For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

Well the fact that you can't determine these stats readily in game--which is the same as why you can't rely on saying "107 Delve fodder"--is why I'd use a more general definition. cRatio and hitrate in particular because they are the easiest guesstimate offhand based on spreadsheet examples, and because fSTR will barely impact your choices between equipment nowadays and dDEX is not good to rely on for obvious reasons.

If you aren't sure whether your attack or accuracy is near cap or not, then honestly...you probably don't care as much as you think you do about optimizing your damage.

I don't mean to make sets for every 0.25 level of cRatio, but using something generic like 1.7 for uncapped sets and 2.25 for capped sets will still encompass more than saying "level 107 Delve fodder without food or buffs." Of course, I don't necessarily know the difference between 2.2 or 2.25 cRatio, but that's not a situation I can avoid either way.

Regardless, you're right that it's still good to give the scenario you are using so others can check it in spreadsheet (and also be able to get a good reference point: "ah, this uncapped attack set is used for Delve fodder no buffs, so I will probably also use it for Reives no buffs"), but I didn't want you to waste your time making sets for extremely similar or identical outputs. I also did not realize you meant Tojil without any attack buffs, so it was wrong for me to assume cRatio would be similar in your scenarios.

However, as long as accuracy is not an issue, the gear will barely be different between realistic levels of uncapped cRatio. For example, Felis will still win over Whirlpool for Exen when you have cRatio as low as 0.4 (Tojil with no food, no buffs, no Ionis, no debuffs, plus -250 attack for the hell of it). In fact, all of the gear in your post would still win. And...no one should be regularly fighting anything on any job with a 0.4 cRatio, let alone less.

(( Edit: I take this back partially--I was only looking at attack alternatives, but fSTR is so severely low that Lithelimb will pull ahead. In which case..cRatio doesn't even matter. However, the rest of the gear still looks the same to me, and the paragraph below still applies. ))

In addition, you're more likely to be needing accuracy in such a circumstance (I manually added accuracy to cap hitrate in the above scenario), in which case acc+ gear will easily trump any lack of attack. Hence having varying accuracy sets, regardless of your cRatio.

Lastly, you may be right about uncapped attack sets. I don't really know what most people use THF for. For me, if I'm not capping attack, I'm probably better off going a different job. TH isn't very useful for many current events now, so where it's most applicable is basically Dynamis/Salvage farming, ADL, and VE/E/N tier AA BCs.

MDT set in guide is a bit dated,

ItemSet 318471

Is ideal with all head/body/hand/leg/feet taken up with high ilvl gear with HP, MEVA and MDB whilst keeping cap haste, will vary depending how much reforged+1 you own skirmish/kaabnax could be better. Obviously frenzy sallet still pretty useful at times, that part hasnt changed.

Edit : And if no dring you're probably better off using 2 dark rings and keeping an Ilvl body than going dark ring/avalon/shadow ring. Or if you've not got a lieut sash yet collossus>>engulfers.

Nice set but I would suggest using inquisitor bead necklace instead. It actually offers more magic damage reduction than Twilight Torque. The physical damage reduction on the torque is nice though.

Twilight is nice for breath type attacks as well, would be a good idea to swap mantle to mollusca if you're taking off twilight torque. I favor consistency over mitigation over time on anything that has the potential to kill you. Worth noting that if you plan on using thf for AAs, you'll want -damage taken gear(or breath-) for arrogance incarnate.

I don't think any job should be using the Inquisitor Bead Necklace other than RDM. Ideally, every job should 5/5 ilvl 119, then put on engulfer cape/liet cape/Minerva Ring/Shadow Ring, Merman's Earringx2 and Twilight Torque. That'll give you max -mdt with capped Shellra5, 1 item for absorbing magic, 1 item for nullifying magic and absurd amounts of magic evasion.

RDM can just slap on the Beatific shield and put mdb/meva everywhere else.

Ah, I see what's wrong with the current set, that was under the assumption earrings were the best source of MDB, but now that's ilvl 119 gear.

So let me see if I have this right: Shellra V can give a maximum of 75/256, or 29% MDT? So we need 21%? lieutenant's sash, Minerva's ring, merman's earring x2, and Twilight torque give a total of 2+8+(2x2)+5 = 19, which seems short of the cap to me. Krsone's set adds up though.

Hmmm... is there a spreadsheet for this sort of thing (I don't see one from Motenten) or am I going to have to math this out myself?

My point is that you don't have to cap mdt to have the best magic damage reduction set.

And it doesn't really take much math to see. It's (100+mab)/(100+mdb) as a multiplier in the magic damage calculation. So assume a mob has +200MAB somehow and you're looking at 300/100 vs 300/108 which is a 8% difference. As mdb goes up, it gets less valuable and most ilvl armor these days has a small amount of mdb scattered about so it's not as good as it used to be. But assuming 20 (5/5 Pillager+1), that brings you from 20 to 28 so you'd see 300/128 => 6.66% magic damage reduction, still beating Twilight Torque.

