String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

Manajammers wont help with enlight.

Maybe its related to remaining time?

I didnt watch entire fight but the wipes all happened under 10 mins left.

How has the BRD's enmity songs changed Automaton tanking? I doubt it would do much against super heavy DDs.

nothing can change Hate against Heavy buffed DD, RUN PLD or even a full 3 fire enmity PUP can't keep hate.

I haven't gone and tested, but I'm pretty sure you are spouting nonsense here.

I can't speak for PLD and PUP will probably have trouble, but a RUN can absolutely hold hate against superbuffed DDs even without Dirge.

Dirge is -32 or even -50 Enmity with SV or Marcato. It makes it almost trivial to keep hate up until everyone caps.

Well to be fair keep hate on most tanks until everyone caps hasn't been hard since like 2009. Problem is how a single ws can cap you

Single WS caping hate is only a matter of old zones and mostly old content (beside some new events like master trials and htmb).

Obviously slightly hyperbolic the point is capping hate quickly has been an issue for a long time and SE only made token efforts towards it years ago

Dirge on the dd's is fantastic for any tank. Of course it helps pup tank a bunch also.

It IS very noticeable

DDs no longer cap quickly with Dirge. SV Dirge literally halves Enmity generated, meaning it takes them twice as long to cap. That's plenty of time to finish off a Wave 3 MB before DDs are in any direct danger.

Just coming back from about 5 months. I saw theres a few new updates to h2h and such, and some new gear; Any updates to gearsets besides the WS neck piece I've been told about by someone else? I checked Wiki, but that doesnt seem to have been updated in a while...Hopefully someone is able to take that over.

*nudgeAerixnudge* :p

I'm already busy updating the RDM guide currently and I can't really start editing Fabiano's guide without his permission.

I was joking you updating it, but hopefully he does come back to update, or at least pass the reigns if he doesnt want to anymore.

Anyway, back to the original question: Any noteworthy gearset updates?

If you weren't around for it: Lilith HTBF drops a full set of Malignance gear that is super high (or highest) Accuracy, STP, DT, EVA, MEVA and PDL all in one. It's used for defense sets, hybrid sets, Mythic AM3 TP sets and sometimes even regular TP sets. It's the most OP gear in the game currently.

Alexander and Domain don't really have anything for PUP. Cait Sith has the Cath Palug Ring, but if you were around 5 months ago you probably saw it already.

As for gearing in general: all HTH WSs that PUP can use are fTP transfer now. WSD is dead (though it still kinda works for HF) and multiattack is used for practically every WS set save for SP and VSmite, which still use crit mostly. Check the previous pages for WS set suggestions.

Does anyone have a current PUP dps spreadsheet?

Any of the PUP regulars mind sharing their lua? Looking for one that’s a little more up to date.

Using the maton WS sets from the BG Wiki page as inspiration, I am using this (VE/SS) set on Apex Bats/Crabs:


Low JP (sub 500) might have something to do with it maybe? but my auto's WS are lower than I am expecting, or maybe I am expecting too much. I snap into this set when auto is above 1000TP via a gearswap command after opening with Shijin/linking with V.Smite.

Ranging anywhere from 6500~ to 11k, with the higher numbers coming against the bats for obvious reasons. Is that around where I should be?

Forgot to mention this is with a geo sub cor alt using geo-frailty and beast roll.

Likely lacking in atk, can try to swap inhib1 and sl2 for ts3 and see how that compares dmg wise, might not be worth the loss of sc bonus though, less you got some spare fire then swap the coilers, worth swapping a coiler1 for repeater also

What Nariont said, but I wanna emphasis on only putting 1 Inhibitor and coiler, not both version of each.

In CP (assuming you're low man / solo), the goal is your puppet getting 1000 tp as fast as you are. Ideally you are also back up to 1000 tp to SC again after your puppet closed after your first WS, and your puppet should be able to close a 3rd SC on top.

Adjust your master TP set and pup attachments to get around that.

Shijin Spiral ⇒ Armor Piercer ⇒ Victory Smite ⇒ Armor Shatterer ⇒ Light SC

Served me very well CPing.

