For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

I'm in Simon's boat. I've never subbed /blm for dynamis, but my shell also skips wave 1 and goes straight to wave 2 in the first 5 minutes. We full farm wave 2 and wave 3 clears since it gives a much higher gil payout per person. We usually get something like 14-17 stalwarts, a medal, and a bunch of heroism and single currencies each in our split, so something like 8-10 mil. And that's just the end of run split. We're all getting a bunch of voidshards and voidarmors too.

On point though, if your shell is half decent then throwing a random Aeolian Edge to TH 8 the wave of stuff is never an issue. My shell murders everything so fast it doesn't matter. We can pull the entire death alley statue line in bastok wave 2 by the warrior red eyes (you know the one, it's by zeruhn mines) and have the lot of it cleaned up in about 3-4 minutes with minimal issues. Once you and your group reach a certain point playing sub optimal sub jobs becomes unnecessary. I sub /dragoon to every dynamis run now regardless of zone.

Whats that stalwart? NM statues?

Assuming they mean s. astrals which are from w3 mobs.

Go tell that to the 2 CORs who mass linked 5 statues at the same time, with a BLM monster sleepgaing 2/3 of the alliance.
Go apply TH with Aeolian Edge there :-P
And the other points I defined still stand. You need TP to use Aeolian Edge, you don't need anything for Sleepga and can cast it and recast it whenever you want (well, barring recast time, but the're really fast).
Furthermore Sleepga has a pretty huge range, which is very nice when you have groups split apart, can't do that with Aeolian Edge.
I would also dare to say it's "faster" than engaging, getting TP then using Aeolian edge. With the speed these things die I would tag half the monsters if we were to rely o Aeolian Edge. Hell people are so "LEEROOOYJEEEENKINS!" that sometimes we do miss targets even with the sleepga method, I can imagine Aeolian Edge would be a dirty mess for us lol


But anyway, it wasn't my intention to say which method is "the best".
I explained why this method works better for us, for a plethora of reasons, if someone likes a different method better I see no problem at all with that <3

Leaving the FC question aside, since thankfully that has been answered and closed, anybody got a clue on point #2? Anybody ran spreadsheet or parser or has a clear idea on which setup would win in those 2 scenarios?

Stalwart Astral Detritus, the same thing you get from omen fodder. The fomors and Su5 mobs all drop them. We average 14-18 crystals per person per run by clearing out all of the wave 3 mobs, which makes skipping most of wave 1 the way to go. Any loss in generic drops or shards is made up for with a consistent influx of cash drops. Wave 2 and 3 are the most profitable, and there isn't enough time in the run to do all 3 waves, so we do minimal farming on wave 1 (5-10 minutes worth) and skip straight to the big stuff.

Swart Astral Detritus (if anyone was confused) - I think most of us got what you were saying though ;)


I'm also interested in this. And an additional question: does Shijo hold up at all as an offhand, particularly when using Tauret? I like messing with a more crit-leaning set for Tauret MH with Evisceration spam, to take advantage of its crazy c.rate. Not sure whether the extra crit dmg on Shijo helps boost white damage + Evisceration (and freeing up an armor slot that would otherwise need DW gear) enough to be viable versus other offhands.

Yes, shijo is still a pretty good offhand even today. Especially when Tauret is the mainhand.

Like, what exactly do we mean by "pretty good"?

For instance,
(1) Tauret/Shijo versus
(2) Tauret/Sari versus
(3) Tauret/Twashtar

Are there scenarios where Shijo is clearly the best offhand, and by approximately how much is it ahead/behind the other options? Anybody actually have data from simulations, spreadsheet DPS comparisons (state your assumptions/scenarios/buffs please), actual parse comparisons (using good testing methodology)?

If we take Twash out of the mix, Shijo has a lot going for it when comparing to Sari. They're both solid, but kinda feels to me like Shijo would generally be better, assuming you're using Evisceration right away after 1000tp to fully take advantage of Taruet's crit rate at lower TP. But since I don't have hard numbers, would love to see if anyone has done the testing.

