For The Shinies! A Guide For Thief

I pretty much only use my THF for brainless farming. And I'm pretty dumb. And I have Evisceration questions! My current gearset came from that optimizing spreadsheet app thing from these here forums, and I'm pretty sure it's suboptimal. So here we go, math time:

Assume I'm spamming it at 1k TP, Tauret mainhand. (Crepuscular offhand, which I don't think matters? The CHR mod evens out across every option, since it's roughly constant across gear.)

What's the desirable ratio for critical hit rate versus critical hit damage? Am I right to think it's 1:1?

Crit rate and crit damage are multiplicative, since expected damage is
(base critless damage) + (crit rate)*(crit damage) (...times five for Evisceration specifically, work with me here)
so you want to keep them as close to even as possible to maximize expected damage output, right?

Assumptions used:
-fSTR and dDEX are a wash. If I'm outstatting the target, it's by roughly the same amount when it comes to "increases crit damage" and "increases crit rate". If the target outstats me, it's by roughly the same amount in the opposite direction.
-PDL doesn't matter (I don't think I'm atk capped on average level 99-130 content? Even with Sylvie and Qultada?) or if it does matter I'm killing something so weak I don't notice the difference in kill time from specifically Evisceration damage versus "whiffed a single attack and didn't hit 1k TP" or something.

In hard numbers:
Base crit rate for all jobs is 5%, merit bonus is 5%, Evisceration gives 10% at 1000 TP, Moonshade is another ~2.5% (BG wiki says 25% at 2k TP and I assume it's linear, though that's marked with verification needed)
so I have 22.5% crit rate when I Evisceration at 1k TP
THF natively has +14% critical damage from their trait, job points give another 8% (and cap is 100%)
and so I have 22% crit damage when I Evisceration at 1k TP

That's roughly 1:1, so should I just be aiming to keep that even? I don't know if there are even any straight tradeoffs, honestly, just that there seems to be a lot more easy crit gear (ambu cape, Odr earring) than crit damage gear.
My current set's pretty mid - especially because all my Gleti's is at 0 RP:
ItemSet 396189

Total crit rate:
22.5% from above (including Moonshade Earring up there)
10% from Toutatis's Cape
2% from Yetshila +1
6% from Plunderer's Vest +3
6% from Mummu Wrists +2
7% from Gleti's Breeches
= 53.5% crit rate

Total crit damage:
22% from above
6% from Adhemar Bonnet +1
6% from Yetshila +1
5% from Plunderer's Vest +3
=39% crit damage

So if my assumptions above are correct, I should sacrifice critical hit rate for critical hit damage, all else being equal. And while that last bit is not true because every piece of gear has different stats, it's definitely going to be a powerful multiplier, since at 50% crit rate 2% crit damage = 1% total damage in expectation and so on.

Legs - Does that mean that Pillager's Culottes +3 beats Gleti's Breeches until like R25 or so?
Feet - Plunderer's Poulaines +3 is a triple attack piece, but the spreadsheet select it over R0 Gleti's Boots for 4 crit rate. That's gotta just be an error on my part, right? Like I clicked a button wrong?
Headgear - Why is Skulker's Bonnet +3 in some of the BiS sets I'm seeing? Just PDL? TA doesn't do anything relevant for Evisceration?
Ear - Spreadsheet said Sherida > Odr, but Odr's got more dex and 5% crit rate, is some mediocre double attack/some store TP to maybe WS faster next time from Sherida actually better?
General - Am I missing other crit damage items? Or heck, other crit rate items? (Don't have Leko's ring because I'm using Cornelia's on other jobs)

Obviously also any other information anyone has would be super appreciated. I don't like to do stuff if I'm not gonna do it right, and I probably spend more raw time on THF than most jobs, even if I'm never doing real content on it!

Spreadsheet is always going to tell you multi attack wins.

It chose relic feet for multihit procs. Same with the head.

Ear is always Sherida > Odr > moonshade doesn't belong

Run it through the sim, set your parameters, youll get the right answer. https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/57175/all-jobs-damage-simulator-and-gear-sets/14/#3709546

So I'm just undervaluing the DA/TA procs, then? Those work "as you'd naively expect" with a crit hit mid-Evisc?

Undervaluing XA hits, yeah, likely.

It's also the pile of attack, relic+3 and emp+3 have a lot of attack. Youre using trusts, that attack +40~60 is king. Any piece that has that pile of attack and TA is going to win.

