Shattering Stars/Thief

=Thief =

Obtain
A Thief's Testimony from one of the following:
 * This item can only be obtained by stealing from the following mobs:
 * Goblin Bandit (Level: 66 - 69) (Ifrit's Cauldron, King Ranperre's Tomb, Kuftal Tunnel, ...)
 * Platinum Quadav (Level: 64 - 71) (Beadeaux, Qulun Dome)
 * Tonberry Pursuer (Level: 61 - 67) (Temple of Uggalepih)
 * Tonberry Trailer (Level: 62 - 65) (Den of Rancor)
 * Tonberry Shadower (Level: 61 - 63) (Yhoator Jungle)
 * This item is dropped from the following NM:
 * Tonberry Tracker (NM) (Level: 72 - 74) (Den of Rancor)

=Guides=

A Maat Fight Strategy
Thieves, you can rest easy. You don't have to actually BEAT Maat to win. All you need to do is steal an item from him. Beware though as this is basically one all-or-nothing shot so make it count! Equip all your AF gear to maximize your stealing skill along with anything else you can find that improves stealing like Thief's Kote, Rabbit Charm, Key Ring Belt and Rogue's Ring. If your initial attempt fails, you have little chance of surviving until steal recharges but there is one solution. You could use a reraiser beforehand, revive yourself after your death, wait 5 minutes for steal to charge, activate Perfect Dodge and quickly make another attempt. But as they say, there's no better time than the first to get it right! Be warned though: if you do not raise yourself within three minutes of your death, you will automatically be warped out of the zone. NOTE: The item you steal from Maat is a Scroll of Instant Warp. Being that the scroll is a rare item and that you cannot hold two of them in your inventory, it may not be possible to steal your way to victory if you are already carrying one. This has not been confirmed yet, but it is likely due to the nature of stealing and rare items.

ALSO: If Steal is affected by INT, which it seemed to be in my case, Taru should have a much higher chance at stealing from Maat than anyone else. Just from personal experience, I've always had a I steal rate as Taru compared to watching other races. But taru do have broken INT. Also... Do not obtain a Scroll of Warp. firstly, you will get one at the end of the fight and you won't receive the warp scroll from Stealing. I don't know if it counts as a win if you steal but cannot obtain. Important note: If you have already beaten Maat on another job before attempting to fight Maat on thief, stealing does not work. Even if you successfully steal a warp scroll from him, you must still melee him to death. However, if you do not want to use this method (some Thiefs get lucky and succeed in stealing the first time, others have tried 20 times and still been unsuccessful) you can always resort to violence. That is, you can also beat him by fighting him. He can be pretty tough, so be prepared. In general you will want as much evasion boosting gear as you can, and an Icarus Wing can be very helpful for self-skillchaining. Definitely bring Hi-Potions of some kind along, and many Thiefs find having a high enough (preferrably capped) Marksmanship skill is very useful for sleeping him and running around to Sneak Attack him before he wakes up. It can be tough fight though, so be prepared and don't lose heart! He can be beat! Whether you steal or fight is up to you.

