Ridill vs Mandau vs MNK/WAR

[Ryko]

I really need a Black Belt and Faith Torque.

Technically the torque isn't gonna do anything but add 7 atk.

[Denchi]

ok so black belt. How rare is the KS99 Wyrm beard anyways? i just need Beard and Egg but we don't really camp kings much. Faith torque we're like 0/8 and I'm first in line, SE just hates me.

Mnk/War is just so tight, I hate not being up-to-par.

[Ryko]

Uh we've probably seen like 5 in about 50 wyrms, not too common for us.

[Francisco II]

I've seen 3 or 4 Wyrm Beards from about 8 or 9 KS99s... could just be luck though.

[Baha]

Because THFs plant a decent portion of their hate on someone else, so they never wind up tanking their fair share and they get to use whatever food they can build the best gear set around without spending 50k per hour.

What the fuck kinda pussy ass thieves do you merit with ?

Anytime I pt, colibri's or anywhere else, I tank more than my fair share. Only TA at low %, or to lock mob on someone for the 3 seconds it takes to circle around and SAWS. Like I said, in merits, THF (/NIN, of course) is better equipped to deal with hate than pretty much any other DD, if you don't take advantage of that, you're pretty much a pussy.

[Eaglestrike]

I don't see how THF's can more easily eat better food, unless you're in some kind of KI-inspired PLD + THFx3 trickburn.

Because THFs plant a decent portion of their hate on someone else, so they never wind up tanking their fair share and they get to use whatever food they can build the best gear set around without spending 50k per hour.

You mean how once a minute they have the option of planting hate on someone else if they choose, but the rest of the time all damage they do gives them hate? I'm fairly certain many other thieves are like me (considering someone here was stating it too) in that they know they're the best job to have hate in the merit party, so they take it as often as they can. My last merit pt at Mamool Staging point I had a 49% evasion rate (I wear -5 accuracy in gear and have no +evasion merits) and on birds it was 55%, the ninja at Mamool had a 14% evasion rate. As well, thief parrying is like/worse than Monk guard, if we have around a 50% base evasion rate on exp mobs how often do you think we get to parry anything else? Best way to level it is hope for some skill ups in a party. I will often do my best to focus on having hate. Trick Attack is my "if SA isn't up" ability for when I have tp, that timer will often not be used right away (exception being we have a really good bard and no competition so I am constantly swinging as I'll get tp fast enough to need to use both).

Oh and at bird camp in a 20k/hour party I go through nearly 2 stacks an hour on average. I think someone else had mentioned around that earlier in the thread, so I take my fair share. I get a +25% damage boost, winning the parse and hate battle isn't very hard there (I have enmity+4 in merits too.)

[Weeks]

You only do a WS once a minute and you're leading parses?

THFs have to use Trick Attack to maximize their damage, but by doing so they end up slowing down the other DDs and skewing the parser results. Deny it all you want, but I sincerely doubt you only Trick Attack WSes to finish off mobs in a 20k/hour party.

[aurik]

Unless you have a mandau you shouldn't be stacking anyway. Trick when its up, sneak when its up, free WS.

[Eaglestrike]

You only do a WS once a minute and you're leading parses?

THFs have to use Trick Attack to maximize their damage, but by doing so they end up slowing down the other DDs and skewing the parser results. Deny it all you want, but I sincerely doubt you only Trick Attack WSes to finish off mobs in a 20k/hour party.

Trick attack is a one minute timer, so once a minute I put hate on someone else. I generally use SA+WS whenever I can, and I have reduced recast on SA. With having to recast utsu, wait on a mob (either bard not a good puller or we have competition), move around, get tp stolen from colibri, etc. I am not always using TA the moment it's up everytime.

Trick attack is weaker for me than SA, and weaker for the party overall because me tanking saves us mp and I'll generally lose less tp from a tickle since I just used my WS. So it's a distant second to using SA in a merit party.

[Tdizzle]

On bird camp, a good thf not only has the piercing advantage, he also has the ability to use food, and not have his tp taken.

What the fuck kinda pussy ass thieves do you merit with ?

Wow I agree with NynJa.

My melee pulls hate alone, when SA WS is used that means I'm tanking until the mob dies, end of story.

[Lordwafik]

On bird camp, a good thf not only has the piercing advantage, he also has the ability to use food, and not have his tp taken.

What the fuck kinda pussy ass thieves do you merit with ?

Wow I agree with NynJa.

My melee pulls hate alone, when SA WS is used that means I'm tanking until the mob dies, end of story.

I aim to pull hate on Colibris, because then the bird isn't spinning like a tard, then I can just take it to one of the melees and plop a TA mercy on them. Or also because I can out tank my party.

Food shouldn't be an issue, as you shouldn't be eating anything other than mithkas since it gets eaten so much.

[divisortheory]

I always make an effort to plante hate on other people with TA+WS on Colibri. Just as a joke, I tried once to see how long a Red Curry would last, and it lasted an hour. Granted, that definitely wasn't a fair parse, but it was still funny lol.

