Advice on equipment

[dspeed]

Hi guys,

Just wondering if my equipment is ok for my lvl range and what piece I should expect to change soon.

Thf 41
Nin 20

Main: Marauder's Knife
Sub: Federation Knife
Range: Wrapped Bow
Ammo: Iron Arrow
Head: Noct Beret +1 (Will be replacing it with Empress Hairpin when I start camping VE)
Neck: Spike Necklace
Ear: Drone Earring x2
Body: Iron Musketeer's Gambison
Hand: Battle Gloves
Finger: Deft Ring x2
Back: Nomad's Mantle
Waist: Mercenar Captain's Belt
Legs: Noct Brais +1
Feet: Bounding Boots


That's my equipment setup for now. Also should I play around with /war? I use Meat Mithkabob as food because I don't seem to miss much when leveling so no need for sushi. Thanks for the answer in advance

[Hearshot]

Switch from Mithkabob to Rice Dumplings ACC+Atk. Also, get ready for squid, it'll add the dex you're lacking.

/war is good with berserk at your lvl, but i wouldn't use it before 50thf/war for double attack if anything. Also, if your party expects you to pull, you'll want to sub thf.

Use Marskmanship, not Bow. Keep a lil rAcc in your TPbuild macro and land those Acid Bolts!

[Armando]

- Your Federation Knife is outdated. Marauder's Knife is ok, but there's better options. I'd get two Federation Kukris. Be ready to upgrade to Bone Knife +1 at 46, and if possible Hornetneedle at 48 and Corsair's at 50.
- DEX and AGI is only for SATA; in the meantime, you should be using Attack/Accuracy/Strength unless you can't get any of those in that gear slot. That means get a pair of Beetle Earring +1, Acc rings, and Tilt Belt and swap in the Drone Earrings, Deft Rings, and Merc. Cpt. Belt when you need to SATA.
- Get a crossbow and level your marksmanship. Acid Bolts, Bloody Bolts, and Sleep Bolts are invaluable when solo, and Acid Bolts help the party a LOT.
- /WAR is good, especially if you consider using Sushi (which would help land bolts on tougher enemies.) /NIN is good also, but I'd definetely tell you to go /WAR if you plan on eating Sushi since Berserk will help make up for your Attack deficiency.

[Ryba]

Armando said it pretty well =P, so not much else I can say, except when you get around 46, you'll want /NIN, mobs are gonna hit alot harder when you're pulling and 2x Bone Knife +1 is just sexeh XD

Try to get a Brigandine, doesn't have to be a +1, @45. But yeah, Merc Body also til Brigandine. There's always "better" gear out there, but not everyone can afford to spend millions of gil for just 10-20 lvls lol We were all poor once too XD But I also agree with Armando, should farm/sell stuff/sell your body =O, whatever you need to do to get Fed Kukri's, they're very nice for dmg and last you til 46, when you replace them with 2x Bone Knife +1 (I used AF dagger off-hand back when I was lvling THF XD, didn't know that much about how off-hand delay affects your attack speed lol), those will last you til Corsair's Knife @50 (if you can afford 1, 2 at best), then those last {Long time}, but same goes for Bone +1, they last incredibly long for their dmg =D Well have fun and enjoy the lvling =P

-SM

[dspeed]

Thanks for the advice guys. I know my Federation dagger was outdated, but since nobody complain about it while i'm in a party I was just gonna stick with it until a bit later since some price for some equipment is crazy.

I guess I'll have to recreate my macro so I can use equipment swap too. I was trying to avoid that since I play in a keyboard and sometime is a biotch to press the macro. But thanks for all the wonderful answer.

[Ryba]

Gear-swap macros are a must post-60 lol Sorry to say, but you should start getting used to them now lol I don't do anything on any job anymore without gear-swap macros, after all, swapping gear for building TP and then swapping for WS greatly improves your performance in general. If you need any help with any of it, just PM me or email me. Enjoy! =D

-SM

[Armando]

Gear-swapping on most DD jobs isn't that big of a deal until you're high enough to have gear sets that are significantly different for TP'ing and WS'ing, but for THF it's more or less required, since DEX and AGI are the bulk of SATA damage, but are otherwise useless when getting TP. Like Ryba said, I highly recommend you start now. You'll get used to it.

