String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

The puppet can survive. I don't see it doing enough damage though at higher Vs.

Damage is really good on PUP if you can manipulate the skillchains for the elements the opponent is weakest to.

At this point I would like to say PUP is a mage class on the level of BLM and SCH for bursting.

In Limbus im hitting lowend 25k-35k and upwards to 50-60k on bursts on magic resistant mobs.

hi. i have a question for the pet ws set for Arcuballista, Daze and i assume armor piercer ?

why do we want the Shulmanu Collar over the empath necklace ? and why the overbearing ring ? do normal att benefit these ws. i thought they were ranged ws or am i misunderstanding something

shulmanu also gives 20 racc/ratk, its just not shown on the item. Overbearing ring meanwhile i think can be swapped to something else as i think that one's just raw atk, never really used it.

Old OF post

"I actually checked as BST/PUP using Pastoralist's Mantle (base stats) and Hunahpu, and it seems all Pet: Accuracy and Pet: Attack (on gear) gives ranged stats even if the item doesn't say it, but it's not the case if it just says Automaton."

oh that i did not know. thanks for that info.

Refresh my memory here, what's optimal attachment loadout for Bruiser/poroggo killing?

Your post is on page 72
https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/52194/string-theory-a-puppetmasters-guide-new/72/#3594001

LOL thanks! I just haven't paid much attention in the 4+ years since then to whether people felt there are any good tweaks since that time. Perhaps not!

Worked before for me just fine, so I'm sure it will still do the job. But yeah, if anyone has suggestions to further optimize the above please chime in :)

**EDIT - REVISED SET**
Did a few fights tonight and I'm pretty comfortable with the following attachment setup on a VE/VE:

Auto-repair Kit IV
Optic Fiber II
Optic Fiber
Mana Jammer IV
Steam Jacket
Analyzer
Turbo Charger II
Flame Holder
Magniplug
Magniplug II
Attuner
Tension Spring V Coiler II (updated 11/13 - I was capping attack without Tension Spring, YMMV)


2boxed a few with PUP and COR/WHM to do the rolls, and run in to Dia II/Light Shot. Easily killing VD within Overdrive time with good Beast/Companion's Rolls with the below set. If you're finding yourself not clearing within OD window, might want to consider two Turbo Chargers.

Also highlighting that this might be a situation to do a free temporary swap of a TVR reward ring to use Fickblix's for this (if you don't have it), really nice boost and can change ring once each weekly conquest period.

ItemSet 401171
Cape: Pet:Haste+10%/MDT-10%/Acc+30/Atk+20
Taeon: Pet: DT-4% DA+5% Acc+20~25 (Atk would be fine too)

Has anyone used PUP tank for mage sortie strats?

If so, are you setting up the maton as a bruiser tank and chaining with the scholar, or full DT tank and stealing the matons TP to prevent it from chaining when possible?

Any tips and tricks would be greatly appreciated.

VE/VE, Bruiser set, 2 minute overdrive solo as PUP/COR using KoH for Dia3.

Auto-repair Kit IV
Optic Fiber I+II
Mana Jammer IV
Coiler II
Turbo Charger I+II
Flame Holder
Magniplug I+II
Attuner
Inhibitor II

In my personal experience I have found steam jacket and analyzer to be completely unnecessary. Also did not notice any damage increase using tension spring so I opted not.

Which maneuvers are you using, Capuchin and Myamoto? Fire, Light and?


I do agree with Miyamoto though that when OD is up, Analyzer and Steam Jacket seem like overkill imho, I've done plenty of runs without and not even close to pet being in danger.

No Xiucoatl here, so slower runs, and ML like 37 or something like that.

Trying my hand at puppeting the ambuscade frog and after a fair few attempts of mixing and matching gear and attachments I got him down to ~10% in overdrive and the puppet was able to finish him off. Not ideal but I'll take it lol. Been trying it with Grape Daifuku, AAMR + /COR for Beast Roll and King of Hearts for Dia. I am only JP ~180 (mostly invested into Overdrive Effect) so missing a fair bit of stats/gifts for sure. Successful kill was with this setup

ItemSet 401181

• Soulsoother Head + Valoredge Frame

• Optic Fiber 1+2

• Turbo Charger 1+2

• Mana Jammer 2+4

• Auto-repair Kit 4

• Flame Holder

• Attuner

• Magniplug 2

• Inhibitor

• Coiler 2

Light, Fire, Water maneuvers. Ohtas fully augmented, Salade is -10 Pet DT, Visucious is -10 MDT/10 Haste/20AccAtk. Pet gear haste and magic haste should both be capped. Pretty standard attachments except for Coiler to help make up for not having Double Attack from Taeon.

