Mandau Vs Twashtar

[Lokithor]

No question about Mandau. I just wanted to echo the post about using TP Bonus Centovente in the off hand with Twashtar. I've done some simple testing and the difference is dramatic, even when WS'ing at 100%. It's also very easy and quick to acquire.

[Arcon]

Is TA Exent more potent and I'm just doing it wrong?

Too lazy to do the math atm, but it shouldn't be, and if it is, it's not by much. Maybe inside Abyssea with some weird buffs, but that's just about it. Both Mercy Stroke and Rudra's Storm should outperform Exenterator with Trick Attack.

No question about Mandau. I just wanted to echo the post about using TP Bonus Centovente in the off hand with Twashtar. I've done some simple testing and the difference is dramatic, even when WS'ing at 100%. It's also very easy and quick to acquire.

The difference is bigger at 100% than at 200%, that was my point earlier.

[saevel]

99 Mandau easily. MS is 60% STR mod. The thing with STR is that it also doubles as the fSTR term for a further boost. It takes 4 STR to raise your base DMG by 1 so we can term +STR as the equivalent of approx +30% WSC.

+10 STR for MS would give you
10 * .6 * .85 = +5.1 DMG from WSC
10 * .25 = +2.5 DMG from fSTR

on a 60% DEX WS you would only get the +5.1 from the WSC and +5 accuracy which is almost meaningless on RS.

@99 you can treat MS's +40% damage bonus as a modifier to it's fTP for quick comparisons. That gives MS the equivalent of 5.6 fTP vs RS's 4.25 (@100).

So yeah better mods and better overall damage potential. The only situation that RS is better is SA stacking once every 50s.

[Nebo]

So yeah better mods and better overall damage potential. The only situation that RS is better is SA stacking once every 50s.

So you're saying that MS is obviously better by saying that Rudra's is better 50% of the time?

The value of fSTR in favor of MS is being overstated a bit for two reasons. 1. fSTR caps low for daggers. 2. There are gear pieces that you would use with MS for STR that would also be used use for RS because of the DEX on them. There is also quite a bit of decent gear with both STR and DEX along the road to the best set.

People always seem to neglect that significant chunk of 60% modifier built right into the weapon on Twashtar. Whatever gains you are going to see in base damage boost before your fSTR is capped are likely to be mitigated quite a bit by that DEX. Not to mention the ACC and significant Crit Rate it can give you at varying levels of dDEX.

MS NEEDED that 40% boost at 99 because it was weaker than RS. It is not the blowout at 99 it is being made out to be.

fSTR and attack both cap. It would be more accurate to say that Mandau + MS make it easier to hit those caps. And probably more realistically as well, because a THF will likely not find himself in the DD buff party often.

It would also be more accurate to say that it is easier to make a stronger Mandau than a comparable Twashtar (the real reason I'm finishing mine).

However, it is not very accurate to say that Mandau has more potential as a result. Because it is also possible to cap both fSTR and Attack with Twashtar, at which point RS + aftermath may have more overal damage potential: Massive amount of DEX, stronger ODD, greater situational damage over 100 TP, easier crit rate gains from dDEX.

Stacking with Sneak Attack is not the only situation where RS comes out ahead. There are several where Twashtar has the advantage. Specifically being Voidwatch (300TP RS + Lvl 3 Aftermath spam shits all over anything Mandau can do) and Abyssea (Better Syngery with best THF DD Atma). But also anything where you can cap (or close to cap) fSTR and Attack easily with just RCB, Acid Bolts/Defense down methods (Dual box mage mule) and/or subjob. EG: EP Dynamis, where stacking with Sneak Attack is mostly possible due to procing, and is frequently >100TP because you are holding TP while spamming defense down debuffs to proc.. Advantage: Twashtar.

I agree that Mandau is a stronger dagger for more situations that a THF finds himself in, and am working on one myself. But its strength lies more in the fact that its easier to get gains in attack in the absence of buffs, allows for stronger unstacked exenterator (It may not win for Evisceration) when you cannot stack and it provides a marginal boost over RS in high level VIT HNM situations where fSTR is dificult to cap.

It does not blow Twashtar out of the water all over the place. There are many situations where Twashtar wins (not to mention its overall greater synergy with Sneak Attack).

The two are very comparable in terms of their damage output potential. They just have different strengths.

Imo, the main problem with Twashtar's image is that more crap Thieves (Sub DNC or NIN to DD when procs aren't needed, don't have proper or high end gear swaps, no DT sets, no proper food, blah blah) have one because they are so easy to get to lvl 90. And then they try to bring their abyssea THF to something like voidwatch.

Most just put basic sets together of miss-matched whatever that they have gotten from events they've done on their other mains, so they can farm weak crap with THF, and have a decent weapon to go with their TH whore.

[Calamity]

Mandau if you are purely thf

Twashtar if you play both thf and dnc or are purely dnc

Mandau for your thf and Twashtar for your dnc if you have the time and resources

pair up either one with a str thokcha and your golden, and if you do get both do not dual wield mandau/twashtar, you may think its better, but its not

Not completely true. If you take the twashtar to 99, it can beat str thokcha, but not enough to make it worth the investment unless you have already made it.

[bigdave]

mandu is awsome i love mine

[Yenecol]

You can calculate which would be the best dagger for you without having to rely on unqualified anecdotes.

Meh, my unqualified anecdote served its purpose. Prior to my post, this was a dead thread with no real info on it. I knew that, if I posted about how a guy with the almighty mandau got frustrated because his mercy stroke he could not beat my rudra's storm, the math people would crawl out of the woodwork.

But just to sate your curiosity, we had no buffs on, we were fighting troll paladins in bhaflau thickets (the ones in front of the cave/zone on the way toward the tower with the colibris people used to level on so long ago) and we were stacking with sneak attack. I am pretty sure he had 95 mandau. My twashtar is 90. I was surprised that the difference was great enough to be eyeballed. This was not a serious test, I just wanted to see what I could look forward to since I am working towards a mandau.

Why would I save my TP to 200? Because Rudra's storm is crap unless it is stacked and by the time sneak or trick are ready to go again, I usually have 200+ thanks to a healthy amount of triple attack gear. Spamming every time I hit 100 would mean having to go unstacked (which means I would use another WS altogether). Besides, as other people pointed out, rudra's aftermath is great.

[Arcon]

Why would I save my TP to 200? Because Rudra's storm is crap unless it is stacked and by the time sneak or trick are ready to go again, I usually have 200+ thanks to a healthy amount of triple attack gear. Spamming every time I hit 100 would mean having to go unstacked (which means I would use another WS altogether).

Precisely, use another WS when SA/TA aren't up.

[Meril]

I rarely ever post but wth, so, I want to make this as simple as possible, cause I dont even bother to read posts that are muliple paragraphs long, I have a 99 Twashtar, use TP bonus Centovente, and WS at 125% cause I have 25 TP earring, basicly going for 250 TP WS. However, thats only for stacking lol. IDK why ppl would even be comparing non stacked #s... if you have a 99 Twash or Mandau you wouldnt have Extenterator merited?

[Meril]

oh haha arcon posted the same time i did, oh well. point made