For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

I know it's thf forum but since we are on this "blu is harder than bst" discussion again(had this discussion months ago anyways), may as well keep it going.

I just wanted to say all jobs in FFXI are incredibly hard to master. That doesn't make blu "balanced". Almost all DD jobs needs JP to compete now, and a 2100 jp sam war drk drg mnk probably not gonna outparse blu, thus making "blu needs jp" argument kinda pointless.

This also applies to capping skills, getting good augment. There are many DD players who also caps skill and tries one million stones for augment, and still can't outparse blu.

Some would argue that "play blu to it's full potential needs knowledge and tons of gear sets", wouldn't that applies to all jobs?

Can't speak for other jobs that I don't play, so I'll use cor as an example.

To play DD cor effectively, you need to make tons of choices starting from choosing sj between nin (DW3) dnc(dw2+acc bonus+sc bonus) war(fencer berserk) rdm(mab), sch(storm), which requires significant amount of ffxi knowledge in terms of pt setup and understanding dd mechanics to make the right choice.

Then you need to understand when to switch between ra and melee mode, which requires knowledge of haste and snapshot, amount of multi attack and acc that you have and need, pay attention to triple shot cooldown, knowing whether NM tp move can slow and amnesia you so you can switch to ra mode.

Then you also need to choose which ws to use, which needs to understand sc, nm elemental weakness, and how ws formula works.

Oh and since you need to chain QD into ws to avoid auto attack dps lose, you also need to understandand store tp formula to avoid over tp, which is especially important for ws like wild fire since over tp on this ws hurts dps.

And since cor uses sam roll all the time and gets different tp return after qd every fight, that means ws at exactly 1000 tp isnt easy because you need to know how much store tp it gives.

With this many aspect to pay attention to, it's incredibly hard to master DD cor(that's why I heard ppl complaint about DD cor are hard to find, too much work to learn and gear them but and too little reward since nobody gives a damn about DD cor). It's one example of how much work it takes to master a job in ffxi.

Not to mention one million gearsets.

And this may applies to all DD jobs. Those who plays blu for very long time, tend to try their best to "master" a job and claim it's "hard" because blu needs one million sets. But so does other jobs. I don't think mastering blu is harder than let's say, thf and cor.

I believe he's just saying that other jobs (like BST) are easier to pick up and play sufficiently with sub-par gear and sub-par knowledge. That it's not that BLU is inherently "the best," but that it has greater potential reached through gear, job points, player efficiency, etc.

Try 90s.

You can call BLU complicated all you want, fact of the matter is that if you just want a DD all you have to do is cap job points, grab a spellset and equip set from nightfyre's guide and spam chant. Use mighty guard and cocoon as needed and you have more utility on top of that. Other DD also need job points and nyzul weaponskills to perform at their best, and learning the DPS spellsets is only a matter of a few hours.

Yea, it has a lot of intricacies that make it complicated to play to it's fullest and a ton more potential.. but that's irrelevant. You can ignore all of that and still be a top parse. That's a clear indication something is unbalanced, because most of the competing jobs don't have those options and still can't keep up.

The pro-BLU arguments all come down to 'we can't top parse while using our spells', but that's a false argument. Other melee can't top parse and don't have those spells to use. BLU has one mode that makes it outright better than the other melee, anything on top of that is just gravy.. not a downside.

BLU may has higher dps increase via job points compare with other jobs, but considering how fast you can get jp now and most DD jobs are sitting at 2100 jp I wouldn't say it justify BLU being that op.

It's not like BST can be op DD at 0 jp either, and I thought BST needs to understand which pet to use and what food too? Since most ppl do endgame on their 2100 jp jobs now, we may as well compare all DD jobs in 2100 jp, instead of 0 jp BLU v.s 0 jp SAM.

Also 0 jp blu can still cap magic haste. That's one key reason why BLU is that op.

Gear wise, I'm not sure if a top geared BLU v.s gimp ones has bigger gap than other jobs.

Well my point is ppl tend to over exaggerate the difficulty to play BLU to at least decent level, ignoring the fact that it's still the No.1 most wanted DD in any shout.....like MNK in 2013 and SAM in 2014. Being No.1 most wanted DD in shout meant something: It meant it's the easiest and pug friendly DD for majority of the population/average/casual players.

The career BLU here will still argue that setting DD trait is something zomg so hard because other BLU can't parse as high as their BLU by copy and paste traits/gear sets.

Setting "wrong" trait or using wrong DD gear combination that may cause some dps lose by not hitting dps ceiling, this would apply to any DD job that copy and paste gear sets in job guide.

But as long as the player caps haste and spams CDC with decent gears, it still outparse other DD most of the time.

And now we know your talking out your ***. Well we knew before but now there is irrefutable proof. Most DD's are at sub 500 JP because CP parties didn't invite them and now that all the BLMs, CORs and GEOs are 2100 you see virtually no Apex CP parties forming. The ones that do form are only looking for BLM, SCH, GEO, COR, or PLD/RUN. If you are a DD and you want CP, you need to form your own party and hope to god some BLMs and GEOs from your LS take pity on you and help you out.