One could argue it even further since Inq. Necklace offers 55 more HP towards surviving huge nukes if you're capped off (see nuke, press mdr macro, whm pre-heals for cureskin, for example).

Ah, but your math isn't quite right Suji :)

So let's assume the magic damage incoming is N, with a mab of (MAB - 100), and we're using this set, with 50% MDT and 20 MDB:

ItemSet 292166

The magic damage you would actually take is:

N * (100 + (MAB - 100) / 120) * (0.5) * other factors that don't change (C) = N * MAB * C * 0.5 / 120 = N * MAB * C * .00417, or 41.7% damage (58.3% damage reduction).


Suppose we then swap out the Twilight torque for an inquisitor bead necklace. Our MDT is now 45%, and our MDB is now 28. Damage taken is now:

N * (100 + (MAB - 100) / 128) * (0.55) * C = N * MAB * C * 0.55 / 128 = N * MAB * C * .00430.

So now you're taking 43% damage, or 57% damage reduction. You're actually taking more damage with the necklace.


I think your math issue is that Twilight torque doesn't offer a net 5% damage reduction, but actually in this case it's reducing the damage taken from 0.55 to 0.50, or a 10% bonus.

(edit: IBN is still a piece worthy of mention, along with mollusca mantle, so they're both in the guide now)

Basically, you need to have either capped MDT or a low amount of MDT in order for MDB to be worth wearing over MDT.

Say you have 45% MDT and want to replace Twilight Torque with Inquisitor bead necklace:

newMDT/oldMDT
1/newMDB

0.5/0.55 = 0.90909090909090909090909090909091

1/1.08 = 0.92592592592592592592592592592593

Twilight better



But say you have 20% MDT instead:

0.75/0.8 = 0.9375
1/1.08 = 0.92592592592592592592592592592593

Inquisitor better


This is assuming you're starting from neutral MDB.

Thanks guys.

My intuition was messed up because out of context, 1% MDT is only a little better than 1% MDB, ie:
1% MDT: 1000 * .51 - 1000 * .50 => 10 damage difference
1% MDB: 1000 - 1000/1.01 => 9.9 damage difference

I think I'd still use the necklace plus Mollusca over Engulfer though!

I'd use whatever saves you the most inventory.

Additional way of looking at it:

MDT is subtractive, while MDB is divisive. The more MDT you have, the more valuable a given amount of additional MDT becomes (up to the cap), whereas the more MDB you have (completely independent of mob MAB, which has no effect on relative value), the less valuable a given amount of additional MDB becomes.

You could also see it as comparable to how haste and DA relate.

It feels like no one carries a Sheltered Ring but me sometimes.

Shellra5 is 62/256 base (24.2%), 70/256 with full merits, 75/256 with augmented legs and full merits and 80/256 with Sheltered Ring, which totals -31.25%, which means you need 18.75 (or 19%) mdt.

First of all thx for all the updates!

Saw the new QQ tp set and wanted to know how this set would do.
Would it be better than HQ set?

ItemSet 318543

Edit: I'm using 119 mandau and izhiiko

Most likely. The only thing that I am worried about are the kaabnax trousers; you're getting 25 STR 10 atk 7% haste vs Manibozho brais's 23 STR 30 atk 6% haste, and 19 attack is a big drop. But everything else totally looks fine.

... Which makes me wonder why pillager's culottes +1 do so well, does the critical hit damage help that much? I'll have to check that out when I can access my spreadsheet.

Keep in mind that being haste capped is usually going to net you the biggest dps gains. Dropping your legs from 7% to 6% when you're only at 24% haste is going to hurt you a lot more than 19 attack will help.

Also, I didn't run the numbersbut pretty sure you are going to be over the delay cap when you have +5 marches and haste.

Yea, I haven't run it yet but I'm pretty sure the current QQ set is not competitive when you have alliance buffs. Especially not in AA fights if you use your THF there but that's another story (due to accuracy woes).

I have to admit I tl;dr'd Flippant's post at the top of this page until today (sorry!) but she has some solid points. The rest of this post is pretty much a reply to her post.

Buckets of scenarios like "capped x, uncapped y, capped z" are probably the only somewhat simple way of providing generalized optimizations. There's a sweet spot for how many variables you account for, since too many multiplies out to a ton of sets.

I think the main buckets that matter for THF gearing are:

* Capped magic haste or not. It's easy to hit this due to ghorn songs and has a significant impact on the value of haste/dualwield gear.

