Animator's Workshop: A Puppetmaster's Guide 2.0

PUP got insanely better, with the latest patch even on the damage side.
But if we rule Overdrive out, I'm still not sure it's still on par with BST pets or Avatars, if we consider pure damage only.

Maybe in situations where you can exploit Speedloaders, but in all other situations it's... good, much better than before, but probably not enough that it "smokes everybody else".
Just my two cents of course, not completely accurate either.

Best to keep melee animator on. Having ranged will cause your Automaton's DPS to suffer tremendously.

Hi all,

Relatively new PUP here requesting some advice/information on the current hierarchy of animators.

Looking back at past posts, it seems like Divinator I/II used to be the go-to combo for ilvl 119 content. However, with the recent addition of Animator P/P II, I am wondering if this is still the case.

If the BG-wiki article is correct, it would appear as if Animator P provides the same base stat boost for automatons as Divinator (in addition to the +15~20 base stats listed in the weapon's description?). I am thinking that this means it is no longer necessary to obtain Divinator I/II, but is this correct?

Also, has there been in testing done in regards to what additional stat boost the HQ versions of Animator P provide?

I apologize if this information is listed somewhere else on the forums, but I wasn't able to locate it via the search feature.

Master not being "anywhere close" to the puppet is not my experience at all. Am I missing something, can you explain how you set your Sharpshot attachments/maneuvers?

I do not care if any puppet out DDs "lots of people/jobs". I also see "lots of people" doing stupid things. What I can control is my own damage, so I'm concerned with damage split between master and puppet when using a hybrid set.

Also not concerned with a skewed sample based on something extremely favorable to puppet or master. This is not about a 3min Overdrive zerg (which, yeah, puppet is great on), or mobs that are cherry picked to play to particular strengths or show a good screenshot. Looking for good average scenarios, to get a real sense for sustained damage over time in a typical situation. I'm also aware YMMV in situations where you have a full pet party and are getting COR buffs... I wasn't accounting for any pet COR buffs.

Testing:
I just did some very simple testing, and found it to support my expectation that damage split is more toward master than puppet (though puppet isn't far behind).

Went out to beat on some Apex Crawlers with just me, puppet, and trusts (August, Apururu, Koru, both BRDs). I was finding roughly a 60/40 split in favor of master, including SC damage.

I used both KKK (using Pummel only to maintain AM3, otherwise Smite > AP for light SCs) and Ohtas (Smite only). Similar damage split percentages with both, maybe marginally more favorable for Master with KKK (one of my Ohtas parses was more like 55/45 master/puppet), but I didn't have huge sample sizes. I was just doing like 5-10min parses, then adjusting some attachments/gear and testing again. But the numbers were in line with what I expected, and a larger test would not likely cause a major shift in results.

Even assuming I wasn't using Sharpshot optimally, I have my doubts it would change so severely that Sharpshot was FAR ahead of master no matter what I did. I could see optimizing the puppet to where we maybe get to a roughly 50/50 damage split though, or a slight puppet win.

FWIW, I was using TP sets with capped automaton haste, capped acc for master+puppet, Animator P +1. 1200 gift, the only meaningful gift I still lack is the pet atk one (I also don't have last pet: acc gift, but that's pretty meaningless for this test as I was capped acc anyway).

I'm not really sure I was using an absolutely ideal attachment mix, but did try various combinations of Speedloaders (always using at least one, and sometimes both), always using Optic Fiber I+II and Turbo Charger I+II. I even made sure to give the pet the best shot by making sure I waited to WS until I was sure it would be able to close a SC and get that WS+SC damage.

I didn't really do a lot with Flame Loader, which could skew things on a big flashy screenshot or a very small sample size. For sustained DD, at the rate the puppet gets TP I'd be constantly putting up fire maneuvers only to have them consumed - leaving no time for stuff like wind for haste, or thunder or light. I tended to roll more fire/wind/light.


Yeah, automaton is absolutely not on par with BST pets outside of Overdrive.


In addition to the listed attribute +15/+20 stats on Animator P/+1, the P line gives higher base "ilevel" stats that are not listed. Impacts acc, atk, eva, def, etc. (and likely also other stuff not shown easily with /checkparam, like Meva). IIRC, something like an additional 25ish accuracy from Animator P in addition to accuracy from the listed DEX+15.

The HQ versions of the P-line animators do NOT give additional base stats over the NQ P animators, they ONLY give 5 more of each attribute. And a shiny white box.

