For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

Genuinely curious why you wouldn't be earning max deeds every month. Free stuff is the best stuff.

yeah it's irritating to unlock/do but thats ffxi in a word. irritating.

I'm pretty sure there's content in this game that you refuse to do because you hate it...

There's a very obvious distinction between someone who plays, and me. That's why I specifically said "free stuff", And why YOU

I'll do stuff I hate for free stuff. deeds, logins, goblin boxes, silver vouchers (Because it lets me skip the stuff I hate MORE, like af quests, farming omen, loldynamis)

So like even if you were only a little interested one would think you would still do them. They're cumulative, so you'd still have 120 instead of 240 right now.

The later months are "valuable"

Nov/Dec/Jan is worth 4.3m + 5 keys that could be worth millions + 3 days worth of omen skips
February is worth 7.3m + 5 keys that could be worth millions + 3 days worth of omen skips
(August was worth 30m)
You would get them later, but still get them

How that 3 days worth of Omen ?

Meg have:
- 0 dex (af+3 have 15), which is kinda important for white DPS on THF, because you actually have potency for positive dDEX
- 0 crit damage (af+3 have +5%)
- 0 MEVA, yep they have no meva at all, which is kinda bad for TP gear. AF+3 is not Malignance or Turms lvl of meva, but +99 is not terrible
- 4% haste, which puts you at 25% haste in gear and afaik we need 26% to be sure to cap haste in gear

Not according to BG

It does show them having 41 eva and 69 m.eva on the ambuscade rewards page.

The game item doesn't show eva/m.eva in game, but if you check the stats using /checkparam, the eva is there, so one can assume the m.eva is there too.

Probably just ran out of space in the item text, so the AF still probably have 30 more m.eva, which is not insignificant depending on your other gear.

It's just a combination of all the stats combined


Pillager's Culottes +3

39 strength, 15 dex, 54 accuracy, 30 attack, 6% haste, 5% triple attack, crit damage + 5%

-- Set bonus from wearing both legs and body adds an extra 15 accuracy

Meghanada Chausses +2

40 strength, 49 accuracy, 45 attack, 4% haste, 5% triple attack rate

Samnuha Tights with max aug

48 strength, 16 dex, 15 accuracy, 6% haste, sTP +7, DA +3%, TA + 3%


Pillager's Culottes +3 hands down wins out in the accuracy department for all the pieces, and Pillager's Vest +3 is already our best TP body option, so that also triggers the set bonus which further pushes its accuracy lead.

Comparing it to Meghanada's damage output, the crit damage +5% pushes it past what Meghanada can do. It also has 2% more haste, and everything else is pretty much equivalent. That makes it it's a straight upgrade to Meghanada +2.

Comparing it to max aug Samnuha's damage output, the extra 2% triple attack rate offsets the sTP +7 by adding the equivalent of approximately 3-5% sTP worth of TP gain by adding extra swings instead. Samnuha leads slightly in TP gain, but it's offset by the fact that those extra attacks add white damage, which sTP does not. The 3% DA has a minimal effect because of diminishing returns from having a 58% triple attack rate. Samnuha would probably be pretty equal to Pillager's at this point, but once again, the critical damage +5% pushes the artifact into the lead.

In both cases the critical hit damage + 5% is what makes Pillager's Culottes +3 the winner. It's a flat upgrade to Mehnanada +2, both in terms of accuracy and white damage. Samnuha DOES have a slight edge over Pillager's Culottes in the tp gain department, but it isn't enough to compensate the white damage bonuses you get from the extra 2% triple attack rate and 5% crit damage. The 41% bonus to triple attack damage is also relevant to the extra attacks. And while Pillager's Culottes +3 has a marginal accuracy lead over meghanada, it has a vast accuracy lead over Samnuha.

Defensively, the evasion, magic evasion, and magic defense on Pillager's Culottes +3 is also the highest of the three pieces. Meghanada does give the defensive stats listed on the wiki, but that's a moot point because Pillager's defensive values are higher.

