String Theory: A Puppetmaster's Guide *NEW*

Has anyone been able to solo the Gaol T3 Ngai?
If so what was your setup and what attachments?

I was stupid and tried my ValoreEdge Lilith setup except for adding in Armor Plate IV.

Got him to only 25% before OD ran out.
Somehow after that he finally used Marine Mayhem and I got 1-shot on the stairs.

Bone Crusher did about 25k or so, but the SC with String Shredder seems to heal him. String Shredder only seems to do about 4-5k damage (strong vs slashing I guess).

I think I would have won if I had use a a full ranger or VE/SS setup.

I'd probably use a tankmaton/bruiser and full Subtle Blow setup, then melee him with Trust support, but only using those that stay close enough to avoid Marine Mayhem. Should be doable if you have good MM, take it slowly and carefully and use Ventriloquy with good timing.

Like your first attempt you could probably just OD the first half (without Inhibitors) to speed things up. Just make sure to stay away far enough so you and your Trusts don't get killed.

Note that soloing this on Vengeance levels is extremely difficult due to the fetter mechanic.

Has anyone taken black mage puppet to Ongo? Does it use Stone MB over Ice on Darkness skillchains?
Would scanner be needed or does scanner even have the ability to make it do Stone over Ice.

You mean V0 Ongo or V15 Ongo?
Because with current gear groups risk to timeout even with BiS mages on V15 Ongo. With such a scenario of course you can't really expect BLM pup to be viable.

For V0 and maybe V5 sure, why not I guess, with proper gear and setup.

Had the opportunity on an ongo v10 where we squeaked by by re-entering on a second phone to finish off a 5%. In a makeshift PT setup without threnodies using scanner the puppet did indeed prioritize ice>>water.

I did however use pup for A1 V15 and A2 V10 MB strats and the only time it reliably cast the one appropriate element was on Marmorkrebs under threnody. Have not had the chance to test further with trying to force elements via maneuvers instead of typical triple ice.

That said and with the already tight known viable party comps required to reliably down Ongo V15 I see spiritreaver as a hard sell for this one sadly. I hope Aerix or somebody can prove otherwise :D

Just did Ongo V0 as spiritreaver it went well. Tabula Rasa Sch was making Gravitation and the backup plan was sniper shot>immanence geohelix. Ongo died within Tabula Rasa/Overdrive.

The first spell the puppet cast on deploy was Stone V (I didn't use scanner.) Overall puppet did about as much as the BLM nuke for nuke. The Blm did have a big Stoneja once for 33k. The Puppets max was Stone V 26k. During Periods of Heady Artiface it was occasionally double stoning. The main issue with the puppet is wasting Stone V on non magic burst and relying on Stone 3 / Stone 4 to magic burst instead which does half a Stone V on MB.
Puppet cast a Blizzard once out of like 30 spells that were otherwise stone. Blizzard did not heal ongo it did about 600 damage non mb.

Nice! If revisiting these mb strats with I pup will definitely try without scanner, sounds like it was the cause of the issues I encountered.

Curious as to the workings of it now regarding gaol and it creating such problems. As I understood it it prevents casting of elements that it would find the target to be resistant to, while the spiritreaver head has innate weakness detection itself, seemingly they did not work well together for me outside of the instances where we had bard for threnody.

It's possible that in the game's code Ongo is considered weak to Ice (perhaps all of its resistances are equal by default) because it's classified as a Bird and the Scanner takes that into account unlike the default AI.

Or SE actually gave Ongo higher Earth resistance to force players to lower it in order to be able to do damage while still being able to deal with the proc mechanic. Hard to say.

My static currently doesn't have plans to farm Ongo v15 anytime soon, unfortunately, but I'll try to test stuff when I get the opportunity.

I'm prepping for Mboze T0 on PUP. If I want to force String Shedder during OD should I use a Thunder attachment and do Fire/Light/Thunder or there a better combo for Slashing weak mobs?

Current set up:
VE/VE
Optic Fiber I/II
Auto repair IV
Steam jacket
Magniplug I/II
Attuner
Flame Holder
Turbo Charger I/II
Armor Plate IV
Dynamo III (?)

