Best Dagger For Thief

Considering VW, 300 tp is a given at the start of the fight, for an aftermath that would last a good portion, if not most of the fight.

I would think the oat would make up for the 24 difference in delay?

Post-SaveTP adjustment, there might be case for it. I haven't taken a look at them, but I'd imagine OA2 or DA magians may still be better equipped for such situations. Mandalic Stab really isn't very good.

It's ~ok~ versus high defense mobs due to its 1.66 attack multiplier. However even with the 25%ws damage bonus, and the whatever% sa/ta bonus, I doubt it would be amazing(but who knows). Timers are down 2/3- 3/4 of the time as it is, so you'd be spamming some other weaponskill anyway (just like with relic/empy).

You still aren't getting the gist.

I think, you're simply deluded by the "quality" of the content these days, that FFXI has to offer.
Being sufficient =/= being the best one can be (which, certainly, isn't needed for anything anyway).

Going by what you claim, you should be able to solo almost everything in this game because someone did it once and wrote something about it or made a video.
You, my good sir, could just watch/read that and jump on the particular job and do that same thing and better, first try.
Is that correct?

I also get the feeling it may require full haste buffs, i.e. the ability to get to (or very close to) the delay reduction cap without dual wield, and single wielding, similar to Byrth's analysis of Terpsichore. (They're really not too different

I dunno though, Mandalic stab is a lot worse than Pyrric Kleos.

Trick Attack and Sneak Attack damage +30%, does anyone know if those stack, and if they do, additively or multiplicatively?

Would be interesting for someone to math out. But not me!

I've done some rewriting of the Thf spreadsheet so that I can specify a minimum TP to weaponskill at. It hasn't been uploaded yet since the modification has only been done on Rudra's Storm, and I need to make a number of other adjustments throughout the spreadsheet, however for the purposes of this comparison it seems to work.

TP loss from Step use can be accounted for with a new field for explicit TP gain/loss per weaponskill.


Dynamis DC mobs without mage support (eg: duo/trio DDs). Twashtar 90/fire Thokcha.

DC mobs have 8000-10000 HP. (vs EP mobs which have ~6400 HP).

1) 300 TP pattern

Cycle time for 300 TP (no haste, no /war, no steps): 75 seconds
Average time to kill DC mobs: ~35 seconds. Allowing for a 5 second average interval between, means 2.25 mobs killed per 90 second aftermath duration.

Step use: With 1 Violent Flourish per Step, and 2 JA uses per mob (remaining covered by other DDs), and up to about 5 steps per 90 second duration (if other mobs are pulled to proc while fighting existing mobs).

Will be conservative and say 4 steps per 90 seconds, so -40 TP applied. It then takes 85 seconds to rebuild to 300 TP. Therefore effectively always working on a level 3 aftermath with the 300 TP cycle.

DPS: 172

One other DD with similar DPS would allow kill time to be in the ~30 second vicinity, which matches estimations.



2) 100 TP pattern

Using only Exenterator, solo SA/TA, and 13 TP loss per weaponskill on average from Steps: 166 DPS

Weaponskill cycle time: ~27 seconds, so cannot alternate and maintain level 1 aftermath. Need to alternate SA and TA Rudra's to maintain aftermath.
SA/TA Rudra's without aftermath: 172
SA/TA Rudra's with level 1 aftermath: 186

The 27 seconds includes the SA+WS/TA+WS time, so 24 seconds of melee time is needed. Typically 3 JAs would be used per 30 seconds, meaning we should almost exactly match the remaining time of the aftermath with melee, which gives us 100% uptime of the aftermath.



This puts the 100 TP pattern 8% ahead of the 300 TP pattern.


Negative conditions.

1) What if it's difficult to get a proc on a mob? Holding up to 150 TP while performing 3 steps (instead of 1.3) on a mob drops DPS for pattern 2 to 172, equal to the 300 TP pattern. The 300 TP pattern, however, loses almost nothing because it already has a bit of a buffer built in.

2) What about time spent running between mobs? Worst case is time spent running between camps, which will likely be enough for the aftermath to wear off. Will consider that TP will be at 50% or 10% of the required minimum.

Strict melee DPS would be 108 for both. The 100 TP pattern needs enough time to gain 50 to 90 TP, which will take 12 to 22 seconds. The 300 TP pattern needs enough time to gain 150 to 290 TP, which will take 36 to 69 seconds. Add another 6.5 seconds per proc attempt to both to account for JA time and TP used.

