Attack With Sneak Attack

Hello fellow thieves. I've been working on my Sneak Attack build which mainly consists of DEX bonuses since we all know that it adds base DMG to the weapon under the JA's effect. However, lately I've read up that +attack is also a great factor in determining it's damage output.

My question to you is at what ratio would attack be more worthwhile than DEX? Up to what amount of DEX would having "x" amount of attack be more beneficial? Perhaps you could help by having side on side comparison such as Dusk Trousers vs. Dragon Subligar etc.

I appreciate the advice/input. Thank you!

Bump ; ;

Macro in all the DEX you can before you use SA.
Use SA
Macro in all the ATK you can before you strike the blow with SA active.

I'm 99% sure stats don't carry over in that fashion. Whatever you have equipped for the strike is what it is.

Well, I'd say it depends a lot on what you're fighting/what buffs you have etc...

If you're dealing with really high def mobs like HNM's, you need the atk more, while if you're meriting or something, where the mobs generally aren't as strong and you're more likely to have +atk from brd/cor, you'll probably see better returns from Dex.

Is there any particular situation you're looking at? Meriting, soloing, HNM?

Not sure if this involves the answers you're looking for, and as a few disclaimers, this was posted under "theories," not tests, AND it's a lot of theoretical math thrown around, but just in case it helps in some way, hur:

http://releenaseraph.livejournal.com/112302.html

http://releenaseraph.livejournal.com/114592.html

The poster has Mandau and participated in some of Seraph's best shells, so he seems to be a pretty good point of reference for this topic.

Yea stats don't carry over like that... to help you with that 1% of uncertainty heh. I can't give you exact numbers of what your asking except the equation for what your asking apparently is:

Damage = (Base Damage + Total DEX) x critical hit pDIF

Im going to go out on a limb here and say that unless your stacking your weaponskill with SA or TA that the attack bonus will be to minimal to take a real notice to.

I did take a good 40min look around google, BlueG ect~ trying to find anyone who may have done any direct attack VS Dex tests on Sneak attack but i did not turn up any results.

If you feel you need to pursue this you can find Monsters you max out your SA on and fiddle around with atk and dex gear yourself to see the fluctuation.

I've made thief my main for many years now annnd well in my opinion its not worth pursuing. You get the maximum amount of damage output by splitting your TA and SA. dedicated Agi build for TA and dedicated WS build for SA. Your never Weaponskilling without SA so adding attack or whatever to your build is fine.
Yea i can see all you Veteran thieves laughing in your seats now... but im not done yet lol... SA and DE share dex stat in common which is why TADE is almost counter productive in terms of maximum dmg output.
The game changes once you hit 75 and start obtaining homam, hecatomb, af+1 gloves ect ect. I won't get into details here... (because there is just so much to cover and i'm already off topic)

In my opinion and with what level your thief is sitting at I would SADE then TA whenever. Keep your JA macro's separate so if your forced to (by pt members loss of hate, whatever) you can plant hate where you need it.

Sorry i wasn't able to help you out,
Good luck. =)

Edit: @ Caiyuo yea those are the journals i looked @ that were linked in a forum to BlueG, they were interesting for sure, good read if your a thief die hard.

Hmmm interesting reads but unfortuantely I am not a walking calculator or formula theory analyst so alot of that stuff flew over my head. However what I could make out was that it's unwise to throw in +slow gear for SA as you'd miss an entire attack round or more should you have +haste available in your TP set.

Only time that can be justified for more raw dex/str would be on something really high level/high def and/or kited.

Unfortunately I'm still looking into the whole Atk vs DEX thing. Examples I suppose would be like: Warwolf vs Swordbelt +1, Dragon Subligar vs Dusk, Commander Cape vs Amemet+1/Foragers/Cerberus mantle etc.

When in your next Exp party Setup alternate Macro swaps.
Equip belt "Warwolf belt"
Equip belt "SwordBelt +1"

then delete a " when you need to switch it up.
You are right many gear swaps are situationally better than others.

Just remember Dex is an actual Base point of damage added on to your dagger, so a solo SA with your atk vs dex question, well.. imo you'd need a fair amount of atk.

To solve those examples you had, my personal picks for my SADE would be Warwolf. Duskpants. Forgers.

In an Ideal world it would Be Cuchulain's Mantle
Cuchulain's Belt
Hecatomb Subligar Or an easier fix Enkidu's Subligar

Edit: Slow Vs Haste in Speed SA TAing was found out to be naught. He said it himself in his journal. Why? under no circumstance is there always ideal battle situations. The dates on the journals are also set as 2007-09-26 00:32:00 for the first and 2008-04-14 23:05:00 for the second. you need only read the second one.

