For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/55766/odyssey-sets-video-and-updated-spreadsheets/#3566685

tl:dr Gleti's feet/legs/hands/body are bis for Evis at attack cap. Nothing changes for uncapped attack. Gleti's knife (as sub weapon) is backward. It's bis for uncapped attack and Twashtar is bis for capped attack.

The one I use in the video?


and this helm override above for initial Aeolian with TH8

That's pretty much what I use in my aeolian edge set too. This is pretty close to fully optimizing aeolian set on thief

ItemSet 368547

The only difference between my set and Simon's is that I'm using baetyl pendant and instead of pemph tathlum I have rank 15 ghastly tathlum +1. I think there was some math done a while ago that determined that ghastly +1 was the BiS aeolian edge ammo once they added it to the oddysey unity augment upgrades, but it's honestly pretty expensive for a minor upgrade. I built it for my black mage so I had it on hand anyway. Seething bomblet +1 is the other ammo you'd look for. The MaB on seething +1 puts it very close to ghastly.

It's worth mentioning that the Nyame armor set offers room to improve over herculean if you go down either the path B weaponskill rout or the path C magic attack rout, but you have to get some augments on it to overcome the best herc augs. I'm not sure what rank nyame surpasses herc either, just that by the time you reach the highest ranks both of those paths are BiS, barring some really sick dark matter augs.

i went ahead and switched to nyame for aeolian. my herc set was good but nothing amazing. so right now i'm short some wsd but i'll make that back up with augments.

Nyame offers a lot of defensive stats for the hate you inevitably pull when you AoE like that. I've seriously considered swapping out my herc just for the extra survivability, even if it is a downgrade on the damage slightly. I'm not an expert on the magic damage formula, but I did notice that the nyame armor set has slightly more INT than herc, and since int affects both base damage as well as being tied with dex for aeolian edge's stat mods it holds more weight than dex does in the aeolian formula, so the downgrade shouldn't be that terrible. I get the feeling Path B or C Nyame becomes BiS aeolian edge set over herc by augment strength 5-10 or so. Anything beyond that would require a very strong dark matter aug for herc to beat it.

I also built an aeolian edge cape a while back. 30 INT, 20 magic damage/magic accuracy and 10 wsd. But I had nothing else to do with my points that month and the standard rudras cape is almost as good. It's not necessary, but it is still an upgrade if you have the ambuscade points to throw around.

My Herc augments are easily better for pure damage and I was doing that AoE before Nyame, but when I was doing Aeolian with Herc augments I usually got down to yellow HP during it, because I got hit with few hits doing 200-300 damage.. This usually result in Mon taking hate from curing and sometimes dying and sometimes KoH dying too and I need to constantly resummon them. The worst thing happened when main target moved after first AE, when I clicked WS macro for 2nd AE and I was loosing tP, got hit, losing hate on all mobs and couldnt take it back and I needed to make TP for next AE by hitting the mob, while most trusts got destroyed. Sometimes mob also ran away to healer between AE and werent being hit by second one etc. etc.

Nyame is less damage (for now, because eventually path B would destroy even my DM augments), but I take almost no damage during AE, so mobs stay on me, I keep getting TP from Gandring and its just super smooth. I can also pull more mobs at once, I dont wait for stronger phalanx from KoH too (I used to do this). I used to melee Ladybugs too before, because it was easy to get 50 sec Amnesia if I got hit with it during AE. I was also meleeing panopts before Nyame, because unlucky chain of nukes during AE could end up bad, especially if healer trust got slept.

So are you using herc in the video or nyame?

Nyame R0, I was using Herc before update. Doing it with Herc is doable, but its less smooth and more risky for the reasons I described.

Perfect that was my thought, i like the idea of cleaving in nyame better for survivability.

Is gleti's winning on stacked?

either mandalic or rudra?

What's the dagger hierarchy like these days? I tried reading back a few pages but didn't really see any discussion on it. A friend of mine is a main thief and currently has access to Tauret, Shijo, Magian Dagger and Aeneas (after tonight) and we're trying to figure out what the best main/sub combo is these days. I figure he can go Aeneas/Shijo for not-braindead content and Aeneas/TP Bonus dagger for.

He's also slowly working on Twashtar but I have no idea how that builds into the equation. Aeneas Main, Twashtar sub? Twashtar Main, Gleti's Knife sub??? I figure the TP Bonus from Aneas + 50dex from Twashtar offhand is a good combo, but I don't know how that changes when you factor in the 10% Rudra dmg and extra 20 DEX if you main hand Twashtar and use a different offhand.

Twashtar is great for when you have the appropriate buffs (decent amount of attack). It's best paired with the TP bonus offhand, but contrary to what it seems like on the forums at times, it's not something you can always use. Ternion dagger +1 augmented is a great option in those cases where you can't. Tauret really is just a powerhouse though and is probably your best option until you upgrade Twashtar further.

I'm not sure there's much use for Aeneas with Tauret as an option. And even moreso if you R15 Twashtar. I'm not 100% sure what the best offhand is for Tauret these days, but a quick glance makes me think Tauret + Gleti's is the play if you don't have Twashtar / Vajra. In which case you'd be aiming for one of those two daggers + TP bonus or Ternion Dagger +1 depending on buffs.

Is Aeneas really antiquated? Evis is kinda lame on harder content and I can't see how Tauret would outperform Aeneas when spamming Rudras.

I find twash/cento or vajra/cento most often. Mythic AM3 with 5/5 malignance/(nyame) is pretty good for thf.