Shijo (compared to Perfect Taming Sari):
- Lower delay (195 versus 211) = higher WS frequency (Sari's TA+1% edge likely doesn't change that)
- Probably higher white damage (C.dmg+5% on all of the many Tauret MH crits, though offhand white damage would probably lean toward Sari thanks to higher DMG)
- Sari has STR+22/DEX+7 advantage that helps on WS, but lacks Shijo's C.Rate+4%/C.Dmg+5% that is also quite nice for Evisceration.
- Potentially gives you another armor slot to play with for some additional gain (say, use a non-DW belt or body or earring)

If you go back far enough in this thread I think I included it in my weapon comparsion. I have no idea which page it is tho.

Thanks, will dig around for it.

EDIT: I think I found what Simon was referring to, from back in March 2019 - here. TL;DR: Simon found that for Tauret MH, Shijo D always beats Sari for offhand. Tauret/Twash was slightly ahead of Tauret/Shijo.


Worth noting there that the above testing also assumed AM3 for Twash, so for practical purposes Twash MH will actually do a bit worse for anything where you have to build/maintain Empy AM3 (i.e., anything that isn't a zerg fight where you start with 3000tp).

Guess nobody has a clue, alas.


For your Shijo question I think it beats Sari for sure.
I think even Twashtar is probably slightly better than Sari.
Thing is that, at least personally, I find I don't often have the luxury to pick offhand.
I *need* to use Sari because of TH+1 and because thanks to that I can lock a single piece of my equipment (hands).
Basically it's the best combination to reach TH8 with the minimum DPS loss compared to your regular DD set.

If I'm on THF, chances are we're fighting something where we want TH. If that weren't the case I'd probably be on a different job after all.
And since swapping offhand resets your TP and TPing with less than TH8 reduces the chances to get a TH level up proc, the result is that most of the time you're gonna be locked with Sari.
The only other option is Sandung, which is not bad at all actually, but not for Tauret MH maybe?

If you're using Twashtar or Aeneas MH and want a TH+1 offhand AND don't have Sari, then Sandung is a fantastic alternative to perf sari.
Lots of accuracy, WSD+5%, TA+3... and Crit+5% ok


But to go back to your initial question Capu, on a hunch I think Shijo is gonna beat Twashtar (close behind) and Sari, as offhand for Tauret.

Huh, Aeneas isn't even in the top four anymore? Crazy, I guess I should just put it into storage now that I have a Twashtar. I had been running under the idea that it was the default when you couldn't get away with Cento. Is this testing done assuming you aren't going to be getting any skillchains off or something? Or is the skillchain damage in included?

And probably not the right place to ask and I will likely just read the DNC forum to find out anyway, but is Aeneas as worthless for DNC as well? I figure Evisceration is better on THF than DNC since DNC can use Building Flourish for Rudra a lot more often than THF can stack Sneak Attack for it which makes me think Tauret mainhand is probably lower on the list for DNC.

He wasn't including Aeneas in that mix.

Oh lol, I guess I'll go look at that spreadsheet.

The dagger mainhand hierarchy is currently

1. Twashter
2. Aeneas
3. Tauret


Offhand choices for each are slightly situational.

Twashter/Taming Sari and Twaster/Tauret both have next to identical damage output potential. The difference is a percent or two at most. Tauret offhand results in a bit more TP gain over time, whereas taming offhand results in stronger weaponskills and higher individual white damage swings. Perfect taming usually gets the nod here for its treasure hunter +1 versatility, but both are solid choices.

Twashter/Centovente is worth using if you aren't going to run into accuracy issues. Since centovente is a non Ilvl dagger it requires accuracy support to make it viable on higher level content. If you have that support it's the go to for pure damage output. Making it work on weaker content is trivial, so it's easy to run with on fodder content.

Aeneas/Twaster is the ideal aeonic combo, with aeneas/taming and aeneas/tauret riding its heels. Centovente isn't nearly as good of an offhand with aeneas as it is with twashter due to the different mechanics each dagger brings to the table.

Tauret/shijo, tauret/taming, and tauret/twashter are the usual combos for tauret mainhand. Shijo is particularly strong as a tauret offhand because of its synergy with the evisceration engine you're trying to run. Tauret mainhand is all about the evisceration spam, and shijo works exceptionally well with it.

