For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

Yes and... no?

I get what you're saying and in general I agree with you, but in reality it depends, a lot.
It depends on which area we're talking about and how many bots are there. In the zone in general but more specifically in your spot too.

I've been able to do what you're claiming multiple times, so I can confirm that.
Then again there are many other times, so many other times, where despite moving around camp and changing zones multiple times, I couldn't find a camp where there were enough mobs for me to kill/pull without killing the Master Chain.
Most of the times it's not even a matter of "killing too fast" because once you get past a certain level the amount of time you have to kill mobs and keep the chain up is so small that you can't really afford to slow down, alas.



So for a tl;dr
Yes but it depends on how many people/bots are online doing EP at the specific time where you want to do it as well.

Colibri top level has been very free for the last two days surprisingly.

Is mandau straight trash now in endgame when main handing?

Like most of the 1h relics at r15- if youre firing off at 1k its pretty decent but TP overflow from high MA/STP and magian OH make having 1k a rarity for most jobs. Its nice for rdm though as they lack a strong piercing ws

haha omg - I love this energy

I just recently made a Mandau for dubious reasons:
(1) I love my THF lockstyle and was dual wielding Odium, but wanted a gold dagger than has an afterglow too lol (currently looking good with 75 Mandau but I'll get around to trials and AG it). Yeah, that's why I got it for my character that has THF, and not the other one that has RDM.
(2) SE released a nice looking Mandau pin that just came out, and I can't have the pin and not the in-game item - right?

I have no illusions that Mandau & Mercy Stroke is ever going to beat Twash/Rudra. Rudra has great TP scaling, Mercy has none (and Mercy's fTP 5.0 at all levels is same as Rudra's fTP 5.0 at 1000tp). Similar stat mods in 80% DEX for Rudra versus 80% STR for Mercy (which does add a little fSTR), but Twash gets a ton of DEX on the weapon. Same delay, similar base damage. Twash gets much better ODT aftermath than Mandau's Crit rate/dmg+5%, and a large direct boost to Rudra damage. Mandau does get a nice TA dmg+10% from augments, but that's not enough.

I guess my one curiosity is how well R15 Mandau & Mercy can stack up to something like R15 Aeneas & Rudra though. At least from messing with the Kastra sim, I'm seeing Mandau winning that battle. Before I looked at that more closely, I had always assumed that was not the case. Kind of interested to play around with Mandau for funsies once I get it to max level for the hell of it.

A more practical application for some THFs: now I'm thinking that for people who don't want to make a Twashtar (hey, I get it, I also hate Glavoid) or Prime (hey, I get that too), it might not be that crazy to look at Mandau as a pretty appealing option. Probably a bit underrated in the community consciousness, TBH. Maybe that comes more from poor performance in pre-augment times (which, remember, were the days when Aeneas/Twashtar sets were popular), because the augments buffing TA dmg and Mercy Stroke is acutally pretty nice.

Mercy is 8.4 effective FTP once augmented.

Most relic WSs are solid at 1000tp, they just don't scale after that and TP gain in 2025 is very fast.

Mythic is imo better than Mandau though.
Counting with R15 augments, Mandalic is around 6~12.7 fTP and has massive attack bonus. It has less WSC (60% DEX), but overall it's still stronger. You can also still do Rudra with 140 base damage weapon.
AM3 is still good for TP, even with 50%+ Triple Attack rate and 30% critical hit damage bonus to TA and SA is pretty nice too.

EDIT: ofc Naegling beats both Mandau and Mythic if WS wall in not a problem.

That's fair, but that's also a major commitment, so for my hypothetical situation of a THF who wants a good endgame quality dagger but isn't so into it as to be willing to go through the hassle of making a Twashtar (seriously, screw Glavoid pops, I get it) or Prime... Mythics kinda fall into that same bucket of too much hassle.

Relics are just: spend the money for currency, go Mercy Stroke a ton of trial mobs, enjoy the thing. I literally made the decision to make a Mandau last week and had the 75 version less than 24 hours after hopping into Dynamis to farm a Relic Dagger. Relics are also easier for many players to make than Aeonics (i.e., solo/no Aeonic group to help, can't or won't buy from mercs).

And to my original question, my curiosity is more about stuff like: how does Mandau stack up to Aeneas as part of that tier of daggers behind the BEST ones? I regularly see people say things like "eh, Aeneas isn't BiS but it's a solid option for those who don't want to make better REMAs". But if tossing some money at a Relic is better still, that's probably an option some people might want to take.

Like, not really impacting me a ton, for mainhand daggers I have Twashtar and Gandring C that pretty much cover every situation I want to use THF for. But I just think that Mandau's probably a bit better than its usual dismal reputation, maybe better than/competitive with Aeneas at the very least, and worth some discussion that might be especially useful to a certain subset of THF players.


Uh that's also a thing, but shhhhhhhh.

FWIW, I also tend to find Vajra a bit underrated in terms of general community opinion. Best DD THF I know uses a Vajra often and just decimates stuff, but there's some nuance in maximizing its performance with effective use of SA/TA.