Dagger in the Dark

Hey, I know this update is late in coming but I've been so busy both in real life and ingame, and just haven't had the time to update this. Plus I keep forgetting to take screenshots as I'm playing which is annoying! There'll be some detailed THF stuff later in this post, but I'll save it until near the end since it's a very niche interest.

So what have I been up to? A lot of things. I've forgotten to screenshot most of it so it'll be very boring. Suffice to say, WHM is 42, RDM is 37 and BLM is 22 and going up to 37. Also levelling BLU at least as a subjob now, and it's a lot of fun; my spell-learning luck is terrible though. Took a mob a good 30+ TP moves before it used Queasyshroom on me for instance (luckily I went 1/1 on it).

Been meritting a lot too, in an attempt to cap out some merits (aiming for Feint 5/5 right now, currently 4/5 with 3/5 merits). Now, THF is largely melee DoT damage in merit parties and it's inefficient to combine SA and TA, but it makes for fun epeen damage shots!

My WS set is rather meh as well; still no Hecatomb Mittens! I've been approaching many LSs to buy them (hopefully for in the range of 300-400k) and no real success so far. Unlikely to see X's Knife/Love Torque/Hecatomb Cap and Hecatomb Subligar either. It's a shame.

Mandalic Stab is also hugely underrated; I love the ability to almost ignore accuracy on it and stack DEX, as well as having an Attack bonus -- basically a later game Viper Bite. Excellent for situations where you cannot trust your accuracy/attack, or opponent defence is so high you really need to pierce it; just beware that it is VERY weak unstacked. Hey, like I said -- think Viper Bite in terms of how to use it.

I also meritted on mamools recently on THF! I was a bit pessimistic about my accuracy at the start, but I managed ~85% accuracy using a single madrigal and meat and that I am happy with. After I get Homam Hands and 5/5 Feint, it will be a bit higher. Meat is always an option for your good and well-geared THF in merit parties!

In order to revamp some of my sets and get a WS gorget for Insurgency and Mandalic Stab, I went out and farmed Sea a LOT earlier this month. Almost solo'd the entirety of two gorgets until people came to help, minus the UFOs. Treasure Hunter really does help a great deal on the drop rates, and contrary to popular belief THF can solo Om'Phuabos quite easily! Just bring echoes. Always carry echoes on THF solo unless you're 100% sure it can't silence you.

The result~!


3/8 of the elemental gorgets! Need to get a Soil Gorget sometime for Evisceration but not too bothered about that right now; barely use the WS anyway. Maybe if I got an X's Knife I'd mess around with it more but... 0/10 on that thing so far and I don't see it dropping anytime soon. Dying for that knife. Wish SE would fix that damn ENM.

I levelled /RDM for my PLD and tried it in campaign. It was wonderful. Stoneskin, Blink and Phalanx are great defensive tools and it doesn't require you to use Shihei! Atonement is also wonderfully broken; contrast normal hit damage and Atonement damage (yes I know how it works but it is SO good for holding hate);

Yeah, I've decided I like pld/rdm in campaign. Was a 20~25 minute battle for that much exp.

Also did UO recently and got fantastically lucky; PCC and Ni! I was however splitting drops and nobody else got anything so I only got 1/3 of the money; still good though! Nice to see this too;

Okay, on to THFy stuff; I'll try to take more pictures for next time, I just completely forgot as I said.

Thief playstyle varies a lot from person to person; some people insist only on WSing with SA or TA, some people use SA and TA alone and WS alone in a burn situation to create a larger maximum damage; some people swear by sushi and some use meat, etc. There are many different ways to play THF. One thing I notice is a lot of people don't use dedicated soloSA and soloTA sets, which makes me sad. You can do some fantastic damage this way, bearing in mind I have no X's Knife;

First one is a soloTA, second is a soloSA, third is a soloTA. It's like mini WSs, and I don't even have an X's! Imagine that damage when the critical hit is amplified even more. Serious THFs, investing in a SA/TA set will not leave you disappointed.

Daggers

Let's talk about the daggers in detail. Damage on THF is split into two scenarios:

1. Your attack/accuracy are high. Your melee DoT soars ahead of WS damage. Typically in merit parties. We will call this scenario "speedburn".
2. Doing damage with melee is very challenging. SA/TA and WS tend to be the largest source of your damage; typically high-end endgame fights. We will call this scenario "sustained battle".

What are good daggers for one scenario are often not so good for others! Let's examine the top daggers.

