Automaton Research Thread

There's no level correction in Adoulin.

I was intending to test whether it was based on level correction, or just applied a bonus if monster level > automaton level.

I really hope they change it to just a static ignores eva/def without the level stuff.

would switch out shock absorber nd hammermill for armorplate 1 for only tanking. shock absorber does not scale. it's 100 hp which is less than one hit at 99. equalizer/analizer are both good in situations. schurzen is very niche, in fights where the puppet is taking large hits and nukes constantly, it will be invaluable. rest of the time it doesnt help very much.

RDM Automaton is still as upsettingly crappy as before.

Buff order = Protect, Stoneskin, Phalanx, Haste 2, Shell 5 (Never used to be back here, I'm sure.)

Edit: I stand corrected again, it cast Shell 5 20 minutes after Protect and it seemed to be at the back of the Buff queue

Order of operations = Enhancing, Enfeebling, Nuke.

Will not try to overwrite Haste 2 (So.. use Kupipi I guess?)

I don't know how useful it will be outside of Fodder Content, especially because if something breaks stoneskin frequently you just aren't getting Haste II.

Doesn't get any of the new debuffs as expected.

Also whatever table they use to give us gear needs to be updated around 4 years ago, we got put on the MAB cape and Occult Occument pants.

Toughts on Vivi-Vale II? Went down in price lately, so wondering about it's worth ?

Galvanizer also good for physical dmg mobs.

I actually haven't heard a lot about it, but I'm very interested just how it affects our cures.

But.. if they never fix our automaton spamming cure 5 I don't know if it'd ever be worth it. 90% of the time we're getting cured for less than he is capable of.

This is wrong as of nearly 3 years ago.


Granted I can't remember if we ever quantified the cap for it and as far as I remember the Ice maneuver text was a typo.

Source: December 2011 Update.

Couldn't hurt to take the automaton to a cactuar and run 1,000 Needles a few times. Just run in and Dia spam to feed TP and test for varying Earth Maneuvers and/or Melee Skill (through gear.)

Perfectly possible, I'm just far too lazy to do it and wouldn't use the attachment either way as even if it's capped at the same amount as the spell it just doesn't feel worth the time/attachment slot.

If someone does decide to do this test, though. Do remember to account for the natural DT- from Stout Servant.

For starters:

1000 Needles without Stoneskin on Soul Soother puppet: 455 Damage.
1000 Needles with the Shock Absorber and 383 Melee Skill: 171 Damage.
Stoneskin amount: 284.


Gonna do more testing when I get home. Punking Sabotenders is annoying but I'll do it anyway.... FOR SCIENCE!

So I've been reading about how awesome Valoredge is now for tanking because the new attachments break the 50% PDT cap or something.
So I was wondering, which setup do you use to turn Valoredge into an awesome tank machine? I assume some master's equipment is also required: which?

I typically use this setup for when my Automaton is engaged but I am not.

ItemSet 336530

All of the Taeon pieces have Pet: Damage Taken-3 to -5% on them as well as Pet: Double Attack+5 and Pet: Accuracy/Ranged Accuracy or Attack/Ranged Attack.

With the 100 Job Point Gift you can put Armor Plate II and III on as well as either Equalizer or Barrier Module II. Those, coupled with Auto-Repair Kit III and Optic Fiber make it pretty much impossible to kill.

Nibiru Sainti is augmented on the D Path so it has Automaton Skills+20 and a static +10% to Repair.


This is what I use when I am engaged but so is my Valoredge or Sharpshot Automaton.

ItemSet 336531

I tried the tanking thing on my own going by common sense against Vidmapire the other day, and it was utterly destroyed within a few seconds. Basically after the effect of the first Repair finished (I boost Repair with ASA legs, Repair Earring and repair feet).

Weapon wise I was using Othas for the Regain+10, I guess Nibiru is way better.
I was using those attachments you mentioned (plus more of course) and the following lame gear on myself (very old gear)

Kupo head / PUP neck / Domesticator / Rimeice
ACP body / Regimen / xx / xx
Penetrating / Ukko / Kara+1 / Punchinellos

head => haste5%, PDT-10%
body => crit/da iir?
neck => acc/racc+3 (lol)

That's roughly 22% less DT than your build, which is quite something don't get me wrong, but the difference from "almost unkillable" and "destroyed in a few seconds" made me think I was missing something else than "just" DT gear.
Another big mistake was I probably had single Earth maneuver (Earth/Thunder/Light). Didn't react fast enough to swap to multiple earth ones I guess, kinda panicked.

I kinda wanna try again.
No time/gil/will to augment another set of Taeon, but I can easily get earrings and I already have Isa Belt & sheperd's chain

The problem with tanking that Vampire is that it likes using Doom, which might be why your Automaton died so fast.

Do you have the 100 job point gift? That's quite substantial when you stack the two Armor Plates.

Also has anybody toyed with Hybrid builds for physical Automaton?
That is builds where the master engages too.
Foire/Pitre/Karagoz has some nice pieces there. And of course there's Taeon as well if you like RNG.
Maybe Rawhide/Naga too, haven't really looked at them in a hybrid perspective.

In such a build to which stats would you give priority to?
I exclude situations where you need an excessive amount of accuracy because I don't think hybrid builds would ever be viable in such scenarios.
But on content where you need just a little accuracy (or no accuracy at all) it could be fun to toy with such builds.


I'm curious to see what you guys came up with.
Even if probably it never really worked that way, I think that master+pet engaged was the playstyle SE had originally envisioned for the job when they first created it.



