Animator's Workshop: A Puppetmaster's Guide 2.0

Delivers a fourfold attack. Additional Effect: Defense Down. Effect duration varies with TP.

?? Or is desc wrong again?

SE has been very inconsistent with their descriptions. Actually where did that description come from anyways we can't view automaton ws descriptions can we?

Either way it's completely hit or miss you'll never see damaging indicative of some hits hitting and some not and pretty sure you don't get more tp from that ws than others

slapstick i think is another.


As far as armor shatter; see the wiki (i think its more of a deals 4x damage, not 4x hits)

Despite being a multi-hit weapon skill, Armor Shatterer is incredibly consistent in terms of damage dealt.

Its consistency remains even if the skill is executed on an enemy near death, it will still deal full damage.

It is not actually a "normal" multi-hit weapon skill. It will never hit 1/4, 2/4, or 3/4 times; it will always either hit 4/4 or miss completely.

Its not 4 hits. It just looks that way. Just like mercy, just like onslaught, just like metsu

That's entirely my fault, I have a habit of mashing the cancel button since I at times accidentally pull up my macros unintentionally.

Has anybody else looked at Dragoon's Collar +2 and wished so badly that it was for PUP? The stats would be so perfect for Stringing Pummel/Victory Smite and would give us a ton more leeway with Heyoka for Automaton tanking...

The wiki description came from the update that added it.

Atleast pup kind of won on dyna wep? But yeah pretty shoddy neck pup got vs the other pet jobs, ah well.

Probably been asked before in here somewhere but lolsearch would be great if it ever worked.

For all intents and purposes, Attuner should always be better than Tension spring(s) right? Assuming it works on everything? When bolstered frailty isn't in play.

Pretty much strictly for ambuscade.

Anyone have a basic set for doing a bit more damage this month's ambuscade? Got a 1200 PUP in fairly minimal gear (no JSE/su3, using Ohtas lol) and survival is absolutely zero issue, but not sure what to push to get more damage.

ItemSet 361384

Herc pieces can get a good amount of pet acc/att and STP+10~ if you're willing to mess around with augmenting. Herc in place of Pitre Tobe+3, mantle with Acc/Atk & Pet: Acc/R.Acc/Atk/R.Atk +10% Haste.

Swap in Rao+1 pieces Path C as needed for pet DT

Assuming your pet's accuracy isn't an issue, there's a couple of changes I'd make to the set that was posted by Lanun in response to your post.

Most everything he posted is perfect. Plenty of accuracy, plenty of Pet: Store TP. What's missing is Pet: Attack, which is what you're looking for.

Get yourself the 119 Empyrean legs for PUP. Karagoz Pantaloni +1, and also get yourself some Naga Kyahan. Both of those pieces together gives your Automaton a total of +33 to all of it's skills (melee, ranged, magic) which increases both it's accuracy and attack stats. Also, Naga Kyahan can also be augmented (Path D) with an additional Pet: Accuracy +25 and Pet: Attack +25. Both of those augments apply to Ranged Attacks as well, assuming you're using the Ranger puppet.

Also, if you're not in the mood to screw with the randomness of trying to get the perfect pet specific augment on Herculean pieces, replace the Herc hands in Lanun's set with Foire Dastanas +3. Though it has no Pet: Store TP, it should help you cap your pet's Haste while boosting it's accuracy and reducing your chance of Overloading in case you're spamming Fire Maneuvers for that extra bit of firepower.

Eiryl

Yes, if your target is an NM or > your level, you always use attuner. Being as tanking is a 0 issue this month i use ve head + rng body and use light - fire - fire. Strobe 2, attunner, tension spring 4.


As far as pet damage. Lamia take good damage to piercing, so VE head + RNG body, and arcuballista is a winner. With karagoz head +1 and JSE cape from Adoulin, you can have a pet tp piece and a pet ws piece. Since you should be doing nothing as a master, swapping between a pet TP / WS set is pretty much mandatory.

I keep seeing a lot of ve/ve or whm/ve build pups this month and its just not needed.

Well, people, don't get it. They don't "play" pup, so they just use the full tank.

Yeah, it's annoying.

Same thing happens with runefencers. Some of them just insist on full turtle.

but theyre tank classes, why would a tank class DPS? That doesnt make sense!

It's still a BiS for *something*, it's just that the something is a kind of lame thing (pet nuking). +1/+2 are clearly BiS, and even the fully augmented NQ neck arguably beats the previously best option of Adad Amulet if Macc is sufficient (NQ collar has 5 more MAB, 5 less Macc), and can probably be had for a very cheap price.

I suppose it's also worth noting that it's a good max acc set piece too, for master and pet. Particularly the +1/+2 versions, maybe not so much the NQ for having to give up something like Shulmanu and its atk/DA for a minor acc boost from having same acc/more DEX).


