For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

Apart from not having the same TH when AEing vs single targets, its mostly rng, though single target lets you build 1~3 levels of TH depending on luck too, so you may likely get a few more overall. Imo not enough to justify double the time but if you want more per run singles better slightly

Anyone have a preferred THF gearswap lua? I don't seem to like the ones I'm looking at when I google it (and the one I did downlaod crashed my game when I changed jobs to THF lol).

I just learned a little but on Lua and made my own. I wanted a simple one that did not have any automation and worked more like equipsets.I used Mote's Files that come with Gearswap. Makes it super easy.

What's the recommended route for Gandring for primary use with Aeolean Edge?

Path C?

Aynthing else i should consider?

C's the only path to take for majority of the dyna weapons, THF being one of em.

Consider not wasting money on it

What do you mean wasting money?

It's excellent weapon for AOE. Do you mean it will cost you more than you will ever farm in return with it? Maybe, but with such approach nothing in this game is worth spending gils on. It's also very RMT approach, because for example I value the fun, that this weapon gives, far more than gils I can farm with it.

id say if you had any reservations about buying a su5, the su4's tend to do just fine for a fraction of the price, but yeah they're not (all) worthless and offer some unique utility value

Being the THF thread, I only meant the THF dagger.

It's only purpose is farming gil slightly faster. Waste of inventory, time and money.

If you want to piss away gil for something you'll never actually use, you do you, but consider, not doing that. And/Or consider higher priority items.

you could argue the entire game is farming gil to do x faster. for anything you want to cleave, it's an amazing weapon. need to pull the entire zone to get a piece of relic? forget to job change and head to einherjar on thf/drg with no heals? want to restock merits quickly to spam HTMB? could go on and on.

We should have never left Ronfoure. It was a peaceful life.

Path C is an amazing path, the goal of that path is evade/AoE. For using it correctly you will need 2 evasion set, 1 for pulling and 1 for engaging (so your trust heal ya), then to kill the group you need an AE set that does at least 10K+ (some mobs resist…), but goal should be 15K or so no buff.

When pulling it’s really advantageous to pull 30+ mobs, you’ll get TP within a sec or two after AE, so the bulk of your TP come from evading. Omen ex: first 2 zone is a single pull, usually done in 3 min combined with trust calling, last floor, first 3 group, 2 AE, then birds+ladybug with leftover trans, then porxie and clear them all (they sleep so clean the board), for another 3 min. Then the eye AE and finally the last group is fully resistant so 1 at a time, usually out 38-36 min left or 12-14 min. No other weapons make that so easily feasible. Want to farm dyna, same pull a third of the zone, keep 30 inv free and go at it. That weapon is worth every Gil.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Rogues%27_Gallery#Aeolian_Edge has some sets too, and they recommend path C as well.

The question I had from those sets - why malevolence over levante dagger? I was under the impression that the Levante's "Wind Elemental MAB+15" stat was really not MAB at all, but Affinity. It should be far better than the 44 MAB you get from Malevolence?

OK let's try some math: https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Weapon_Skill_Damage gives us the damage formula, and I can pull info from Aeolian Edge as well.

Gandring C / malevolence base WS Damage at 1250 TP (moonshade earring, so acts as 1500 TP):
floor(((152 + floor(119-99)x2.45) + (40% DEX + 40% INT)) x 2.5) + dINT + 217 (gandring) + 118 (malevolence) + 20 (cape)
= (201 + 40% DEX + 40% INT) x 2.5) + (pINT-mINT)/2 + 8 + 355
= 865 + 100% DEX + 150% INT - (enemy INT/2)

full damage = base WS damage x (MAB/MDB) x Affinity x WSD x other stuff that doesn't change between daggers
Rogue's Gallery max set has 234 MAB
= (865 + 100% DEX + 150% INT - (enemy INT/2)) * 3.34 * 1.15 * WSD * stuff / MDB

Gandring C / levante dagger base damage:
((152 + 49 + 40% DEX + 40% INT) x 2.5 + (pINT-mINT)/2 + 8 + 217 (gandring) + 20 (cape)
= 747 + 100% DEX + 150% INT - (enemy INT/2)
full damage = (647 + 100% DEX + 150% INT - (enemy INT/2)) * 2.90 * 1.30 * WSD * stuff / MDB

... well 3.34 * 1.15 = 3.841, which is greater than 2.90 * 1.30 = 3.77.
Malevolence is better because of MAB alone. 15% affinity is really good, but 44 MAB on the Malevolence increases your MAB ratio by more than 15%.