This heavily penalizes both patterns, but far more so for the 300 TP case due to how long it takes to get the aftermath active again. The 100 TP pattern likely spends 18 to 30 seconds at 58% strength, while the 300 TP pattern spends 49 to 88 seconds at 63% strength.




What about switching fire Thokcha to Oynos for Haste?

1) 100 TP pattern

194 DPS while Haste active, 170 DPS while Haste down. If we assume 85% uptime (~30 seconds to re-proc after Haste wears off), average is 190.

2) 300 TP pattern

30 seconds for stacked 100 TP weaponskill (including 1 Step + 1 Flourish and TP cost). 5503 damage.
64 seconds of melee to reach 300 TP, including TP cost for 3 Steps. Adding 10 internal seconds for steps/flourishes, 50 out of 64 seconds of melee gets aftermath 3. Total damage: 13,050

5503+13050 / 104 = 178 DPS

Without Haste, DPS drops to 157.

Overall average: 175 DPS.


100 TP pattern is still about 8% ahead.



Conclusion: In low buff situations like Dynamis, particularly with the TP loss from Steps and the risk of aftermath dropping for periods of time, the 100 TP usage pattern works out to be the better option by a fair margin (~8% before accounting for loss of aftermath).


Further evaluation: I would imagine the 300 TP pattern works best when:
1) You're getting enough haste buffs that you can weaponskill multiple times between each 300 TP use.
2) You're not losing TP to Steps (a bit of an extension to #1).
3) You're not losing too much of the duration of aftermath to JA usage (a bit of an extension to #2).
4) You're not at risk of losing aftermath for an extended period.

The Dynamis example is pretty much a "no" on all of those conditions, which probably makes it the worst environment to attempt the 300 TP pattern in.

Salvage and Nyzul is likely to risk #4 fairly often. Voidwatch gets you 300 TP without needing to TP for it, so the entire question is moot. The 300 TP pattern may be viable for some Abyssea NMs, and maybe even fodder farming (I kill them fast enough with just melee that weaponskilling at all is often a waste (not to mention avoiding ruby lights), so might as well apply it to a stronger melee aftermath).

In any case, you can see what sorts of conditions are detrimental to this type of pattern, and thus evaluate the likely usefulness of it for your own activities.

Is this assuming only Rudra's for both scenarios? Or is 300TP alternating better WS in?

Vajra always gets underestimated because of lolMandalicStab. Dont :P

Mandalic Stab is really no slouch in Vajra. All of its boosts synergize into quite a powerhouse of a WS.

With the 30% WS boost, 30% SATA boost and 66% atk bonus all stacked up I got: (copy-pasta my SA+rudras gear) vs a made up lv 100, 500 def mob

lv 110, 500 def
SARudra: ~1749
SAMercy: ~1977
SAStab: ~2408

You really cant underestimate the synergy between 30% SA+30%WS+66%Atk bonus. They all are either additive or multiplicative. Its really really strong vs high end mobs. Best for thf period vs high def mobs.

Vs a squishier target:

Lv 100, 450 def
SARudra: ~2584
SAMercy: ~2871
SAStab: ~2835 (Atk over capped. 3251 if it werent for atk cap)

This is with my rudra gear copypastad to Stab.(different gear for mercy) Im sure there can be some tweaks to make since oyu basically dont give a crap about atk to optimize better but its clear its plenty strong in teh WS department. If you have +9000 atk from 2hr brd+cor+angon+dia+whatever then yes, mercy still spanks it because it has more potential damage than even Vajra's suped up stab, or if you are doing lolDynamis mobs or something SUPER squishy then Stab caps out and wont be as impressive, but vs anything really hard or that you cant cap atk on it is really friggin strong.

If you lol@Vajra, dont do it because of the WS. Do it because maintaining aftermath blows and it has high delay.

Notes:
this was just a quick and dirty so i didnt include every little thing. Just making the point
*I didnt calculate the multi hit aftermath into teh WS equation, so it gets a little more boost from that.
*I didnt throw in zerk or DA from /war.
*Used no buffs besides yellow curry bun.