A Commonly Used Battle Strategy:
-Purchase a Spartan Hoplon, Blink Band, Opo-opo Necklace, some Sleeping Potions, an Icarus Wing, Reraiser, Squid Sushi, some Hi-Potion +3s and a Vile Elixir or Hi-Elixir. If you use an Icarus Wing you will have a 2hr medicated effect preventing you from using other medicines with medicated effects such as X-Potions. -Once you enter the burning circle, use your Squid Sushi, Reraiser, and the enchantment  Phalanx from your Spartan Hoplon. -Then equip the Opo-opo Necklace and use the Sleeping Potions to put yourself to sleep until you have 100% TP. -Once you wake up, run up to Maat, use Sneak Attack and execute a normal attack from behind. (Maat will not attack until after you do first) -Immediately use Dancing Edge. -Immediately use an Icarus Wing to gain 100% TP again. -Immediately use Dancing Edge again to cause a skillchain. -At this point, Maat will be at about half-life and may either use Asuran Fists or Perfect Dodge. -If at any point in the fight Maat uses Asuran Fists, you should immediately use Perfect Dodge. -At this point, you will probably also be low on life, so it is best to use Perfect Dodge and take the opportunity to use some Hi-Potion +3s or Vile Elixir / Hi-Elixir (if you are close to death) to heal yourself. -After this point the battle gets very tough and strategies vary, but you want to be able to build enough TP to use Dancing Edge a couple times more to finish Maat off. Some people use Blind Bolts to inflict Blindness on Maat so that he misses his attacks and you can build TP. Some also use Sleep Bolts to put Maat to sleep so that they can run up behind him and use Sneak Attack again. In any case, whenever you have at least 100% TP, use Dancing Edge immediately. You cannot rely on Icarus Wings alone because you will only be able to use one in the fight. All in all, the initial Sneak Attack, a few Dancing Edges, and a handful of normal dagger and/or ranged attacks should put Maat down for the count. Use evasion gear while building TP to dodge attacks and damage gear (with accuracy, strength, and dexterity enhancers) to strengthen your Sneak Attacks and Dancing Edges.Use an elixir if you are close to death at any time. -Lastly, if you are killed in the battle you lose all hate. This means if you have Reraise cast on yourself, you could quickly revive yourself, and if Sneak Attack is ready to be used, deal Maat one final blow from behind and maybe win if he is close to dying. He will not attack you until you attack him again.

Tarutaru THF66 Melee Maat battle (minimum items)
Stealing from Maat seems like a grand idea, but all in all it'll save you time and money if you just beat him and if you get lucky and steal, well congratulations. Also, the *STEAL* option only works if this is your first completing of "Shattering Stars" which is for the G5 limit break. Otherwise, if you want to actually beat him on THF for any other reason (such as for Beyond the Sun, you'll need to actually fight the old man if you haven't fought him yet but you already completed G5.

To start off, you'll really need capped marksmanship because sleep bolts are deadly to him and they process often. I hit him 4 times in a row, all 4 times getting the animation, and hit him with 2 additional Sneak Attack during the course of the fight.

Go with your best HP+ and accuracy gear with as minimum penalties to defense as possible. Also, get a Spartan Hoplon because the Phalanx on this is ridiculously broken and it will cut the damage Maat does to you by highly noticeable and substantial ammount. You will want a lot of Ranged Accuracy gear for your crossbow, but you can cut corners here if you are on a budget. Jagd Gorget instead of Peacock Charm, Scorpion Rings (about 1000 gil) instead of the +1 versions, and Precise Belt is a nice bonus if you can afford it. I also used the Anubis's Knife for its low delay, good damage, and +7% to your critical hit rate when you are poisoned. The best part of it all, the dagger will poison you.

Eat sushi and drink a perisikos au lait. Reraise, Sleep TP, Stoneskin Torque, and Blink Band. Poison yourself, use Sneak Attack THEN, use your shield to Phalanx yourself. Using Sneak Attack prior to your shield enchantment lets you run the timer down a little.

Start the fight off with a Sneak Attack, then immediately use Dancing Edge. Disengage and start firing him with Sleep Bolt. Use Sneak Attack as soon as it is up even if he's not asleep yet because he doesn't sleep long and it won't go to waste because you aren't engaged. As soon as he's asleep, circle behind him and engage. This will send him into Perfect Dodge. If it doesn't, just disengage and fire bolts until it does, or until you get a chance to Sneak Attack again. Do not weapon skill if you get 100% TP.

