Thief's Knife

[Chett]

Just a quick question,

In your experience does the Thf Knife work better in you Main Hand or Sub Hand (if subbing /nin). Or does it even matter. I guess I would assume it be best in Main but just curious to see others thoughts. I would appreciate any input.

[Sabaron]

It doesn't matter--you don't actually have to hit the monster with it to receive the effect. As long as you're wearing the dagger when it dies, you have "Treasure Hunter +1". Of course, remember that a Thief must generate at least 1 point of enmity on a given mob to activate the Treasure Hunter effect.

[Chett]

Thank you Sabaron. Its just nice to know ^^. Yeah I recently read the posts about how TH actually worked now so thats cool. I solo the majority of the time by myself now though. /nin sub plus bolts make it pretty feasable. So usually there is no question that the mob hates me lol. Or in the case that I tried to take Alky on by myself and lost I hate him too haha.

[Spinnthrift]

Actually - it's up in the air whether the Knife has to be equipped at the time of death, so long as emnity has been generated with it at some point.

Same as how Assassin's Culotte/Andravaranauts only have to be worn briefly to trigger the enhances gilfinder effect (I swap in the Assassins Legs for my steal macro and the increase in gil is noticable when I do).

Hand is only relevant to what/how you're farming. If you're using BD/Thf Knife, off hand the Thf knife, if you're using Thf Knife/Sirocco - mainhand it, that way you get the most damage out.

[Sabaron]

Actually - it's up in the air whether the Knife has to be equipped at the time of death, so long as emnity has been generated with it at some point.

"Up in the air" eh? Technically speaking, the only thing we know about treasure hunter is that the Thief has to generate at least one point of Enmity to activate it--everything else is "up in the air". I could say that Thief's Knife only activates when you have a Millionaire's Desk in your house if I wanted to.

Is there another item buff that works in the way you're suggesting? Are you saying that I can wear Assassin's Culotte at the beginning of a battle, poke the mob, take them off, and still get the increased gil? I think I want verification from someone before I believe that. I couldn't find any corroboration for that effect on the usual storehouses.

[Spinnthrift]

Sorry I didn't reply earlier.. been rather busy in game and out doing my studies for college.. gah.

Ok.. so I took my Thf out into Davoi, and did a little testing, thought I'd see if I could work out what the max gil was without enhancing gilfinder at all.

So, I started slaying the Mythril Beastcoin Orcs with gay abandon, wantonly reaping a trail of destruction wherever I could find them. Reverse child abuse really, seeing as I'm a Taru and going round putting the hurt on things much bigger than me.

Found out, the max gil dropped without enhancing Gilfinder was 101 of an Orcish Trooper. Now, I'd killed about 30 or so when I got to this number.. the range of gil dropping was 81-101.

This is the lowest amount of gil I could squeeze out of them


This is the highest.. until!


Andra and Assassin's in play! (but swapped out before mob death)


There's me post Orc death, posing in my crappy Thf gears.


I realise I should probably have done some more serious tests, with a much bigger range, but to be honest - these guys aren't worth my time farming really. I was thinking of doing it with Tonberries, but they have a major grudge against me for some reason and I really don't know why.. I'm innocent I say!

I also did a couple of tests to see what the range of gilfinder increase was.. lowest I got was 85g to 130g max (as shown). Some were done wearing the equip all the way through the fight, others were done in my usual swap in, swap out technique. This is why - the Thf Knife needing to be equipped at time of death is somewhat up in the air, as TH and Gilfinder are really the only effects like it in game... with maybe - the Rank 10 Aketon's as a possible test too, however.. I don't have one of those yet... *grr*

[Sabaron]

So Gilfinder is like a debuff of sorts, similar to Drain/Aspir Samba that attaches to a mob when you hit it and doesn't get overwritten by lesser versions that attach. I see. That actually makes sense if you think about multiple thieves.

Say I've got Gilfinder +2 and my associate Freddy has regular Gilfinder. When Freddy pulls the mob, he attached the Gilfinder buff, but when I hit it once at camp, I overwrite his Gilfinder with Gilfinder +2 and he cannot ever overwrite mine as long as I have 1 point of enmity. I would say there is a very strong chance that TH works like this as well then.

The next test would be to poke a sight mob with your Gilfinder +2 gear (while in a party) and after your associate(s) generate enmity, use Hide to erase your hate and see if the effect still sticks if they kill it after your enmity is gone.

