User:Malizia/80 Thief Equipment Guide

Yay, the best for last! What kind of equipment sets to THFs carry? For each set I'll include a baseline (maximum effectiveness for minimal time/effort/gil) and a higher quality set. Often times it's not really feasible to determine the "best" item for any set, so you'll have to find out what you like yourself! Prices are off Sylph when I wrote this guide. Finally, two notes:
 * Make sure you can swap in your TH4 pieces at any time with any of these sets. I tend to full-time these with monsters that die quickly.
 * Skill > Equipment. Make sure you complete your roles as a THF!

Evasion Set
Your most important set by far, and the one you should prioritize. This keeps you alive and allows you to pull! You'll often find you don't actually have to use it, but you'll be glad it's there when you need it. The emphasis here is evasion, evasion skill, and AGI, where 2 AGI is one evasion, and evasion and evasion skill are about the same. I actually use +movement speed boots for pulling, even though they have -evasion.

TOTAL: Baseline: AGI +8, Evasion +47, Evasion Skill +7, costs 450K HQ: AGI +29, Evasion +90, Evasion Skill +22, Parrying Skill +15, costs 5M+

Daggers
Hey, noticed how I put the evasion set first? That's for a reason ^^ Let's list some daggers!

DD Daggers:
 * Mandau: Sure, it's really nice. It's even the best DD dagger hands down.  The Poison effect doesn't proc too often, but you might not want to solo with it if you need to sleep stuff.  Oh, and then there's the price...
 * Blau Dolch: Excellent mainhand, excellent offhand. If you have the gil for this, you won't be disappointed.  Many THFs mainhand this and offhand Sirocco Kukri, and that's a fine choice.
 * X's Knife: Very hard to get - it's a low drop rate from a post-CoP quest that's a lot like an ENM. But increased critical hit damage!  Start spamming Evisceration instead of Dancing Edge, but make sure you have the gear to get those crits!  Works offhand as well.
 * Sirocco Kukri: NM drop, and lowest delay possible on a dagger. Very nice offhand.
 * Fane Baselard: cheap! And with the right augments (the commonly wanted ones are +DMG, +acc, and +triple attack) you can even rival a Blau Dolch!  Takes time, patience, and a group to get a decent enough dagger, but it's certainly a lot easier than the above options ^^
 * Magnet Knife / Misericorde: low on gil? This is a super-cheap starting combo for DD.
 * Vajra: Expensive and hard to get! And we don't really know what it does >.> current theories say it's a lot like X's Knife or Rogue's Armlets +1, giving a 10% bonus to SA/TA.
 * Azoth / Harpe-style daggers: completely replaced by the Trial of the Magians daggers.

Specialty Daggers:
 * Thief's Knife: You know why you have this :) Not a DD dagger.  I tend to wear this 100% of the time, but that's because I don't meripo on THF and because in all the events I go to mobs die too quickly to make a dagger swap feasible.
 * Bartholomew's Knife: For the +steal, not too hard to get either. Not a DD dagger.
 * Ermine's Tail: lovely +evasion dagger, from MMM. Unfortunately it's now reduced to "shiny" status because you can dual-wield the evasion Dakinis.

Trial of the Magians: wowza! The new daggers you can get from this are extra special, and cost you time instead of gil! Some standouts:
 * Kartika: fully upgraded, with 38 base damage. Second in base damage only to Mandau.
 * Athame: the best version has 31 base damage and occasionally asks twice. Can replace the Mercurial Kris you didn't buy for quick TP gain.
 * Dakini, DEX+4 Acc+8: This is why the Blau Dolch plummeted in price. More base damage and higher accuracy.  The BD still has a faster delay, so it's up to you.
 * Dakini, AGI+4 Eva+12: The new queen of evasion daggers! Replaces the Azoth you didn't buy either.
 * Dakini, add'l effects: The two notable ones are "Weakens def.+10" (earth) and "Impairs evasion+10" (wind). Mini-Angon and mini-Feint daggers your party will love!

TP Set
There's plenty of debate about how to fine tune this one, especially concerning the weapons. But rest assured, you want lots of accuracy, and lots of haste, or haste-like bonuses. You might notice the Cobra Harness Set for low-end and Homam Corazza Set for high-end make a strong showing here, and getting excellent gear here is really challenging because you're competing with so many other jobs.