So yeah, bottom line is that the P animators, NQ or HQ, make Divinator I/II completely obsolete.

How long does it take you to kill a crawler like that?

Relevant how?

But if it's important to you, um, idk, maybe 2-3 minutes a mob? I just wanted something that stayed alive long enough to get several SCs off without the mob dying too quickly to get a decent sample. Trying to avoid super frequent re-engage/deploy and overkill from WS (and broken SCs from a mob dying before the 2nd WS or chain damage) that could make for a more misleading parse.

If I had a wall with infinite HP I would have gone to punch that instead! Obviously not going for optimizing CP efficiency or anything, I just wanted to punch something that didn't die in 20 sec so I could get a good sense of the damage split.

Not that this information is relevant at all, and most likely known already. Was just messing with math to see how much martial arts was needed to cap delay with haste 1 only, haste 2 only, and how far over capped you are with capped magical haste. Did it with Godhands and KKK since I assume most people will be using either or if actually meleeing(+60, and +49 delay respectively). PUP gets Martial Arts V which is -160 delay, and through JPs and 550 gift gets another -45 for -205 base delay reduction.

For Godhands, max delay reduction is 108 delay. You will need:

Haste 1 = +156 Martial Arts
Haste 2 = +98 Martial Arts
Capped magic haste = pretty much perfectly capped, none needed

For KKK, max delay reduction is 105.8. Will include the +50 in the base of these. You will need :

Haste 1 = +99(149)
Haste 2 = +43(93)
Capped magic haste = severely over capped.

I was working on a longer reply, but I need to do a second round of testing which I cannot due at the moment due to work and ***. I'll go into details about things after that's done, because my tests were against different targets with different parameters. But if I want a proper comparison, I need to fight the exact same target you did. After that is done we have to go into how we are stylistically different and figure out what's more effective anyway. I need a metric of time to gauge performance. Simply knowing your damage split isn't going to tell me if it took you two minutes or ten. I'll get back to you tonight with a proper reply.

Yeah, for PUP (assuming 20/20 JPs and 550 gift), general rule of thumb is that any time you're getting capped magical haste you don't need additional MA, regardless of weapon. Any of the delay+60 or faster weapons are actually gonna be slightly over capped. Even a delay+96 weapon (Denouements, for instance) is almost right at cap - actually need like 2~3 MA to cap, but it's so close as to be fairly irrelevant.

FWIW, all of this is basically the same for MNK: MNK has MA-200 from MA7 trait. PUP has the same when accounting for MA-160 from MA5 trait, plus MA-40 from 20/20 JP. Then PUP actually gets a slight bit more due to the MA-5 550JP gift. So, almost all the same gearing decisions with some minor exceptions (e.g. Glanzfaust delay+96, you'd be ~8 MA under cap so might want to toss on one MA piece)

KKK is the oddball H2H weapon, in that if you're getting capped magical haste you're already well past delay cap thanks to the MA on the weapon. The OA2-3x AM3 is still strong enough to make it a good weapon (especially considering that it affects the puppet too), but it's reasonable to intentionally avoid getting capped magical haste, and hit the cap with a little bit of MA gear as necessary. For instance, if you're getting 2x Marches, a GEO Haste, or SMN Hastega II... ask your mages NOT to toss you an additional haste spell (and instead hit the cap with some MA gear).

If you're getting Haste II (or equivalent) only, or less:
If you're in a situation where you aren't getting capped magical haste, KKK gets that much better than the other weapons thanks to the large amount of MA.

With Haste II only, KKK can cap delay reduction with approx. MA-40. Lots of good ways to do that, I personally like 2x Mache Earrings, Hizamaru+1 head, and Cirque Necklace.

With any non-KKK weapon, if you're only getting Haste II level magical haste, you're not capping delay regardless of how much MA gear you stack. For instance, Godhands would need ~MA-95 in gear, which is not possible even with every viable MA piece (say, the ones I noted in previous paragraph plus a MA-20 Dispersal Mantle and Empy legs... stuff like Shaolin Belt and Count's Cuffs aren't worth using regardless).

Godhands:
A note on Godhands... they're clearly a great master-only weapon. However, since we've established that at a minimum, the puppet is pretty close to master as far as DPS goes (even if it's a 60/40 split in favor of master like I was finding), losing OA2-3x AM3 on the puppet from Kenkonken is a huge hit to your overall master+puppet damage. That's why I tend to view Godhands as more of a "MNK weapon", or at least for PUP only if punching stuff while not using a DD puppet.

