My THF WS Sucks!!! (i Need Help)

so what kind of DMG do you do on campaign mobs?

Lol in my opinion get a X's knife and spamm Evisceration .....Breaze does this and is one of the best if not THE best Thf's on Leviathan she is working on THF Mythic pretty close too

[EDIT] Totally forgot lol she has Skadi/Enkidu/Heca/Exapnsion stuff

Range/Ammo: Bomb Core or Fire Bomblet. No sense giving up the strongest ammo items in the game.

Head: Optical Hat, Hecatomb, Moogle Hat, Enkidu, Voyager Sallet (acc-capped only, generally a terrible piece if not).
Neck: WS Gorget, PCC, Chiv Chain if not
Ear: Brutal, DEX earrings, Attack earrings, etc.
Body: DH if acc capped, HH if acc uncapped. Mirke Body is very strong if you have at least acc10 on it for DE.
Hands: Hecatomb, Enkidu, AF I suppose. AF+1 if TA (unless you have Heca+1).
Ring: Acc/Rajas in uncapped, DEX/Rajas in capped. In your case, mix acc and DEX rings according to acc.
Back: Cuch, Forager's, Amemet +1 etc.
Waist: Warwolf or Potent Belt depending on accuracy
Legs: Hecatomb, Enkidu, Dusk, Dragon Subligar
Feet: Hecatomb, Enkidu, Dragon Leggings, AF2 if desperate

Kinda vary's. Especially since I almost always go thf/dnc and mainhand merc kris. With merc kris main hand SADE does about 500-700. I pretty much always break 1k with SADE with harpe main hand unless it is imps then its alot more lol. I'd have to and try to find exact numbers. Though in campaign I'm usually solo so I usally have a xbow on which lowers things a little

Campaign's also hard to judge in general with the whole range in mob types as well as all the possible buffs they can have (hello2u pld with prot & def up)

Personal preference, I've been using Dusk Trousers for WS for the added umph. Also if your going to use Dragon subligar, why not try to get denali kecks? you lose 1 dex but gain 3 acc for your WS.

Also worth noting that ws mods are lvl correct by .83 at 75. So on solo DE 1dex is about .249 to base dmg 1 str is about .25 and 1 chr is about .332.

On SA dex adds 1 to base dmg and on TA agi adds 1 to base dmg... however something I recently learned from wiki on ws that bonus is add after ftp is multiplied to the rest of it (ie weapon dmg fstr ws mods). Now granted DE only has a ftp of 1.1875 and even with gorget adding .1 that isn't much of a difference but it is there.

Which means effectively SA/TA dex/agi bonus on DEs which breeze gorget is more like .78 to base dmg which means on that first hit 1 dex on SADE is only adding a little over 1 to base dmg instead of 1.249. Will that make a huge difference in gear selection? Probably not. But it is part of the reason why stacking str becomes more important on say mercy strokes even on SA even with a skill mod of only 60%.

hmm? How is that so? If dex bonus is applied after ftp then it wont affect the overall damage. I mean, if you do a 300 SA and a 600 DE you wont see a 1000 SADE, most likely you will get a worsened 800 ( due equiping acc instead of dex).

The best advantage of SADE is that you make 2 out of 6 usual hits (/nin) 100% accurate, and if you double or triple attack these hits will also be 100% accurate. For this reason i basically WS on my SA set when doing SADE.

It is still before pdif. From wiki Damage = WD * PDIF

For Sneak Attack and Trick Attack with Thief main, the calculation is WD = ( D + fSTR + WSC) * fTP + DEX + AGI

And SA sets and SADE should be pretty similar since as far as stats go dex is still slightly better than str. Only really difference is chr can help on DE and attack and acc matters a bit more cause well there are still those other 4 hits to worry about. Though really I go enough acc most the time anyways and ws gorget helps a bit and things like mirke body and bomblet help out too

after all the advice others have given, I'm going to say try to base your uncapped acc builds around marinara pizza. it'll seriously destroy sushi in nearly all cases where your acc is uncapped. I'm no thf, but I try to stay away from sushi like the plague when on any melee job these days, the benefits are just too great for needing slightly more acc gear (if any from possibly overshooting with sushi) than you would for trying to stuff enough atk into a sushi build to get a comparable boost in damage.