Also, I'd like to point out that you shouldn't need Utsusemi to pull without getting hit unless you're fighting certain mobs that run faster than usual (tigers, raptors, and I think coeurls) or your tank is slow to Provoke. It's a nice bonus/safety net, but in no way required.

[Ryba]

Good point on /NIN, Armando, unfortunately when I was lvling THF 2-3yrs ago, most tanks didn't even know they had an ability called Provoke <_< lol

/WAR is by far highest dmg til about 60+ when you get bigger bonuses with the Assassin trait to your TA dmg, so offhanding another Dex/Agi dagger helps alot =), but /NIN is pretty much required for most 60+ PTs as the mobs will mow you down on the way back to camp if you don't have shadows lol, like Armando said, Raptors/Giant Birds/Coeurls are good examples of mobs eager for fast food = you with no shadows XD

-SM

Edit #1: just to note, since I just remembered lol...hey, it's been a while >_>; @70THF I tested /WAR vs /NIN since I had access to Warcry as well then, my dmg was about 200-300dmg higher on Dancing Edge and Shark Bite with /NIN than with /WAR due to off-hand stats I was losing /WAR, so yeah /WAR is good til 60, but I wouldn't advise it past that. =P

[Armando]

A few points in DEX/AGI from an offhand dagger shouldn't make more than a 40-50 damage difference on SATAWS, actually. /NIN does offer an extra hit on your WS, but at the cost of not Berserk 3/5th of the time like a /WAR would. /WAR gets TP faster due to DA. By 60 /NIN has a 15% reduction in Delay from Dual Wield, but /WAR has 10% Double Attack, +10 Attack, and Berserk.

Not saying /NIN is bad. It's very viable, and certain up many people's alley. Just that the decision isn't so cut-and-dry if you ask me. /WAR SHOULD win out in raw damage until, I don't know, 70+ (Suppa, Sirocco Kukri/Blau Dolch, etc.)

[dspeed]

Kool. Yeah I'll be playing around with gear swap. That's why I'll have to take my time to rearrange my macro so is easy for me to use it and not press the wrong macro.

Reason being is is hard to use macro that in the 7, 8, 9, and 0 spot because i'm use to pressing the left alt or ctrl. I have to start using the right side as well now. =) Thanks a bunch.

Oh yeah, what's a good piece to replace the Noct Brais +1 with and at what lvl?

[Ryba]

Yeah, alot's changed since the old days too lol New gear/improved combat skills and such. With /NIN @60 only have 1 dex and 1 agi more than /WAR, and as anyone knows our dmg differs from other DDs as our stats are dmg modifiers with larger numbers in the equation, a WAR could add 2 Str and add maybe 10-30dmg to WSs, THF can add 2 Dex and add 50-100+ to WSs, it sounds off, but it's pretty close without actually doing tests, which I can only do @75THF and getting parsed numbers. Let me just clarify that there are dmg caps based on Sneak Attack dmg at certain lvls due to Dex caps for that lvl.

/WAR gives +3 Str over /NIN though, so looks good on paper, but our dmg isn't based on DoT until 70+ when we get into ToAU TP Burn PTs lol And even then, it's more about Haste/Dex for DE spam, Str is secondary.

Never see any THFs over 60 subbing WAR anymore though. It's all personal preference imo. If you want to play /WAR, great, it's refreshing to see people break out of the cookie-cutter builds once in a while lol, but alot of PTs want you /NIN for more reasons than DoT or occasional high-spikes post-60. If it wasn't for mobs that would run you down in a second without shadows, /WAR would be very viable for exp I think, but like I said, without parsed numbers, have no hard facts =/, just going on my experience since I've used both subs since I was 40 up until 50 which is when DWII kicks in (DWII = 25NIN) Wish I could be more helpful with solid numbers.