Any ideas what I can do to try to secure the kill in Overdrive? Would prefer to avoid Taeon if only because stones don't show up too often these days. Upgrading to Pitre Tobe +2 seems a definite yes, otherwise I'm thinking a Cath Pulag Ring to replace Varar and/or Enmerkar/Domesticator to replace Sroda (which originally I misread as Pet Double Attack +7 lol). Or am I overvaluing the +automaton levels on Karagoz Earring and Mpaca Boots and maybe look at those slots instead? Thanks for any insight.

Water.

Uhm, I did a few runs yesterday with Fire, Light and Wind (to cap magic haste, I was using a single turbo charger) but that's bad, should've used double turbo charger and no wind maneuver to still cap.
My pet has never even remotely been in danger because of damage received with just Mana jammer 4, but I guess I've been lucky.
I'll try Fire, Light and Water next time, with double turbo charger.
I need to doublecheck my attachments but I probably was using Dynamo II in place of Turbo Charger I. Rest of attachments was the same as yours.
Run was over in a bit less than 3 mins, which was unusually slow considering yesterday I had a COR friend giving me Beast Roll and Companion's Roll.


To secure the kill? Why, isn't it already secured with the setup you posted? Have you did some runs where you ran out of Overdrive time and the Frog was still alive?
Your setup seems good to me, the kill should be already "secure".
If you wanna make things better I suggest using Miyamoto's setup on Maneuvers and Attachments, with VE/VE head/frame, see my message above.

Concering your other questions, I do have Taeon Hands/Legs/Feet which are frankly the best for this type of content. Then Anwig Salade and Relic+3 body.
Actually for when Overdrive is up, I use Empy+3 head (Acc is useless when OD is up, but TP+600 is extremely good, especially for people with Xiucoatl, granted that me and you don't have it alas)
Removing Anwig Salade might mean no geear haste for pet though, so it might not be worth it, depends on the rest of your gear.

But I digressed, you asked for options other than Taeon. I've done this Ambuscade w/o any Taeon in the past, so it's totally doable!
Few items I can suggest that are not Taeon to improve your set, which tbh sounds very very good to me already.

Incarnation Sash
Cath Palug Ring

To be fair in this specific setup I'm not even sure Taeon hands would be better than Naga.
You don't need the additional DT and if Miyamoto is to believe you don't need the additional Att either.
So it's about DA+5% vs WSD+10% and honestly given the short fight and OD up, I wouldn't be surprised to see Naga above Taeon in the hands slot.

Concerning your question on the Level+1 now.
On feet probably Taeon is better, but I'm confident Mpaca is very close behind, so close I wouldn't bother in your place.
And for Sroda there was a detailed series of posts in this thread, I think it was a very very good earring, better than what might seem at start. Wouldn't bother too much vs Enmerkar.
Enmerkar vs Karagoz might be harder to evaluate, I'd stay with Karagoz though.

They're only doing 90% of the damage in OD and the rest after it wears off.


I'd ask if you notice your automaton struggling to keep the skillchains going? Taeon is clutch here because it keeps your pet alive and keeps the skillchains and damage rolling. Unlocking more job gifts would also benefit a lot.

The only other thing I can think of would be using a more DD oriented maneuver build until the frog uses SP, the switch one out for water and turtle up.

I missed that 90%/10% part, sorry about that.

Well, your setup looks very good Darkwaffle. The things I pointed out are extremely minimal and I know I've been doing this years ago with a setup way worse than yours.
So what could the difference be? I guess JPs and ML.
ML not so much because I probably didn't have MLs back then.
I guess maybe 2100 JPs vs 180 is a bigger difference than I assumed, maybe?

In regard to damage on Bozzetto Necronura, I observed a max regular hit of 1273 and a max critical hit of 1557 (only 3 observations for critical hits). (Attuner + Beast Roll + Grape Daifuku and Dia IV. Attuner by itself is not enough. Maybe Attuner + Dia IV is enough. I'd have to check)

Ratio of crit to non-crit damage = 1.223 so probably at the pDIF cap (4.0 for regular hits, 5.0 for critical hits).

This was during an attempt where I finished 2:30 after automaton engaging (2:14 after using Overdrive). I do have 5/5 Taeon (used full-time) though and Xiucoatl for WS, though. (Xiucoatl would work only on the first hit of Bone Crusher and String Shredder though)

That might give you an idea if you have maxed out pDIF at least.

