String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

How come on the bg wiki guide I don't see Tension Spring in any of the auto attachments for DPS style autos? Does it only affect melee attack and not ranged attack?

There's simply no room for it as other attachments are more important. You can typically compensate the lack of attack with Attuner, Grape Daifuku, Beast Roll and Frailty.

If you were thrown into a melee dps pty on pup and getting brd/cor/geo buffs, which REMA would you use and which WS for max DPS? Would you use a Combined TP set for master/auto or go more Master focused set for yourself?

Right now I have R15 Godhands and R25 Xiucoatl Path C and I find most dps comes from Godhands Victory Smite (I'm working on Kenkonken but mostly for Manuevers. Admittedly I don't have Stringing Pummel at the moment because I just haven't been bother lol). I feel like Howling Fist doesn't spike well without all the triple attack from Kendat monks get

HF is useful because of its massive Attack bonus, which will let you cap out Damage Limit+ much easier (Trait and JSE neck+1/+2), but it also scales very well with TP overflow. And PUP does get a decent amount of multiattack to make HF work very well, such as Tali'ah body, Herculean, all the same accessories as MNK and of course /WAR.

VSmite can hit hard, but depending on your Crit gear any additional TP will do relatively little to improve its damage. You'd be better off using Karambit + VSmite for the STR+20 rather than Godhands or Xiucoatl as neither TP Bonus nor WSD do very much for a static fTP WS. You also would have to wear one Mache Earring (+1) fewer to cap delay like you would with GH/Xiu, freeing up your ear slot for Dedition or Telos.

In any case, just from eyeballing I feel like I've been able to do the most damage with R15 Kenkonken and spamming SPummel, but I still need to get some solid parses done to compare the weapons if I can ever find the time.

Ya, not happening lazy way.

How do Magniplugs really work? Is it WSD for automaton or something else?


Also I was thinking of a strange, preposterous, blasphemous use of the pet during Divergence runs.
Runs where you wanna focus on master damage because of the buffs you receive etc
In this scenario you're not even gonna have the time to engage your pet on the majority of stuff. Basically everything except Red Eyes NMs and Aurix.

So I was thinking to use a setup focusing on ranged attacks, that way you can use it during occasional perfect dodges and also to apply def down on the enemies with Ranged WS from the pet.


Considering you're not gonna have any pet dedicated gear on yourself, which attachments would you use?
I think for this strange setup we free up a lot of space by not requiring Turbo Chargers or melee accuracy, we can dedicate this space for other attachments.

Here's what I was thinking:
Optic Fiber1+2
ARK4
Tension Spring V
Attuner
Target Marker
Dynamo II (works on ranged attacks too, right?)
Scope IV
Scope II
Drum Magazine
Repeater
Truesights

That's it.
I was thinking to remove the ARK4 for something else though. Barrage thing? Since the pet won't be engaged often, you won't use maneuvers often, so the Burden thing shouldn't be an issue.
The same can be side for Fire Maker though.



Well that's all for me, I know this sounds crazy but I'm curious to hear what other more dedicated PUPs think about this strange idea.

Seems like +DMG added to puppet weapon.

It's a base damage bonus to melee and ranged attacks.


Shortly after SE adjusted Barrage Turbine and added Truesights I actually posted a lot about a pure Sharpshot/Sharpshot setup and how it performs (see this post and read the following pages, but note that all the damage shown is with Vorseals, Xiucoatl C and pet gear). Fablinix actually added my suggested attachment setup along with my observations to String Theory before he went MIA:

Triple Wind for general use

Sharpshot Head
Sharpshot Frame
Inhibitor
Inhibitor II
Magniplug
Magniplug II
Attuner
Truesights
Barrage Turbine
Repeater
Drum Magazine
Scope IV
Optic Fiber
Optic Fiber II

Obviously you would have to drop double Inhibitors in Alliance content, so the highest tier of Tension Spring you can fit is a good choice along with Stabilizer IV (the accuracy actually affectes both melee and ranged accuracy; Scope is R.Acc. only for some reason).

It's pretty decent with the right buffs, but it generally has trouble with overloading and TP speed if you aren't getting Companion's Roll. However, if you are wearing zero pet gear whatsoever it might have a better time hitting stuff than a melee SS as you said, due to the lack of Pet: Haste.

Oh that's something new about Stabilizer, thought they were Melee Acc only and that Target Marker was the only thunder-based Attachment that affected both melee and ranged.
Nice! Thanks :D

Last run I went in on PUP things were dying so fast I felt my pet was truly useless except on Red Eyes. With a pet like this I can possibly engage THFs who perfect dodged as well and spend the rest of the time focusing on master damage.


Btw can you confirm if Dynamo affects Ranged attacks as well?

Maton Ranged Attacks can't crit because they are JAs, so Dynamo doesn't do anything to my knowledge.

