For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

PTSD...

Is STP on cape generally considered the best TP augment?

Pretty much.

This is gonna sound super general, but I'm literally not sure where to go from rn. I just came back to the game, last time I was around, Sulevia was the newest ambuscade release.

It's my understanding I should be aiming for Meghanadas gear, but which?

I can't make itemsets to explain what I currently have, in short terms, I have a very random selection of skulker (head), herculean (head/feet), adhemar (hands), some rawhide, no taeon (is this still worth pursuing?), I haven't upgraded relic/artifact to 109/119 except relic hands, I think, currently no REMA, so mainhand is Izhiikoh and offhand is Sandung with the upgrade.

I did finish SoA, so I guess one of my next steps is SR for a TS?
Should I also bother farming for a Shijo?

Should I hate myself and make a Twashtar? (don't answer this)

I guess I just sort of want some guidance on what order I should go about doing things.

Meg Hands and Body, the other pieces for DT/Idle (lower priority).

Taming is a good enough Mainhand (or skinflayer) "for now"

Shijo is a great offhand, "for now".

You should do SR for samnuha tights, so yeah, that's a big priority.

Ignore taeon, ignore twash unless you're /really/ serious.

@Foxfire :
Imo don't focus on SR, just do some when you feel like it, the drops are waaaaay too random. You could do it forever and never get perfect sari or legs. Don't even really need August trust you can get AAEV very fast.

- Get Skinflayer! Skinflayer/Sandung will do you great, get Shijo when you get a chance.
Can also get some 150 delay Unity dagger for fodder mobs.

- Make sure you have Ambuscade TP & WS capes done, get Meghanada Body/hands +2!
Also Head+1 till you get AF+3, and Legs+1 till you get AF+3/Lustratio.

- Make sure you have TA+3 or +4 on your herc feet, with some acc. Depending on your TP sets and your luck on augments you might wanna get TA+4 on herc hands also.

- Start spamming Omen for AF Legs/Head+3 since cards take time to gather and you can't spam it whenever (save some money for them >.<).
Since ppl have most Omen drops now you might get very nice Sherida earring & Ilabrat ring out of it too.

- Can do quest for Erudition Necklace pretty easily.
- When you get a chance get Lustratio Subligar (+1), it's pretty cheap by now.

P.S: "For the shinies", please remove ugly Rawhide and get Adhemar body, it's basically free ;D

Good luck!

This month's ambuscade sucks but use the time to get meghanada gear and a cape. Even if you fail to get anything else at least get the blank cape since you're restricted to one a month.
Sinister reign is a good idea to work on. Don't get yourself burned out on it but the daggers, qa head, trusts, and Samanuha have a long shelf life even when you get omen +3 or lucky DM augs.
Absolutely upgrade your af for omen upgrades and for when SE finally gets around to buffing relic gear. You missed some great campaigns that made it much less painful but just keep at it on the side until you have enough omen cards.
As I've mentioned omen a lot I'd suggest you look it up on bg wiki since it sounds like you didn't notice new content that lets you skip a lot of the old options to focus on other slots.
Edit: Damn you autocorrect.

Thanks for the info! I'll probably try to aim for Skinflayer based on the other two comments alongside yours. I'll try to do SR at least a few times and try my luck.

Noted as far as SR. If I get August, it'd be good, since I can't get AA trusts (for now) due to ajido being captive for literally all of the windurst story (aka until I get to R9-2 or so).
My problem with Skinflayer was getting people to actually kill the bird lady, but that might not be as big an issue now. I'll see what I can do for that.
I do have one ambuscade cape for THF, but it's WSD/DEX/Acc+20 iirc. What would a TP equivalent be?
I'll attempt to get the meg parts. I don't recall what my herc parts have offhand but i'll try aiming for those stats.
As far as Omen, I did get a Sherida earring which is definitely useful, but I need to see how I can integrate it into my sets
I'll look into Erudition Neck, I haven't looked at Lustratio's prices.
My only problem getting adhemar is the abj not dropping! Haha.

It's not that I didn't notice the content, it's just that I wasn't really sure where to start with said content. I've done two runs and gotten a few cards and an earring, but since I'm not super "useful", I'm not exactly on people's priority lists in shouts, y'know?

You guys mentioned AF, but which pieces should I be trying to get? Thanks for all the info.

A melee ambuscade cape is basically the same except you have stp on it.(in the end you'll have something like 47%+ TA which makes the 10% da cape a little meh. Crit rate also works if you want something for evisceration since they're so close together on spreadsheets although the STP still beats out crit rate ever so slightly.
Meghanada is great for pdt (if you don't have the herc augs) and regen if you make it to +2. Body is great for stacked ws, Legs can make a decent substitute for samnuha tights once you add enough boxes to them. Hands are obviously best ws hands.

I think you need to take a look at the pillager's +2/3 set pages since it generally should be fairly obvious which parts you want to get after you actually take a look at them. I get that there are massive amounts of sidegrades atm but one look at them should tell you all you need to know.

