Animator's Workshop: A Puppetmaster's Guide 2.0

It is absurd, I went after a 2nd pair of condemners just for nuking.

guess I'll be storing them until the next DM augment campaign.

Though, Tru, I'm not sure if you saw my posts about magic bursting w/ Fluffy Bredo on bst :D (bredo is a blm type w/ MAB & burst damage + traits. I was able to burst up to 50k w/out geo/cor buffs. so bst has some better chops at bursting than may have been previously accounted for)

that aside, I'm disappinted. I was hoping for pet MAB 30 in the hands slot. Now I'll have to reassess how to go about it. still pining for UDUG...

I DO use pup nuking quite regularly. I often Supertank on pup for Divergence. There is a separate tank who pulls individual mobs off statues for kills. However, when doing bosses/red eyed nm's, the pld does the main tanking. so I switch to bursting on my auto.

It works great. and I contribute a helpful amount of burst damage. i figured I'd buff it up a bit (not quite ready to +3 the legs/feet, but +2 are very nice)..

I don't have trouble w/ overload. Its easy to keep heatsink in blm setup and I never have to worry about overload between re summoning pet and nuking.

anyone here ever tried overdrive Zerg on Vinipata or Albumen?

I really want to test it out.

I'm still mad that pets are denied getting macc and mab together so often and then when we do on oseem armor they as far as I can tell at least for pup set you can't get high value macc and mab in fact I've never had an MAB over 15 that had any macc.

Or how dark matter augs are strictly worse for pets as far as I can tell while player get crazy new stats and bonuses to old. Like first off you just aren't going to get a bunch of pet augs... and then I've never had one with values higher than normal and the pet pool for DM actually seems smaller than normal pool.

Vinipata is tricky because of adds but autos can't tank main fine even with auras and do decent dmg. If you have some kind of sleepga would be fine AATT might work though having to take some hits to get the sleepga does suck and you really hitting a dps check there due to only 1 sleep. Alternatively a single bst can take care of adds pretty easy though I found it easier to use an auto tank 2 bsts for adds+ dmg

I was just thinking of making auto's the main damage on boss main. and overdrive them all. see if some combination of Bone crusher spam can kill Vini during Overdrive.

I figured having someone else to sleep the adds. I'm not thinking strictly pup party.

just that during overdrive, they dish out alot of damage and are near immune to enfeebles.

How small of a pet party are you talking about for vini? are you talking about bst holding the adds, cuz easier to AoE pull hate? or sheepsong from bst?

ie:

normal sleepers for adds. in smaller party.
Geo puts frailty and vini.
5x pup w/ Beast & Drachen OR Companions (or all 3)
Overdrive with a bone crusher spamming setup.

will they kill him in 3:20 ?

I'm fairly certain 2 can do it before overdrive wears... before sleepga II idk.

For my attempts I tried 2x pup and 1 bst was trying to kill. But yes they grab attention easy if I had a real sleeper that might have been better. Worked ok but eventually something happened and no cor really slowed down their kill speed.

Won a few times doing pup +2 bst

Honestly main is zero threat to your auto I think the adds auras are a bigger threat to them and certainly a bigger threat to the master. I was using my mule that has mostly the scraps of pup gear that my other accounts didn't need anymore.

And if you got a decent amount of people with different roles like you are talking about you probably don't need overdrive and everyone but the sleeper can grab a snickers

What kind of setup are you planning on using for the Bone Crusher matons? As Thunder Maneuver isn't possible due to String Shredder, I find that Valoredge's TP gain and Accuracy are severely hampered against anything worthwhile.

Honestly, I wouldn't even consider using VE for zerging unless you have AM3 up, and even then you'll still have Accuracy issues.

Personally I tend to mostly just use VE now for ending skillchains with SS since AS triggers Bone crusher into some nice lights. Other exceptions might be I need the extra survivability of VE and/or a defensive rune (often water)or like last time did frog and thing took like no dmg from SS... normally I just use 2 sharpshots and have them do 4 step chains with themselves

Guys, I believe I once saw a set of hybrid -dt/DD automaton on this thread, but can't seem to find it right now. Was it just +acc, +DA, - dt taeon along with DD accessories? And does it have any use in the current state of things?

Yes mostly though depending on your amount of automation (see what I did there) or how closely paying attention and how good your survivability is you can make some swaps or swaps for ws. Namely anwig and ambuscade legs top tier DT, ambuscade also high in pet acc/racc/acc and obviously tp bonus swaps being the big thing for some ws.

Usage has always been niche. Basically are you fighting something where automatons are your "tanks" and DDs and does dropping out of dt gear risk them dying for force you to use more defensive maneuvers/attachments

Just to touch on the previous topic of blm puppet sets.

ItemSet 353180

Head:Pet: INT+6, MAB+30
Hands:Pet: INT+13, MAB+24 is the best I could manage (so far).
Back:Pet: Magic Acc+20, Magic Dmg+30

Loudspeaker IV
Ice Maker
Amplifier I/II
OF I/II (never tried it without to know what the difference is)
Turbo Charger I/II
Shock Absorber III
Mana Tank I/III/IV

This is the puppet build I use for those niche fights where I know I'm only going to nuke "X" amount of times i.e. Dynamis D.

