String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

You can hit cap on locus mobs without nyame path D easily provided your pet MB set is good and attachments are optimal for bursting.

Automaton struggles with macc more than anything when maximizing for mab/bursts and vice versa. Locus stuff is fine, but can often get resists on stuff like omen nms or above if maximizing for damage.

Umm technically yes you should keep the other animators but tbh I hardly use them because the gain is marginal and only useful in specific situations of pet only engaged imo.

confused by this, neo animator is for master and phys damage frames, mage automaton does not struggle with macc really, it is the int deficit that gives them trouble. while 20 isn't a big amount at ilvl and won't fix problems by itself, it is definitely better for nuking.

Is puppet master worth going through the trouble for Skilling up or should I just gear up bst if I wanna play a pet job

And does anyone have any tips for Skilling up?

Each has its uses. Skilling up is percolator + skill up food, can do uraginites for melee and ranged and reives for magic, or hold a quadav next to the curse device in beadux so puppet na spams you(when it can get enough skill to do so anyway)

although both are pet jobs, that's pretty much the end of the similarities. here's a few pros/cons of each, might revisit this to organize it better later on.

bst
-relatively straightforward, send pet out and pick which moves you want to use
-jug pets are not all equally available, especially HQ ones
-does not do well when you zone a lot or want those HQ pets but have to wait on JA timers
-bst pets do not need to melee for TP to function optimally, and have higher burst potential
-no need to cap jug pet skills but also much more limited ways to increase them by yourself(run wild, familiar)

pup
-automaton AI is really bad, and it doesn't feel good to be constantly fighting against it
-especially with addon help, you can switch between fully customized automatons instantly, and your timers are much more flexible especially if the pet has full hp. Fujito mentioned they are working on saving automaton loadouts, too, if you go vanilla
-melee automatons do need to gain TP like players, and you do need to cap skills, but with maneuvers and attachments you have considerably more flexibility in changing the pet's stats and behaviors
-valoredge tank is insanely durable, and overdrive is an amazing 1hr. this combo is probably pup's greatest strength. the rng and blm frames have uses and can do well in some content. rdm and whm frames are worse than trusts.

You can surpass basement sortie boss dINT on PUP if you use Impact. You'll need someone to impact for you. Nyame also has pet Attribute +.

PUP will be good against anything in the game that allows SCs (Master can make solo SC or work together w/ group) and is not resistant magical damage(BLM Automaton Nukes). It is great and easy for MB groups since it will automatically select which element the target is resistant to when a SC is performed and cast the highest tier spell possible of that element. Have your party coordinate who will be making SCs and your Automaton can MB w/ the other mages in your party.

Magic bursts are prioritized in the Automatons AI if you use the proper attachment. It's the most powerful form of damage you can achieve outside overdrive builds.

A decent 3 man group in sortie can be SCH + Tank + PUP. Tank holds whatever you are fighting and coordinates with SCH and PUP for SCs (Immanence/PUP WS/tank WS). Open SC windows for SCH and PUP to nuke, in particular helping close Darkness to MB Impact. That way SCH and BLM automaton will cap dINT and will go unresisted. On the basement boss E, you can close w/ gravitation on PUP easy w/ Stringing Pummel since it has it as a skillchain property, then you can MB impact off that Gravitation to cap the dINT on that boss.

BST can also help increase damage in lowman sortie with killer instinct (+15% damage on Non-NM's/+10% Damage on NMs) or Bird/Acuex debuff (-25% defense/-25 MDT) having potent party buffs + debuffs, BST can also infinite skillchain w/ Diamond Aspis. WS damage is good due to Primal Rend and Cloudstrike being magical WS, benefitting from the same situation as Trueflight RNGs and Leaden Salute CORs in that Magic damage shreds through basement NMs.

I hope a Udug Jacket drops for me eventually in AMAN. I just got a Crepuscular cloak the other day.

Impact is not going to last more than 25-30sec on sortie basement bosses (full resist).

The -Int from it scales down linearly from 100% reduction at cast time, to 0-1% when it wears off.

So if you're lucky, you will get one nuke off when the -Int reduction is at its peak, and maybe another one at 50% or so.

would love to see actual numbers in sortie basement with your pup if you have the time marquiss. I can see that trio working on E but none of the others where time is a factor.

also can you double burst consistently? I seem to remember it being possible with amplifiers but it has been a while.

As someone who has never tried to gear up PUP but is eternally curious, is 45 MAB/macc really the best you can do in the body slot for a pet? (Without Nyame augments, because lol path-not-b)

Mirke Wardecors with the right aug lets you get +7 MAB/MACC

On Taeon you can get 1-25 MAB or 1-25 MACC, the player stat would give both but the pet state is broken into 2 separate ones you can not have together.

On Herc, you can get 1-30 MAB and 1-30 MACC. (the wiki page is weirdly formatted for herc gear since it is different from the others does not list the "pet" stats separately)

Herc can roll an okay pet mab/macc mix and get some pet INT, thats your next best option

Udug is 5MAB and 5MACC more than Nyame, unless you get Nyame with pet augments.

Highest you can get for pet attributes without Nyame D.

pet jobs generally get very little mab gear natively. thankfully pup has no issues with mab or macc due to attachments and maneuvers.

reposting this again since it seems there is still interest

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/52194/string-theory-a-puppetmasters-guide-new/103/#3750140

note that those numbers were with ice/ice/dark maneuvers because I wanted to keep the damage constant for things like ML parties. you can triple ice and deactivate to refill mp if preferred, which would grant you even more mab. still got a bottleneck with dInt I never found a way around, though.

