Looking for some insight on Thief.

[Deadgye]

X's is awesome for anything higher level as well since a larger fraction of your damage is coming from your JAs compared to damage generated by weaponskills themselves. Blau/Sirocco is by no means gimp, but this math is no excuse to stop trying X's BC.

Aye, nobody disagrees with that. That entire thread was just focused purely on lolibri. I'm pretty sure a lot of people were getting the wrong impression and thinking that X's was not worth trying to get.

And if we follow the math I did, there's no excuse to even be found. (Unless I did something wrong, lol)

[Raen Ryong]

Not my fault you get hit by Pecking Flurries under the effect of Berserk after a critical hit

But on the general note, I've always wondered whether X/Blau would actually outdo Blau/Sirocco in a "speedburn" situation, though in more "endgame" fights I don't think there would be any contest.

An interesting note is that certain weaponskills are amplified by X's more than others, notably Mandalic Stab...

[Stabmegently]

The best insight any THF can be given is: STOP WITH ALL THE MAINHAND THIEF'S KNIFE AND SUB BLAU! First off... it's retarded to pretend that treasure hunter doesn't take effect in your offhand or whatever it is you nubs are pretending. Secondly, if by chance that theory were true, and TH really had to be in your main hand... then why sub a dagger with a hidden/latent effect? Don't you realize under that assumption, blau dolch's effects wouldn't take place? Either way, completely fucking retarded.... I wish I knew where this all started, because it drives me up the wall.

[el_tio]

a) Noone knows either way whether TH+1 works in main or offhand, since the tests were done with mainhand. (IIRC)

b) there's numerous examples of weapon effects that only work for one hand, and numerous examples of weapon effects that work for both hands.

[Thorny]

a) Noone knows either way whether TH+1 works in main or offhand, since the tests were done with mainhand. (IIRC)

b) there's numerous examples of weapon effects that only work for one hand, and numerous examples of weapon effects that work for both hands.

While wording isn't one of SE's strong suits, relic gloves are worded the same way as thief's knife and certainly don't have to be mainhanded. The weapons with effects that work on one hand are primarily the series of KS30 weapons with critical hitrate+6%, when any piece of actual armor has that it's worded differently.. iirc it's "Increases rate of critical hits".

[Cream Soda]

This is why i personally prefer to work in % increases than Xdamage/hour increases. The results are more or less the same but doesnt give the wiggle room for people to attack the numbers because its "unrealistic" for a party to function that way. Or otherwise try to poke holes in it because they arent "real" numbers you would expect to see. (although the results are the same as working with %)

So in another light (and i realize this is treading on dedhorse teritory and is a slightly simplified version in some ways. But primarily aimed at people that attack the Xdamage per hour needlessly)
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TP
Blau/Sirocco is 4.7TP for 131.2 delay (9.4 for 262.4)
X's/Blau is 4.9tp for 151.6 delay(9.8 for 303.2)
*with Suppa/Rajas/Brutal


B/S=2.15tp/sec
X/B=1.94tp/sec

Blau/Sirocco gains TP 11% faster than X's/Blau. If you WS exactly at 100tp, 110tp, 200tp, or 270tp it doesnt matter. You will get to that TP value on average 11% faster. So regardless of your personal playstyle, you will still get to WS 11% more often.

There is no question of "well wasted TP isnt accounted for" etc because the combo itself gains TP ~11% faster. Therefore over ANY stretch of time, you will ultimately gain 11% more TP for you to use however you want. So long as you use the same playstyle regarding TP with either combo Sirocco will WS 11% more over time. Unless you intentionally hold TP with Sirocco and let loose with X's which would be an unfair comparison anyway.
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Similarly DPS can be done the same way.(no Fstr included)

B/S is d33+d26 with 262.4 delay puts the combo at 13.5dps
X/B is 35+33 with 303.2 delay puts the combo at 13.28
Puts sirocco at a somewhat minor ~1.6% increase in actual DoT.