The recent continual buffs to the puppet is actually what convinced me to finally afterglow my KKK (which is honestly a bit disappointing for an "ultimate weapon" in terms of master damage), since the OA2-3x is such a gigantic puppet buff when it's viable to keep AM3 active.

If things change some day to where H2H WS get majorly beefed up or something, maybe that makes Godhands better for PUP thanks to the much higher base DMG and TP Bonus over KKK.

MA/delay cap and master/puppet damage split:
This whole conversation also relates a bit to the master/puppet damage split discussion we've been having, in that it's very possible that your buff situation could affect things. If you aren't at capped delay reduction, that obviously favors the puppet more since puppet doesn't need any attack speed buffs outside of Turbo Chargers/wind maneuvers (magical haste) and capped pet: haste gear. A near 50/50 split between master/puppet assuming you're capped on master delay reduction turns into an easy puppet win if you're in a situation with something like master only getting Haste 1.


Cool, I'll send some more notes too if I get a chance to get any more data.

The main points I wanted to be sure of, which should be important regardless of target to get a good sense of damage split:

* Both master and puppet at/near capped accuracy
* Master capped delay
* Automaton capped gear haste. I used Ohtas/Visucius's/Klouskap, or when using KKK I tossed on a Taeon Chapeau (pet haste+5%/DA+5) and Thurandaut Ring to make up for losing Ohtas.
* Constant attachments: Turbo Charger I+II (and running 1 Wind Maneuver), Optic Fiber I+II

The specific mix of fire/thunder attachments was something I assume might be tweaked to perform better than what I had, and I played with that a bit. I was pretty much always using at least one Speedloader and a Tension Spring IV though.

PUP being a skillchain machine makes Godhands semi appealing. Radiance helps make up for PUPs shortcomings a bit. Shijin > AP > Smite > AS > Smite does really good damage. Not like doing Shijin really hurts your damage, since all H2H ws suck.

You can get +100 MA. But, you would be sacrificing pet haste. Hizamaru+1 head +10, Cirque Necklace +10, Mache Earrings +1 x2 26, Shaolin Belt +10, Empy +1 legs +12, Disperal Mantle +20, and three pieces of Rao +1 +12. But, even then you can remove the mantle and shaolin belt for +70 and not sacrifice pet haste.

Good call on the set bonus from Rao+1, forgot all about that. I guess that's an option, when needed.

But yeah, probably worth just dealing with less than capped delay instead of using something like Shaolin Belt. To that point, I'd honestly be surprised if it's even worth using 3 pieces of Rao+1 for MA+12 over otherwise excellent stuff like Herc hands/feet/body (but maybe two pieces for MA+8 set bonus...).

Plus there's the cost. Sets requiring 3x Abj+1 gear and Mache+1 x2 (what's that, 100mil each?) seems... kinda unrealistic? If you're gonna be that heavily dedicated of a DD, you can probably figure out a setup where you just get capped haste and don't need hundreds of millions of gil worth of prestige pieces ;)

Or just get KKK lol. If we're talking SC machine, an OA2-3x master/puppet sure does crank them out!

Good point about Godhands though, certainly a useful weapon and the kind of use you laid out makes a whole lot of sense as the best way to utilize them on PUP (and to twist the knife a little, another way MNK is way worse off than PUP). I'd be interested to see if that beats KKK assuming you are getting capped magical haste. It's a hard one to gauge through spreadsheet though, since it's also very reliant on SC frequency and what kind of backline support you have to MB off all that SC-spam and take advantage of it.

Rao +1 is pretty cheap if you know a Woodworker. I haven't tried for Rao+1 yet though since I have had 4 DT on my taeon for a while. As for Mache +1, I have one that I made from my mule. Mostly have it for a high acc, and cdc piece at the moment. As for Rao +1 for a TP slot, looking at the three slots I mentioned. The feet and body look decent for TPing, the hands are pretty meh though.

Don't really get in many situations where I am on PUP and I get to melee. Generally I am on WHM, and if I am on PUP it is just to tank Schah or something.

Currently writing one sorta. It's harder than you might think. There's a remarkable amount of disagreement about how and in what order to do things, which means either you account for every possibilities or test everything and figure out the most optimal option.