What do you set on the sheet. Is this trust buffs. What mob. Whats the def- stat. Missing context. You did edit more into the post.

The sim's output for Evisceration can be found at https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/All_Jobs_Gear_Sets/Thief. Not a lot of multiattack in those sets.

For the sets in this thread's original post (also shown below) I used the old-fashioned excel spreadsheet, and what you'd consider a low-buff / trusts-only environment. I never found Sherida earring to be better than moonshade earring. My sets don't emphasize multiattack either.

ItemSet 298658

The "equal amounts of crit hit and crit damage" assertion doesn't match either my sets or the sim's sets. Both seem to heavily lean towards crit rate. Two items you should check for crit rate are Gleti's knife (even R0) and Mummu ring.

dDEX can give you 15% crit rate, and you're stacking DEX anyways, so I wouldn't ignore it. You can cap dDEX on a surprisingly high ilvl of target, with my sets it's capping on ilvl 135 bats.

I would agree with you, however, that PDL is not worth considering with trust buffs. It's only going to be relevant with proper bards + cors.

It's way to much effort to post different spreadsheet sets

Moonshade should universally lose to both odr and sherida and I always forget adhemar feet cause I never wasted the inventory on them plunderer was always second best

(first off, much appreciated for the advice! thank you!)

Why is this? That's really surprising to me - like, in general, that's how you maximize damage in a situation where you've got critical hits, because crit rate gives you more oomph based on crit damage, and vice versa. I don't think it's wrong or anything, just wondering what's going on under the hood. Is it also because I didn't take multi-attack procs into account?

I just requested a change on Kastra's monster file with correct AGI stats for Apex monsters. If you were using the 356 AGI value they have, then your set should be capping even easier as they have only 340 AGI.

Do you know what your target and buffs are? If you are not getting a good ratio from attack vs mob defense, then crit rate will gain relative value just due to the damage formula. A basic excample if you have 1.5 = (attack / monster_defense), a critical hit would be a 2.5 (as it is just a flat +1 to this part of the damage calculation,) before any crit damage changes. That's already a 2/3 increase over a non-critical hit.

Killing weak stuff with trusts I don't think Evis can beat Rudras with Aeneas. If you don't have Aeneas, ignore.

Thank you! It looks like the level 129 bats were extremely off on their AGI (listed 356, your correction makes it 298). How do you get these values, from crit rate parsing or something else?


With my sets I'm seeing a pDIF of 1.0 or less, so that absolutely lines up with my findings.

stat formula for standard mobs are documented.

bats are WAR WAR with an E rank in VIT and a C rank in AGI, WAR would be D and C

C rank for level 129 is 121, D is 108 and E is 95
Normally you'd use the same level as main level when calculating the stats from sub job, but since sub job is coded to cap at 127, (255/2), then you would use the stat value for 127 than half that. So in this case C 113 and D is 102

So for level 129 VIT you'd have 95 + 108 + 102 / 2 = 254
For AGI you'd have 121 + 121 + 113 / 2 = 298

I can throw together a quick program that will calculate them all I suppose

Bat racial stat rankings are

So at level 129 this is what I get. Every known stat on JP wiki matches as well.


135 Bats:

Seems like there has been a big update to the Thief guide on https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Community_Thief_Guide It doesn't seem to be possible to view the old sets to compare them with the new ones though.

I guess "Glass Cannon" means the best? Confused on the wording here. What happened to Aeneas and Twashtar offhand as being the best? It says Mpu Gandring main and Gleti's Knife offhand now? Malignance Gloves over Gleti's Gauntlets R30? Samnuha Tights over Gleti's Breeches R30? Moonlight Ring over Epona's? etc.

glass cannon means no regard to defense at all

Can someone explain why all Tp sets put Gleti's Gloves over malignance? Less Store TP but more atk/crit? Is the lower store TP irrelevant for whatever x-hit you're getting so the other stuffs just more valuable.

x-hit really isn't very important for thf with as much triple attack as they have access to, as well as their best ws scaling with tp. tp hands are a toss-up imo depending upon which you want more of, def + crit or meva + stp. don't forget the regain on gleti either, it makes up for some of the lost stp, exactly how much I forget.

If you're actively engaged in combat and swinging, it's like .001 STP.

If you have capped delay reduction (which you should, in a buffed situation) then you're attacking every roughly 1.2 seconds depending on weapons. This means in every tick you'll get 2.5 attack rounds in, averaging 5~6 hits per round. I'd say you're looking at 10~15 attacks per tick; gleti hands give 2 TP per tick, so .1-.2 more TP per hit.

