String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

WoC's wyverns go after the person with the highest enmity, not the popper.

For some reason I thought you could either lock out WoC 1hrs with elemental damage or your own 1hrs. But if PUP can tank the boss itself,then my GEO and SMN or RUN can manage at least one wyvern pop

how well does pup hold hate when tanking a single mob vs say a sch doing skill chains?

That's more or less the best case scenario for PUP tanking.

Magic Bursts don't draw hate anywhere as much as melee does, so PUP can usually tank without issues for nukers going absolutely ham on the mob.

PUP+SCH can cooperate with each other to save on SCH stratagems with the SCH opening the SC and the maton closing. Or double PUP can make matons spam SCs back-to-back and SCH & BLM just focus on nuking.

Sweet!
I've been trying to figure out what I want my set up to be. I've been thinking pup sch geo. Sounds like it could work out.

Yeah, when SCH+BLM Magic Burst strat was "meta", I tanked nearly everything with a puppet with pretty much zero enmity issues. Even before I hit 1200JP gift or any Su3 gear, versus what were pretty high end BLMs at the time.

Very easy to PUP tank with BLM tier VI nukes, -ja, Death, etc... so SCH GEO should be absolutely no sweat.

Some people would still prefer RUN due to Rayke/Gambit helping nuke setups, but the advantage of PUP is minimal/no support needed for lowman purposes. And easier to gear for tanking.

I'm trying not to make another ergon weapon so I was thinking pup could fill my tanking needs.

Epeolatry is definitely amazing, but if you do run into fights where PUP struggles (i.e. lots of adds) then you could just use Aettir RUN instead. If the rest of your tanking gear is sufficient then that sword is fully capable of tanking pretty much the entirety of the game.

I really wanted pup after seeing you solo N Lilith.

Oh yeah, you totally can manage that. My point was more that PUP is a fantastic tank for most nuke setups (pretty much anything that doesn't do a lot of Doom or need to hold hate on multiple mobs). But you'll still sometimes see people who say "BUT RAYKE/GAMBIT HELP NUKES, RUN ONRYYyYYY".

Aerix is also right about Aettir.

got wrecked yesterday by N lilith...

that's no picknick mate.


you can have alot of fun with pup pup cor
one pup tank one dd. easy to manage just takes some time in some fights. with the ark trust mage to sleep if you have adds.
i'm so glad i got into pup as a multiboxer.

Speaking of fun on PUP while multiboxing, that reminds me of a pretty cool and very unorthodox party setup my static once used to beat Qutrub VD the last time it was around in 2018. I don't quite remember why we weren't able to do it the meta way, but I think it was because we either didn't have the right jobs for it or because we couldn't handle the multiboxing in that fight since none of us use automation tools and the Stun+Dispel+Endeath mechanic was a huge pain.

In any case, our setup was something like PUP/RDM PUP COR/SMN SMN PLD GEO, if I remember correctly.

Basically, we used two max PDT VE/SS Automatons geared for damage to tank and DD the boss, as pets are immune to Endeath. Thanks to Inhibitors/Speedloaders and Companion's Roll, they just kept multistepping skillchains off of each other. Light/Thunder/Fire to force Daze > Arcu > Piercer > Shatterer similar to OD, which usually capped SC damage cause Qutrub and all. Normally the lack of Haste would make this difficult, but having two matons with Comp Roll allowed them to always have TP ready to continue SCing without delays.

The moment the adds spawned, we had the PLD grab them and drag them to the starting corner, then simply hold them and tank through their nukes with Aegis/MDT swaps and Geo-Wilt to reduce melee attacks to 0. The SMN and COR/SMN took turns resetting their TP with Mewing Lullaby to keep them in check.

Once the boss got close to 30%, we Overdrive'd both Automatons to push through the HP drain phase ASAP with me on PUP/RDM casting Diaga to wipe shadows. After winning, we just had people cycle through their COR Wild Card to get Overdrive back to avoid having to run to Lower Jeuno every attempt.

Not relevant to anything, especially since that Ambu isn't even currently active, but I thought it might be a fun little anecdote you guys would enjoy.

Any good way to cap Subtle Blow on PUP (75%) without losing too much DPS?

Key pieces:
Black Belt - 15%
Chirich Ring +1 - 10%, 25%
Herculean Gloves - 5%, 30%
Herculean Boots - 6%, 36%
Dignitary's Earring - 5%, 41%
Niqmaddu Ring? - 5%, 46%
Bathy Choker +1? - 11%, 57%

I have Malignance in my other armor slots, and no Subtle Blow augs for Ambu cape from what I can see - though could get another 4% from Reive JSE Cape. 5% more from another Chirich Ring +1 instead of Niqmaddu but that's a large DPS drop imo.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Xiucoatl Path B is your answer. Great DPS weapon if you want to cap SB.

So that's the suggested one for low-man situations then I'm guessing? Where PUP master ends up being the primary DD.

Outside of Xiucoatl B (and excluding the Domain Invasion only legs), PUP can only reach a maximum of SB+70, since the only SBII pieces the job gets are Niqmaddu Ring (SBII+5) and Moonbow Belt/+1 (SBII+10/SBII+15).

