For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

Yeah Accomplice would be too long between uses. Didn't realise they shared timers since I haven't used it for so long, but that is really dumb!

If you're soloing Omen for gil, why would you go something else if you can go thf? Sure, you can go war and cleave the whole thing in 5 minutes, but what are you gonna get? Unfortunately, theres no accurate drop data for swarts to really back up that statement.

If you get average 11 shards in a 100% clear, how many total enemies is that and what drop tier would it be?

7 sweetwater + 1 transcended per family, 2+2+12 families (tig fly, leech beetle, rab mandy liz bird bug pig eye pix), 96 mobs

Im pretty sure WAR can't do that faster, than Gandring THF. The only job, that can potentially beat THF here, is probably BLU, but not by much.

If you average 11 drops out of 96 mobs, you are seeing an 11.4% droprate. If you are on THF with TH9, you're probably looking at 'Rare' category [11.5% with TH9]. Very Rare would only be 5.5% and Uncommon would be 24%. This is also assuming droprate is consistant, and I'm not sure that's the case.. there may be a higher droprate on Transcended mobs and a lower droprate on sweetwater. It might even vary by floor.

But, if that were correct, changing from THF with TH9 to WAR with TH4 would drop you from 11.04 average S. astrals to 7.68 astrals. Even if it's not, all categories besides [Very Common] provide a substantial increase in droprate when changing from TH4 to TH9(12.5% at very common, 27.7% at common, 33.3% at uncommon, 43.75% at rare, 120% at very rare, 86% at super rare, 100% at ultra rare). It's not negligible.

Of course, it's still faulty logic to suggest you need Gandring. THF can certainly cleave pretty fast with a Plun. Knife and save 60m~. You can get TH9 with no knife whatsoever easily enough.

Not the biggest dataset, but everything starts somewhere.
Tiger 45
Fly 46
Beetle 49
Leech 52
Rabbit 45
Mandragora 37
Lizard 42
Vulture 45
Ladybug 55
Porxie 50
Panopt 43
Unseelie 52
Sweetwater 485
Transcended 76

I dont want to go through older logs because I dont remember how I mixed my chars around.


That was my main take I was going for. I dont want someone to read this and think they need 200 million invested in main/neck to do this.

And yes, for those who've said it, I know you can gain the RP for those pieces in dynamis. That also means you're on thf in dynamis instead of the job you're usually on, and it will still take you a few weeks to gain the 50,300 RP needed.

485/7 = 69.28 per unit basis, pretty close to the 76, so that would be evidence that they are all equal but far from conclusive (assuming log accurately represents all kills and all runs killed all sweetwater and transcended)

Was my poor attempt at agreeing with Simon's sentiment that investing in things like Gandring may not be the "best" use of gil but can still be fun, and if you're truly pinching pennies then you don't have to spend any on thf at all.

Is there a TH vorseal that counts as TH+1? If not, you should count TH8 for THF, not TH9, since most mobs will die to AOE which means max of TH8 being tagged on them. Unless I'm missing some other factor...?


Depends on your group but we bring THF every single night, so all it means is being the THF instead of the whatever else. It's better than coming on something totally useless / off-meta. Though admittedly our THF is usually just a multi-boxed alt...we have had THF attempt to do damage before so it can contribute...somewhat...while also being a TH ***.

w/r/t RP, for a plunderer's knife I'd say that's 2 runs. 3~4 for a Gandring, but certainly not "a few weeks" unless you're not killing much per run.

I saw people talking about using crystals you get yourself and them being "free" but I subscribe to the "no such thing as a free lunch" model of economics so I would consider not selling the crystals to be the exact same as paying for them.

This is correct, my mistake. It doesn't change that the difference between TH8 and TH4 is substantial, though.

Revised numbers:
VC - 10.15%
C - 22.2%
U - 25%
R - 31.25%
VR - 90%
SR - 64.2%
UR - 75%

If it is R, as suspected, then expected goes from 10.08 astrals to 7.68 per run. The old common wisdom that 'TH past 4 doesnt matter' is not really accurate for things that aren't shared drop slots.

An absolute full clear of Jeuno would be 9360 RP:
2220 from Wave 1
4420 from Wave 2
2720 from Wave 3 (presuming Mithra's Volte give RP too)

I said "those pieces", meaning Gandring and Neck+2. If you cut that down to Knife+1 and no neck, its 13k pts, not 51k. Expecting your average group to 100% full clear 1/2/3 and boss seems like tall order.


This is 100% correct.

That's where I was going. But then how much do you have to invest into THF if you didn't have it already but had WAR, and how long would that take to pay off?

Can THF do it in 5/5 Malig with Gleti's knife or does it need AF/relic/emp+2/3 etc,?

You can pay 3M per RP run on Asura and it takes 4 runs to cap a neck (12M).

Was what i did, tauret/malev or TP bonus, whatever, 1st WS in TH gear, 2nd in regular AE set, pulls still died in 2-3 WS, outside of the aforementioned pixies, eyes could be nasty too but not that big a deal, the biggest hurdle is just not dying or trusts dying before you get engaged/WS and vala made that a lot easier with his constant aoe grabs.

Obviously having a path C dagger, aug'd neck and such would make this easier and go more smoothly, but its not needed, this was all plenty possible when malig was added, its only gotten easier as more gear was added, MLs, etc.

Asurans buy gil, not farm it.

That's my kill rate even with my decked out set, 2 AEdge per set kill (technically 3, cause I throw one with all my TH gear on.). So yeah, none of all that gear is truly necessary if all you care about is farming swart.

As far as coming WAR to max speed vs max drops that argument fails as we are still limited on entry items. Sure, you could technically get 3 runs done on war in, say, 15 less minutes overall, but you are still limited waiting for entries to restock. So yeah, TH wins no contest.

