puppetmaster merit's

[s_white62]

Would love some suggestions for how to properly merit a Puppetmaster. Any help/builds would be appreciated.

[Dawezy]

Atleast 1 point into Role Reversal and Ventriloquy is a awesome thing to have. Depending on which frames you find yourself focusing on is how you throw your merits about~

Automaton Magic Skill 5/5
Automaton Melee Skill 0/5
Automaton Ranged Skill 5/5

Role Reversal 1/5
Ventriloquy 1/5
Fine-Tuning 3/5
Optimization 5/5

^ how I spent mine; I find myself on Sharpshot most of the time, in and out of Abyssea.. Armor Shatterer is crazy - thus focused on the Ranged and Magic, for Spiritreaver and Soulsoother for those quiet solo times I have ^_^

These will vary from player to player though, that is how I distributed my merits.

Situational is situational, etc.

[Tetsujin]

Role Reversal 1/5
Ventriloquy 1/5
Fine-Tuning 3/5
Optimization 5/5


same, but I went 4/5 Optimization and 4/5 Fine-Tuning.

[Thango]

Optimization > Fine-Tuning

I prefer 5 and 3 than 4 and 4

Optimization is % and Fine-Tuning is +x

[Dfoley]

Thanks to voidwatch:
Automaton Magic Skill 0/5
Automaton Melee Skill 5/5
Automaton Ranged Skill 5/5

Role Reversal 1/5
Ventriloquy 1/5
Fine-Tuning 3/5
Optimization 5/5



Before voidwatch I was:
Automaton Magic Skill 0/5
Automaton Melee Skill 5/5
Automaton Ranged Skill 5/5

Role Reversal 0/5
Ventriloquy 0/5
Fine-Tuning 5/5
Optimization 5/5

Never really needed role reversal or ventriloquy myself as I always have a real whm with me, but that is just my play style. Then came the joy of voidwatch triggers and pet onry fights

[Dawezy]

My apologies but I left Activate Recast and Repair Recast out of my initial list.. (since they are in the Tier I list on the Merits menu for PUP)

...but has anybody actually put points into these?

( ￣ノ∇￣)￣ー￣)

[Dfoley]

No one I know of ever used activate recast, and with Deus Ex Automata, even less used it.

Repair isn't a terrible option if you only use mage frame, because then melee/ranged skill aren't important, but again I dont even know of anyone who ever used it personally. According to the census almost no one got either of them.

[Kristal]

I used to have some Activate merits, but replaced them with skill merits when we got Deus.

[Yoky]

5/5 on Automaton Magic .. you have to be crazy not too, you lose spells if you dont

I'm 2 on melee and 3 on rng... but whatever doesn't really matter... 4 rng isnt a bad option..

0 on RR.. dont ever use it so i demeritted it.
1 on vent.. proc
4 on Fine tunine
5 on Opt (again no reason to not go 5/5 on Opt)

[Camwin]

False, with the level cap at 99 now, there is no benefit of having magic merits Other than the minute Macc. So at this point of the game you can merit 5/5 ranged and 5/5 melee. Or if you really wanted to, you could merit any of our other abilities.

[Annalise]

The other thing is that Jinte did some testing to find that ranged merits increase the base damage of the sharpshot's ranged attacks... which makes them much more attractive now. The staple used to be 5 melee (affects all frames), 5 magic (used to give blizzard iv or other new spells). It now seems to be 5 melee and 5 ranged, as stated above magic merits are just a small amount of MACC now.

[Anza]

Worth noting that Automaton Melee skill is THE most useful merit for any physical DD puppet including Sharpshot. For Sharpshot, more melee skill to bring up the weak C+ melee skill means faster TP from automaton melee strikes (which in turn means more frequent WS, very important since WS make up a larger proportion of SS's total damage than any other frame). Even mage frames can benefit from melee skill, for example farming solo alongside SW or Soulsoother and letting the puppet melee.

The old standard choices for Tier I were 5/5 Magic (gain new spells) 5/5 Melee, period. The only reason to do otherwise was if you NEVER used Spiritreaver frame.

Current day, now that there's no difference in spell list at 99PUP regardless of magic merits, it's much more of a realistic option to go for Ranged merits over Magic. 5/5 Melee is still absolute though.

[Dawezy]

Is that confirmed about the Magic Skill? if so I may aswell nuke it, cap the melee. I've had Valoredge tank alot of NM's since I got ahold of that Ducal Guard Atma.

[Annalise]

Is that confirmed about the Magic Skill? if so I may aswell nuke it, cap the melee. I've had Valoredge tank alot of NM's since I got ahold of that Ducal Guard Atma.
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Automaton_Magic_Skill

Last spell learned is at 389 (Thunder V) which is obtainable without merits. Nothing is learned past that. So once you hit 389 skill, you should still continue to cap it for the MACC of course, but merits aren't really doing you all too much but a few MACC.