I havent included it in that post, but if you would actually go back to that page 188 ... :)

This is not consistent with what Simon's data shows. From Simon's posts, there is a very close cluster at the top consisting of:
- Twashtar/Centovente (assuming no acc challenges and assuming Empy AM3 up)
- Tauret/Twashtar
- Tauret/Shijo

Aeneas/Twashtar fell significantly below those, followed by Twash/Sari or Twash/Tauret.

I'm also not entirely convinced people are giving Vajra a fair shake by omitting it from this list. I've certainly played with some very impressive Vajra THFs. To be fair, Vajra will require the user to be a bit more skillful in order to take advantage of SA/TA and reliably maintain Mythic AM3 to maximize the weapon's potential. The relatively recent addition of Malignance gear also helps Vajra's case, versus the non-Malignance TP sets that were the top choices back when a lot of people dismissed Vajra.


Honestly, offhand Sari looks far enough behind DPS-wise that if the main reason you're using it is for the extra TH+1 you may want to reconsider that. Either just tag stuff once in your max TH set, or if you really feel you need to fulltime high TH for a particular use case:

(a) Just stick Plunderer's +3 hands in there and deal with TH+7 instead of TH+8. That's really a tiny difference in drop rate, so probably fine for cases like Dyna(D) wave 1-2 trash (and for champion mobs or wave 3, you have plenty of time to smack them in max TH set to get TH8+)

(b) If you feel you must have TH+8, do it with something like Relic+3 hands + Chaac Belt. Giving up waist stats is probably less of a sacrifice than using a worse offhand weapon (especially for Tauret/Shijo builds where you won't need the DW you might have been getting from waist slot with Reiki Yotai or something, though other builds may need more tweaking to get DW from somewhere else like ear, body, etc.) YMMV if this is really worth doing to ensure TH8 for stuff like Omen Detritus farming, versus just tagging mobs.

Or for Sechs's specific case - stick your relic hands and any other non-weapon TH piece in your midcast set for AoE /BLM spell. No real need to gimp your melee damage in favor of a TH piece, once TH has already been applied from spell.

I get the desire to bring THF with a primary goal being to apply TH, but sometimes I think people get too hung up on MUST BE TH+8. There's an obvious difference between having TH or no TH at all. But the difference between TH7 and TH8 is really freaking small, the the point where it's barely more than placebo level. Yeah, sure, max that TH out on a mob that's a hassle to pop or get to - but for typical farming of trash tier mobs? Ehhh.

I also do kinda get TPing in relic+3 hands sometimes and just accepting some DPS loss. I do it for Omen Detritus farming or Divergence wave 1-2 stuff (when I melee). But that's FOUR levels of TH in one slot, so considerably easier to justify as opposed to gimping yourself in such a hugely important slot like offhand weapon.

Generally speaking my numbers are like most sheet numbers based on hitting mob with unlimited HP and without breaks. Play style will have huge impact on which weapon is really better for you. If you play with someone and you mostly spam Evis to open skillchain, then Tauret will be best. If you mostly focus on closing with 3000TP rudra than Twashtar will be best. If you self skillchain Umbra a lot Aeneas might be best. If you play with low buffs or defensively with Malignance, Vajra might be best.

If you just spam WS asap in zerg, then my list is probably most accurate for such scenario.

How does a path A gandring fit in? I have a tauret so I've not been keen to drop gil on one to find out myself, especially with the price jumping on bahamut over the last couple months, but wondering.

I agree on this, which is exactely why I defined two scenarios (WS only on TA/SA, WS whenever you want), trying to understand which MH would be the best for a Sari OH, in these two scenario.


Anyway, I feel like you guys are really underestimating Sandung (augmented) Offhand.
It's clear to see it's arguably never gonna be the best option, but I think it should be a decent alternative, especially for people who want an OH dagger with TH+1 and can't be arsed anymore to spend their days in Sinister Reign hoping for a Perf Sari.


Last but not least, for Shijo which path have you guys used in your calculations, path D?
I feel it's the best but I'm a bit concerned with the DW+5 thing.
Wish it were +6...
Basically what do you guys do? Just stay at +5 and eat the 1% DW loss? Overcap DW and eat the tp/hit loss?