This assumes only Rudra's. Since Rudra's is only stacked, and the timing for Rudra's meshed well with SA/TA timers, it has a significant advantage there. The only time it was close was when haste was added (such that I could actually get a second weaponskill fit in between the 300 TP weaponskills), as a TA+Exen beats TA+Rudra's by ~100 points. Was close enough that I didn't want to bother fiddling with the variances and gear sets for it, and +100 damage is only 1 DPS.

+100dmg is only 1dps? doesnt dps stand for damage per second? >.> or damage per sex?

In that particular scenario, the overall cycle being considered lasted 104 seconds. Therefore +100 damage equated to +1 DPS.

This ma

I should really start working towards making mine...

This has less to do with knowing how to play the job and more about knowing how to deal with the mob. If the job is capable of doing it, and I am familiar with the mob from otherwise dealing with it in a solo or low-man situation, then yes, that is what I am telling you.

There is only so much you need to know about a particular job, honestly. A thorough understanding of the game exists well outside a particular job's mechanics.

About Mandau99/Twashtar99 being the best dagger combination for most situations at the moment, What about inside Abyssea? Would it still be better to go Mandau99/Twashtar99, or would it be better to swap it up and go Twashtar99/Mandau99?

Its a bit of a conundrum inside abyssea. Rudras atmas synergize MUCH better than trying to do mercy stroke atmas. All the dex/crit damage atmas just work better together, also building for str kills your evisceration.

Atmas make rudras>mercy so twash wins.
When you cant stack Evis>>>>>Mercy/Rudra.

*So on the 1 hand rudras is teh goto WS for stacked and aftermath etc.
*On the other, when you CANT stack, Evis wins. If you just spam Evis then mandau still has triple procs, atk bonus and wins.

So if you cant stack mandau wins. If you can Rudras wins, but if you use mandau, you give up rudras all together for when bully and stuff is up. Its really a conundrum.

You cant have your cake and eat it too in abyssea since you will always use both rudra+Evis, but the ideal weapons for each WS are different.

Depends entirely on how often/reliably you can stack.

Okay I really don't understand what makes Mandau Better than Twash Few Thf's I know never really give me a good answer can somebody inform please.

Attack+35 on the main hand is pretty damn good. STR mod is also very tasty for a thf.

Wouldn't a Dex mod be way better for Thf. The 35 Att is nice but the Aftermath from Twash seems way better.

STR boosts attack at the same time as being a mod. And you can't always spam RS to keep up aftermath.

Edit: THF gets a lot of gear that have both STR and DEX on it for SAMS, if that's what you were getting at. And STR actually does more than DEX when stacking with SA

Reasons mandau is better:


*+40 atk>15dex

*Mercy stroke > rudras.
Rudra=60% dex, 3.0 FTP
Mercy=60%Str, 3.0 FTP but gets WS damage+40% at lv 99.

*Mandau has Rudra's 'aftermath' built in. It has occ. does triple damage that roughly comes out to the same as rudras occ. does double damage aftermath, except mandau has it no matter what WS you use and its always on.

*On top of the damage procs, mandau it also has a 5% crit rate boost aftermath from mercy stroke.

Mandau has the stronger WS, occ deals triple damage built in instead of ODD aftermath, has 40 atk, and a minor 5% crit aftermath. It was pretty close all around until the lv 99 version got the 40% WS boost for mercy stroke. THat put it over the top.

Is that a Queen in your avatar or does it just look very familiar from somewhere else...?

Isn't rudra's 3.25 at 100%? MS still wins, obviously.

Does the occ. does deal triple damage work on DA, TA etc?

No.

Fact : This double/2.5/triple damage can only occur on the first swing of the attack round, ignoring offhands (even for Spharai), double attacks, triple attacks, zanshins, counters, retaliations, etc.

Byrth's post; not mine.

relic wins.

Whoops yeah my bad xD

Yes it is :)

Zerg 4lyfe!

Nice input. We were having a hard time deciding, but with all the arguments you just made, you saved us all a big headache.

I'm afraid I'm more of a Protoss type so I'm not so sure we'll get along!

Terran > Both of you. MARINES, MARAUDERS, GHOSTS, AND RAVENS ALL I NEED

Well you see, no sane thf would save 300 tp with mythic, with their slow tp build as is, so therefore mythic is bad already for non "zerg" situations. Rudra needs 300 tp to be efficiant, and you shouldn't be saving tp for that either lol. So seeing as thf is mainly a DPS and mercy stroke being better modded, i would see mandaeu winning.