+ IV section modified
++ Grandmaster and talent section added
I - Overview[/SIZE]
Unfortunately for me and any other decent puppeteers, there are way too many people that think puppeteering is a yolo skillset and just spam act7 and untimed crisis all the time pissing off everyone on party.
This guide is written by a melee/range/puppet/fighter hybrid. I do not have experience with combos such as puppetry + magic, alchemy or dual gunner so i will not write about such combos even though i know they exist. I am also quite biased against act7 and puppet master titles, so you've been warned.
>FAQ
> Am I too dumb for this guide?
Well, i could say so as puppeteering is pretty straightfoward so you need to be pretty stupid to need a guide, but i give you credit for trying to improve.
> Why are you calling me stupid?! IM A BRIGHT MIND DON'T TALK SHIT ABOUT ME YOU *****
This is a parody type of guide with some sarcasm mixed into it, other than the way it is written its content it's completely serious and i hope to help everyone improve on both performance and appearance.
Max damage calculation
As everyone know, puppetry gain max damage from both dex and str (3.5 dex/str = 1 handle max damage). Which then only 70% of it takes effect on a linked puppet. With the following formulas
({[(Str + Dex)/3.5] + (max damage enchants)} * 0.7) + Marionette max enchants
or
(Character screen max with handles equipped *0.7) + Marionette max enchants
II - Prerequisites
Everyone can use puppetry, i acknowledge that act 4 can be a really strong skill compared to wm on early levels. HOWEVER PUPPETRY ISN'T A STANDALONE SKILLSET SHARING STATS OF BOTH DEX AND STR FOR DAMAGE. SO FOR GOD SAKE, IF YOU WISH TO USE PUPPETRY ON A PARTY AT LATER LEVELS, DO NOT FUCKING RANK IT ALONE.
II a - Skills
Everyone wants to jump on puppetry, pierrot is cute and act7 does a lot of damage without reforges. however i recommend having at least 3 master combat talents before jumping into it. Such as master warrior, ranger and +1 life skill such as carpentry, tailoring or blacksmithing.
That aside i strongly recommend getting these skills. NOTE : only mentioning skills that can be used with control bars. (tl;dr all warrior skills are pretty useful.)
- Windmill
"I have act4, i don't need windmill"................ BULLSHIT!
Windmill is a really good skill together with puppetry as it allows you to chain up combos such as crisis > act4 > windmill. Don't forget that puppets die so having good non puppetry aoe skills will save your ass later.
- Smash
Smash with control bars can be quite strong and can be used while all other skills are in cooldown or your puppets are dead.
- Assault slash
Do i really have to explain this?
- Charge
My favorite skill to use with puppetry. If you're a giant, rejoice. If you aren't, well, im not going to force anyone to spend money on reforges to get shieldless charge.
I'll explain further how to use this skill with puppetry i'll just tease that you can use it to quickly get into a group of mobs, summon your puppet and crisis all them up.
Aside from the skillsets, don't forget to rank any easy skill to build up str and dex such as weaving, refining, carpentry, rare mineralogy, cooking, etc etc.
II b - Support skills and skillsets
"But what do i wear on my 2nd slot?" This is where this part comes in.
Puppetry is a hybrid skillset however isn't quite combo friendly with other skills however there are quite some skills and skillsets that fit in like a glove.
- Fighter
All my olev. Perfect for 1vs1 situations and to quickly pick up stragglers that survive your puppet aoe skills. As i use to say, best aoe skillset + best single target skillset.
- Bard
> Song (or/and playing instrument)
If you use fighter with puppetry, you'll need song to be able to use lullaby/overture without having to swap to a instrument.
> Lullaby
Perfect for comboing puppetry skills.
> Dischord
Combo skill, not exactly necessary but works nicely. It also adds str
> Battlefield overture
Everyone's favorite buff
- Magic
> Mana shield (duh)
> Lightning bolt
For those deadly little fuckers that keep surviving 60k damage for some reason.
- Alchemy (optional)
> Raincast
Only needed if you don't have lullaby
- Hidden (optional)
> Berserk
Perfect for a quick buff before using act 7. Don't use it if you're doing crisis or you'll risk to kill yourself.
II c - Pets
Well yea, you need pets to combo properly
Nimbus - Insta cast lullaby Aoe + puppet healing (+500 hp per summon). I strongly recommend to get one of these to save time and money on those pesky repair kits.
Ice dragon/Scooters - If you plan to party play have at least one of these at hand, i'll explain later why on the combo section.
