Terminalbloom's THF gear guide
| CAUTION! | ||
| This article is only a guide. Information expressed in a guide is usually more opinion than fact and should be taken as such. Guides are written by players, based upon their experiences, successes and mistakes, and are meant to aid other players. However, there may be differing opinions than those expressed in a guide. Strategies and information in guides may not work for everyone. | ||
Introduction
Terminalbloom Likes to Play THF and Maybe you do to. Using Riverking's Dark knight guide as inspiration. Major WIP DM Terminalbloom on discord with questions
Thief can bring a lot to a group on top of just treasure hunter.
- TH – Most of what you will do on THF is tag for Treasure Hunter. Tagging REQUIRES you to perform an action on a target to trigger. Any spell, ability or damage performed by the thief while WEARING Assassin's Armlets and Nanaa's Charm will apply treasure Hunter. Only a total loss of aggro and going passive can remove Treasure Hunter.
- Hate Control – Trick Attack and Collaborator can Shift hate to another alliance member. While Accomplice can take hate from an alliance member. from shifting hate to yourself to assist in holding the mob yourself to shifting all your hate to a tank to deal safe damage thief has this flexibility.
- Bolts – Acid Bolts offer -12.5% defense and can remove DEF bonus from targets. Sleep Bolts can stop spells and assist in mob control. Bloody Bolts offer some self healing making thief exceptional solo.
- Tanking Ability – Thief is one of the safest targets to have hate with high Evasion Parry and shadows thief can make a suitable off tank.
Horizon Changes 
- Minor changes to Artifact Armor.
- Major changes to the relic weapon Mandau, including the new Adaptive Effect.
- Treasure Hunter has been removed from Thief's Knife and has moved to the custom item Nanaa's Charm.
- The player's Accuracy and Ranged Accuracy when using Perfect Dodge are increased by 999.
- Many elemental type weapon skills have been changed to the "hybrid" type and will now stack with Sneak Attack.
- Triple Attack is unlocked at level 30 instead of 55.
- Assassin is unlocked at level 50 instead of 60.
- Accomplice was not available in the current era, can now be used on an alliance (it was party only on retail), has had its level reduced from 65 to 45 and no longer shares a recast timer with Collaborator.
- Collaborator was not available in the current era, can now be used on an alliance (it was party only on retail), has had its level reduced from 65 to 45 and its recast time increased from 1 to 5 minutes. It no longer shares a recast timer with Accomplice and it now redirects 50% of the Thief's enmity to their chosen target. Note that the chat log will state that you stole the target's enmity per its retail effect, but its intended effect of redirecting enmity to the target is performed.
- Bully was not available in the current era, has had its level reduced from 93 to 40, its recast has been lowered from 3 to 1 minute. The ability has been completely reworked, now giving a guaranteed status bolt additional effect proc on monsters within 15 levels of the Thief. On Notorious Monsters, the chance of landing a status effect bolt has been increased but not guaranteed. The omni-directional sneak attack portion has been removed.
- Mug grants a critical hit rate bonus of 5% on the target monster for 30 seconds. Recast time reduced from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. This activates as a bewildered daze regardless of success of mug; its in-game message reads the "<target>'s Bewildered Daze effect wears off." after 30 seconds.
Sub Jobs
Samurai
The Samurai subjob is the most commonly used for HNM. Meditate giving tp to skillchain without feeding tp to the target.
Ninja
the most common for good reason. Dual Wield and Utsusemi are amazing for both damage and survivability.
Warrior
Not very useful without Mandau but can be a damage gain with relic.
Ranger
Used for Zerging or targets that are kited like King Behemoth
Merits
| Merit | Effect | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Flee Recast | Reduces the recast of Flee by 10 seconds per upgrade. | 0/5 |
| Hide Recast | Reduces the recast of Hide by 10 seconds per upgrade. | 0/5 |
| Sneak Attack Recast | Reduces the recast of Sneak Attack by 2 seconds per upgrade. This is your strongest ability. | 5/5 – |
| Trick Attack Recast | Reduces the recast of Trick Attack by 2 seconds per upgrade. Weaker than Sneak but can be merited if you want to focus on giving hate. | 0/5 or 5/5 – |
| Triple Attack Rate | Increases Triple Attack Rate by 1% per upgrade. This is amazing. | 5/5 – |
1. Dagger Skill:
Increases your Dagger Skill by +16 at 8/8 merits adding 15 total acc and 16 attack.
