String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

That set is low Accuracy high STP, the latter of which is in favor of Ryuo. Ryuo head+1 is Path C (+12 STP) and legs are Path D (+13 STP), both of which beat Malignance (8 STP and 10 STP respectively) by a bit.

Of course once AM3 is up I switch to Malignance just because of the Accuracy and MEVA, but for the initial 3k I want maximum speed if I don't have issues lacking the aforementioned stats.


That set is pretty much what I use as well once AM3 is up. The MEVA from Malignance is just far too good to pass up no matter whether you can get better melee stats elsewhere.

Also, you said you don't care to intentionally undercap gear Haste because of KKK, but the Samnuha Tights do exactly that with the Malignance (only 23% total Haste because of Head/Hands having 1% fewer each). It's certainly a benefit if you're at capped magic Haste and is probably ahead of Malignance Tights in terms of DPS, but I'd recommend 5/5 Malignance anyway. Any Stun/Slow/Paralyze/Amnesia will cut more into your DPS than any little bit of gear can add.

I totally forgot that path exists, thanks for the reminder!

Still not 5/5 Malignance myself (yet to get the gloves, so still using QA+3 Herculean for now in that slot), but yeah, I guess you're probably right that at least in most "serious" situations with any risk of enfeebles or AoE damage, the additional Meva/DT is worth it over somewhat better max DPS from something like Samnuha.

So, I just went out to Apex Toads and tested Stringing Pummel at capped Attack with Moonbow Belt +1 vs. Fotia Belt. While my sample size was relatively small it was very apparent that Fotia boosted SP's average damage far more, which is in line with the spreadsheet.

The lows and peaks were almost always about 2k damage higher (22k-31k) compared to Moonbow+1 (20k-28k), sometimes more. TA+8% from Moonbow+1 is incredibly good, but given the damage difference and AM3 it just can't compete. Plus Fotia has that very nice Conserve/Keep TP effect.

Yay for fTP transfer, definitely the best thing that happened for SP next to R15.

Question for the JSE TP cape, trying to figure it out and get created (first time doing a JSE Ambu Cape), Taking Kenkonken into effect, what would be best to do for the augments?

Thread:
Pet R/AC, R/AT
Dust:
Master Acc/attack
Sap:
Pet Haste+10%
Resin:
Pet Damage taken-?
Dye:
Pet Attack/RAttack?

This is what I summarized from the String Theory page over on BG wiki, has anything really changed with the h2h update that would change this? Tried reaching out to some PUPs on my server with Ken., but all were afk.

Well, you want multiple capes eventually. The big ones would be:

1. TP (full master focus)
Even if you want to melee alongside your puppet, you'd still want an all-out master cape for building 3000tp to get the initial AM3 off. These days, on anything you can melee on, it's likely that even with Mythic AM3 you will get better results from a more master-heavy focus (but it's not totally unreasonable to do a master+pet melee setup with capped automaton haste from gear, using stuff like Heyoka set and Ambu cape)

Thread: DEX+20
Dust: Acc/Atk+20
Sap: STP+10 or DA+10 (they're close, prob lean STP with Kenkonken and DA with other weapons)
Dye: DEX+10 or Acc+10 (Acc is slightly better for TP accuracy, but DEX still gives you 7~8 acc and is a decent improvement for Shijin Spiral, for whatever use that may be)
Resin: DT-5% or PDT-10% (I tend to prefer PDT, but either is fine)

Alternative: If you care about Shijin Spiral, can go with DEX from Dye and DA+10 from Sap. Fairly minor hit to TP capability, and a decent increase in Shijin WS damage... though that's for a WS that isn't necessarily a major priority, mostly just an occasional SC use. So you might be OK using a somewhat non-optimal cape for that more situational WS. Honestly, any combination of those options for Sap/Dye slots is totally fine.