Yeah that's the thing... we're spending a lot of time talking about something (melee) that isn't really PUP's ideal use anyway. For endgame stuff harder than CPing or Ambuscade, PUP's more likely use is as a fantastic tank.

But whatever, it's at least a competent DD when the situation calls for melee, and as a die hard PUP I'm gonna do it as well as I can! It does hold up as a solid enough DD. Tonight I was doing some easy stuff, like Escha-sky T2s. I was on /WHM to tank, but switched over to totally non-optimal melee setup with a bad subjob and still ended up me+puppet beating a couple solid players on their pretty good but not elite BLU THF. So, I mean, it's not like PUP trying to DD is meleeBRD or anything...


Yeah that's why I forgot about Rao+1, I generally prefer Taeon anyway and besides I'm currently on a Meva kick for funsies and experimenting. 4/5 Taeon with Meva 22+, 20 on my Ohrmazd, plus what we get from ilevel/pet level (Ambuscade cape, plus AFAIK the new animators add more Meva). That's a good bit stacked, plus occasional Geo-Vex on an NM means maybe it's enough to get above floored Meva...

I haven't played pup in a minute and have a few questions.

1. What does the new repair effect merit do? Does it improve initial heal/regen or both?

2. I see what augmented gear are good for tanking (rao, dt/regen/meva taeon, mini-expansion head), but what about pet DD/hybrid master pet DD? What pet augments can you get on herc/condemners?

3. Does animator P increase automaton meva a decent amount or is that still worthlessly low?

4. Does the new mana jammer include bdt or is it just mdt?

1. Derp. Pretty sure it is just 2% total per merit on the initial heal.
2. When it comes to pet DD gear, generally herculean is best. The augments range all over the place from pet acc/attack, pet stp, double attack, int/str/dex/vit, mab/macc etc. Condemners are generally the same, except they get damage +, and pet damage taken -(capping at 5%).

As for hybrid DD, you generally want to cap your Automaton's haste first. Which is easily done now with the new gear added. Ohtas get +70 acc, Pet +70 acc, and Pet haste +10%, Visucius's Mantle(Ambuscade) can be augmented an array of augments. My hybrid mantle currently is augmented with acc and attack +20, pet acc and attack +20, and pet haste +10%. Leaving you with a little over 5% to cap your Automaton's haste, in which you have a lot of options. I use the new Klouskap Sash since I do not use Ohtas in my hybrid set, but rather Godhands. Which is DEF:16 Accuracy+15 Haste+8% Pet: Accuracy+15 Ranged Accuracy+15 Haste+8%, and the HQ is DEF:17 Accuracy+20 Haste+9% Pet: Accuracy+20 Ranged Accuracy+20 Haste+9%. Giving you a lot of options.


As for 3 and 4, not sure. Don't think anyone really has tested 3. But with the addition of Optic fiber II, Automatons are almost impossible to kill with a good tank set, besides like Doom.

Mostly wondering about the meva for rao vs taeon. I'd rather not bother with skirmish augments if the meva isn't going to do anything against high tier content.

My Godhands are pretty to look at but in nearly every situation where I parse, KKK does better, even in Ambuscade where the mob is below 70% before I even activate a 300 TP aftermath.

I don't use MNK for anything except the occasional salvage run (Bhaflau II cerbs) so I am glad to use them on MNK since they blow everything else out of the water for MNK.

You have to work surprisingly hard to fire off any Radiance chains. Other DDs often get in the way, or the mobs are dead before you can do it. So occasionally you get in a few thousand extra light damage. Almost always less than the damage from a KKK AM3.

I'm a bit skeptic about KKK always outparsing GH even without AM3 up O.O
Maybe in situations where you're far from being hastecapped... and I guess KKK helps with damage if you spam SP since it does ~30% more damage than Vsmite (but then again GH have much higher base damage and allow you to spam Raging Fists thanks to the >600 TP bonus)

Sooo uhm I can see the benefits of KKK and I can totally see KKK winning in some situations, especially with AM3 up, but what you said? Uh... don't wanna call you a liar because I have no means to, but at the same time I'm having a hard time fully believing you D:

I mean, if you're going to have situations where you're not really coordinating with other people, or people are ruining skillchains. That is obvious that KKK will outparse Godhands if you're trying to skillchain and it isn't happening. As Sechs said, if that is the situation you're better off spamming Raging Fists.