No change on apex crabs (capped Thunder bursts), bats and pugs since upgrading/sapping to Pitre but managed to squeeze out a 64k Thunder on the Dynamis Bastok mid-boss, Mu'Sha Effigy while I had +2 feet.

I rarely use the magic accuracy build for nukes, but I have one in case I'm not liking the output. The only changes would be Tali'ah turban, gages and I favor Tranquilizers over Ice Maker and Loudspeakers.
**Edit** Also Foire Babouches +3 over Pitre for MAcc.

Yep, looks like you have pretty much perfect auto mab set.

I'm incredibly jealous of the Udug jacket.

Congrats

Thank you, a nice piece to aim for. Best wishes getting one if you're trying.

Can't Herc roll both MACC and MAB at the same time for Pets? I feel like you might not even need Tali'ah or Tranquilizers if you had MACC on your Herc.

And considering you have Udug Jacket, I assume you have Enmerkar Earring for the MACC+15 as well, even if it isn't listed.

Yes, you can get INT/MACC/MAB on Herc. The downside is one of the two (MACC/MAB) appear to inherently suffer which is why I favor full MAB since it's easy to tell what you'll need to favor once a nuke you think will burst high gets resisted to all hell. It seems you cannot get high MACC and MAB as (I believe) Clearlyamule stated. Unfortunately, still seeking Enmerkar. Haven't farmed it either after returning from a break.

Looking over the most recent guides I am not seeing a lot of gear that requires Omen Cards. Is the Foire Set worth building still? If so which pieces are people using?

Thanks!

Body's still your best WSD piece for master, hands is best maneuver macro piece, legs are slightly better than tali'ah as well as being best puppet cure legs for whatever that's worth, other 2 pieces i believe relic can match/beat in their respective slots

Thanks!

Just Overdrive zerged Sarama with a COR (Beast+Companion) and GEO (Refresh+Frailty) mule. It was honestly pretty easy, Mana Jammer IV + Steam Jacket completely neuter Sarama's damage even outside of OD and Armor Plates and Target Marker aren't needed. Otherwise just build attachments for maximum damage.

Blazed Geo-Frailty added about 500-1k damage to WSs so it's nice to have, but it's possible with just a COR too. Companion's Roll for Regain is a must due to Magma Hoplon.

Also don't forget to engage Sarama from behind. Scorching Lash is a joke and it reduces Hoplon frequency.

That confirms that all UNM135 fights are easily zergable by PUP with COR buffs.

CL140 Suzaku in Escha - Ru'Aun is also a joke thanks to MJ4 + Steam Jacket btw. Definitely requires Target Marker+Drachen Roll though.

Which body/head?

VE head/SS body for all of them. VE body doesn't do enough damage for any of these.

Unless you go the Heyoka +1 route, Foire +3 is the best you'll find for master accuracy if my memory serves me right. Apart from the accuracy, the head is probably the least important piece.

Feet still great repair piece too

Thanks!

For anyone using autocontrol is there a way to disable the burden tracker feature in the lua file?

I know I can type hide every time it pops up, but I am hoping to avoid having to do that.

Thanks!

<maneuvertimers>true</maneuvertimers>

If you change that to false, that might be it

In addition to best WSD piece, Foire+3 body is still often BiS on PUP's multihit/crit WS that don't gain a whole lot from WSD - i.e., Pummel and Smite (though the WSD at least gives something by helping first hit). I still use it as my default WS body though, since even when it occasionally loses to Heyoka/Abnoba/Herculean on WS it's very close, and more often than not I get Foire+3 winning. If for whatever reason you ever needed to use a single hit WS like Howling (I pretty much never do), Foire +3 obviously crushes everything.

Overall, I'd recommend the following AF upgrades. Order of priority would depend on what you tend to do more of with your PUP.

Body: WS gear, can also be handy for Automaton HP builds. Maybe prioritize this if master DPS is most important to you.

Hands: Maneuvers. Helps all puppets with slightly improved attributes, maybe prioritize this if puppet DPS is your goal.

Feet: Repair piece, BiS Macc and solid MAB for nuke situations. Probably the piece with most utility for people prioritizing automaton tanking, due to the repair+.

And while they have their uses, the other two AF pieces are clearly lower priority.

Legs: best pure DT-, though I don't really use them over other tanking options since it tends not to be very hard to get capped/sufficient DT and other more beneficial stats on other tanking pieces in a slot with plenty of options (Taeon Meva/DT, Rao HP/DT, Tali'ah Acc/DT, even just Heyoka Acc/Enmity)

Head: Lowest priority. Pretty good pet Haste/Acc piece if you ever needed that for some reason, but it would be pretty niche. I'd tend to prefer either Tali'ah +2 (pet acc/STP, master acc) or Herc (pet STP) for pet focused, and cap pet haste elsewhere (cape, Ohtas, other armor slots, etc.)

Awesome thanks for the detailed response, from what you guys are saying the body, hands, and feet are all something that I would eventually like to have.

Speaking of tanking, Rao+1 is absolutely invaluable for Dynamis Wave 3 tanking/sac pulls for the fetters. It can barely maintain itself even in a full turtle build using 4/5 Rao+1, so anything less than that will probably require you to spam Dawn Mulsums to no end.