No huge disagreements, but I have several related comments:

1) Worth noting for those who might not be aware - top priority is always capping pet equipment haste (which is separate from Turbo Chargers' "magical" haste). Lanun's set does that with weapon/back/feet, but it's perhaps useful to throw out there that there are lots of other good automaton haste options these days, particularly Heyoka set and Klouskap Sash (which all also feature strong acc and no atk).

2) Not that I take major exception with Lanun's suggestions, perfectly solid set. But a minor tweak, if using Ohtas I'd prob lean more toward using belt slot for Klouskap and free up feet for Naga path D or STP Herculean (though I'm normally using Kenkonken whenever there's a situation that allows me to get AM3 up for the puppet, so I do need more haste and often do use Tali'ah +2 feet precisely for that reason - along with JSE back and Klouskap).

3) If you're not so hardcore of a PUP as to have upgraded to Pitre+3 body, also worth mentioning that even the lv119 +1 version is good for pet TP phase - though obviously the Divergence-enhanced pieces are superior. Same goes for Varar Ring +1, NQs are just fine if you don't want to invest a ton into PUP.

4) If you're looking for pet atk, Pitre Taj +2/+3 is another really strong source, along with Pitre body. Don't forget that the Taj also gives you up to 5% pet: crit dmg with 5/5 Optimization merits. Definitely a worthwhile consideration for pet offense builds.


Perfectly fine suggestion for an acc/haste piece. Though the Overloading reason is kinda unnecessary, since you should really be swapping AF hands in for maneuvers regardless - both for the overload prevention AND for the maneuver associated attribute boost.

Capuchin pretty much nailed it. Never skimp on the Haste, it'll make the biggest difference for TP gain and overall DPS.


Skipping Wind Maneuver is a big no-no outside of Overdrive. STP and Attack are great, but you're looking a at difference between 18% (no Wind) and capped magic haste on the Automaton with double TCs. Inhibitors can't make up for that.

For full VE sure but Wind maneuver forces SS to use Armor-Shatter over Arcuballista, the latter being a much stronger ws. Fire maneuver also increases store-tp and attack power so its not really as much of a trade off.

If your SS fires 2-3 WSs in the time it takes you to do one Arcuballista, then you're not losing out on damage. Not to mention the Defense Down paired with a follow-up Armor Piercer for Gravitation more than makes up for it.

You would have to be crazy to not use wind maneuvers

I guess if you were playing pup the wrong way, and using the "full ranger" auto at distance, then it really doesn't matter what you use, you're doin it wrong anyway...

Given the context it sounds like still using inhibitor so should still be doing AS then AP after the arcu

Also you guys forget the 3rd way. The bring a cor way

And to think of things another way:

Would you seriously rather equip 18% gear haste on a melee job and use a somewhat stronger WS? Or cap haste and go nuts with the 2nd best WS (with a defense down effect, no less)? I would hope it's obviously the latter, so the logic doesn't change when you're talking about an automaton.

The Automaton's TP gain would never be fast enough to self-skillchain without a Wind Maneuver.

Not entirely true, but he was saying; you're going to use AP SS and Arcu when used properly, the auto skillchains and doesn't get to just spam any one move

Speaking of, cannibal blade sucks.

I keep 1 light and 2 fire up in my pet tp set. My automaton Self-skillchains.

Over and over. but I have 4/5 herc pieces w/ 10~11 store tp each.

Is that on regular mobs or on Frigg? Because Frigg has a short-lived Additional Effect: Petrification on her auto-attacks that will slow the maton down in between.

In any case, I'll parse double Fire/Light with STP gear vs. Fire/Wind/Light on Apex sometime cause I'm pretty certain the former would be less DPS overall. I assume you use Condemners with 10 STP, as well.

Thats on Normal Mobs.

Petrification from Frigg will stop the skillchain either way.

I don't really have the patience for Frigg w/out Overdrive.

My maton is often able to catch up with TP to SC on Frigg even if Petrify lands sometimes.

Also, were you using Companion's Roll while doing double Fire / Light or just the standard Beast/Drachen? Because relying on Companion's Roll to be able to SC wouldn't exactly make double Fire/Light viable. There's a big difference in DPS when you WS to close a SC right after the window opens vs. WSing just a second before the window closes.

In any case, double Fire/Wind works nicely because you're only like 3-4% Haste below cap, but that means no Regen to keep the maton alive aside from Repair, which makes it less cost-effective for Ambu.

Eh? Companions roll aint that slow unless you aint meleeing. Though that said if was relying on it would probably be more along the lines of thunder, fire and light than double fire light. Longer skillchains mean less automaton think time

I didn't say it was slow, but if you need it to be able to hit 1k TP in time to skillchain, your DPS isn't exactly great to begin with. That's assuming Xilkk was using it at all, which he might not.