String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

There is also the h2h adjustment which made weaponskill better overall too, and Kraken Club BC and a ambu few months ago(Frog) where pup could solo VD which might had ppl open their eyes abit.

It probably is Lilith that's causing you to see more PUPs online. I know a lot of people use puppetmaster for her. I find beastmaster faster but PUP is super consistent for Malignance farming. Lots of PUPs in Selbina now lol. PUP is also great for Odin VD farming.

Just to clarify, they weren't talking about PUP soloing Odin VD (although I think it would be possible).

PUP is a solid tank for the fight because the maton can simply ignore the majority of Odin's TP moves aside from the instant KO from Zantetsuken X. But it's easy enough to get hate back after if all your damage dealers are SMNs. PUP also has Dispel to remove Dread Spikes and Endark. A typical setup would be PUP SMN SMN RDM COR THF or so.

If you have a team of well-geared PUPs you can also replace the SMNs with DD matons (all matons need capped PDT), although the main tank PUP will need to pay close attention to keep their maton alive due to the increased TP move spam.

I just finished up Lilith and I was thinking about try to figure a way to solo Odin. At least on E or N.

Well, if you cap the maton's PDT and use Steam Jacket (vs. Dread Spikes) you can pretty much just pet burn Odin while solo. Zantetsuken X will kill your maton occasionally once Odin drops under 50% HP, but it's easy enough just to reactivate and Ventriloquy.

Even a VE/SS maton should be able to survive tanking Odin on E or N.

I had a Cait Sith build before taking a break from the game. I can't, for the life of me remember what it was. Would anyone be willing to provide theirs?

Forget the exact set but was something like mostly normal VE bonecrusher spam build but with steam jacket keeping up fire light and water and using a normal mixed dt/dd gear set

Thank you kindly

Does Regulator Absorb Attri show up on timers? I thought it would show up like Strobe or maybe my auto isn't using? I'm using Light/Fire/Dark manuever with WHM turban/Valor body

Can someone post the head/body and attachments for the kraken club bc? prs

valoredge/valoredge

optic fiber
auto repair kit III
turbo charger
turbo charger II
stabilizer II
Coiler II
Armor Plate II
Armor Plate III
Tension spring IV
Magniplug
Magniplug II
Heatsink

Light/Thunder/Fire or
Light/Light/Thunder

About a 5 minute kill, 30 sec if you overdrive.

Does anyone have any tips for taking down glassy thinker with pups?

We're currently running with 2x RNG autos (to avoid sleep) and 1x Tank auto (+ support). I try to retrieve the RNG autos when i see pain sync start to charge, but eventually i am either too slow, or an auto decided to fire off a WS as its turning away and all autos get taken out.

Unfortunately, other than retrieving with good timing there isn't much else you can do when using a maton strat. In my group we just have a turtle maton tank (that won't do much damage) with SMN's using Ifrit's FC to kill Thinker as that doesn't feed TP and can be timed more easily.

In any case, Glassy Thinker takes a large amount of bonus damage from blunt, so it's usually more efficient to make a DT/Subtle Blow set for the master and simply melee it yourself (and turning to avoid Pain Sync) while your friends use WHMatons.

Edit:

ItemSet 373077

It's kinda specialized in its purpose and probably not ideal, but you can cap SB1 by augmenting Herc while still sporting 42% DT (maton curebombing should make up for being uncapped). With SB2 from Moonbow+1 and Niqmaddu you'll have a total of 70 SB. If, by any chance, you have Xiucoatl Path B things become much easier to gear for, though. Same applies if you are /NIN or /DNC sub.

To hold hate, simply use a tankmaton to voke/flash the boss every 30-45s, then Retrieve it to avoid feeding TP (hitting your Retrieve macro is also a good way to delay your own melee damage until you turn if you see a Pain Sync). It'll take most damage for you and the boss won't go after supports. Just make sure to equip Armor Plate 4+3 to cap PDT without needing Pet: DT gear.

SB doesnt really matter much on Glassy Thinker, especially on last ~25%. It has like 300-500TP regain at lower hp stages (or maybe at all hp stages, but he just dont use TP move until 2000-3000tp at higher HP and thats what makes it spam less then) and will do TP moves back to back even if you back tank it with shadows or solo on monk with 75% SB and chi blast.

You can observe it on this video for example.

I mean, SB still helps for the first 50-75% of its HP, but fair enough. So just cap DT with full Malignance then and play it safely.

Other than that, if there are any mage jobs in your setup have someone spam Impact with Twilight Cloak. That will usually make Thinker prioritize Winds of Promy. over Pain Sync.

Thanks for this! I'll give it a try, although i doubt I'll be making a subtle blow set any time soon :)

Also worth noting that if you happen to have an actual player WHM with empy+1 feet, Auspice = SB+25.

So you only need to do something like Herc hands/feet (no SB augs needed), Chirich +1, and Dignitary's earring (or several other combinations). And of course, Niq. Ring and Moonbow belt for SB II.

I will discover soon enough but in case anyone knows, i just unlocked a bunch of PUPs on 1$ mule to save me the time to log in log out mains so wondering if i can just toss some acc food on it and beat (overdriving) with zero skills or do i need a couple to hit the mob?

Just swap heatsink for accuracy if you're going to overdrive.

I think it's about time we give Valoredge Head/Harlequin Body a proper reanalyzing. I'm playing around with attachments currently. This build is underutilized, and it certainly isn't due to Magic Mortar or -DT. I'm afraid this falls on us.