Thanks for the feedback.

My current loadout is allowing me to reliably 4 or 5 step with the SC elizabet listed above, and that is taking out a crab or bat outright so it's working pretty well.

I am just noticing that whether or not I swap into my automaton WS set I am not really seeing that much of a difference in Piercer/Shatterer damage...to the point where I don't even bother swapping sets for the maton WS most of the time and the SC still does enough damage to kill the enemy. Just seemed odd that the TP Bonus gear and pet stats gear wasn't increasing the WS damage by a noticeable amount. I'll try the tension spring and see what that does to damage but as you guys are mentioning...if it limits the auto's ability to continue the SC it's not really worth it.

I'm not a big fan of coilers for SS frame, rather stick to wind/fire attachments. Magniplug I + II in place of coilers so all your attachments get the 1 maneuver + OF bonus running light/fire/wind. Armor shatterer hits its damage ceiling easily due to inbuilt ratio boost and caps fairly low compared to arcubalista as it's ftp is static. 7-11k AS is about right.

For CP I just used 3 step VS > AS > VS.

I guess this attachment setup works at 1200 or higher but at the moment all of my fire capacity is taken by inhib i/ii and speedloader i/ii + attuner. Perhaps barrage turbine/repeater instead of the coilers would be a better idea.

Well in comparison, a coiler 1 is roughly 5 DA, cause no thunder, repeater, is bout 21~23% double shot chance

Dual coilers will be better than repeater, the auto doesn't RA enough for it to be worth it. You'll need 1200 to see a noticeable boost to AS damage.

Armor Piercer and Shatterer are hard to boost with maton WS gear as they don't scale heavily with TP Bonus as Daze and Arcuballista do.

From my experience it's usually better DPS just to stay in master/pet haste gear and build your own TP faster rather than trying to max the maton WS. With Trusts often dropping Marches/Haste you might need that extra TP anyway.

Also, Flame Holder would grant one of the biggest damage bonuses on WS, but at your current elemental capacity it's difficult to gauge which attachment you should drop for it. Dropping Inhibitor 1 might mean the maton can't keep up with multistepping; dropping Speedloader 1 might result in much worse SC/overall damage as bats take extra from Light and dropping Attuner might wreck the maton's attack despite the innate Shatterer bonus or Piercer's ignore defense. If you can't make it work yet that's fine, but remember to equip it at 1200 JP.

For what it's worth, though, once your maneuvers have 5 minutes of duration you don't really have to worry about the maton overloading even with 2x Fire/1x Wind (the best maneuvers when multistepping on Apex Bats) as you can just lower your burden with proper Cooldown use. Bats don't have damaging AoE moves and any stray hits can be healed via Repair. Plus dropping Light/ARK 4 lets you use an extra DD attachment or Heatsink/Stealth Screen II instead.

At 1200 JP with the right attachments double Fire can let your maton close into 50-70k+ Lights during a 5-step if I remember correctly from my testing.

Also, as Thorbean said: don't drop Coilers unless you need an Accuracy attachment, but keep Coiler 1 only until you can replace it with a Fire attachment. Melee frequency at capped Pet: Haste is significantly higher than Ranged Attacks with VE/SS, so the extra TP from the Double Attack will produce far more overall TP.

All of the input is much appreciated. Thank you!

I may have missed it here but what is the normal procedure for Cait Sith N overdrive method? Do you deploy/overdrive immediately? I tried twice, going in and tagging cait so trusts would engage/TH tag, overdrive, run out, but my trust tank (mnejing) dies almost immediately and cait then runs straight to me and I’m dead all within the first 15 seconds or so. Should I deploy/OD right out of the gate and then tag?

yes

Hi team couple of gearswap/lua questions:

1) How are you all switching to automaton WS sets with Gearswap or any other lua? Or are you equipping them manually when your automaton has TP?

2) How are you equipping Su3 set for enmity for Automaton action tanking with gearswap?

3) Are you guys maintaining Maneuvers manually or do you have a gearswap function which does this?