String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

They really hate giving pets anything beyond acc/macc/racc huh

After all this waiting I'm only really excited for the earring...

No Pet Haste on any of the pieces. Only the Hands are somewhat decent for dual TP, but hardly a big step up from Mpaca.

Head: The Automaton TP Bonus only got a +25 increase. Pretty laughable, even if the added Pet Acc is decent. The piece is still mainly just a maton WS swap piece; the PDL is pretty situational since we have Mpaca head with TA/Crit/TP Bonus and the piece doesn't replace Heyoka for dual TP.

With enough Attack buffs I could maybe see it being useful for Stringing Pummel, but that much Attack would be difficult for PUP.

Body: No increase to Overload- but I guess we got DT whenever we use maneuvers? Bonuses to Pet Acc are literally irrelevant since it's still just a swap piece and doesn't beat Relic body or Nyame.

Hands: Nice STP, DT and Pet accuracy for dual TP, but nothing groundbreaking. Nothing that'll make the maton keep up better. This and/or Head should've been the pieces that got a large amount of Pet: Haste.

Legs: Decent for pet WS swap if you don't have Nyame D legs. Not useful for TP even for slow weapons because it literally has nothing useful outside of Acc, Martial Arts and DT.

Feet: Small bonus to Tactical Switch, which is nice but expected. WSD pretty useless and not in the Body/Legs slot where Nyame D users would benefit, either. Added MACC might be nice for maton nuking if resists are an issue, but the INT+25 is nowhere near the MAB of the Relic feet.

All-in-all, none of the pieces have really changed meaningfully from their +1 counterparts. Still no replacements for Heyoka or Taeon gear after all this time.

It is indeed the most heartbreaking of the empyrean upgrades :(

I agree with your analysis almost entirely. But two minor points:

1) The hands are OK at +2, but remember that there is a +3 upgrade to come. +3 will likely replace Malignance even if you only consider the master stats, it's almost just a bonus that they are also good dual TP/pet TP gear (though yeah, no pet haste or STP is a bit disappointing).

2) You mention Nyame D gear a couple times, but let's be real... almost nobody will pick D path Nyame. From a game balance and gear stat perspective, it's kinda more fair to assume that Nyame D does not exist.

1) Well, we can only work with what we currently have access to, but I agree that +3 will make the hands very likely our best TP option. However, as I said in the update thread, I'm hoping +3 will have a bunch of new/unique stats to make the gear interesting rather than just pushing existing stats higher. Because anything else will not justify having had to wait for this relatively generic gear upgrade for the past 3-4+ years.

Even if all the current stats improve from +2-3 similarly to how they improved between +1-2, none of it will shake up any of our gearing options meaningfully. We'd still be stuck wearing Heyoka, Rao, Taeon for most of our pet setups. And Automatons will have fallen even further behind.

2) As I posted previously in this thread, I'm one of the people who picked Nyame D Body/Legs to push my maton as far as possible because I care about PUP more than any other job. And the 4th augments might be quite powerful to balance the different paths somewhat, because almost everyone has only picked B to date.

In any case, I have a vested interest in alternatives to Nyame B and D (even if WSD doesn't matter to PUP) for personal reasons and because I'm maintaining the guide node for String Theory. I'm not going to skip over the existence of Nyame D just because almost nobody cares for it.

Yeah, agreed with the general sentiment. It's a boring upgrade at best, but I do think it's worth a reminder that this isn't final gear. We wouldn't use AF 119+2 or Relic 119+2 gear to evaluate the sets, so we shouldn't do it for Empy either.

Unless there's some unexpected additional augments on the +3 version or something, this is pretty lame.


Fair enough, but as I'm sure you know, you're definitely in the under 1% category of people picking the pet path on Nyame lol. So anything that might be BiS if excluding Nyame D is the realistic BiS choice for the vast majority of players. Unless they change to allow augment re-dos on Nyame (which, honestly, they SHOULD do once they finalize the 4th augs), B is just the reality for anyone other than the highly unusual cases of someone who's super into a pet job or a nuker at the expense of all other jobs.

I'm banking on 4th augments being good enough to justify Path D (Pet Haste would vindicate my choice for sure if Empy keeps disappointing).

If the Path D 4th augments suck along with Empy+3 I'll probably be switching back to path B since dual TP and pet burning will most likely be dead at that point. Automatons just can't keep up anymore without major changes—probably even if the gear is good.

Has anyone gotten a Karagoz Earring or know what the augments look like?

Pretty sure I got one nq, believe it was just 6acc/6macc however.

They'll have to be able to roll decent amounts of multiattack or STP to replace any of our existing TP earrings for master only, dual TP or pet burning. Still decent for pure Sharpshot and pet WS swaps even unaugmented; possibly for nuking as well if it helps MACC at all.

Friend got a +1 Pup earring and the second augment slot was Stp

Nice, do you remember how much it was?

Double checked and it was +3

Pet stp?

bgwiki says the augments on the +2 are 16 acc, 6 store tp (master not pet), 7str&dex, I want to believe.

The above was about using KKK, in general, but Kei's mechanics are incredibly annoying for my usual setup. I haven't played much, esp PUP, since pre odyssey. With REM BRD and Idris-GEO support what would this fight look like? I have KKK, no odyssey gear, and only 3/5 malignance (no feet/hands). I'm thinking either the auto is helping SC as SS/VE or is master multi-stepping HF>SP>>HF>VS>VS and auto MB?

You can actually use rdm maton and self sc with master. Put heat capacitor x2 with 1 fire maneveur to tactical switch for fast am3 build. Rdm maton will help with cure stoneskin and maybe some debuffs. You'll want to use pld maton to build hate first tho, and probably want your missing malignance pieces.



