For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

Stikini rings if you got 'em. Skulker's +2/+3 has slightly higher Macc if you can afford losing all that Racc, but doesn't seem like a worthy tradeoff. Same case for Skulker's earring +1/+2.

If racc is no issue i'd look into augumented metamorph ring +1 over stikini since i believe the +all magic skills on stikini don't help here?
If racc is a issue you could swap telos with Dignitary's earring and use augmented cacoethic ring +1 instead of the stikini.

Which locus mob? If its something with wind affinity, you're gonna have a worse time landing that def down.

I'm sorry, I don't know wether stats help to land the additional effect or not and the wiki doesn't solve the question either but I'm sure they'll not hurt.

Also make ranged weapons and additional effects great again :P

Unless you specifically need to be using Mandalic Stab (closing lights) I would not use it over the other daggers. The damage just doesn't compare to Twash in my experience, and SA/TA are great, but at the current pace of the game you can only use them once every ~10 WS which makes the bonus not very significant.

This is made worse by the fact that since THF has so much native TA and options for QA/DA in gear, the AM3 is really undercut hardcore in optimal TP sets.

I have a R15 Vajra and I VERY rarely use it.

It's really good for hard mode aminon if for whatever reason you decided to use THF instead of DNC or DRK

There are only two REMA daggers worth considering if you wanna dedicate time toward a BiS option. Twashtar is the best mainhand for darkness properties, and MPU Gandring is the best for light. Mandau, Vajra, and Aeneas don't compare, however Aeneas does get honorable mention for the simple fact that it's so much easier and faster to build than the other two. But in terms of performance, the other two are just flat out superior.

By the way, I did some mathing between rudra's storm and ruthless stroke for anyone interested. The BiS Gear set is going to be the same for both weaponskills since they both operate on the same principal of piling damage into one hit. At 1K TP Rudra's is significantly better than ruthless stroke, at 2K TP Rudra's is still ahead but the margin is much closer, and at 3K TP ruthless does overtake rudra's storm and becomes our highest damage option. The breakeven point where the two weaponskills do equivalent damage is roughly in the 2250-2500 TP range. Below that rudra's is stronger and above that ruthless is better. This is just the weaponskill math mind you. I'm not factoring in twashtar's 10% rudra's storm damage bonus here. When you factor that in the line between MPU gandring and twashtar blurs to the point the two are almost parallel with one another.

If you don't need to concern yourself with a particular skillchain element the difference between Twashtar and MPU gandring are pretty inconsequential, and the two are pretty much clones of one another, but I do think MPU Gandring has a tiny edge. Prime aftermath is more suited toward weaker mobs where you can get full use of the PDL, and empyrean aftermath is better on higher defense mobs where you can't cap attack. But apart from that they're very close. If you don't mind spamming sortie for it then even stage 4 MPU gandring is a worthy aquisition. If you want a dagger for light skillchains, that's the option you wanna go for. Vajra just isn't worth much in the current era of the game.

Is Ruthless at 3k TP always better than Rudras?

Say you are fighting crawlers in CN and you want max exemplar per hour. Is it possible that Ruthless at 3k TP will beat any TP configuration for Rudras?

Yes, by approximately 15%. But again, this is just weaponskill math without weapon specific bonuses. Once you factor in twashtar's 10% rudra's damage bonus the difference between a 3K MPU Gandring Ruthless and a 3k Twashtar Rudra's is about 5% favoring MPU. It's really inconsequential and only relevant at max TP. While it exists the margin is so small there shouldn't ever be any notable kill speed difference between using one dagger over the other.

Thanks for your reply. I was really hoping Primes would be at least a viable option... which seems to be for dagger!

I still like mine, but it doesn't get used as much as I'd like these days. Prior to RP30/Empy+3/ML50, I had a Triple Attack/Crit build for Twash/Cento that was very aggressive (not DT capped) I used in Dyna-D for W1/W2, but in W3 I'd get floored when I'd rip hate for not being in full DT. For W3 specifically, I started using a build of 5/5 Malignance and the rest of the slots capping haste and +STP which naturally fit using Vajra MH. Super nice when you absolutely need to 1 shot a BST or WAR with a stacked Mandalic, while also keeping you from getting 1-shot (most of the time, those Exudiations/Stringing Pummels, amirite?!)