Usually when I PUP for Dyna it's because I want it to tank the wave 2 boss and hold groups of wave 3 fomors (turtle tank method). I've found that if farming wave 1-2, my preference is to focus solely on master DPS, and use the puppet for one of the following:

a) Puppet to grab mobs that have been popped and be sort of a "first voke" (even to sometimes go solo something with minimal fear of death; I especially like to stick the puppet on BST mobs right away to neutralize any risk of charm)

b) Puppet to actually pull the statue, and let mobs beat on it while others grab them off the indestructible automaton

c) Occasionally if the party is a little slow to kill the statues or you aren't going with a lot of magical WS users, BLM puppet helps knock those out very nicely.

d) If you're really struggling on jobs because everyone wants to come farm for points/clears on [some melee]... WHM RDM heads can help if you're in an oddball 3rd party or something, with no real healer or lacking hastes. This is more of a case of dealing with a less than ideal setup, but it's nice to have the additional flexibility in such a situation.

Of course, for a/b above, can also use the puppet to straight up tank the red eyes champion mobs.

I've used a RDM/support pet once when I was in the "mules pt" with no support at all lol.
Was cool!

But the last few times I was in one of the two "proper" pts and I was getting support and really there was no need to do anything (useful) that you mentioned.
I felt like any action I tried to undertake was producing no significant result for our alliance, but only reducing my DPS :x

So yeah towards the end of the run I started to sorta ignore the pet and engaging it only on Red eyes etc.

What I usually do when stuff dies too fast from my own DPS is to engage my maton on an entirely separate monster to solo while I take my own. As long as no other DD in your alliance targets the maton's mob it can dish out a decent amount of damage while you run around killing your own stuff.

Good targets include BSTs, MNKs, THFs and PLDs since those mobs are usually ignored until other trash is dead due to their 1hrs, but a maton won't care.

This is my current OD set. Besides the SU5 weapon and Cait ring, both I'm working towards, is there anything better I can do?

I am working on the upgraded body. It is still not unlocked. I do not have the Adoulin ring.

How hard was it for you to get those pet augments? Just curious

Not hard for me actually. Maybe a full stack of ferns? It was a while ago so I don't remember that well

I was around the same.

Are there any fights that require magic eva taeon augment for pup tank? So far I haven't felt a need for it and have been just fine with Rao +1 set.

I'm wondering if I could save some inventory and do without this set...

I'm a bit confused by your set, do you mean a pet tp set instead of your OD set?

I haven't had too many fights where magic evasion was as critical as MDT. In most cases, you'll be fine with rao set alone. The Taeon tank set was mainly created for OD in Ambu against I think the frog and became recognized as useful elsewhere. Basically, Rao is to PLD as Taeon is to RUN. Hopefully someone isn't too touched by that previous statement.

You did not need the M.Eva Taeon set for that fight either. Acc/DA/DT were/are the augments for Taeon on that fight.

You are correct

No. It's what I use for OD. By the comment I assume I am doing this wrong...?

Double Inhibitors with 1 Fire Maneuver under OD will give your VE/SS Automaton a 3-hit including WS even if the Relic body and Enmerkar are its only sources of additional STP. Plus Automatons tend to hit an extra few times before any WS in addition to having TP Bonus+1050, making the contribuation from additional STP gear relatively small.

What pup senpai said ^

Your set looks like the tp set on the excellent guide over at bg-wiki String Theory

"Pet Only TP Sets"

For OD set examples i use the "Pet WS Sets" info

and aerix's sets

https://www.ffxiah.com/player/Shiva/Aerix#item-sets

So I've downloaded this lua for PUP: https://github.com/atperry7/pup_gearswap/releases

And I'm confused with the Auto Maneouver functionality. It seems to be off (I even checked turning it off/on) but my character still seems to randomly use them itself in battle after I use some myself. Is there something else that could be causing this?

Had a feeling something was off. Thank you!

And yes, I was using the Pet TP as my OD set....

To clarify, the sets in question are:

SS/VE:
ItemSet 353094

SS/VE for newer PUPs:
ItemSet 365623

SoS/VE or VE/VE OD:
ItemSet 368676

Please note that not all of the sets in my profile are up-to-date. If something feels out-of-date or off, please ask me about it before using.

Thanks Aerix! Right now I have 2 Varar +1, Ohtas and incarnation belt but that is the only spots I differ for now

If you don't have Thurandaut Ring and don't plan on getting it, then Varar (+1) + Cath Palug Ring are fine, but you'll have to compensate the lack of Pet: Haste elsewhere.

This is alternative setup that doesn't require any Superior equipment, hard-to-get drops nor very expensive buyables (Tali'ah +1 is also still fine):

ItemSet 373421

Please note all SS/VE setups use Dispersal Mantle from Reives with Pet: TP Bonus+500, while SoS/VE and VE/VE setups use Visucius's Mantle from Ambuscade.