2. WS cape (Stringing Pummel & Victory Smite):
Thread: STR+20
Dust: Acc/Atk+20
Sap: Crit+10% (though since the October 2019 update H2H WS changes, DA+10% might actually be better now for Stringing Pummel, which is definitely your bread and butter WS with Kenkonken once getting augments - anyone able to confirm that?)
Dye: STR+10
Resin: not that important on a WS cape, but if you are just swimming in points, sure, toss a DT/PDT on there to help prevent getting caught in WS gear

3. Pet focused cape
You can probably get away with the same cape for pet DD or tanking (which it's very good at these days)

Thread: Pet Acc/Racc/Atk/Ratk+20
Dust: Eva/Meva+20 for master (not a major priority, but it's nice to help add some master survivability in case you get caught by something like an AoE nuke)
Sap: Pet Haste+10%
Dye: Pet Acc/Racc+10
Resin: Pet DT-5% is my choice, it's easy enough to cap PDT without this augment

Alternative:
Could do Pet: Macc/MDmg+20 from Thread and Pet Macc from Dye if you prefer making a dual-purpose tanking/nuking pet cape, and you might even go Pet:Regen+10 over Haste for tanking in that case. I actually do have a tanking/nuking cape with Pet DT/Regen/Macc/Mdmg, and a separate pet melee cape with pet haste/acc&atk/DT. This is based on personal preferences/use cases - you might actually prefer a tanking puppet to not get additional acc/TP generation (more puppet WS = more chance of messing up party members' skillchains, and there's some minor consideration of "why bother feeding the mob TP with weak automaton damage")

4) Hybrid master/puppet TP cape
This is a more niche case, but has its uses. Pretty much same thing as the master-only TP cape, except use the Sap slot for Pet:Haste (for the significant sacrifice of master STP or DA). I'd focus on all three of the above capes before this one though.

Yeah, DA+10% is slightly better than Crit+10% for both SP/VS these days because our best WS setup has very little Crit Dmg+% to capitalize on extra Crit Rate (which is already high to begin with at like 40-60%). Plus it synergizes better with Fotia. Disregard this. Spreadsheet had an error.

As far as pet nuking cape goes you could also put FC+10% on it for /NIN or /Mage purposes if you don't want to make a separate FC cape.

Thanks guys, glad I didn't fully augment the cape, I've been on the fence between Pet Haste or STP for AM3 Kenkonken. I really am able to only do 1 cape atm, till maybe till the end of next month (Need to get and +2 the head and body first from the ambuscade sea pet armor next month).

Thanks for the long post Capuchin, I appreciate it

Just wanted to share everyone, got my Kenkonken tonight! started it 8 years ago, but finished today.

That's awesome, congratulations!!! Welcome back!

For VS maybe, but for SP? It's already 6hits. You should have AM3, so 20% of the time you will do 8hits cap anyway and DA will also reduce AM3 activation, so overall gain will be much lower than otherwise. Im 100% not convinced. I havent done any math tho, just using some logic and feeling.

I'm just going by the MNK spreadsheet I modified and made some assumptions/conclusions as to what could be the reason why DA is ahead (result are the same for uncapped and capped Attack). But I'm open to being convinced otherwise.

In any case, AM3 is definitely powerful, but it's not like it's a 100% proc rate. And Crit Rate has diminishing returns too.

Disregard this, see below.

Mythic AM3 reduces DA's effectiveness by roughly 80%. You should almost never specifically go for DA for an AM3 set.

Im almost sure that's for 2h weapons. For 1h weapons it's much different. That being said I still dont believe 10%DA on 6hit WS can be better with AM3 up on KKK. Especially when you should have some TA in the set too and not only TA also diminish effectiveness of DA, because it proc first, but also even with 10%TA you have 10% on each fist that you hit the 8hit cap too.

If anybody can explain the 200-300 damage discrepancy in favor of a DA cape compared to Crit cape for SP I'm all ears.

Maybe I made a mistake or there's an error in the MNK spreadsheet. Either way someone else needs to double-check.

Disregard this. Keep using Crit cape for SP.

Edit:
ItemSet 371667

This is the set that got me the best results on average. Regal/Gere performs slightly better than Niqmaddu/Gere at uncapped Attack.

I would need to check things like how sheet handle 8hit cap in WS and how it simulate MA proc (Can possibly do TA>DA on main hand, then TA>DA on sub hand, which would make DA more valuable than it is). I dont care that much to do it tho. I would maybe care if the difference would be like 10%, but 200-300 damage.. I would just trust my feeling here and use crit cape personally, but I wont even try to convince anyone to do the same.

