Career Thief Dagger must-haves (w/o relic)Follow

Hello,

I was looking at the list of trials to do and my my, there are so many. So I was wondering which of these do I absolutely need to have.

I am currently 0/18 on X's Knife. 0/10 Eye of Verthandi (working on Athame Double-Attack), my THF just deleveled last night in a sac pull back to 75, but I plan to take it to 80 in a matter of two weeks. I have no Ridill, nor am I really planning to get one. My Mandau status is still at stage 1. So pretty much, I am your average thief that is trying to make it out there.

I main hand Blau Dolch until I get X's Knife, offhand Sirocco Kukri when /NIN. I do have Garuda's Dagger (lol!) which I use only casting mobs at times because Silence helps when it procs.

Trials that I am currently working on are both Athame's (double atack dagger) and Kila (Evasion +16).

I found the Parazonium series interesting, the final shape giving Double Attack +7, yet my concern is the delay of 211 and whether or not this dagger would be a viable replacement for sirocco kukri.

Other than that, I'm looking at the list of trials and I see a lot of them with potential. I am just wondering if I have (which I don't yet, but I should soon...) X's Knife, will I need any of them or are they situational by chance and when/where would I possibly need them? This includes Accuracy dagger (DEX+6 Acc+12), VIT dagger (kiting? I have Terra's Staff which I kite in but wondering if the added VIT will beat the loss in Physical Damage Taken) and Fusetto (Store TP+8).

Please feel free to include daggers that are not trials which thieves must carry. I'd like to look at what I should/shouldn't consider based on your recommendations when gearing up my thief.

I do a lot of endgame, including HNM's. Although I often attend EG on my other jobs depending on how many THFs pop, I like to contribute to my linkshell's damage input when doing things like zerg rather than just be there for the added TH.

Aside from mythic, relic, and twashtar (all the most difficult to attain, but obviously useful), its all about magian.

There currently arent any AH or NM drop daggers that compete with magian options. Str/Dex kilas, Parazonium(OAT) in almost any combination will serve you well. If your all hardcore, you can get 2x agi/eva Kilas, 2x dex, 2xStr, OAT Paraz, and chase a Twashtar, but that is an obscene amount of effort for marginal gains. Pick 2-3 daggers and you will more than have your hands full. Dont forget these trials will continue to become more arduous as they add new levels of magian trials with every major update until 99. Once you have a good dagger setup, the gains of additional daggers becomes very marginal, but requires the same monsterous time investment.

Personally I would rather go big or go home, Twashtar/Paraz(OAT), and have a set that is equally potent at any atk/str/acc levels. Acc kilas can often be overkill. More rarely, so is str/atk kilas. This in my mind pushes them into situational use. The sheer DPS, TP gain and WS damage of Twashtar/Paraz(OAT) as a complete package is unmatched and guranteed to be equally as potent no matter if your fighting TWs or AV. This is my choice of trials for thf which is MORE than enough to keep me busy combined with my drg weapons and general endgame play (Obviously going for a relic/mythic also works). If you have 12hours/day to play then sure go for 5+ daggers, but really i cant ever condone that type of play :P I did it far to long and im much better off now xD

Edit: If your after a quick and dirty dagger to step up from the 75 options, the magian trial Fusetto (D38/Del 186/STP8) is the 'Easiest' and fastest magian trial to complete from start to finish, and yields an excellent dagger. This will hold you over and then some until you can finish the more time consuming trials. (Actually thinking about doing this myself as I have hit the giant wall of the final Twashtar trial)

Edited, Jul 15th 2010 10:01am by Banalaty

Currently, X's is obsolete with all of the very powerful new daggers unless you just want an Epeen shot with Twashtar/X's for big SA or WS numbers. Once you get almost any 2 of the new daggers (And absolutely if those 2 are Twash/Para) Blau will finally die.

However, SE has "said" that they will keep current top tier gear usable by allowing us to upgrade some existing gear. This hasnt happened yet obviously, so as it stands right now, every lv 75 dagger save relic/mythic are beaten by new stuff. If they DO allow us to eventually upgrade other gear, it is possible to see X's/Blau/Sirocco and others make a comeback. But that obviously depends on which items SE allows upgrades, how potent those upgrades are, and how difficult the tasks are to complete.

As it stands, the old standbys are dead. The "could" return, but we have zero info on when/if that will happen.

I strongly favor the 1-2x Paraz. The weapons work like most multi hit weapons in that they dont "stack" with other 2x/3x attack gear/traits (Joy/Ridil/Kclub/Soboro etc). This is in contrast to jailer weapons (Justice sword etc) that can proc a Thfs triple attack and the weapons double simultaniously resulting in 4hit rounds. Also, the 2x/3x rate on the 1-3 paraz are far lower than ridil or Mkris. Shamaya might have teh link floating around to the BG thread showing the multi hit rates. It worked out to something like, 1-3x magian weapons avg only 1.7attacks per swing while ridil/mkris avvg 1.9. The 1-2x however avg 1.4. The difference in TP is not as significant as going from Joy to ridil. Then the 1-3x has VERY sad damage ratings. Once you addd in the fact that we will proc more Double/Triple attacks from our gear/traits using 1-2hit para, the 1-3 looses even more ground.

Anyway, long story short, the 1-3hit is not as impressive as we would have hoped with a huge hit to damage, lower multi hit proc rate than similar weapons, and not stacking with other double/triple gear/traits(ie jailer weapons). After you account for Thfs triple attack and DA gear, the bonus in TP gain is marginal, but the damage hit is significant.