Is it worth making Counter/DT set?

Yes, with Fire, Light, Thunder auto will do String Shredder most of the time and not SC. I wouldn't try to solo it. I don't think it's possible unless with trusts. Please tell me I'm wrong and it's possible!

I was just going to ask this same question.
Our group is having a heck of a time trying to kill Mboze.
First run I kept auto only on with 1hr while everyone stood far away. Auto took it barely to around 55% or so and then got 1shot.

Second run it was Auto only and he got 1shot for 6k with Canopierce within a minute! They managed to run in and get him to 11%.

Last night it was our 3rd attempt. We were ALL in range to reduce timber damage. SAM and PUP both got 1-shot with Uproot within 20 seconds (!). I had full Mpaca gear on (for pet stats). I guess Malignance is needed to survive that. I should have just stood out of range with OD set.

Tonight I will stand out of range and let auto fight with the rest using proper OD set.

Any good strategies for PUP to use?
Has anyone used the PLD kiting method at under 50%?
Is there a perfect Valoredge slashing attachment setup for use without 1hr? Maybe Armor Plate 3 and 4 along with Mana Jammer IV and/or Steamjacket.

I think I may remove Flameholder for when 1hr wears off so I don't overload non-stop.

I wonder if auto can be set up to SC with SAM? LOL probably not. I can't see the SAM being able to reliably self SC with paralyze/slowga up.

I think for us, everyone being in range to reduce timber is just a big fail.

Someone do a PLD + pet only run and post the video!

Anyone tried using PUP VE setup as the ONLY tank?
Probably won't work too well.

Here is a youtube video of a pup soloing v0 mboze, although neither uproot nor tiimber was used, so replication may be difficult/impossible



I triboxed my clear with pup smn sch + 3 tank trusts used solely to soak damage, using embrava and regen in range to survive tiimber. In my clear however, it never did uproot, only 2 tiimbers, but accession stoneskin and massive regen let me survive.

Alot of people have finished augmenting their Nyame set. But is there any player who has finished augmenting Nyame Legs with path D pet augs and is willing to test how much it boosts puppet damage.

Armor Shatterer is good for testing it with since it tends to be fixed damage.

If anyone is trying to kill Mboze with a group and having problems, the usual Lilith attachment setups and gear worked really well. I used full Taeon with DA+5% and DT-4 ACC+21. Fire, Thunder, Light. Used Kusamochi. Only use Relic Body +2 or 3 for 1hr.

PLD and PUP 1hr hour took it somehow down to about 40%. SAM may have joined in around 50%, but at 40% the PLD and SAM got 1 shot by Timber. A few seconds later my 1hr wore and auto got 1-shot by Canopierce since nobody else was in range.

At this point the RDM used gravity on it while I called a "Turtle" tank setup (same one I use for Dynamis-D Wave 3) and held it down the stairs until weakness wore on 2 people. I had to use MAX auto DT set to survive. Auto got 1 shot almost 2 times with max DT still. I doubt there is much I could have done to prevent that. Any attachments that could? Don't think so. I used Fire, Light, Water (with steam jacket and Mana Jammer IV).

Once weakness wore PLD took over and SAM was able to SC until dead.

Is there any other easy strategy involving PUP?
We tried all being in range before, but that was a total fail.

Took us 6 attempts to get our first win.
All the rest of the T2 and T3s took no more than 2 tries.
Many of them were killed with PUP 1hr.

PS if you try full ranger auto setup on Bumba, don't make the mistake like I did and deploy him further than 15 yalms away! He was at ranged my whole 1hr hour and I couldn't re-deploy it to stay near the NM at all. Super slow TP building. Totally ruined out run and we wiped.

Could use some advice for him if anyone has tried him after the update. Any attachment changes? I used my full ranger Sarama setup.

I'm curious about this as well from a BST perspective. I don't *need* that slot of Nyame for anything else exactly.

Still working on the Atonement 3 V15 kills with my static, after which it should be pretty quick to finish augmenting Nyame. My plan is to do Path D on body and legs, so I'll report back once I have it in case nobody else does it beforehand.