Then if you plan to have a brd and à geo, you can either use blm for mb or whm for more and quicker erase/heal support.

Edit : first lines and vidéo is for solo especially

Is this now considered the best tp set with +2?

PUP - Pet TP Bonus 2

From page 1

Don't know how to post sets lol

Pet TP Bonus 2 is a WS set.

Also, since Empy+2 stuff was added to the database I'll update the first page sets within the next few days to include them, but not a ton has really changed. The earring will be the biggest difference.

Yeah I ment ws set. Dunno what happened there lol.

I see you updated the sets, thanks mate!

How is your experience with the +2?

Can't wait to test it out myself when I'm back from vacation.

Emp+2 didnt change much for pup, biggest gain is the pdl head, everything else is just a bit better than it was at +1 which was basically JA/ws swaps.

I was still in the middle of updating it, but it's finished now. All feedback welcome.

• Rechecked Shijin and Howling in the spreadsheet and updated my recommendations to use augmented Mpaca's instead as the massive Attack seems to generally outweigh the other bonuses on average (with typical party buffs) and makes PDL more viable. Should also save on some inventory for many people. I know it's rather ridiculous how most of our sets use it now, but it's just that good.

• Overall the Empy+2 is nothing major, unfortunately, but I do like the hands. I always suspected they'd be great for TP once improved and they should be fantastic once at +3. I've included them in several TP sets and they will most likely replace Malignance Gloves outside of MEVA setups once at +3.

• Regarding Karagoz Earring +2 and nuking sets, I'm uncertain if the Pet Lv.+1 adds to MACC like it increases all the other base stats, but I've included it in most nuking sets as there's a good chance it helps with resist rates.

As far as doing Sortie on PUP goes I can't comment as I've mostly been doing it on COR for Bolter's Roll, but for a solo PUP with Trusts it should be possible (not necessarily efficient) to farm the following depending on gear and get a good amount of Galli/Sapphires over time to upgrade:

• Chest #A1, Chest #A2, Chest #A3 (White damage+BLMaton), Chest #A4 (White damage+BLMaton), Casket #A1, Casket #A2, Coffer #A

• Ghatjot (boss NM; avoid all Water damage, including skillchains)

• Chest #B1 (skip after first time to save time), Chest #B2, Chest #B3, Chest #B4, Casket #B1 (would need a strong Aeolian set and probably a GEO), Casket #B2, Coffer #B (only if you can do Casket #B1)

• Chest #C1, Chest #C2, Chest #C3 (BLMaton, Chest #C4 (BLMaton), Coffer #C (kill Bhoot NM twice via rematerializing)

• Chest #D1 (only do this the first time), Chest #D2, Chest #D3 (multistep with maton), Chest #D4 (multistep with maton), Casket #D1, Coffer #D

• Aurum

Overall, after the first few runs I'd skip all objectives that waste a lot of time and/or those that can't reward Sapphires/Cases. Without Bolter's it'd be a pain in the *** to find and kill all 4 NMs for the Aurum, so that's probably a skip.

I've bolded my recommendations that I'd personally aim for if doing regular solo farms. You may not have enough time or firepower to finish all of these, however.

Thanks for the value aerix, appreciate it

Slight update to the HF set since I previously forgot to properly test for Nyame while checking the spreadsheet:

ItemSet 369022

R25 Nyame B edges out Mpaca in the body/hands/feet slot every so slightly thanks to the WSD pushing the initial hit considerably. Mpaca head/legs still win out due to TP Bonus/PDL, but if you don't have the legs augmented then you'll want to stick with Nyame B as well.

What? That should be top priority and it's not a pain at all. It's very easy actually (I don't do it on PUP, but on BLU, but 6% movement won't make that much difference)

A: Shard, Metal, Casket1 and 2, NM
B: NM, Casket 2
C: NM, Shard, Metal
D: NM, Casket 1 and 2

5 blue, 3 red and 1 aurum + 2-5 free brown otw.
3200-3500 Galli from chests and probably at least 1000 from mobs.

Those should be main priority for every solo. After that you can do boss A, then C if you have enough time.

PUP can't nuke down A mobs as fast as BLU can, so it's gonna take a lot more time to get the Metal and Shard for Ghatjot. And I'd personally always prioritize doing a boss over getting the Aurum, but if there's time for both then might as well do it.

That said, sometimes the NMs wander into different sections and it takes a while to find them. With only 12-14% Movement speed that can waste a lot of time.

The only one which frequently do that is Leech. Beside that I have only seen Bhoot in B once in 40 Sortie runs. Finding them is easy anyway. Just run through whole area A>B>C>D and you will find it for sure. The only extra effort to find Leech on start should be wide scan north, before going sought, but don't try to find it if it's not on the way, just warp to start after area D (or just go through doors if that's closer) and 90% of the time it will be there. I wouldnt prioritize boss over coffers and caskets. I have found more +1 cases or double drops in them, than from bosses.

It's not just the Leech that does it; I've seen Deleterious do it just as frequently.

And your small sample size isn't really indicative of anything regarding drop rates. I'm regularly doing 3-4 bosses while getting Aurum, all Coffers and 7/8 Caskets every run and my experience doesn't line up with yours.

Me too, which means, that we can assume they are probably as good and you should aim for quantity when you are doing it solo.


Maybe that's because we clear clockwise, so we are never in D before like 30min mark. I haven't seen it anywhere else than in D at all.


You can prioritize Skomora over Ghatjot. Should be super easy and fast to get shard/metal for it on PUP on skeletons.

EDIT: If you do Skomora tho, I would probably use only WHM (or whm automaton with Steam Jacket and Mana Jammers or just Overdrive it?) trusts, because I have just tried it and it cuts through trusts way too fast with AoE