Animator's Workshop: A Puppetmaster's Guide 2.0

I agree with you that it's not a significant priority, but one notable case where you can at least make use of repair gear is on Taeon armor, from leaf slot Repair augment. If you're tanking in the stuff anyway with DT-4% (from dusk), can get some benefit when you pop a repair and actually get the enhancement effect.

Of course, Regen+3 from same leaf slot also works (and is also of fairly low relevance compared to the massive regen from auto-repair kits and essentially unkillable defense of puppets with proper attachments), but either one gives some benefit.

Wish list for new attachments coming next week.

Adapter (Water x2)
Adapter II (Water x3)
Increases magic evasion.

Discharger (Thunder x3)
Use 'Stun'.

Kinetic Reflector (Wind x3)
Use 'Foil'

Tainted Coil (Dark x4)
Use 'Souleater'. Prioritizes 'Cannibal Blade'.

Stun and Foil would be fantastic tools for tanking.

Talking about lolmaster options, anybody gave a thought to Hizamaru +1 set?

PUP does not get access to some options other jobs get access to (namely Adhemar).
Granted they still have access to Rao and Ryuo and of course Herculean.

At first glance Hizamaru can be a decent entry level set for master DD on PUP. It's not the best you can get access to, but it doesn't completely suck.
All of the options have really high acc, so at least Hizamaru pieces can be nice to combine with your other sets for those slots where you currently lack good acc augments or such.
A deeper insight piece by piece:


Head => in uncapped haste situations and without KKK it can be nice if you lack a multiattack Herc head, or if yours simply has *** +acc aug. (need to check overall haste)

Body => idle! xD Stats are similar (different) to path A Rawhide, which is still a decent WS piece. More acc/att, no TA. If you lack Abnoba, Herculean with good augs or simply want more acc it can be a decent WS or even TP piece I suppose.

Hands => Kinda same situation. If you need the acc, it can be okaysh.

Legs => This is a pretty nice piece regardless imho. Despite WSDMG applying only to the first hit, it has good mods for Vsmite and for Pummel as well (check VIT too!)

Feet => Uh... dunno, same situation described above, need acc etc? Doesn't seem to shine in anything alas.


Make sure to check the haste values on Hizamaru pieces are pretty strange. Only 6% haste on head, 3% on feet, body/hands have "regular" values and legs have 9%.

If there ever was a Meva attachment, I'd *hope* it was Wind or Dark or something, not Water. So we could keep both valuable MDT attachments AND use Meva. Not sure there is a well known associated Meva element to date, and while Water doesn't seem entirely unrealistic it would certainly be a "wish list" that it's some other element!

I am conditioned to lower my expectations though, so I kinda feel it's more likely that we get like 1-2 attachments. And I think one of them is most likely something to prevent automaton from using WS (and messing up SC), since several months ago the devs specifically mentioned that they may look into a way to alleviate that issue. Here's hoping if that is something that arrives, it is also on a little-used element (Dark would be nice, but even Fire would fit fine in a tanking loadout and is often associated with WS-oriented stuff).


I... kinda feel like this would be unfairly overpowered!


Head is quite good for non-delay capped PUP thanks to the MA. Less useful for MNK since MNKs can use Adhemar/Dampening, and PUP's only choice is Herculean (though I wouldn't be surprised if it's still good for MNK in low-buff scenarios).

PUP with capped MA Job Points and 550 gift will be capped on delay if getting capped magical haste... but won't be if getting Haste II only (i.e. no marches/Samba).

With Haste II only (and 20/20 JP + 550 gift):
* For non-KKK PUPs, you won't cap total delay even using a decent bit of MA gear.
* For KKK, you can get almost exactly max delay with an additional MA-40 in gear; e.g. Hiza+1 (MA-10), max Dispersal Mantle (MA-20), Cirque Necklace (MA-10)

Regen idle piece!

Meh.

Good WS piece! Not sure if it beats Rao/+1 for PUP (as Sechs said, WSD does something but isn't as important to multi-hit WS), but it's up there near the top.