If you're getting 50 tp/hit base, each STP is worth .5 TP/hit, making Gleti's hands' regain worth somewhere between half and 1/5 of a single point of STP. It's laughable and hardly worth even considering when discussing the TP you get while engaged and fighting an enemy.

This is because SpicyRyan quit and removed all his guides. This was a pretty much empty guide to begin with.


It is just that, you're made of glass. I added some DT to make it like car windows, but still made of glass.


This is what the python from Izanami's simulator came out with for 20% DT. If you don't agree with it, please update the community guide.


Where does it have this? All the one's on the community guide have Malignance Gloves and not Gleti's Gauntlets.

I found a cached version of the now-deleted Rogues' Gallery guide at https://web.archive.org/web/20221127214041/https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Rogues'_Gallery thankfully.

I was just saying on "Max Tier" in Rogues' Gallery it has Gleti's, not malignance.

Can you make a pure TP set? I am not worried about DT sometimes.

Here you go:

ItemSet 396231

If you don't have crep knife, Gleti's. Reiki Yotai if you don't have Gerdr.

Also, as a note, I don't think "Max Tier" is worth any value. I think Post-Content is worth mentioning and just having the bottom most set the latest and most up-to-date set. This way, it is expandable and players can choose based on what they have completed. Like how I did for Rudra's Storm.

What can also be included is for the first thing players see for the set is the "End Goal", followed by everything else.

I also still don't understand from a glance why Samnuha Tights are better than R30 Gletis or even just Meghanda with 5% TA and lots more acc. I imagine even in the calculator they are only a tiny bit ahead of Meghanda, and does it even account for Triple attack damage+?

Samnuha has 3% DA/TA + 7 Store TP for augment while Gleti's only has 5% TA

the default setting for TP is time to ws, so it prioritizes that over anything else unless you tell it otherwise. adhemar hands are the same thing, stp + triple on one piece. I'm skeptical about gerdr belt over reiki yotai though, would not cap delay.

Don't underestimate the rest of the stats though. Let's look at the whole package

Samnuha Tights - 116 def, 38 str, 6 dex, 15 acc, 7 sTP, 3 DA/3TA

R30 Gleti's Breeches - 165 def, -8 PDT, 49 str, 55 acc, 70 attack, 15 subtle blow, 5% TA rate, 7% crit rate

Gletis is better both offensively as well as defensively. While 7 store tp will affect ws frequency slightly, 2 TA is better than 3 DA, and the rest of the stats will increase white damage by more than enough to compensate. 70 attack is quite a lot for one piece, as is 7% crit rate (don't forget we have crit damage trait and synergy too) That doesn't even touch upon the defensive bonuses. Higher magic evasion, higher defense, 8 PDT.


The same reasoning follows for gleti's gauntlets versus malignance gloves. Malignance has no white damage boosts at all. You gain 4 sTP but sacrifice more than enough crit rate and attack to throw the swap into question. Lower tiers of gleti's aren't as good, but the augs on the legs and hands are very good for tp and for thief especially they have a ton of synergies. I use gletis gloves and legs over the alternatives, and I'm sure if simonsays were around he would give his reasoning why he would use them over the alternatives too. All the choices are fine, but I would personally side with the gleti's options if you had them at max rank.

The request was:


Tights are better for pure TP gain.

For white damage to matter, it has to reduce the amount of WS required to kill your target. If the takes the same amount of WS, then a shorter time to WS is better.

This does matter, as ML grinding is a major time sink where you do not need any DT and more white damage may not reduce the amount WS required to kill.

One thing to consider when looking at TP options is viability of off-handing TP bonus dagger. The extra acc could be worth it alone if it lets you use TP bonus dagger.

For Centovente, the program shows Pillager's Culottes +3 (Set bonus paired with body), two Chirich +1, Reiki Yotai, and Malignance Boots.

Right, the program will equip gear to meet the 95% acc ceiling while also maximizing time-to-WS speed. This will depend on your target's evasion, as well as buffs / defbuffs configured (HM, madrigal, distract, etc.).

Thanks for putting the guide together.

With tp bonus offhand you'll only get away with samnuhe on the weakest of weak trash mobs. Does it really matter if they die in 1 second or 0.999 seconds? Anything you're killing loads of such mobs for is better done with tools.