Asura.Karbuncle said:
Twilight Knife is better for TP Gain, even with a ~15% Proc rate it still absorbs usually 7-10TP, It will get you TP Quicker, and it does indeed STEAL TP/HP/MP From the mob. Meaning that HP-Drain is extra damage to your over-all DPS.
Mandau/Twilight is 366 combined delay. DW3 + Supa + Boomerang makes that 245.22 modified delay. Delay per hand is 122.61. 5+[(122.61 - 180) * 1.5 / 180] = 4.5 TP each hand. Assuming 6 STP from Rajas and Brutal we have 4.7 TP per hand and 9.4 TP a round.
Mandau/Triplus is 352. DW modified delay is 235.84. Delay per hand is 117.92. That's 4.4 TP per hand. 6 STP takes us to 4.7 TP a hand. 9.4 TP a round.
(Twashtar has the same delay as Mandau, and Empyreans are accessible enough such that I think it's fair to use Twashtar as the bar when we're talking dagger setups... that and I'm too lazy to rerun this math for Kila setups and Daka setups and other non-optimized combos)
So you don't actually get any extra TP for the extra delay, it's just not enough extra delay.
The numbers I've seen all suggest 10%. Assuming max drain every time for the sake of argument, this would save you a round of TP'ing under ideal circumstances. It takes 9 rounds to reach 100 TP after Evisceration, and a drain proc on the last round isn't helpful, so basically there's a 8.8% (1/10 * 8/9) chance for the Twilight to save you an attack round. I'm not mathy enough to translate this figure into expected impact overall on DPS or to compare that to the impact on DPS from Triplus' lower delay.
There is one caveat to this though. Remember there's a reason it isn't as effective stacking STP with DW as it is with 2H. It was because if a 2H double attacks or triple attacks it counts as an entire round. Similarly if a 2H missed a swing, it was an entire round missed. Because each hand procs multiple attacks separately and each hand can miss separately, DW TP cycles are always littered with imperfect rounds from when one hand misses or when the hands swing unequal amounts of times. Thus mathing to get to 100TP perfect wasn't effective because there were too many situations where you wouldn't hit 100 TP exactly even with a perfect STP set.
So we're talking a ~9% chance to save a round that is circumscribed by a massive chance that natural misses/2A/3A/4A procs make it such that you will undershoot or overshoot the round anyway.
And I've been hearing the quadruple attack is exclusive to the hand wielding Twilight. If that's the case it loses the attack frequency battle where it had a 3 swing per hundred advantage versus Triplus.
Now the point about HP draining as pure damage is a fair argument but it's hard to to translate that to expected damage because it's a constant in a world where we are talking relative variables.
All together I think the benefits of Twilight are vastly overstated, at least as a DPS offhand. I think Twilight/Triplus is an excellent combo for people not doing ToM and not going for Twashtar, but if you have another main-hand I just don't see the point in wasting one's time getting one.
Asura.Karbuncle said:
I never publicly claimed "30%TP proc rate", I sent that in a PM to a friend once, After owning the dagger for about 1 day and doing some guess work. The highest i've claimed was 20% On the Triplus page itself(Which i still believe to be true, at least 15%). Though, I've since then learned significantly more about the dagger. So i'd appreciate it if you can stop waving that around like i've been preaching it for years when infact my PM was just quoted in a ala thread at one point without my prior permission, nor to my knowledge for some time. Everyone makes mistakes on guess-work, I never expected mine to be quoted as a thread starter, and have since then reconciled that! These days i at least Acknowledge Triplus has its uses.
Actually you did publicly claim a 30% TP proc rate:
"
TP Drain goes as high as 10TP drained, and procs roughly 30% of the time, i'd say ~35%MP, 35% HP."
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/15681/mandau-offhand-dagger/3/#1046528
Asura.Karbuncle said:
Yes, Though despite my best efforts in showing both daggers in a positive light, I still expect an incredibly nerd-raging unnecessarily hateful math ridden response as to why I'm an idiot.
Pride is a silly thing.
First off, I don't care and I'm not "nerd raging"... I simply think you're wrong and will point that out if I think it appropriate. For someone trying to play it cool, I think it's funny you're the one to start tossing pot shots assuming I would be "nerd raging" and "unnecessarily hateful." From my perspective it seems that you should take your own advice when it comes to pride. You seem to be overreacting because someone actually challenges your opinions about Thief (if you really want me gone though, you could probably get my off FFXIAH if you could revive KI's forums)
Second, you are right that I resorted to math. You said yourself in refuting Togekiss about the Triplus "There are too many assumptions and not enough facts. its Guess-work." So how do we fix that? Math. Let's not guess how useful X is over Y, let's analyze numerically what does better DPS, or at least break it down so it's clearer what we are comparing.
Asura.Backstab said:
I tp in 4/5 af3+2 and would take twilight over triplus any day, but i do much more solo/lowman then in an alliance so eva kila +2/t.knife is the way to go for me till i get my ice on a cone.
There is no point keeping Thief's Knife on past the first hit. Hit it once with your TK on, then switch daggers. Your next upgrade will be for level 8 (assuming TH3, Atma, and +3 from Feet/Hands/Dagger). The game remembers your highest TH level even if you swap your TH gear out afterwards. I have tested this myself.