My primary goal is to play the game, so the efficiency of Gandring vs. Swart return doesn't really factor in. If all you want is the Swart then yeah, skip all the min/max and hit the minimums suggested above.

For me I just like being baller thf. It makes me happy.

I can't see how WAR would be faster than Gandring THF. WAR needs to build TP after the pull, while THF is sitting at 3000TP. If you gonna use Retaliation, you have a big movement speed reduction, which will probably slows you down more than it will improve kill speed. It's on 3min recast, so it's not like you could turn it off for a pull and get back on for the killing.
Fell Cleave range is not enough to clear whole pull, unless you will take extra time to set everything in front of you. You could use Cataclysm, but it would still be slower than THF. WAR would also struggle much more with survivability.
For me, the 3000TP TH8 AE after the pull almost one shots everything beside the Transcendent mobs. I could probably push it to really one shot everything, but I lack some MLs and R30 Nyame. I think it wouldn't be that beneficial either, because mobs not dying after first AE means, that they can feed you some more TP with their misses. Also second AE creates skillchain, so it helps to kill Transcendent.

If I had to pick a TH4 job to cleave it'd be BLU for sure. Both of WAR's options in fell cleave and sonic thrust have big drawbacks, and BLU eliminates the need for TP altogether.

A while back, a very good DRK who I used to play with says he was clearing Omen Swart farming on DRK in around 9 minutes using Lycurgos. With Dread Spikes for survival, Drain 3 for max HP boost and Lycurgos boosting Fell Cleave damage, it only takes 1 WS to kill the entire pack, maybe a couple of swings on the Trans. You also don't get resisted damage for 3-4 packs of monsters in Ladybugs, Porxies, Panopts, and Pixies. WAR probably can clear it in a similar time.

Only time I ever used Lycurgos was that very situation on DRK. I'm tempted to make a "Best Omen cleave setup per job" thread now, but it'd be a bit repetitive. Main contenders are Lycurgos, Malevolence Aeolian Edge any job /dnc, and Cataclysm I think.

I did exactly that few times for fun. That being said, THF can do it in under 10 min too and I doubt WAR can do it as fast as DRK. DRK can do massive pulls because of 7k+ HP and up to 7k+ "shield" from Dread spikes. WAR will die trying to do the same.

I always found Earth Crusher was the best AoE weapon skill unless you're doing double dark weather and have a ton of buffs. It doesn't have any mobs that resist it that you fight regularly. AE can't do puks, cata can't do lots of things, and it lets you run around in defender since if you're a mage you need some stupid subjob to use it anyways.

For Swarts farming, Earth crusher would only have advantage on Panopts.

If you're not super elite or not so confident then there's the aoe greatsword ws that sleeps mobs too. Works on all mobs in omen?

I’m sorry, but for farming swarts, you should do it AE THF. No question ask. Reason:

Anything but THF swarts run:
6 months X 30 days X 7 Swarts (I believe that was the number posted) = 1260

THF swarts run:
6 months X 30 days X 11 (that’s the lowest consensus) = 1980

So 700 swarts difference after 6 months, minimum.

Or 60-70M extra, worth a Gandring or the very least the SU4. Personally I have been doing it for 16 months straight, I can’t tell how many are cap but yeah, it’s up there. Play THF the way it’s supposed to be played. Yeah it’s cool can do it with DRK, WAR… probably even SCH but why are you there for?!? Swarts is the goal isn’t it…?

You can do it just as efficiently with a plund knife or a gleti, thats the point.

If youre gearing up your mule to farm swarts, the advice of “you need gandring” is excessive. Thats all I was saying. Theres no need to invest so much gil for this. Its not like ody where youre fighting against the clock to maximize segs.

Personally, I find this to be quite insane. No offense.


What does this mean? Play THF however you want; if you want to optimize, go for it. If that makes you happy and it's fun to do it at a high level, enjoy it. I agree people should do what makes them happy, and if efficiency/max drops does that, do it. But there's no way it's "supposed" to be played. I find THF farming swarts to be boring, and I am sure it would be more fun if I played it with a Gandring. But that also hinges on how much I actually care about it. Takes like 13min to full clear without Gandring or Su4, and that's usually enough for me as a chore to do


Only if Swarts is the primary goal. When I enter Omen solo, it's usually to refill my merits in between Shinryu solos, since I have little use for bosses besides Ou. I usually rotate between Omen (full refill) or Sortie (I get about 30 merits there), seg farming (refills merits), and maybe I can do 2-5 Shinryu runs in one day (just threw up in my mouth thining about this guy >.>). The swart drops are really a bonus, and I use the cards to convert to other jobs during non-campaign periods. True, I could refill merits quickly on BLU in an escha zone and get back to Shiryu fights (also very boring), but I'm really just doing two things at once because it makes more sense and it's something that gives me a bit of job flexibility from the normal RDM/BLU routine I have daily. I could make Swart farming more fun and faster for sure (maybe I will some day), only to be annoyed quicker at Shinryu's terrible drop rate lol. If someone wants to do it on DRK, WAR or BLU to make it more interesting, so be it. The time difference isn't so drastically different that it actually matters. Actually, had I not been spamming this HTBF as much as I am (which also drops rema stones I can use, another double duty event), I probably wouldn't swart farm as much as I have been, because it's like I said for me, feels like a chore. But if your goal is definitely for max swarts, then of course THF makes the most sense.

As far as a daily gil farm 10-15min isn't a terrible time investment, but anything can get old quick that has no variation like omen swart/card farm. There are so many ways to make gil and fewer things to spend it on unless you're continually cranking out REMAs that you can skip omen entirely once you get the boss items and upgrade your AF.

If you wanna go super slow, sure. Shockwaves dmg is pretty poor compared to everything else