General discussion for the September update findings.Follow

Hey guys, I thought it would be a good idea to have a centralized place to discuss the information that will be forthcoming in the following weeks as well as a place for general discussion and speculation on playing thief itself. This update looks like it was as big as the last and we still have three more to go until we hit level 99 O.O. I'm totally at a loss for words... it's so much information to take in I can't keep up. It feels refreshing though and I'm enjoying it.

I'll start off with a few observations I haven't sene mentioned. First off, my base stats were adjusted. When S-E wrote this in their update notes



They were referring to our BASE attributes. Before the version update I was a level 80 thief/nin with 82 base dex (unmerited) and
85 with merits. I logged into the game yesterday as a level 80 thf/nin with 85 dex (unmerited) and 88 dex with merits. I triod for my kindred's crests with a hume dark knight and a galka warrior and their strength was 3 more after the update than it was before. Cool!! We thought our base stats were rising too slowly immediately after the last update and it seems s-e agreed.

With that out of the way, I want to know your thoughts on dex versus strength merits in general. 4 strength raises weapon base damage by 1, but now players are garnishing 2 handed weapons to the tune of 115 + base damage (absolution +1) and our Kila +1 is an astounding 41 base damage. By level 99 I can foresee dagger base damage being 50+ and 2 handers brandishing 130+ base D weapons. Considering that no matter how powerful your weapon's base damage is 4 strength is only 1 more it's much less important on a relative scale. However criticals raise pDIF by 1.0 which is akin to adding the base damage to the actual damage output (it's not quite this simple, but that's the gist when your attack doesn't suck). If a D 115 scythe hits for 200 normal it may critical for 315, whereas adding 1 strength may make it hit for 202 damage instead. We have critical attack bonus 1 and we will be getting at least another tier of the trait, and those of us with warrior or dark knight leveled will also have the trait. Criticals are becoming ever more powerful!!

Expanding upon criticals; evisceration is becoming more powerful with every update. The reason dancing edge held its own against evisceration at level 75 was because the 40% charisma secondary modifier was a significant amount of base damage increase to our back-then low base damage weapons. Now that we're wielding stronger daggers (even stronger in the future) coupled with our critical attack bonus I think it's time/(or very lose to it) that we make evisceration our full time multi-hit weaponskill. Unless s-e releases some serious charisma modded weaponskill gear evisceration is getting shinier and shinier with every passing update.

Finally... weapons. We have a veritable armory of high powered daggers to choose from and I think all of them have merit. I will not break down every combo nor analyze beyond very basic thinking because the variables are too many, but I want to show you guys a few interesting things.

The following will be done with with 51% total haste and 38% dual wield and stp + 8 (I'm considering Dual Wield III at level 90 as well as a few personal hypothetical gear choices). The actual numbers are not important; only the discussion therein.

Edit: Before anyone asks me. YES I have accounted for the fact that auric dagger increases dual wield by 5% and the rapidus sax increases haste by 1%. The scenario's with auric have the proper tp/hit and swings/hr and the kila/kila scenario has been done with 1% haste less than the two scenarios with the rapidus sax as well as the appropriate dual wield.


These numbers are for general reference ONLY!! I have intentionally omitted accuracy, average pDIF, criticals and secondary mods in the above calculations because these variables are potentially huge.

ALL of those weapons are badass, and the Kila +1's hold their own no less!! If you were to consider dual wielding two flame kila's then we're talking 16 strength (+4 base damage every swing), and 44 attack, whereas two thunder kila +1's would enhance dexterity (sa/critical rate/ws mods) by 16 and accuracy by a whopping 36 (18%). The Auric Dagger is lower base damage than the Kila's and it doesn't come with a secondary stat set. The Rapidus Sax however comes with 12 accuracy as well as 1% haste and 150 delay, but 32 damage is 9 less than a Kila and we get no dex/str.

There are a lot of sh*t is situational factors involved here. The Auric/Rapidus Sax combo does seem like its the strongest because of the tp but the tradeoff lies in the secondary stats the Kila +1 would have had, and they're getting pretty beefy by now. I wonder how much better it really is. All of these new weapons are really strong. If the Rapidus sax proves difficult to get I'm thinking of trying out a critical build for real (especially with thf pants crit rate+) and I may change my two strength merits to dex and see what happens. My mithra already has an absurd dex level and I wonder how much stuff I can cap crit rate on with two thunder kila's and my existing tp gear. Side note: I've been slowly watching my solo sa/ta damage grow and with this update I began hitting colibri for 820-850 damage whereas I peaked out around 680-710 at lvl 75. It's fun to watch my criticals grow in strength and I wonder how much I can push them in quantity as well.

At any rate, that's all I have to offer right now. I have no opinion of sub job atm. Thf/war versus thf/nin is out in the open with too much uncharted territory for me to pass judgment one way or another.

Edited, Sep 11th 2010 12:22am by Melphina

I'm not sure that anything beats STR/ATT Kila +1 for offhand with Mandau. That's a total of STR+8 Attack+52. Pretty much a free mithkabob.