I guessing a good thf build will generally have ~360 or so atk? that's giving you a possible ~13.8% boost in damage over sushi if you can keep acc capped. obviously slightly lower in these situations; if the dex from sushi is raising your dDEX value between the 37~50 value, during SA +/- WS if you're not sacrificing any dex for atk gear, when getting minuets and/or chaos roll. would calculate the exact amount, but it's not going to be more than ~5% closer to pizza build in any one of those situations (of course it will be closer if multiple situations are met) if my estimates are right. meaning you'd still be getting ~9% increase in damage with pizza in most cases.

But pdif affects every hit equally anyway, being them from SA and then WS or SAWS. Ftp otherwise, affects only the first hit of the ws. If the dex was inside the WD adding with WSC and etc, this dex bonus would be given a 18% boost due DE ftp. Sure that would be great, but it doesnt work like that. And that's what i understood by your previous post. Since the dex bonus is added later then doing a SAWS will "usually" do the same damage as doing SA and then WS. The advantage to SAWS stays as making extras hit 100% accurate. Well the wsc is also added for these hits, so thats also a plus compared to a solo SA.

On your post you actually said the dex bonus is added after ftp. But the behaviour you exemplified was the behaviour as if it was added before the ftp.

Well duh pdif is the same though has a range. No where I say it doesn't

Lol... um not really I said that it was before and I did some math to show how much it would effectively be if added before for better comparison to say ws mods and fstr. That was all.

How you did say thigns that more or less implied that it was before which is why I said it again.

lotsa people responded to this o.o

Main: Blau Dolch -------> Keep

Sub: Stylet, Dex+4 Agi+2 --------> replace with either sirocco kukri, misericorde+1, or behemoth knife +1 (evolith augmentable too), or mainhand azoth instead

Range: Stauro Bow, Agi+4 -----> go with a leo bow or something with lower delay for solo. for dmg dealing, get a bomb core+

Head: Empress Hairpin, Dex+3 Agi+3 ----> optical hat

Neck: Spike Necklace, Str+3 Dex+3 --> keep for now

Ear: Drone Earringx2, Agi+6 ----> for DE, 2 merman's if possible. maybe coral is ok. definitely brutal if you can get. diabolos earring might be ok

Body: Dragon Harness, Dex+6 Agi+6 Att+ 10 ---> this is ok for now. if you've got very low acc, heca harness can be better. acp body might also be a better option for low acc, if you have it

Hands: Rogue's Armlets, Dex+3 ---> merman's mitts, enkidu upgrade

Ring: Spinel Ringx2, Dex+8 ----> keep for now

Commander's Cape: Str+3 Dex+3 Agi+3 ----> amemet+1 -> forager's -> cuchulain's all the way

Belt: Warwolf Belt: Str+5 Dex+5 ----> this is ok. if your accuracy is super low, you can try camping a virtuoso belt

Legs: Dragon Subligar: Dex+4 ---> definitely upgrade to dusk trousers when possible, they're pretty cheap these days

Feet: Dragon Leggings: Dex+3 Agi+3 ----> ok for now


You will definitely notice a good increase if you make these adjustments. I see the logic in what you chose, but for Thf WS you definitely do need a blend of stats. Mostly you'll find that the best pieces of equip for DE have some blend of dex, accuracy, or attack.

on the subject of back piece, forager's v. cuchu is dependant on the WS and your acc value. in most situations I'd pick forager's, but for uncapped hit rate on multi-hit WSs cuchu will definitely take the lead.

@ Shamaya:

ok i tried you suggestion and it was ok but i don't understand why you would put a Misericorde +1 (how ever you spell it) over a stylet??? please explain

It has about the same dps but attacks faster. It's really about the same. Unless it gets you to 100% faster but kinda depends on setup
Cuch might still win even in capped. It's kinda dependent on how much other str/dex/ws mods/weapon dmg you got to see how much that will help and kinda depends where you are at on Cratio to see how much of an effect foragers att will have.

I haven't calculated it, but my guess would be for increased tp gain, considering that stylet has a higher dmg value and overall higher dot value. at a certain delay value decreasing delay will help you to gain tp dramatically faster than certain levels of increased delay (speaking weapon delay value here, not haste). if I remember right values under 190 is where this occurrence starts.

about the mantle, yeah, but I didn't want to start running numbers again to find the exact values, lol.

...

Please don't gear for CHR for DE. Pretty please. The only CHR you should have on you when WS'ing are from the Skadi body, Delta earring and/or Maat's cap. AF2 hands when the situation calls for it.

