For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

Ive tried using melee whms with koh for when I aoe pull

I don't even try to use a brd

Also I use the nq su5 tp eva dagger for the extra tp gain from each evade

I think melee whms are a good idea for floors 2+. Wave 1 they might just get wiped due to tigers and flies AoE. Depends how stupid they want to be.

This right here is what caused the fiasco at the ladybug camp. Apururu loves to get as far away from you as possible and cast at maximum range. She literally ran straight into the middle of every ladybug I hadn't touched and cast cure on me. When the ladybugs that chased after her came back they brought all their friends....

Yeah, trust AI and enmity issues are the biggest hurdle I can foresee with this. But I still like it. And I think there's some unexplored territory with this malignance gear than can open up new possibilities to do things in new ways.

I wouldnt aoe floor 1

Nothing taste worse then a floor 1 wipe but thats a personal preference

This is why I run AK TT when I was solo farming it.

His sleepga is a godsend.

I actually made an enmity set for Swordplay/Vallation on THF.

ItemSet 369088

For the only use for those legs in the entire game! And that's Enmity+85. And then an ambu cape with +10 for +95 total.

I already favor /RUN in most cases, and Swordplay and Vallation have high enmity values since they're for a tank's usage. So what I normally do when I cleave is cyclone (my cyclone has my TH set), swordplay or vallation, then AE spam.

And that's exactly why the malignance set got me to come back from my break. The fact that Malignance has Turms-level Evasion, coupled with solid ACC, STP, and DT, gives us a very good set to continue to play the job like a mini-RUN. And that's what I love about XI as a whole, with the right gear set and buffs you can get a job to function similar to other ones. THF has the added benefit of being on most of the same gear as RUN for this specific goal too.

Also to note for evasion builds, Raetic bangles+1 are 20 more evasion than Malignance hands, and will actually be a bit more than that since it has AGI+38 (and hands are generally low on AGI, iirc). Once I get the malignance hands I'll swap between the two based on hybrid evasion or full evasion, though.

Also you can get a LOT of evasion off an ambuscade cape without losing much. We likely don't need DEX for these scenarios, so AGI is 10 more evasion, also don't need the acc, so that's 20 more evasion, resin can be 15 more evasion but probably still best PDT depending on the set, can dye 10 evasion, and can still keep STP+10 for our TP gain. So standard TP cape to an Evasion TP cape gives us 40~ evasion.

An ambuscade evasion hybrid/tp cape is probably a good idea for this kind of thing. I'd definately keep the -PDT because physical evasion caps at 80%, so no matter what you do you're always going to get hit 1 in 5 times, and random number generators have that nasty habit of doing random things, so you can evade 20 straight hits in a row then get smacked 5 out of 8. I'm not fond of Raetic over Malignance gloves either. It's a good piece, but once we cap our evasion the added bonus is useless just like overcapping accuracy. Malignance has sTP and -DT on top of the evasion, and from the numbers I saw it looks like we should be able to cap evasion in a hybrid build without needing to lose them. Definately like the ambuscade cape idea though, and on lower dontent I agree the accuracy and dex isn't necessary. That just means more capes to build.... and carry around...UGH. But still a good idea.

I have 13 THF capes, so...

STPback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'DEX+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','Accuracy+10','"Store TP"+10','Phys. dmg. taken-10%',}}
WSback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'DEX+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','DEX+10','Weapon skill damage +10%',}}
DWback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'DEX+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','"Dual Wield"+10',}}
FCback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'HP+60','Eva.+20 /Mag. Eva.+20','Mag. Evasion+10','"Fast Cast"+10','Mag. Evasion+15',}}
Critback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'DEX+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','DEX+10','Crit.hit rate+10',}}
Exenback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'AGI+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','AGI+10','Weapon skill damage +10%',}}
Magicback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'INT+20','Mag. Acc+20 /Mag. Dmg.+20','INT+10','Weapon skill damage +10%',}}
RNGback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'AGI+20','Rng.Acc.+20 Rng.Atk.+20','"Snapshot"+10',}}
VITback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'VIT+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','VIT+10','Enmity-10','DEF+50',}}
PDTback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'VIT+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','VIT+10','Enmity+10','Phys. dmg. taken-10%',}}
Evaback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'AGI+20','Eva.+20 /Mag. Eva.+20','Evasion+10','"Store TP"+10','Evasion+15',}}
Tankback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'AGI+20','Eva.+20 /Mag. Eva.+20','Evasion+10','Enmity+10','Parrying rate+5%',}}
Savageback={ name="Toutatis's Cape", augments={'STR+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','STR+10','Weapon skill damage +10%',}}

And seems I went full evasion so I need to make an evasion/PDT back, still. I'm not even sure if I'm using all of these how I'd like considering the Malignance gear changes, so I should go through my whole lua, anyway...