No worries, I appreciate the input. I think I'm definitely a bit short on DA and certainly miss the additional pet stats and attachment capacity from gifts. Last night I tried it with my group and real COR rolls and one attempt was a kill just in time and the other was about 7% short. Cath Pulag, Incarnation Sash or maybe a Taeon piece if the stones show up all seem beneficial to try to fit in. It's a real shame that Thurandaut +1 is 4% haste and not 5% haste though lol.

I think I might've found a different way to fix it in the meantime though too. If I swap the Soulsoother head to Sharpshot then I unfortunately have to downgrade to Mana Jammer 1+4 and ARK 3 however it means that Heady Artifice grants Mighty Strikes and the Heady Artifice JP effect grants +3% damage per rank. I tried it just now and very nearly had the kill in OD while still being only 19/20 OD effect and 0/20 HA effect. Downgrading attachments does require being more attentive with repair though but I think that might do the trick once I pick up a few more JP.

I actually used Soulsoother Head also for Mana Jammer IV + III since ~1600 damage from Quenching "Haammer" is more safe than ~2300 from Quenching "Haammer" with Mana Jammer IV alone. (Probably no need to Repair as I just wanted to do it with minimal attention even with a risk of back-to-back Quenching Hammers during Chainspell)

Edit: forgot that you can get Mighty Strikes with a Sharpshot Head/Valoredge Frame pairing and still have Mana Jammer IV/III with >= 1200 JPs

I generally do Fire/Light/Wind, one Turbo Charger. I'm getting kills with ~30-90 seconds remaining on Overdrive (variance mostly comes down to differences in Beast Roll).

Analyzer and Steam Jacket may be "overkill" defensively, but they completely neuter the frog's damage and makes it totally unnecessary to ever use a water maneuver or Repair. Also makes it unnecessary to use Soulsoother head and Mana Jammer III+IV setups, and gives you more flexibility in dropping pet DT- gear in equipment slots if desired. Quenching Hammer frequently hits my puppet for around 190 damage with my setup, at ML5. Chainspell is irrelevant.

This is THE perfect kind of use for Steam Jacket, btw. 30% reduction in same element damage even with 0 water maneuvers up, on a mob that uses a single element? Oh, and if you have Overdrive up, a single water maneuver (with x3 overdrive bonus) will give you 80% reduction. Anyone having any issues taking damage should really consider it.

For attachments:
There is obviously some flexibility, but I think the easy choices are Magniplug I and II, Optic Fiber I and II, Auto-repair Kit IV, Mana Jammer IV, Turbo Charger II, Flame Holder, Attuner. That's 9/12 slots.

Myamoto and I were both using the above 9, and differed in the other 3. For those, you're probably looking at some combo of:
- Turbo Charger I (which I might suggest especially if you're not killing within OD window, since once OD wears you'll want both Turbo Chargers to keep attack speed up)
- Steam Jacket (as discussed above)
- Analyzer (turns Quenching Hammer into a joke)
- Inhibitor (personally, I don't like the WS lag this introduces and I find my times worse with it on)
- Another offensive option from Coiler II or Tension Spring V or Dynamo III.

I had been going Steam Jacket/Analyzer/Tension Spring V and turning my brain off and getting easy wins. Though to optimize times, I could totally see dropping the last two in favor of something that generates a little more DPS. I personally like Steam Jacket too much to not give it one of these three more flexible slots though.

On closer reflection, it does seem that I'm still getting in the same range for melee hits (~1310-1360ish damage per normal swing) with or without Tension Spring V, meaning I'm probably attack capped already and can drop the Spring for Coiler II. That was with Dia III (Dia II+Light Shot), a Crooked Beast Roll 4 or 10, Attuner equipped, and running 1 fire. YMMV depending on the buffs/debuffs you have.


Oh. While it isn't a massive difference, Kusamochi is probably the better food here. Pet Atk+113 cap, versus Grape Daifuku's Atk+75 cap and Acc+105 that is likely unnecessary for many people. Will depend on your gear, ML, etc., but BG reports about 1250 acc needed for capped hit rate on VD.

With my gear giving Pet Acc+1384 at ML5 (yeah, I haven't played as much PUP in recent years lol), no need for Grape Daifuku at all and it's clearly the worse choice for me. Remember you can check your pet's accuracy with "/checkparam <pet>" while the automaton is out.

I think Sechs means Mpaca Gloves, not Naga? But yeah, Mpaca's 10% boost to automaton WS damage is very strong. I use them with Relic+3 body and Anwig, and just 2/5 slots (legs/feet) with Taeon DT/DA. If you don't have and don't want to make Taeon feet, Mpaca is a solid alternative.


