For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

I can understand the Samnhua Pants over the Herculean legs,
and I'd like to see the Adhemar head +1 with Erudite neck, and that Telos Earring is BIS for sure.

ItemSet 344091

But I don't understand why everyone doesn't want to use the Hetarios Ring with Tout's cape, Chiner's, and Plunder's, I guess you'd really need a number cruncher on this but with the set up you'd have a 40% chance at TA on each hand with (+32+(5%))dmg so with the loss of approx 17 stp in a single attack round with the 40% chance at triple att. would you make more tp with the triple atk procs or the stp. overall or how close to a wash would it be? Also you'd gain a slight improvement in your tp phase damage.

Since more often then not you're going to attempt to stack your ws's with SA/TA/*** or if your within 10-15 secs you might force yourself to wait for a stacked ws you'll probably be at max or close to max tp anyways. Same with battle situations like Tenzen where you have to hold TP for 1 hr's to drop anyways might as well pump out more damage in between ws's no?

White damage isn't that significant to put heavy focus on. I think it's roughly 30% of my damage these days now that my Rudra set is starting to come together. I'm an advocate of Chiner+1 for the belt slot generally, but the relic boots there has no accuracy, no attack and herc boots can have TA+6% on them. I also don't really want more enmity, I prefer having the tank hold things, and even landing 60k TA+Rudra's I get it back from my trusts...

It's a rare situation I actually wait 10-15s to WS. My general strategy is a 3-step self-sc, that's a ws every 3s or so. My stacked WS can also do very good damage. Against a target that is somewhat soft I can hit 20-24k Rudra's unstacked (50-60k stacked) so it's generally worth tossing out a WS unstacked. One day I might get my aeonic and up that Rudra number, we shall see.

Think mercy strokes ftp was nerfed to 4:0 or lower when the nerfed dagger WSs awhile back

Mercy Stroke fTP is at 5. And Mandau gets +40% damage to it, which makes it roughly a 7.0 fTP move. One issue though is that it's still a STR WS. If you really want to go out of your way and create a STR WS set specifically for Mercy Stroke, go for it. But I sure as *** don't care to do so, so Mercy isn't really competitive for me.

I say the worst thing about mercy stroke is that you have to use Mandau with it. Mandau 119 III having 124 base damage where as a fully augmented Taming Sari has 125 and dex and str to boot. On top of that you forget that you never really are using a weaponskill at 1000 tp, at the very least you are using it at 1250 tp, because if you don't have a moonshade, then you aren't doing it right.

Also if you are using a double attack cape with your high one hit ftp weaponskills you are losing out on that +10% WSD which is way better. And if you aren't using a high one hit ftp weaponskill you are using evis, which then you are losing out on +10% crit rate.

Lastly mythic aftermath is occasionally attack thrice and twice not triple and quadruple attack, and as I said before mercy stroke means you have Mandau equipped so you can't use the mythic.

Edit: Okay actual last thing since this is really starting to piss me off that people don't know how probability works. If you have 50% triple attack and 38% double attack you have a 50% chance of getting a triple attack, a 19% chance of getting a double attack, and 31% chance of a normal attack.

It works like this. The check for triple attack happens, 50% of the time it will triple attack the other 50% of the time it checks for double attack. So now 50% of the time it checks for double attack. 50% of 38% is 19% which leaves 31% chance for a normal attack. If you had am3 up it would then check for OAXs, but only for the main hand. 20% of 31% is 6.2% of occasionally attacks thrice. 40% of 24.8% is 9.92% chance of a occasionally attacks twice. Which leaves 14.88% chance of a normal attack. And that is why mythic aftermath is bad. I guess I should start looking for my new career as a special education math teacher after all.

Reported numbers on OAX are the resulting distributions because we cannot separate them and determine priority.

Mercy Stroke is meh because the moonshade earring exists.

Otherwise, it would have had at least some limited use.