All those capes and no regen cape, the disappointment.

So many capes. Are you a super hero?

That said, your evasion set should be 5/5 malig, the physical DT cape, and a D-ring. I think that gives you 51% physical, 41% magical (where shell V will cap you). I think losing 15 evasion for capping PDT is probably a better option (at least imo).

Eabani Earring is good for your dual wielding too, since it gives some more magic evasion, lol.

I actually keep remembering I need to make one of those but it's always when I either am doing something, or don't feel like leaving where I am. Maybe I'll toss Regen onto my snapshot cape or something.

It's labelled, lol

DA is better, yes

Might have made it during the wsd "mistake" and never cared enough to change it back. Or it partially doubles as a last stand cape.

Out of curiosity, how does +triple attack damage function when triple attack procs on a WS?

It doesn't. Same for DA on WAR

[F]

So what are the suggested merit category splits at this time, other than 5/5 Triple attack?

They all seem so... lackluster.

I do 5/5 Trick attack because that's easier to land in most groups.

Group 2 I have 5/5 Ambush, 4/5 aura steal and 1/5 feint. Honestly most of that is a wash, as long as you don't merit *** Charge.

Pretty sure it was during the WSD "mistake" mess and I also dropped using Aeneas, and thus dropped ever using Exenterator, so I sure don't care to fix it. Maybe next time I find an Ambu month I can very easily clear with all characters and get more points than I can spend, but ehh...

I'm 4/5 Assassin's Charge.

Then again, I seem to be playing a completely different game then the rest of you.

You don't say...

I don't know why you would merit assassin's charge, it's the only obvious "no"

I mean like it's ok. It's always a damage boost. But it's kinda useless with the cooldown.

Wasn't the logic that it's not? The JA waits with *** Charge + Sneak Attack + WS you actually end up losing more damage from an attack round than you gain from the WS.

AC can be used in 2 ways.
Wrong -> You use it during melee before WS. That would probably be a dps loss or at least not a dps gain.
OK -> You use it when disengaged, while waiting for next pull during dynamis, or before you engage in Ambuscade, or during engage when your enemy has mechanics that force you to stop hitting it anyway (Kin during TP moves, Glassy Thinker while readying Pain Sync). Then it is a little but still DPS gain. Is it worth more than Feint, Ambush or even Aura Steal? For me it isn't, but you can't deny the fact that it has use cases that allows it to actually contribute slightly to your dps.

Group 1 -- 5/5 triple attack is mandatory. The other should be either 5/5 sneak attack or 5/5 trick attack. You could do a combination of those 2, but it's probably easier to stick with one.

Flee and Hide recast are really bad.

I went 5/5 Triple attack, 5/5 Trick Attack for tier 1 (Because as LoH said, trick attack is a little easier to land than sneak attack).

Group 2 At least 1/5 in Feint is mandatory, highly recommended 5/5. Feint is our strongest T2 merit. The other 2 worth looking at are Aura Steal and Ambush.

Note: Assassin's Charge used to be good at level 75, but it's scaled poorly with Ilvl. When it first came out it was worth meriting because our maximum triple attack was just 10% (base trait and 5 merits), it was impossible to cap gear haste (Wahlara Turban, Rapparee, Homam hands, legs, feet and speed belt was 24%, or 22% with the much more common swift belt), and our weaponskills were far weaker (this was the blau/sirocco era). Nowadays we have such high attack speed and damage output the job ability delay you get just from using assassins charge negates its benefit. What Simon said above pretty much sums it up. Your better off not using it now.

I went 5/5 Feint and 5/5 Aura Steal. As a final note, If you wear your upgraded relic hat (Assassin's Bonnet +2 or any of the Plunderer's variant's) Aura Steal will dispel and attempt to absorb two buffs. With 5 merits the absorbtion rate is 100%. There's a fair amount of decent buffs to take out there too. Yggr from odin HTBF is a 50% attack boost, many mobs use a warcry effect, etc etc. But Ambush is fine too. If you spend a fair amount of time behind a mob the free accuracy is worth looking into.

Sweet, thanks for the detailed replies everyone.

I really hope they do a pass through on thf at some point, just to clean up the stuff that did not age well.