Performance As DD In Delve.

It's more common for THF to be used for TH/Pulling but I have gotten a few chances to play as a DD.
I was wondering what kind of numbers others are getting for overall damage, weaponskill averages and spikes.
It would also be helpful to me and others if you could post any buffs and gear you were using at the time.

Edited to add some of my own info:

ItemSet 251429
This is my current biggest spike:


Manibozho Brais (Rank15 Path A)
Manibozho Boots (Rank13 Path A)


Buffs:
Sneak Attack, Assassin's Charge, Berserk, Aggressor, Warcry
Madrigalx2(not 100% sure), Sole Sushi, Chaos Roll, Fighter's Roll

THF is pitiful in delve. However my THF only has STR Thokcha/Thief knife purely for TH, while my DRK almost has a completed bereaver.

There's only one reason to take THF in delve, and that is treasure hunter, maybe pulling if the BRD doesn't see a pop.

Its boring, yes. I do what I can with SATA and Evisceration. Most I seen was 2k but I wasn't getting any songs. I just focus on getting TH8 effectiveness on each mob.

:<

Yep thats what I said. And I like Thief, but absolutely hate it in delve because of the pure lack of power. I suppose if you got a delve weapon and delve gear it makes up for it a little bit, but the main job of THF in delve is Treasure Hunter.

Sure, it's not the best when there are well-geared heavy DDs to take instead, but the OP's 7k Mercy Stroke is nothing to shake a stick at. When a good THF is in the DD party and therefore getting songs and rolls, they'll put out some decent damage. At the very least ... better than, for example, a "Delve GK" SAM who comes into the run, has inappropriate gear, and spams Gekko (yes, I've seen this).

I guess the problem comes down to the fact that leaders don't have time to personally inspect everyone's sets before selecting their members. If they did, the OP would (or should!) be picked before 50% of the "heavy" DDs I've had the displeasure of running with.

It's spike damage though, you judge off averages not off spikes.

Realistically if they were being picky they wouldn't take either and just find a heavy DD that was geared properly.

Why do people always make that comparison THF > crap DD. In reality, that just puts THF 2nd worst in the DD heirarchy. A good THF is invaluable (Treasure Hunter, Enmity control, puller, light tank) even in Delve, but it is not, and never will be, a DD.

Yes, but my point still stands. The OP would certainly outdamage a crappy SAM, like the one I mentioned previously.


In a perfect world - or a perfect server - perhaps. I'm talking straight up pick-up groups, where people don't have 2 hours to wait for a 45 min event to start. When running with your LS/friends, it's a different story of course.

Stationary party and roaming should have 3 heavy DD.. whm or sch and a cor and a brd...

We always put thf in the holding party so they dont get buffs so the dmg they get it always meh.... however when we cant find a bard we put thf in main because 4 heavy Dd is not needed.

It is a a diff between 30 airlixers or 15... we do 7 to 8k a run the mobs die so fast the Thf will never have a chance to put up good numbers.

Hmm... A competent thief would definitely out-damage an incompetent DD. However, all things being equal a thief does not a heavy DD make like everyone else has said.

To reiterate what most everyone has said, that's just not their role in a group. TH, Feint and enmity control. Take this as an illustration; on SAM if you have meditate up, hasso, capped gear haste and a proper DA setup with storetp 2 marches... With the Delve Gkatana you can weaponskill every few seconds. Sometimes you get TP back before the animation for Shoha even finishes. That's 3-8k (roughly) per WS as well. To compare that to a thief would just be unfair.

If a THF can put TH on the mobs 'and' pull when the bard and corsair are buffing they'd be doing a damn fine job in Delve.

Do you even lift bro?

Lmao Denore, I thought I was the only one who had been blessed by the presence of that SAM PUG. Same run, I saw a pup popping Montagna.....said my goodbye and bounced moment those 45mins were up :x

With that said, to me, THF is there to open WSC's for the heavy DDs. I don't mind a THF doing 2k Exenterators, if it opens light for a DRK/SAM/WAR to followup with 3-7k + 3-7k SC.

I have seen some incredibly bad DDs, including a dark knight who never changed his equipment once, and spammed torcleaver with his caladbolg.

That doesn't matter, a THF in delve is not a DD. Yes you should do all you can to put out some numbers, but the main job in delve is treasure hunter, and maybe pulling. Nothing else.

