String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

Is Fickblix's ring worth it? it does feel wrong not to get it while playing pet jobs majority of the time solo.

It's a pretty good ring if you are finding yourself playing pet jobs most of the time.

The good news is, if you want to change it you can do so once a week anyways. So not a big deal if you want to change it out down the road.

I personally have changed mine out many times depending on content to really maximize a role. Just drop it and go talk to the demon guy again. Can do so once a week(resets on conquest tally).

Can you drop the ring mid week and get a new one or do you drop it right before conquest tally on Sunday?

umm I don't recall when I specifically dropped it, but you can exchange once per conquest tally regardless. Does not have to be right before tally. I'm sure I've done it mid week, late week, early weekday etc. Its not once a week from when you drop/exchange. It is just once per tally. Drop it on a monday for a new one, you're waiting until Sunday to exchange again. Drop it on Saturday for a new one, could exchange it again on Sunday after tally.

I swapped a bunch of times mainly for roles when I was doing v25 ody clears.

But yes, if you drop it, you can get a new one asap. Day does not matter in that regard. Just if you drop it again same tally week, you can't get a new one until the next tally.

Oh and it can't be in your recycle bin. So you have to drop it and zone.

can just trade it to the npc to recharge it

Or that I guess ^^ lol I thought it had to be dropped. Learned something new today!

wow didnt realize could swap once a week, thank you very much for the info!

you can drop it mid week

Does anyone have a super solid gs file they can connect me with?

Hi Everyone. New-ish PUP here. My PUP is about ML 8 (ish?). I want to be able to independently do 5% damage on Ngai V25. I was hoping the PUP community might have some experience with this and make suggestions on the set I was going to use? I have all the attachments and (believe) I understand the basics on how to play the job, like how to enhance certain attachments using elemental maneuvers, optimizing things like defense or max hp by using the elemental maneuvers that match the attachment(s). I was told that PUPs can do it with the right pet DT set and using our 1 hour. Food seems to make Akamochi a better choice over grape daifuku. I would be using a standard "turtle" set of attachments. My gear set would be:

Automaton head: Valoredge.
Automaton frame: Valoredge.

main=Midnights: Maneuver effects +2; overload rate -40; pet att. (attack) and acc. (accuracy) +25; dt (damage taken) – 3%
range=Animator P +1: Automaton level 119. All automaton stats +20.
head=Anwig salade:Pet haste +5%; pet dt (damage taken) -10%.
body=Rao togi +1 Path C: Pet hp +125; acc. +20; dt -4%.
hands=Rao kote +1 Path C: Pet hp +125; acc. +20; dt -4%.
legs=Rao haidate +1 Path C: Pet hp +125; acc. +20; dt -4%.
feet=Rao sune-ate +1 Path C: Pet hp +125; acc. +20; dt -4%.
neck=Shulmanu collar:Pet acc. +20; att.+20; DA (double attack) +5%.
waist=Isa belt:Pet evasion +10; subtle blow +5; regen +1; dt -3%.
back=Visucius’s mantle:Pet haste +10%; dt -5%; acc., r.acc., att., and r.att. +20; acc. and r.acc. +10.
left earring=Enmerkar earring: Pet acc. and m.acc. +15; store tp +8; dt -3%.
right earring=Karagoz earring/+1/+2: Automaton level +1
left ring=Varar ring +1: Pet acc. and r.acc. +10; store tp +6.
right ring= Varar ring +1: Pet acc. and r.acc. +10; store tp +6.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you Everyone for your time!

I'd consider using Taeon over Rao. Rao is healthy, but Taeon has multi attack and Bone Crusher transfers ftp across all hits IIRC.

Mpaca's Gloves are a lock here for sure. Mpaca's Boots also a strong consideration for the + automaton level. Sakpata's Fists might be a better option for pet stats here also.


I'd give daifuku the slight edge for acc, but it's probably not a huge issue for the purpose of RP.

