Ridill vs Mandau vs MNK/WAR

[Beckwin]

culv is impractical for xping as a kc rng ; ;

[Meat]

bring along an alt extra shells

[Croaker]

Sad facts about Mandau THF at colibri...

I end up pulling hate early on in most fights and only lose it for a moment when another DD vokes or uses a ws. A few seconds later I am tanking again.
Tanking the entire fight makes it impossible to sneak attack unless hide is up and makes it very hard to keep food on.
Most WAR and MNK I have partied with will intentionally dodge a trick attack.
Mercy stroke is a very poor ws if it isn't stacked with TA or SA.

So with no food, and no TP due to constant tanking and being unable to use TA or SA effectively, I still end up outparsing most other DD.

For Mandau to really shine a NIN is almost required. Technically it could be a non chicken-shit WAR, but NIN are used to being tricked on. I put full merits into TA recast and TA-Mercy every 50 seconds while doing SA solo or SA-Mercy if I got TP real fast. I still end up doing some tanking unless I started the fight with TA-Mercy, but it isnt as bad.

Ridill vs. Mandau vs. MNK/WAR...Who Wins?

Truthfully it all comes down to what the BRD decides to sing. Assuming of course that we are talking about a "good" Ridill WAR or "good" BB MNK. With full Homam I am very high on haste/acc while with average WAR or MNK is going to be very high on attack. If the BRD sings attack songs, I benefit more and will usually outparse the Ridill WAR and BB MNK. If the BRD sings accuracy songs, they benefit more and I will probably get outparsed.

[Sidanoir]

I want to merith with a Mandau thief now! I have no question in my mind they would be good competition at Colibri, but at north Mamool camp I am not entirely convinced.

[Deejay]

Weird question, but in terms of DPS, can a well equiped non-relic THF ever compare to a MNK/NIN or WAR? Or are they still considered 2nd tier with SAM, NIN, and other DD's?

[Eaglestrike]

Weird question, but in terms of DPS, can a well equiped non-relic THF ever compare to a MNK/NIN or WAR? Or are they still considered 2nd tier with SAM, NIN, and other DD's?

I'd say a non-relic THF can be at the level of a MNK/NIN in most cases and an average/good Ridill war. Can't be up there with the 1337 MNK's and WAR's but it's not bad. At Colibri THF is basically in the gap between 1337 war's and mnk's and everyone else.

[Koga]

I love the icon this thread received.

[RKenshin]

I agree with Eaglestrike.

I have a THF mule I exp once in a blue moon (mostly to keep it from hitting 74), and when I do I'll try my best to compete as a DD so I'm not a leech. Without many merits or a few key pieces (like homam) and just using some of my gear where possible I've been able to keep pace with most well-equiped DDs (including MNK and WAR) at the Mamool camp (haven't tried it at Colibri yet). However I don't think there's any chance at all against the high end/decked out MNKs and WARs without relic.

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?

I have Culv+1 and I tend to switch between that and Hellfire+1 using Kraken RNG. More often than not I'll use Culv+1 on Kraken RNG unless I start to feel uncomfortable with how often I miss Slugs... But usually that isn't a problem at all, my WS gear has a good deal of acc.

I don't use heavy STR builds for WS very often outside of Feinted/really easy to hit mobs; don't feel the small amounts of extra damage is worth missing a huge amount of damage more often (in cases where acc isn't close to the cap). So I have room for a lot more ranged acc/attack in place of it, and don't normally have problems with landing Culv's Slugs.

As far as Merits go I still have I think two Marksmanship upgrades only, which were like the first two merits I ever upgraded back when they were first introduced.

[Shinryuu]

Weird question, but in terms of DPS, can a well equiped non-relic THF ever compare to a MNK/NIN or WAR? Or are they still considered 2nd tier with SAM, NIN, and other DD's?

<insert parse pic where THF did more damage than ridill WAR but I forgot to block out LS names>

Blacked out names to protect the innocent, etc. I was in that party as the MNK (/NIN, lacks Shura/BlackB/Haidate but has all H2H, crit and MNK merits) and I wouldn't say the WAR tanked much more than the THF and me, actually. The THF also lacks gear (he sold his Dusk Ledelsens when he heard he was up first for Homam feet, which he has now, fearing deflation) and merits (no full 8/8 dagger and needs a few more triple attacks I think). I am not sure about the WAR merits, stupidly enough I had misses filtered.

So, short answer, yeah, non-relic THF get in their fair share of damage too. As long as the other 2-3 melees stand still THF is not a 'difficult' job to party with, either. Stand still, let 'em do their thing, and enjoy seeing 2,000 damage Dancing Edges occasionally.

[Medivac]

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 ?

same kind that doesnt use assasin right, or have seperate TA and SA only gear, same kind that makes everyone think thfs do shitty damage

[Priran]

Blacked out names to protect the innocent, etc. I was in that party as the MNK (/NIN, lacks Shura/BlackB/Haidate but has all H2H, crit and MNK merits) and I wouldn't say the WAR tanked much more than the THF and me, actually. The THF also lacks gear (he sold his Dusk Ledelsens when he heard he was up first for Homam feet, which he has now, fearing deflation) and merits (no full 8/8 dagger and needs a few more triple attacks I think). I am not sure about the WAR merits, stupidly enough I had misses filtered.

honestly

[Ryko]

/facepalm

I seriously can't believe you brought that garbage here FG, least you didn't use the ridill WAR the MNK outdamaged

[Shinryuu]

The WAR's lacking, the THF's lacking. Just showing what THF's potential is without relic. Also, stop being a hypocrite, you called that parse interesting when you first saw it.