@Vidmapire
Yeah I was accounting for Curse to be annoying (does enhanced repair even remove Curse? I don't think so), but that's not what killed me.
Rather a high amount of damaging melee hits with a high DA frequency, unlucky crits and also unlucky sequence of nasty TP moves.
I also panicked because I saw my automaton drop in red so fast and hadn't played the job in such a long time that I made several mistakes.
Of course I have the gift. I have around 200 JPs on PUP iir, bit less than that.

The hybrid set I posted above is pretty solid and serves me well. JSE cape has Martial Arts+20 and Automaton TP Bonus+500 on it. You do not want to know how many stacks of Refractives I had to go through to get that on it though.

Didn't see your hybrid earlier, I apologize.
Looks very similar to what I was working on! I'm honestly really surprised.
I too put Pitre+1 body in my build, recently was wondering about Foire+1 though (which I don't own). Wouldn't that haste+3 be more beneficial for pet damage, with a relatively small cost in terms of master's perfomance?
Similar question for Foire+1 feet in place of Punchinellos.

One of the haste belts? (the one from Delve1 for instance)

Didn't consider Rawhide gloves. I assume you went path C?


In general I noticed you favored acc/att/other stats compared to pet: haste. Is this from personal experience, math, or something else?
I used to believe (from the days of old) that pet haste gave the highest dps increase (until the 25% cap) for the pet.
Things were different when Turbo Charger didn't stack with gear pet haste, but now that it does I was kinda thinking pet: haste to still be the sexiest stat until cap?

Also last question and then I'll stop bothering you for today :P
How do you gear up your sharpshoot for such hybrid builds?
I'm always divided between putting turbochargers (sacrificing other wind element stuff) etc. Dynamo should work on ranged attacks as well, correct?

Guess I annoyed Ruaumoko with too many questions lol, I apologize! xD

Looking at his hybrid, it seems he is building for the instance when he is not using a thunder for whatever reason. Since double wind was a given, before the repair change you ended up using double wind and light a lot just so your automaton didn't die. Now it's less dangerous to swap that light to thunder, but you still have to drop it. Also, he could be doing content over 130, where acc becomes and issue. Although I usually consider that content too dangerous to melee on. Tbh, Automaton damage still kinda sucks compared to master damage, so it's usually the better bet to go full tilt on the master damage side.

As for SS, Turbochargers are still ideal. I also use drum magazine. In my thunder slot, I use coilers. Reason being is that I don't care much about white damage on my auto, I pretty much just want him to WS as often as possible. Either for skillchains or because whatever I am fighting is weak to piercing and he shoots too damn slow to damage any other way.

Yeah I used to equip my SS the same way. Turbo Chargers, Coilers, that thunder attachment that reduces target's evasion (should work on ranged attacks as well) and blah blah.

But recently we received many new attachments (Scope II, that new one for double ranged attacks etc).
Honestly I think I used to go Wind/Thunder/Fire on SS. Is Windx2/Thunder better math-wise?
I never mathed it up, just used common sense and that of course incurs into a high risk of bias.


Anyway, shouldn't dd Valoredge perform nice nowadays? The WS damage should be higher than it used to be, you don't have to worry about many Wind Attachments needed by SS, which kinda frees up slots for other stuff and so on.

Are Turbo Chargers JA haste or gear haste? I'm working on my VE sets.

They're magic haste

Thanks.

Oh, no you didn't. I've just spent the past week traveling across the world back home (UK to New Zealand is literally from one end of the earth to the other) and have only just come back to this thread.


I avoid the AF pieces outright, they just don't seem worth it for either pet stats or for master stats. They're outdone by so many other options.

Hurch'lan Sash is an option certainly, I just prefer to boost my own DPS in that slot since I don't usually pack a whole lot of Pet: Haste gear.

Yes, Rawhide are Path C.

Unfortunately Pet: Haste and Pet: Damage Taken-% share the same augment slot on Duskorb Stones and since I'm a skinflint I cannot be bothered to make a set for both. Besides, I find my VE tanking or in danger of taking pretty big damage quite often. It's therefore good to have a set that makes it near-unkillable.

I usually sub out the two Turbo Chargers for Drum Magazine, Repeater and the Scope II.

Yeah if you want to focus on ranged attack it's hard to give up on those.
By the same lines there's also Naga Kyahan that's a really interesting piece for hybrid or pet builds.

It's slightly less powerful for Sharpshoot (less racc, less ratt), but more powerful for melee attacks.
In terms of master, get more acc, less DEX, 1 more str and 18 more att. Oh and lose STP+15 but gain DA+3%.

Dunno, they're pretty close and similar, but both look very valid.
I do have them both but atm not gonna bother with eschalixirs on Naga, saving gil!

I think the new August update attachments makes gearing for full Pet DT- a lot less important now. Tier IV Auto-Repair kit and Armor Plate, tier III Shock Absorber... it's really, really, really getting hard to kill VE. Especially with recent slashed Repair timer (which I've merited 5/5 too). I think a capped automaton gear haste set with a good bit of acc (or at least heavier automaton haste) is probably more useful in the vast majority of situations, while adding in DT pieces where you can (Anwig Salade DT-10%/Haste +5% is nice, Handler's Earring/+1, Shepherd's Chain, etc.)

Of course, the problem in all scenarios is that no matter how you gear it's still quite difficult to hold hate over something like a strong BST pet... What we REALLY need is better automaton enmity tools.

The problem is that Armor plates don't do ***against magic damage, and that's what is going to wreck your auto 99% of the time anyway. I don't even use VE for tanking much anymore. No reason to use Auto to tank unless you need a real tank, and in that case you're almost certainly worried more about magic damage. SoulSoother/Harle is my go to magic tank. Also pretty damn good at holding hate somehow.