Animator's Workshop: A Puppetmaster's Guide 2.0

Optic Fiber II will be job breaking, like seriously.

Hoping OF and OF II stack.

Yes, I am quite excited about it.

In regards to the new Damage Gauge, my hope is that it behaves like Amplifier. Amplifier scans for a particular condition (skillchain) and if it's present it resets the internal casting magic timer for Automatons. My hope is that this new gauge will scan for low HP and reset the internal magic timer so that Automatons will start immediately curing. If it does work like that, Automatons+master curing will be a very real thing. No AoE cure will still keep WHM puppet from being OP, but it will be a lot more valuable than it currently is.

Your expectations for damage gauge are very optimistic.
I'm ready to be sorely disappointed by that...

This will probably officially kill AP3 for those without ring for tanking

They are optimistic, yes. But that was the major complaint about how ineffective Automatons are at curing, not that they would not cure at certain values. DG itself can get to like 90/100% curing threshold, so a stronger DG doesn't really make sense. The precedent for resetting timers has been set by Amplifier, so I don't think it's impossible for something like this to happen.


Depending on how much of a boost OF2 gives, on a SS/VE puppet with AP4 and OF2, you will need between 24-30% DT in gear to cap pdt based on how strong OF2 actually is and if you have a light maneuver up or not. You can get 24% in just armor with my preferred setup(2x Taeon at 4%, 2x NQ Rao, AMK Head) Isa Belt and basically any tanking weapon will put you at 30-32% Shepard's Chain, Rimeice and Isa Belt will also get you to 30%.

Anyway, so yeah. AP3 basically dead after OF2.

I suspect OF and OF II will be on always, so 10% and 15-25%? w/o maneuvers. If they stack that is

I am guessing 15% / 25% / 30% / 35% on the OF2 with the effects stacking with the OF1.

If we are talking specifically about tanking, you ought to be able to slot OF1+OF2(MAYBE) and Flashbulb. If OF2 is 30% with 1x Light, it will increase the regen of ARK4 by about 0.9%, making it recover 4.5% of total HP per tick, vs the 3.75% we have with ARK1+4OF1 now.

If you don't want Flushbulb it gets trickier. ARK3+4OF will give 5.76% back per tic and will give you 10% more maximum HP anyway. So ARK3+4OF is going to be better than ARK4+1+OF1/2. You could make an argument for the extra MDEF(Mana Jammers) and the extra enmity on Strobes, but I'm not really sure when either of those are a concern anymore.

I suppose at this point we really just need this update to happen so we can see what ***does.

Does this mean pup roll will finally make sense for what it does and we'll finally see automatons nuking? :P

Falkirk and myself, being inspired by what our friends on Shiva have done with puppets lately decided to see what we could do. So I we decided to do Sarsoak.

The first run I did VS/SS using Speedloaders. That run was *** garbage. We got it to 25% before we timed out. Wasn't good.

Second run I swapped to VE/VE using inhibitors over speedloaders, we both ended up ODing, STILL COULD NOT KILL IT. Got it to 5%.

The last run, Falk convinced me that teamwork was worthless and we needed to TP burn this ***. We went double VE/VE and loaded up on deepz. Falkirk used Flame Holder, I used Attuner. I think otherwise our attachments were about the same. We both ended up doing substantially more damage. We killed the damn thing with 2 minutes left on the clock.

Falkirk used a set of Hercs gear that focused on acc/atk and DA. I used standard TP set, Pet:VIT gear and Pet:DA gear. I noticed almost no difference in average damage between Pet:VIT and Pet:DA gear :/. Under Overdrive Pet:VIT is the clear winner, but without it Pet:DA is just really, really good.

Falkirk focused on using Fire Maneuvers to feed his automaton's Flame Holder while I stuck with Fire/Light/Wind to spam Bone Crusher endlessly. I ended up doing about 60k more damage than Falkirk did, which leads me to believe that Fire/Light/Wind is probably going to be the optimal DD setup in any instance where you don't care about skillchains. From what I have seen so far, it looks like Speedloaders are less effective against NMs, and it's possible that just TP burning them is the better choice. If they aren't weak to piercing, VE is still trumping SS :/.

I'm really interested now to see how OF2 is going to change things. Presuming OF1 and OF2 stack, a single light maneuver along witha single wind SHOULD cap MA haste, which means we will TP that much faster and be able to spam BC that much more often. And we'll have a good deal more attack. I see they are adding synthesis items in the next update, but I'm not sure that the new animator is coming in this update. I WANT it to, but who knows.

Sarsoak (that's the Cerberus NM isn't it?) was always a straight zerg, not one you could do skillchain/magic burst on. If you want a good NM to try out, give the T2 Harpy a shot. Use PLD puppet (PLD/PLD or WHM/PLD setup) with the other PUP as RNG. Have the RNG puppet equipped with Inhibitor and set up maneuvers for String Shredder (Light/Fire/Thunder). Watch the RNG puppet obliterate the Harpy. Have a GEO and a BLM there to burst the resulting Darkness skillchains.

No, Sarsoak is the Behemoth. He has no special properties except that he takes more magic damage.