Unlike Abyssea, Thief lacks the melee capability. You can do some decent WS if you can stack SATA + Assassins's Charge, but in all honesty, the mobs shouldn't be lasting long enough for you to do so such a thing. I just stick to SA+WS and maybe TA when I can get it in.

THF was a decent DD in Abyssea, in Voidwatch you needed some pretty awesome gear to be decent, in Delve you are going to need every piece of Delve equipment maxed out to 15 to stand a chance of even coming close to an average dd.

Kylos, I think you should at least pick up an Aphotic Knife. It's doubling my damage from Thokcha levels. It may not change your opinion on THF's DD status, but it's a huge upgrade over the Thokcha.

I also don't use a Thief's Knife in Delve. The extra DPS from using a good offhand, and consequently the extra plasm, outweighs the extra 1% TH from the knife in my mind. Right now I use a Defense Down Thokcha, because that helps the entire party's DPS.

It can be difficult to get TH effectiveness before a mob dies already.

My PT leader told me to fulltime TH gear after they saw me using proper gear to damage more after getting the initial TH on the mob. This is because, as stated many times already, THF is there for Treasure Hunter, not for DPS. If they wanted DPS they would have asked me to decimate stuff on DRK.

I would always fulltime TH gear in Delve, rather get treasure hunter effectiveness 8 then 7, more Airlixirs for everyone.

Not exactly sure why, but the same pt leader told the other THF to use Thokcha over their Mandau.

THF has plenty of fire power to pull our weight, but it is true that on equal levels, we don't compete with a traditional DD.

Rather than call it competent vs incompetent, I prefer numbers. A 6 THF can beat a 4 traditional DD. An 8 THF can beat a 6 traditional DD. A 10 THF can beat an 8 traditional DD and approach a 9. The gap is actually smaller than most people would believe.

Not that I blame them. Given our already natural disadvantage, our offensively lacking 2hr, our crippling SA/TA timers, our low DMG weapons, etc/etc, we already start off way behind. Doesn't help that the mentality shown in this topic is very widespread, causing most people to not bother gearing their THF towards more of a DD role, which leads to the reinforcement of the belief. As a career THF, there are maybe two THFs on my server that I would trust as a DD, other than my own.

It's a good thing that there are very few people capable of playing traditional DD jobs to their fullest. Even the best shells only have a small handfuls of 9-10s.

As for delve, I don't do as many runs as I should, but I parse almost all of them and I can count the number of people who have outparsed me with one hand.

the biggest problem I have atm with going guns a blazing on thf/war riding zerk is we automatically become the squishiest dam thing in the room, getting hit twice and losing 1100 in 1 shot sucks.

mobs could breath on me and I fall over, that A+ evasion dont mean jack ***. the mobs never miss man.

I've been debating tossing my evasion set for a PDT set but PDT options really fawking suck for thf

thf really needs some kind of third eye ja

I've noticed this ***too, evasion gear/merits don't count for crap anymore. I went from 85% evasion to around 10%, and these new mobs hit hard.

I haven't really had a use for an evasion set since I was farming ulli in sky pre-75. Tried super tanking reive mobs in evasion set, got nearly identical results in my pdt set.

I would have liked to give more information than I did. I don't parse and it would hurt any run I'm on to try to write down the damage of every weaponskill I do during the 45 minutes. I have had people parsing send me /tells surprised with my output.



If you've saved any could you post them with the gear you were using at time or in the future when you do a run could you share that information?



In my opening sentence I admitted what the common role in a Delve run is for THF. More often than not I don't even go THF to get my plasm because it's not an option or I am with my LS and they know every job I have.


Kylos, When I am asked to focus on TH that it what I do but since the extra damage I can do is more helpful I don't offhand Thief's knife.

Most people level THF just for TH and that's exactly what they gear it for. That doesn't make it the only reason to be played. I started this thread so those of us that enjoy pushing it could share information and experience.

That's exactly what I said over and over lol. You should focus on TH, but if you can do decent damage, then do what you can. I just wouldn't recommend 95% of players who have THF to try and be a proper DD because its going to need a stupid amount of work compared to a heavy dd job.

