String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

Mpaca gloves are boosting the damage of automaton ranged attacks by about 8%

Do you mean ranged WSs or is it boosting even standard Ranged Attacks?

not surprising since the standard ranged attack is more like a ja/ws, xiucoatl c affects it too

Noticed that as well, been getting some pretty brutal Repeater hits.

It actually is surprising, because Xiucoatl specifically calls it "Automaton: Special att. dmg. +25%", whereas Mpaca Gloves state "Automaton: Weapon skill damage +10%".

It's weird that SE would name those effects differently but treat them the same. Not that I'm complaining, as this is a nice boost for the pure Sharpshot setup.

Honestly going to be very interesting to see if we see more Automaton Weapon Skill Damage gear appearing in future, would be an absolute godsend to see it on the Karagoz Capello +3...

Updated the String Theory gearsets node with the new Odyssey gear, revised some old sets and added new ones. Added some notes and edited a few descriptions.

Let me know if I missed anything or if there's something that could be improved.

perfect timing, i just today decided to break my pup back out

If something is updated, never forget to update the statement that it was updated (if you can)

Also, some level of consideration looking at the sets, might it be more beneficial to change any of the mpaca pieces and Hayoka pieces to get the legs into mpaca for juicy SB II, when and how much dps do you lose by swapping pieces around. (specifically the dual sets)

Thanks, changed the date. I can only edit the node, though, not the OP. Fabiano would have to take care of that.

Specifically for the Dual TP sets you can't really skip Heyoka as it provides the necessary Pet: Haste to cap. If you used any other combination you would need more than just 3 slots (Head/Legs/Back) to achieve that. SBII alone wouldn't justify losing even more DD/Automaton stats in other slots to wear extra Heyoka/Tali'ah pieces, in my opinion.

Mpaca Legs are already part of the full Subtle Blow set, though, if you didn't see that.

It's too bad the mpaca set lacks pet haste.

Too easy to just do
Pet: Same

Quick update: among a few other new sets I also added a Hybrid TP set since the "PUP - TP (No AM3)" set is pretty risky these days.

Would still use Malignance for the MEVA in many cases, but Mpaca provides Counter and Killer+ that grants an additional layer of protection when you're getting smacked. Mpaca's TA/Crit Rate are also nice for white damage with HTH, especially if you're using Verethragna.

Caps at 50% PDT/MDT with Shellra V while maintaining high TA for TP speed.

For the OD set i'm not a fan of Naga Kyahan
Its out damaged by the new Mpaca and Herc dex+ 15
Also for Feet Dex+14 outdamaged Mpaca as well

Is the +4% haste on Bean Daifuku +1 gear haste? If so wouldn't it with Herc boots with pet: dex or agi, pet: racc and Pet: +4 or +5% haste be a good option? Then have automaton skill +23 on Legs.

Grape Daifuku or Mpaca Pet STR doesn't boost pet ranged WS or Ranged Attack.

Naga Kyahan isn't part of the OD sets anymore, but I originally recommended it over Herc because it added HP+100 for survivability in addition to Acc/Atk/Skill. You might be looking at the outdated sets on BGwiki, whereas the updated version is on the first page of FFXIAH.

DEX Herc would yield higher WS numbers when all else is capped for sure, but at the same time you'll lose a ton of Acc/Atk that lets you skip Drachen Roll in favor of Beast/Comp.

The Bean Daifuku Haste should be gear Haste, yes, but as above, the extra level for the Automaton is a ton of Acc/Atk and other stats if it's just like the Ambu cape (STR/DEX/VIT/AGI/MND/INT/CHR+4, Accuracy/Ranged Accuracy+36, Attack/Ranged Attack+36, Evasion+23, Defense+43) in addition to Acc/Atk from Mpaca and Grape daifuku you'd be losing out on. Attuner is powerful under OD, but it doesn't cap the maton's PDIF on everything. It would be a good food to use for people without Thurandaut Ring looking to cap maton Haste, however.

Grape does add Ranged Attack, not sure what you mean by "doesn't boost ranged WS or Ranged Attack"?

If pet is attack capped which it is most the time. STR won't add any more dmg to pet's ranged attacks or ranged weaponskill numbers.

In a lot of fights even Automatons need Frailty just to cap attack on Arcu/Daze even with Regal Beast Roll up (e.g. certain ambus or higher end content). Unless you are exclusively pet burning with Shatterer, OD or a GEO you won't always have the luxury of capped PDIF, unfortunately.

The new PUP Bone crusher set in the guide, is it better then previous one(herc)? @Aerix, thanks for the guide.

It's still good/better (though Mpaca hands should always win if the WSD applies to all hits) for more consistent damage if Acc/Atk aren't a big issue. The main reason to use it over Herc is that you will typically already have Acc/DA/DT Taeon for other purposes anyway, so it saves some inventory for a difference in output that is small enough to be acceptable. Thanks for bringing it up, though. I'll add the set back with a note.

I'll also add a DEX Herc set for those who can spare the inventory.

Appreciated your reply, I will look forward to the new sets, Thank you again.

Triple Fire Bonecrusher outside of OD is hitting up to 30k+ for me with corsair rolls(in Odyssey C and Ambu VD.) I have a fellow pup sharpshot open with armor shatter and then my Valoredge closes causing Light.
I use an overload reduction set to use the Fires then switch to Su5 pathC Taeon Set with the Mpaca gloves.

Hey Aerix,

I don’t know if you’ve seen this video about Mpaca set for NIN, it’s quite interesting to see how it outshines Malignance for DT full face tanking. I wonder how applicable this is to PUP, would be worth testing for sure :

On youtube, NextGames showcased how well Mpaca set worked as a tanking set with ninja. The stats on the gear that you can see, specifically malignance vs Mpaca, don't equal his results that he was getting in evasion and ability to hold 30 plus Apex mobs with little to no effort in full Mpaca gear.
He swapped to full malignance gear and promptly died in .2 seconds. Could there be a damage dealing side to Mpaca gear as well that is not reflected in the stats we can see? Possible hidden level in ilevel gear?

Not even sure that is a thing but by the stats, he should not have got the results that he got. Malignance should have been a better eva set.

Evasion make all the difference. It might help pup a bit for when you try to aeolian edge some mob packs, but im not sure if pup got enough native Evasion to make this set a big difference as it does for Nin

Not sure what you mean? That Malignance is better because of evasion or that PUP can't use Mpaca that effectively because of lack of native evasion?

That was my first impression as well Xdajorkerx, just looking at the stats and comparing Malignance to Mpaca, it should not perform as well.
The only valid explanation I could think of was the killer and the counter effects that would have to have a huge proc rate to reduce the incoming attacks so much.

It indeed feels like the set has a hidden stat or is bugged in some way to perform so well compared to Malignance.
I think testing it in a Dynamis-D environment against beastmen which do not get affected by the killer skill would be a first good test to compare it to Malignance.

Pup native evasion is not much lower than nin actually. Nin has 417 skill + 40 from Yonin and 64 from gifts. Pup has 398 skill +48 from from trait and 56 from gifts. So NIN has 17 evasion more under Yonin. It's not a huge difference.

At the very end of the video he also swaps to full malignance on the 30+ apex mobs and dies instantly as well

He dies in 6 sec. It's neither instantly or 0.2 sec

Well yeah Mpaca is more physically defensive than Malignance which is for Meva. Mpaca gets substantially more def, HP, and VIT over Malignance which all helps with physical damage. Compare the sets and Mpaca also has the same EVA per piece of Malignance and 40% PDT which on the physical side is 9% more than Maglinances DT-31%.