String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

I didnt want to be rude and write "Is it HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE enough to *** up nuking on Kei?" :D

Thunderstorm seems too weak for such setup. Not sure how strong is Thunderstorm MB with all the new gear without malaise and rolls, but its probably not more than 50k? Kei has like 1M hp? Sounds like 10min of Thunderstorms assuming you could setup MB every 30 sec (or can you do it every 21 sec for BP cd?). Then there is Benediction and MP could be a problem too for SMN? I guess it would require a very good BST to AoE 3 floors fast and somehow kill midboss fast too and would be even harder to 3 box. Doesn't you mean you use this jobs and some mulitiboxed account to buff pets on top of that?

Yeah, sorry, this would be the group core, with other players or multiboxed alts. I would never, ever depend on the nuking auto to kill Kei. Other PUPs would have to speak to that. I do have KKK and a legit nuking set but the way nuking is on PUP feels too clunky to be useful outside of a toy. I may try it on Kei but we've been using samurai setup for him lately, which is quicker.

Speaking more to general pet strat Omen, I would say that PUP + SMN + BST (GEO + COR alts) could probably clear an entire Kei, with a WHM trust? AoE'ing floors is super easy with this setup, BST AoE + SMN AoE... PUP can solo Craver and Gorger midbosses easily, not sure about Thinker, that one might be a pain. Then Kei should be fairly straightforward, just having a care for auto being Cursed.

I tried that years ago, but when your VE/SS maton goes from 300-400 TP to over 1k+WS in a single DA attack round, then a player or Gearswap is unlikely to reliably catch that every time. And any missed Arcuballista/Daze swap is more of a loss than you'd otherwise gain by swapping between TP and WS sets. The maton has capped Haste, a 3-hit build, high DA, strong WSs and good Accuracy either way.

Just my 2 cents on the matter. If it works for you, then by all means.


Given that my maton was able to nuke for 57k-63k (barring resists) every second SC created by two other matons as per my Automaton Skillchains video, it might be possible for a PUP to nuke down Kei. But it would be horribly slow and you can't afford any Regen or it's very likely you'd time out. Essentially it's the same as making a SMN kill Kei with Thunderstorm MBs, but that also hits harder than a maton.

As for Thinker: if the SMN spams Impact on recast, then the BST (or a second SMN) should be able to DPS it down without too much trouble. A DD maton can also slowly take down Thinker, but even with Impact it'll Pain Sync sometimes, so you have to be very careful and Retrieve it asap.

When going Pet Style on kei their are a couple ways to do it.

You can pup tank it, have a bst make skillchains w/ patrick, and summoners (2x) burst off it.

or you can have 2x automaton make continuous skillchains on him.

A blm automaton can work well bursting IF you have a constant pace to the skillchains. but it can also screw it up just fine if you are not making skillchain regularly enough.

OR you can manually deactivate/activate burst... but your burst pace becomes much slower than the summoner


I'm not sure if you are trying to lowman it or whatnot. but a good bst can very easily AoE mow down 3 floors rather quickly.

A full pet party, bst, smn, pup, geo, cor (and 1 more pet job) can do all of omen very efficiently.
Beaztmaster posted a bunch of videos of this before omen became 18 man content.

I stopped using SMN (even that I have Nirvana and good gear) because I just hate how lag destroys my gearswap equip changes for BP. I want try to use RNG with Annihilator instead of SMN and PUP tanking. I know automaton doesn't keep hate very well, but I think it might be possible if I TP with low dmg bullets and just focus on Coronach damage. Long road for me to try that tho. Anni still lvl 80 and a lot of things to buy for RNG.

EDIT: that strategy isnt related to Kei btw.

Automata are amazing sustained damage nowadays; they can keep up with and even surpass a Nirvana SMN outside of 1hrs with the right gear and rolls.

Of course, if you feel like playing RNG instead then more power to you. A full Heyoka PUP should be able to hold hate against Anni for the majority of fights.

Well I'm not sure tbh. Its hard to judge not knowing the potential of both and Im probably as far of completing the RNG as Iam of completing the Pup. So when you add 2nd pup to 1st pup tank, you use pure dps setup or just change both to bruisers? Both RNG and PUP sounds tempting which is actually not good for me, because like always I wont be able to decide.. I have too much jobs on my main anyway. Inventory always almost full and Im already using satchel and sack for gear only (on top of 4 wardrobes ofc) :/

If you're having inventory issues, then gearing up PUP might be difficult as it uses a lot of gear that isn't shared with other (non-pet) jobs. Of course it depends on how comprehensively you want to gear your PUP.