Once he uses Perfect Dodge, you hit Flee and run all the way back to the beginning of the BCNM and then back to the main arena before he closes in on you so he can only get 1 round of attacks in as you pass him by. Do this for about 12 ticks of the Vana'diel clock (in your lower left hand corner), and then turn back on him. If you don't have TP yet, continue to get TP with your crossbow. Now, that his Perfect Dodge is gone he's a sitting duck once you get TP. Use your Perfect Dodge and hit him with a Dancing Edge. This will either prompt him to retaliate with a WS, or just continue to melee you. Either way, you'll dodge all his attacks. Immediately use your Icarus Wing for another Dancing Edge and a self-skillchain of Detonation. That'll do it unless your Dancing Edges were terrible. If that's the case, disengage and peg him with sleep bolts until he gives up.

Key Point: Try to macro in as much Accuracy gear as you can for Dancing Edge. You'll want numbers around 300 at level 66. My three Dancing Edge for my fight were 315, 301, and 478 on the last one which also closed a 119 Detonation. Sneak Attack will score around 200 and don't worry about SA gear. You really won't do more or less than 200ish.

Staying Alive: I prepared for this fight with 12 Hi-Potion +2 and 9 Hi-Potion +3, a Vile Elixir, and a Vile Elixir +1. I only used 6 Hi-Potion +2. Maat missed alot, and I could have recovered a couple thousand more HP if needed. He only hit me for 50-90 with most of his attacks in the 60s when he finally did connect, thanks to that awesome Phalanx.

Don't even bother hitting Maat with your dagger. You feed him more TP than it's really worth. Maat didn't even Weaponskill once the entire fight with me and my Perfect Dodge wore off a few seconds after I got kicked out of the BCNM.

Tarutaru THF66, 67 and 68 Melee Maat
I'd like to preface this by saying this was written in November of 2008, as my primary reason of writing this is that I highly suspect THF Maat has been buffed significantly since the above was written, well over a year ago. This is, of course, my experience and your results may vary for whatever reason.

Level 66: The biggest problem I found with Maat was hitting him. This bastard is just extremely evasive. I was not skimping on the accuracy gear either, in fact I consider my gear to be top of the line. Included with HQ sushi, I went so far as to merit dagger to level 2 just to give me a slight edge. Not only did I find dagger hits hard to land, but bolts were down right impossible. Again, with capped marksmanship and +70 ranged accuracy, and after reading the above strategy, I went in fully expecting I could just peg him with sleep bolts all day long. No way in hell. My ranged accuracy assumed the floor of 20% hit rate, and the bolts that did hit him did not proc sleep at all. I tried the strategy 3 times this way just to be sure it wasn't a fluke. My conclusion is that if ever sleep bolts were effective on Maat, they aren't anymore, and you won't be able to hit him with them anyway even with the best ranged accuracy boost.

That said, I went with the basic strategy of Sneak Attack > Hit > Dancing Edge > Wing > Dancing Edge > Flee > resume meleeing and hope like hell you can get 100% tp and that the resulting Dancing Edge won't be horrible. This I tried twice with varying differences in equipment, and as I previously said it was just too hard to hit him. My best try got him down to about 50% and this included using a Vile Elixer+1 and over 20 Hi-potion+3s. I'll also note I had used a Spartan Hoplon which is not as "broken" as the above poster seems to imply; in fact it is quite literally broken because it doesn't appear to do anything. Whether this was fixed or made to only work with enhancing skill present, I do not know. What I do know is you will do better with a shield that actually does something such as Viking Shield, which I ultimately switched to. Quite simply, I found THF Maat at level 66 to be down right impossible. This goes out to any THF who has any melee strategy in mind: Meleeing Maat at level 66 is not recommended.

Level 67: I attempted Maat once again at level 67 with nearly the same strategy as at 66. The difference this time is that I opened with Evisceration followed by Dancing Edge to make a Distortion skillchain. I figured it would do a little more damage than detonation, and it did. In the end, I got Maat to around 35% before I finally ran out of hi-potions and he beat me into the ground. While I consider this fight at 67 doable with some luck, I still do not recommend it. If you're after Maat's Cap, by all means, waste all the time you feel is necessary. If, however, you are going for your first 75 or simply want a much more simple fight for a measly 30k more exp, then leveling to 68 first is recommended.