Oh I get it. Yeah, if you were to pick between Samnuha or Meghanada you'd be making a choice. Samnuha sacrifices a lot of accuracy, but the main draw is the extra STP. It does have a slight edge in tp gain because the extra 2% TA rate on meg doesn't fully compensate. Samnuha is better than meg if you don't need the accuracy, whereas meg is better than samnuha if you can make use if it. I used to use Meghanada as well because I liked the pile of generic stats and content varies from event to event, so requirements change. I've already spoken my mind enough that we know I prefer to try to maintain high accuracy and attack values in my tp set whenever I can. When offered two comparable pieces as long as I don't have to sacrifice excessive amounts of sTP or multi attack I pick the piece with the higher white damage stats. Finishing my artifact legs just made things easy since I didn't have to make any sacrifices.

And another tiny thing I've noticed for evasion. I had 1225 evasion and seemed to be at or near evasion cap vs Omen trash. I was using a fairly normal DD set, with Nibiru Knife offhand and had a Mambo from my BRD alt (who lacks capped skills and su3). That shouldn't be hard at all for a solo THF to reach in there.

Why even bother capping evasion on Omen trash though? Or multi boxing an alt for that matter when you can just summon trusts and go ham? You'd just splitting your attention and gearing to kill slower when there's no tangible payoff. Garbage mobs aren't dangerous, they're just HP sponges. If you get into trouble with a big pull you can just swap to your -dt/evasion hybrid until you get things under control. Omen crystal farming is the definition of content our glass cannon build is made for. Multi boxing and evasion hybrids make sense if you cant call trusts or they die too easily, but aside from personal playstyle or desire to do something different I don't see much point on cannon fodder. It's still perfectly fine, it just feels kinda silly to me.

He specifically has the Gandring C that gives tp from evades

Don't know if that's the reason for caring about evasion builds though, obviously a massive speed gain cleaving floors with maximum evasion.

Lack of concern for massive links is the only truly practical application for Omen trash, I'll admit. It's mostly fun, and I don't think I'm getting much from a Minuet 3 regardless, so having my BRD toss out a Mambo and hitting evasion cap is neat. The main point I was making is trying to find out how much evasion is needed for certain content, and 1225, a not terribly hard to obtain number, offering a 50%+ evasion rate (I think it's capped but I don't have kparser to give myself actual evasion rates) is a rather neat concept.

Originally I started working on this for Gandring shenanigans, but I generally enjoy killing things one at a time more fun for me (and AOE threat is subjob JA-locked for THF, since AE is crap for enmity) and it's better for keeping a chain going for my BRD alts JP. Add on the Malignance gear giving us reasonable evasion gearswaps while maintaining DPS and I find it fun to look into.

I've managed to evasion tank the wave 2 Dyna-D Windy boss, and wave 3 trash, which was nice to see that evasion isn't dead in ilvl FFXI, so figuring out how much is needed for different tiers of content can give us an idea of how much evasion is needed for different sets of content.

Ahhhhhhh, that explains it. OK, I take it back. It makes a lot more sense now. Not many people have that dagger (myself included). It still feels like a roundabout way to go about doing the same thing. Is it even worth it when Gandring only works in the main hand? I understand why they made the dagger's augment only work in the main hand, but with it's hefty price tag that kinda killed its appeal for me.

Yeah, I bought mine for 490m before we saw "Mainhand only" appear, so I had to find a way to make use of it. Which got me started figuring out if evasion can function in ilvl FFXI, and it can.

Sure, I understand. Data collection and analysis is right up my alley. If you're interested in getting Kparser up and running it's really easy. You just need a few updates. The client from motenten's download is outdated. Cerberus.Gillesjboulo posted the updated files in the 10th post down from the top of this page.

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/16905/new-memloc-for-kparser/5/#2829136

Just download the binary program and extract it. Kparser is in the Debug folder. Then copy the files in the modified sources into the same folder the program executable is in. Everything runs from that folder. Then just download and install the updated SQl CE 4.0 he linked. It's a microsoft download and he provided the link to the official source. Once that's done Kparser is updated so all you have to do is give it the correct memloc under Tools --> Options.

The current memloc is 0x0061d7c0

You don't have to do it of course, but if you're interested in finding out the true evasion values needed for whatever content, this is how you'd do it. I'm mildly curious to know myself, I just don't think it's practical enough to feel compelled to spend time testing it right now. But if you're working on it at a pet project anyway I'd love to hear your results.