It's not bad, you just have to optimize your gear for it. TA and STP are both beneficial stats but AM3 will make TA less and STP more valuable overall but not by as much as people think that's why the best TP set for Vajra AM3 with Twash offhand I could come up with is:


This set has 23% TA and 60 STP, then you have the 19% base TA from THF and get 42% TA. Since you can get iirc up to 58% TA if you push it, that is a lot of trading TA for STP to optimize the set. You can lower TA even more if you merit both TA and SA recast, which is a loss in DPS unless you skillchain your SA and TA then it's a big gain. This doesn't include triple attack damage, since spreadsheets don't really have that yet, though one I was sent does I should add it in. If skillchaining though your ability to have TP faster will be more important. TA aids both TP gain and white damage while STP only aids TP gain, but they do synergize well together and finding the balance when you have something like AM3 up is tricky.

Lets math this out. First delay (200+176)/2*0.69 = 129.72. So a base tp per hit of 52. Your set up has 2% QA, 41% TA, 8% DA, and 59 STP. (I know it's 1 less TA and STP than you said, but from the set you put up that's what I counted.)

Next we use those to find the average hits per round. Kudo's to Asymptotic for having the formula to use easy to find.


1.909856 attacks per hand per round without am3, and 0.4255552 extra hits on the main hand with aftermath. So 3.819712 hits a round without, and 4.2452672 with aftermath. On average that would be 315 tp a round without, and 350 tp with. Or a difference of 35 tp a round.

So what it comes down to is maintaining am3 worth 35 tp a round.

Thanks for that :) The only thing I wish to add is that 35 TP a round is very significant. Without that in 3 rounds you'd average 975 TP, and with it you average 1050 TP in 3 rounds (having a bit over is good because then you have a good chance of never having an "unlucky" set of rounds). I don't need to tell you 3 rounds per WS is a huge dps boost over 4 rounds per WS. Perhaps with leftover TP from the WS you could still do 3 rounds per WS. In that case the extra TP per round just ends up going toward extra damage for the WS, but is less significant. In any case, I'm just going by what the spreadsheet says, and from RNG I know even using the recycle head for 50 TP per shot can make a huge difference over not using it, so while it sounds small, it's still more optimized and leads to a better dps output.

Ok, i feel like the fat kid picked last in dodgeball just diving in here. A bit overwhelmed with how much has changed since i last played.

i played last when seekers was just coming out, and was basically doing abyssea as the main end game stuff. i've got the sparks gear and a few taeon pieces, i was wondering where my main end game pieces should be focused on. i'm sorry but i no longer understand all the end game abbreviations etc are. i plan on working on a vajra, and i had a twashtar base completed before i quit.

basically: whats a pretty basic end game gear setup for a returning noob who wants to pick up the ol pointy sticks again with some friends? i read alot about a moonshade (end of wotg earring if i recall), but see it very little in the last few pages of this thread.

EDIT: i seem to be missing what i'd call a progression guide. i see a lot of high end game sets posted, but its waaaaay beyond what me and my friends can currently do. i guess i'm asking more for a small hand in figuring out what my stepping stones are to work towards the heavy stuff lol

I hope you enjoy your triumphant return on THF Dinarii! Here are some pages with gear to get you started, in about the order it is easiest to acquire them:
You mentioned this already but just in case:
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Category:Alluvion_Skirmish_Armor#Taeon_Armor_Set

Alluvion Skirmish armor, Reforged AF1, AF2, and AF3 and Sparks gear are the first tier of ease to obtain. You can even solo Alluvion Skirmish for a few floors there's even youtube videos of it but might want a bit better than sparks gear to try it.

The next leg up is Rawhide gear and Nibiru weapons in Escha Zi'Tah this pages lists all gear from there and augments it also lists gear for Escha Sky and augments for those. Sky abjuration gear HQ is some of the best in the game for many slots, and even NQ is very good for a lot of things:
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Nolan

After you acquire gear from there you'd want to move on to Reisenjima, outside a few UNM and the master trials it's the hardest stuff in the game period. The lower tier mobs here drop great gear for you tho, but even those are very difficult to solo and pretty job specific to do so:
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Category:Escha_Rewards/Arcane_Glyptics_Inscription

Herculean gear, skinflayers are the main takeaways for THF here.