Thanks! So my set would look something like this:

Automaton head: Valoredge.
Automaton frame: Valoredge.
Food: Grape Daifuku

main=Sakpata’s fists: Pet all attributes +20; pet acc. (accuracy), m.(magic) acc., and r.(ranged)acc. +50.
range=Animator P +1: Automaton level 119. All automaton stats +20.
head=Anwig salade:Pet haste +5%; pet dt (damage taken) -10%.
body=Taeon tabard: Pet acc. and r.acc. +25; DA (double attack) +5%; dt -4%
hands=Taeon gloves: Pet acc. and r.acc. +25; DA (double attack) +5%; dt -4%
legs=Taeon tights: Pet acc. and r.acc. +25; DA (double attack) +5%; dt -4%
feet=Mpaca’s boots: Automaton level +1; pet acc., m.acc., and r.acc +50.
neck=Shulmanu collar:Pet acc. +20; att.+20; DA (double attack) +5%.
waist=Isa belt:Pet evasion +10; subtle blow +5; regen +1; dt -3%.
back=Visucius’s mantle:Pet haste +10%; dt -5%; acc., r.acc., att., and r.att. +20; acc. and r.acc. +10.
left earring=Enmerkar earring: Pet acc. and m.acc. +15; store tp +8; dt -3%.
right earring=Karagoz earring/+1/+2: Automaton level +1
left ring=Varar ring +1: Pet acc. and r.acc. +10; store tp +6.
right ring= Varar ring +1: Pet acc. and r.acc. +10; store tp +6.

Attachments:
Armor Plate IV
Auto Repair Kit IV
Attuner
Flame Holder
Inhibitor II
Magniplug II
Mana Jammer IV
Optic Fiber
Optic Fiber 2
Steam Jacket
Truesights
Turbo Charger II

Looks good, I'd just swap out the truesights attachment for something else. That one is for use with the sharpshot frame, but I'd use Coiler II or the second Magniplug attachment.

Thanks man :D

Hey so I went in with those attachments, started with a couple fire maneuvers and light, engaged, one-houred, and my PUP was hitting him for 0 damage constantly. I was under the impression PUP damage was blunt and therefore should hit him for at least some damage? Maybe I'm missing something here.... I had the same body and head, used daifuku, used the attachments above and swapped out the ranged attack one for the maniplug one. Any idea why my automaton is hitting for 0 damage? LOL

Valoredge has a sword (scissors)

It's tp move is blunt though (Bonecrusher)

So to get 5% off, you have to have cor doing comp roll or try it with harlequin, idk how well that'd work (Maybe tomahawk?)

I'm also not sure how well harlequin would work. Try with cor as suggested and/or with someone who can apply def down.

So the prime H2H gives +1 level to maton at stage 3, +2 stage 4; +3 stage 5. I'm curious if this adds some extra utility given my understanding that one extra maton level gives:

STR/DEX/VIT/AGI/MND/INT/CHR +4
Accuracy +32
Attack +29
Ranged accuracy +33
Ranged attack +28
Evasion +23
Defence +43
Magic evasion + ~50 (?)

I understand that realistically people would likely make the stage 3 or stage 4 but not the stage 5. I also haven't found the information about how much each level raises max hp and max mp (given the selection of head/frame).

Also, slight tangent, after reading through a lot of posts, before and after the "job balancing" phase, would have made a lot more sense to raise the maton's base stats per level higher than 4? Then they could at least be "moderate" nukers and not take the place of a solid BLM, but still be functional, opposed to having ridiculously low INT.

It's just good for hybrid since it gives a ton of stats, not sure if itll win out if you were focusing on the pets dmg vs the dyna weapon but for both master/pet likely not gonna be better, especially as if i recall the PDL didnt work on ranged ws/ranged attacks, but could be mistaken there.


That would have taken some further thought, and it seems like that stopped with PLD and RNG. ML got dropped and that "fixes" everything

Thanks Nariont. Do you (or anyone for that matter) know if the maton WS charge time is slow enough to swap macros for a automaton ws piece and/or for a lua to swap into a maton WS set?

There isn't a charge animation to indicate WS, if that's what you mean here.

Manually I would just apply pet WS gear when the automaton reaches enough TP to use a weaponskill. I haven't tried them all, but I assume GS work the same way. Sucks, but if you want the increased stats on the maton WS, you're left to TP in sub-optimal gear while you're waiting.

v25 t3 throws a wrench into the ease of PUP overdrive for 6% on stuff. As someone who has used pup on a number of different Odyssey mobs for RP. Ngai gave me quite a bit of headache. First v25 resists physical damage completely outside of its one type so hence why no tp gain. For this reason I did v24 which solved that issue but Ngai still posed a problem more often than not with it's tp moves over time. 6% at v24 was hit or miss for me. I found v20 to be the most consistent for me solo rp and was able to easily do that 99% of the time. So I just did Ngai v20, then whatever else v25x2 after to keep the charge. Just wasn't worth attempting v24 for the increase in rp as I found it to be more trouble than it was worth half the time.