To that end I've been experimenting with various setups and builds that involve 4~5 part SC's on bats and raptors without any nukers. Unfortunately I still need the GEO for Fury + Frailty, but I'm thinking they can be total wankers and still be effective in that roll. Latest success was

NIN
DRG
WHM (mule)
BRD (mule)
COR (mule)
GEO (me)

Blade: Ku -> Sonic Trust -> Blade: Shun -> Camlann's Torment for light on Apex Bats. Tended to kill the bat in one volley and the BRD was pulling and sleeping the next one for quicker kill times. Katana and Polearm are not very compatible for light and I had to go to T1 properties to form the necessary Distortion, as all other combinations just proved to be bad. Seeing as most people have no idea how to form long SC's, much less get creative with properties, the odds of "all DD's" being 2100 are extremely slim.

Anyhow this all reeks of one of Dr. Skinner's behavioral experiments involving two birds in a cage. One bird had it's foot tied to the swing such that it couldn't leave while the other bird was allowed free movement. The lever was programmed such that hitting it would produce pellets and the free roaming bird quickly found out that it could feed itself by hitting that lever. Dr. Skinner then turned off the reward feature on the lever and when the free bird didn't get it's pellets it went into a rage and started attacking the tied down bird. The results of this experiment was the conclusion that loss of expected reward is treated as a theft and the bird targeted the nearest identifiable entity as the cause for that perceived theft.

People who want to go DD to content are being left out and when they see people asking for BLU's they get angry and attack those BLU's out of that misplaced anger. BLU's are not actually "stealing" the DD spots, but rather the nature of current content lends itself very well to DD's that can self buff and support themselves. This wasn't the situation in the past and during that time BLU's frequently got left out in favor of MNK / SAM / WAR / DRK. Nerfing BLU will not change this anymore then nerfing MNK / SAM / WAR / DRK would of changed the previous strategies. Instead you should identify the root cause of the issue and petition SE to address that, namely mass AoE debuffs that require an entire support slot be devoted to preventing along with massive accuracy requirements meaning you need to squeeze the most out of every other position.

Of course none of you at bitching about BLM, GEO and SCH pretty much dominating everything in the game. As much as you *** and moan about BLU, your are really just arguing who's in fourth place.

My THF has over 2k JP and my RUN has around 1400 JP and neither have ever been in an Apex pt...

Check your own profile, someone with WAR and DRK job mastered calling me "talking out of my ***" by claiming DDs can't get jp because they don't get invite isn't very convincing.

Those who loves their DD job enough will get 2100, otherwise you won't have 2100 on WAR and DRK.

Also there are multiple ways to get cp without joining apex parties. You can pull in escha/reisenjima pt on pretty much any job.

I'm the one who's been experimenting with various party setups instead of using the cookie cutter ones that everyone else shouts for. In doing so I've had to build all my own parties and get people to go along with unproven setups. Several DRK's I've converted to DRK/RUN Apex tanking with 9999HP and other WARs' I've convinced to do fencer CS builds to be SC closers. Very few players would do as I've done, so to use myself as an example is ludicrous.

Instead they all did this

PLD
SCH
SCH
COR
GEO
BLM

SCH's would SC and BLM's would burst and that's all there was. DD's were excluded. Until a few build different setups and got great CP, then rumors spread until you occasionally see someone asking for 1100 ACC DD. Unfortunately all the GEO, BLM and CORs are capped now which makes Apex parties almost impossible without getting very creative.

So again, your statement that "most DD's are 2100 already" is hilariously inaccurate. But hey why should the truth stand in the way of a good argument. Anyhow problem solved.

How about this statement instead: "Most DD that has plans to bring them to events would get 2100 jp".

Some ppl find none BLU DDs not worth gearing for and they don't bring them to events, that's why it's not at 2100. It's less about none DD jobs can't get invite, but more about none BLU DDs simply aren't worth the time investment to gear and jp, so it's on low priority list for the majority.

Also many ppl who post in this thread actually has THF mastered if you bother to check their profile, yeah getting 2100 jp is hard. You try to win this argument by focusing on 2100 jp percentage, but still ignore the main point that those career THF players sitting in 2100 jp are still struggling to compete with BLU with just 1200.

Edit: To make my point easier to understand. If none BLU DD at 0 jp outparse BLU at 0 jp, and BLU DD at 2100 outparse none BLU DD at 2100, and if 2100 jp is *** hard to obtain like relic/mythics in 75, then I'd agree that BLU deserves to be top due to it requires tons of effort.

It's like apoc DRK parse high at 75, but only very few DRK could get that level of gear. So it doesn't prevent majority of players play none DRK DD since only few DRK has apoc at that time.

But this isn't the case of BLU. BLU at 0 jp can still cap haste and do CDC light SC, and 2100 jp really isn't hard. It really doesn't require THAT much effort to get a BLU that could parse high. So this "BLU needs a lot of work" argument is kinda not valid. Otherwise no one would ever shout for them.

Ok, seriously, continue this conversation somewhere else. This is a THF guide. There are countless other places to talk about job balance.

