set was Koru, Apururu, Kupipi, Cherukiki, and Mihili. I just pulled out a bunch of healers, so I didn't get any buffs beyond haste. I also refrained from killing any of the raptors with evisceration. When the mobs got too low on HP I switched to rudra's storm to finish them off. All eviscerations should have their full hit return present and accounted for. I did 4 sample sets, and for each I'll link the gear set I used as well as post the numbers I returned. I'll extrapolate on the data briefly in the analysis section below.


Dataset 1 - Testing the Mummu Gamashes +2 and Relic Hat +3 combo

ItemSet 368764



Sample size -- 255 Weaponskills
Average Evisceration damage - 15,648



Dataset 2 - Testing Path B Adhemar Bonnet +1 and Path B Adhemar Gamashes +1 combo

ItemSet 368818




Sample size -- 253 Weaponskills
Average Evisceration damage - 16,534


Dataset 3 - Testing the Mummu Gamashes +2 and Artifact Hat +3 combo

ItemSet 368819




Sample size -- 222 Weaponskills
Average Evisceration damage - 15,655



Dataset 4 - Testing the Illabrat Ring versus Begrudging Ring swap

ItemSet 368820




Sample size -- 252 Weaponskills
Average Evisceration damage - 16,513


Note: I tested my tonberry hate before running this sample. I grabbed a bronze dagger used the unity teleport to send me to the Den of Rancor. Then I exited and proceeded to poke one of the tonberries until it used grudge, and promptly took over 2k damage to the face. Tonberry hate caps at 250 kills, and I've stored over 400 worth. So my tonberry hate is well beyond the cap.


Analysis and takeaways

Well, this pretty much settles the adhemar versus mummu debate. Path B Adhemar Bonnet +1 and Path B Adhemar Gamashes +1 with the active set bonus were approximately 6.5% ahead both of the Mummu Gamashes +2 and Relic +3 hat combo, and Mummu + Artifact combo. What I found intersting was that there was no percievable difference between pairing the Mummu Gamashes +2 with the Relic hat versus the Artifact hat. It appears that the Relic hat's attack bonus is significant enough that it's roughly on par with the artifact hat's critical attack bonus. Obviously if your attack is capped the artifact combo is better here, but if it isn't capped then it appears the two are more or less a wash. My average pDIF was around 2.0-2.25 for the testing, for what it's worth. The 4 datasets returned my average non critical hit melee damage as 286, 283, 283, and 281.

My other takeaway was that there was no percievable difference between Illabrat Ring and Begrudging Ring. I attribute this to the diminishing returns we get from stacking so much critical hit rate. My dDEX was DEFINATLEY capped (My melee critical hit rate was glued to the 50% mark for all sample sets), so At 1000 TP Evisceration's minimum critical hit rate is as follows

20% -- capped dDEX
10% -- Eviscerations inherent TP bonus at the 1K anchor floor
5% -- 5/5 critical hit rate merits
2% -- Yetshila +1
6% -- Relic Body +3
6% -- Mummu Wristbands +2
5% -- Begrudging Ring
3% -- Mummu Ring
10% -- Toutatis's Cape
4% -- Adhemar Gamashes +1
4% -- Set bonus for wearing both Adhemar Gamashes +1 and Adhemar Bonnet +1 at the same time
250 TP bonus worth -- Moonshade earring (The exact percentage value is unknown)

Total critical hit rate at 1k == 75% + whatever bonus Moonshade is adding

Edit - Eiryl mentioned that I should put moonshade here as well. I overlooked that when I originally mathed this section out; probably because the values aren't exactly known. Just take into consideration that moonshade is adding a few percentile to critical hit rate as well. Its presence doesn't change the generality much though.


So it appears the threshold where it becomes better to stack critical hit damage over critical hit rate is roughly 65-70%. Obviously this is going to be piece dependent, and if one piece has a much higher level of strength over its potential counter swap that probably won't be true. But as a very broad and general rule of thumb, it appears below 65% gearing for more critical hit rate is probably better, and beyond that we transition to the point where gearing for critical hit and raw damage damage stats begin to grow in effectiveness.

----Based on this generality with the above set there is almost a 100% certainty that Relic legs +3 are stronger than Lustratio Subligar +1. I don't see any world where Lustratio could overcome Pillager's Cullotes +3 because of that relationship.

TL DR version;

1. Path B Adhemar Bonnet +1 and Adhemar Gamashes +1 are stronger for max damage than Mummu Gamashes +1 and either Relic or Artifact +3 hat pairing.
2. Begrudging Ring and Illabrat Ring are probably a wash.
3. The threshold where gearing for critical hit rate starts to show diminishing returns over critical hit damage and other raw damage stats appears to be roughly 65%, which translates to roughly 35% in gear when added to a capped dDEX value.
4. Based on #3 above, Pillager's Culottes +3 should hands down beat Lustratio Subligar +1

As Eiryl said, this is very much not capped buffs territory. If you’re getting buffed to the gills, the dynamic is probably going to look very different.

Actually, a "fully buffed" set probably won't vary too much from the "best" set they ended up with in the end. I expected more sacrifices for accuracy, specifically in the head/feet (the only really flexible slots). But since adhemar ended up producing best numbers anyway, no change really.

(melph, in your totals you didn't account for moonshade adding a few critical hit% somewhere around 3-4%?)