My mule is pretty much always set and geared for being a bruiser tankmaton and I try to make her main tank. As far as adding a 2nd PUP, it really depends on the target. If I don't have to step in and tank, I bring out a full DPS maton. If I'm backup tanking then a bruiser. For stuff where I have to avoid dealing damage (like Kin due to damage absorption) I go with a defensive tankmaton. In any case, a bruiser maton isn't anywhere close to a full DPS maton, but it does really good DPS while tanking. Much more than you'd expect without Overdrive.

For anyone who is curious, this is my go-to bruiser setup since the patch:

SoS/VE, Light/Wind/Fire:
- Strobe 1+2
- Attuner (could potentially swap to Magniplug 1 with Dia 3, Idris Frailty and some other form of defense down like Armor Shatterer)
- Magniplug 2
- Flame Holder
- Turbo Charger 1+2
- Armor Plate 4
- Flashbulb
- Auto-Repair Kit 4
- Optic Fiber 1+2

Same gear as in my VD Ambu video. That in addition to traits/AP4+OFs add up to capped PDT. Obviously it's not well-suited to fights with lots of magic damage going out, but most of the time Companion's Roll and Repair make up for it.

Well yeah RNG is not many inventory space for me, because I have COR, so its a matter of adding some AF/Relic/Empy pieces pretty much. PUP might indeed be tricky :/

I find that all three pet jobs are pretty close in damage outside of 1-hours today. They have different advantages, though. Like PUP has the most uptime, since you pet almost never dies. That really helps with total damage done on bosses.




I've done Kei with a single SMN. It's not that bad, considering that the second Thunderstorm will usually hit off of the resist wall. Adding a third SMN does very little for clear time. Using PUP would be really luck-based. I'd love to see someone try it, would probably need to get an early Benediction.

I never thought to use Impact on Thinker. I've done Distract/Frazzle/etc. to lock him into Winds of Promyvion. Impact would probably work. Using pets on him is kind of a pain tbh. It's doable but not that enjoyable, but at least if you have PUPs you can easily recover from a bad Pain Sync, lol.


Absolutely, pets are safe and viable for all Omen bosses.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to knock BST or SMN; they're still excellent at what they do and imo BST should be #1 because it's the least safe. But these past two patches and Su4/Su5 have elevated non-OD PUP from mediocre to highly competitive (and obviously made OD even more ridiculous).


I did a lot of Kei with with my lowman static (BLM+GEO mule+SMN) like a year ago and it felt rather slow overall, even though Thunderstorm does hit really hard. Maybe I was just spoiled from running with several highly geared BLM + RUN Gambit/Rayke in the past.

The improved Ice Maker BLMaton does pretty well, though. It's still wonky at times, but it MBs reliably when it's not casting Aspirs. I might make a short video of it on Crom Dubh sometime, but I really wanted to get an Udug body first lol.

All right, in preparation for my future BLMaton video I performed some extensive testing on Crom Dubh with Siviard's help. I'll just do some bullet points for a quick rundown.

- best damage setup is Ice Maker, Loudspeaker 4, Amplifier 1+2, Arcanoclutch, Optic Fiber 1+2. Heatsink and Mana Tank 1+3+4 for utility.

- Mana Channelers break Amplifiers. Normally Amplifiers reset the global nuke cooldown to allow matons to catch MBs, but Mana Channelers make it wait the global cooldown period + the penalty regardless of skillchains

- BLM maton will usually open with Thunder 5 when deployed, and previously did so even when there's an open MB window, but SE seems to have fixed it so it will nuke with the correct element for max damage--Fire 5 in Crom Dubh's case. Fire does 3x the damage of Thunder/Aero, so it really makes a difference. Although if there's no MB window it will sometimes default to Thunder 5 even on Crom.

- Ice Maker does not seem to benefit from tripled Maneuver effects under Overdrive (possibly applies to FH too), but OFs are still amazing. 2xIce/1xLight > 3xIce > Ice/Light/other from what I could tell. Triple Ice is still the best. See the next page for my post about that.