Level 68: Finally. Go to the AH and pick up a Hoplites Harpe or its pricier, slightly more powerful version. This weapon, despite being a tad on the slow side, has the insane base damage to really give you the edge in this fight. At level 68 you will also be feeling the tad bit of extra accuracy you're getting from higher dagger skill as well as taking less hits from higher evasion (it is of course highly recommended to cap your evasion skill). The strategy overview goes like this: upon entering, eat sushi and Persikos au Lait followed by a reraise item. Use sleep potions with opo necklace to get 100% TP. Use your Blink Band and then be sure to switch back both head and neck to your meleeing gear. Use sneak attack and get behind Maat and engage. Hit him once and then immediately use Dancing Edge (Evisceration if you have it). Use a TP wing immediately and immediately again use Dancing Edge to create Detonation or Distortion depending on what WS you opened with. He will most certainly use Perfect Dodge at this point so use Flee, return to the BC entrance and then flee back to the center with Maat locked on target. His 2hr will have worn by the time you start meleeing him. Now all you have to do is build 100% TP and survive. Use your 2hr when you deem it necessary. I only used 8 NQ Hi-potions for this final fight at level 68 so it really goes to show how much of an impact the level difference makes. I hope this helped anyone looking for another view on the subject, as well as I hope it stands as testament for anyone baffled as to why they're having such a hard time at level 66 when reading strategies such as the one above that make this fight out to be much easier than it is.

Tarutaru THF75 Melee Maat
I tried once or twice and died. In the end, I went in with the following gear for my evasion setup: Thief Knife (Yes, I dont have DD daggers) Ohat Evasion Torque Brutal Earring Drone Earring Scorp Harness Ammet mantle+1 Swift Belt Dragon Pants AF2 shoes Sattva Ring Jeager Ring

With that basic gear on, he barely hit me at all. He DID hit me, usually for around 140 damage. I used sleep pots to 100% tp and an icarus wing. I used squid sushi for food.

I recommend taking some meds to regen HP like potions or elixers or something. It's pretty easy. You just need to be prepared.

Lv68 Hume, Maat Melee
Getting the testimony from Tonberry was more difficult than the actual Maat fight. So, I had to make sure I won first try. Used Reraise, went in and popped Sleeping Potions until 100% TP. Used Sneak Attack behind Maat, then proceeded to use Eviceration. Popped Icarus Wing, then accidently used Eviceration again instead of Dancing Edge. (I was trying to make Distortion) Maat then used Perfect Dodge and hit me a couple times before I hit Flee. I Flee'd back to the entrance and started using Hi-Potions and my HP Regen drink. Once Maat reached me, I hit Perfect Dodge and continued using Hi-Potions. Poked him a couple more times and he gave up. Won in 4 minutes and 46 seconds. I was in red HP when I won, so I should have gotten another Hi-Potion to be safe. Below is my setup. I didn't use any real melee earring as you can see. I had quested Eviceration on another job, but using Dancing Edge x2 will also work. I went in with capped skill level in dagger, shield, evasion, parry, ect; Also have 4 merits into Evasion. (4 merits = +8 Evasion Skill) Items: Hi-Potion x6, Sleeping Potions x4 (Opo-Opo Necklace), Icarus Wing x1, Tuna Sushi Equipment: Hoplites Harpe, Royal Squire's Shield, Lightning Bow +1, Rogue's Bonnet, Peacock Charm, Melody Earring +1, Melody Earring +1, Scorpion Harness, Rogue's Armlets, Rajas Ring, Ulthalum's Ring, Amemet Mantle +1, Swift Belt, Rouge's Culotte's, Rouge's Poulaines.

Video