Just tanked Kalunga v15 from start to finish with PUP DRK SMN BRD COR WHM using a full turtle setup to reduce magic damage and TP speed (which can mess with multisteps).

DRK had HM/Mad/2xMin/Dirge and occasional Pacifying Ruby support to keep hate in check, but the maton was never at risk of dying even when the skillchains got messed up and fetters were getting stacked on it.

PUP actually worked out much better for us than PLD since it needed zero support to stay alive and the full Dispel didn't bother it at all. WHM was able to focus Cureskin on the DRK the entire time.

That sounds really good, I'm a bit skeptic that the -50 Enmity from Dirge and occasional Pacifying Ruby was enough to keep in check DRK's hate.

A regular tank like a PLD would have issues keeping hate 100% on himself for the whole duration of the fight if the DRK goes all out, so you can imagine how moderately puzzled I am about a PUP not having issues with that.

Aerix is an accomplished pup who has thoroughly tested the job and knows how to play it at its maximum capability. If they say pup can hold hate in V15 then they are probably right.

Enmity + gear overdrive fire maneuver, light maneuver heady benediction is so much hate. During Overdrive swapping in enmity + on strobes and flashes will keep it on the puppet. I'm going to even say that during overdrive / heady the puppets hate level is higher then paladins. Its once overdrive goes down that it falls way behind the two tanks.

Though to be fair, if you're counting SPs usage, Paladin can do Invincible during Sentinel and with max enmity gear for an instant 21600 VE.

Heady is the invincible like spike in VE
Overdrive is a second SP 3mins 20seconds of triple fire triple light strobes and flashes.
Aerix said that pld was getting dispelled which pup doesn't have to deal with so its a disadvantaged situation for pld who would probably do alot better in a regular fights where they aren't losing all their buffs.

I was actually a bit surprised as well, but it worked out really well for us and the DRK only ever pulled hate near the end around 30% when the SMN was rebuffing everything over like 2 mins and couldn't Pacifying Ruby during that time. We basically had him pop Conduit at that point to PRx4 to negate most of the DRK's Enmity and finish up Wards. After that it wasn't an issue for the rest of the fight as the SMN just used PR on recast for safety, but I don't think spamming it would have been necessary.

DRK was also fully geared using Calad Torcleaver spam, only switching to Scythe for the fetter mechanic. Popped Soul Enslavement during Perfect Defense as well, but he didn't pull hate during that time, either. PD really didn't feel all that necessary, but it's not like the SMN had a lot of other things to use with Astral Flow.

As for me, I equipped my full MDT/HP setup and as soon as I had Shell V and Cureskin on, I ran up to Kalunga and engaged my maton to start building hate while the rest of the group was still buffing. Once buffs were close to finishing I pulled it down to the stairwall and positioned the mob sideways so the DRK could stand behind it with the wall at his back to avoid constant knockbacks. I immediately popped OD with Light/Fire/Water and pretty much rode those same maneuvers until the end of the fight as double Fire would probably have been too risky due to fetter damage. With Enmity gear (Heyoka+1 and earrings) the maton was at roughly +157 Enmity outside of OD and not hitting the +200 cap, but it still worked out fine.

Also, for the record, PUP tanking Xevioso v15 doesn't work nearly as well. Its fetters are seemingly much more dangerous and the hate reset makes things extremely messy.

Just my two cents on the matter with pup tank, my group used pup while we were low manning the content pup smn brd (boss killer) for most fights. Pacifying ruby and adventurers dirge are a godsend for pup tanks. We used pup on our first V15 Xevioso kill across from a pld because having two tanks made the enmity removals less likely to target a damage dealer. Kalunga we used pup because it's pretty much unkillable by the boss, Tiger is another great boss for pup tank because dispels are just miserable for short encounters.

If you can, get TP on master in lobby and lock weapons after equipping an inhibitor(either works) on your tank automaton, this prevents your auto from using weaponskills unless it can skill chain with it. Frag and Distortion are the 2 main weapon skills for tank auto so using distortion weapon skills like fudo basically prevent the auto from ever creating a skillchain, and beyond that it can continue a skillchain for you if needed. Like aerix said, using pet enmity gear is a habit not many people have gotten into but it really enhances the hate generation.