I made quick test just by using mnk sheet and replacing Ascetic Fury stats with SP stats and Glanz R15 stats with KKK R15 stats (without changing name, so I dont need to change really anything else). I lowered pdif to 3.7 and I didnt bothered to change anything else beside switching off Impetus and Footwork ofc.

With that Crit cape was significantly ahead DA cape (using everything else from your set, beside Odr earring instead of Brutal, which was also significantly ahead)

Yeah, I just downloaded an unmodified version of the MNK spreadsheet again and did basically the same and I got the same results. Not sure what I messed up with my other spreadsheet copy, but it's definitely wrong.

To clarify for others reading this: I made a mistake; keep using a Crit cape for SP.

This is good to know, I did make a TP cape for Kenkonken (On 3rd trial now) and WS cape is my first priority from ambu is a WS cape.

Side note: With having Kenkonken, is there any situation in which having a Verethragna would be useful? Debating if I want to finish mine from back in 2012 or not. Only other 119 REMA I have is a Ragnarok (which apparently isn't so useful anymore).

I do have monk at 99 and was relatively decently geared before 119, so could be useful in that regard. I'm also doing an Apoc for Drk and was debating on a caladbolg, but depending on how useful the Vereth is for PUP, will probably sway my mind.

Caladbolg for Drk will heavily outweigh Verethragna for Pup (You already have the best DPS weapon for master/auto combo already with Kenkonken). That being said, if you enjoy Monk, Verethragna will do wonders for that job.

I suspect Xiuacoatl path B is pretty good for damage on Pup, but if course nobody wants to waste gil on that, if you get a xiu it's for the powerful path C

Thanks guys. Not sure if I want to spread myself out so far and it's good to know that Verethragna isn't as useful for Pup as much anymore. I have that and a Ukon at 85 from pre I level days. I'm not so sure I really want to commit to monk like wise not sure I want to go through the effort of building an empy weapon. If anything I'll hold off for awhile still and decide once I AG both kenkonken and apoc.

I already wasted gil on it near release. I will be parsing all the usual PUP weapons soon-ish and post them here.

I feel path B is still useless since the follow-up attack only procs on the first hit of a round on the first hand only for h2h.

Pretty much, it feels much slower than Kenkonken as far as TP speed goes. But it does have a nice chunk of Acc with high base damage that might make it better on a parse.

Isn't it "special" though? As in it can proc on WS and can proc at the same time as other Multiattack procs?

The "procs only on MH" point is moot, since that applies to AM3 too.


Things to consider:
1) Proc rate is pretty high (higher than AM3, and not mutually exclusive with other Multiattack procs)
2) 24 more base damage than R15 KKK
3) Given its delay, will grant full TP return, whereas KKK will give you MA above the cap, reducing tp per hit further
4) Has +20 acc (and +HP, which is a secondary but nice cherry on the cake)
5) Doesn't require AM3 handling or to hold up TP up to 3k to manage it
6) Can get it for 150mils, don't have to spend weeks doing chores, quests and gated stuff.

Not gonna factor the Subtle Blow II because it's hard to measure its utility and it becomes irrelevant once you have more than a certain amount of DPS fighting the same target.



I wasn't supporting the hypothesys that Xiucoatl is better than R15 KKK btw, just that I feel it's gonna be quite a powerful weapon for pure master DPS, granted you guys were discussing Godhands and Verethragna.

If I'm not wrong for MNK the Divergence weapon path B is the third best weapon, after Verethragna and Godhands.
For PUP things are different, Vere is gonna be behind, Godhands is gonna be good but I'm not sure it can shine on PUP as much as it shines on MNK due to gear differences.
Which leaves us to the conclusion that what is third place on MNK, could be 2nd (or even 1st, but I wasn't saying this) for PUP.


tl;dr
I haven't tested it on a spreadsheet but I feel Xiucoatl Path B could be one of the best weapons for pure master DPS on PUP.
Leaving aside the question that I'm not sure up to which degree you should bother about focusing so much on master-only DPS on PUP... but that's a different story of course.

FUA doesn't proc on WS; that's only Mythic AM3.

Emeici +1 augs: DMG+30 Acc/Macc + 30, Crit rate +10%...where do you reckon this ranks for master only H2H now? I’d put it near the top for non-REMA options.

Gives you a total of 3 TA , 5 STP, 10 crit, 30-50 acc depending on unity ranking and a competitive base dmg.