Ask a Thief Thread.

I find training on monsters that are 15-20 levels above you to be pretty amazing exp so i did:
1-30:quests
31-50:CDs at kerning square
51-70:Jesters in NLC chimney
71-110:Aliens at NLC
Took me one day to speed through this class, if you don't have door for aliens at level 70 you can stay at Jesters until 90

Quick question.
I just got back from a 2 year break and I was wondering what's the best way to improve my NL. It's currently level 128. It has 60 base dex which I wish I didn't add because I didn't know we would get free 30 dex/luk. I currently have 1b atm but it should go down to 800m or so once I buy an evo ring 3.
I have 16 empress blessing and 16 blessing of the fairy. I'm planning to make an cannoneer so I should get +15 dex/luk onto there.
My equips are
+2 all stat crusader codex
Silent crusader champ medal which is +5 all stats 1 atk
9 dex 16 luk thief goggles w/ 2% all stats and +5 all stats +5 atk while wearing the hat
2 atk black ragged cape
13 atk white wg
2 dex 4 luk blue studded top (+4 all stats on pot) ( need to upgrade)
2 luk blue studded bottom ( need to upgrade)
22 dex 22 luk htp with 18 dex potential
1 all stat 1 atk belt
2 dex 3 luk red osfa shoes (need to upgrade)
6 luk 56 atk craven w/ 10 atk pot so 6/66 craven (need to upgrade for sure)
Evo ring 1 (full stats)
Evo ring 2 (full stats)
2 all stat 2 atk lilins ring (gonna replace with evo ring 3)
3 all stat 3 atk resistance lux ring
6% half earrings
2 all stat 2 atk veteran crusader shoulder
4 luk totem

My range at the moment is 5858-8944 clean. I do not have dark harmony yet or any increasing atk skills in 4th job yet. only 25 into quad throw 1 into venom and 1 into shadow shifter
My ap stats are (i'll put str and int into it too I guess)
Str:90 (4+86)
Dex:193 (60+133)
Int:95 (4+91)
Luk:797 (602+195)

[MENTION=5148]Prohibits[/MENTION]; Easiest way is to start with top and bottom i guess. You can get some with potential fairly cheap in FM.

Top and bottom sounds like a good start. If you can find a decent claw with your relatively low budget, that would be helpful too.

If it was me, I'd also make a new NL.(one with 30 base dex) But that's just me.

I would make a new NL, but it would probably take me a long time to level it back up cause I start my 2nd yr in college tomorrow and I also spent some nx to move stuff like the thief goggles and zhelm and I cant transfer some of my rings over.

How much are tops and bottoms usually? I see some in the fm for around 300-500 but I don't think that's worth the price.

this probably requires more information than I'll be giving in this post, but as I don't know, I will assume that this is enough:

the sports day event is coming, and a few days ago, KMS got empress shoulders, making the set even better.

the 6 piece set is, as everybody knows, 30atk and 30% bdmg.
so with the shoulder, I will have a 7 piece set, but the 7th item only grants 15% HP and MP

now back to the sports event; you can get a top and bottom, level 80, that can get attack from the scrolls in the shop.
my current ravenhorn overall is 18atk 12% luk and was wondering if it would be beneficial for me to invest in 15+atk top+bottom combo and cube them for HB+LUK, rather than keeping my overall.

I aim for ~15% LUK on each item, but will settle for 9 too.

in my eyes it is only a gain, but there might be some pros and cons I am not aware of.

thanks in advance

About how much HP would I be expecting for my Phantom and Dual Blade from 15x to 200? I wonder since that'll help me gauge if they'll need Rex Earrings/Chaos HTP/Empress HP set bonuses.

I do have enough card effects to get a free +1200 HP on top of their base, so that should be factored in.

About how much HP would I be expecting for my Phantom and Dual Blade from 15x to 200? I wonder since that'll help me gauge if they'll need Rex Earrings/Chaos HTP/Empress HP set bonuses.

I do have enough card effects to get a free +1200 HP on top of their base, so that should be factored in.

With two S set bonuses, a CHTP+SC pendant and 2-piece empress set, I have approximately 12500 clean HP on my phantom. The Empress 3-set bonus pushes me up to around 14300. Most of my Phantom friends have around 10k to 12k HP; I believe I've seen as low as 7k clean (I think it was Penngguin's screenshot).

Bad Luck Ward for phantoms pushes my HP up to around 16600; HB gets it to around 22000.

With two S set bonuses, a CHTP+SC pendant and 2-piece empress set, I have approximately 12500 clean HP on my phantom. The Empress 3-set bonus pushes me up to around 14300. Most of my Phantom friends have around 10k to 12k HP; I believe I've seen as low as 7k clean (I think it was Penngguin's screenshot).

Bad Luck Ward for phantoms pushes my HP up to around 16600; HB gets it to around 22000.

Haha, what?! Holy cow Phantoms can be ridiculously tanky on top of supposedly being very hard to hit. And for Dual Blades I know they'll get stupidly tanky too if I get dat avoid up. It's kinda sad to realize that a Thief class, a class supposed to be fragile and squishy, can have almost as much HP as my Buccaneer, and would actually have MORE HP if Hyperbody comes into question.

Sorry to ask, but what pendant is "SC"?

Sorry to ask, but what pendant is "SC"?

First guess would be Silent Crusade.

First guess would be Silent Crusade.