[Taruhealingwind]

Ruke, how does your Kraken RNG compare to your relic SAM? Or have you retired RNG?

I haven't retired RNG and I still play it often, but when I play RNG I only use kraken RNG for certain situations. I love its power and everything but I don't like to whip out kraken unless it's in ideal situations (where mobs die fast and potential TP spam isn't a problem)... Which mostly ends up being just some Salvage runs and higher end exp PTs, and sometimes dynamis/limbus/etc.

However I'm relatively sure that kraken RNG would still be a little behind. I've outparsed some really decked DDs as Kraken RNG but it tends to be really close. I'll usually go head to head with a MNK/WAR most of the PT and then by the end it'll either be even, or me/them will pull 1-2% ahead. Considering I can't reliably outparse the same DDs, and when I do it's only by 1-2%, while my SAM will outparse them by a good 4-7%, I think I can safely say that my kraken RNG will hold up well against my SAM but still won't outparse it.

Although I've yet to see any kind of SAM use a Soboro and spam ranged WS on Colibri, much less a relic Bow one. I'd love to see how that does.

I assume you use Hellfire+1 along as kraken rng. Do you have any Marksmanship merits?

[Marcicus]

I've got nothing to contribute (yet), but that GM convo with Fafnir in it made me fucking lol.

[ringthree]

Ruke, how does your Kraken RNG compare to your relic SAM? Or have you retired RNG?

I haven't retired RNG and I still play it often, but when I play RNG I only use kraken RNG for certain situations. I love its power and everything but I don't like to whip out kraken unless it's in ideal situations (where mobs die fast and potential TP spam isn't a problem)... Which mostly ends up being just some Salvage runs and higher end exp PTs, and sometimes dynamis/limbus/etc.

However I'm relatively sure that kraken RNG would still be a little behind. I've outparsed some really decked DDs as Kraken RNG but it tends to be really close. I'll usually go head to head with a MNK/WAR most of the PT and then by the end it'll either be even, or me/them will pull 1-2% ahead. Considering I can't reliably outparse the same DDs, and when I do it's only by 1-2%, while my SAM will outparse them by a good 4-7%, I think I can safely say that my kraken RNG will hold up well against my SAM but still won't outparse it.

Although I've yet to see any kind of SAM use a Soboro and spam ranged WS on Colibri, much less a relic Bow one. I'd love to see how that does.

By the way ruke..have you noticed really shitty damage on Kaiten if your low on attack...ie no berserk and no meat say at colibri?..difference is pretty crazy vs zerked and food ( like more than I would expect....)..

Kiaten also seems pretty terrible in my experience vs high defense mobs..like Ultima...Fafnir...wonder if you saw same things...

Yeah, I notice really significant differences between high attack Kaitens vs low attack Kaitens... And Kaitens on HNMs vs Kaitens on weaker mobs. I mentioned this quite a few times on my last LJ updates.

A while ago when I was comparing Kasha/Gekko/Yukikaze averages with Defender on Steelshells, all three of them averaged much higher than Kaiten by almost 2x. Then when I put up Berserk and used attack food Kaiten had a much bigger improvement than all three.

However I've still found spamming 100% TP Kaitens to be the best DoT for all mobs.

You know toss in a few screenshots and this could have been an LJ update.

[Spider-Dan]

I assume you use Hellfire+1 along as kraken rng. Do you have any Marksmanship merits?

Club merits would be more significant.

[draxyl]

I don't update my LJ anymore because I leveled dark and am all emo.

You know toss in a few screenshots and this could have been an LJ update.

He's just trying to wean us off his teat.

[Valyana]

Unless you have a mandau you shouldn't be stacking anyway. Trick when its up, sneak when its up, free WS.

A little while back I ran some numbers for a friend's THF and found that SADE would do about 50 damage more than SA+DE on average, same for TA. Of course, that assumes that TP and a timer come up at the same time; if only one is up I'm sure it's better to use it rather than wait.

[Eaglestrike]

Unless you have a mandau you shouldn't be stacking anyway. Trick when its up, sneak when its up, free WS.

A little while back I ran some numbers for a friend's THF and found that SADE would do about 50 damage more than SA+DE on average, same for TA. Of course, that assumes that TP and a timer come up at the same time; if only one is up I'm sure it's better to use it rather than wait.

Yes, you'll do more damage with a SADE than SA and then a DE (because the first hit is a critical and has the fTP bonus of 1.1875 so the higher pDIF makes a small difference), but waiting for that timer you can easily lose that bonus in damage so it's best to focus on splitting them and combining them only when timers match up nicely. SA and TA also give you a 100% accuracy round, when fighting Puks this can be quite useful as flash will not matter for an attack round.

[Meat]

I assume you use Hellfire+1 along as kraken rng. Do you have any Marksmanship merits?

Club merits would be more significant.

Marks to offset the -acc on a culv+1,