Err, edit: sorry, confused you with Beckwin <_<

[Ryko]

The WAR's lacking, the THF's lacking. Just showing what THF's potential is without relic. Also, stop being a hypocrite, you called that parse interesting when you first saw it.

Err, edit: sorry, confused you with Beckwin <_<

Been getting that a lot, it's starting to get entertaining. I was about to say I don't think I've ever called anything you've ever said interesting.

[Shinryuu]

[Francisco II]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...2x/parse81.jpg

From top to bottom:

Ninja: Was friggin' horrible... somehow had enough hate to repeatedly fall to orange/red HP, but still failed the parse miserably.
Monk: Me - Destroyers, Black Belt, etc...
Thief: Mandau, full Hecatomb +1
Red Mage
Samurai: Not sure of his gear, but he had ACC issues.
Bard

This was on Greater Colibri, and no one bothered to use any food. I out damaged him on regular melee hits, but Mercy Stroke is damned hard to keep up with.

[Shamaya]

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

I was going to reply to this, but Eagle basically said what I was going to, although I wasn't going to go into how the WS is calculated:

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.

Sa+De, for ex, is noticeably stronger than adding the numbers of Sa and DE separately. The difference isn't omgcrazy, but it's noticeable. If Sa is up, do Sa+DE. If Ta is up, do Ta+DE if you believe it is correct to do so. If Sa or Ta is going to come up in about 3-4 seconds, consider waiting. If it's something like 7-10seconds+, best to go ahead and DE solo. If you're using meat or your acc in your Solo WS set sucks, you'll also suffer more from separating DE.

Deny it all you want, but I sincerely doubt you only Trick Attack WSes to finish off mobs in a 20k/hour party.

In a 20k/hr party, things typically are dying so fast that even if you TA+WS at the start of the battle, it may be alright because the mob could likely be dead in 5 seconds or so. When I was in that Drg/whm party that I mentioned earlier, we killed so fast that I could get away with doing this. The only reason it was 17k/hr and not 20k+ is because our bards sucked and made us roam constantly, and because we were being camped against. Seriously though, even in non 20k/hr parties, you're right, a considerate Thf may do a Ta+Ws that doesn't kill the mob immediately or 1-2 seconds later, but they usually don't unless there's a Nin/war that likes to tank.

Truthfully it all comes down to what the BRD decides to sing.

Since I have no homam, I never thought of that. That would make a big difference.

Thief: Mandau, full Hecatomb +1

5/5 heca +1? Who is this thf? Can I see a screenshot?

Weird question, but in terms of DPS, can a well equiped non-relic THF ever compare to a MNK/NIN or WAR? Or are they still considered 2nd tier with SAM, NIN, and other DD's?

I made a thread about this recently on allah because I was interested in knowing as well, http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.h...num=122;page=1
A well equipped, skilled Thf does compare to Mnk/nin and axe/axe War. IMO (non-birds) Good thf = Good Mnk/nin = Good axe/axe war = Good/Great Nin. For average to bad players, Thf is 2nd tier because it requires more skill and lots more gear than these other jobs. The main reason why it's probably not acknowledged as top tier in the way that mnk/nin and war are, and nin/war is sometimes considered, is because the ratio of poor:good thieves is bigger than that of other job classes.

At birds, that changes. Good thf > (good Mnk/nin = good axe/axe war good/great Nin). At birds, they compete in the parse against good mnk/war and ridill war. Don't even need a mandau. Just need to be very well geared and not be retarded. I have 0 homam and am yet to be outdamaged by a ridill war on birds, or a mnk/war that doesn't bring their own PL to cure and haste them. At mamools and trolls, I'm yet to outdamage a ridill war. I come close to ~ok~ ridill out of birds, but get schooled by a good one. At 4/5 homam, that could change. *shrug*

and Flies/Imps seems to be the least desirable of the merit camps these days.

I can't even convince any of my parties to go there any more, even when the other camps are horribly crowded. Always end up going to trolls instead. Thing is, I don't think people realize just how good caedarva can be with 2brd or a single, really good pulling brd. When I took a good party out about 4 months ago, we got chain 108 when I was on brd pulling against 4 other PT's (lost chain when I red-dotted for 10 sec). The trick was 4 pairs of powder boots, smart DD's that knew how to claim mobs, and weapon-style roaming and mob placement (by mob placement, I mean sleeping the pulled mobs in a location that has DD's roaming in such a fashion that they follow a logical spawn path). I can only imagine how much easier this would have been with a 2 brd pt. What I'm saying is: 16k/hr pt, <you can have this>, as long as you bring 2 brds, and don't mind ruining exp for all of the other pt's there =P

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

Me too

[Francisco II]

The THF is Dava on Alexander - I'm told by a former LS-mate of him that he has 5/5 Hecatomb +1 - and I'm inclined to believe it... the guy fished angel skins in Kuftal non-stop for MONTHS.

Next time I see him, I'll try and get a pic.

[BRP]

Wait, the LS in that screenshot is called ATGAgainstTheGrair. So when they shorten their name it's ATGATG?

[archibaldcrane]

Wait, the LS in that screenshot is called ATGAgainstTheGrair. So when they shorten their name it's ATGATG?

I'm going to take a wild leap and guess it's AgainstTheGrain - the other SS cuts it off. ><