Maximizing Thief for HNM

[Ayn]

Now that I'm not half asleep I can answer this better. Snk can attest to the fact that I'm a pretty lol THF, but to take your points one by one, while still respecting the awesome advice you've already been given:

Everything from equipment

We could have a whole wide discussion around this, some gear to strive for:

Generally my set looks like:

Weapon: Blau Dolch.
Sub: Viking's Shield (I need to buy a Tariquah +1, just been lazy)
Head: Lolahra Turban / O.hat (depending on what I'm fighting)
Neck: Ancient Torque
Body: Homam Corazza
Hands: Homam Manopolas (Dusk / Dusk +1 is an alternative if you have no luck with Limbus / have a lot of money)
Legs: Homam Cosciales (Skadi pants if you have luck with Salvage. Barabarossa's Zerehs if you can't get either)
Feet: Homam Gambieras (Dusk +1 again if you're having no luck in sea)
Belt: Speed Belt (Swift belt is what most people would have, and not having a speed belt by no means makes you gimp or awful)
Back: Amemet +1 (I sold my Forager's, yes, I'm a bad person. A Cuchalain's mantle is also an excellent thing to strive for, but they're pricey)
Rings: Sniper's +1 / Rajas (2x Sniper's is fine. If you get lucky on the ENM you can get a Toraedor's. There's also the excellent Divisor ring to shoot for)
Earrings: Brutal + Ethereal/Diabolos (yes, I was dumb for getting the Ethereal. A hollow will benefit your THF more)

I swap out things depending on what I'm fighting. If I'm eating attack food and I'm not satisfied with my hit rate, I swap to the dunce (Optical) hat. If it's absolutely atrocious I'll even throw the life belt back on. I have a Love Torque as well, but if you're not in an HNM LS, shoot for a Peacock Charm (in fact, if I'm using a lot of Ranged Attacks, I'll go back to the PCC.)

If you're not having luck with Homam, a Scorpion Harness +1 (or even an Antares Harness) are decent choices. Alternatively, if you wasted 10 bucks on ACP, upgrade your Mirke Wardecours accordingly. I adapted mine to a /NIN build (Acc. +10 / DW +3%) but you can probably adjust it accordingly.

WS gear's pretty straightforward. Strive for Heca, but if your LS doesn't fight Faf / no one will give you the abjuration, you have other options to explore -- I use a dragon harness for the body piece instead of H-Harness.

Generally full Skadi seems like a joke. It does offer some nice boosts, but sacrificing that much haste for other crappy stats and +5 crit hit rate isn't worth it. The body is a nice piece if you have money to blow, but it seems like you can adjust the ACP body piece to suit your needs and put the money somewhere else. As mentioned before, though, the legs are an excellent piece.

Subjob

Many people have posted a lot on SJs I already. It's nice to have /DRK, /WHM, /WAR, /DNC, /NIN for overall THF use. /RNG too, I suppose. At one point I was trying to level COR to expand my versatility, but I ran out of patience there.

When possible, I prefer sticking with /WAR, especially for something like Tiamat. I can see the case for a Mandau THF subbing /MNK because Mercy Stroke's going to stay the same at 100%, 200%, or 300% TP. For other jobs, I don't know, I'd prefer to build TP on other mobs while it's in the air. Not to mention that it's hard to outweigh the benefit of having the extra 10% on DA, and attack boosts through berserk and warcry (you can switch between them on landings, if one's down). I need to parse more (don't know of a good one -- can someone direct me to a safe one?), but at least according to my LS mate, while I was loling my THF damage, he assured me I was keeping up pretty well according to his parse. I never thought about it for Cerb, to be quite honest. Do you run into problems attempting to boost, then running in and hitting it just as it Hoplons?

The game is about more than dragons, though, right? (Shh, don't tell a certain person my LS I said that) and as I said, shit's situational. DRK's nice for e-peen numbers and most sky god fights don't last that long (..I hope), but:

Ixion is another story.. you could go /mnk for spike damage but most of the time Ixion is spinning and you have to wait to use WS sometimes making boost wear. I've tried /rng once with Culverin and full racc set, it wasn't too bad but it isn't as good as /nin /war or /mnk.

Ixion is an asshole. Stick with /WAR sub, expect half of your SAs to miss because your RNG pulls hate and moves it, or the damn thing's just being finicky anyway.