finishing the calculation anyway with some numbers thrown in to see if my math is reasonable
DEX = 116 (99 mithra thf/war merited no ML) + 117 (gear) = 233
INT = 100 + 207 (gear) = 297, 10 from malevolence
WSD = +58% = 1.58
enemy INT ~= 250

Gandring / Malevolence: (865 + 233 + 445 - 125) * 3.34 * 1.15 * 1.58 = 8605

Gandring / Levante: (647 + 233 + 430 - 125) * 2.90 * 1.30 * 1.58 = 7058

Those numbers certainly aren't 10-15K :( What am I missing? Is dagger base damage part of the magic damage formula somewhere?

edit - recalc gandring/malevolence with 3000 TP
base damage = (201 + 40% DEX + 40% INT) x 4.5) + (pINT-mINT)/2 + 8 + 355
= 1267 + 180% DEX + 230% INT - (enemy INT/2)
full damage = (1267 + 180% DEX + 230% INT - (enemy INT/2)) * 3.34 * 1.15 * WSD * stuff / MDB
= (1267 + 419 + 683 - 125) * 3.34 * 1.15 * 1.58
= 13618

I think 15k was about 3000tp Aeolian Edge, not 1500TP. With Gandring path C you will get 3000tp while pulling all the time and will get 3000tp in like 2-3sec with 20+ mobs on you. Only problem here is if you are loosing HP too fast, then after first AE trust healer can take hate with cures. It almost never happen if you have high Eva, DT and good phalanx. Worst case, mobs will kill your healer and go back to you if you won't kill them fast and you will need to summon it again.

Malevolence was tested against Levantine dagger for aeolian edge long ago. A perfect malevolence always wins. Both the math and the numbers in game back this up. Try the two out for yourself and see. You’ll find that the difference is easily noticeable.

For pure damage, sure, perf Malevolence all the way.
But other options offer, at the cost of less damage, some additional stats like Evasion+
I can think of only 3 daggers with these stats

Levante Dagger
Ternion Dagger +1 R15
Sandung

All are inferior options to Malevolence but all offer Evasion.
Compared to other options I didn't list who give evasion, these three also provide a small boost to damage in the form of Wind affinity for Levante, and WSD+5% for the other two.

I wonder if they could be worth it to further press the accelerator on evasion stacking?
Probably not, but it's something to consider I suppose.

The guide has a really good set, mine is mostly the posted set, missing the bomblet and my dagger has really lame augment (+3 INT) and still come up with decent numbers. THF is getting close to ML 40 just by farming omen so that’s a lot of extra INT, nyame is 25 so that also help. Get that dagger, make a set that works for you (slow and steady win the race). Yes the 3k TP come fast, the more the merrier, I have no phalanx set and still get by without.

Only folks complaining about Gandring C is folks that don’t farm.

get thief-ing.

TP bonus isn't the best offhand for aeolean?

In the case of Gandring C style, it’s not. And the reason is when you pull you’ll get your 3000TP before you can use it

That also means you don't want moonshade earring since it's not giving you any TP Bonus. crematio earring looks like a good substitute.

^this.

Also, Gandring makes achieving evasion cap for dyna pulling much, much easier. Effective pulling in there requires capped Eva AND capped pdt, which can be a bit of a tough balancing act for wave 2.

Having a basket of dyna mobs whiffing you / doing nearly no damage is a show that gives thf some nice street cred. We should all be doing it.

Looking for some different ideas for an engaged set (regular TPing). Not that my set is bad (hit 10+M in dyna with 3 song bard, but not cap acc with 88), it’s just a different kinda of homemade hybrid let’s say…, just was wondering what ppl do as guides are kinda weak in that area.

When not concerned about DT/meva/TH:
ItemSet 395115

When concerned about DT/meva, but not TH:
ItemSet 395117

Epona probably beats Hetairoi, but dat white damage doe!

ItemSet 395114

ItemSet 395116

ItemSet 395118

ItemSet 395119

ItemSet 395120

Oooo good point Clint, I should switch in Gleti legs!

Dude I actually made a couple updates myself XD

Don't you need Eabani+Reiki to cap dual wield as /NIN?

Thf has dual wield4 (Dw3 native + 500JP gift), Only needs 6 to cap fully hasted.

/NIN? :D It's not 75cap, THF has native Dual Wield XD

I thought /NIN gave a higher level than THF got natively. It's been a while since I looked properly, I was thinking from a COR or BRD perspective.

Just checked, DW4 with JP gift is sweet! I thought they dicked THF and only gave it DW2 (3 with JP gift).