* Capped attack or not. You can hit this on either fodder mobs with light buffs or strong mobs with high buffs. An optimizing THF would be aware of whether or not they are capped minimally by making assumptions about which buffs they typically have for a certain kind of content combined with known information about monster stats and go from there (see math section on bg for some references). But like Flippant said, there is the same impact on gearing selection if you're capped, regardless of whether you're fighting Tojil or reive mobs. I simulate this in the spreadsheet by adding enough custom attack that I'm capped.

* Capped accuracy or not. Accuracy is kind of a trump card so it's barely fair to put it in the same category as the other too, but suffice it to say that if you are not capped on accuracy, your damage will most likely suck. High accuracy sets for THF are relevant still due to D/VD SKCNM and AA battles, although for a while we could ignore them after the big +skill update. I simulate this when spreadsheeting by adding large enough custom accuracy penalties that I'm slightly uncapped.

More buckets than this aren't worth the added complexity to me. And all eight possibilities don't require specific sets due to the relationship between them. For example:

If you are capped attack, then it's safe to say you're capped on magic haste and accuracy. So that's one set: capped attack or "high buff".

If you are uncapped accuracy, it's safe to say you're uncapped on attack but magic haste could vary. Either way, being uncapped on accuracy is awful and it devalues everything else so the focus should be on [possibly multiple tiers] of accuracy so combined with healthy amounts of haste. This brings out pieces like Manibozho jerkin, ej necklace and hurch'lan sash, for example, depending on how much accuracy you need.

If you are uncapped attack but capped accuracy, this is where it could get complicated since it could occur in either high buff or low buff situations. I simplify this scenario in my gearsets with a sort of general purpose set that assumes some haste, a decent cratio (1.8~2, again achieved by tweaking custom attack bonus/penalty) and some accuracy.

This breaks down the eight possibilities into only three main QQ sets: high buff, low accuracy, general. Simple!

The only variation from here I use on my jobs (mostly MNK and RNG lately) is having different accuracy tiers so I can flip through the appropriate one depending on the food I'm using and the possibility of buffs wearing.

Now Flippy can tl;dr my post for a while too. :)

I absolutely agree - the current QQ set operates under the assumption that the only buff you have is Haste Samba, from your own /DNC subjob. They're solo sets, not alliance sets. Perhaps I should make this more clear in the guide, but there's so much text in there already.

(edit: I added a note under the QQ TP set)

Well the goal of the "QQ+Acc" set is the low accuracy set, since Tojil is still a pretty good high-evasion target. I never really planned on making a high buff set because that depends so much on what kind of buffs you get. Of course, the QQ+Acc set is out of date, so it's not helping anyone, but at least the intent is there.

Yes, but it's good to check and question. Now that I have the spreadsheet in front of me:

• Kaabnax does come out ahead in Headache's set over Mani R15 (by 0.2%). So the loss of haste does hurt, but that 19 attack mitigates it almost completely.
  

• Pillager's +1 is even better, despite the loss in haste, because it turns out that 4% critical hit damage is quite valuable (beats Kaabnax by 0.5%).
  

• felistris mask, which drops haste down by 1% as well, beats out Ejekemal by 1.4%, entirely due to its 2% triple attack.

And of course, all of these calculations change when you have real buffs on; I'm spreadsheeting under the assumption that I'm solo.

Jan 2014 version update! Two items particularly worthy of note:

vanir knife

Looks like a new mainhand for those who don't have mandau 119. Higher base damage than izhiikoh, and comes with Magic Damage +70 (maybe useful for /nin?) and MDT -5%. Makes capping MDT easier for sure!


vanir boots

Vs pillager's poulaines +1: Vanir has DEF+3 DEX+5 AGI+5 Accuracy-13 R.Acc+3 Enmity-4 (Steal-3 Flee-16 Speed-12).

So if you're not concerned about accuracy or hate transfer, these are clearly better. Have to keep your AF119 for that Flee bonus though :p

This is a problem that all DD jobs/guides have to deal with; it's not intractable. I laid out a fairly pragmatic way in my post above to simplify the possibilities. There are other approaches too but any of them beat not listing buffed sets at all... :)

At an absolute minimum, capped magic haste from Marches and Haste can always be assumed if you are expected to be doing damage in an alliance, and that already breaks your QQ set.

For example, here's a set:
- Capped magic haste. Easy to assume since we can get this a few ways.
- pdif ~2.0 so attack is not likely to cap but still pretty good. Choosing pdif 2 means it doesn't matter if you have one minuet, three minuets, chaos roll, RCB, Dia3(+LightShot) on the mob or anything. The final result, to Flippant's point earlier, is the impact of buff combinations on pdif and we can easily gear around that final result rather than drown in the complexity of managing sets for so many buffs.
- Capped accuracy.
ItemSet 319224

You can pretty safely ignore the rest of the variables for the purposes of simplifying the buckets into which sets fall.
- Capped/uncapped fstr will have an impact but if a piece of gear is winning in an attack deficient situation, it likely has higher strength that is helping anyway.
- Rogue's roll boosts crit damage gear and devalues +crit gear. In particular, it actually pushes Pillager's +1 legs to equivalent damage (1dps away) to bozho brais but obviously bozho is more tolerant to buff variability and is the better choice if one is trying to simplify set recommendations. Worst case with this situation, they are equal. Best case, Bozho is better.