Bone dragon - Always useful
Little hopper - I hate this pet tbh, it's completely unnecessary but if you want a quick crisis for a act7 preparation, this guy is useful.
Warp imp - These fuckers are always useful
III - Ranking the skills (why would i even write about this)
As everyone knows, ranking the skills is a step necessary that everyone will hate considering the amount of spam needed to rank these. However there are easy ways such as skill training potions which i recommend to save for r5+ ranks as they're the most time consuming mainly control marionette and crisis. So equip some basic control bars and get to spam.
REMEMBER, SAGA EPISODE 4 IS YOUR FRIEND (however not mentioning it anywhere else since it's annoying if mobs are stuck).
- Act 6 - Crisis
The hardest skill to rank imo, not only you need a lot of spam, you'll also need to attack multiple mobs, gladly without CP requirements.
There are multiple places where you can rank this skill quite effectively just remember orbs are your friend, you know those pesky sacrifice orbs that are spread through dungeons such as lingering or enemy behind? Those are awesome to get those multiple attacks, you can also use the barrier spikes spreaded through lingering to get attacks done, just remember that you'll need a mob near the spike to be able to crisis it.
- Act 4 - Rising action
Same shit as crisis, rank both together for best results (crisis > act4)
- Control Marionette
Spam everything, that is all. Control is just time consuming, not hard at all.
- Act 7 - Climactic crash
One of the easiest ones to rank, i recommend scc to rank this as mobs are always on fixed locations and on groups of 5. There are a lot of others too such as sulfur spider basic (1st room), episode 4, etc.
- Pierrot/Colossus Marionette
Definitely the easiest of all skills to rank, just spam whichever shadow mission the mobs have the CP requirement. You'll probably find EB and scc quite friendly for this.
[S]Congratulations, you now have all basic skills ranked.[/S] No you don't
- Act 1 and Act 2
These 2 are completely underrated skills. They're perfect to handle 1vs1 situations and to stagger mobs for a combo attack. It is pretty simple to rank them as well, all you've got to do is head to fillia (just fly around to find the huge pack of foxes there) and spam them.
- Act 9
Another easy skill to rank but most people find it a huge hell to rank. I've ranked mine simply by spamming all puppetry skills on fillia foxes while ranking act1/2. After the power bar is completely full, just use and spam all skills once again. Simple
Congratulations, you now have all basic skills ranked. Yes now you do. Optionally you can rank wire skills.
- Wire pull and snare
If you're ranking this you probably ran out of str/dex skills to rank as these are completely useless and should only be ever ranked after all other skills were done. Ranking these can be rather complicated as well since they require lots of crits and have lots of requirements and have pretty big cooldowns as i recommend ranking both together for max performance (on fillia foxes ofc). Snare can also be ranked on provocation, just ask someone to drop you in and spam the shit out of it on the walls (hint : macro ;D).
IV - Titles, Grandmaster and Talents.
I've seen people wear all kinds of shit, some of them are correct, some just make me cringe, some not as much.
IV a - Titles
Recommended regular : Shock master, Sniper and Blood Master. Shock and blood master being on top of my list as both add general max that work on both fighter and puppetry.
Recommended Prefix : Wear anything that adds +max, most common should be hamlet but everyone has what they got during the prefix title event.
On a quick note to what i see other people wearing
Master of crisis - This is a screenshot of Crisis lv 20 reforge. Which equals to crisis range +100
[Image: http://puu.sh/6ZQTs.jpg]
Title adds half of that, good job grabbing that extra ant mate.
Master of climatic crash - You're a act7 spammer and you should feel bad about it. Still acceptable on situations where you'll be only using act7, such as soloing, however damage difference won't be that great to be losing dmg on your support skillset.
Master of rising action - On contrary belief, this title is better than the above. With sufficient max damage everything will die will die on a crisis > act 4 (>wm incase theres deadlies/survivors)
IV b - Grandmaster
Puppets are pretty straightforward, you need either a +str or + dex talent.
There are 2 main grandmasters that suit puppetry perfectly, close combat grandmaster and archery grandmaster. One can also consider grandmaster bard if they aren't puppeteers and rather have more lullaby/overture power than damage.
So why is puppet grandmaster so bad?
Archery GM/Close Combat GM (human): +30 dex/str = 8.5 handle max = 6 pmax
Archery GM(Elf)/Close combat GM(Giant) : +35 dex/str = 10 handle max = 7 pmax
Bard it's hard to calculate the stats as the main strong point is on lullaby duration bonus and overture music buff.
