A few questions for mid/high level thieves

Rommie

Rommie

Airship Passenger
Adventurer
Joined
Jan 17, 2005
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A couple of weeks ago I decided to get my thief to 45 for TH2 and a "better" chance at getting the cash I will need when I go back to blm and sam.

Thing is, I'm having quite a bit of fun with it so I might take it further so a few questions to all of you 50+ thieves out there.

First of all, I'm currently (level 42) wearing marauder + calveley's (for the dex/agi bonuses) and soon i'll have bone knives available. In general, for the non-swappable weapons, do I still want to pump dex/agi or the +acc/+att weapons would be better ?

Second, how "noticeable" is TH2 ? From what i've read/heard so far, TH1 seems to affect the generic drop rate (including both normal and rare items) while TH2 deals particularly with rare drops. Does this open new possibilities for farming (i.e. targetting rarer drops for gil) or is it mostly just good for camping NMs ?

Finally (and I know I could RTFM at alla, but just in case somebody is nice and doesn't mind replying :)) how required/annoying is thief's AF in case I decide to take it higher ? Is it "must-wear" like blm's or "not-must and might even be bad" like say, nin's or drk's ?

Thanks for any replies :P
 
On weapon selection:
Some thieves like to build their weapons around speed. I myself like to build it around power. I thus went with dual corsair's for a while, and corsair's/bone knife for a while. Dex and agility in a weapon loses its luster after level 45. Hornetneedle, though, is probably useful for a lot of levels. I simply don't like the low dmg route, since with sushi and an acc equipment macro set, tp gain within one minute is not an issue. So I would suggest acc/att on a weapon.

On TH2
What you've read so far is a bunch of bull**** quite honestly. No one honestly knows. If they think they know, feel free to call them overly gullible. They probably take their pants off to synth pants as well, because they KNOW it increases hq rate. Treasure hunter traits do what they say they do. They increase the odds of treasure drop. If you had to quote me, I'd say that they both do the same thing, and that is simply up the coefficient that determines the rate of drop of every mob drop in the game. Slightly. Is TH2 noticeable? Not without statistical analysis. Did the person who claims to know the difference between TH2 and TH1 do any of that? No, they're facing west in first person view with their pants off, sitting with warcry up because they think it spawns leaping lizard faster.

On thief AF:
You will want your af for steals if you want to steal. It's also great for soloing. It has nice defense. If there is ONE piece you want to get, it's your boots. Increases flee duration. Saves you time. Useful in endgame activities. The rest is optional, but the rest is also easy. You can pick coffers.
 
Peregrine said:
Some thieves like to build their weapons around speed. I myself like to build it around power.
Click to expand...

Personally what I see most THFs do is a combination. Power in the main hand for huge WS damage and speed/stats in the offhand to raise TP gain and add statistical bonuses. I don't think dual Harpes, however pricey, would be as beneficial as Harpe/Hornetneedle or some other low delay, good stats dagger.
 
I *think* TH2 works the exact same way as TH1 does. For example, if TH1 gives 1% chance for all possible drops to drop, then TH2 adds another 1% chance. Why do I think this? Because there literally is Treasure Hunter and Treasure Hunter II listed in your job traits, so to me it would make sense that they both have the same effect individually, otherwise they would've just given it to you like Clear Mind II (it just says Clear Mind, no matter which Clear Mind you have, etc).

As for weapons, I generally go for the highest damage possible on the main weapon, and then use offhand for stats like accuracy of dex. I think that with sushi, accuracy gear is almost a moot point, because the accuracy bonus is so great, adding +20 accuracy through equipment will not change much.

Sushi gives a 15% accuracy bonus. If your dagger skill is 200, that means you will get +30 accuracy. If your dagger skill is 200 and you have +20 accuracy on your equipment, you will have +50 accuracy. Accuracy seems to have a cap on how effective it is after a certain point. It kind of reminds me of getting like 600% magic find in Diablo II. The more you get, the less effect the last few points have... a set of diminishing returns. It works the same way with evasion, no matter how much evasion you have, a level 1 mob in Ronfaure will still be able to hit you eventually. So anyhow, if you're getting +30 accuracy just from sushi, and then you can stack on your dex (say you have 50 dex, that's another 22.5 accuracy), your accuracy is pretty much going to be capped.

If you can't hit a mob with sushi alone, it means the mob is just too high of a level for you, and wearing +accuracy gear might help slightly, but I don't think it's very noticable. My example? 59 thf with loads of accuracy gear trying to fight Torama, constantly hitting by 0 if there's no dia... even a 60 thf might have this problem, but once you hit 61 or so your accuracy suddenly shoots up. Soooo... accuracy stats on gear is not all that matters when determining if you hit a mob.

