String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

Ok I've tried this for like 30 runs (got 2 of the 3 drops I wanted after all! :D) on normal and I have to say it normally works like a charm.

Sometimes you don't even need the food (I usually go with Kusamochi) but some other times it's an utter failure and you finish Overdrive with Cait Sith being at 10% health left, once it was at 36% HP left for me. That's too much to hope to finish the fight with Heady Artifice and Repair. I mean a few % sure, but over 10% noway.


What is the cause of this "random" aspect? I can think of two things:
1) I used overdrive a few seconds too late, Cait Sith managed to land a debuff on my Automaton (slowing down its damage) and I didn't notice and didn't use Maintenance
2) Cait Sith used Benediction too late (under 40% HP)

Can't think of anything else.
Oh of course my gear is nothing special, with better gear I'm sure it would be no issue.
I use:

Othas (aug), Animator P+1
Karagoz+1 / Shulmannu / Enmerkar / Domesticator's
Mirke Wardecors / Foire+3 / Varar+1 / Varar+1
Ambu cape / Incarnation Sash / Taeon / Punchinellos

Karagoz because of the TP bonus, served me right when soloing Kam'lanaut VD.
Mirke Wardecors... eh... for the DA/Crit+3%? lol. I want to use Pitre+3 but I haven't unlocked body yet alas.
Ambu cape has: Pet Acc+30, Att+20, Haste+10
Taeon has: Acc/Att+24, DT-4%, DA+4%


Edit:
Noticed my Automaton holds TP way more than I'd like it to be. Very often over 2500 TP, sometimes he gets stuck at 3k TP.
I wonder why? Does it mean he's affected with Amnesia? Parlayze? Something else? Or just the AI being clunky?
He holds so much it reduces the benfit of the 550 TP bonus from my hat...

In my experience, it's all about mewing lullaby. If she uses it when auto is holding tp like you mentioned, it can waste a lot of your precious time since the auto won't even ws at exactly 1k tp after slowly building tp back up. I would say I personally can afford 2 or 3 unlucky mewing. More than that and I'm out of OD before she dies.

Another random factor you already noticed is the time she Benediction, which varies by quite a few %HP. Couple that wit the previous reason and it can get pretty random.

I also noticed the very beginning of the fight is crucial for survival (not so much for finishing on time). I did a few runs in the pats where I would OD a bit late and once your auto gets hit a few times without OD it can be a pain to keep hp up for the rest of the fight.
My routine now is: pop trust, eat food, roll, maneuvers. Then I run in with Ventriloquy on target select. As soon as she aggro, I activate Ventriloquy, deploy, OD. Then I run at 29+ and focus on maneuvers. I go in every now and then for a repair if she's being excited. Without the ventriloquy thing, I used to get hit at the start of the fight and one day I got 2 crits and died like a fool. Another day I got paralyzed before using OD >.<

Let me tell you, I envy you for getting 2 items in 30ish runs. I've been doing this like 50+ times on N and never got anything other than mats. I just want the damn ring.

Don't you TH your runs? I always TH4.

Guess I've been a bit lucky so far getting Crown and Earring, it's karma saying sorry for my Odin D runs with TH8+ (over 20 runs, no drop at all lmao)

How do you TH as /cor? you just engage? When I do that it usually gets ugly. I die or she lands an nasty debuff. I only have the rarab hat and delve belt for TH too so I never found it worth it. I should probably give it another try.

If you got that costume gun you could do a quick shot to land th

I have built a custom TP set that has TH4 and lots of DT.
I land a hit, my tank trust will voke immediately so I don't die, then I walk away to 29+ yalms, as I walk away I deploy and overdrive, maneuvers are up from pre-pull.

On my very first attempts I died miserably because of what happened to you or because I ran too far (30! lol) and trusts disengagedand hell broke loose or because I simply have been too slow getting out of range, eating a 2k+ Holyga that kill me.


The initial pull on Cait Sith normal is a bit tricky, need to be fast, but once you learn about it it's easy. This way I've always been able to apply TH4.
To be fair I won the majority of the runs I've done at start (minus the initial fails that I'm not counting), it's only lately that I started to see "strange" things happening, hence my previous post where I was wondering what the causes could be.
But, just like you said, I guess I nailed it and those are the reasons why sometimes I fail because of running out of Overdrive time.



Trusts I use:
Mnejing
August (any other tank works honestly)
Apururu UC (any other healer that stays far works)
Ygnas (as above)
AAMR

I use Beast roll then remove AAMR for either Brygid or Moogle, neither makes a huge difference.
My trusts usually die pretty fast anyway because of my non-ilevel body.
Sometimes they last to the end of the run, to my big surprise, wonder how the *** they survived those times lol.

Either way trusts are irrelevant. Their purpose is to get initial hate so you don't die in the 1 second it takes for you to apply TH4.

Can use the Enmity Swap JA as well like you did, it's a bit riskier if you ask me but sure, it works.

Either way I gotta say out of the current 4 new HTBF, Cait Sith is the easiest to do on VD.

Odin and Lilith both have nice setups that work but with a high degree of risk. (can't comment on Alexander, tried that only once, and I was solo)
Cait Sith with the following setup is almost guaranteed to succeed.