Eh, I MUCH prefer pet:STP+8 (and DT-3%) over 1 automaton level from Karagoz (including +1/+2). Enmerkar is definitely in my set. Second earring is more debatable. Crepuscular also a good option for more pet STP (and is what I've been using), or Rimeice for pet haste+3%


Red Mog Pells! You can get 12 +1 stones for each pell, and you or your friends might have a stash of pells.

This is the first time I've looked at Necronura damage in more detail and I have never seen a triple-digit Quenching Hammer (well, never noticed one yet even with a Water Maneuver + Steam Jacket + Analyzer +/- Mana Jammers as I wasn't specifically looking for it)

I tried this Fire/Light/Wind thing with Analyzer and Steam Jacket (+ Mana Jammer IV since I didn't want to die) and Necronura did this magic damage in the order shown:


Quenching Hammer isn't fire or water elemental (said to be light elemental) so there doesn't seem to be an opportunity for Steam Jacket to work on back-to-back Quenching Hammers due to intervening fire or water elemental spells.

(Max Quenching Hammer damage with all MDB gifts [+36 MDB] and no other source of MDB [not even Fine-Tuning] is around 5000 HP depending on total MDT- typically attained with Taeon + other commonly utilized equipment)

Oddly, the Analyzer effect (-40%) doesn't seem to reset though.

I also looked at the range of auto-attack damage with Attuner + Dia IV (Dia III + Light Shot) alone and it seems that could be sufficient (don't need food or Beast Roll). I did not use any Tension Spring.

Dia III + Attuner + Grape Daifuku + Beast Roll

normal hits: 1034-1273
critical hits: 1541-1557

Dia IV + Attuner only

normal hits: 1099-1259
critical hits: 1416-1549

That's how analyzer works. it gives 40 DT to all hammers after the first, since it has no other tp moves when its in hammer mode

If it uses waterbomb, hammer will go back to 0DT

Ah, the English wikis make it sound like you have to use an Earth maneuver to increase the limit.

It seems it's supposed to be increasing the # of distinct TP moves mitigated with the use of Earth maneuvers, although the version update notes from March 2012 could be interpreted differently.

If it's of interest to anyone, here's most of a log from a VD run I did just now. PUP/WAR (ML5) and COR/WHM duo. Log is from the COR, stood just over 30' out. Might have missed a Quenching Hammer toward the beginning while getting set up.

Buffs: Crooked XI Beast Roll, XI Companion's Roll (Roll+8 COR)
Debuffs: Dia III (COR Dia II + Light Shot) on the frog for most of this, you can see when it wore (21:59:20) and was reapplied (21:59:31).
Food: Kusamochi
Maneuvers: Consistent Light/Fire/Wind rotation.
Gear and attachments: as shown in this post (as noted there, I've swapped out Tension Spring V for Coiler II).

Set the puppet up, got Dia on from the COR, then popped Overdrive. Frog died with a little over 1min remaining on OD.

Quenching Haaaaammer damage:
1601 (only one not shown in the log, and I think was first one of the fight)
399
195
800
199

This is pretty typical for what I've seen. Frequent 190-200 hammers. Rarely but occasionally above triple digits.

Yes I do, sorry for the confusion.
I can see Mpaca being on top especially for people with Xiucoatl.
But for people without I've been wondering about it.
It's basically WSD+10% vs DA+5, Att+25, DT-4%.
Not considering Acc here because I don't think it's relevant.

Relevance of att might be different whether or not you have Tension Spring and whether or not you use Beast Roll, likely the same with food (I never used food for instance).
DT probably somewhat relevant if you're going with a single Mana Jammer (and no Analyzer / Steam Jacket)
Other than that, it's basically Slightly faster WSs vs stronger WSs.


Concerning Analyzer and Steam Jacket now.
Analyzer only works on TP moves, and assuming the frog is gonna be in Hammer mode (having a PLD, BLU, DRK, RUN or having a Roll up) and since no earth maneuvers, it's gonna give 40% reduction on and off? One hammer goes off: full damage. Next goes off -40% damage. Next full, following -40% and so on.
that's how it works after the 2012 patch, no?

Steam Jacket instead works on element regardless of spells or TP moves. Being that the frog is gonna alternate Hammer (light damage? Or not elemental?) with Fire and Water spells, I think Steam Jacket is gonna do jackshit here.