For info on Escha pops look here:
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Category:Escha

Again the order is Sparks -> Alluvion Skrimish -> Escha Zi'Tah -> Escha Sky -> Reisenjima for gear progression and if you get help or team up you can skip stages sometimes you might have a lot of trouble doing upper tier sky on thf though and upper tier reisenjima hasn't been done on melee yet but one NM.

Content wise, the general progression works along these lines (unless you can skip steps by getting help from friends, during which fights you'll be dead weight due to having no accuracy):

• Starting Point (just returned): Records of Eminence (sparks gear), lower end Unity NMs, Reforged Artifact/Relic/Empyrean armor (at least 109), Macrocosmic Orb BCs, easier difficulty Merit BCs, Wildskeeper Reives, regular Skirmish (not necessarily recommended) and probably Yorcia Alluvion Skirmish, lower difficulty Ambuscade

• Next Step (your gear nearing ilevel 119): 119-128ish level Unity NMs, Reforged AF/Relic/Empy armor 119, higher difficulties Merit BCs (Normal/Difficult), Delve, Alluvion Skirmish, Escha Zi'Tah/Sky Tier 1/2, Incursion (pre-level 130), maybe Vagary, VD Regular Ambuscade

• Mid-point (full 119, good practice with mechanics and strategies): level 130 and up content like Sinister Reign, Vagary, Escha T3 and some HELM NMs, Reisenjima T1, Unity 135 NMs

• High-end (great gear, more experience with complex enemies): Reisenjima T2/3, Escha Gods/AAs, generally level 140ish content

• The Hardest Crap in the Game: level 145+ content like Super Kirin, Warder of Courage (super Absolute Virtue), HELM NMs in Reisenjima, Tumult Curator (super Pandemonium Warden), fighting me in Ballista

It's probably too much to explain every event, so you might want to use this as a frame of reference when looking at say, BG wiki for further guidance. I'd highly recommend doing so before investing your hard earned gil or precious time on things you might not need.

Ya Jean gave a great rundown too! goodluck :)

oh wow, honestly wasn't expecting responses so soon! thank you so much! it was a bit sad finding out that my mains (thf and rng) were pretty much mid-low tier when i came back, but i was determined to give it a go without having to run like paladin or something to get my gear haha. I truly appreciate it guys! it'll give me some things to chew on and build a clearer path to my upgrades while the maintenance is going on. i cant thank you enough!

I think I might be able to melee Maju, which is content no melee does realistically. Not sure when I'll try, but THF is plenty competitive, just people are lazy and BLU lets everyone be lazy.

Oh I forgot to mention they recently added stuff for returning players. This NPC will sell some nice stuff but it requires some job points: https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Antonia You can also buy HQ ones off the AH. As jean said too, Sinister Reign and UNM can also offer some pieces here and there. They also let you upgrade Sandung now to have a LOT of accuracy for a returning player in a dagger so I'd check that out too.

I know Byrth said he did a DNC setup for maju so I'm fairly certain THF can too. (And I think melee can do almost all the higher level NMs too but that's not a debate I wanna touch atm).

I'm honestly confused as to the influx of shouts for BLU ever since I came back from last summer. It definitely was not that popular of a job a year ago as it is now.

Shh, you'll summon a BLU to come in here and argue again :<

DNC actually has a decent accuracy advantage over THF, as they have native traits and I think higher gifts for it.

Maju is pretty much where anyone trying to force a melee strat go because it isn't quite as much of a *** on AOE's. Other t3's have terrible effects to them: Neak - Voidsong, Yakshi - Doom/canopierce, Pakecet - Dread Spikes, AOE attacks, Vir'ava - Can Charm, aoe attacks, Duke Vepar AOE attacks and some nasty debuffs, I think?

