String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

Overdrive Arcuballista with the new attachments is hitting really hard.
In Overdrive use Fire, Light, Wind maneuvers and then force Arcuballista with inhibitor or speedloader.

Yeah, I mentioned the same earlier, but OD was never really the issue with PUP to begin with. So buffing it further barely solves anything.

Overdrive WS number have almost doubled.
So at least for 3mins the puppet is now hitting as hard as a buffed REMA DD lol...

Just as strong but limited because of the need for inhibitors for Overdrive to be competitive, which means possible holding of TP or forced skillchains using WS you weren't trying to use, if you're in a party for REMA zerging of course.

That all aside, what do people think about the Ambuscade weapon?

more a mnk weapon than a pup one imo, pup can pump its crit rate a bit through heyoka but no kende/impetus really hurts its potential compared to what mnk gets outta it

I guess I'm more curious if it has any worth for those who can only get something as high as say Jolt Counters/+1. They have okay damage, less delay, more accuracy/skill along with the store TP.

if jolts are all you have access to for a raw master DPS weapons id say theyre alright then, though the follow up path su4 h2h would likely be better in that scenerio

So some interesting things going on. Went to test level 0/1 mobs again. Using 1 light and 1 fire maneuver for each test

OD no magni 3k tp arcuballista - 20046

OD double magni double OF - 26481

Comes out to 6435 dmg increase or 165 increase to base dmg.
magnis are 45 and 50 at 3 fire and OF is 30% and 45% with 3 light. 95*1.75 = 166 close... however math works out if you factor them out separately... though if you add OF together and take Magni separate or vice versa or all separate they all come out so eh.



Now this is where things get a little crazy.

Using deactivate and then activate after using OD

OD no magni 3k tp arcuballista - 20046

OD double magni double OF - 22074

Now the first one is kind of confusing because anyone who has had an auto die during OD and brought it back has noticed a decent drop in dmg and I seem to remember it being you don't get the stat boost from OD anymore... but here we have the first one still doing full dmg and I checked they display the same but it's really weird that the sample with magni does

Now doing the math get a 52 increase in base dmg which interestingly enough corresponds to what you'd get mathing out just those attachments to do with just 1 fire and 1 light. So seems you keep the full stat bonus but lose the whole 3x maneuver thing

But just to double checked I checked my /checkparam stats with same fire and light maneuvers up my auto lost a lot of stats that don't make too much sense right now.

Did a bunch of investigating and it seems some of the base stat to are doing weird things. For ratt/att, acc/racc and evasion it uses 1 base stat for .5 check param stat before innate bonuses. But with OD until the auto leaves agi, str and dex all appear to go to .75 to their respective stat but just for the 100 added by OD. Ie normally 100 agi gives you ~100*.5*1.1, hitting OD and getting 100 agi gives a value that looks more like ~100*.75*1.1 but deactivate activate goes back to the normal just adding the normal amount for +100 agi.

Def took a bit more doing since it seems it's innate bonuses have changed at some point. Using atmas to test I now have it at
sharpshot- ~50%
Harlequin - ~60%
Stormwaker- ~40%
valoredge- ~ 90%
Which comes out to an extra 30% innate def bonus for each frame. With that in mind without OD I was getting 1.5 def per vit before innate defense bonuses. by 20%

So tl;dr of those posts.
Bonuses that OD gets only for the auto that is out when you use the ja are 28 acc/racc, att/ratt and evasion before percent bonuses (at least with full jps I suspect it's based on your OD jp) another 20% to def bonus AND the whole maneuvers count triple when it comes to attachments. Note it might do other things like the invisible massive boost to resistance or the haste haven't checked

And all frames got another 30% def bonuses than they used to.

And Magni works with OD and OF just like advertised

Finally I looked more into auto not wsing. It seems mob level or maybe def might also be a factor. Like all starter zone mobs auto refused to ws with inhibitor on. On level 20ish mobs and actual xp level mobs would ws just fine.

OD is limited to zerging and we can't OD at full potential during an alliance zerg. In comparison, REMA DDs are always strong with decent buffs.

I like buffs to PUP more than anyone, but be realistic: nothing has changed for PUP in the endgame scene. We're fantastic in lowmans and pet burns, but we still don't mesh well with meta setups.

@clearymule Nice info, thanks for testing!

Agreed sadly, this update isn't as substantial as many hoped.

It's a great update for Overdrive zerging but beyond that... the job is still severely handicapped by mechanics and especially the Automaton's AI.

I've been trying to get footage for a monthly version update video and I've been having a really hard time. Was easy to get an Overdrive clip for the Sharpshot Frame but beyond that... ehhhh heck, it's been hard. Spiritreaver is still too hard to control properly for the outcome.

It's the one affected the most by the crappy automaton AI.
Second in place is the Soulsoother one, which is a decent at best healer for just yourself, and sucks if you're in a party.

It's kinda ironic when a trust healer that you have no degree of control at all does it better than a customizable pet that in theory should grant maximum control in the hands of its master.

The AI of DD pets is sorta fine, other than the annoying lack of an attachment that blocks his weaponskills :P


In SE's defense I can acknowledge that "fixing" these AI issues is certainly no easy task, or at least not as easy/fast as adding a couple of attachments or tweaking a couple of JAs (like it has been done for other jobs so far).

