For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

I find sinister reign to be EONS ahead of skirmish in terms of the aug system. Since reign has been out in the first week I got more pieces of gear fully auged than I ever did in Skirmish. You must of only done 1 or 2 runs, didn't get something, and claimed it was terrible. I can even now turn in gear not fully auged for 600 points towards a copper voucher which I can now effectively farm to get currency for other events while trying to get amazing gear. This is all ignoring that all skirmish gear for your thief is now replaced by other gear.

While considering Sinister Reign to be one of the funniest events currently available, I wouldn't say its augmenting system is better than the one in Alluvion Skirmish.

Like others said before, the fact you have to rely on a chance to pop the mob you need, then get the drop you are after and with proper augments is not a whole lot better than tossing some +1 or +2 stones for a select number of random augments.

The only difference I see is in the kind of resource you invest. You can get the basic gear from an Alluvion Skirmish run and be done with the event. The rest is just a matter of tossing Gil in a manner that is unrelated to how much time you spend over Alluvion Skirmish, as you can acquire Gil in different ways.

For Sinister Reign, which I wholeheartedly enjoy, you are forced to spam the hell out of an event, therefore investing time (which could otherwise be used for more remunerative activities) on that event alone. Sure, while you go for a select number of pieces you will obtain other maxed out items, but that doesn't mean anything if you aren't getting what you are after and "wasting time" while at it..

Btw, Dampening tam does not exist.

I've only seen 2 drop in probably ~24 Ingrid fights, thankfully the second one was something around 8dex, 12acc, 13macc, 1qa. I think I've only seen 2 perfectly augmented ones so far.

I originally started doing SR with the intention of getting trusts since Bst doesn't really have much gear from SR. I ended up with so many solid Cor pieces I ended up unlocking and leveling Cor to 99 and have been focusing on that for about two weeks now. The only reason I continue to do it is to unlock August. I could use a better Dampening Tam or Floral Mitts but I won't count on it.

Some of your points are irrelevant. If we are talking about whether we would do one or the other, I guess I would agree with you, but doing reign you are investing time getting items that are BiS for thief while skirmish you are not. If you min/max, which many of these guides discussions lead into and are usually revolved around in general, if you invest time in skirmish you must ALSO invest time in reign, but ALSO invest your time in escha, or you could cut out skirmish and just invest your time in reign and escha. Though I could argue that taeon feet is still a phenomenal piece though in situations you don't need ACC it actually gets beat, but even then, the argument still stands and 1 piece of skirmish gear doesn't require a huge investment. Now if we are talking about other jobs, that is a different story, but we are in the thief guide, so I'm assuming we are talking about thief.

The BiS argument doesn't quite work if you consider the array of augments a THF could go for with Alluvion Skirmish gear. To keep Taeon Boots as an example, one could go for augments to use them for different uses (TP, WS or whatever else you think fits your needs). Maxed SR gear is straightforward and gives no options. You just have to get it!

The time you invest in SR does not give you anything in return unless you get the item you want, whereas in Alluvion you can either be done with it once you get the base item, keep on doing it for stones etc. or just be done with it and do other events.

If you invest time (which could have been invested elsewhere, making Gil or acquiring gear off any other event with a less random drop system) and get nothing out of it (not even stones to sell, to keep the example going), then you have wasted your time.

That said, is SR worth spamming? Hell yeah. Is the reward system better than Alluvion Skirmish? Not quite.

Moving back to the general arguments, I am trying to update my Goal sets to establish which items to go for.

Concerning the top WS set, I believe this would be our best setup for stacked WS

ItemSet 338243

Not sure whether Lustratio's set bonus would make +1 body better than Rawhide path D.. any thoughts?

I've done quite a bit of Sinister, yes I have some fully auged peices of gear. My first post mentioned that getting fully auged gear isn't that hard, getting fully auged gear that is useful is. I simply don't care about having a maxed recycle bow or melee whm club. In fact for many people, as evidenced in this thread, they are really doing the event for 1 or 2 big items like Dampening Tam, Taming, or Refresh+3 body.

Also I don't know why you are bringing up skirmish gear not being good, the point is the actual system of getting it is better than SR not that the gear is.

This. Haven't kept track of kill amount but it's the only item I haven't ever seen drop.

Never said it wasn't good, but it's not BiS for Thief. If you want to do skirmish that's fine, but the gear there is not BiS for thief except the feet in an ACC situation, and hopefully not overlooking another ACC piece but I might be.

To sheeley, ok have fun investing time in gear you WILL replace, unless you don't find playing thief to the best of its capabilities (which I assume you do since you just posted a set with lustratio).