*googles "Crusade" in Hidden-Street Pendant section*

"Crusader's Zeal Necklace" I'd presume? How long would it take to get that pendant? I could use a poor man's Chaos HTP.

*googles "Crusade" in Hidden-Street Pendant section*

"Crusader's Zeal Necklace" I'd presume? How long would it take to get that pendant? I could use a poor man's Chaos HTP.

Sorry, I believe the item is called "Veteran Cross Pendant". It adds a decent amount of +HP and can be farmed for and scrolled relatively easily.

But yes - it's quite difficult for a funded phantom with high avoid to die. A +5000 HP potion, with bad luck ward and HB, pushes my HB to over 31k. Then I can agg Magic guard on top of that with around ~8k MP.

this probably requires more information than I'll be giving in this post, but as I don't know, I will assume that this is enough:

the sports day event is coming, and a few days ago, KMS got empress shoulders, making the set even better.

the 6 piece set is, as everybody knows, 30atk and 30% bdmg.
so with the shoulder, I will have a 7 piece set, but the 7th item only grants 15% HP and MP

now back to the sports event; you can get a top and bottom, level 80, that can get attack from the scrolls in the shop.
my current ravenhorn overall is 18atk 12% luk and was wondering if it would be beneficial for me to invest in 15+atk top+bottom combo and cube them for HB+LUK, rather than keeping my overall.

I aim for ~15% LUK on each item, but will settle for 9 too.

in my eyes it is only a gain, but there might be some pros and cons I am not aware of.

thanks in advance

I'd keep the overall (those are great stats already) and replace whatever glove you're using with Dojo gloves. 6 set effect + an additional 15/25% boss damage would be much more beneficial than using a top/bottom set I think.

Okay so adding onto my post a few days ago. I'm level 139 now with level 27 claw mastery. I'm down to about 530m but my range went up by a lot. I found a 4% luk belt for 5m which replaced my 1 all stats 1 att belt. I replaced my 6/66 craven with a pretty decent claw I bought for 200m which was a 2 dex 2 luk 72 att raven claw with +10 att potential and 6% luk. I also forgot to mention that I'm using a veteran hunter title so +3 all stats and I have luk and str as my inner ability. ( 3 luk)

So far my clean range is 11834-14062.

I know I still need to upgrade my top/bot/shoes but I was wondering if I should get empress or not. Even though I dont have a lot of mesos atm, I'm sure I could merch it up. Also, how is my range compared to other NLs that aren't funded.

Just wondering what range or how much %luk/atk is needed to hit max with Mille on bosses?

It's a balance of both, not a specific number. Of course, % boss plays a heavy role as well.
For a rough estimation, I first capped on general bosses (Zak, Czak, random Event Bosses) with (I think) roughly 200-250% luk, 200% boss (including total damage), ~500-600 attack (including % attack), 100% crit (using SE) and finally between 150-200k (max) range buffed.

Numbers before someone else gets the chance:
999,999 / (2.05 * 3.3) = range you need without buffing Aria Amour to cap on bosses given my stats.
2.05 is Maximum Crit Damage + SE Bonus + Combo (because it apparently stacks additively with crit damage); 3.3 is your damage (1.0) added with % boss, % damage and % from Aria (1.0 + 2.0 + 0.3).

That's just, as far as I know, how Phantom damage is calculated. If I made any errors or anything, please, feel free to correct me. My numbers are just what I remember from JoeTang/Locked/others from reading this thread and others.

Tl;dr, 150k range before Aria, 200% boss and 100% crit while using combo and SE will let you cap with Mille on bosses that don't have physical resist (Oh yeah, I have ~95-100%ish PDR depending if Ambition works properly).

It's a balance of both, not a specific number. Of course, % boss plays a heavy role as well.
For a rough estimation, I first capped on general bosses (Zak, Czak, random Event Bosses) with (I think) roughly 200-250% luk, 200% boss (including total damage), ~500-600 attack (including % attack), 100% crit (using SE) and finally between 150-200k (max) range buffed.

Numbers before someone else gets the chance:
999,999 / (2.05 * 3.3) = range you need without buffing Aria Amour to cap on bosses given my stats.
2.05 is Maximum Crit Damage + SE Bonus + Combo (because it apparently stacks additively with crit damage); 3.3 is your damage (1.0) added with % boss, % damage and % from Aria (1.0 + 2.0 + 0.3).

That's just, as far as I know, how Phantom damage is calculated. If I made any errors or anything, please, feel free to correct me. My numbers are just what I remember from JoeTang/Locked/others from reading this thread and others.

Tl;dr, 150k range before Aria, 200% boss and 100% crit while using combo and SE will let you cap with Mille on bosses that don't have physical resist (Oh yeah, I have ~95-100%ish PDR depending if Ambition works properly).

Damn..im sitting at 145k buffed with around 80% boss (none on card yet).

I guess the DB books for purchase are also available ingame as skillbooks...

Do the extra SP you get from the CS books end up mattering in any jobs? Not that I plan to buy them, just wondering how gimped this character is.

I guess the DB books for purchase are also available ingame as skillbooks...

Do the extra SP you get from the CS books end up mattering in any jobs? Not that I plan to buy them, just wondering how gimped this character is.

Um, since the last time I really thought about it, the first 4 extra SP you get will get dumped into some useless pre-4th job skill. Then you really just get the extra 2 SP from the 4th job books, will will basically just boost Sudden Raid. So, it doesn't really matter at the end, and I think the minimal boost you would get from having an extra two SP earlier wouldn't really matter much either.