Your Automaton is missing a lot of haste from equipment with what you have listed. Looks to me that you missing 10% haste on equipment which is very significant.

It's gotten to the point that its generally just not worth swapping much, due to how poorly the puppets dmg has scaled compared to players and its variance in waits due to attachment combos and such, and just keeping the important pieces into your TP set, which is all largely good gear as is, mpaca gloves, mpaca feet, emp head if applicable, this leaves the emp legs and the reive back(also where applicable) as swaps

I always forget about Ohtas for TP. I think you'd be capped with those, Anwig and cape.

Thanks guys. Since that posted gear I have since obtained the thurandaut ring +1(4% haste); I have the anwig (5%); the klouskap +1 (9%) and of course the ambu back (10%).

Keep in mind, my goal here is to do solo rp on V25's or lower (e.g. V20 shard b/c it sucks) using Overdrive. So while the master is idle with 0 tp, I was under the impression that the maton would use its tp skill shortly after it hits 1000tp. So you could swap the "special move" gear in for that limited window of time.

Ultimately I do want to be able to maximize damage, at the same time capping pet dt, with a focus on mdt is the impression I'm getting? There are no attachments that are a flat "mdt- %" from what I understand, and I get the steamjacket and its utility is almost perfect for the T3's since they only use one specific element associated source of magic damage. I guess what I'm really wondering is what attachments to maximize dt in idle, and be decently high enough during a "special move" attack, assuming the maton will tp shortly after hitting the 1k tp mark?

Two things, I wouldn't opt for using Inhibitor as it can cause the automaton to ignore using a specific ws like bonecrusher if it gains tp fast enough to self skillchain it will opt to skillchain. Any time you wish to specifically only use one weaponskill, you pretty well have to drop inhibitors and speedloaders.

Secondly, Steam Jacket is ridiculously powerful for t3s, most specifically against fetters because of how their damage works but yes also because they only use a specific element in terms of offensive magic.

I usually opt for using KoH trust as it immediately puts dia III on the mob upon engaging and use a full DT/meva master set for this engaging purpose. Immediately after that occurs I just disengage and stay out of range and idle in a typical overdrive set. You can try to swap sets but honestly unless you use a gearswap file that assists with those changes its not worth it for a very minor dps gain if you can even time it appropriately/safely.

Always use RR items, brings viles to easily heal yourself after disengaging and idling away.

Sometimes its just trial and error, I have attempted many NM's various ways before figuring out a way that works for me. I always ask if people want to join but sometimes schedules just don't work out so I have done a fair bit solo as well.

A couple other pieces of gear I'd strongly consider for this use case:

1) Even if you're not willing to spend the money on the Su5 Xiucoatl, C path (which I'd absolutely recommend as a worthwhile investment for a PUP who really cares about Overdrive pet strats), it's probably worth taking a very serious look at the more affordable Su4 version (Pitre Fists) for automaton-only DD builds. That Automaton: Special attack damage stat is STRONG - works basically like WSD for players, and affects first hit of automaton weapon skills. Way more meaningful than the Attribute+20 stat on Sakpata's Fists, which I view more as an ultra-niche pet nuking piece.

2) If you're regularly using PUP for damage as one of your priorities, it's very much worth considering Fickblix's Ring from Voracious Resurgence. Even if it's a temporary thing, can always switch rings for no cost other than dropping it and choosing a new ring (once per week/conquest tally).

Those are both very impactful changes and will drastically improve your puppet's damage.

Thanks Myamoto and Caupchin. I appreciate it!

I'm thinking WSs that the Incursion cape and empy head +3 (tp bonus) would benefit significantly by swapping into those (thanks Myamoto).

I do have the fully upgraded Su4 (thanks Capuchin) while I debate investing in the Su5. I have the SoA +1 ring and I have the TVR pet ring too for the pet dmg +10.

Also mildly curious about the nyame R30 pet augment path with the pet dt AND pet damage +X or pet dt and pet stats (plus extra pet accuracy and magic accuracy).

If you only care about pets theyre great augments, but ultimately a waste compared to the wsd path, or even some tp/nuke paths imo.

Really woulda liked if they let you get 2 sets of it