Bone Knife +1 is awesome because of the accuracy+5 AND attack+5, as well as a low delay. :)

As for AF, I'd have to say the hat and body are the most useless (especially the body), but it's good to have all your AF anyway. The pants, boots, and hands are all very good, though... unless you're hume, then hume rse gloves are better. :)

Also, if you get the AF glove quest for another job, you can actually use your thf to pick the coffer for the glove key item because it is a quest and isn't job/af storyline specific (ie, once you get the quest with your other job, it is in your quest log and the coffer can be obtained with any job... thf just happens to be able to pick the locks). I did this for my whm, blm, and thf af gloves, and saved a lot of time from key hunting.

Anyhow, all of this is, of course, just my opinion from what I've experienced in the game.
 
I personally liked the Bone Knife +1's, I wish I had stuck with them for longer. Definately get your Hornetneedle. At 50, a Corsair/Hornetneedle combo is devastating, but I personally am not sure if I would pass up the Dual Bone Knife +1's just yet, being able to hit consistantly is a lot more important than being able to hit hard.

TH II is kind of a mystery still... There are so many crackpot threories out there it makes me physically ill.. I will tell you this right now... It Helps a considerable amount, even noticable. But everyone around you will be giving you so much shit when it doesn't work to thier liking, that you really won't care whether or not it works...

Any 'Good' Thief I seen rarely wears all thier AF. The hat and Vest are absolute crap, THe gloves are only good if you don't have better RSE, Pants you will wear til about 70, and Boots you macro in for Flee only. In fact just dropped my Hat and Vest, because I never used it.

Good luck
 
Bone knife+1 is a great main hand dagger until lust dagger

My preferred combo in the 50s until level 59 was lust dagger main, bone knife+1 secondary. I started subbing mainly warrior after 60, but when I have to use ninja sub instead, I still offhand a bone knife+1, it's a great support dagger, and the base dmg:18 doesn't lag too much behind, like hornet does.

You can be flexible and have your own style past 50 though, so there is no right answer, just whatever you do, don't use hornet needle in the "main" hand, I've seen stupid morons do this, it makes no sense using the higher dmg dagger in the offhand.

At 59 comes darksteel kukri+1, base 23 dmg, 196 delay, then at 62 or 63(I forget) the cement kukri +1, same stats but 188 delay about about 100k more, it's nice though.

Styles throughout the levels include

Lust-Bone +1
Lust-AF
Lust-needle
Bone+1-needle
Bone+1-Af
CosassirsX2
Cosaassirs- AF,lust,bone knife+1

Post 59

Dark/cement +1/ harpe dagger - bone knife+1-lust-another high damage dagger

Some people like to stack daggers of pure power, nothing really wrong with that, varies from person to person. And what style you may like at one level, you may hate at another, so you may have to experiment when unhappy.
 
Personally, I went with Marauder/Calveley's til 46, then switched to dual Bone+1. At 50 I replaced one Bone+1 with Corsair's, then at 56 I replaced the Corsair's with Beetle+1 (because I needed the money from Corsair's to go towards Scorpion Harness funds; I justified this through saying that Beetle+1 has the same DMG rating, lower delay, and AGI+2, but if you don't need the money desperately, stick with Corsair's til 62 by all means). I got my Hornetneedle around 54 or 55 and switched out my offhand Bone+1 for that. The low delay on it is very noticeable, the DEX+1 AGI+1 certainly don't hurt, and the damage isn't horrible. Currently I still use Beetle+1 and Hornetneedle. I'm planning on switching Beetle+1 for Cermet Kukri+1 at 62.

As for AF, the gloves are very nice for non-Humes (whose RSE is far superior). The hat is completely worthless other than swapping in for Steal macros. The pants are quite nice for a long time; you'll wanna get those. The feet are nice for Steal macros (Steal+2!) and for +Flee duration, but obviously Leaping/Winged Boots are better for general use. The vest.... it just looks nice. That's pretty much it. :lol:

One thing you wanna look at: Scorpion Harness. It's insanely expensive and I hate everyone who sells Venomous Claws with a passion[/rant], but it is extremely awesome. If you're really serious about THF, definitely try to get it ASAP. Maybe not right at 57, but ASAP. If you're not deadly serious about THF, get a Black Cotehardie at 59. That thing rocks. The JSE harness is also kinda nice for in between SATAs before the Cotehardie is available.
 
Thanks to everyone for their replies.

All this information should help me stay reasonably "up to date" for quite a few levels 8)
 
I used the Marauder until the Bone Knife +1. I got hooked on Sushi at forty-five for it's boost to accuracy. If I had to give some advice from what I've done it would be this:

- Farm, now. I didn't realize how much the Life Belt and RK belts cost until I had to buy them. Not to mention you got some very nice and very expensive gear coming up fifty-sixty.

- If you don't already have them, try questing the venerer's ring and the Hornet Needle. The Hornet Needle is an excellent off-hand dagger, and I soloe'd the Venerer's Ring at forty-nine.

- Look into the stats. I've used nothing but Drone Earrings since thirty-five, and it never once occured to me until I saw a post here to equip some +Atk earring between weaponskills and pulls... *THAT makes me feel like a complete noob.*

- Make sure you're keeping up to date on your skills. The more your evasion skill surpasses parry, the harder it seems to be to level up parry. IMHO anyway.
 
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