Pup is a great job that requires some party support to really replace a tank job but with that support it's easy to do.

Edit: wrong word used.

Part of my groups v15 rotation is Gogmagog, and we use a PUP tank, with RNG and MNK dealing damage. My pet usually keeps hate off the monk for 80% of the fight. But because its a rotation our job setup is PUP RDM MNK RNG BST RUN. Run just does lux for the RNG trueflight, and since my pet takes like no damage, the rdm is usually spamming dispel most of the fight. Bst, well they chunk 10% off the top, and put on that -33% defense down on.

You don't have to introduce Aerix to me, I trust him and his skills.
I didn't want to throw dirt at him.

But when even a "regular" tank has issues keeping hate 100% of the time on him if a DD goes all out (emphasis on "if", if the DD holds out by using a lot of hybrid gear etc, it's a different story) I was a bit skeptic about PUP keeping hate no problem.

It wasn't an attempt on my side to say I don't believe Aerix, but please colour me a bit skeptic/surprised about such a claim?
It's not even a matter of +Enmity. Once you reach the enmity cap there's really nothing you can do, and it's well reknown how sadly PUP has issues building hate because of the cooldown of the abilities tipically used to generate enmity.
And yes you have overdrive but it's 3,5min for a fight that lasts what, 7+ minutes?


So again, I apologize if my previous post seemed an attempt to launch dirt at Aerix, because I totally did not mean to do that at all.

What was your Attachment loadout for that if I can ask? As much as I enjoy NIN tanking that I think PUP would tear it apart.

I think you underestimate Pacifying Ruby. It deletes 25% enmity.

Going from like 10000CE to 20000CE on DRK with just damage probably takes few minutes on Kalunga. Now one Pacifying Ruby at 16000, will bring DRK down to 12000. Doing Pacifying Ruby once every minute will easily reset more enmity than DRK can get if you reset around that threshold. Once Pup reach some enmity level, DRK will never catch it up if you keep Pacifying Ruby him. There is a reason DRK took hate when Pacifying Ruby havent been used for 2 minutes.

It's great that Aerix and his group were able to pull that off. Whatever works for your group to get the win is great, more power to them. That being said... I'm generally not the guy pushing for ONLY THE MOST EFFICIENT SETUP, but man that feels like an inefficient use of a party slot for that SMN.

The issue with Pacifying Ruby is that you're having to dedicate a huge portion of an entire job to doing little aside from managing enmity for a heavy DD. SMN has to put Carby up often, if not fulltime (Aerix's SMN seems to have been spamming it on cooldown and even used Astral Conduit for that purpose), and use most of their BP Wards just to make one DD not pull hate. If you're ever trying to use Pacifying on 2 DDs, you're basically forcing the SMN to fulltime Carby and do nothing but wait on Ward timer to alternate Pacifying between them whenever possible.

Is that really necessary with so many other better ways to manage hate for a PUP tank?

- Use a nuke damage strat, where that's viable. Easy for puppet to hold hate off that.
- For RNG COR, use low enmity WS like Wildfire or Anni/Coronach, use Decoy Shot
- Use DRG in the heavy DD slot and ride high jump timer instead of CALADBOLG SPAM BLOODLUST ARRRRRRGGGGAHHHH!
- Use a BRD to sing Dirge and Sirvente, while not compromising the rest of the buffs too much (certainly less than dedicating a SMN to Carby hate management). Can also Ballad a DD who can wear Schere Earring (if they need it - e.g., maybe a Scythe DRK doesn't require it due to Entropy)
- Have your heavy DDs actually use a set with solid enmity-, which most don't ever bother doing. Max DPS Torcleaver spam set is all fine and good for many situations, but if you're trying to control hate maybe it's not the ideal build?

Those all seem to me like better compromises than having to spend all/most of a party slot on a SMN to serve as almost solely an enmity babysitter for one DRK. Could probably replace the SMN with something that adds more damage or more buffs, and get faster (and maybe safer) wins in combination with the above suggestions.