Essentially, this set is a good default for any alliance content where you don't need accuracy.

And for some contrast, this is the highest DPS TP set I could find with full buffs and current gear:
ItemSet 319227

(In both sets, Oneiros Ring is a tiny upgrade (~0.2%) but I don't recommend it due to the permanent survivability hit. You also lose a small amount of damage by swapping Rancorous to Atheling but I just left Rancorous in these sets.)

With the buffs I was working with, yeah. Atheling is the next best.

Ah, ok, now I think I understand what you (Suji) and Flippant are trying to say. You're telling me it really doesn't matter what the actual buffs are to build a high-buff set. I can just fake it by manually boosting attack, accuracy, and magic haste, and that's good enough. So, hopefully we're on the same page now.

I'm not going to make any more changes to the guide until the February version update comes out, but let's try to iron out what you all want so that when that happens I can go in with the right expectations.

I plan on continuing with the four tiers (0Q, NQ, HQ, and QQ) of gear for general / no-buff scenarios. Those sets are by far the most valuable to me personally, and I like to believe that they're the most valuable to non-elite players. But I totally don't know what is valuable to you all who push endgame content, so I have to ask.

* Are the HQ sets relevant at all, or do you just want a QQ set for low-acc and high-buff?
* I see the importance of a capped-magic-haste/high-pdif set. Is it also very important to have a capped-magic-haste/capped-pdif set?


Also, two questions specifically about the sets you just published:
* Why do you not include oneiros ring but accept rancorous mantle? I think the mantle provides the greater defensive loss - that's a flat 10% damage taken. The Oneiros Ring means you lose 100 HP, but when a 99 THF has ~1500 HP that's less than 10%.
* Why does atheling mantle beat canny cape in a capped attack situation? That capped attack set shows 13% DA and 8% TA, without the cape. I assume you're THF/WAR with Fighter's Roll, so that's 11% TA and ~15% DA from nongear sources. Wouldn't the marginal value of 2% TA be greater than the marginal value of 3% DA, especially considering you have about 10% more DA to start with, and the attack from Atheling should be irrelevant?

Malizia,

Great job with the guide. I can't say enough great things about what you do. This guide essentially has two paths: solo and party-oriented situations.

I honestly have seen and will always see thf as a solo job in the game. I cannot begin to tell you the last time we included a thf in end game other than ADL or Legion.

THF solo generally means thf/dnc. I use your QQ sets specifically for this scenario and that is what I would like to see more of.

And that's why THFs will always be a solo job to most people. It's not the job's capabilities. It's the player base mentality.

Thanks, Talon. And also, thanks for changing your avatar to something not seizure-inducing :p


Well it does help that THF is an excellent soloist. But yes, the player base mentality is a problem, and my guide should be doing a better job of combating that.

@ihina

Don't get me wrong. I have seen some properly buffed thieves rape on Kparser / Scoreboard. It is just not a go to when I host events here on Sylph. I 100% agree with your player base mentality. 9 times out of 10 however, if you have a slot for a DD, THF will always be considered last.

@malizia

I hope that Roxy is a little easier on the eyes for avatar purposes.

Now if I can only bring myself to get 4 gabbrath horn's crafted in tati earring

Sylph pickup groups DD choices:

People you know can play well -> R/E/M DD FotM -> R/E/M 2H DD -> anything else.

I agree with ya Talon. On Sylph I would never take a THF I didn't know, unless it was to Morta or something simple.


On a side note, I haven't done the math on this for a few years, but last I checked, Haste Samba as /dnc was garbage unless you couldn't/didn't weaponskill at 100tp. From what I remember, you don't gain enough attack delay over 90 seconds to justify the 35 tp loss. Obviously this isn't the case if you are at 135tp or higher. However, even then, I think you would want to Box Step -> Weaponskill unless you were at 145tp or higher, then obviously Samba -> Box Step -> Weaponskill.

Edit: I also remember Drain Samba being more efficient than Waltz, but that was before SoA. If it's still true, that's even a bigger reason to not use Haste Samba when solo.

THF is being used for AAs. It was being used before TH update at least for MR and even more so now on all. I would consider this the most relevant end game content atm and THF is included. You just can't be gimp but that goes for all jobs on AAs. THF remains awesome solo of course. But don't underestimate it in current end game. It's.also nice for delve bee.