I've spent some time again using the Lightning Cloak from Nazurus, but one of the questions I had was whether or not using lightning cloak reduced the amount of exp I would get from regular npcs who don't use specials. In this case, I was going after the Darkmoor Swamp gnolls.

Wielding: a tainted knife.
Wearing : a wedding ring, a cloak of lightning, Rose bracelet, a black
          shield, a black plate, a ring of nature, Rose necklace, The Rose Crown
          of Andor, a pair of black boots [shimmering], a gloves of the bear and
          bracers of speed.
Carrying: a stone of Weightlessness and a Tual-masok.

I'm having difficulty with the new settings on the blog screwing with my preset spacings, but I don't have the time to fix it right now.

With this gear (unique bracers, tknife) I was able to kill gnolls at an average time of 34.5 seconds each.

When I substituted Cloak of the Gleeman for the lightning cloak, my average time was 36.9 seconds each.

I then tested a theory where I used minimal gear, in case the extra strength would somehow give me more power.

In this scenario I used only tknife, bracers (both unique), lcloak (lightning cloak), and stone of weightlessness. My average time was 36.9 seconds each.

As far as exp earned, there was no difference regardless of gear. I of course had learned long ago to just do regular combat and no specials like stabs or backstabs when killing exp npcs, because that gets max exp from them. Exp was from 41,310 to 42,298.

It should also be mentioned that, against gnolls, the lcloak rarely ever procs the:

You surge with energy as lightning bolts fly out from your cloak and zap everything in the vicinity.

It needs specials to reflect, and generally your larger NPC boss types are going to be far more productive when wearing the lcloak.

My findings: there is really no benefit towards using the lightning cloak for general experiencing against standard exp npc's.  Its only real benefit is against boss mobs.  Now remember, I have an assload of block, so that could perhaps mean that lower level players would in fact benefit more from the use of the lightning cloak against non-boss type npc's.

At this point I thought I'd figure out the differential in killing NPC's using the unique bracers versus regular bracers.  This is where things got rather astounding.

with regular bracers
53
59
44
61
43.5
34
46
60
50.0 seconds per kill

again with unique bracers
32
33
40
22
34
33.5
46
27
33.4 seconds per kill

again regular bracers
39.5
52
53
40
48
43
50.5
44
46.3 seconds per kill

Obviously having the tainted knife remains a priority for thieves, but unique bracers without a doubt are the single most important piece of gear you can have in this game.  If the opportunity arises to get unique bracers right away, you get the stone dagger or dragonlance first off, then immediately go for KoU.  That should be your priority.  Tainted knife is nice, but remember, for thieves, it is a joke to try and "charge" it, as you can't wield it for like 20 minutes.  And you can get a tknife by waiting for Kehl to pop, unique bracers are the only pair in the game.

At some point in time I'll be comparing all rose gear to all stat gear.  All rose gear would for all practical purposes act as the control group of gear for such a study. 

Keep in mind that these stats above were against any gnoll, I didn't separate them out, for instance, captain gnoll or guard gnoll, didn't matter, I timed them all the same.  They give the same amount of experience, I just figure the hp remains about the same for all of them. 

Again, my apologies for this horrid setup and color scheme, I wish I could change it back to what it was.  I'll keep working on that.