Its the same argument as people saying pup is awesome in Delve... Thf..... even with this "spike dmg" will still never compare to a heavy DD suck as drk, sam, war... because you will not be putting out 6k every WS. My drk does Resolution every 10-15 seconds @ 2.7-3.8k dmg... as a thf, you will have to wait for SA or TA.... Assassins Charge.... and sitting on 300TP just to wait for the job abilities is a waste. I would replace a thf any time with any of those jobs.

I've always struggled with the idea of bringing a THF to plasm farming... I mean, it's not as simple as "Oh hey there's a THF in the alliance, gonna get more airlixir!" since TH is only going to apply to the mobs in 1 party, and presumably they are taking a spot where there would otherwise be a DD.

It just leaves me thinking, it's either worth having a THF in each party, or it isn't... Personally I think it isn't, even if you get say, 36 more airlixir to drop, and everybody gets 2 each, that's like an extra 1k plasm. I think having an extra DD in the parties would do more than that.

There's obviously a lot of factors, like if 1 party is left with a lot of downtime because the other parties are weaker, or just have less mobs due to the way you distribute rooms in the tunnels or w/e, then yeah, maybe a THF would bring more than a DD.

I'm sure most leaders don't set out with the idea that they MUST get a THF in their party, and probably just being nice and letting them join, or have THF4life friends, but I have seen a couple of shouts asking for THF. I personally don't understand it, and if anybody here is a believer that it's worth it, please explain x,x

I was thinking the same thing.. I feel like the damage I would do on my DRK would make us more plasm then the few extra airlixirs that would drop from treasure hunter. And this PT leaders get 2 Thiefs, one for each party,.

Depends on the thief. I've seen Ihina THF out damage most regular DDs in plasm farming. So there is always that, get a good thf and you get best of both worlds.

A good thief wouldn't sit on that much TP and would most likely outparse you anyways. I wouldn't underestimate a good thief, it takes a really good DD to beat a top tier thf, and there are a LOT less really good DD than most people think (probably because they think they are). I will admit it is rare, and only a few on a server are worthy of being called top tier thief or top tier DD. I would rather have Ihina's thief than ANY heavy DD from a random shout (unless I personally knew them and they were really good).

Situation stuff is situational.

Edit: This is all based off of 99mandau versus delve weapons or boss weapons. When relic update hits, I wouldn't be suprised at all for a good relic thief to beat a good delve dd.

Lot of people underestimate thief. I don't know if you just haven't seen a good one or not...but they aren't to be understimated, and are only getting stronger in next update. ALL things being equal, a top tier thief wouldn't beat a top tier heavy DD, but they wouldn't get destroyed either. DoT is strong and will only get stronger

If I bring a thief, I put them into the tank pt to th and help pull usually.

Or maybe THFs over-estimate themselves!

I don't save any of my parses. Too much work.

As for gear, when I'm asked to DD in delve, I use:
99Mandau / Aphotic / - / Honed tathlum
Khepri bonnet / Love Torque / Heartseeker earring / Dudgeon earring
Thaumas coat / Raider's armlets / Mars's Ring / Epona's ring
Letalis mantle / Dynamic belt +1 / Manibozho / Manibozho

Aphotic is at lv5 at the moment, because I see myself with an Izhiikoh in a couple more weeks. There's also the anticipation of the REM buffs. Might switch the aphotic off the acc path and onto the atk if I decide to up it at all. Legs are lv15 and feet are lv14 at the moment. It gives me almost capped accuracy and capped haste. If I off hand my 99Twashtar, that'll give me capped accuracy.

As for mercy set:
99Mandau / Aphotic / - / Qirmiz tathlum
Hecatomb cap +1 / Justiciar's torque / Vulcan's Pearl / Vulcan's Pearl
Khepri jacket / Raider's armlets +2 / Rajas ring / Pyrosoul ring
Cerberus mantle / Prosilio belt / Manibozho / Manibozho

Heca cap has +3str/+2DA augment. Choca mask/Heca mittens+1/second Pyrosoul ring for TAmercy

Gear helps, but it's more about how you play the job too. You can't perform well with this job without pacing SA/TA and proper judgement on when to pop Bully, Aura Steal, Assassin's Charge and even Hide. Flee is also a thing and Feint really helps in Ceizak.

PS. I still hate these new daggers btw. So slow.