As for omen groups. There is a card route you can join in instead of the boss runs while you're trying to get up to date. When Japanese shout for it it comes out as checkmate route or tummutummu on google translate. It's more efficient (and consistent)for card farming since I notice that a large percentage of boss runs have people that don't care about objectives like there's noone that might still want cards. Then you end up walking out with 1 card and nothing else if you're unlucky. You mentioned that you already have the earring so you've already got the only midboss drop you need from em as a thf. A lesser used method for getting cards is to level a mule to 99 and have it get cards to mail to you.

Samuha, af+3 and meghanada legs are basically the top 3 pants to get (Samnuha is generally on top) and with your accuracy presumably being low, the samuha tights are more of a long term thing compared to the others.

There's an omen campaign coming up so you should at least be able to manage the cards easily enough.

What would be my best option for offhand w/ Aeneas? Have skinflayer, Shijo, Sandung, non-perfect Taming Sari available. If I don't currently care about TH what should I be using? I have decent DEX, acc, atk augs on skinflayer currently.

Edit: Not pursuing Twashtar at the moment

A perfect Taming Sari would be your best bet

Zerk!
It really depends on your sets...
So until you get a perfect Sari,
I'd say Shijo if you need the Dual wield,
Sandung can help for big/evasive mobs unless you get acc buffs, let's you pack TA+% on other gear with little Acc trouble.
Also go do the trial for TP Bonus dagger for Erynis!!
GL

Sjiho or perfect taming depending on what u have to wear in body slot

I've been using Sandung for the longest time just as a catch-all, haven't tried optimizing my THF to it's full potential, really. I need to get back to farming SR so will keep my eye out for Taming Sari.

I guess for now i'll be messing around with the Shijo I have, and Sandung in high-acc situations.

Instead of pouring your efforts into meh gear, you really should look into getting a Twashtar instead.

Some people don't feel like putting time and effort into farming lot pop enemies, followed by abyssea grind, followed by voidwatch grind.

shrug

i personally don't, anyway. can't say the same for everyone.

edit: not to say i'm dismissing that the game is a grind in general, but yeah, some people aren't that invested in long-term goals for this game, i guess is what i wanna say

And I'm saying that's a terrible mentality to have. In all the years I've played this, while the game has changed throughout the years, the one thing that always stays true is that that sentiment is always one of the strongest defining characteristics between strong players and weak players.

And at this point, it not like the grind is all that different, most of the Twashtar can be bought from the AH. I don't know how many SR runs I've done, but it must be approaching 4 digits at this point and I still don't have a perfect TS on my main. If you're lucky and go 1/1, well good for you. If I had to do it all over again, I'd much rather prefer grinding out another Twashtar. It's time well invested in getting the absolute best offhand dagger and you haven't wasted any time foolishly going after subpar gear.

edit: Now that I think about it, someone actually did go 1/1 on a perfect SR on one of my runs, so take that as you will.

I've probably done a few hundred SR runs myself and only recently got perfect Samnuha tights. However, I also need some other gear from there so not completely wasted if no Sari.

Currently I have other Empyreans I'd rather make than Twashtar. Someday I'll get around to making one.

Sadung is absolute trash and shouldn't be made in the first place. Doing almost anything else is a better use of time than the effort expended to make it even with the drastically lower costs ATM thanks to delve campaigns. It should never be considered a serious option.

Which is better to reduce physical dmg from endgame bosses' tp moves:

Jse cape +16def , +40 vit , evasion/mevasion +20

or

Moonbeam cape def 30, -5% dmg taken , HP +250 ?

(How much Vit/Def do you aim for before dmg reduction?)

For trash farming is 'twas he/jugo+1 still best?

Is jugo good because of the delay or the proc?

Just so i get this straight, Should i leave my mandau at 99 and not bother upgrading it and just try to focus on say a Skinflayer or Taiming Sari? (returning player by the way)

Mandau is better than those at 119ag, it's just not as good as the -other- remas

ah ok i might aswell finish it then.

If you want to piss away 10,000 * whatever plutons cost on your server.

Or you can put that 80m~ toward something useful...

Just do it - and please don't ever mandau

Now this is a dumb comment..
Sandung is not the best at anything but far from trash.
A returning player who wants to THF around should grab it while working on catching up SR/Ambu/Escha..
And anyone who likes TH procs should get it too (unless you got Sari x2).
Also in endgame it helps to max Accuracy, or in lowman/low-buffs situations (T3-4 Reisenjima, high tier Unity, when NMs level up etc).
Weap slot is nice for accuracy when you're tanking on THF too.

Imo it's a no-brainer since a THF should have any piece that has TH on it anyway XD

Absolutely not. Waste that 2m~ on a ***dagger when you can pay a merc 2m for the Skinflayer instead.

Can also buy gil and get aeonic/twash merc in a week...
How about playing the game to get endgame gear?

When you go to pay your bills tell them you're going to earn it yourself because you're living life.