I was gonna say. Assuming you are going to use a solo SA or TA right after a previous attack, the delay is already set in motion and shouldn't affect the remaining delay after you've put in your gear for the JA. However, this could carry over instantaneously after contact.

Personally, I stack max DEX and AGI for SA and TA, respectively; regardless of negative stats, even slow.
The Slow % does affect how quickly your next attack (after the blow has been dealt) comes, not the delay while its worn (pre hit).

Just to clear it up and add confirmation :D

Well I suppose it's worth maxing out even with slow. Thief doesn't get natural subtle blow, which sucks considering the frequency of their attacks, so I see the missed attack round with a silver lining: You nail the mob pretty hard and don't shovel TP in it's mouth quite as fast as if you did it with haste or no slow on.

Btw I appreciate the input and suggestions from everyone~

And any double or triple attack procs from either weapon are also 100% acc~
so if you are wearing acc in slots that could have more dex, then it seems like a waste of possible dmg

I like the input n suggestions too :O
Always open to better my style!

Please get off my job if you are a thf main.



lmao.........

wow

TADE or TAWS not worth it when doing a taws what should you have in your hands? so is t not worth it? if you do not do right ***for TAWS...... wear right equips you suck :(. I can do nice damage with twes wth af hands+1 and sub par gear i bet =/.

byw that is your play style maybe others like taews do you do dynamis or end game where ta helps? plds like it for atonment..

I had to read that a good 3-4 times to understand what you were saying.

First here is what i want you to do: either don't drink and type or don't chicken peck in the dark.

What should i have in my hands? What? um... ok... going out on a limb here but seeing as the only 2 weapons a thief is proficient in is dagger and sword and seeing as sword skill is like... off the top of my head a C+ skill and we don't even get Vorpal blade w/o subing war im going to go with option A:Dagger.
Haha.. ok kidding, look..

I could make fun of your spelling all day, but i wont, however that first sentence i seriously did NOT understand a word of.

My quote:::"I won't get into details here... (because there is just so much to cover and i'm already off topic)::::

well here we go.

Re-read the part about "TAWS is almost counter productive in terms of maximum dmg output" notice my choice of words? this is if your looking for maximum damage output(i didn't think i could be any more obvious with that statement).
I also never said TAWS was not good. nor did i say i never or would never use that weaponskill and job ability combination.
My gear does not suck sir.
I have experience in every aspect of the game except anywhere past Toau Puppets in peril which i don't plan on finishing... ever.

Endgame? I'm sorry when was i talking about endgame thf tactics? That was falling into the "I won't get into details here... (because there is just so much to cover and i'm already off topic)" category. Naturally there are times when TAWS onto a pld for whatever event your doing is necessary. I never said that was not the case.

In dynamis a pld tanks? have you... ever done dynamis? the only thing a pld tanks in dynamis effectively is kited add mobs and monks, only because they have to. Your sam's drk/sam war/sam monks ect tank 90% of dynamis unless your LS DD's are worthless beyond belief.

don't "lmao..... wow" me or say i suck, i can show you where you can put that arrogance if you so like me to. I did not bring any of the above up because i didnt feel i needed too in the attack in sneak attack topic, being... it was off topic. But here we are are we not?

These forums were built upon a foundation to help players. constructive criticism. The reason there is so much animosity over the internet is because people like you who lack any moral or real backbone. You look and attempt to prey on others because of your own lack of real self worth outside of the little box you hunch over every night trying to define the meaning to your on existence.

i can talk ***when ever I please. Moral's and backbone? not afraid of anyone in real life... not afraid of anyone in this game. I am not an E thug.. I actually could careless. Yeah so I took it the wrong way and responded wrong. cry me a freaking river to your response you get hurt or something?

Jeeze >.> wow... someones got issues

Anyways, I'm about 99.89% positive that TA-WS does NOT help plds for atonement (considering how me and my friends tested it the day atonement got released, and it didn't affect damage whatsoever)-- although for enmity in general its a wonder...

Just curious though, from your earlier statement Mali,
"In my opinion and with what level your thief is sitting at I would SADE then TA whenever. Keep your JA macro's separate so if your forced to (by pt members loss of hate, whatever) you can plant hate where you need it."

thats sorta suggesting that TA will transfer all your hate to the target... doesn't it just transfer the attack's enmity, and the other thf's JA's (accomplice and collaborator)... just trying to clarify, I'm not a thf, and just curious if I misread that (although pretty sure you mean that you can do a nice spike-dmg-TA-move and give them that hate)

............and I just realized who the OP is =_=;;; damn you!!! I swear I can't recognize you under that name!!!!!!!!!!

The enmity transfer a thief gives can help a pld's WS's in some situations. endgame however as an example.. proto- ultima or omega? A.. sam/thf for example does that better than a thief, Dagger is a restriction we can't exactly overcome easily. haha, thf is rather useless on stuff like that.. in comparison to other jobs they may have available anyways. atonement really did close the gap completely between nin and pld tanking though, consistent 720-750 dmg is hot.

