For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

Verda: Can I ask what trusts are DNC that use steps? I saw your post about farming dynamis with DNC trusts and I am new back to the game after a long break. I'm assuming Lilisette and Lilisette II. Any others of note?

Lilisette and Lilisette II don't actually use any steps. Mumor, Mumor II, and Uka Totilihn are the DNC's that use steps. Mayakov may also, but I've never used him and BG Wiki doesn't say anything on the large list of Trusts.

Oh, ok. It looks like I am out of luck for Mumor until whenever the next sunbreeze festival will be. I'll make sure to pick up Uka from this month's login campaign though. I might have Mayakov.

Is anyone able to post a link to their updated complete GS for THF please?

Ideally using Mote's binds, but some hast additions would be pretty cool if possible please!? :D

http://pastebin.com/YVWepjte

That's using the Mote's template.

Thank you <3

Sulia answered you pretty good, I use this it helps me a lot: Trusts Google Doc

It shows Mayakov does feather step, Mumor Stutter Step, Uka Box Step. As said Lilisette doesn't really do steps but she has some nice melee buffs for the party.

So, I managed to get an Onca Suit yesterday. Honestly, it seems like it would provide a significant acc/atk benefit on thf. I would sacrifice about 11% TA to use it though. What are general thoughts about onca suit as a stepping stone into some of the better sets like Adhemar and Herculean and even Rawhide.

It's not a bad piece as a stepping stone, definitely not end game melee gear though. It's about your only option as a mage for melee gear outside lots of very hard to get augs on Reisenjima gear. I remember some of it's base stats are low too. So, definitely not good enough but if you just came back it's a great all in one boost while you go get more stuff. The main problem is it disables so many slots.

By the way, I have a question regarding Toutatis's cape if you go the 20 dex, 20 acc/atk, 10% weaponskill damage rout. Since evisceration applies its fTP bonus to all hits (this is why we use fotia or shadow gorget/belt) would the 10% weaponskill damage also apply to all hits? Or does it only ever apply to the first hit no matter what?

If all hits benefited from 10% weaponskill damage that would increase evisceration's damage by more than 10% crit rate would.

It is first hit only.

Pity. Oh well, 20 dex 20 acc/atk is still better than rancorus used to be. Here's to hoping we can build a second one next month.

By the way, Hetairoi Ring and Begrudging ring are the ideal BIS pieces for evisceration. I noticed Ramuh in the posted set a page back and thought it worth mentioning. Here's my evisceration set for reference

ItemSet 195326

yes yes I'm still using shadow pieces instead of fotia. Shame on me! All 3 Adhemar are path B, Lustratio subligar is path B (dex and crit rate beats path A hands down), and feet are path D. It's a good set. I'll try to get some actual numbers sometime comparing the weaponskills in a live situation.

Hmm, why not Yetshila? Seems much better than feather. There's also Dominance Earring +1. Seems like there should be something better though.

That's just a slight oversight on my part. Yetshila is much better and I've been using it in game for some time now. I forgot to update the itemset on ffxiah when I made the swap. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

As for the earring, I'm not concerned. If I see a shout for sov behemoth I'll probably join, but there are other things I'd rather prioritize my efforts on atm. Thats the same reason I haven't bothered with Fotia either. Sure they're better than my dawn earring and shadow pieces, but not enough for me to focus on in lieu of farming heavy metal plates.

Brutal Earring might also be a good contender. 3 DEX is pretty weak.

I don't think brutal is much better. One triple attack proc will cap out your swings, and TA procs before DA. Add that to an already 6 hit weaponskill and the DA we already get when /war (as applicable) and even brutal is kinda "meh". 3 dex is 1-2 base damage on every swing depending on rounding tiers. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I don't think there'll be too much difference in the two. Of course if someone feels like doing the math I'll happily change my tune if the numbers say otherwise.

I don't know it just seemed like a reasonable option (especially when you consider that you end up swapping out some TA.) Also somewhat regretting tossing so many Dominance earrings...

I'm just getting back into THF and trying to see what gear I need to participate in Sinister Reign. Can someone point me to the latest gear sets?

Best cape is from Ambuscade, go start on it now.

Nice belt can be obtained from Unity, kentarch+1.

Legs Taeon until SR tights.

Feet are best Herculean, find a BLU and they can easily kill the reisenjima corse for them.

Body is Rawhide -> Adhemar depending on gear access.

Hands are adhemar, rawhide can hold you over until them.

Rings are epona's and then either Rajas, Petrov or Hetairoi.

Head is Empy+1. Neck is Ej until you farm Combatants. Earrings are Cessence/Suppa/Brutal/Telos/Assuage/reisen harpeia one.

Daggers are: Twashtar/Vajra/Taming Sari (SR) with Skinflayer or Shijo holding over until you get them. Ginsen and Falcon Eye for ammo, seething bomblet solid as well.