Anyways:
Main: Blau Dolch
Sub: Stylet
Range: Stauro Bow
Head: Empress Hairpin
Neck: Spike Necklace
Ear: Drone Earringx2
Body: Dragon Harness
Hands: Rogue's Armlets
Ring: Spinel Ringx2
Commander's Cape
Belt: Warwolf Belt
Legs: Dragon Subligar
Feet: Dragon Leggings

Stop using the Stylet. Get a Sirocco Kukri
Stop using the Stauro Bow. Get a Fire bomblet
Empress Hairpin is only ok when you're stacking both SA and TA. Get the Voyager Sallet or AF2 head. Perferably the Heca cap.
Get some sea gorgets until the Love Torque. Then full-time the Love Torque.
I hope to god you have some DEX or Atk earrings. If you don't, Coral Earrings are cheap. Use them until Merman's earring or any Dex+2 earring or Brutal Earring.
Body is fine. Antares Harness better. You can also use the ACP body if you put +10 acc on it. Skadi body is best.
Hands are fine until Hecatomb Mittens or Enkidu's mittens.
Aim for Rajas ring and a Thunder ring.
Cuchulain's mantle for DE, but if that's too expensive, then Forager's mantle.
Upgrade your legs to Enkidu's subligar.
Upgrade your feet to Hecatomb feet

There are plenty of times you can and should use xbow as a thf. The OP has stated he uses it for things like nyzle isle and soloing in campaign both times you might need to cure yourself or might be useful to debuff the mob with some blind bolts or acid. Though there are better xbows that thfs can wear for that. Such as Ziska's Crossbow

Dancing Edge info "Accuracy varies by tp."
English for:" you may as well use cyclone."
Enough effort put into Shark/Evisc(Maybe even Stab) and they should
more than exceed your expectations of Dancing Edge.
(Should anyways.)

Now read the rest of what the ws do. And just no on manstab shark bite is rediculously better than it.

Ok sharkbite. 2 hits first is 2.0 ftp up to 3.0 for 300% tp, then 1.0 like all multihits so effectively overall 3.0-4.0 multiplier(not exactly accurate since they are sperate hits and all but close enough since each one is multiplied to the same base dmg) And a 50% dex mod.

Dancing edge. 5 hit. First one 1.1875 the other 4 are 1.0 for a total of more like 5.1875. 30% dex mod 40% chr mod.

Evisceration 5 hit. First one 1.0 rest 1.0 too for about 5.0. 30% dex mod only. Tp mods crit hit rate.

Sharkbite loses just due to all the hits making an effective much higher ftp. Assuming you can land them. Obviously on highly evasive mobs that's different. The 20 less on dex mod is generally completely countered by the 40% chr mod on DE. Unless somehow you actually have dex high enough to more than double your chr.

Evisercation close enough to the same dmg from hits/ftp. Loses 40% chr mod though which is pretty big.

As far as crits go... crit hits raise your pdif by 1 and raise the cap from 2.4 to 3.0. Ok you really shouldn't be capping pdif on thf so meh. And lets say your fighting something with ok defense so your Cratio is only like 1.5 which would favor crits even more than a higher amount. Your low pdif would be 1.8 (again using lower end to favor evisceration more) so crit would jump that to 2.8 a 55% increase in dmg.

The problem is crit hit rate. Not alot of testing I can see on evisceration but crit hit rate caps supposedly from some testing at 30%. Assuming that counts on evisceration as well that means only about 1.5 hits on average will happen even capped hell lets say 2 which is enough to pretty much count as an extra free hit or an extra 22% dmg just from the critting.

But lets look at how much evisercation loses from no chr mod.

Base dmg for ws is calculated as weapon dmg+fstr+stat mods.

I main hand a Harpe so that's 35 right there.

I got a decent amount of str, so lets assume capped fstr of 40.

nekkid as a taru thf/nin I have 73 dex and 52 chr.

My ws gear gives me another 29 dex and no chr.

So stat bonus from dex will be 25.398 and from chr 17.264.

Giving us base dmg of 100 for evisceration and 118 for DE.

Giving DE a 18% higher base dmg.

Not to mention the 18% extra dmg on the first hit which is multiplied with base dmg so really higher.

I'm not sure if there is an actual crit rate cap, but dDEX was found to cap at 20% (at 50 dex over enemy's agl). you can increase the number with merits and gear, but dex will no longer affect it after that point.