You're right, I did overlook moonshade. Probably because the exact value 250 TP adds to crit rate is unknown, but I suspect you're right that it's in the 3-4% area though. I went back and made an edit with commentary to that extent. Its presence shouldn't change the genarality though. And I also agree with you that capping attack shouldn't change the overall heirarchy for the feet and head. The takeaway is that if you do want accuracy mummu feet +2 and artifact head are the better swap since artifact hat has more accuracy, and when buffs cap your attack relic hats advantage over artifact is completely negated. The difference between the two isn't terribly large though, which is why I think I felt like mummu +2 and Relic hat were on par with adhemar. In my actual playtime I was seeing what looked like the same performance, and my bell curve shows that the highs and lows are pretty much the same. The Adhemar combo had a more consistent bell curve though, and it shifted slightly to the right. So while the mummu and relic combo had the same range of numbers, it tended to have a few more points scattered in the high end than adhemar and several more scattered on the middle lower end, which was enough to drop the average by a few hundred points. That's something that eyeballing over time can't really show, and what I most wanted to learn from this test.

I didn't run the Mache +1 testing, but from the differences we can see between Ilabrat and Begrudging, I highly suspect that Mache versus Moonshade is also a very minimal difference. It would probably be too small to accurately show up in the parse. Either way, that swap is a negligable one.

I've been able to solo Lillith II is on Easy (lvl 124) with Apururu King of Hearts Ajido Marujido (for dispell) Cherukiki and Kupipi on THF/WAR. Once you have a couple pieces of the spitewarden gear the extra magic evasion and damage received reduction makes it possible assuming you also have a good magic evasion set already and a defending ring. What I did was run in and provoke then zerkgessor to get hate and then keep her pointed away from my trusts and stayed on provoke to help keep her off them. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be.

However, at lvl 124 it's totally possible she could just get lucky and kill you while lvl 119 is a faceroll and almost impossible to loose. If you bring a high reraiser and things start to go south you can pop it and go die on the ramp and restart though.

EDIT: also you need to keep an eye out for Fatal Allure and turn around to avoid it. If it lands it's an automatic loss though you can retry with RR after it wears off. For that reason I'm now just applying RR always and keeping a couple earrings on me.

Actually its very hard to die on Easy if you actually take it very safely and simply turn around after each attack round until you see what TP move she is doing, then you can melee a little longer without turning when she does something, then keep turning away when you feel she is about to TP move again.

Which rings are BiS for TPing ?

My TP includes Hetaroi + Epona, but I recently got Gere Ring and I was thinking about replacing Epo with Gere.

Any WS where Gere is BiS too ?

I TP in double Moonlight. If I had Gere, it would depend on the goal of my set if it would replace one. Pure DPS, I'd probably Hetairoi/Gere, but I tend to favor more hybrid setups, and it's really hard to beat Moonlight for all the stats it gives you.

On that note, I've been messing around with evasion sets some more, to see what I can do without sacrificing so many stats. I took my standard TP set, and swapped Adhemar head for Malignance, and adhemar hands for Raetic+1, then put in a AGI/STP/Eva/Eva cape. Overall stat difference is:

-8% Triple attack
+1 STP
-11 acc
-4% crit rate
-6% crit dmg
-16 subtle blow
-65ish attack
+178 evasion

This puts my evasion into the high 1200's while meleeing, without any buffs. I also have an upgraded Nibiru Knife, which has 5 AGI and +49 Evasion, so I can get to 1320-1330ish without any buffs. This puts me into high evasion state for Omen trash, and had my uncapped skill (540~ combined skill) and su3-less BRD alt singing Mambo and I had capped evasion in there. For a relatively minor loss in damage output, I think that set has its place for me. It's neat being able to evade again.

If you go for pure DPS I would say Hetaroi + Gere. THF can now achieve 58%TA, +41%TA damage, 25%(before dDEX) crit rate, +39% crit damage in TP set. With AM3 on Twashtar, it can almost rival white damage of Verethragna AM3 MNK with Impetus.

This is what I've settled on. Moonlight rings are good for a hybrid set, but there's a lot of content you don't need to hybrid for. I'm running the exact setup Simon mentioned, and the white damage is spectacular. There are no weaponskills where Gere is best though. Illabrat, Regal, Karieyah +1, and Epamidonias's are the top 4 for both Rudra's and Mandalic Stab, while Begrudging, Ilabrat, Regal, and Mummu (coupled with Mummu hands) are the top 4 options for evisceration.

Noted, thx for the inputs

Savage blade says hi

Sounds fun! Do you have bis set for this build you can share?

Thief shouldn't really be using Savage Blade outside of extremely niche situations though. It's a strong weaponskill, but dagger's are just better than swords with maybe a few highly situational exceptions where mobs are just outright not going to take piercing damage. We have an A+ Dagger skill and a D sword skill, and all of our best tricks come from using a dagger mainhand. It's fun to mess around with, but there's nothing we can do with a sword that we can't do better with a dagger.



Here you go.

ItemSet 342123

58% Triple attack rate, 41% Triple attack damage bonus, 39% critical hit rate damage bonus. This is my standard TP set and it performs fantastically. If you're facing higher tier content and want some more accuracy you can swap out Adhemar Bonnet +1 for Relic Hat +3. You only get 33% crit damage bonus instead of 39%, but relic hat has 30 more accuracy and attack both than Adhemar, so it's situationally good for a swap. Everything else is pretty much fulltime for a max DPS setup.