But hey, again... if Aerix's particular setup works well for that particular group - cool, congratulations on finding a quirky way to get those wins!

So I have a lot of disagreements here, first I don't know exactly what Aerix party is doing on Kalunga, but my assumption is this is for a single dd, super buffed strategy. Kalunga has some mean tp moves, weakness, aura, full dispel, so if the summoner's job and the rest of the party are supporting the single dd, because it's safer (less tp feed, less targets for the whm to heal, a tank that requires 0 healing or buffing (which the full dispel really wrecks)) isn't this the safer choice? Giving up s slot for more buffs and more utility doesn't seem like that bad to me. Having people modify sets to manage enmity is great but also reduces your damage output, replacing a song for a ballad or dirge drops offense and defensive capabilities of songs and after a full dispel or death because you always are climbing in enmity without pacify you're 0 dps, and changing jobs has alot of implications for bosses that require certain damage types, Sure your DRG could Savage Blade Trex, but when he inadvertently loses his wyvern because these bosses hate drg pets, he's not as effective.

Also faster in terms of if your dd's accidentally pull hate and get a random dispel there goes most of your offense? While I concede that usually more dd's equal more damage A3 NM's completely ruin that idea. From tree Uber timber, lion mass disepl/terror, bee enmity reset, trex weakness, and shark positioning instant KO, the fewer well preserved/buffed DD's the better, and the less maintenance your tank needs, the better. The point of the summoner slot stops being about damage as soon as you realize more damage dealers is a problem. The fights aren't tank healer 3x dd and a support for these fights, even though trex is slashing weak and your corsair and bard are well geared for Savage and could do great damage, doesn't mean they should.

I say all of this to say, if you feel like the summoner as a wasted spot, what would you replace them with? Replacing the summoner would obviously mean replacing the pup with pld(full dispel kinda precludes run), which could also be a healer in a 2nd or 3rd fight. Not only have you increased your damage output by replacing the summoner, but you've also increased your damage taken and targets requiring healing during the fight by 3.

My main argument is faster is not better on most if not all of the A3 NM's, if you kill before SV wears that's more than fast enough, and the safer you can do that, the better your fights are. I loathe feeling like I'm on the sidelines for the main buffed fights but if it works, it works.

Not sure why you feel replacing SMN means you must use PLD tank over PUP. My entire point was that you may still be able to PUP tank without requiring a SMN to do nothing but Pacifying Ruby. Be sure your PUP is actually using pet enmity+ swaps like you mentioned, do some of the other hate reduction tips I discussed, and I just don't know that it's all that necessary to have SMN solely for that reason?

If you removed the SMN, there are several seemingly viable alternatives in Aerix's example of PUP DRK SMN BRD COR WHM party:
- RDM for lots of enfeebles. If you're comfortable with additional TP feed, could also melee and help with SCs, add strong enspell damage with Crocea Mors, and IDK if Sanguine Blade works (but if so, could use that and not interrupt SCs).
- SCH for enm-, Embrava, SC ability, Regen, etc.
- GEO for more buffs/enfeebles - though I'll admit I am unsure how much, if at all, Geomancy is nerfed on Gaol NMs.
- RNG for safe damage from a distance
- BST for potent slug debuffs
- Assuming you're OK with an additional person giving the mob some TP, any other DD could help add damage and participate in SCs (perhaps go with something like a DNC that can play a good supporting role with steps/sambas, or someone fulltiming a weapon like GA or GK with def- WS, instead of having the DRK be responsible for Armor Break)

Or even use the SMN more for other purposes. Mewing Lullaby? Damaging BPs (including ACAF)? And maybe you toss in a Pacifying Ruby on occasion, but less of a dedicated role than purely babysitting the DRK (to be fair, Aerix said they were being conservative and may not have needed the all out Ruby spam their SMN was doing)

Once again, congrats to Aerix for figuring out something that worked for them on this fight. I'm just not entirely convinced that PUP tanking inherently means it's a requirement to use a SMN for Pacifying Ruby spam.