What weapon at low levels?

[Will95GST]

Hey guys. I'm just starting to mess around with Thief to make farming a little more fun, and to see how DRK is with thief sub. I'm wondering whether I should use a sword or dagger. My sword is at lv95 while dagger is lv21. I know that when I get the Thf to 33, I'll need to have the dagger leveled for good damage. Should I just use sword until then, and then just level dagger on the side? Let me know.

[Macht]

Between only sword and dagger then I'd say go with sword it has a much better damage output. Do make sure to keep dagger skilled up too though so when you can use Viper Bite it'll be ready.

Now outside of sword and dagger the one I've seen that seemed to be best was Hand to Hand. Combo + SA seemed to be much more damaging then any Sword WS I've seen used with it.

[pooq]

Fast Blade closes distortion..
i have hit 150 + 100 effect at lvl 25.. can combo do that?
SA will only effect the 1st hit of combo so the other hits will be weaker

[John Doe III]

Originally posted by pooq
Fast Blade closes distortion..
i have hit 150 + 100 effect at lvl 25.. can combo do that?
SA will only effect the 1st hit of combo so the other hits will be weaker

H2H is wayyyyyyyyyy better than 1hand and dagger...

[almighty_boof]

Using h2h and SA + Combo @ lv 22, i was pulling off 180-200 hp of damage. This was against crabs, pugils and giants in qufim. Of course i progressed in levels before taking the tougher mobs. but my damage output was always the same until 25 in the jungle.

of course this method of dmg output is only accessable at lv 15+ so i reccomend keeping sword, dagger and h2h lvd until then.

I used sword most often pre lv 15 and just kept all my other weapons leveled. I didnt completely rid myself of the sword then, though. I'm not sure if I should have... SA + Combo does way more damage than anything you can do pre lv 33, with dagger.

[CarbonFibre]

Even at lower levels I found that teh skill difference between sword and dagger was too high for me to want to use personally. When I was in Qufim leveling, a higher leveled THF in my party was using a sword and hit for the same damage as my dagger was. My superior melee damage more than made up for the higher sneak attacks he had with sword, especially if they pulled hate off the tank and needed more MP used to cure him. I never used hand-to-hand as THF, so I can't comment on the effectiveness of that.

[gleneasy]

u guys bash sword way too much

sword is actually a very good choice,, ive tried h2h sword and dagger. dagger doesnt do enough on single sneak attacks, and when stacked with shadowstitch, fast blade isnt as stronog as combo when stacked but its by no means alot weaker! h2h takes too long to build 100 tp.. and u hit alot more with sword aslo +3 dex with lvl 28 mith scimitar,, = nice

and yeah, finishinig distortion is something worthwhile

[PedaTeda]

ok then since u got all this great info just do this my friend


THF/NIN with dagger/knife as main and sub weapon as sword .... u still get ur Viper bite Shadow stick and blah blah .....



btw i have a question myself ...


if cu have a sword and a dagger equip will u skill up on both or just ur main weapon ???

[Fuzzbox]

If you dual wield anything you can have skillups from both weapons.

I believe this was the way that dual-wield was proven to use both weapons during a Weaponskill as well (WAR/NIN 55+ was using axe + sword and got a sword skillup during a Rampage).

[PedaTeda]

I believe this was the way that dual-wield was proven to use both weapons during a Weaponskill as well (WAR/NIN 55+ was using axe + sword and got a sword skillup during a Rampage).


i dont understand what u mean .... u got sword skill up form a axe ws?

[Tythera]

When you dual wield, you gain skill on both weapons. During weaponskills, dual wield adds in a hit from your off hand which is where you can get skill from a different weapon type.

[Riceman]

O.o nice ....

[tdh]

I was told by a Lv.60 THF to use Sword until it was Viper Bite time. Since he got that far, and rumor had it that he was a pretty good THF, I went with his suggestion.

At the time my Sword was almost to Lv.100, and my Dagger was only at about Lv.30. So I farmed two Aspir Daggers, and headed to Qufim as a DRK/NIN. Leveled Dagger to 85, then headed to the Jungles to get to 100.

Though I was told at one point, that as /THF a multi-hit weapon skill will only be critical on the 1st hit. However as an actual THF, all hits are critical. So Combo would be just fine. Or was I informed incorrectly.

My THF is only Lv.25, so I'm Duel Weilding Small Swords (DEX+2 on each.) I partied with a WAR who had aspirations to being a Dragoon, so she used a Polearm. Double Thrust -> SA Fast Blade was helping to knock out mobs real fast. (We went from Lv.20-25 in about 3 hours. True the two BLMs made a HUGE difference. lol)

[Ixaera]

Only the first hit is critical whether you are thf main or thf sub.

To prove it to yourself (if you need the proof), do sa and ws separate for a while on a too weak or ep or something. Write down the damages, and do each like 10 times.

Then do them together, ten times, writing down the damage.

You'll see that the average damage of combined sa+ws is about the same as separate, which can only mean that the first hit of the ws is critical, and the others or not. Otherwise, sa+ws would yield MUCH higher damage than separate usage.