However once you toss in any +Fstr, ANY wind damage (even the 0-3 on colibri) etc will widen this gap very quickly.
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Crits (giving a VERY generous 20% rate and a genrous 1.0 pdif for X's)
would make X's crits be 2.2x normal melee, while B/S is onle 2.0.

Crits in general (with 20% rate) would raise up the DPS from the current numbers with an extra 22% and 20% respectively.

B/S=16.2 now
X/B=16.2 now.
0% increase over the other

For comparison sake, heres the same calc with a 1.5 pdif and 12% crit rate (more realistic. Standard brd party). X Crits would be 1.83x normal damage and B/S 1.66x normal melee damage. Crits averaged over a 12% proc with the lower increases gives you only 7.9% for B/S total DPS bonus, X's/B gets 9.9% bonus.

B/S=14.57
X/B=14.59
Now a 1.36% lead for X's.

So after crits are accounted for for TPing, the DPS is very close, but this is still without any say from Fstr or wind damage. I would be completely shocked if Fstr and wind damage cant up your DPS by 1.3% in siroccos favor. Consider that a blau/sir (D33+26) at 1.5 Pdif and piercing bonus is about 110 damage cmobined. If sirocco needs only proc for an avg of 1.4 damage to make up the DPS difference for X's. Add Fstr, lower Pdif, less resistant mobs, non piercing mobs X's will fall behind very quickly.
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WS damage (per WS)
X's needs to make up 11% more WS damage from blau sirocco. All its got is higher base damage on WS and SA/TA crit bonus to work with.

Using Melph's WS numbers

33 + 44 + 5 == 82 base damage for 5 main hits, and 26 + 44 + 5 == 75 damage for the offhand hit of blau/sirocco. Thus (82 x 5) + 75 == 485 base damage. Realistically every dancing edge should average much closer to 500 base damage when you consider multi procs, but for this discussion I'll give a low number to further prove the discussion at hand. This accounts for anyone with a weaker weaponskill set, because it should never go much lower than 450 base damage (accuracy is unimportant here due to associativity of what is being compared).

Xs/B will get +12 base damage over B/S.

B/S=450
X/B=462
2.6% increase for Xs on WS damage assuming a very poor WS set which is in X's favor. But a far cry from countering the 11% increased WS rate for Blau/Sirocco.
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SATA
Xs gets +1 base damage and 10% bonus over blau. For my SA/TA sets (mithra with 80+47 dex, 76+38*1.15 from AF) with blau base damage and capped Fstr gives me 170 base D for SA. X's would get +1 for weapon D and +1 for higher Fstr cap.

TA for me is 164 and a variable amount of Fstr as the heca is missing. Basically almost identical to my 170 for SA, but X;s wont hit capped Fstr. So using 170 vs 171.

SA=170 vs 172+10%=189=11% increase.
TA=170 vs 171+10%=188=10.5% increase.

About as expected SA/TA get a smidge over 10% bonus due to base damage and potentially making use of higher Fstr cap.
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DoT: is virutally equal (in scenario favoring X's by ignoring Fstr and Wind damage)
SA/TA: gains ~10.5-11% bonus for X's
WS damage: X's 2.6%
TP gain: ~11% in Sirocco's favor.

Apply these to your personal SATA/DOT/WS damage % split. A fairly general split is 40% WS, 20% SATA, 40% DoT.

DOT: X's is AT BEST equal in DoT to B/S in a scenario favoring X's. but once wind damage, Fstr are tallied, It would get the edge easily there.

WS:Blau/Sirocco stomps all over it with 11% higher TP gain rate and looms over the 2.6% more WS damage on individual WS(again favoring X's).

SATA: the saving grace of X's. a solid 10-11% bonus here. But it makes up the smallest section of our total damage and thus is overshadowed by the WS gain by itself, and likely moreso once DOT is considered more realistically favoring Sirocco. And final nail in the coffin is the ability to miss SA/TA in a merit party despite our best efforts. We WILL miss SA/TA on occasion which shoots down X's biggest gain.