Xiucoatl can indeed help you easily get SB+75. Keep in mind that SBII on Divergence B-path weapons is arguably a little deceptive, since the follow-up attack actually means you're also landing more hits than a non OAx/FUA weapon - so you need more subtle blow just to avoid feeding more TP in the same number of attack rounds than a weapon without those extra attacks. That being said, perhaps worth considering that PUP's other best DPS H2H choice is Kenkonken (a weapon that also feeds a lot of TP due to Mythic OAx, and gets NO subtle blow from weapon... so take that for what you will).

Still, I see B path Divergence weapons as maybe a better choice for some other non-PUP jobs for low TP feed applications. Ninja is a good example - access to NO other SBII gear, a lowman TP feed strategy works pretty well with the job, and plentiful SB through traits, gear like Kendatsuba set, and Myoshu: Ichi if you really need more SB. So a B path Fudo Masamune has some legitimate applications for NIN.

IMO, what you really want to do if you're interested in a low TP feed PUP setup is to just go with a SB+70 set. You need to make a lot of sacrifices if doing that all from gear, but it's pretty easy if you can get Auspice from a WHM (gives SB+25 with WHM Empy+1 feet). So, just need:
(1) Niqmaddu/Moonbow+1: SBII+20
(2) Auspice: SB+25
(3) Take your pick from the following gear to get the remaining SB+25 needed to hit SB+70 (/DNC also gives SB+10, or /NIN for SB+15).
ItemSet 376366
Worth noting that the Dyna-Bastok Volte set usable by PUP also has Subtle Blow on all 5 pieces, but I always hesitate to include Volte gear in set recommendations due to the significant difficulty to obtain. It's also sorta mediocre DPS-wise versus other options - it's not bad, with decent Acc and STP... but also not great.

Now, if you're lacking a high end PUP master-only DPS weapon, Xiucoatl B is a solid option that doesn't require making an Empy/Mythic/Aeonic. But you'd really be getting that more for the DPS than for the super niche Subtle Blow. TBH, prob makes more sense to just get your hands on a Karambit. Also notable that Xiucoatl B should be a lower priority than Xiucoatl C for most PUPs. If you care at all about fights with the PET doing damage, Xiucoatl C is utterly fantastic.

And of course, the real best answer if you want a low TP feed job to punch stuff is to just use a damn MNK, not a PUP. A lot easier to hit SB cap thanks to Kendatsuba set, better H2H DPS than PUP, and significantly lower TP feed due to (1) Penance/Chi Blast inhibit TP effect and (2) optimal DPS sets not using a weapon with OAx/FUA.

Path B is great.

Or you 6 box using 4 pups, one geo, one cor and just let the automation do the work...sit back...relax...

Anybody have any thoughts on the Dragon Fangs? They don't seem too bad and I am really hoping it gives kick attacks to pup. If not, no thanks.

they do give PUP Kick Attacks +14. however, they are locked behind the most *** of a gating system of any piece of equipment yet, so as far as I am concerned they are a non-starter.

Yep, all those weapons basically dont exist for me until I actually win 1st prize, which is never.

Doing some omen multibox with pup which is fun.

Mid boss is no problem with the smn there to save od

Did gin pup turtle pup dd cor and smn.
Smn did not much and dd overdrive pup pretty much killed gin.
Everyone at 18ish yalms for zero and stay engaged so yoran can heal.

Did fu with same setup but clearing last floor is a b because of the ghosts and those floating *** that overrun me a couple of times. Flaming c after bone crusher after eb null for dmg

My smn doesnt have a nirvana and can handle stuff just fine.

Anyone have some nice omen pup adventurers?

Gin and fu might be the easiest.

I love going PUP to Omen with PUP+GEO+BRD.

I've mentioned this on either this or other threads that PUP has a nice advantage in lowman setups for Omen.

Kin - you can use Ventriloquy to completely negate Target/Eleventh Dimension. Whether your puppet is tanking or you, you can deactivate and reactivate/deus and immediately dump all your hate onto the puppet to negate it.

Kyou - likewise with using Ventriloquy you can force the puppet to take the full 10k needles. Never needing a bunch of people to take a risk on absorbing the hits. Just toy around with hate enough so that the puppet tanks during Hundred Fists.

Exactly on what I was reading up on nice

Ventrilo didn't cross my mind yet tnx that's a good one.

I might leave kei to my Sam..

Now only to get more canteens ?

Well I do use 4 pups, so Gorger is very easy, just have a dispell trust (Arciela II works perfect she will spam it)So far only been spamming Fu, able to kill easy with 1-2 OD (feed him 15-20 buffs and he still cant kill OD automation. Doing 99k WS without GEo lol.

How do you control the ghosts and flying skulls before fu?
They link and aggro from 20 yalms, having a hard time with them.

Assuming you even need to kill them, with 4 pups it must be super easy. Just pull with automaton. also they dont aggro from 20, they blood aggro from 20, so just keep HP topped if you are at this range.

Yea just pick off the mobs that are away from the pack. For sure do NOT have yellow HP or that will be messy lol. If a bunch agrro, just keep deploying on each mob you should have no issue (I /nin keeps me safe)

These mobs make me aggro grr

Anyway tried a 4 pup run,
bonus floor after first floor
Got niq ring and another niq from fu and wanted a shulmanu boohoo..

4 pup took very long altho the mob floors went smooth indeed.