THF, ddCOR
RUN (probably another tank would work? I'm not sure if RUN used Gambit and Rayke to boost SC damage)
BRD
GEO
SMN
WHM

SMN uses Hastega2 and Crystalline Blessing pre-pull, then Earthen Armor leaving Titan outside and spamming Bio on Cait Sith
BRD uses... uh I forgot, Honor March, Madrigal x2 and Scherzo? Not sure on the double Madri.
BRD has to spam Finale then spam bio like the SMN (/RDM necessary)
COR used, I dunno honestly. I guess Chaos and Sam rolls but I'm not sure.
GEO was using Frailty, Fury, no clue on the entrust.
WHM heals and debuffs and blahblah.
Everybody stay close together for AoE heals.
THF and COR spam darkness SC.
Cait Sith will stop at 1% health, then eventually he will use Benediction. Depsite that fight is over in less than 5 minutes.

With the above setup on several runs (7?) we must have been lucky but each run had at least 1 drop.
I think 2 runs had DOUBLE drop.

What am I trying to say? Well I dunno, maybe that if you have to pick one specific BC to do with friends/PUGs on VD and solo the rest, then pick Cait Sith one.

I thought TH built over time and you needed to stay engaged in order to increase the applied TH. I don't know the TH mechanic very well though.

If it works as you say, I can keep my strat and engage at some point in the fight just to land one hit then run back to 29+ range.

Are you using VE/VE or VE/SS? TP Bonus does very little for Valoredge body, meaning you're better off with some source of DA or Attack.

Also, if you are using VE/SS I recall Cait Sith being resistant to ranged attacks, but I haven't tried it since the week it was released.

No, TH doesn't build over time. Any direct action on a target applies TH on that target.

It builds over time (above the base of TH8) only for THF main.

It caps at TH4 (and doesn't built over time) for anybody else who is no THF main.

I've always found auto holding tp was very finicky. Literally 2 identical autos both set to free ws no skillchaining and 1 fight first auto might do literally double the ws of the second and next fight vice versa. And that's on normal fights without mobs interfering. Add in things like amnesia and tp loss and you have a very sad robot

Yeah sometimes it happens more often than others (talking about Cait Sith fight here).
I really wonder if it's about my Automaton getting affected by some debuff (Para? Amnesia?) or if it's just the result of clunky AI that, for whatever reason, sometimes makes the Automaton hold more than he should be.

That's why I mentioned things from the fight. They take the already existing problem and exacerbate it.

So what would've just been a decent tp hold now is that PLUS more time for your auto to get it's ws *** with. And then it sees it can't ws and waits again and then stalls again.

If you're using Inhibitors then the maton won't WS until the MB window (10s) closes after Bone Crusher > String Shredder = Distortion. During OD it can easily build up to 3k TP in that time due to the boosted STP.

It's still better DPS than not using the Inhibitors, so don't let that discourage you.

Random Question:

If a party has 2 PUPs, can their Automatons buff each other? Example, PUP A's automaton casts Shell V on PUP B's automaton? Or Cure, or Stoneskin, etc?

Sorry if it's a dumb question. I tried looking around here and on BG and Reddit but couldn't see any info on this specific question.

To my recollection, no. Unfortunately the only way to Shell/Pro your VE or SS puppet is with Regulator attachment if what it's engaged onto has either. Perhaps SE knows that'd be too much of a niche if automatons could do all that.

So im going to start up on pup cards for the few remaining days of this campaign, but want to be sure im not misremembering so i dont waste time failing to hit objs;

1. Puppet WS doesnt count towards the ws/wsdmg count correct? At best i could use it to open a SC for me
2. Likewise puppet dmg doesnt count towards the melee round obj either, think puppet JAs count towards abilities though yeah?

They can atleast hit the nuke/healing objectives if i remember right, yeah?

Nuking I'm not sure, I don't think so.

Are the sets on the bg-wiki guide still current?

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/String_Theory#Weaponskill_Sets

They do, atleast i remember trying to hit the non-mb obj on pup when i had little nuke gear and remember only being able to reach 10k, havent tried it since the ice maker/magic dmg attachment changes but maybe with current gear i can pull it off.

Dont beleive anything on that guide has been updated for several months, could be wrong, but the WS sets follow old h2h rules, would check mnks WS sets and copy from that

Yes Puppet Magic can do the 30k MB and 15k non MB.

Puppet weaponskills don’t work for the 30k WS objective unfortunately. But it shouldn’t be too difficult to hit 30k howling fist with 3000 tp.

even if you don't have a powerful setup for howling fist, you can let the automaton open w/ something and then close it. the combined weaponskill + skillchain damage can count for the 30k

pets are good at opening those.

Right, that was the idea, biggest pain would be the mb objs time wise on the 1st 2 floors.

Hi.

Anyone can provide me a set/attachments for automaton afk skill ups on reives? Or uragnites?

Thanks in advance.

Not much to it really, percolator+2x OFx2xTC if its melee related, reapeater/drum magazine/barrage turbine if its ranged, or the refresh, -recast delay, -spellcasting time attachments for magic, everything else is up in the air

Since letting the maton open an SC for you can be a bit iffy, it's more reliable to equip Inhibitors on your matons and build TP to together on Sweetwater mobs. Then you can simply self-SC by stealing your maton's TP via Tactical Switch.

Spinning Attack > Howling Fist = Fusion or Dragon Kick/VSmite > Shijin Spiral = Light would probably be the most reliable SCs as both closing WSs have an innate Attack bonus. I find VSmite doesn't really hit hard enough these days for PUP (compared to other WSs) even with good gear since we don't have access to Impetus like MNK. So it'd probably be lacking as a closer.

Hi.

Another question about skill ups on automaton.

Is magic skills any relevant for the role of overdrive DD and tank?

Thanks in advance.

Nadda