Oh and of course Haste helps to kill X's more. It increases DoT and TP gain exponentially while SA/TA are stuck on their timers. Haste favors siroccos strong points and leans damage away from static timed bonuses like SATA/Jumps/Meditate etc. Unless you TP in a Dex build (more crits), terrible Pdif(making crits more powerful), zero haste (favoring SA/TA damage over DPS+WS)and only WS with SATASB once a minute (nulifying TP gain bonus and increasing X's bonus to include WS) Then X's can handily win. But, then your doing it VERY wrong. However, aside from the dex gear, that sounds more like an HNM strat. And has already been said, X's excels at tough mobs.
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The end

The trouble is no matter how you spin it, only in the MOST IDEAL circumstances favoring X's (which include sucking with terrible WS gear, low haste TP builds, Not splitting SA/TA/WS, sitting on TP etc) X's can MATCH sirocco.

No one is saying X's is a bad dagger, but the speed of blau/sirocco wins again. It rivals the DPS of any combo we know of and once Fstr and wind damage are in it stomps all over any competing combo DPS. The TP gain is just off the charts and has been the deciding factor in EVERY Blau/Sirocco VS XX/XX combo we have ever run across.

Sure you can argue about how you personally disengage after every mob, Stack SASB and use Evisceration with X's, but your still doingitwrong. Disengaging constantly slows down exp. Using worse WS and stacking unnecisarily still gimps you and your party. Gimping down a playstyle to cater to X's is still worse than maxing damage on Blau/sirocco. Over time, Blau/Sirocco is the highest DoT combo sans relic we have. Period. (once accounting for Wind and Fstr). It gains TP faster than ANY respectable combo. Add those together and Daggers like Pharpe/X's/Azoth just lose out on every front. Better DoT and VERY high TP gain just kills everything.

There is no arguing that. Arguing that we "waste" tp doesnt matter because if you waste tp you waste it on X's/Azoth/Pharpe too. But you still gain it faster with Sirocco. If you avg WS at 110 TP instead of 100 fine. In the time it takes you to gain 1100 TP for 10 WS, Sirocco just did it 11% faster. You wanna save 200TP? OK sirocco will STILL get to 200 faster than anything. TP gain scales no matter how wasteful and inefficient you are. Ignoring the TP gain only says that you hold TP using sirocco and dont hold it using other combos which is retarded.

[sm]Edited, Feb 16th 2009 5:44pm by Banalaty[/sm]

more from alla

[Thorny]

The argument has nothing to do with deliberately saving 200 tp, deliberately disengaging after mobs, etc.. it's that you end up with more tp over 100 with blau/sirocco than x's/blau and that you WILL be forced to disengage quite frequently while waiting for mobs unless your party is so bad it can't even kill as fast as mob repops. During this time, you get no melee damage but your timers still cool down(and a good thief will still use them when they're up and line up before engaging the next mob, adding a bit more delay). That said, in a hypothetical exp party slow enough to have continuous pulls where you don't ever disengage, blau/sirocco is slightly better. In any higher level mob situation or a real party that runs out of mobs, takes breaks, etc, X's/Blau will win.

[Arthars]

from my understanding, X's really only do massive omg boost to a mandau thf. its one sided X onry for relic thfs

for non-mandau thf, X VS sicorro is very minimal, theres pros and cons i believe

[Cream Soda]

rebuttal from alla

If you want to post in this thread fine, but not this middle man BS. If you want to engage in discussion join the conversation instead of providing commentary as the peanut gallery on another site.

That said, If your killing faster than repops, you should be plenty strong enough to kill wivres and crap without loosing chain if your all that damn leet. However even if you dont that means your party has a high level of haste/atk buffs. That means that your DoT from daggers is going to be VERY high and skew the ENTIRE parse towards your melee and WS numbers.