Not very good for PUP if you have access to Herculean. It's more a NIN piece, for low buff DW sets.

ffxiclopedia and BG wiki have conflicting data on the Equalizer.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Equalizer
http://ffxiclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Equalizer

BG claims that it operates as a flat-out Damage Taken-% and ffxiclopedia claims it is physical damage only, I put the Equalizer on for Teles the other day while using Valoredge and noticed I was taking considerably less damage with it on, especially during Overdrive when Clarach Call never broke 200 damage.

Can anyone reliably confirm or deny the exact effects of the Equalizer are? It might change my loadout if it is DT.

I am about to go to bed, but the easiest way to test it is to go to abyssea grauberg and fight the chariot there. It has a magic based move that does damage equal to the damage it had taken. If anyone feels like testing it.

Would a test on Sabotender Royal, T1 in Reisenjima, also be a viable test?

It does 2000 Needles then 4000 Needles then ??? Needles.

By removing DT gear and only using x3 Earth and also factoring in Stout Servant it should have -51% DT if BG is correct.

It should take 980 damage from 2000 and 1960 from 4000?

Equalizer used to be the only PDT item during the days. Back then Armor Plates gave Defense, not PDT.
I think it's likely to assume Equalizer was changed from PDT to DT when Armor plates got changed from Def to PDT?

If anybody is feeling bored and wants to check the FFXI Patch notes...

Nope, the patch I was talking about was the December 14, 2011 (JST) Version Update one, but there's no mention of Equalizer there or in any other Patch note.

Either it was ninja fixed or it was always DT or the info on wiki are wrong and it's PDT :x

Just finished testing.

Target: Sabotender Royal
Frame: Valoredge
Head: Valoredge
HP: 4134
Misc: Damage Taken -% Vorseals disabled.
All equipment apart from Divinator disabled and removed.
Armor Plate IV, Mana Jammer IV and Optic Fiber for all tests.

Test One: Equalizer with x3 Earth Maneuver
2000 Needles = 604 Damage
4000 Needles = 1014 Damage
10,000 Needles = 1112 Damage
This was consistent across three pops of Sabotender Royal.

Test Two: Equalizer not equipped, Armor Plate III equipped instead. Armor Plate III and IV are equipped for this test.
2000 Needles = 500 Damage
4000 Needles = 750 Damage
10,000 Needles = 1250 Damage
Again, this was consistent across three pops.

This does not seem to make any sense. What stands out is that with x3 Earth Maneuver 10,000 Needles consistently did less damage with the Equalizer. This leads me to believe that the Equalizer works very similarly to Earthen Armor in that it outright mitigates severe damage by a select % that varies with the number of Earth Maneuvers active.

Test Three: Armor Plate III, Armor Plate IV AND Equalizer equipped. No gear worn.
2000 Needles = 240 Damage
4000 Needles = 445 Damage
10,000 Needles = 950 Damage
This was consistent across three pops.

Test Four: Armor Plate III, Armor Plate IV AND Equalizer equipped. Automaton DT-% gear totaling 31% worn.
2000 Needles = 240 Damage
4000 Needles = 460 Damage
10,000 Needles = 987 Damage
This was consistent across three pops.

This test was a real shocker and the numbers, while impressive, are confusing. Screenshot added to prove validity.


New theory. Equalizer gives a form of Species Damage Taken -% to the Automaton that, like Sechs suggested, is additive with Physical Damage Taken -%, Magic Damage Taken -% and Damage Taken -% while also seeming to bypass the cap. The exact values are unknown but perhaps someone could math it out?

It can't be just "severe damage" though. The way Earthen Armor, Scherzo and Migawari work, they proc when damage is over a certain threshold, and do absolutely nothing when damage is below that threshold.

Your reports from Equalizer (your comment about Teles doing significantly less damage) seem to hint it works even on lower source of damage instead?


Think at this point Equalizer is not PDT, not DT either but something else completely that stacks perfectly with the rest of DT/PDT/MDT gear.