Slight addendum. To put that in perspective I have 1087 evasion in my normal TP set, and with 4/5 Malignance I'm up to 1201. Malignance has some of the highest evasion values for gear, so a 5/5 malignance build would weigh in right at around 1225 evasion. But then you'd be using malignance anyway, which is kind of the point of the set to begin with. Outside that to hit that evasion range we'd have to use some sort of unconventional setup, like manhandling Gandring or offhanding Nibiru knife, which is one of the weaker daggers for DPS purposes. Malignance is a freakin awesome set though and it's certainly not a bad thing to TP in. It's just that if we don't need it the glass cannon build does output better damage, and we can swap it in if we get in trouble until we stabilize.

I do understand the "safety against large links" thing when soloing. I've wiped a handfull of times in omen to adds. But every one of those was my own fault because I was distracted or otherwise not paying attention. The first time we pull a link we can't handle we can just use perfect dodge, and that should be enough of a wake up call. But if a 5/5 malignance set should be enough to cap evasion on similar content levels as omen trash that's still useful information to take away.

-------Omen Evasion Testing----------

Ok, so I decided to give this omen evasion hybrid idea a go to see what kind of info I could get from it. Turns out there may be a practical use for an evasion hybrid after all. For my testing I took my standard glass cannon TP set from the top of the page and swapped in Malignance Chapeau, Tabard, Gloves, and Tights. That raised my evasion from 1087 to 1207. I don't own the boots yet, but they have 27 more evasion and 2 more agility than plunderer's boots +3, so I would have 1235 evasion with that swap. Here's the evasion and incoming damage nunbers I saw with just the pieces I have






Evasion caps out at 80%, so it looks like another 30 or 40 evasion or so would have been roughly enough to cap out. Basically the 5/5 Malignance set, coupled with Yamarang and Assassin's Gorget +2 is enough to cap out on omen level content all by itself. I was able to maintain 5 mobs hitting me at once with little issue, with the small caveat that I had to be quick to swap back to my malignance after using evisceration. If I got caught in my weaponskill gear for more than a fraction of a second with that many mobs on me I'd get hit like a freight train. Still, it wasn't unmanageable and since I had no enmity on any of the adds my NPCs could just heal me back up and the mob would never flinch at them. I could pretty much just plug away freely with half a dozen mobs on me and not care too much.

The problem was that I wasn't killing any faster than usual; I was actually killing a bit slower. The loss of white damage and triple attack rate from my normal set was a smidge larger than the damage I gained from the store tp, but I knew that would be the case going into the test. So while evasion supertanking is certainly cute, and while the added mobs couldn't hurt me very much, I also wasn't hurting them either. There was really no difference between me holding a bunch of adds versus my normal setup where I just killed one or two at a time, so there was no practical benefit. I went on like this for the first two floors to get a feel for what I could and couldn't handle. Then on the final floor I changed things up and decided to put that evasion to use.


Enter Aeolian Edge. This is my gear set.
ItemSet 368547

All five herculean pieces are augmented with 32-35 magic attack and somewhere around 18-25 magic accuracy apiece, and one has a small bit of intelligence added. No weaponskill damage on any of them but I'm content with what I got. The Toutatis's cape is also specialized for aeolian edge with INT + 30, Magic accuracy/magic damage + 20, and weaponskill damage + 10%.

Aeolian Edge cleaving is nothing new, but it actually pushes the envelope in an evasion build and gives a reason to bother trying. With that gear set I was averaging anywhere from 3500-5000 damage at low tp values and 7000-9000 at higher ones. I could take down a wave of 5-6 mobs with just two or three weaponskills. However, with that comes a new challenge. Since aeolian edge actually puts me on the hate list for all the mobs the moment one of my trusts cures me they're going to get swarmed. I lost my trusts FAST doing this a couple times. Fortunately I could resummon them, but I was continually losing 2 or 3 each wave of mobs. It wasn't a real problem though to blow through the waves a lot faster than I normally would have been able to using evisceration spam. Eventually I ran into a problem at the ladybug camp and ended up with the whole swarm on me at once. Apururu has a habit of standing at maximum range, and when mobs are bouncing around like ping pong balls running between you and your trusts its easy to aggro far more than you want at a time. 10 or 12 ladybugs later my trusts went down, and I had used perfect dodge at the bird camp. That ended my testing run, and I won't have another tag until tomorrow so I can't do any more today.