SA/TA are still once a minute and get less relative bonus from atk buffs and haste does zip for them. Thus higher haste/atk setups (brds/cors/diaII/Angon blah blah) all increase the % of damage done by DoT. Your example is a catch 22.

If your party is clearing mobs you get a little free time to let timers cool, thus letting you get a greater ratio (though small in the grand scheme of overall damage) of SA/TA than you would if you were constantly meleeing.

HOWEVER, to clear all mobs and have significant wait time between mobs means you are beating the bejesus outta them with high levells of haste/pdif so your melee DPS will loom over your SA/TA damage like a mountain. The more buffed you are, the more of your total damage comes from melee DoT. The more haste you have, the more TP you get. Since SA/TA are just big fat criticals on timers, adding atk does less.

1.0 pdif with 100 base damage SA adds another 1.0 so 100damage*2.0=200
2.0 pdif with 100 base damage SA adds another 1.0 so 100damage*3.0=300.

But melee DoT raised from 1.0 to 2.0 base pdif DOUBLES your DOT while as you can see for SA/TA it only getts a 50% increase. Add the fact that haste means you squeeze more normal swings, thus more DoT/TP and WS inbetween those static timers.

Super buff parties makes your SA/TA the smallest part of your overall damage. Taking buff parties and trying to twist it into aiding X's just doesnt work. X's excels when you are relatively weaker than your opponent due to the way crits function.
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it's that you end up with more tp over 100 with blau/sirocco than x's/blau

hmm

The argument has nothing to do with deliberately saving 200 tp, deliberately disengaging after mobs, etc..

So how exactly is it that you sit on more TP with Blau/sirocco than X's blau unless you ARE holding more TP. The speed you gain TP should have EXTREMELY minimal impact on how much over 100 you go. Your statement makes no logical sense. The only way you will have more TP with sirocco is if you

A: hold TP to stack SATA with WS. (Thus making TP gain speed irrelevant as you are going to easily have 100+TP within a minute) Yourdoingitwrong.

If you are doing it every 25-30 sec aternating SAWS and TAWS (depending on SATA merits) then the increased TP gain from sirocco is a boon, not disadvantage as it helps you reach that goal more easily. But that doesnt change the fact that Splitting SA/TA/WS is more efficient unless TP and SA happen to line up. In that case increased TP gain still an advantage and you would be just as likely to "waste" it on either setup.

B: You are intentionally holding TP. Again playing poorly to improve X's standing is retarded.

C: Your holding TP to SC. For merit parties still wrong answer.

The only reason you would hold TP more on sirocco is if you are waiting to use TP for something whether that be JA timers, Peoples TP, or something else so that after reaching a certain level of TP speed, excess becomes pointless. But as soon as you start to unstack and not SC (ie the way burns are better played) then holding TP has no place aside from overkilling a mob which both daggers run into. There is no argument as to why sirocco would be more likely to overkill than X's. In fact the slightly stronger damage WS provided by X's makes X's MORE likely to overkill.
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Now please either join the thread or keep your incorrect commentery to yourself. Your points have little force behind them other than "you said so." Which doesnt fly in an honest attempt to discern what combinations of 1s and 0s provide bigger numbers in a game created and run on a computer with very specific formula that determine exactly how every point of damage is calculated. Peoples belief in something not supported by anything other than sentimental attachment of "value" to something rare like X's does nothing to make it hurt merit mobs better.

[sm]Edited, Feb 16th 2009 9:32pm by Banalaty[/sm]

[Thorny]

You use more tp past 100 with blau/sirocco because it pushes you further past 100 in the attack round that brings you to 100.

Consistantly chaining Wivre requires at least 2 erases, and if you assume pulls are at camp for 5 seconds before the last mob dies then you need to be spending ~30 seconds a bird to never run out.. don't need to bother copy/pasting since they'll always be in their idealistic scenario while I stay in my realistic one and apparently I'm not worth talking to if I won't sign up on their site anyway :3