Still, seeing the Spiritreaver MB a Thunder I for 55k was pretty hilarious. Under Overdrive of course.

Was the monster low-level or at like 1-2% health left for the maton to use Thunder 1 over its higher nukes?

Also, just out of curiosity, what attachment/gear setup did you use? I'd be interested in knowing whether you perused my attachment damage tests earlier in the thread or if you found a stronger combination for Overdrive.

Will get back to you on that.

There is another problem with what this update can do for OD zerging by itself or with other autos.

Truesights mean you have to wind maneuver up and fire and light are already a given. That creates a couple of problems. First they will end up just not using Arcu/Daze your stronger ws and have shorter skillchains resulting in more waiting to ws time and smaller skillchain bonuses. Plus while not always huge galvanizer and coiler with thunder maneuver (which makes for the longest skillchain with SS frame) and OD really help with tp gain and sometimes survivability.

I'm not sure using wind maneuver would even be a dps gain in this case. Maybe if you do something weird keeping tp so it wont ws and then use master or another auto not using that to start the skillchain

Here's the Automaton Skillchain guide as requested--hope you guys like it!



Direct Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dXXatDoZMg

Awesome guide video Aerix! If you don't mind, I've added it to the OP.

Love how you broke it down, I wasn't even aware of how to make all those different skillchains myself. I should probably eventually even get around to updating the guide and adding those in.





(ps: I am amazed there are no other people at conflux #9...lol #asuraproblems)

Sure thing, thanks Fab~ Glad you liked it!

And yeah, having a mostly empty server can be very nice for Geas Fete, Ambu, SR, HTBFs etc.

You could just come to Shiva and enjoy Puppetmaster style shenanigans without the long lines for events. lol

By the way, has anyone else noticed that post-update the Sharpshot is not following Shijin with Armor Piercer? It instead uses Armor Shatterer for Impaction. This is with the Inhibitor II on.

I haven't tested Shijin for Master+Puppet skillchains preupdate without the Speedloader because Shijin is usually not worth using without the maton's SC bonus, so I'm not sure if the behavior has changed. But generally, Inhibitor vs. Speedloader works like this:

Inhibitor: If another WS opens a SC, then follow-up with your highest WS that can form a SC with the previous one as soon as the SC window opens, no matter which SC tier it ends up making.

Speedloader: If nobody else has gone before you and SC window is about to close, then follow-up with the WS that creates the highest possible tier of skillchain (in order to create a multistep).

Equipping both Inhibitor and Speedloader together make the maton use the Speedloader behavior primarily. Side note: if the maton is self-skillchaining it won't wait until the end of the SC window but go as soon as it has TP, even with SLs. It's only with other players/pets that it waits, probably because the AI can't predict others unlike itself.

Have some questions if someone would kindly answer

1. Does Fully Upgraded PUP.Collar+2 equal or beat Fotia Gorget for weapon-skill damage (for Howling Fist and Victory Smite.)
2. Does Xiucoatl benefit from Mache Earring +1's martial arts? I know that KKK over-caps. Could they substitute for Cessance and Telos if so.

1. Collar +2 can be superior to Fotia, but only if you have enough Attack buffs to benefit from the increased PDIF cap. In zero/low buff situations the collar's Physical Damage Limit+10% does nothing for you. In any case, for VSmite Caro Necklace should be better than Fotia in general.

2. Yes, you need to wear one Mache Earring+1 to cap Martial Arts with Xiucoatl as master PUP. NQ Mache Earring is just barely below cap, while HQ slightly overcaps.

Gonna focus on a Howling Fist build
I assume Xiucoatl is one of the better weapons for it (the only REMA I have.)
At least it consistently seems to hit and crit harder then other weapon-skills.
PUP.Collar+2 maxed out performs Fotia on it right?

The official string theory guide lists Fotia gorget in the "Howling Fist" set.

Anyone else while soloing Ambuscade normal D, have their ranger puppet miss every weapon-skill. Even in Overdrive...

Perfect dodge, or sigh being up

I don't miss but pet miss every ws.
Ambu normal D difficulty against the bird.

Yes, maxed out Xiucoatl(C) is likely the best weapon for Howling Fist due to the +15% WSD on it. Godhands are likely the runner-up (or are just as good) for the TP Bonus+500, as Howling Fist has better-than-average fTP modifiers for damage.

You want to stack as much WSD as possible for it. Howling Fist also cannot crit naturally, so I'm not sure why you think it "crits harder".

Like Aerix says earlier, Pup. Collar+2 only is good if you are incredibly attack buffed to reach the pDif cap for Hand-to-Hand, otherwise it does nothing and shouldn't be used.

On an obvious side note: The Pup. Collar is very bad! Arguably the worst JSE Neck out of the whole bunch. Getting +AGI as a stat on our necklace is just completely random, we don't have a single weapon skill or ability that uses AGI as a modifier in any form. It's main use is for BLM Automaton, and for attack-capped Shijin Spiral, but outside of that it's pretty thumbs down.

Really wish we had the BST or DRG necklaces instead...

Ranged attacks go thru Perfect dodge.

Anyways yeah for some reason that Hippo has 100% evasion to all ranged attacks. Someone said it uses Airy shield at the start which I didn't see and haven't gone back to check but it's still a little weird because it never wears off and well that's an Ahriman move