Puppeteer GM : +10 str, +10 dex, + 65 marionette hp, +1 marionette defense
Allow me to explain how bad this GM is. Not only damage is crap compared to other GMs (20 str/dex = 5.7 handle max = 4 pmax), marionette hp is completely useless as 65 hp will only tank one extra attack and if you have a nimbus that can be healed quite fast and finally marionette defense. One single crisis>cancel adds +40 def + 15 prot to your puppet. There is absolutely NO point in sacrificing puppet damage and melee/range damage just for this GM. REMEMBER, A PUPPETEER IS A RANGE+MELEE HYBRID CHARACTER.
IV c - Talents
Now one can argue, what's the best talent to rebirth to. Personally since i'm human i like to rb to close combat just because, i feel more comfortable with melee than with range (which i completely stopped using regardless having my dex near cap). This part is more up to the person taste and about what you're more comfortable in using besides puppets.
V - Equipment and reforges
All the gears that will be mentioned will be for a main puppeteer user + hybrid
Note : Prefix Sufix
Note : Don't wear heavy armor if you want to do main puppeteering as it deducts dex. Giants can still wear it without that much of a penalty but i still do not recommend.
Note : Only writing the "best within human reasoning" enchants and writing it from my mind so might forget some :d
Note : Don't waste your money on puppet reforges aside from the ones on handles. Everything else is just too costly for the added performance.
Non specific gear
Personally these 3 pieces of gear do not need to be enchanted with puppet enchants to be already pretty good. Unless there is something better than nostalgic available it will always be nostalgic + suffix
Body : Encore/Nostalgic/Oblivion/Special Ambush/Glass Fragment/Champion
Note : Champion requires to be enchanted on gamyu wizard robe to be enchanted with encore.
Shoes : Nostalgic/Oblivion/Solo Butterfly/Viscount
Headgear : Nostalgic/Oblivion Dexterity
Specific gear :
Gloves : Burlesque/Steel needle/Nostalgic/Solo/Classic Swarming/Camo/Difficult (r4)
Handles : r5-6 Carved Colossus Demonic control bars with artisan. Aim for 25+ artisan as it's quite easy to get a near max roll on handles.
Pierrot sucks and you should feel bad if you have it, as colossus drop... kind of easily from crystal golems. Just remember white crystal golems = ice elemental and pink/purple are fire elemental to kill them faster. As for carved, just feed voight 5cm+ emeralds and pray he gives you a glowing gargoyle. Then pray again that it drops from endchest.
Reforge : Past having most of str/dex, enchants done and handles r6'd there is only a easy way to get damage and is by reforge. There is 2 reforges that are worth a mention. Act4 damage and act 7 damage. Personally i recommend having both as reforged act 4 can hit as high as unreforged act7. However it is up to the user taste to have 2 act 7s or a overkill act 7
Accessories : If you're not a scrub that wear premade gacha crap (Oblivion/nostalgic avenger or oblivion/nostalgic fierce) you can always spam the shit of magic craft to get your hands on some nice purple hearts with 10 str and dex (or something close to that) and enchant nostalgic theatrical.
If you want to wear any kind of accessory on the meantime, just either wear some crappy purple hearts or lucky rabbit feet (for cheap repairs) with precise/stout sonnet
"These enchants are a lie" list
There are 3 enchants that are so rare that almost anyone have ever seen them or know where they drop. They're the BEST enchants available to some of the slots that i already mentioned here
Handles : Carved Antagonist (Challenger)
Antagonist supposedly drops from belvast lord mission
Clothes/Armor : Encore/Nostalgic Avant Garde
[COLOR=Black]Rank 4 Suffix
Marionette Max Damage+10
If Act 9: Invigorating Encore Rank 1+, Marionette Max Damage+25
If Act 1: Inciting Incident Rank 1+, Marionette Critical+5~10
If Colossus Marionette Rank 1+, Str+25~35
If Pierrot Marionette Rank 1+, Luck+25
Stamina+50
Repair Costx3
Enchant enabled rank regardless
Personalize[/COLOR]
No info about avant garde besides it's stats
Headgear : Allegory Dexterity
[COLOR=Black]Rank 5 Suffix
If Act 2: Threshold Cutter Rank 1+, Marionette Max Damage+15~20
If Act 7: Climatic Crash Rank 1+, Marionette Defense+5
If Control Marionette Rank 1+, Max Damage+10~15
HP+40
Repair Costx5
Enchant enabled rank regardless
Personalize[/COLOR]
Allegory supposedly drops from convoy lord mission
[COLOR=Black]Rank 5 Prefix
If Puppet's Snare Rank 1+, Max Damage+10
If Wire Pull Rank 1+, Critical+7%
If Act 4: Rising Action Rank 1+, Marionette Max Damage+10~15
Will-10~30
Repair Costx3
Enchant enabled rank regardless
Personalize[/COLOR]
VI - Party & Solo tactics and combos
Note : On party, you should never use crisis more than once after the mobs spawn, as a puppeteer your role is to crowd control and not actual damage dealing. Also on a pug party be sure to inform your party what you'll be doing.