2. Critical Hit Rate:
Increases your critical hit rate by +5% when fully Merited. No other merits in this category give damage and it's good for all dd jobs.
3. Strength:
Strength is important for THF because FSTR boosts all damage.
4. Max HP:
Hp is required to not die.
Weapon skills and Weapons
Calculating Weapon Skill Damage
| Weapon Skill | Description | Modifiers | fTP | Other | Properties |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dancing Edge | Used to close distortion Weaker than other options if not needed for skill chain. | 30% DEX & 40% CHR | 1.0/1.0/1.0 | 5 Hits Accuracy varies with TP |
Scission & Detonation |
| Shark Bite | Used to Open and Close Light. Better than Evisceration on higher level targets. | 50% DEX & 30% AGI | 2.00/2.5/3.0 | 2 Hits | Fragmentation |
| Evisceration | Huge damage and can be used to Open and Close Darkness. Most of the time you just hit this one. | 30% DEX & 30% CHR | 1.0/1.0/1.0 | 5 Hits Critical hit rate varies with TP |
Gravitation & Transfixion |
| Mercy Stroke | Requires Mandau Gives 5% Critical hit chance as aftermath. not great but you can hit it for 120mil I guess. | 60% STR | 3.0/3.0/3.0 | 1 Hit | Darkness & Gravitation |
| Weapon | Details |
|---|---|
 |
Hidden Effect Trigger with the latent adding +5 Accuracy and +16 Attack While under 1000 TP and while using Weapon skills. A Solid main hand option Held back by holding TP. |
 |
The single best off hand in the game almost never replaced farm this as soon as you can. |
 |
Useful and on par with Blau Dolch as a main hand even beating it when you are holding TP. Boosting Critical hit damage by 10%. |
 |
Bis but costs money. THF gains +4 DMG as Adaptive. |
Other daggers exist but are not worth mentioning as they do no compete except with each other. Focus everything you can on getting the above weapons to replace anything else you are using.
Gear Sets
TP Sets
It is generally recommended to have three different TP sets. I will separate them into a Low, Medium, and High Accuracy sets. You can obviously mix and match these items as you see fit. Just try to reach 95% acc whenever possible. Thief uses one handed weapons that have major accuracy problems so sushi is basically the only food you will use. Needing upwards of 500 Accuracy to hit major targets makes capping Accuracy a huge part of play.
Stealth Earring is used while /NIN swapping to Suppanomimi or Hollow Earring while any other Sub job. Target level playing a largest factor in target evasion you will find level ranges that each set works best for. 75-80 normally safe to use low acc. 81-85 medium while 86+ high acc only. Some monsters are extra hard to hit because of buffs or job as well THF NIN BLM monsters are harder to hit so just keep that in mind when picking sets.
Stand out place holder gear is Dusk Ledelsens, Bravo's Subligar, and Panther Mask +1
Weapon Skill Sets
These Sets Will be split into 3 groups as well. Use without Sneak attack or Trick Attack called Raw. and for use with those abilities on. When you Rarely Weapon skill with BOTH Sneak and Trick attack default to Trick attack sets.
Standout place holder gear is Assassin's Bonnet +1, Voyager Sallet, and Dusk Trousers +1.
Standout place holder gear is again Assassin's Bonnet +1, Voyager Sallet, and Dusk Trousers +1.
Evisceration does not need as many changes as shark bite and is the only weapon skill you should use Raw unless you need to skillchain.
Standout place holder gear is, Voyager Sallet, and Dusk Trousers +1.
Mercy Stroke just changes around hands.
Sneak attack and Trick attack sets
How to Maximize SA/TA Damage
The time and place to use raw Sa/Ta is up to your judgement. remember Delay is forced on using job abilities so take haste into account raw Sa/Ta can be a damage loss at high haste.
| Sneak Attack | Trick Attack |
|---|---|
| Mandau, X's Knife or Blau Dolch Sub
Sirocco Kukri |
Mandau, X's Knife or Blau Dolch Sub
Sirocco Kukri |
You can use Sneak Attack, Trick Attack, and Hide pre pull together to get an attack on the tank other wise it is better to split them.