Also, 85 Mandau is now a rank 5 weapon.



Edited, Sep 11th 2010 8:15am by Lobivopis

Yeah the whole time in that abyssea party I think I only broke 3k twice. Most likely due to really lucky multi procs and having zerk + stalwart tonic up at the same time. Although there is lots of room for improvement on that with atmas (I still don't have a lunar abyssite or really know much about them) and stat boosts so I can see us becoming very powerful there.

I think /war could be really good if SE decided to add some natural defensive ability for THF. As it stands we really can't even make good use of accomplice and collaborator without /nin or blowing PD. Even a max evasion set really isn't going to save you against those leveled up abyssea mobs.

I died twice in the begining due to lack of serious DD's and I couldn't seem to lose hate so I was getting dissapointed. But after the first hour a few DD's swapped out and some solid people showed up and birds were essploding in seconds and I could start to really let loose. It was a lot of fun.

Edited, Sep 11th 2010 11:52am by ThiefKiller

By doing this you not hitting the mob currently in your camp. So you lose damage and tp by disengaging -> clicking on a chest -> trade key -> engaging. Kind of defeats the purpose of going /war imo. And you died one time which made your damage go down even further.

I exped my thf in abysea today and went from 81 to 85. We fought birds in miseraux. I really needed my shadows. I never died and was engaged 95% of the time (eyeball). I can say honestly going thf/war would not have been a good idea. Cure power is nice but mages can do other things also: Dia, haste, sleep, nuke, pull, ect, ect.

If you going to be an mp sink you better crank up you damage by a lot i.e. Fell Cleave burn.

And keep in mind in abysea party's people swap in and out almost constantly. At the start of an abysea party you can have two mages in your party and at a later moment it can be one or even zero mages. /nin in exp just makes the most sense imo.

Edited, Sep 12th 2010 11:46am by Breaze

Back to the findings and whatnot, does anyone know what dagger caps at 85? Got my dnc capped at 329 iirc then turned around to level thf and it was uncapped by 82. I'm at 85 now but had to super pull my last party and didn't get to skillup ; ;

Edited, Sep 12th 2010 9:42am by Kalisa

340 with full merits.

Fell Cleave burns are good exp, yes. I think it would be a bit silly if that became the new standard though. Abyssea exp parties are already really really good. I don't think its fair to say that THF/WAR is not worth it because it can't put out the damage of a fell cleave burn WAR.

THF/WAR, imo, is completely dependant on two things. Do you have real DD's to work with? DO you have mages that are worth a damn? If those two things are present, in my oppinion, THF/NIN is less efficient. I started a party the other day where none of the DD's could take hate back from me. My sneak attacks alone were more than the SAM's WS's...thats not a party where THF/WAR is a good idea. I've also had parties with really agressive DD's and mobs are spinning and exploding out of control. In that party, I think /WAR might be more efficient than /NIN to keep up and contribute.

I don't think there is anything wrong with asking mages to use their mp to heal people either. Especially with the buffs they now receive from atmas, new abilites, spells and gear. (Cureskin/Aoe Stoneskin/Near infinite MP from refresh sources etc., etc.). Not to mention that with temp items constantly being refreshed, you have your own means to heal your hp as well.

I would still like to see THF get some kind of defensive ability that would ease out dependancy on shadows a a bit.

Edited, Sep 13th 2010 10:48am by ThiefKiller

I've used both thf/nin as well as thf/war to pickup abyssea and I don't deny that thief/nin still has it's place. Yesterday I joined a pickup la thiene group for an hour and the group wasn't doing very good so I subbed /nin. I was glad I did because this group wasn't as prepared as some of my others. However some runs are overprepared, and in this case I think thf/war is perfectly viable.



I don't base my sub job selection off of restore chests. If I'm in a weak group I will sub /nin but if I'm in a strong group I'll consider subbing /war. I originally mentioned restore boxes because my colibri burn didn't need them all. The thing is that chests only stay up for a few minutes and not everyone uses them even if they should be used. This can happen for 1 of 2 reasons. 1: Your group isn't doing very well and your party has poor players OR 2: Your group is kicking so much ass you're getting SO MANY boxes that there isn't enough time to keep track of them all. In the latter case temporary items are flying around like candy and your group may be more interested in those gargantuan gold boxes popping up than the restorals. For whatever reson be it the former or the latter I've joined alliances where restore chests timed out and vanished. If people are just going to LET them go by the wayside then yes I'm going to use them myself. It's better than the alternative.

As you said, abyssea exp alliances aren't a big deal. People bring underleveled sub jobs and mages who are level 60-65 to the field as well as poorly equipped "anyjob". The funny thing is that if the group is paying attention to the lights and getting the proper types of kills at the proper times you can still extend abyssea exp chains indefinitely, all the while getting better exp per hour than anything you could elsewhere. Abysea exp is just that easy. Abyssea notorious monsters on the other hand need a bit more tact, but for simple exp ally you don't have to do anything special to contribute meaningfully; just play smart.

Edited, Sep 13th 2010 10:37am by Melphina

Great idea, I am changing my macro.