Looking forward to your banter.

I already use VE/Harle occasionally for its utility. It's a fantastic pairing with SoS/VE to make reliable Light skillchains on Kei because Magic Mortar never misses and Harle body doesn't use Ranged Attacks that slow down its TP or WS usage, unlike Sharpshot body.

As far as DD potential goes: if you can afford to drop Light Maneuver, then 2xFire/Wind or Fire/Thunder/Wind allows it to spam Knockout. The numbers are pretty decent (still behind Arcuballista though) and it self-SCs like Aeolian Edge, which can be pretty powerful under OD with Inhibitors and could make it our best OD maton if healing isn't an issue. Additionally, the Evasion Down effect is even more potent than a WAR's Shield Break. Theoretically quite useful for group utility in Dyna Wave 3 or for Mireu, but it absolutely needs TP Bonus gear to reach full damage potential.

Also, it has a HP value between VE and Sharpshot body, so it's still capable of taking a few hits despite the slightly lower DT compared to VE. Nothing Armor Plates or gear can't fix, really. Plus a VE/Harle can actually Cure IV itself when its HP drops too low, though it has very little MP. Might save you a Repair or two in the long run when you're running it without Light Maneuvers, in any case.

Overall it's a pretty neat combo that's super underutilized, like you said.

OD Fire/Thunder/Wind Knockout spam (avoid Speedloaders):

I've loved this build for its DPS particularly due to Knockout. I'm currently attempting to revisit the tanking potential as, at first glance, seems to have better hate control than SoS/VE. Now that could just be optimism, but it made me question whether there's something we either missed or weren't told about the VE head.

This community was once enthusiastic about trying things differently as this job calls for it. Basically, we've come up with an SoS/VE build and that's the meta for tanking nearly everything it seems.

I just want to encourage other PUPs here to venture off into Harlequin or Stormwaker builds for tanking (obviously base it on what you're fighting and what attachments would benefit most).

Thank you for jumping in on that Aerix.


Edit: Also, since there's so many PUPs actively on these days...please people, please build more than tank sets...my goodness!

Not to be rude, but Soulsoother/VE build is the meta for tanking because it's extremely effective. I can't really see a pure tank build being significantly improved unless there's really some undiscovered mechanic (like VE head helping with enmity), which I kinda doubt. By all means, test stuff out. But don't be that shocked that a lot of people aren't trying radically different things when there's a method that just plain works.

Now, if you're talking about pushing out more DPS while tanking... that's a different story, and perhaps a Harlequin build would work there over the more commonly used "bruiser" Valoredge setups discussed here. That I'd be interested to see, and tinkering with some more creative setups might lead to some real discovery there.

I have to say, while the Magic Mortar priority might have some uses for niche content like Kei, it is quite frustrating that it is HQ's highest priority WS. if it wasn't, I believe HQ would have more application for usable content in terms of DPS. Both Knockout and Slapstick can hit surprisingly respectable numbers compared to what other frames can do, especially under Overdrive.

Oddly enough, it appears that Heady Artifice (Mighty Strikes) doesn't affect automaton WS, or if it does it's to a very negligible effect (Minimal testing here, citation welcomed), or else that would be another interesting prospect. Maybe a setting where the master would melee with the puppet to force more desirable skillchains would be intriguing, but I've not personally found any content where that is viable, or a better option than using another frame in the same setting.

[EDIT] Also, it would be nice if SE updated the Galvanizer to counter for post-attachment buff damage (Looking at you, Magniplug) D:

Yeah, unfortunately the concept of a Bruiser Harlequin simply doesn't work because Light Maneuvers force Magic Mortar. Knockout would be the perfect damage + utility WS for a tankmaton.

I mean, theoretically you could sometimes replace a Light Maneuver completely to force a Knockout for the debuff and keep the maton alive with Repair, but long-term it's not possible to skip LMs entirely to maintain decent damage output while tanking. And burning Repair on pure healing instead of debuff removal is also not great depending on the NM.

Edit: Also the reason we settled on SoS/VE as the default tankmaton is, unfortunately, simply because VE is the tankiest body and SoS head provides just enough Light capacity to fit Lightbulb + 2xOptic Fiber + ARK IV at the same time once mastered. VE/VE or VE/HQ would have to drop an Optic Fiber, which has a pretty large impact on the passive Enmity+ bonus from Strobes.

Dropping ARK4 to ARK3 instead could also work, but some NMs hit too hard for that to work in general use. HQ body already has to deal with reduced Regen due to its lower base HP.

pretty sure its cause crits dont do much for pets, since they dont raise pdif iirc, so a crit vs a non-crit assuming atks capped already is only gonna result in a very miniscule change in dmg at best, unlike every other job getting a pdif increase and thats before factoring in any crit+ dmg which puppet has none of

I just always imagined having multiple tank builds in autocontrol vs. maybe a maximum of two. Which, I had some time before I left - one of them SoS/HQ made to co-tank Albumen with RUN. Really all it did was provide additional cures here and there as the WHM obviously did what WHMs do.

Thinking about it, this makes a lot of sense. I've definitely noticed on occasion critical hit damage doing the same or less than regular attacks in high attack situations (Literally talking 5-10 damage difference). It'd be nice if SE updated that mechanic but alas, I'm sure that's not even on their radar of priorities.

yup, its pretty silly, but thats how it is, think the only time its ever "useful" is when atk is low and if atks that bad, theres other problems