[Spinnthrift]

I can only go on gut feeling and speculations from here on, but what you're saying does *seem* to make sense in that regard (about the gilfinder/+2 debuff).

If I get time, and a willing accomplice, I'll see what I can do.. but to be fair.. I managed to get that done in a half hour break between studies.

My other *suspicions* about TH, and these are just gut feel and I *can't* prove them..

a) mobs have a capped emnity list, so in places like Dynamis where you can have up to 64 people... 1 Thf isn't enough. I suspect the emnity list at death caps at ~18 people. So if 18 people generate more emnity than the Thf, then TH won't be applied to the mob. Think like a debuff that works depending on how many people are hitting it.

My reasoning behind this is from experience in Dyna where I noticed a bigger consistent number of secondary drops, such as Cores/Bstcoins/Hides etc, when in a Dyna shell that had 1 Thf per party, compared to my current that uses a lower number, even though my current has more TH4 Thf's (I'm not one of them ><)

b: dying/logout/hide removes Thf benefits, as it resets emnity completely, however.. accomplice is basically TH whoring, as it can ensure you've got at least half as much hate as the tank/top DD in the party.

Those are my gut feelings, if I notice/think up anything else.. I'll let ya all know.

[Sabaron]

I can only go on gut feeling and speculations from here on, but what you're saying does *seem* to make sense in that regard (about the gilfinder/+2 debuff).

If I get time, and a willing accomplice, I'll see what I can do.. but to be fair.. I managed to get that done in a half hour break between studies.

My other *suspicions* about TH, and these are just gut feel and I *can't* prove them..

a) mobs have a capped emnity list, so in places like Dynamis where you can have up to 64 people... 1 Thf isn't enough. I suspect the emnity list at death caps at ~18 people. So if 18 people generate more emnity than the Thf, then TH won't be applied to the mob. Think like a debuff that works depending on how many people are hitting it.

My reasoning behind this is from experience in Dyna where I noticed a bigger consistent number of secondary drops, such as Cores/Bstcoins/Hides etc, when in a Dyna shell that had 1 Thf per party, compared to my current that uses a lower number, even though my current has more TH4 Thf's (I'm not one of them ><)

b: dying/logout/hide removes Thf benefits, as it resets emnity completely, however.. accomplice is basically TH whoring, as it can ensure you've got at least half as much hate as the tank/top DD in the party.

Those are my gut feelings, if I notice/think up anything else.. I'll let ya all know.

You must be in Europe/Japan or one of those schools that goes all year round. Most universities here are all on Winter break now... It's very difficult to prove things with Treasure Hunter. You have to collect data in a very, very fussy way--basically, run a large number of trials (say 100) all within the course of a single moon phase and day of the week (because as we all know, there are unproven theories that moon/day also affect drop rates). Killing bees during a full moon on lightsday or something like that--have two thieves with the same gear (and furniture and stupid Rare/Ex superstitious TH items if you want) fighting bees in say Giddeus--one takes his Thief's Knife off before he kills, one leaves it on the whole time. The test can consume at most one hour because of the day restriction. Divide the drops by the number of bees and compare. The greater the number of trials, the more pronounced the differential (if any) will be. I would bet that you'd have to do this over several full moons to get a large enough sample to see a difference if there is one.

Scratch Giddeus... It has to be somewhere where you won't one-shot the bees or kill them before the switch-thief can take off his Thief's Knife...make it Crawler's Nest/Uggalepih.

[Spinnthrift]

I am in Europe (the UK to be precise).. and no, my college has broken up, just I don't think I'm ready for the exams we're taking in January. Maths/Physics/Computing - which though I love them as subjects, I'm sometimes slow to learn stuff..

Hence why I'm still studying.

And as for your tests.. that is why I haven't done research onto TH and just go by gut feel mostly.. stuff I notice on a day to day basis.

From a while of experience, I would say a few things though (again gut feel).

Unless it says TH+ on it, it doesn't make a difference.
Day/Moon does make a difference - couldn't tell you what, other than don't do Diatryma on Watersday for sure. It's the biggest waste of time you can partake in.

Giddeus is actually a really solid place to run tests if you're Thf/Blm though - was where I was initially going to do the gilfinder tests, using steal to claim (make a big train), a poisonga wearing andravaranauts/legs on, remove them then ~ga or cyclone the mobs. Which you could also do with Thf Knife, except the drop rate would be skewed downwards from AoE kills. ; ; Gilfinder isn't though.