Evisceration being crit oriented is actually why it performs better on harder content when you are lacking the appropriate buffs. THF has low attack, and without the typical offensive buffs AND debuffs, you're not going to be at/near attack capped. Tauret & Vajra perform very well in those situations. Aeneas has the nice TP bonus going for it, sure, but that's it. Twashtar at R15 gets extra DEX and the boost to Rudra's as well. That's not to mention the far better white damage you'll see with Twashtar over Aeneas.

I have Twashtar & Vajra at R15. I find myself using Vajra the most but it's awesome to see when I'm able to throw on Twashtar + Cento.

I just finished vajra last week and I think I'm going to be using it a lot. Given that you might be stuck in malignance a lot of the time the am3 works really well with that set. The attack bonus on mandalic is also really nice. Just from personally using it recently the damage rudras does is not very much higher than mandalic if both are R15, maybe one or two thousand damage give or take. Twash is really nice if you are self scing and spamming rudras or if you can take advantage of a white damage build. Tauret is also great for spamming in both high or low buff situations. I haven't used Aeneas in a long time and I'm sure it has some uses, all in all its a solid all around dagger but it isn't really the best in most cases. If you just want one weapon for thf and be done with it Aeneas is a solid choice but so is tauret.

But I do think vajra placement on the weapon tier list should be bumped up when you consider realistic scenarios. I haven't even plugged in any gleti gear into my mandalic set yet.

He'll probably use a mix of Aeneas/Tauret for mainhand until he gets Twash in the far future, then. I'll get him to pick up Ternion +1 and/or Gleti's Knife, too, then. Thanks.

I agree, Vajra R15 gets disregarded quite a bit. Plenty of content / fights are better suited for Vajra over the other options when you consider the attack bonus from Mandalic Stab and the increased stacked WS damage. I think it's important to look at the content you're doing when considering which weapon is best. It will vary.

Think of content like Wave 1/2 farming. You're rarely going to have the appropriate buffs / debuffs on mobs to see yourself at attack cap. Vajra and Tauret work well here.

Wave 3, you're more likely to have the appropriate buffs / debuffs available and so you can expect to be at attack cap. Twashtar is great for this. However, Vajra still performs well, based on how many people you go in with, because you might not be getting off more than a handful of WS + the downtime between pulls, so your increased stacked WS damage is welcomed.

HELMs and higher tier Aeonic NMs, Twashtar is king. Especially when you get to run the TP bonus dagger offhand.

Omen can go either way. You can find yourself in an alliance of 18 with the LS and be at attack cap no problem. But with low-man, that might not be the case.

Ambuscade is a toss-up depending on the month. This month is pretty nice since GEO debuff bubbles work without any penalty.

Odyssey is neat because you definitely can cap your acc and run tp bonus offhand. Running Twashtar / Naegling depending on weakness with TP offhand is stupid fun.

As for Gleti's, there's a window where Vajra is able to make use of the extra PDL while Twashtar can't, due to Mandalic Stab. Though it's tough to really gauge that on the fly. If I'm unsure of whether or not I'm at attack cap, I'll run Vajra to start and toss out both a Rudra's and Mandalic at the same TP to see where the damage is.

It's actually not that hard to stack attack for wave 1/2, not to mention the massive overkill you'll get from ws's in that content. I'd say wave 3 is better suited for Vajra's strengths because you really need to go out of your way to stack enough attack on THF, and you may end up in a 2h DD party that wants madrigals more than minuets.

Twash with a crit build and AM3 is extremely solid on everything.

I certainly agree that Twashtar has great white damage, but it's worth noting that today's game is HEAVILY weighted towards WS damage.

nvm

not worth debating on "I feel like..." arguments

I gotta disagree a little with twash am3 crit build being solid on everything. If you are at low attack the white damage just won't be there, and if you are in any danger the glass cannon white damage set won't be the best choice. I do love twash and anytime you get to use that build to its full potential is an absolute blast but I find that scenario to be more uncommon than not. Thf simply has so many good tools in weapon and gear selection these days it can be hard to pick what to use sometimes.

If a thief is being brought and they're not getting attack buffs, they're not being brought for damage.

The point is there's plenty of scenarios / content where you will not be attack capped, even if the intent is to have the THF deal damage.

Didn't say anything about not getting buffs. I was in wave 3 and had dia 3, non Idris frailty, Idris fury, chaos, HM, and one minuet, and I was not at pdif in my tp set. We had mixed buffs because we were also using magic damage in the pt including myself and didn't have any other sources of defense down. I was doing plenty of damage and had buffs but white damage just wasn't good enough to justify using it over vajra malignance imo.

Vajra/Cento + Maligance

Enough said.

That discussion actually make me wonder. Does anyone ever tested how attack bonus on WS works with buffs? Is it +75% of base attack or +75% attack of total attack after buffs? Because the difference is huge.

Plenty? Or magic based set ups where you are there for TH mainly and extra DPS?

Not arguing, I just can't think of plenty.

Depends if you only consider THF as DD worth getting if you only need TH. If you dont consider THF as DD that can be in party even if TH is not needed, then indeed there wont be many scenarios. Now if you consider THF might just be a DD without TH being needed, then there will be much more scenarios with potentially uncapped attack. Odyssey farming for example. Now if you also consider lowman or solos, then its even more scenarios with uncapped attack. Which kinda make Vajra a weapon for career THFs, that are taken to some events despite not being the optimal DD job for it or/and play lowman and solo.