It should be possible to do many of these on melee, but it's a ton more effort than current mage strat.

I haven't gotten full adhemar+1 yet (almost have gil to buy hands, but they need to exist somewhere first) so I'm not at max acc, but I'm thinking Tank, geox2 (frailty/torpor/dex/precision) aeonic brd (honor march + madrigals), THF and WHM should be able to cap me on acc. Was thinking have a buddy give me sam/hunter rolls to be sure and then disband. In theory maybe could have PLD+WHM in separate party, have COR and add another melee in main party and that could be better. If I'm at capped acc and haste with STP roll I should be able to cycle all level 2 SC's to avoid any level ups. On paper, it should work, but we'll see what happens when I put it into play.

As for why BLU's are popular? Most OP gifts in the game. They have +2 to all traits, giving them almost Samurai in Store TP, almost NIN in Dual Wield, almost Ranger in Accuracy Bonus, almost THF in Crit bonus, etc. as well as self-cap haste (so no party slots dedicated to it) and multiple +defense boosts so they're more durable and self-sustaining than anything else in the game.

Actually a quick and easy melee fight assuming you have Vex. Back to lurking.

I'm pretty sure almost any DD can solo DD Maju at this point as long as their gear is good enough.

I'm not saying a perfect BRD/NIN will be successful, but the onus is much more on your de/buffers than the melee. As long as you can hit it, not make skillchains, stay alive, and it has low enough defense, it will eventually die. RMEv3s have probably given most jobs the extra DPS boost they need to kill it in 15 minutes under ideal conditions, so the rest of it is just getting ideal conditions, which is mostly the responsibility of the de/buffers.

Thief - Evisceration, Mandalic Stab, or use SA or TA Rudra's every 2500 TP. Brings Feint (does this conflict with Distract III?), Ambush, and Conspirator to the table.

Dancer - Pyrrhic Kleos with CF Rudra's. Brings Box/Quick/Featherstep to the table along with Accuracy Bonus III.

Blue Mage - Savage Blade, I suppose? CDC would skillchain with itself, which is undesirable. Perhaps alternate CDC and high TP Savage Blades. Can get Accuracy Bonus VI, although I'm not sure it's viable. Might be able to land Sweeping Gouge on Maju? Not really a very attractive option for this fight.

DRK+WAR - Resolution spam. They each have their own methods of getting Acc and are probably underrated right now.

SAM - Can't spam Fudo. Don't really want to melee from the front. I guess they'd spam Shoha? Might be the worst DD for this.

DRG - Stardiver or Drakesbane spam. Angon and Accuracy Bonus III.

Distract overwrites Feint, yeah, even II does I think

I might have to try this out. Any idea of the ACC requirement for it?

@Byrth - One thing you're missing is THF has a WS for every level 2 SC effect. We can do Rudra > Mandalic > Evisceration > Shark Bite > Rudra non-stop and never repeat an element for a fight like Maju.

Savage->CDC makes distortion. Could alternate Expiacion and CDC, as they share a T2 property. Slightly weaker than Savage barring Tizona (though you could potentially argue that Sequence is the best mainhand in such a situation, unless Tizona's utility bonuses come into play), but it'd do the job.

Generally you shouldn't be. Windbuffet +1 is pretty close even on white damage alone, and will improve WS frequency and/or damage as well. Maybe if you're doing nothing but high TP Exenterator/Mercy for some reason?

Belt slot is the first thing that gets replaced when I go to my mid-acc set (actually think I only switch belt, boots and an earring from low acc to mid acc) so it's really not a huge deal.

That's not so much "advocating" as "sidestepping the topic completely".

Does Maju only level up if you do exactly the same skillchain twice? I thought it was just "doing the same skillchain twice in some amount of time or within a phase or something."

Can do the same skillchain as long as it's separated betweeen 3 others.

So for example Compression > Gravitation > Induration > Distortion > Compression > Gravitation > Induration > Distortion > etc.