It's like curling at the squat rack. You're free to do whatever you want and you think it's harmless, but everyone actually hates you while waiting for you to go away.

Super late, but I remember getting Mandau a few weeks before Sean and it was definitely deep into CoP.

Back on track now with a thief question. I'd like to upgrade two of my rudra's storm accessories. I'm still using cuchulain's belt and love torque to weaponskill in. I haven't been able to win a lot of caro necklace yet, and getting people together to take down Khun has proven to be problematic. I'm pretty sure my current pieces are better than weaponskill gorget/belts because 10 fTP is almost nothing to rudra's already monstrous fTP bonuses. Is there anything I may be overlooking that I may was to use in place of the catuare pieces or should I just stay patient and wait for caro necklace and grunfeld rope?

Also, can someone provide a good strategy and party setup to deal with Khun's draw in/doom aura? I've killed tier 2 Ru'an bosses with much less hassle because of that obnoxious combo.

You can pretty much 1-shot most/all of the tier1s with a strong skillchain. Just have someone open for you and close with a skillchain at 3000tp. Do 3 step if 2 step isn't strong enough. If you need even more damage, you can bring a nuker to mb and finish it off.

For the thing that has gaze doom/terror, just get August to tank it for you. You only need it to turn to august for a few seconds while you set up skillchain.

Also, seeing you and ladyofhonor sure brings me back to the alla days

I thought the same thing Iniha. One more quick question. Is there any confirmation that ishvara earring actually increases weaponskill damage by 2%? The fotia belt and gorget both state they increase weaponskill damage by 10% but in actuality only increase fTP by 0.1, which is more like one percent when you're dealing with rudra's. I'm HOPING the ishvara earring doesn't work the same way and merely add 0.02 to fTP . If it does I'll just go back to using my dawn earring.

I'll chalk that up to a typo.

And no, there's no confirmation that it works the same way as the belt and gorget. There's no reason to suspect it would though, since those belt/gorgets have special properties among gear in this game.

I just spammed Khun got a couple Caro Necklaces the other day, so here's my strategy:

I dualbox a GEO (Idris) so I utilized this heavily as my strat. August was my tank, and he'd obviously provoke/flash as soon as I engaged. I would set my GEO up behind, and after hitting fury/frailty would TA+WS my GEO for 40k~. This gave my GEO hate, turned Khun towards her/me, and so I quickly moved my GEO to the side. As long as my GEO doesn't face Khun, she doesn't get frozen by the terror. As soon as I move aside, it takes the terror off of my THF, and has already taken it off of August, so I go ahead and kill him that way. I occasionally toss out some nukes on my GEO to keep threat, as well. My GEO has 50% PDT idle sets so survival isn't an issue for her.

So if you can find a mage willing to tank for you, that's a solid strategy for Khun.


If you saw the "Top 40 FFXI players of all time" thread, I'm a bit sad that no one else mentioned Archain. They were a humble god among THF's back in the day.

Can anybody link me or post some achievable sets for Rudra's, Mercy, Evis, Mandalic? Both stacked & un-stacked please.

Thank you very much.

Define "achievable".

Do you mean "cheap"? Do you mean "Pre-escha"? Do you mean reasonable augments?

I have a feeling that he means..

NQ-Abjuration - I don't know about you, but I'm almost certain that *most* people won't get any of the HQ stuff unless they are accomplished craters or are good friends with some.

Realistic Reisen Augments - Probably Acc/Atk +30~ Reasonable side Augments where desired

That's my best guess to what he means

Yeah, that was my original impression, but looking at his profile he has a fair bit of gear, so I wouldn't put HQ abjurations out of consideration depending on the set. I got Lustratio +1 legs/feet for 75mil combined.

Carmine and Lustratio sets aren't impossibly expensive to acquire, and some of the Lustratio can be utilized in ideal or near-ideal sets.

This is an achievable and effective set for both weaponskills, whether stacked or unstacked (don't use rudra's unstacked...). It's a bit farming intensive but can be pulled off in a month or two depending on the amount of effort you put in daily.

ItemSet 322885

Adhemar is either path A or path B, and lustratio is path D. Insert minor modifications like Rancrous Mantle and high quality rings/ammo or whatnot where applicable. Obviously there's better to be had, but this is a good set for a reasonable amount of effort.

The daggers were meant to be subjective since this was a weaponskill swap set. They really didn't need to be filled in at all.

I would LOVE to get Tamings but my server doesn't do SR unless you are fluent in JP lol. I'm sure other servers are having similar issues. Could server hop but it seems a little desperate (or would it simply be necessary at this point? )

Man, it must suck being on not-Asura. There's at least one SR shout daily.

To add a bit onto the above gear:

Any stacked WS: Yetshila, or Falcon Eye unstacked

HQ lustratio legs (path B)/feet (path D) are BiS as far as I'm concerned, welcome to be informed differently though.

Those will be best in slot for years to come. Leg slot ain't the most dex-friendly slot. Lustratio legs have a comical amount of dex on them. Legs and feet will remain best in slot until SE jumps another couple of tiers in broken gear and release something along the lines of +10-12wsd per piece

Also, Demonry Core