These days, +3 Empy and ML40+ lets you absolutely disrespect that content with just Twash/Cento all day. Twash/Gletis if you're having acc issues (I feel bad for you son, etc.,)

I echo most of what Maletaru stated above, except that THF's native triple attack doesn't hurt mythic use unlike WAR using Conqueror. Personally, I don't shoot for any DA in my THF build, Sherida earring aside, which isn't even in my STP set that'd I'd use with Vajra anyway.

Do it for the glow. Do it for completion sake. Do it for fun. Do it so you can lord over plebian THFs that don't have it.

It is. MPU gandring also has that lovely triple attack rate on it which I find very appealing. I'll probably pick up the stage 4 once my galla allows. I have a couple weapons I wanna stage 4, and that one is on my to do list. But I already have twashtar so it's not the most important atm. Twashtar and MPU gandring are literal clones of each other. I'm pretty sure stage 5 MPU ganding is our ultimate dagger, but s-e wasn't kidding when they said that primes would be on par with existing options but not so strong they'd feel mandatory. The difference between stage 5 MPU Gandring and twashtar is extremely small. I want it more for the novelty factor than as a performance boost. It's a new toy to play with.

I think you misunderstand the MA priority. If you TA, you have 0% chance of AM3 proccing, which means if you have 20% TA your AM3 will only proc 80% of what it originally would. This means with 0 TA/QA/DA gear, your AM3 TA will only proc 16% of the time instead of 20%. If you add in a JSE neck and Sortie earring+1, plus gere and Hetairoi, you're already looking at 34% TA, plus your Sherida is 5% DA, Gleti is 6% TA and with 5/5 malignance you're still at 45% chance to proc a TA/DA, reducing your AM3 chance to 11%, barely above half the original value. If you have more of a glass cannon set with more TA in visible slots and/or have a crep knife on, drop that even lower.

Edit: point of clarification, I said the AM3 value is undercut, which is the case with any mythic (or KC) when considering the MA you have on traits/gear. No traits/gear will actively harm the use of AM3 (possible exception of WAR with 100% DA), they just reduce the effectiveness of them. If you have 20% DA and are wearing a KC or having mythic AM3 up, it's not nullifying the effects of your AM3, it's just reducing the effectiveness/value of it. At some point there is a tipping point where it's more harm than good, but it's not that simple of a calculation, especially considering that most forms of MA work on both hands.

Sure, but in your scenario you already Triple Attacked, so...

I'm saying, IDC if my TA comes from native TA or AM3 OA3, both are desirable (though native TA gets the TA damage bonus from gear/gifts that OA3 isn't getting, so arguably better?)

WAR's super high DA rate and gear creates a scenario where it has a high chance of not letting Conq's AM3 ever OA3 in favor of a normal DA (bad), whereas THF has a high chance of normally TA-ing (good) OR OA3-ing (good).

The point is that if you're already getting that multi attack rate, it would be much better to have a weapon with better characteristics. Vajra's entire thing is the multi attack you get from the mythic aftermath. Its only other effect is sneak and trick attack. If you aren't getting that multi attack benefit, you'd be better off with a different aftermath. Twashtar's aftermath is triple damage on regular hits 50% of the time, MPU gandrig's is a significant amount of PDL, and both twashtar and MPU gandring have other desirable stats on them. MPU gandring has 35 dex and 6% triple attack, while twashtar has 70 dex and increases rudra's storm damage by a flat 10%. Also Vajra's weapon delay is 200, whereas twashtar's and mpu gandring's delay is 176. If you mainhand either of them and have a comparable multi attack rate as you would with vajra then there's no contest; they're just flat out stronger. Quite a bit stronger actually...

As Melliny said, but I think of it like this: Mythic AM3 is the allure for using a Mythic. Normally, it's awesome because it increases your chance to TA by 20% and DA by 40%, that's sick!

For THF in decent gear, you get ~10% TA and ~16% DA from your AM3, that's still nice, but significantly less great than a boiler plate mythic AM3. This is my point, the bonus you get from gaining AM3 is significantly diminished by the traits and gear that a THF has. Is it still better than nothing? Absolutely. Does in increase your TP gain rate? Absolutely. Is it massively undermined by the job? Also absolutely. It's nowhere near as powerful as other mythic AM3s, specifically because you're on THF.