More testing was done, previous post edited.

I suspect it gives SDT-%

Maybe it's because I'm half asleep still but...More damage resisted naked than with -DT gear? sorry, what?

I know right. Makes no sense. Could have a diminshed effect the better your DT set is or something? SDT-% seems more likely or it really does give a lot of DT-%..

I can't come up with an answer that will be correct through out, simply because the 2k needles were both the same throughout. if that number had been higher for the gear worn, maybe some theories could be thrown around of how the DT formula is figured out with equalizer, but it doesnt make sense.

Rua, Spoke to a friend in the know whos good with math, he said it appears to be a bug based on numbers shown. He recommends posting this on the OF, following EXACTLY the guidelines there with as much detail as you can provide. (gear set up, attachments, etc.) If you need links, Let me know. He said given the circumstances, the SEJ should] look into it

Rua you didn't specify number of maneuvers for tests 3 and 4.
Would be good performing test 4 with just 2 maneuvers. Maybe with/without optic fiber.

Data from test 3 is consistent with the hypothesis. First two numbers of test 4 too but then the third number uh... So odd.

I would have to assume he used the same 3x earth to make it a fair data collection.

Of pdt, sure. Against magical? No, because needle attacks only deal physical damage.


Equalizer is calculated after DT, but it can only do so much. It caps at like 89.something percent, meaning you are adding a few possible points of pdt to your overall pdt.


No, that's right. Equalizer calculates on how much damage the automaton would take, then applies pdt. So in the instance where the damage would be higher, Equalizer has a greater effect. This is why DT gear reduces the effectiveness of Equalizer. So does HP gear btw.
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Anyway, after waking up to all this business I decided to do my own test to see if Equalizer had been changed to DT...



It hasn't. It still sucks. There isn't anything physical in the game that is a threat to my puppet.

Of course Tru has the answer. I'm a relatively new pup but damn you all are awesome. Helpful and know what you're talking about

As mentioned though, if that were the case, the 2k needles damage would be off as well by a slim amount.

What are people using to tank Schah? Wasn't taking much damage until it cursed Tramp. Had to swap to 3 light when it did. In attachments and SS/Harq or SS/VE?

It's also factored by maximum automaton HP. There is an absolute damage reduction cap with Equalizer, I presume that 2k needles damage is so small that Equalizer is able to cap in either scenario.

But it's irrelevant because the attachment is bad and not worth exploring anyway.


I have a co-tank with me incase she decides to go berserk. If you aren't getting procs that can happen. Anyway. Bring along a dawn mulsum or two, and your temp items AND Role Reversal, and you shouldn't need repair.

SS/VE

Strobe 1+2

Flashbulb

ARK 1+4

Optic Fiber

Manajammer 3+4

Heatsink(Not needed since there is no need to rotate through triple fire, but I'm too lazy to change it out from my standard enmity build)

Galvanizer

AP3+4

Ahh so was doing nothing wrong. It was just a test run, so didn't make it too far. Our off tank for the adds derp'd and acted on one of the adds that we were not killing and killed the WHM.

I'm usually WHM, so it had been a while since I went PUP

How are people handling equipping pet enmity gear when tanking? Do you just try and time macroing it in when the pet abilities come off cooldown? Or is there a way I can automate it with Gearswap?

I'm not sure I completely understand Trulusia's explanation, I'm too tired, maybe if I try reading again tomorrow I'll get it no prob, but atm I still don't see it explaining the odd behaviour in test4, where the first 2 numbers have no variation and the third gives that strange number where it actually produces MORE damage received than in the previous test.

As far as the attachment being bad I dunno, is it? Maybe?
Ruaumoko was claiming it produced pretty nice results on Teles, and that's exactely the reason why he decided to test it further, after all there is no extensive, reliable test up to date? The whole community can only benefit from such a test finally existing and being used as reference for the future.

If we really can cap DT without using Armor Plate 3 (see discussion over the previous pages, while using full Valoredge) then Equalizer COULD be something interesting to use in its place, if what Ruaumoko supposed will be proved to be true.