TOTAL: Baseline: DEX +2, Accuracy +55, Haste +0%, Store TP +7, Attack +32, STR +1, costs 350K + Campaign HQ: DEX +14, Accuracy +54, Haste +18%, Dagger Skill +7, Double Attack +5%, Dual Wield -5% delay, Triple Attack +1%, Store TP +6, Attack +17, STR +9, costs 11.5M+

Weaponskill Set
What? A separate weaponskill, sneak attack, and trick attack set?? Sure! If you want to maximize your damage, having three different sets allows you to maximize the potential for each ability, use them separately from each other, and even separate them entirely from your weaponskills. If you're really up for it, you can even have different sets for each of the three weaponskills you'll use: Dancing Edge, Shark Bite, and Evisceration. Oh, and while we're on the subject of weaponskills, let's talk about how to use them without SATA:
 * Dancing Edge is your bread and butter. Five hits, uses DEX and CHR as stats.  You'll want to focus on DEX and accuracy here.
 * Shark Bite makes light skillchains. Two hits, uses DEX.  I'd focus on DEX and attack here, but make sure you have enough accuracy to hit twice!
 * Evisceration makes dark skillchains. Five hits, uses DEX, and interestingly enough can score critical hits on each hit!  This is extra snazzy if you have, say, an X's Knife (good luck!).  Otherwise this is pretty much the same build as Dancing Edge.  If you don't have enough DEX to reliably critical hit (at least 120 with gear) you might want to stick to Dancing Edge.
 * Mercy Stroke makes fun of the other weaponskills because they don't require a Mandau. If you're special enough to have the relic weapon, you probably don't need this guide! :p But for everyone else who's dreaming about it, you'll want plenty of STR for this build, and of course plenty of gil to spend.

Let's just do the DE/Evisceration set here; it's decent enough for SB as well and you can always make modifications as you have more gear to play with! The Hecatomb Harness Set does quite nicely here once you get access to Sky and Einherjar / HNM, and the Dragon Harness Set does quite nicely until then. Also, if you thought the TP set was hard to get... wait until you try this one :)

TOTAL: Baseline: DEX +32, Accuracy +7, Attack +42, STR +9, costs 435K HQ: DEX +57, Accuracy +24, Dagger Skill +7, Double Attack +5%, Attack +41, STR +33, costs 24M+

Sneak Attack Set
Take your WS set, and get rid of Accuracy for more DEX, STR and Attack! There's also a lively debate on the usefulness of -delay/haste items (such as Suppanomimi and Skadi's Visor) and +Movement Speed items here. They aren't as potent as the Hecatomb Harness Set, but they potentially increase the number of attacks you get in general (for -delay/haste items) and increase the likelihood that you can actually land your sneak attack (movement speed items). Remember how I said no one's going to line up your sneak attack for you anymore? And that mobs are likely to turn when you least want them to? Well with +movement speed you can turn around (to avoid missing your sneak attack), run around to their new backside, and actually hit them for your spike damage much faster than if you, say, wore pieces from the Dusk Jerkin Set. At least that's the theory anyways... you'll have to decide what's best for you :p

TOTAL: Baseline: DEX +32, Attack +48, STR +9, costs 416K HQ: DEX +40, Dagger Skill +7, Haste +3%, Dual Wield -5% delay, Attack +65, STR +21, 12% Movement Speed, costs 20M+

Trick Attack Set
Unlike with the other sets, this is going to require completely different equipment. Might want to take your time with this one.

TOTAL: Baseline: AGI +31, Attack +42, STR +9, costs 308K HQ: AGI +46, Trick Attack adds extra 15% of AGI, Dagger Skill +7, Haste +3%, Dual Wield -5% delay, Attack +45, STR +7, 12% Movement Speed, costs 18M+

Ranged Set
Some might say you actually get two ranged sets, one for accuracy (landing status bolts) and one for DD (THF/RNG). I'd say the accuracy one is going to be used much much more; if you need a THF/RNG DD build you can take this build and add some +Ranged Attack (free malihint! change the Jaeger Mantle for an Amemet Mantle +1!), and switch to guns. Guns!

TOTAL: Baseline: AGI +13, Ranged Accuracy +49, Ranged Attack +3, STR +2, costs 215K HQ: AGI +12, Ranged Accuracy +111, Ranged Attack -5, STR +0, costs 19M+

Steal Set
There's no HQ here, there can be only one steal set!

TOTAL: Steal +15, Steal +18 when HP ≤ 75% and TP ≤ 100%, costs 130K