- Normally, the maton does not double MB and even though Crom Dubh takes 3x damage from Fire, matons will MB with Thunder 5 or Aero 5 when Fire 5 is on cooldown (neither Scanner, Tactical Processor nor Mana Booster help with any of that). It will never use Fire 4 or 3 even though those would perform better. Here's the kicker: Manafont FIXES the Automaton AI and makes it primarily spam Fire 5, Fire 4 and Fire 3 and IT EVEN DOUBLE MBs (though possibly only because Manafont removes the global cooldown). It will even MB Thunder 5 and 4 or other nukes if all Fire spells are on recast. Note this is specific to Crom Dubh's Fire weakness, the behavior will be different for other mobs.

GG SE, making us 1hr just to have a useable maton.

I have everything but PLD geared pretty well. I'm only able to do it at this point because of porter moogle slips. It's a pain in the *** to job change, but it frees up a lot of space. pretty much just always job change in my mog garden.

I don't know what your group is like, but mine rarely does anything with RNG in place of pets. We have a bunch of rostam/rema cors and rng, but people just seem to prefer the safety of pets being able to tank if ***gets hairy.

I'm guessing that RNG/COR pull ahead handily on things that take good damage from trueflight or leaden, but if you're spamming coronache, autos are probably just as strong if not stronger.

just kinda depends on what you personally will get more enjoyment and or use from I guess.

I'm finding i'm getting more mileage out of the Inhibitor II, I notice what Aerix was saying about holding on to TP but that's because after closing the Skillchain, he has no way to continue it so he waits for the window to end. But because the Hammer move wipes TP, it seems like even with Coiler II, it takes forever to make up that TP loss. The extra STP from 3xFire 3xLight and he's right back ready to WS.

Well, it's been like 3 days and there hasn't been a single response from missdivine to refute my tests about KKK, despite their own alleged "testing". I guess that settles it.

Y'all can let me have some of that popcorn now.

Galaktor is very stubborn in their view point of Kenkoken being the best weapon ever. They even posted their misinformation on the FFXIAH Xiucoatl page.

@Aerix From doing Vol1 VD i noticed that dia 2 boosts bone crusher during overdrive by 7k. This is with companion's roll and beast roll. Perhaps fraility or dia 3 further boosts this? This could just be the damage variation of boen crusher though...

I love KKK more than anything, but it's just not the universally best weapon for everything. It's sad if someone refuses to see the reality of that just because they're a new owner. Thanks for letting me know about that on Xiucoatl page--I commented as well to point out the misinformation. I honestly question whether they even own a Xiucoatl despite their claims. Nobody who spent 150m+ on a weapon and went through the pains of augmenting it would try to trash-talk it that much.

Also yes, Dia 2-3 and other def down effects have major benefits on the boss. Attuner with OD Fire and Beast Roll just don't cut it. However, a DA proc on Bone Crusher is about +7k, so that might be what you're seeing.

Honest question: since KKK reduces overload by making maneuvers generate less burden (I think they only add 33% of what they would add without KKK), is the weapon really that crucial to prevent overload? I mean, everything adds up I guess, but when your maton spams WSs with FH and accumulates burden for, let’s say, a 50-60% chance to overload, does it really matters how much burden your next fire maneuver adds? Unless you Cooldown, chances are it’s gonna build up even higher and overload next time you would refresh it. Now, I guess it’s different if you somehow use 3x fire build, meaning you could refresh 3 maneuvers in rapid succession adding only the burden of one.

It does make a noticeable difference if you do 2xFire/1xWind for VE/SS (at least until your Maneuver duration is at a decent level), but it won't absolutely make or break you since you can always reset burden with ADD/DAD.

Should make a note of that on the OF. That's probably a derp coding doing that.

Which part do you mean? The fact that Aerix's BLM automaton always went with Thunder V, or Aero V MB? Or the fact Manafont actually made the Automaton work properly and use the correct elemental weakness of the mob and even used T4 and T3 versions of that same element if the T5 wasn't available?

The part I quoted... about Manafont making it work like it should always.....

So what are the most desired obvious triobox for pup? Not including other pet jobs.

PUP PUP COR?
PUP GEO COR?
PUP PUP PUP?
PUP PUP BLM?

I need to plan this right XD

PUP PUP COR for sure. Companion's Roll is amazing for puppetmaster.