But Tauret (or even Kaja) + Shijo offhand is a LOT better than Sandung. And Shijoi is incredibly easy to get, you don't even have to do the Geas Fete Amymone fight - just buy the thing with 200 Domain Invasion points (only needs 1 dragon a day).

I would also question again why you think you need fulltime TH+8. Just swap into a full TH set if you really need to apply max TH, otherwise there's almost no difference between your standard TP set applying TH7 and TH8.



D path for sure. DEX+15 for Evisceration (or any other key THF WS), TA+2%, and the DW allows you to use a higher DPS piece in some other armor slot.

DW+6 would be nice, but I just eat the 1% DW loss. It's still 79.69% delay reduction, which is fairly insignificant and is outweighed by the other benefits. Simlarly, going DW+1 over cap (as a lot of THF do with Reiki Yotai) is a miniscule negative impact on TP/hit.


Considerably worse than Tauret MH (or Twash, or Aeneas), so no real need to buy one. Gandring's (questionable) use is really as an offhand acc/TH dagger. Maybe B path for an expensive Subtle Blow build, but that's really niche. And maybe C path just as an oddball toy for evasion pulling/supertanking (example I remember from someone here is rounding up a bunch of Omen trash mobs and AE cleaving them)

Level up proc. (it's already rare, it becomes even worse if you don't TP in TH gear)

I'd also argue about TH7 and TH8 difference being irrelevant.
If you start reasoning like that then why even bother with THF? Just TH4 with a different job and be happy about it.
I dunno, the difference is noticeable if you ask me, check the table SE released not long ago. Check the "super rare" column. ~72 runs to obtain an item with TH4, ~50 with TH7, ~43 runs with TH8. It's a noticeable difference if you ask me.
What do you give in exchange for that? A tiny bit of DPS, which is pretty much irrelevant in group content anyway. Now if we were talking about stuff you solo on THF, okay that can make a bigger difference, but in group content the small difference of DPS between TH7 and TH8 is what, 1 second longer fights? I mean, thank you I'll take TH8 xD

Again, I know it might sound heresy to some in here, but if I'm playing THF the majority of the times it's because I want to apply TH on targets.
If I don't care about TH and/or I wanna focus on DPS, I'm likely gonna be on a different job honestly.

If you're fighting something trying to get a "super rare" item that is impacted by TH (or if you care about TH9+ procs for trash like dyna/omen fodder that typically dies to fast to proc anyway), then go ahead and use full TH gear to try to get your procs. Why would you limit yourself to TH8 in that situation, you'd probably want to go all out TH12~14 for that.

That's not what we were even talking about though... you were saying stuff like Dynamis farming and tagging mobs with TH8 via /BLM sleepga. There's ZERO reason to need to use a weapon to get TH in that scenario. Just stick TH8 in your midcast spell set, from whatever non-weapon slots you like (say, Relic+3 hands and any of Chaac Belt, Empy feet, or TH Herculean gear). Then when you melee the mobs, you don't really need ANY additional TH gear, much less requiring it from a weapon slot where you have less flexibility to swap gear. Better DPS AND you're still getting TH8 on everything, what's not to like?

Even if you weren't applying TH via a spell and you insist on TH8 at a minimum in your default TP set, why waste the offhand weapon slot when you take a more substantial DPS hit in that slot than you would by getting your max base TH via armor slots only? You're comfortable with TH8 from Relic Hands + Sari, so why wouldn't you be just as comfortable with the same TH8 (and prob better DPS) from Relic Hands + Chaac Belt? Not that it's even necessary, since you don't have to TP in the belt after you hit the mob once while wearing it.

And like I said, I'm fine with the idea of TPing in Relic hands sometimes, despite it being a little lazy. I understand that it can be a bit of a hassle to ensure swap into TH gear for Every. Single. Mob. that dies fast, so I don't mind rocking my Plunderer's +3 hands as TP gear for something like Dyna farming or Omen and guaranteeing that I'm always getting a minimum of TH7 on everything I touch in my TP set. I accept the somewhat lower DPS for that ability to play a little lazier. If I can, it's still ideal for me to momentarily swap into full TH8+ set, but I'm not sweating it that much if TH7 is all that gets on the occasional random fodder mob. Oh noes, maybe I had a 1% lower chance of an additional currency on that mob... I don't really care.