Yeah they not sure but the highest I skimmed from the links to BG testing was around 30%. Also alot of full dex geared 300% eviscerations almost always leading to lower dmg than DE leads me to beleive there probably is a relatively low cap on crit hits. The only really time I will pull it out is for ending darkness.

And to be fair manstab's +66% attack is semi useful on high def/evasion mobs where your attack is gunna kill your pdif and more importantly your probably gunna miss hits especially if you are storing tp. But it still has lower tp mods than sharkbite and lower dex mod and is 1 less hit so really shark bite still generally beats it

+66%? I gotta get more caught up with some of this ***... lol

that makes things a bit more interesting at least, seeing as most the more annoyingly tougher mobs are going to ***on thf's pDif (I guess it could still be better if you're gonna cry about pizza being 3-hr and stick to your sushi too, or not even bother with food, lol). eh, but may be not if it's calculated to be the same damage in a certain circumstane, can't say for sure without knowing the exact range (from min-max) SqEx's random number generator likes to toss your pDif value into ~.~9 ::shakes fist at SqEx::

Hey Skeeta, I'm glad you tried that out.

As Dasva said, the thing about Misericorde +1 is faster TP-gain. Don't worry completely about your WS damage alone. That's old-school and pre-75 thought.

Stylet has a very barely bigger DPS value. And you also get better WS stats. However, it's too small of a gain when compared to Misericorde+1's TP gain difference. Trust me, this has been debated by thieves for a long time, and Misericorde+1 always wins. You can notice and increase in TP gain even just eyeballing. TP/hit will be lowered (maybe), but TP/time will be increased.

It is semi dependent on your DW and mainhand weapon too btw. But for the sake of normal stuff lets use blau and just suppa. And only store tp from rajas/brutal. Note I am also assuming no DW from ACP or more/less store tp on ws for some reason or whatever you might think putting another store tp on... though I suppose Chiv could work too but meh

Blau delay 178
Misecorde+1 178
stylet 195
So combine delays of 356 and 373.
Reduced delay from DW 284 and 298
So reduced delay per hand is 142 and 149.

Tp= 5.0 + [(Delay - 180) * 1.5 / 180]
So 4.6 and 4.7
Rajas and brutal would bring that up to 4.8 and 4.9.

Or 9.6 and 9.8 for both hits.

Lets say you are using DE you generally land the first and last DW hit and land at least 3 other hits usually for 2X +3 tp.

So that would 12.6 and 12.8 from Ws

So only need 87.4 and 87.2 tp to get back to 100% 19 hits and 18 hits.

Assuming no misses or triple/double attack cause I don't fee like doing more math that means 1 more attack round for blau/misecorde So:

blau/misecorde will get 19(20) hits in 47.33 sec. For blau/stylet to get to 18 it would be 44.7. Note blau/stylet would only take 49.66 sec to do the 20 hits. So really under this circumstance blau stylet would get you to 100% faster. So I really doubt you can eyeball a faster tp gain from blau/misecorde+1. God I miss the tp floor though


Note different DWs will affect the tp gain as well as store tp so they might take the same number of hits to get to 100%. But at the same token haste will and more DW will lower the amount of time it takes to actually get that many attack rounds off by the same % but the difference in actual time between them will start to lower making that even more lol to eyeball. Either way both those are too slow for my taste

My Eviscerations have always trumped my DE's.
If I'm going to worry about CHR at all,May as well use my BST.
I use 5 DEX merits and idle around STR70+38/DEX75+48 in weapon skills,
( Minus food),CHR+5 from armlets woo?(Dynamis/blahblahblah/etc)

what knife do you use main-hand X's? 'cause if I remember right that's one of the few situations evis. will reliably average higher than DE.

Yeah I've never seen evisceration consistently do better then DE even at 300% tp. It's frankly not in the numbers. Especially if you are getting close to pdif caps. Since normal crit hit adds +1.0 or 1.3 for X-knife to pdif but only raises the cap by .6...

Blau/matron's in most situations,sirocco in campaign,Thief's for everything TH related.
The consistancy from evisc is better for me,DE seems to fall short a lot..
I grasp there's math and everything but the numbers just don't add up on DE,when I use it.
I know all about X's,just a matter of doing the fight.Never time for it,sucks..
Acc I wear varies too though I guess.
Use bomblet and swap from amemet+1 to Aileron mantle(DEF5 Acc+6/Racc+6) if Mob has a higher con also.