Note 2 : I just made up the names now ;D
Combos vs single target:
Personally i don't use puppetry on single target, however here's some tactics one can use on single target mobs.
Act 2-1 : As name suggests, act 2 then 1. example
Act 1 (or 2) Crash : Use act 1 to stun the mob and gain a little distance, then get close and finish it up with act 7.
Combos vs multi target:
Crisis frozen act7 [for party play] : A good combo for a party puppeteer is to Crisis > use ice dragon or scooter > Act4 > Act7
[video=youtube;TIvfPxE8dGo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIvfPxE8dGo[/video]
Yes i understand you won't be doing much damage with that act7 with mobs frozen, however it maximizes the damage your party will deal on a group of mobs. This combo works perfectly on martial arts arena and on other places with strong mobs that do not die with a simple puppet combo. If you do not have a ice dragon or scooter, inform your party to spam the shit out of theirs a couple of seconds after you use crisis. Just pay attention that on case of martial arts arena the mage npc won't be frozen.
Crisis > act 4 > lullaby > anything [for solo play] : Similar to the frozen counterpart, except you use either lullaby (with song) or nimbus to put mobs to sleep. Just remember if you're not a puppeteer you'll have to use crisis > act 4 > lullaby. Nimbus won't give you time for anything.
[video=youtube;9TNB_ED7Pe8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TNB_ED7Pe8[/video]
On situations such as Offering elite this combo can be used to quickly dispose of surviving mobs without spreading them out with crisis > act 4 > lullaby > crisis > act 4.
Note : If you're using a instrument to put mobs to sleep, freeze them before using lullaby. That will give you time to swap weapons to put them asleep.
Lord combo (charge cancel > crisis > act 4) [solo and party play]: Note : requires shieldless charge
One of my favorite combo on open world missions such as shadow cast city or secret of scatha caves, as will allow your fast approach to mobs and completely immobilize them quickly before they have any chance to aggro you, which makes it perfect against fast aggro mobs. Just charge in, cancel charge right before you hit a mob, summon the puppet and crisis.
[video=youtube;tqD3XBj7ijg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqD3XBj7ijg[/video]
Crisis > act4 > freeze > act7 > desummon puppet > repeat [for solo play]: AI is so stupid that it hurts. Just desummon your puppet after attacking to cause mobs to lose aggro mid combo.
[video=youtube;r7sqWIJUzjc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7sqWIJUzjc[/video]
Crisis slap +sleep/frozen crash [for solo play] : Same shit as crisis slap + frozen act7, but on solo situations you may use nimbus to use act7. If you're using ice dragon just wait for the ice to break to unleash act7. (example on the next video)
Play dead crisis [for solo and party play]: This tactic can only be used on sulfur spider middle room.
After clearing the 1st wave play dead and wait for all spiders to spawn, once they all do summon your puppet and wait for them to get close to crisis. Finish them up with act4 > pet > act 7, you don't want to epeen here with act4 > act7 or you're fucked if you screw up.
[video=youtube;59jHsnbysAw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59jHsnbysAw[/video]
IVI - [SIZE=2]l[/SIZE]G[SIZE=2]1txes[/SIZE]
Spam crisis > cancel for around 10 times and most melee damage will do 1 to your puppets. Perfect for those situations where mobs use only normal attacks (like spiders on sulfur spider)
Another glitch that nexon will fix... eventually, is control marionette skill cooldown reduction. Ever used a skill and after the cd passes icon shows it available but you can't use it without any message showing? To prevent this keep rotating through your puppets (crisis > act4 > act7 > desummon > summon your other puppet > rotation).
VII - Conclusion
I believe that's it... Everyone is free to suggest stuff to be added if i missed something.