It's hard for me to comment on some mobs as much (Khim or Cerb for example) because I usually just switch to DRK for the stuns or SAM for the damage.
Food

I like to stick with attack food when possible, but sometimes it's not always plausible on my THF for some of the things I fight. Maybe Thieves will full dagger merits can speak to it better than me. I'm surprised your accuracy is so awful with Pizza, though. . all I can say here is don't completely rule sushi out, depending on the situation.


I guess that was rather rambling. If you want to know things specifically by HNM, send me a PM or something (if you actually trusted any of the advice I gave), I didn't feel like accounting for every single mob the shell I'm in fights.

But a lot of people have said excellent things here. You're not going to go topping a SAM (unless it's a really gimp one) or a WAR, but THF damage is nothing to sneeze at. But we bring more to the table than just that (and placebo hunter) with collab/accomplice.

[Insoluble]

On Cerberus you shouldn't be waiting for SS to wear. You should be using WS anyway.

[Ayn]

I'm quite aware of that. I'm just asking (somewhat jokingly) how many times you've dealt with that issue, since he's an asshole who loves to spam Hoplon at the precise moment you're about to WS.

[Neb]

Just Wondering why no one has mentioned Enkidu at all. Is it just no good for THF?

[Khajit]

Just Wondering why no one has mentioned Enkidu at all. Is it just no good for THF?

HNM dont need acc during WS on thf since we're going to be resorting to stacked 1 hit ws like mandalic stab which removes any need for cap, hands,body,legs(assuming you got hect abj or other options), and feet are only good for unstacked sa/ta compared to other better options for other situations.

[Arthars]

thief knife + assassin armlet is the only thing to "maximising a thf" on HNMs

others doesnt matter, really







but if u want damage, mandau is prolly a good bet with full hecatomb str gears
mandau can boost performance on HNM by alot compared to good shark bites

other stuffs like feint lvl 5 etc are common sense
gear wise are pretty standard now as well: TP(homam etc) and WS(heca, skadi body, enkidu hands if you are using dancing edge)
and X knife..........seriously thf gears are pretty much standard now like how warrior and drk dress themselves now

however i dont understand why some thiefs are still seriously fucked up with colorful gears and pointed hats zzzz

i'll just put it this way:
Does your thief have the following for TPing on a HNM?
1. Mandau
2. X/thief knife
3. bomblet/zizka xbow
4. turban/denali head
5. love torque
6. brutal suppa
7. homam/skadi body/ranpere/enkidu/the right acp body
8. homam/assassin armlet
9. toreador/sniper+1 x2
10. cuchulain cape
11. speed belt
12. skadi legs/homam legs
13. homam feet

Does your thief have the following for WSing on a HNM?
1. Mandau
2. X/thief knife
3. bomblet/zizka xbow
4. Heca/maats cap
5. love torque(for DE)/soil torque(for mercy stroke)
6. brutal, pixie earring/hollow earring(for DE), triumph(for mercy)
7. skadi body/enkidu/heca body(for mercy)
8. enkidu hands(for DE), heca(for mercy)
9. Flame(mercy), thunder, rajas
10. Forager(mercy) cuchulain mantle
11. warwolf, potent etc
12. heca legs
13. heca feet

do you meet the above "standard" equipment that most good thf have?

if not, your not maximising your thief yet, and should work for it.

Gears are standard and most of the above should help(sorry if i missed out some pieces) and will never go wrong on a sucky thf and good thief. The only thing can go wrong is wtfbbqtaruretarded thf coming with excuses like "i dont like to blink so i full time heca even i have all the gears above"

Part 2: Play skill. well thats individual experience really. All we can do is talk how this and that ability is used, but the finger is still yours.

[Velecic]

Sort of off-topic since it's not related to HNM, but THF gets a lot less DD credit than it is due sometimes. One of the major reasons for this is simple : THF usually gets relegated to secondary / BLM PTs, not parties with buff jobs like COR or BRD. Having just gotten my X's Knife on Tuesday night (1/6 wooo!), we were short a DD for salvage tonight and I got placed in the main party instead of the secondary party (we usually run SAM/DD/DD/BRD/COR/Healer main PT + THF/Others secondary party) and got to enjoy Marchx2 + Chaos + SAM roll. As /NIN (I know, shoulda been /war =P) I was getting TP so fast SA + TA (separated of course) couldn't even keep up, and I was putting out some really nice damage. I forgot to screenshot it, nothing amazing, but I did do 20xx Dancing Edge on Gyroscopic Gears and was averaging 1300 ish on the normal gears (piercing weak).

