Mandau Vs. Twashtar.

Nvm just quit thf, mandau is garbage so is the ***....




*** it, quit ffxi, the game is garbage, SE is garbage... And yo op wait with buying a mandau u can buy one for 9.99 soon once SE decides to sell em.

It's ok, compared to a relic owner that could still look newly achieved ;)

Sadly though, I'm not even sure Twasthar would be the best offhand dagger for Mandau. The low delay is nice and the DEX is a nice bonus too, but compared to some other daggers like Triplus, Twilight or OA4 Para, I'm not sure.

Maybe someone else can correct me on this thought.

ragnarok probably isn't the best weapon to compare with, seeing as level 90 version gets increases crit rate IV.

You're right, I forgot it was one of its traits.
Still, I remember reading about the Ryunohige Mythic polearm getting an increased crit damage bonus to jumps, and the polearm at 75 was meant to turn all jumps to crit. That's something similar to the boost I'm speculating on.
It'd really help to have a Mandau 90 THF provide some extra results.

Mythic weapons got aftermath duration/potency boost
Relic weapons did not

Both got lv90 WS dmg boost.

Relics/Mythics/Emps generally all lose their special abilities and bonuses when offhanded.

Mandau's aftermath sucks ***. But I anticipate it will be adjusted along with the triple damage hidden. Testing recently showed that the triple damage was ninja increased, so I anticipate the trend will continue at 95/99 as SE uses the hidden triple damage to balance out the Empyrean aftermath.

Actually I'm pretty sure empyreans still give stat bonus when offhanded.

Twashtar still gives DEX+ but obviously no ws or aftermath, etc.

Can't believe I've never posted here.

Here goes.

Mandau is essentially the king dagger of the game. Assuming all arguments are made on an level playing field, I.E. both are level 90, Mandau will have 1 more base DMG, +35 ATK, 10/tic poison (Which can actually be bothersome if the mob ever need be slept) and the chance to randomly crit for triple damage (Auto Crit). Twashtar will give you 15 DEX and that is it. Bringing Aftermaths into the equation and we see that Mandau gives a temporary crit. increase chance, and Twashtar will give you a chance to deal double damage (Again, auto crits). The difference is not so large, but Mandau will win. taking into account the difference in difficulty and time involed, Twashtar is the vastly better option overall. Lasty, if you have DNC leveled, this isn't a question to ask yourself in the first place, assuming they don't add DNC to Mandau. Depending on what is done in the future to 'enhance' relics, or just how they progress through trials to 99 in general will determine alot more, but realistically, and as it stands right now, Mandau is slightly better, albeit very slightly, and Twashtar is FAR easier to get.

First off, the notion of dual wielding high tier weapons (Relic/Mythic/Empyrean) is just silly. You'd be doing a terrible injustice to the one in the offhand. Owning 2 would be fine, and using whichever suits you or you feel like using is not a problem, but dual-wielding them? Just silly. On the subject of how they will actually parse verses traditional offhand options? It goes like this... Triplus is king. Not only does it add increasing returns to an already present trait (Further increased by an Epona's, Raider's Bonnet +2, and 5/5 Triple Attack merits), but it also adds a DMG bonus to that trait. Twilight isn't terrible, but it's mostly a novelty option better suited for DNC and NIN. Parazonium is deceptive piece of work. Aside from the stupid trails needed to get it; The incredibly low base DMG, increased delay (211, that of a fast sword, but a very slow dagger) and the fact that part of it's usefulness is deteriorated by THFs large Triple Attack potential, and it's basically useless. It's not a terrible choice for offhand on DNC, and definitely not for BRD (However nearly useless melee on BRD is) but it's nigh useless on THF.

I assume that about sums it up. Mandau/Triplus and Twashtar/Triplus are your best options, and from there on it becomes /Twilight and /Para. A dagger not spoken of that perhaps should have been is Auric dagger, and it is argueably your second best option, and really the king option for DNC offhand.

Why is it silly to dual wield high end weapons? If our dps is good with either Twash or Mandau, putting them together brings a whole new tier to the table.

Also, really, triplus isn't king. There are situations that fire kila will beat it.

Oh i liked some of the talk here. Ninja increase to mandau triple damage rate. Nice nice~. Also, what is this about auto crit triple damage? never heard about that aspect. If all this is real, it sure changes my perpective on the dagger.

I'm having trouble believing Parazonium is such a bad option. Sure, it has low damage and high delay, but it was never meant as an efficient DoT dagger with high damage (do you remember mercurial kris?).

The whole purpose of The OA4 weapons is to allow you to gain 100 TP faster so you can WS more frequently and keep your AM or ODD effect up more often (and the higher delay will actually net you greater TP tan a low delay dagger). The OA4 effect will not proc on Triple Attacks, but it's not like THF has THAT much TA.
Like you said, 5% Base TA + 5/5 Merits + 3% Raider's bonnet + 3% Epona's ring will get you to 16% TA (not counting the extra 3% if you sub Triplus or the 15% TA if you're inside Abyssea and using Apoc Atma). 16% isn't that much at all (compared to WAR's DA for example), so it's not like OA4 will get utterly shadowed by TA.

Furthermore, in just a few days people will start playing outside of Abyssea more and soon after that we will get a new level increase with more magian trials to boost our Kilas and Parazoniums, inevitably shadowing the remaining weapons that cannot be upgraded.
Another thing that puzzled me was your comment over Auric. I still use it on THF for my EVA/SB build, but I don't see why a DNC would want to use such a dagger, considering it can cap SB without it. Unlike THF, DNC gets SBIV Trait at 90, and has a lot of extra SB gear to choose from.