Also something to keep in mind is that DE is largely Acc based, so while more Str and Attk is good for dmg when it lands fully, there's less likely the chance that it will without +Acc in your off-hand. I guess what I'm trying to say is that /NIN allows your dmg to be more consistent, while /WAR might give a slightly bigger spike in numbers when it hits fully. Pretty much situational based, such as mobs having low eva or agi then /WAR would be good, but 99% of the mobs 60+ have higher Eva and Agi >_>

I understand your point about DA, but DA doesn't proc as often as you'd think, just like TripAttk, so TP gain is actually lower than /NIN 50+. And have to consider the fact that TripAttk can proc on both hands, so it's 1-2hits /WAR (4hits max if considering 150 delay dagger vs. NIN 2-hand round delay, but in that aspect, most 150 delay daggers are low dmg and barely any stats such as +Acc or +Dex) vs. 2-6hits /NIN per round. So perhaps that's another reason for /NIN, since the TP gain is significantly higher which leads to more WSs + higher WS acc = more dmg.

Hope that helps explain.

-SM

[Ryba]

Noct Brais +1 last you quite a while, up until you get your AF pants, which are +3Agi, even then you can continue using Brais as gear swap for SA solo, which you'll have to do from time to time depending on PT setups, 60+ though, probably wanna use the AF pants since the +Agi + Assassin trait will come in handy for tacking hate more efficiently on a tank and allowing DDs to have a little more room to let go on WSs and abilities/spells =)

As far as replacing AF, it'll never happen til you get ToAU gear or AF2, you'll always use it for tanking, yes tanking, which you're able to do alot of 74+ due to dmg output through SADE and A+ Evasion skill lol But @73 we get our I-<3-THF gear...Dragon set. Dragon Harness is not a necessity, it's a nicety lol But Dragon Subligar(legs) and Dragon Leggings(feet)(yep, u read right, these puppies replace Bounding Boots @73 =P) are pretty much expected @73THF, and they're not that expensive anymore on most servers due to market crashing on the materials to make them.

Noct Beret needs to go ASAP once you get your Emp Pin, Agi +2 is ok, but the fact that 3 more dex and 1 more agi on top of that is available, makes it kinda mediocre lol I know camping sux, but Emp Pin is pretty much your best friend til 75 lol, and post 60 you'll be expected to have it =/ You'll probably get into a high-lvl LS at some point and go on a run for your Optical Hat(OHat), which you'll use for TP and then switch to your Emp Pin for WS.

Hope that answers your question =)

-SM

[dspeed]

Yes and very clearly answered. Thanks so much.

How about Harpe? Can I just use Hoplites Harpe instead of Harpe? The only different I see is 3 damage difference. But the price is absurd. And I checked the DPS for the higher lvl dagger and not much can dagger can match their DPS. Advice?

[Ryba]

Anytime ^.^;;

Ahh the dagger-dillema @60+, Hoplites Harpe is more than fine, honestly. Will do great dmg, Harpe will only break the dmg of HH by maybe 100 if that, the price is that way b/c of perfectionists lol Like buying an HQ piece of armor just b/c it has 1 more Agi and 1 more dex than the NQ, it's all about status symbols lol Don't sweat that stuff yet though, you have plenty of time to go before you have to think about mil-gil items..i.e., Blau Dolch @73 lol...absolutely loved that dagger, and if you get your hands on one, you'll see why every THF wants one.

The end-all-be-all of daggers, next to Relic, is Perseus' Harpe, insanely rare drop from Xolotl in Attowha Chasm, put it this way, maybe less than 10 ppl in entire FFXI community have one.

Anyways, sorry to drag on the answer like that ;_; lol But yes, that's a great dagger til HeartSnatcher/Sirocco Kukri(lv.69)/Blau Dolch in the 70's, just listing those as something to look forward to =D

It only gets better from here =)

-SM

[dspeed]

no worry. the more you drag it that me the more specific you trying to describe it so is all good. Very interesting!!! Y
eah Blau Dolch is something I'm saving up for...is stylet worth it money as well??? Or is that dagger an overrated item?