How TA works is it transfers all enmity associated with trick attack damage itself onto whomever your behind. all the enmity you have accumulated up until that point is yours alone. I think thats what you said. and yea your right.

Yea im saying soloing TA for hate placement, on your tank or w/e in exp party. Im assuming your subbing ninja and not war though... if your subing war id do the opposite and solo your SA because your guaranteed to rip hate even at low levels with SAWS.

I'm not saying doing this is written in stone, your free to do whatever you want. Im just giving you reasons behind why i do what i do. I have a highly versatile mindset so what i do is well thought out and tested. I do it this way because it works for me. For different events, PT setups, or gear sets i do things differently. If you see a flaw i by all means encourage anyone to call me out on it (without putting me or anyone else down, i have zero tolerance for those types of people) im always looking to improve or help out fellow thieves.

My Linkshell, friends, and people i exp with love my style, and i have way too much fun doing it, so i don't see any problem =/

I've reviewed that LJ before. It's definitely very situational. And as releena mentioned in her LJ, haste is beneficial to sa/ta and slow detrimental.

The values heavily depend on what you're fighting.

Sa/Ta are crit hits and thus add 1 to your pDif.
But your pDif is only figured from a ratio of your attack / mobs def.

Fortunately it's pretty easy to tell in most cases what's best just going off of intuition. In one thread on KI awhile ago, I used my SA/TA set and an AmemetMantle+1 (15 attack, 2 str) was doing more than af2 back 4dex/4agi. But it wasn't ahead by a whole lot. 5dex and I'm not sure. 6 dex would have definitely beat 15 attack (this is on merit mobs).

Since there is no general rule, you'll have to go with your heart or do the math yourself. Or you can use what I mentioned in the above paragraph as a rough guide.

Ok first and foremost what race are you? I didnt see anyone ask such a simple question.

Myself personally I am taru and working my way towards Mandau.

That being said taru's biggest problem is STR. Now that being said the way SA works is 1 DEX = 3STR. Ive swapped str vs dex vs att gear and I can honestly say I do more consistent DMG with something like
Assasins Cape
vs
Amemet Mantle +1

That being said though if you dont have enough Base Damage to break an Mobs Defense your SA will be weak.

Extreme would be Kirin vs lesser colabri.

Is the mob weak to piercing? Does it have insane def? Point being no 1 solution for 1 situation is a blanket for all mobs.

Take your races natural weakness into account and build from their. a taru build should be different then say an elvan build.

Nice input, Shamaya. Checking out your LJ now! Mostly because of the icon.

technically unless your ideal DE set up is the same as your ideal TA/SA set up(SA is usually close), its always going to more effective splitting sa/ta/ws. its not always done like that for a lot of reasons though, and no one really cares.

want to edit for some ws

if you want to optimize damage in xp pt, use your tp and your JA as soon as they are ready. (note that optimizing damage doesnt always optimize efficiency)

max your stats for SA in this order = Dex > str > att in terms of any 1:1 ratios. (the att > str is debatable, but if i had 5 str vs 5 att ill take str personally.)

most thief dont worry about agi builds until they have af+1 hands, except those who fulltime af pants and drone earrings.

SA: 1dex ~= 4str (in reality 4str is slightly better due to attack gains). Take attack over DEX/highSTR only if it comes in significant quantities (something like 5~6atk per point of stat or higher).

Yes, this means Forager's > Assassin's/Commander's Cape for SA/TA most of the time.

Thanks for the input everyone. Guess I'll just have to do alot of tweeking and experimenting to truly figure it out. However, I think I got a general idea and a good mixture setup I can use and we'll see how that works.

But a thf can still transfer hate on ultima... Thf/sam have you ever used it?

Your absolutly right Thief can still transfer hate on Ultima, and im sure they do a fine job of it.
To be 100% honest with you i have never used thf/sam. Its just, Meditate is a 3 minute JA that only grants 60%TP to a person who use's it as a sub job. When i put together a group or when im part of a group i understand, and i myself go for a job that gives more bang for its buck. If /sam enhanced thf as much as it did a 2handed weapon user i would probably concider it more in different situations.

A Sam who im assuming is merited has 2:30min med recast with anywhere from 100%tp to 180%tp return. Granted i know they cant use Sekkanoki all the time, they can even SC with themselves if they need to. A sam w/o outside meds can get 100+tp where a thf/sam can't. I just feel a sam has more to offer in that type of fight than a thf/sam.

I don't like to admit it... believe me. There is a big long list of jobs that talk down to thieves on my server and i hate it being thief is my main but... ya know >_<; haha.