Not to be pedantic, but you're also getting the SATA damage, which in my experience is still higher for stacked WSs than it is on Twash. I know the GUI spits out numbers in favor of Twash for stacked but I can regularly 99999 on Vajra with stacked Mandalics, I can't do the same with stacked Rudra's on Twash, they're generally around 85-88k) and the potential for AM to proc on WS you don't get with Twash (which, I know, only helps close the gap when it procs vs Twash normal WSs, can't speak on Mpu at all)


Don't disagree with this either, though I was specifically speaking about a more defensive build using 5/5 malignance and STP gear, so your native TA rate isn't going to be as high. Probably around 32% off the top of my head. Doesn't really matter, Twash still gonna win the parse.

I know you know all this, but just to say it out loud, I agree, Twash is better than Vajra for pure, overall DMG output, but that doesn't mean Vajra has nothing to offer outside OAT.

My slight contention with Male's statement about OA3 and TA (while generally speaking is true and I do understand MA priority), my take was that within the comparison of Conqueror vs Vajra and mythic AM3 being less valuable because of MA, I wanted to make the point that it's not detrimental to THF like it is to WAR. DA is worse than TA/OA3. TA is not worse than OA3 and in fact, I'd argue better than AM3 because I'd rather have a native TA than a 20% TA/40% DA chance. That's why I said it was more like a fail safe, a backstop in case you didn't proc a natural TA on THF, at least you still have a chance at some kind of MA with AM3 up.

And to restate, much of what I posted above was my thoughts on the weapons prior to Empy +3/R30/ML50. When I only care about doing maximum damage, it's Twash/Cento + smash Rudra's as fast as I can.

Vajra MH feels more like the spikey boi THF was meant to be, not ripping hate from insane white damage autos, while dropping big finishers. I can't say it's a massive difference in play style than Twash, but I know I play slightly different (albeit less dmg efficient) when I MH it.

I get that, but all I'm saying is, it doesn't have to be, because you're already checking that box, specifically because you're on THF. You don't have to do some crazy *** gearing for it (I'm looking at you, Liberator, you sob...) which gives you the freedom to play with more or less defensive builds without sacrificing your MA. It's never going to be better than Twash, and that isn't nor wasn't my argument.

19% native TA on THF using mythic is less detrimental than the 28%-33% native DA on WAR using mythic is all I was saying. Not just because it's less %, but because TA is still desirable vs OA2/3, whereas DA is not.

You're saying it's not as good, I'm saying it's not as bad, and I think we're both right.

My issue with the idea of hitting 99k SATAMS is that you still have like...9-12 more WS between those SATAMS which are worse. So going from 88k -> 99k in your example will be more than made up for by the other 10 WS you're doing (plus AM3 white damage) with Twash.

If for some reason you really need exactly 1 WS to do really well, sure...but there really aren't scenarios where you want to sacrifice 5-10 WS' damage in order to improve a single WS.

It's a fun toy but I don't think there are many/any scenarios where you actually benefit, except maybe if it makes your dopamine spike or you feel like it's doing better.

I think we mostly agree on this topic but just a final point: I'm not saying that an AM3 proc is hurting your TA, I'm saying that a TA is hurting your AM3. Sure, conqueror has the worst scenario for AM3 because WAR can get a shitload of DA, but compare to any other weapon: Nagi, Laevateinn, Burtgang, Liberator, Aymur, Carnwenhan, Ryunohige, etc. and you'll see that most of those jobs can get a full 20% TA and 40% DA, or close to it. THF will always have a significantly less effective AM3 and/or have to use worse TP gear to "take advantage of" the AM3.

Ever leave a NIN in dyna at 1%? Fighting an NM you can't put up dispellable debuffs (Vinipata, Alexander Prime, etc.) When going full cowabunga isn't your main goal, I feel like Vajra play can be a bit more strategic. I agree, it's very few and far between, but those scenarios do still exist.

Let me ask you this, mathematically, which is better:

One 50% TA chance, and a second dice roll for OAX chance if the TA chance misses

or

One 20%/40% OAX chance?

Minor thing, but the atk boost on mandallic can also be helpful if it can bridge you to cap or allow more pdl. Granted this is hard to quantify depending on target, but having the weapon that pumps that dmg even higher can't hurt

Ultimately though the above about twash/prime being the go to is pretty on point

Is this a real question?

If so, 50% TA + Mythic AM3 averages out to 2.36 attacks per round, where as mAM3 only averages out to 1.72 attacks per round.

While it wasn't asked, 50% TA averages out to 2 attacks per round.

Just for clarity, the 50% TA makes mAM3 10% TA and 16% DA. Since mAM3 only applies to the main hand as well, that is a fairly significant cut.

It was a serious question, and thanks for mathing it out.