The payout feels like it could very well be worth it. I'm pretty sure if I could get a rhythm down where I could consistently keep 4 or 5 mobs increase my farming speed by about 5-10 minutes easily if I ran that from the start. Maybe even more. The issues with aeolian edge cleaving in Omen are two fold.

1: Autotarget is mandatory, and unfortunately when mobs are ping ponging off you and your trusts it's easy to lose sight of them after using a weaponskill. That's what happened at the bird camp and why I was forced to perfect dodge before the ladybugs. I used aeolian edge and was force disengaged because the mobs ran behind me right as the weaponskill went off. I lost 4 of them before I could reengage so I had no choice.

2. Once again, ping ponging mobs between you and trusts makes it really easy to aggro entire gaggles of mobs at once. This would be even more pronounced on the first two floors where the fighting radius is smaller.

It's definitely got some merit though. Hopefully I'll get the final malignance soon. It'll be nice to put lillith fights behind me once and for all....

Given the hate issues, have you considered thf/blu and trying to boost your def and use some AoE hate moves rather than the normal /nin or /dnc? (I think /blu also lets you set some MAB iirc)

actually tried that a few times a ways back when i was getting bored of farming on thf the normal way, like you said the worst part is trusts, i ended up trying to use AAEV with varying levels of success in holding mobs by curing me, if i had a pocket geo id definitely favor doing it more but as is its just a bit finicky, if you go all in for it could run double malev, or tp bonus off-hand but im not sure thad be as big an increase as a 2nd malev

Might consider giving up the Herc body for that juicy 30 Enmity on the relic body

It was the first time I ever tried it so I had no idea what to expect going into it. I was really just following up on Ladyofhonors idea that evasion may still have a use in the current meta. I always used to love evasion tanking beck at the lvl 75 cap era, and evasion IS one of thief's specialties so I'm open to the suggestion that there's unexplored territory here. We haven't had any serious evasion discussions in the past few years and I think with the DPS power spike we kind of wrote it off. Also up until now Malignance wasn't a thing, and that changes the dynamics considerably. It's certainly a world of difference from evasion soloing Aquarius in the Boydaha Tree back in the day (that was fun as hell btw). Malignance has not only the highest magic evasion, but also the highest phsycial evasion to boot, and its got solid TP gain stats. After trying it out I think there's definately room to explore 5/5 malignance evasion/hybrid builds on lower content.

I never perused blue mage though... so I don't have any spells. But it shouldn't be that hard to get the relevant sub job only ones. It's something I'd look into if someone else did some testing of their own and showed how well it worked.


This, is actually quite an interesting idea.

I might test it out sometime then, just for shits and giggles as is about everything else I do in this game.

But I suspect since its the sub job of choice for end game tanking, it would work well as a sub for thf since you could heal (provided your trusts are being stupid), boost your magic damage for edge, and use a few AoE hate grabbers. Also packs an AoE dispel which normally would be useless, but 5/5 malig (and other goodies) also will give you stupid Magic Acc.

And I think blu also had an AoE flash but that might be post level 49.

I was running with Ulima, Koru, Mihili, Cheryukiki, and Apururu for what its worth. Basically a support package. I could have summoned August or some of the damage dealers, but they wouldnt have helped any with hate management issues. And the first three waves went pretty well too. For the Rabbits, Mandragora, and lizards I lost 2 or 3 healers tops, and I could just resummon. It wasn't until the next two camps that they started causing bigger problems. I think there's also room to improve positioning and pull distance. Its something different to try, but I'll say this. Like Ladyofhonor said, it was pretty fun to try. And what I did can definitely be improved upon.

I am not 100% sure on cast speed, but you might be able to use ark Angel Taru-Taru and /blu for sleepga options too.

Pull a pack, sleepga them, engage, AE, Sleepga again.

I recall seeing that elsewhere, but for the life of me I can not remember where.

Also, on top of being fun, its also a very legit form of income.

I know people have told me they get 14~20 drops in a full farm, which is around 2.5m per canteen (at least on my server).