User:Malizia/End Game Thief Equipment Guide

=TP-Building Gear= ''Focus is on speed and accuracy. Haste, Triple Attack and Accuracy bonuses are paramount.''

=SATA gear= ''Focus is primarily on DEX and AGI, each being treated equally. STR, Attack, and Accuracy (all high-level THF weaponskills are multi-hit) are secondary concerns, but also important.'' {| border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" align="center" width="100%"


 * valign="top" width="50%" |


 * valign="top" width="50%" |

{|border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"
 * valign="top" width="100%" |




 * valign="top" width="100%" |


 * }




 * valign="top" width="50%" |


 * valign="top" width="50%" |

{|border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"
 * valign="top" width="100%" |




 * valign="top" width="100%" |


 * }




 * valign="top" width="50%" |


 * valign="top" width="50%" |




 * valign="top" width="50%" |


 * valign="top" width="50%" |


 * }

=Evasion Gear= It is assumed + Evasion skill ''is more important than +Evasion. AGI is also very important. Haste is useful for Utsusemi recast, and least importantly, VIT and Defense in the rare case where you actually get hit.''

=Situational Gear=

Dancing Edge
''Dancing Edge has modifiers of 30% DEX and 40% CHR. TP only increases the accuracy of the 5 attacks. For this skill, CHR and Accuracy are significant. This section lists useful THF SATA gear which also contains CHR.''

Shark Bite
''Shark Bite only has a 50% DEX modifier, and is a 2-hit weaponskill whose damage increases with TP (100% TP is still the most efficient). No changes from the regular SATA gear should be necessary. Shark Bite can be used to begin or complete Light skillchains.''

Evisceration
''Evisceration has a 30% DEX modifier, and is a 5-hit weaponskill whose critical hit chance increases with TP. Accuracy will be more important here, but just mix and match from the SATA and TP gear as necessary.

Steal
''It is unknown if there is a primary attribute to help Steal success rates. However, there is plentiful +Steal gear.''

=Weapons= {| border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" align="center" width="100%"


 * valign="top" width="100%" |


 * }

=SATAWS Damage Analysis= This is a compilation of notes taken from the Calculating Weapon Skill Damage page and its various links. Damage = WD * pDIF. WD = Weapon Damage and pDIF is dependent on the attack/defense ratio and the level difference. WD = floor((D + fSTR + WSC) * fTP) + AGI + DEX. D is the base damage listed on a weapon. fSTR is the STR/VIT difference function.
 * max: floor(D/9) + 8
 * min: - floor(D/9)
 * FSTR = (your STR - monster VIT + k)/4, where k ranges from 4 (STR >> VIT) to 13 (VIT >> STR).
 * Note the Blau Dolch has D = 26, and the Mandau has D = 39. This gives maximums of fSTR = 10 and 12, respectively.
 * Assuming STR >> VIT, this implies additional gains in STR will not affect fSTR for STR = VIT + 36 and STR = VIT + 44, respectively.
 * For an XP or higher level mob, this seems... unlikely to happen.

WSC is the weapon skill attribute modifier.
 * In general, WSC = floor(floor(A * A% + B * B%) * &alpha;),
 * where A and B are the weapon skill attributes multiplied by their corresponding percentages.
 * &alpha; = 0.83 at job levels 74 and 75.

fTP is the TP multiplier. At 100% TP, pDIF = c + 1.2 * (character Attack/monster Defense),
 * For Dancing Edge, WSC = floor(floor(0.3 * DEX + 0.4 * CHR)).
 * For Shark Bite, WSC = floor(floor(0.5 * DEX)).
 * For Evisceration, WSC = floor(floor(0.3 * DEX)).
 * Dancing Edge fTP = 1.1875.
 * Shark Bite fTP = 2.00.
 * Evisceration fTP = 1.00.
 * where c is based on the level difference between the character and the monster.

For the below calculations, I determine the marginal gain in damage if a single attribute is increased by one point. In other words, I calculate the increase in damage after increasing an attribute by 1, assuming everything else is kept constant. This assumes the character is level 75, and uses SATA with every weaponskill. Floors are ignored for the purpose of calculation. pDIF is taken to be constant, since calculating the change in pDIF due to changes in STR cause nightmarish complications, and assuming the monster Defense is 100 for a level 75 monster, an increase of STR by 1 would mean the pDIF increases by 0.6/100 = 0.006. Since monster Defense is significantly higher than 100, increases in STR create insignificantly small changes in pDIF and are thus ignored. Finally, these calculations cannot be taken too literally. For example, if increasing DEX by 1 increases damage by 5, and increasing STR by 1 increases damage by 2, this does not mean increasing DEX by 1 and STR by 1 increases damage by 7. More interestingly, this also does not mean increasing DEX by 2 increases damage by 10. The numbers will be close, but if you stretch them too far they will no longer be reliable.

Calculating the marginal gain in damage due to an increase in Attack would be incomparable to the results below, since an increase in Attack only changes the pDIF (which is taken to be constant in the below calculations), and thus requires actual knowledge of D, fSTR, WSC, and monster Defense instead of just relative values. Note the below calculations never actually determine the actual numbers for those variables.

If you quote these numbers, please do so in context, or link back to this page. These numbers, out of context, are meaningless and INCORRECT.

DEX
D and fSTR are constant. WSC = 0.3 * DEX + a constant. fTP = 1.1875. pDIF is constant. Simplified, Damage = (0.3 * DEX * 1.1875 + DEX) * pDIF + some constant = 1.35625 * pDIF * DEX + some constant. Consequently, an increase of 1 to DEX equates to an increase of 1.35625 * pDIF in damage, or about (4/3) * pDIF..

STR
D and WSC are constant. fSTR = STR/4 + a constant. fTP = 1.1875. pDIF is constant. Damage = (STR/4) * 1.1875 * pDIF + a constant = .296875 * pDIF * STR + some constant. Consequently, an increase of 1 to DEX equates to an increase of .296875 * pDIF in damage, or about (3/10) * pDIF.

AGI
D, fSTR, and WSC are all constant. fTP = 1.1875, but is irrelevant since it is only multiplied by constant values. Damage = AGI * pDIF + a constant. An increase of 1 to AGI equates to an increase of 1 * pDIF in damage.

CHR
D and fSTR are constant. WSC = 0.4 * CHR + a constant. fTP = 1.1875. Damage = (0.4 * CHR + 1.1875) * pDIF + a constant = .475 * pDIF + a constant. An increase of 1 to CHR equates to an increase of .475 * pDIF in damage, or about (1/2) * pDIF.

In summary, an increase of 1 DEX is equivalent to an increase of 4/3 AGI, 8/3 CHR, or 40/9 STR. In more whole numbers, an increase of 3 DEX is equivalent to an increase of 4 AGI, 8 CHR, or 13 STR.

Evisceration
=Credits=
 * Much thanks to somepage.com for the incredibly organized item database. This site provided much of the raw data used in this guide.