I dunno I'm a bit skeptical here.
I've been having less than 20% pet DT in gear, single Mana Jammer and 1x Water Maneuver (with OD it's ~70MDB) and I've never seen my pet take more than 800 dmg.
I can't check the log because I was sitting too far from the puppet/frog, but the Automaton's HP is ~3900 and the worst damage I've seen in multiple runs brought it to ~3100. Which, for all I know, could've come from a quick succession of spell+hammer and not necessarily a single source.
What is the point I'm tryin to make here?
Well that Steam Jacket is barely useful if at all, and Analyzer is on and off repeatedly and honestly not really that useful without Earth Maneuvers.


This brings us back to the maneuvers setup.
Fire and Light are fixed, the option is about the third: Water vs Wind.
Water grants you more damage reduction thanks to the empowering of Mana Jammer (at that point even one is way more than enough, as proven by my damage reports) vs Wind, which is overkill if you're using double turbo charger, but you're gonna need it if your Overdrive ends up, otherwise your pet will be missing a ton of magic haste.


Last but not least there's the option on Tension Spring.
This is gonna be used... in place of Coiler? Or Inhibitor I guess?
Number of slots available change wether you use single or double manajammer I guess.
Personally I've gone the Coiler+Inhibitor but no Tension Spring route.
Coiler II with no thunder maneuver is "just" 10% DA. Which is nice but not exactly OP.
Inhibitor II is gonna be a massive 65STP but also the AI difference which can sometimes be annoying as Capuchin said.
Tension Spring V is gonna be a nice 27% attack.

Now it's a bit complicated to evaluate the impact of that 27% attack. I'm confident it's overkill, but going without TS leaves you under att cap for sure.
These slightly change according to your Dia (Dia2? Dia3? No dia at all?) and your roll (COR beast roll? /COR beast roll? No roll?)
Basically if you have Dia2 and at least a Beast roll, even if gimped, I think you can easily skip tension spring. You might end up slightly below the cap but close enough to justify another attachment in that slot.
If you have neither... well, I definitely wouldn't skip Tension Spring.

(other aspects that may impact this is Mpaca vs Taeon in the hands slot, 25 less attack, and wether or not you're using food for instance)

Im jumping into this community as a completely blind PUP hopeful who plans to build this job up from the ground up - (MNK gear is like what, 15% of this job?)

I have 1 question, since Oseem Augments are now daily - Is there a specific piece/set of gear that I might wanna use for my technique daily?

I'm tired of rollin for RDM 42+ MACC pants and I already got other pieces I need for my jobs... Planning ahead here and just tryin to see if Oseem is useful for this or not.

Lookin over guides is fun and all but if anyone has some weird Oseem Augments that are useful please let me know!

~Thanks~

Not really, DM augs are bad enough and i think pet DM augs are even worse

People think "the number of tp moves" means the amount of uses. It's the amount of types. Not the number of uses.

It's not hammer 100% > hammer 60% > hammer 100% > hammer 60%

It's hammer 100% > hammer 60% > hammer 60% > hammer 60%

It only really works for mobs with 1 tp move. (unless you overdrive with earth)

This, basically.

However, if you're just in the mood to mix things up and really want to try to get SOMETHING that has any value for PUP, the one DM aug that would be most useful is Treasure Hunter on Herculean pieces if you can't already hit the non-THF cap of TH+4 with other gear. Perfect Lucky Egg (TH+1) and Chaac Belt (TH+1) are easy to obtain all jobs pieces, Dyna-Jeuno Volte set is also all jobs but harder to get, new Hoxne Ring will be rare and expensive for a while...

Really nothing gets used for pet-focused sets though, and using Herculean for master DPS is outdated at this point.
- Pet melee is all handled better through other gear, such as Mpaca, Taeon, JSE.
- Pet tanking is all other gear like Taeon or Rao.
- Niche stuff like pet enmity is Su3 set.

Getting super into the weeds here and not a practical thing to chase IMO, but about the only niche thing I could even conceive of as having some use for PUP might be a really good Pet:MAB roll on Herculean head/hands (or body if no Udug Jacket). Your other alternatives for those slots like Empy+2/+3 or Mpaca have strong Pet:Macc but no MAB. But that's crazy talk, don't fish for pet nuking augments from Oseem that you'll never use.

Refresh could have super niche uses too, for PUP/mage purposes. I wouldn't bother, personally.

For me, Herculean set DM augments have basically become Phalanx pieces for RUN and to a lesser extent BLU, and I can hit TH+4 on all jobs without it. I wouldn't bother with DM augs for any other jobs on the Herculean set (or PUP's Reisenjima weapon, not worth pursuing for any reason).