S > A > B > C > D
In reality, S is much greater than A, A is greater than B, B is greater than C, C is much greater than D. If you see what I mean;
S >> A > B > C >> D

Mandau
DMG:39 Delay:176 Attack+20
Speedburn rating: S
Sustained Battle rating: S
Would you expect anything less from the relic dagger? Mercy Stroke is a huge benefit particularly to "Sustained Battle" situations.

X's Knife
DMG:34 Delay:201 Enhances Critical Hit damage
Speedburn rating: B or A
Sustained Battle rating: S or A
X's Knife is a mythical but incredibly potent weapon. I have not got one so I cannot comment, but it's hard to tell in a true speedburn situation whether the greater WS damage and SA/TA damage will overcome the slight melee DoT deficiency. I may give a definite rating to this when I get one, but for now it's either A or B at Speedburn. Exceptional dagger.

Blau Dolch
DMG:26/33 Delay:178 Acc+5/Atk+18 when TP <100% style="font-size:130%;">SA and TA's respective impacts on WS.

The formula for a SA(TA) WS's first SA(TA)-enhanced hit is;

[(D + fSTR + WSC) * fTP + DEX (+ AGI)] * Pdif

What does this mean? Adding one to D, fSTR or WSC increases damage by (fTP * Pdif) and adding one to DEX or AGI, ignoring WSC benefits, increases damage by (Pdif). Does that then mean SA/TA isn't as strong as you'd expect? Yes, in some ways. Relative impact on each WS compared to D, fSTR and WSC varies though.

Let's consider fTP modifiers of the first, modified hit.

Dancing Edge: 1.1875
Shark Bite: 2.0 / 2.5 / 3.0
Evisceration: 1.0
Mandalic Stab: 2.0 / 2.125 / 2.5
Mercy Stroke: 3.0

Normally, 4str = 1d = 1dex/agi for normal hits, right? (4str being very slightly better there). Well that's not necessarily true in this case. Let's look at Shark Bite at 100% TP vs Evisceration. 2.0 fTP vs 1.0 fTP. D, fSTR and WSC damage benefits from fTP and Pdif, whereas SA/TA additional damage benefits from Pdif only. Therefore; D, fSTR and WSC are TWICE as effective as increasing damage on this first hit on Shark Bite comparatively! 2.5x as effective at 200% TP, 3x as effective at 300% TP etc.

Increase in damage by D, fSTR, WSC = (fTP * Pdif)
Increase in damage by DEX/AGI bonus = (Pdif)

If fTP = 2 in Shark Bite;

Increase in damage by D, fSTR, WSC = (2 * Pdif) = 2Pdif
Increase in damage by DEX/AGI bonus = Pdif

If fTP = 1 in Evisceration;

Increase in damage by D, fSTR, WSC = (1 * Pdif) = Pdif
Increase in damage by DEX/AGI bonus = Pdif

So increasing damage by D, fSTR and WSC in Shark Bite on the first hit is 2x as effective as on Evisceration, if you can see what I mean.

What does this mean?

It has a few implications.

• Do not sacrifice too much to boost AGI in a TAWS because you will do better boosting fSTR or WSC, especially since the AGI bonus only applies to the first hit in a multihitter!
• If you look at that with Mercy Stroke, with fTP 3, where it will be 3x as effective adding fSTR and WSC (and D but this is constant), with a 60% STR mod -- you can see very clearly why STR is superior to everything for that WS.
• The lower the fTP on the WSC, the more that SA/TA bonus damage affects overall damage with emphasis on the damage on the first hit relatively speaking.
  

The lower the fTP, the more relative impact the bonus damage from dex/agi has compared to increasing D, fSTR and WSC -- but these are on your multihit WSs, where only the first hit is going to benefit from said bonus anyway! Generally, interpret this analysis as you will; be wary about adding AGI to a WS to increase its final damage (this generally only works well on Mandalic Stab I find since it's one hit and pdif will be very high due to TA + the Attack x1.66 effect). Hybrid pieces like Denali Kecks are very good, and AF+1 hands are very good and have 3DEX on them anyway.

If you've read this far, you're a Thief. You're used to having to make intelligent decisions. Read this information carefully and use it relevantly. Thief is a complicated job and SA and TA mechanics are no exception. Whether this information helps you or not, thanks for reading~

I'm not dead!

Just horribly busy.

So much stuff both ingame and real life to do at the moment that I haven't got around to making a new blog post. It'll come soon. Sorry for the readers who don't care about THF but it'll be fairly THF-heavy again. Not too bad though. Coming soon!

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