I don't agree with recommending taeon over adhemar. I know Taeon gives you 2% triple attack rate and can get decent stat bonuses if you spend a ton of gil on stones, but lustratio occupies the weaponskill slot so I went with path A on my adhemar kecks. Adhemar gives me 7 STP, 39 accuracy, 10 dex and 32 str. That's just enormous. You'd need a near perfect accuracy and dex augment on that taeon to compare, and then it's still a tossup between 7 Store TP and 2% TA rate. I'd bank on the STP just because of the diminishing returns more TA gives when we have so much already. STP scales linearly.

Also a perfect Dampening Tam is better than Empy+1 head, but it does need to be perfect. I agree with empy, I'm just throwing it out there for reference.

I usually recommend Lissome Necklace over ej. Sure you lose 7 accuracy, but you gain 4 STP and 1% DA. I think it's a good tradeoff, plus ej costs 1 million gil and Warder of Loyalty is pretty damn weak. I duod him with a friend and some trusts, and didn't even need a tank NPC to do it. The biggest danger with that fight was getting nuked by clionids if he spawned during the evening, because they blood aggro at night. My friend took care of adds when needed and I solod the NM with bard whm rdm and ironha trusts.

I don't think adhemar legs are really worth it, cost a bunch of gil, and just tossing TA+2 and some acc/att on Taeon legs can be acquired much easier and more cheaply. Not to mention for most of the escha stuff I tried to recommend other gear because it might not be stuff he can acquire easily (if he doesn't have the ability to clear SR, which came out before all Escha...)

As for the head, he's looking to start Sinister Reign, so him using a perfectly augmented item from there seems to fall outside the parameters of the inquiry.

Fair enough. I agree that taeon is a solid piece, but that doesn't change the fact that adhemar is still better. He asked for a list of the latest gearsets, so I mentioned it because it's definitely among the top picks. It's still just a recommendation, and only he can determine what he feels is worth the effort. Obviously some people believe it is though, because you see enough of em out there and the cursed pieces are still selling. The kecks are doubly effective for people who play corsair or blue mage as well. What we're disagreeing on here isn't the difficulty in obtaining the pieces, but justifying the cost they run in gil. That's a personal choice and each player has to make that one for themselves. To that end while you did suggest rawhide first, you ultimately recommended upgrading to adhemar wristbands and jacket (which I agree with btw). Farming the hand abjuration is easy, but the vexed wristbands cost 3.5 mil, plus the vexed jacket is 5 mil and pakecet is a pain to farm. I paid 8 mil to get my jovian body abjuration merced because I didn't have any jobs available to kill Pakecet. The kecks are about as farming intensive as the hands, and less than the body. I feel perfectly justified recommending the legs as well because of this.

Besides, Amymone doesn't only drop Jovian leg abjuration. It also drops Shijo. If someone's never been to sinister reign then they don't have taming yet, and a shijo is the next best thing. Gathering a group to farm Amymone is usually pretty easy because he has at least 5 or 6 different drops in his loot pool that people generally want for various jobs.

I haven't used a spreadsheet for this, so it's more intuition than anything else, but I feel for capped accuracy situations the following would be a very good set.

ItemSet 343470

At capped JP it's 5 QA, 45 TA, 7 DA, 41 STP and Triple Attack Damage +25% (not including any bonuses from weapons or subjob).

Note: This is a hypothetical BiS set not an answer to the above question.

Just come back to game. Quit as Alluvion Skirmish came out, I got 6 of the wings for some Taeon Gear, Any worth getting? Also what's the state of Mandau at the moment?

With 6 wings, I'd say get the legs and feet, and then either get a hat/save some or blow em on a dagger if you're lacking a 119 knife. Note that Alluvion gear will ultimately be replaced by better things.

Mandau at 119 is ok, the fully upgraded version is one of the top daggers but it'll take you time to get 10,000 plutons. It's kinda like in Chrono Trigger when Frog gets the Masamune, and you get some upgrades before it gets juiced up to its final form.

When I quit, I had the 119 Mandau and a Jugo Kukri +1. Also have the dagger from the shark.

You're fine, then. The only substantial improvements would be to get a Taming Sari or two, an ultimately the plutons to upgrade Mandau. Note however that Mandau and Jugo are weak for accuracy options.

@Snaps Adhemar head? Leaning towards Adhemar hands as well, but it's possible that very strong augments could tilt things towards Herc for THF.

Adhemar bonnet is the best rudra's storm piece currently available. If you get your hands on one go path A for max damage since skulker's bonnet +1 is still a better tp piece. In fact, NORMAL quality skulker's bonnet is probably a better tp piece than adhemar is on the accuracy path. At the very least they're near breakeven.

Honestly, the quad attack on Dampening is probably hurting you more than it's helping. Especially with the new cape, not hitting a TA is going to be an overall negative for your damage. Skulker's head is excellent, but I'd also suggest Adhemar bonnet for TP. THF crits ridiculously often, so adding even more damage to those crits is pretty great. Not to mention a very large amount of attack in comparison to other options.