Sortie Boss INT:
Dhartok: 363
Gartell: 350
Triboulex: 504
Aita: 494

With Nyame head, hands, and empy Feet Automaton can reach 361 INT gear only.

These are my current automaton stats @Mlvl 50 w/ triple ice maneuver AF hands and burana earring. 2 of those bosses you will be extremely close to surpassing dINT w/ no buffs, and the other 2 bosses you can manage w/ debuffs like Frazzle III and other stuff that will lower MDT or increase Macc. PUP only gets stronger with a group and support.

I recommend the community do some testing with this info.

If only BLM Automaton had access to t6 nukes, it would be capping damage on basement bosses with no issues... one can only dream.....

You'll definitely get full duration Impact on the G boss (I'm pretty sure you'll still get full duration from shitty gear and a Twilight Cloak). But yeah, the other basement bosses will probably resist. I've had no problems getting full duration on Aminon with RDM, either (not sure if anyone brings PUP to Aminon, though). Moreover for Aminon, casting Impact with an Occult Acumen set is a fantastic way to get TP (MP permitting), so even without full duration, it should be on most of the time between the RDM and GEO casting.

Also, I don't think the stats decay over time, either. So you should maintain that 20% down for the entire duration, however long that may be.

Reading the wiki again you're right, impact spell debuffs don't decay.

Impact on players do though right, or am I imagining that.

Not saying not to use it, just that duration will be short on everyone except G. Rdm might be able to stick it on the others. Talking mage setup, not casting for TP like on Aminon.

Outside of something straight up resisting dark based damage, I've never heard of impact duration getting resisted too much. And yeah -20% stat debuff is full duration doesn't decay. In the age of Mlvl and crep cloak you should be able to land it full duration on mostly anything.

PUP is a perfect fit in a mage party due to being able to make solo SC's with master and MB w/ the automaton. It helps relieve the SCH from using Immanence so they can preserve stratagems for other purposes.

thanks for this, I really like the idea of nyame D head + hands, as well as swapping pitre feet for karagoz. I don't think I tried the empy feet at the time and definitely didn't have path D nyame anything, which is why I went with karagoz for macc.

if you happen to have time to show your master equipment and any damage inside sortie I would love to see it! couldn't be happier to be proven wrong

Got any advice for sklling up magic? Every once in a while I put on a mage frame and attachments only for it to not bother casting. I assume I’m doing something wrong somewhere or some attachment is preventing spellcasting because my magic acc is too low.

take scanner off, use percolator. can have whm bot poisona itself constantly on an uragnite, but you may need to adjust your gear including animator if pet resists too much.

I would stream more and do more content but ragnarok server is full of no-life multiboxers and unsupportive welfare recipients that say everything sucks before giving it a chance. Most of my gameplay has been solo.

Also playing FFXI all day gives me no financial incentive and costs a lot of my time for little-to-no reward so I focus on other things such as going to college or working. It's a waste of my time to play this game other than a few hours here and there.

I feel that most talented players are in similar positions, I can offer a lot to the community in terms of theorycrafting and strategies, but that is not paying my mortgage or bills so it's not a priority. The community also doesn't seem to care about anything so I don't want to waste my time contributing to ungrateful *** who don't matter to me alive or dead.

Unless FFXI somehow becomes socially + financially viable and worth my time, I don't see myself putting in too many hours for testing. Not my responsibility lol.

fair enough :)

got me curious with what you did share though, so thanks for that

Does anyone know what conditions need to be met to reach the supposed damage available to us(62k) with Maru Kala? (according to https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/All_Jobs_Gear_Sets/Puppetmaster)

I'm using my s4 prime on locus imps and it still pales in comparison to Howling Fist. I can't break 40k. Admittedly my gloves are +3 and not +4 and my cape is not WSD, but I'm launching at 3k and I'm not even close to 60k. I'm fairly certain I'm pdif capped because Last Resort isn't increasing my damage.

Likely soul voiced aria, they usually love to just throw ***like that out there

You're at ~40k, SV aria is 45% PDL, thats ~60k. The last 5k is lack of stage 5.

(It's also certainly attack capped, with chaos fighters fury frailty dia3 HM and 3 minuets probably box step too)
((Probably /drg too, cause of course))

Youll need over 4500 atk to hit /drk pdl cap on something like a velkk blm in woh(closest blm mob i could find immediately), even more if you stack more pdl in gear before def downs are applied, not sure what setup youre running with but hitting cap is a big deal for getting those higher ws values

tl;dr if you don't carry a pocket whm brd cor geo around with you and you are fighting anything above 130? (maybe lower), you probably aren't capped.

I probably wasn't attack capped then, but I'm wondering why Last Resort seems unimpactful.

Other than guessing and stuff, does anyone else actually have prime h2h that they've tested with? What kind of numbers are you getting? What situations do you find it useful in?

idris geo frailty is the biggest part of that equation, there is a reason it is nerfed so often. grab a friend who has one and go retest your numbers.

Someone told me if I wanna solo rp arebati I should level up pup
Is this true?

Whats the equipment for this task?

And is there a good skillup guide for pup out there?