Well, he didn't say without AM3 up totally. Just gave the example of something like Ambuscade where it takes a large chunk of the fight time to even get 3k TP to start AM3 up. On longer fights, once you have AM going KKK obviously starts pulling away.

Edit: Though, I think it was Tru who mentioned a while back that in these kind of instanced/starting at 0 TP short fights, you do have the option of stacking Heat Capacitor I+II, 3x Fire at start, Tactical Switch = voila, there's your 3k TP and starting at AM3. You lose some puppet fire capacity, but well worth it when you're talking about a 3 minute fight where you'd otherwise be struggling to get TP before the fight is halfway over.

And again, don't get stuck on comparing master WS/SC with one weapon to master WS/SC with another. I know I might be beating this into the ground and everyone here realizes it when they think about it, but it's sometimes easy to forget that KKK also means greatly increased puppet WS frequency, with a lot of those WS causing puppet lv3 SCs with Speedloaders.

I'm still in the Godhands are made for MNK camp (though certainly not bad for PUP in a master-only situation).


Depending on party members, I think I disagree that spamming Raging Fists is really better. From pure WS damage, sure. But it has pretty lousy SC properties (Impaction).

When you consider the benefit of stronger SCs and any potential MBs, I'd rather spam something that makes a decent lv.3 SC with my party members (or my puppet), i.e. Smite or Pummel. Even if it's not super coordinated and predictable for SCs, I think any melee DD understands that it's pretty common to get an "accidental" light SC if you're tossing out Smites with a CdC-happy BLU in the party. Over time, I'd guess that in most situations those additional lv3 SCs outweigh any advantage from considering only the damage from the H2H WS itself.

Also, this idea that H2H WS are awful... I mean, they could use a bit of a buff and it's not up to like CdC or stacked Rudra level. But I'm still busting out 10k+ pummel/smites pretty regularly, and my puppet closing with what turns into a pretty respectable WS+SC. It's not THAT bad, especially since we're not MNKs and we get a good puppet to go along with our own fists. And while all jobs get some fantastic Ambuscade WS capes, for something like Smite/Pummel, STR+30/Crit+10% is one of the more amazing ones...

Stupid request, but if you guys have an account on the FFXI forums, please go there and increase the "Likes" of THIS THREAD or simply bump it by making a new post.

I doubt it's gonna make a difference because jp devs hardly ever care for non-jp forum posts, but nonetheless it is worth trying.
I doubt SE will ever fix by adding Meva and Macc to animators, but even if they were to simply change the element of Tranquilizers that might be enough to make mage puppets somewhat useable again.

id like to know how to spit out 10k smites/pummels regularly. <.< mine do 3k-5k at best solo, 7k tops in a party... and that's pretty rare.

You need a KKK I guess? And some buffs lolz

Was doing 10k+ on like 128 mobs, but once you get higher even with buffs it is awful lol

Yeah obviously gonna depend on targets, but I'm talking stuff like VD Ambuscade, Apex mobs, etc. Not crazy buffs, maybe a Dunna GEO at best for the fairly trivial situations I usually end up meleeing with PUP. It's not that uncommon to see 10k+ WS when you get a crit on Smite or KKK-enhanced Pummel though. I should remember to get a WSavg parse next time I do some sustained melee on PUP though, see how much I am being swayed by eyeballing the bigger spikes.

I mean, those same kinds of situations I'm also gonna see 18-20k CdCs on my BLU with similar frequency though. So I'm not saying H2H WS are hanging up there with the best. But considering that most of my H2H WS are followed up with a decent puppet WS and lv3 SC, all in all PUP isn't THAT weak in the overall WS/SC damage department (but like I said before, MNK... yeesh, different story).


Ah, good call yeah. I forgot Tenacity was a trait! I think Resisters are indeed similar enough to the player Tenacity trait that it makes sense to use that label. Gonna go change that right now.

And THANK YOU for the great work on updating that page!!!

Eh, when I swap off of BLU to PUP in the same event I feel like I am killing the party in damage comparison. Having pretty much everything for BLU and mostly everything for PUP it really isn't close. The Automaton makes up for a little, but generally the Automaton doesn't really do that much damage for stuff like Ambuscade. When you are doing 20-40k Expiacions and 12-35k CDCs comparing it to 3-6k Smites and 3-6k weaponskills from your Automaton it is depressing.

Don't get me wrong, I try to make people suffer and go PUP anyway a few times a month, but H2H ws damage is really bad lol