Mkris had a better delay and a better hit distribution, and even then it wasn't really all that awesome for THF because it did not have good DoT, which is a significant portion of a THF's total damage. It was a weapon for DRK zergs and COR melee builds more than anything else. Ridill and Joyeuse were different because they had both excellent TP gain and stunning DPS.

And yeah, OA4 Parazonium sucks. Only thing it's good for is pure TP gain on DNC.

EDIT: False. TP gain per unit time increases dramatically as you lower delay below 180. Same reason it's shitty for NIN, and why weapons like Sirocco Kukri and Perdu Blade were so highly regarded at 75.

The TA is enough to be significant, as that's a decent portion of your hits where it has no impact whatsoever and thus the TP gain, its only advantage, is devalued. If recent findings bear out and all forms of multiattack are in fact mutually exclusive, it's even worse because a proc on the same hit as a TA proc would in fact negate BOTH procs.

It's 20% triple stack from gear, merits and traits that's fairly frequent. Considering the OAx4 daggerer only attacks at 1.9apr rate. And with apoc and you are at 35/34% making it worthless for thf. Also inside abyssea you won't suffer much from the offhand damage being so low since you're criting(with at least 30% increase in that damage) most the time, where as outside that's going to be a larger factor. Auric nvr struck me as a dnc dagger because most thier gear has subtle blow or stp on it and it's much easier for them to cap it. There is also an evasion kila which has it's uses off hand with the agi+ to help subtle blow and the evasion on the dagger will allow you to wear better gear, if that's your choosing. I'm not a dnc so won't go on to that end further

Crits have no direct impact on the effect of base damage. Any impact would be indirect, a result of changes in your TP/WS split. Offhand damage isn't as important if you're skewing things toward WS damage, but of course there must be an increase somewhere that at least matches the loss you take.

Actually, the way increasing returns work in this game, that last 1% of triple attack is very useful, and the overall DMG bonus to those hits is nice. Secondly, regardless of the increased crit DMG by 30% in abyssea, neglecting our trait bonus, a 22 DMG dagger with 227 delay is going to get smoked by a 38 DMG dagger with 176 delay. That's a difference in 51 delay. Assuming you are TPing in capped haste, or atleast intend too, and seeing how either a double, triple or quadruple (if you had Twilight on) proc would cancel the dagger even being able to proc, and the dagger is again, nearly useless for THF.

I think it's silly in the sense that the way offhanding works, you would be using an emp/mythic/relic to add a little bit more to your regular hit dmg. It won't add that much your WS, and most of the bonus associated with these daggers are geared towards them being mainhanded. TECHNICALLY, if you were to Twashtar/Mandau the 35 ATK and Triple Crit DMG would be nice, and because of the DMG/delay of the daggers I'm sure it would actually be top on DPS, but it wouldn't blow a good setup with Triplus out of the water. Triplus is free, on a side note, and Mandau is a pain in the ***. Objectively, it's a completely silly notion, but if we want to argue technicalities, sure, Twashtar/Mandau or the vice versa is going to be as good as you can do.

Secondly, STR Kila are nice, and mostly good as a mainhand option when lacking Twashtar or Mandau. In the offhand they lose alot of their luster which is the 43 DMG. Triplus is 14 delay points lower, and helps the increasing returns on TA by a lofty 3% and 2% DMG bonus. Also, STR and ATK are one of the easiest values to cap effectively in abyssea these days, and I'd much rather just use a Mithkabob and wear a Triplus than use a slower subpar dagger that takes a few days to make. In the most general sense, assuming the average of the mobs you are fighting will be taking a moderate amount of DMG, Triplus IS king. If, on the other hand, you fight only Lacovies, work on a STR Kila.

You're aware that triple attack has decreasing returns, right?

Doh, yes, actually I am. Rereading what I posted I'm not actually sure why I said that, like that. I intended to show how haste was also a very prominent factor. To be clear though, TA in and of itself does have decreasing returns, but you will see a higher return in what it gives you if you use lots of it, with lots of haste. More what I intended was to say that if you're using capped gear haste, you see much more from it in turn, albeit as a consequence. Either way, the argument is about the effectiveness of Triplus (Which is the top option) and I've been doing British Literature homework for hours, so my head tends to wander a bit.

I finished today my twash85 and killed few orthrus.
RudraStorm on Orthrus did between 500 and 1k dmg. I dont know how ppl do xk dmg on mobs?

How much is dex cap for rudra storm?

Rudra's needs to be force-crited if you want to see high numbers. WS mods do not have a cap.

edit: if you're only doing 500-1k while stacking SA or TA, you must be doing something terribly wrong with your gear.

I did on orthrus between 500 and 1k dmg without SA or TA. Thats lower then evisceration.

doing 500-1,2k too with mercy stroke unstacked.
if stacked the dmg is 1,4k (kcnm,wyvern orc)- 2,5k (dynamis).
inside abyssea the dmg is 3,5-5k.

You're surprised....why?

LMAO Ice cream cone is a good one I guess, most call it a cake spatula and I personally have taken a liking to Twatwaffle.

oh god the necrobumps

No. Mandau, like all relics and mythics, is stripped of all stats except base damage and delay when offhanded.

No.

They were specifically nerfed in offhand a couple years back. The attack on relics actually worked offhanded for a while after the last update but it was marked as a known issue and I think they "fixed" it in the Dec. 22 patch.