Ultimately you guys can do w/e you want. If you want to do Skirmish great, I love how easy it is, and the book is fun to mess around with, but trying to save some time for any thiefs that want to min/max that read this thread thinking they want to waste gil/time trying to fully augments Skirmish gear.

Wouldn't Path A on Rawhide be far better than D for stacked WS? And why Fotia? Unless you're stacking Evis, which I don't see the benefit in, wouldn't high STR/DEX pieces be far superior during stacked situations?

Such a badass, lol. Keep stroking your epeen hard man. Perhaps we will be blessed by some of your indisputable OPness and kneel to you, or not. Back to more constructive discussions now.

Just trying to help people not waste time :), which is pretty constructive.

I remember a previous comment stating D Path Rawhide was also great for WS, but that was before the latest Rhapsodies additions. That's why I am wondering which would be better between Rawhide and Lustratio (considering Set Bonus), or whether I missed a piece somewhere along the updates.

As for Fotia, both Wanion and Chiner's +1 provide interesting bonuses (especially Chiner's now, given the amount of TA THF natively gets). However, I don't recall any recent discussions over which would actually take the spot as highest belt for stacked WS now.

I've said from the start I'm not advocating getting skirmish gear, I'm saying that I prefer the skirmish augmenting system to the SR drop system...

Skirmish gear was overpowered as hell when it came out but is obviously starting to become outdated.

Ridiculously overpowered, I remember when I was thinking, "There is no way they can release gear better than this." Then they did lmao.

Just resubbed to the game. Haven't played since like May 2013? Anyways, do I need to read through the last ~40 pages of this thread to find what the current best gear is, or is the stuff from Malizia's sets on the first page still somewhat accurate?

Another question; I was working on 99 Twashtar before I quit. Is mandau main twashtar off viable to use, or will a different offhand dagger be miles ahead?

Are you stacking evis? Just need to know what you are stacking to better help with the discussion. Because if you are stacking Rudras, you shouldn't use either, unless you have AC up.

Mandau and Twashtar have basically been defunct for a good few months, now. Your best choices will be dual Taming Saris, which you'll want from Sinister Reign. Plenty of good hold-over weapons until then, including daggers from Vagary, Unity, and our old friend Izhii.

I use Vajra/cheap augment Sari. MS/RS are the main WSs I use (beside others for self-sc). Haven't had AC merits in a long time now due to the already high TA rate.

So it's a waste of time and money to make ilvl 119 mandau or twashtar?

What about DNC, does twashtar have any use on that?

Aww okay, well if you can get your hands on it though I know it's rare, Abnoba > Enforcer > plunderers +1 > pillagers +1 > rawhide vest path D on evisceration. Abnoba > Enforcer > pillagers +1 > plunderers +1 > rawhide vest path D on stacked rudras(assuming similar for mandalic?) I know this might be some other pieces in their, but even pillagers/plunderers beats rawhide vest path D. Since you have a vajra I think it's even more so on evisc. I know that the above order can change depending on if your attack capped, but I don't think you will hit that very often on content that is currently relevant.

IIRC adding a lustratio +1 piece only adds an extra 2% WS damage? and although it's beautiful set with other lustratio pieces, there is just too many body options that completely negate the 2% using lustratio body.

If you're looking for the best choices for time/money, then those weapons aren't worth it anymore, no. If you're after completionism or sentimentality, then go for it. Our new daggers are just disgustingly strong and wipe the floor with practically everything else available.

Yeah, that's why I stated what I did. Didn't think the gear would get more powerful, then it did.

A few things:

- Been organizing crap for a new guide, I decided to focus on that before finishing the spreadsheet since the spreadsheet is constantly being updated.
- The new guide will have a variety of alternatives to give people who are looking to save money more options. A section will also discuss the benefits between various augments (applying to Taeon, Rawhide, etc) and other personal choices you can factor in like Adoulin ring.
- While certain pieces do become outdated for those of us who have been playing longer, I will still include them as part of "stepping stone" sets that returning/aspiring THFs may want to consider.
- Lustratio body path D is Att/Acc/DA, so the piece itself is garbage for THF

A little embarrassed to admit it, but I actually wasn't aware of this. Thanks for telling me.

What a scrub.

Good to see you got rid of the ***, llew.

Also worth noting that 1-handed mythic bonuses only apply to the mythic itself. Most people are aware that this means AM3 only gives the OAX to the mainhand, but it also means AM1's accuracy is mainhand only as well.

With a Vajra, you do have a loss in total accuracy compared to double Saris, but the bonus to SA/TA and Mandalic are really significant. Even with AM1, Vajra has the greater potential.