Maybe I just misunderstood you Trulusia -and if that's the case I apologize- but your post kinda sounded like "Pff stop immediately testing that ***, it sucks trust me on my word" like it made you angry that someone decided to went back to something the community had labelled as "useless" and see if that was still the case or not?
I dunno, wether Ruau's test will produce positive or negative results, I think having extensive data is gonna be useful for the community regardless, but that's just my pov and as I mentioned I'm reaaaaaally tired atm so please forgive me guys for my stream of ***in this post!

You could macro it in if you watch your strobe/flashbulb timer. Gearswap doesn't detect weapon skills or abilities from an automaton, so there is no way to automate it.



My assumption is that those values are at triple earth. If it's not using any earth, that could be noteworthy.

In no situation would you ever want to use an earth maneuver.

I'm always a fan of testing out weird ***to see if something works differently, but the major crux here is that it doesn't do anything to magical damage, and physical damage isn't a threat. If it overcaps pdt without any earth maneuvers, THAT IS NOTEWORTHY! But I was under the impression these were at triple earth, so it isn't. From the testing data that I saw, there wasn't really that massive of a change in how the calculations work from before.

Do you do anything like that? Or is it something where you just let your auto get initial hate and then not worry about it?

This discussion got me interested in testing exactly how much PDT/MDT the puppet actually has thanks to Tru mentioning that Chariot in Abyssea - Grauberg. I reached the same conclusion where Equalizer didn't appear to have any effect on MDT. At the same time, I verified the automaton having 9% DT from Stout Servant III and an innate 12.5% DT on the valoredge frame. Unfortunately, I didn't save the notepad I was recording this on, so if someone wants to reverify, feel free as my values weren't 100% accurate, but they were close.

So this means the puppet can reach 61.5% DT with traits and gear. With Shell V it would reach 85.5%. But what I really thought about was if we actually needed both Armor plate 3+4 to cap PDT since it's pretty high without either. Using Sabotender Royal, I came to the conclusion that we actually only need AP4 if you also use Handler's Earring +1 and have a light maneuver active. I might be forgetting something, so someone else can verify this too.

All values with SS/VE + Optic Fiber
40% pdt + AP4 + 1 light 83.6%
328/2000

44% pdt + AP4 + 0 light 85.55%
578/4000

44% pdt + AP4 + 1 light Capped 87.5%
250/2000

Thus, this frees up a slot, which further fits into the discussion with using equalizer. Unfortunately, while it does break the pdt cap without any earth maneuvers, it barely reduced the damage. I believe the automaton tanking Teles easily with overdrive was due mostly to the benefits provided by overdrive as it can live without any bubble debuffs.

44% pdt + AP4 + 1 light + Equalizer 87.625%
495/4000

So what do we use for our new additional slot? At the moment, I've taken a fancy to both regulator and disruptor as they both remove buffs and in the case of regulator, buff the puppet. Not only that, but they appear to have very high chances of working as I was able to steal buffs from SR Arciela2 while she was in her ascension/antimagic stance. I haven't used either much though due to attachment capacity, so I'm not sure if they're both 100% accurate or not.

There are only 3 pieces with pet enmity: Rimeice Earring, Domesticator's Earring, Durgai Leggings, all with pet: enmity+5.

I just use 2 of them (Rimeice/Domesticator's) in my tanking set, because I don't really see a ton of benefit from other earrings anyway:
- Rimeice gets DT-1% so is good regardless
- A lot of people use Handler's +1, but I find myself generally capped on PDT anyway (it's MDT/BDT/"other" that are likely not capped)
- Domesticator's to me is just a choice between its enmity, and the alternatives of PDT I don't need, offensive stats I don't care about when tanking, or... i guess Burana's Regen+2 (minor with the massive regen you're working with anyway)

If you really wanted to swap them in, probably the easiest way is to just make a macro with the enmity pieces and manually hit it as strobe/flashbulb timer are about to be up.