Thought some people might find this interesting. This is a pre-AFAC/Prophylaxis parse on Ou of a max DPS maton without Inhibitors/Speedloaders buffed with +5 Beast/Comp roll vs. Ramuhs. SMNs had Beast/Drachen and we had Idris Torpor/Frailty on. No 1hrs used by anyone. 2nd highest parse is from a non-AM3 Nirvana SMN, the others are Gridarvor users.

Caveat: They weren't slacking, but I don't know if the SMNs were actually trying their absolute best as we didn't discuss parsing beforehand, so this is just a regular attempt. SMNs are decently geared, but none of them are full BiS as far as I'm aware.



(Removed the names of the people who didn't consent to have theirs included.)

This isn't supposed to be a flex, just something to give you guys an idea of how PUP holds up against SMNs these days. I cannot say how a top tier SMN or BST would compare, unfortunately. I will say, however, that I did much, much worse on Kin compared to the SMNs due to the damage absorb mechanic. I messed up a lot trying to time the WSs so they wouldn't hit during TP moves (and matons also feed a lot of TP). But that could certainly be improved with practice.

AM3 is what really makes SMN's damage. Especially for BPs that transfer their hits like Volt Strike and Predator Claws.
So nonNirvana's being withing a % of a Nirvana is perfectly in line with how SMN works...

Though I am surprised your PUP was a full 2x more. With Overdrive I could see that easy. Then again, depends also on if there was a delay between you pulling and them engaging... though even then 2x is still surprising.

I suppose this is a testament to the sustained damage from not being on a 20s limit combined with not being 1shotted at every AoE that happens.

Thank you for the parses Aerix
I appreciate you tracking and sharing the data

once upon a time... (way before xiucoatl/pitre fists and recent attachment upgrades)

When I was getting the rest of my pup af upgrades, I would actually Overdrive on Kin.

I did it several times and it was rather interesting.

As expected I would cure it alot. However, in total I did more damage that curing. It could vary greatly.

At worst, I took off only 25% of his total HP.

At best i took it down by 75%

Its really about how well the timing lines up.

Also, lower tp feeding makes it much better ofcourse, so having the group WAIT until overdrive was done was rather effective. throwing in some regular mewing lullaby helps alot too.

Just out of curiosity, does ftp on the puppet multi-hits transfer or is it all in the 1st hit?

Yeah, lack of AM3 is definitely huge for SMN. But sadly, it's difficult to achieve without saving up TP before going up to Ou. As I said, we hadn't discussed parsing so the SMNs weren't at the top of their game.


You and me both, to be honest. When I first looked at the parse I totally thought I had messed up resetting it before the battle as I was soloing pixies/panopts away from the rest of the group. But the parse duration is only 5m37s so it's only Ou for sure.


Yeah, it does look a lot like an Overdrive parse, but I intentionally did not use it to get an accurate parse for comparison. Plus I had to save it for the midboss during the Kin run right afterwards. We had two other PUPs tanking the fight (normally I'm stuck doing the tanking) and I did engage a little bit earlier than the SMNs. However, my maton died twice throughout the fight--once from 10k Unfaltering Bravado after pulling hate and once after I used Heavy Artifice/Invincible to counter Zero Hour as the other PUPs' HA/Benediction were still on cooldown.

Here's a bigger crop of the same screenshot where you can see on the left side that my Overdrive isn't on cooldown:




Double Magniplug white damage with double Fire is really good. 500-700 damage per hit with Double Attacks and low delay, plus frequent 20k-28k Arcuballistas.


For Bone Crusher and String Shredder: yes, as far as I can tell. Although the only get increased fTP from Flame Holder as the WSs don't scale with TP. Not sure about the other maton WSs.

Makes sense. SMN's white damage is... piddly. To say the least. The benefit to SMN is to not be in range of things and be able to absorb the damage... by being disposable.
PUP winds up being similar, with the added benefit of actually living. (Who I wouldn't kill for Avatars to just have 400 or so more HP so it takes two hits to kill them instead of the one.)

The two examples you gave are things that would wipe a "real" tank too. I just factored those deaths in as "that's how it works". lol

I have a PUP friend who has solo'd VD Ambuscade this month with ease. (She let me leech for the gallantry lol) So I would say that PUP is similar to RUN in that it has a large amount of damage capability coupled with high survivability.

Shame that people STILL poopoo PUP as a tank.