Obviously, if I'm doing something like a difficult NM with an ultra-rare drop, the situation is different.

I do have a TH13 set indeed, but it hasn't been fully demonstrated (yet!) that it works like that and TH above 8 contributes to further increase the chance of proccing, just like TH1-8 does. Melphina did some small tests that seemed to hint that, but it's not fully demonstrated yet.
Regardless I think it's a different story. If the DPS difference between TH7-8 is miniscule, the one between TH7 and TH13 is pretty big and at that point it becomes an issue with other stuff too, like Accuracy, Survival to a certain extent as well.
Either way I think it's an interesting perspective though.

Well we were talking about two separated (and related) things.
I have TH8 already in my Sleepga midcast set regardless of the weapon slot. Not like you can proc TH+ with spells either way.
Can only be done with special JAs, WS and Melee, and they have to be dealing at least 1 damage (blows that do 0 will not proc a level up).
I think the problem is more about the fact that I can't really go swap my weapons every 2 seconds, or I'm gonna waste TP.

I'm a bit unconvinced that the DPS difference between Taming Sari (which again: while inferior to other DPS options, is a pretty good option still) and other options will be greater than the difference between Chaac belt and other options.
But it's just a hunch, if someone has a working and moderately updated Thf Spreadsheet I'm willing to do some tests.
Does anybody know where I can find one?


Talking about context now: I personally don't really care about procs on Omen trash or Dyna trash. Tbf I don't even bother to melee, I just TH and they're dead 1 second later.
Wave2 I seldom melee according to how many good DDs we have, more often than not Wave2 stuff is dead in seconds too.
If we're talking about Ou though, I want every single bit of TH there, or Wave2 NMs and Megaboss, I want all possible TH there.
And I won't mention other things since the initial premise was group content.

I'm not saying this is the "right" way to do things, it's more like the way we like to do things, rather.

Despite what I am saying and showing here, I use Gandring
Idk why I waste time for this, but I actually add Sandung to check it. I already forgot a little how to use that sheet I created back then, but Tauret/Sandung seems to be around ~7200 using Evisceration. So around 2% behind Sari, 5% behind Shijo and 8% behind Tauret.

Sandung has no DEX tho, so it might actually give less crit rate on midhigh ilvl monster when it will start loosing on dDEX, but also on some super high ilvl mobs all weapons can actually have 0 dDEX and 5% crit rate on Sandung could be even more valuable. Having no DEX would also has impact if you want to mix Rudra in, but WSD+5 would then kicks in and probably even things out with Shijo's DEX (and crit damage for SA/TA) and Sari's DEX. Twashtar would gain even more advantage tho.


C is also for evasion tanking :P (in sense vs some NM, not supertanking trash)

Interesting topic! Can you share your tank setup for thf? Nm's not fodder pulls in dyna/omen :P

You checked Sandung as OH for Tauret?
Despite having Crate+5% I was thinking Sandung more like a decent option for Aeneas or Twashtar MH, or Vajra? I dunno, I was thinking about 1hit strong WSs where the 5% WSD could proves to be very valuable.
I think Sandung is an interesting (probably slightly inferior) alternative for Taming Sari, when you want to offhand a Dagger with TH+1.
With the big difference that you can obtain Sandung in like 5 minutes whereas Taming Sari could take you forever.

I have both btw and don't use Sandung at all. Wasn't trying to promote Sandung above all other options, but it's an interesting option nonetheless imho.

Well it would be something like this

ItemSet 371968

Several months ago in this thread someone posted their experience with evasion tanking on THF in Dynamis D wave 1 and 2 including NMs and Wave 1 boss I think. It was also before Malignance I think, so it would be way better now (not only because Malignance has slightly better evasion on most pieces, but also because it has massive DT against stuff that would go through evasion check and also MEVA is amazing too.

That someone was Ladyofhonor if I recall.


Btw Simon do you have access to a semi-up-to-date THF spreadsheet? If so, mind sharing?
Thanks!