Rambling story short : THF can be a solid DD if you use the proper gear and SJ, and even moreso if you actually get buffs (brd / cor).

Most of how to do so has been covered by others in this thread so I don't really have much to add. Mandau is amazing if you can get one, if not, X's Knife or Blau Dolch are also very good. Sticking with DD subjobs like /WAR or /DRK unless you need shadows for some reason helps a ton like others said. I did a TON of THF/DRK in Nyzul Isle with my static about a year back (we wanted some form of stun and it helped my damage output a lot) and it was very strong. I landed a DE on Simurgh one time for close to 4k lol. As for sky, I would probably choose /DRK myself, because that lets you be more active in the party/alliance as well, you can stun and help out others, and Souleater is great for boosting THFs damage output, especially on Gods. Open with SE SATA AC WS for nice damage on tank > leave SE on for 1min getting cured is some nice damage. /WAR works as well but is less interactive, however it solves the biggest problem THF faces when trying to DD : low attack with low damage weapons. Which you use is mostly personal preference, try them out and see which you like more. I personally never tried out /MNK but that does seem rather intriguing (@ Archain). As for food, use meat if you can, pizza or sushi otherwise. Wow this post ended up a lot longer than I intended it to be, sorry for the rambling and good luck with the thiefing!

[PeaceNLove]

4. turban/denali head

Wat.

[Ayn]

Does your thief have the following for TPing on a HNM?

8. homam/assassin armlet
2. X/thief knife

Um.

[Raen Ryong]

shark bites

Mandalic Stab says hi. HNMs are just the type of situation it excels in.

[Spider-Dan]

Just Wondering why no one has mentioned Enkidu at all. Is it just no good for THF?

Enkidu body is technically better than Homam for TP piece (due to fSTR and ATK bonuses).
Enkidu hat and hands are potentially competitive with n.head/hands for WS, depending on your base accuracy.
Enkidu legs/feet are essentially replacements for Dragon legs/feet.

The one area where Enkidu is potentially better than Hecatomb is for unstacked SA. The huge amount of +slow on hecatomb is significant enough that (as I recall) it just barely beats full haste setup in net DPS. Enkidu head/hands/legs/feet is haste+2%, while NQ heca is slow+30%.

[el_tio]

Thanks for the replies everyone. =) Sorry to be so late to reply. Been lacking FFXI enthusiasm since being unable to pay for FFXI + grinding thru a WoW trial as a result + FFXIV makes me feel meh overall lol.

The main thing that puzzles me on HNM with thf is the quantity of 0s (esp. when zerk's down at least) lead me to believe wearing atk gear might be as valuable as acc. I wish I had an easy way of evaluating atk as hitrate (since there will be less 0s with attack). No good body yet so I'm wondering, assault jerkin > SH, at least when zerk's down? At least that's what I often do.

That's partially why I brought up skadi set--it could use more acc and haste, sure, but it provides a decent amount of acc, a token amount of haste with a very good amount of atk and crit+ to potentially overcome HNM defenses. Idk, I don't have any completed pieces yet so I haven't had a chance to actually experience it.

I see a few people say they use turban and I can't fathom it honestly. Usually my acc is so abysmal I can't imagine anything other than ohat for TP. (not that it's extreme gear suckage--I usually TP in +64 acc on HNMs, not including food) I have a feeling it's due to how plentiful brds / cors may be in your LSes.

Anyways, thanks again for the responses.

[Raen Ryong]

Basically you can't expect to do consistently good damage without a BRD and/or COR, which most LSs don't like giving to THFs. I played THF/WAR at a Nidhogg semi-recently and I was hitting for about 15-20 per hit as long as Minuet was on (closer to 25-30 with Berserk up)... as soon as it fell, I was hitting 0s a lot except with Berserk

Basically I would eat pizza/sushi, gear haste/some accuracy/some attack AND STR (don't neglect Rajas -- so underrated for THF). Try to get a Bard if you can, I know it's an uphill struggle convincing LSs to give THF a shot.

[Ayn]

Basically you can't expect to do consistently good damage without a BRD and/or COR,

This. This a thousand times over.

My LS is pretty good about getting bards to the DDs in general, just because we realize how much it speeds up the fight.