Harpies are weak to piercing, as are all birds. It's pretty obvious that Sharpshot is the superior DD for that NM, but it doesn't give us a good idea of what Automatons can do to a damage neutral target. Nor does bringing a BLM to do magic bursts. Perhaps if we brought a BLM puppet, however...

Oh, you're looking for damage neutral? Hmmm....

Also, keep in mind that our battle strategies over on Shiva include support. GEO, COR, and RDM when needed. But our puppets are the main source of DD & skillchains. We'll also bring along a BLM for extra damage.

PUPDATE!!!

Optic Fiber II is now a thing....

Also new synth'd Animators.

Optic Fiber II is x2 light slots.
Damage Gauge II is x2 light slots.
Mana Channeler II is x3 water slots.

Testing the Optic Fiber first.

Optic Fiber I = 10/20/25/30%

Optic Fiber II looks to be roughly 12~12.5/25/35/47.5 (rounding for x/1024 calculation that I didn't do right now because I'm ready to sleep). And additive with OF1.

I tossed on a Stabilizer IV (Acc+ 33/48/70/90), and tested via /checkparam with OF1, OF2, and both. No other attachments equipped.

OF1 only = additional 3/4/5/7 acc (roughly 9/17.5/25/33% increase)
OF2 only = additional 4/6/8/10 acc (roughly 12/25/35/47.5% increase)
OF1+OF2 = additional 7/11/13/18 acc (roughly 21/44/62.5/82.5% increase

It's not a ton stronger than OF1 at 0-1 maneuvers, but it's better than OF1 and appears to fully stack, so more than DOUBLES the OF effect if you use both. Very nice stuff.

I'm going to bed now so not playing with Damage Gauge and Mana Channeler II yet (also lolMageframes). Happy puppetry, everyone.

I now am a proud owner of an Animator P!

Since we need a bunch of Vulcanite Ores now.....going to do a T3 NM in Escha Zi'tah with my SMN buddy who needs an ore for his new Satchet.

What craft makes them? and what's the recipe? xD

Woodworking 105

Earth Crystal: Divine Lumber, Exalted Lumber x2, Vulcanite Ore, Animator Z

Thanks!

I'm looking at these loadouts for tanking now.

<frame>Valoredge Frame</frame>
<head>Valoredge Head</head>
<slot01>Strobe</slot01>
<slot02>Strobe II</slot02>
<slot03>Armor Plate IV</slot03>
<slot04>Barrier Module II</slot04>
<slot05>Shock Absorber III</slot05>
<slot06>Resister II</slot06>
<slot07>Mana Jammer IV</slot07>
<slot08>Optic Fiber</slot08>
<slot09>Optic Fiber II</slot09>
<slot10>Auto-Repair Kit III</slot10>
<slot11>Flashbulb</slot11>
<slot12>Galvanizer</slot12>

<frame>Harlequin Frame</frame>
<head>Soulsoother Head</head>
<slot01>Strobe</slot01>
<slot02>Strobe II</slot02>
<slot03>Shock Absorber III</slot03>
<slot04>Armor Plate IV</slot04>
<slot05>Resister II</slot05>
<slot06>Mana Jammer IV</slot06>
<slot07>Optic Fiber</slot07>
<slot08>Optic Fiber II</slot08>
<slot09>Auto-Repair Kit IV</slot09>
<slot10>Flashbulb</slot10>
<slot11>Regulator</slot11>
<slot12>Disruptor</slot12>

It is worth noting that the second loadout also works with the Valoredge Frame and the Soulsoother Head. To me it looks like whatever use Valoredge/Valoredge had just died as the alternative can run both Optic Fibers and the Flashbulb without losing the highest tier of the Auto-Repair Kit.

Sooo... looks like the Animator is a T1 (~10% HQ rate?) and less expensive than I was expecting it to be.

Maybe there's a chance HQ won't be insanely rare and cost hundreds of millions of gil?
To be fair for "just" +5 stats you might wonder if it's worth it, unless you're very rich and/or really love PUP as your main job.

It's a different story for the HQ Sachet, I see that being more important alas.

Unfortunately, I'm fully expecting the price of the Exalted Lumber to skyrocket as well as the Vulcanite Ore price.

Nobody plays PUP... apart from us lot here. I doubt it'll spike too high.

Yes, skyrocket from the literal dozens of PUPS game wide. On Quetz we basically already knew we were going to have to farm our materials, happy that they are from easy content. Exalted kinda blows because merit fight. I saved a metric ***load of gil up fully expecting Dark Matters to be part of it, so I am pleased. But considering the cost of mats and that it's a T1 synth, a +1 shouldn't cost more than 10mil.

Also, VE/VE retains its user since it's only use was Invincible anyway.

Automaton now parsing at 100% accuracy against Apex Jagil and Apex Bat... Target Marker or Stabilizer IV not used.

Exalted Logs aren't too bad if you've got merits since the drop rate on AA EV is always about 50% regardless of difficulty or TH. And hey, you can HQ the lumber synth!

Vulcanites are still poop though.

Eh, I prefer the Vulcanite. I can spam Zi'tah, I can't spam AAEV. I figure on a T1 it takes an average of 16 synths for an HQ, and off the top of my head I know we need at least 4 HQS, so Lumber is going to be the sucky item to farm :/

We'd team up, you and I, if only I still had a dude on Quetz.