[Dawezy]

Auto Magic Skill is at 444, with those merits and Empy +2..

Yeah, might be a bit overkill?

[Tetsujin]

I'm doing 5/5 Magic, this is because I haven't gotten Tranq. and level 99 yet.
Even without the tranquilizer an automaton's magic accuracy is unrealistically great. So when I do get there, I'll reallocate my magic merits into melee.

[Tetsujin]

About me choosing 4 and 4 on Optimization and Fine-Tuning rather than 5 and 3...

I'm essentially trading 5% attack, defense and 5 MAB for 5 [ranged] accuracy and evasion.
Even though Atk/Def/MAB are extremely attractive, I'm choosing accuracy for now.

Maybe I'll switch to 5-3 when I hit/cap skills for 99.

[gilmour]

Yeah but you aren't trading 5 for 5, you are trading % for static, and every level you gain mean you lose more and more. Going to assume pets are 2 handed formula and that its 70 dex at 75 and 80 dex at 99, no merits into skill at all and no + stats/skill from gear.

EG at 75: 269 skill
ACC = 315
ATK = 323

With 4/5 merits you are adding:
ACC = 315 + 20 = 335
ATK = 323 * 1.2 = 387

With 5/5 and 3/5 merits you are adding
ACC = 315 + 15 = 330 (1.5 % loss in acc)
ATK = 403 (16 atk gain for 5 acc loss)

AT 99
ACC 455
ATK 463

At 99 with 4/5 merits in both
ACC = 475
ATK = 555

At 99 with 5/5 and 4/5
acc = 470 (1.0% loss in acc)
atk = 580 (25 atk gain for 5 acc loss)

Of course numbers could be less depending on how they treat pets dmg, but you get the idea. Not to mention cirque gear with + skill and stats is only going to make the merits more and more useful for 5/5 optimization

[Tetsujin]

Wow. I'm glad you went out of your way to work that math out.
Makes for a pretty convincing argument. Definitely gonna look into reallocating sometime soon, especially since automatons are typically accurate as hell anyway.

[tendo64]

I'm current 5/5 on Melee and Ranged atm, but I plan to move those Melee merits into Magic when I get the chance (1mil exp into a new merit ws, first). I'm also 1/1/3/5 on group two, and I can honestly say I love-love-love Role Reversal, and almost never use Ventriloquy. Even with repair kits, I have more HP than my mage puppets, so when there's a WHM available, or I'm subbing DNC or SCH, I will gladly give my HP to the puppet for a quick Reactivation without having to waste an Oil or wait on Regen. When I'm helping friends farm currency in Dynamis and I'm on PUP/DNC, I'm probably using Spiritreaver. After I WS and take a few unlucky blows, Role Reversal will save my life with a much greater frequency than letting 1 mob kill my automaton (while possibly more continue to beat me up). That being said, in tandem they can work wonders with Oil's strong Regen.

[Theytak]

It's also worth noting that, in addition to no longer needing magic skill merits to acquire spells, with how the tiering works out, 5/5 range skill at the 99 cap (combined with cirque pantaloni +2) bumps up sharpshots base damage tier twice, resulting in a base damage boost of 9.

Since people don't seem to be aware of it/remember reading it, I tested it a while back with some help from Byrth; for sharpshot, weapon damage = (floor(automaton ranged skill * 0.11) * 3), so 135 base damage at 99 cap, +10 skill from pants bumps it up to 138, and with 10 more from merits, you get +3 dmg at +1 skill, and +3 more again at +10, for 144 weapon damage.

For the record sharpshot's fSTR has a ludicrously high cap, to the point that I needed ~100 str to cap it against bunnies in w.ron. Also, its ranged attack damage is also modified by dex, though not to the same degree as str. Basically sharpshot's ranged attack is a ranged ws with a dex mod.



....hmmm, I never did get around to figuring out valoredge's weapon damage calc, but given how fucking painful it is to force crits with valoredge, I don't know if I ever will, beyond number crunching based on experience and realistic expectations, lol

edit to clarify:

Mandatory: If these aren't merited, I don't care how you play pup, you did it wrong.
5/5 melee skill
5/5 Opt
3/5 FT

Best for damage:
5/5 Ranged skill

Situational:
5/5 Magic Skill if you don't ever use sharpshot and/or really think you need the tiny boost in m.acc

Debatable:
1/5 Vent 1/5 RR vs 5/5 FT; some people seem to make due without vent/rr, though I personally have no fucking idea how, so your mileage may vary here.

[tendo64]

So I'm basically getting that Automaton magic skill does nothing for nuke damage beyond macc, is that correct? I don't know how, but I managed to convince myself it added potency in some way.

[Theytak]

So I'm basically getting that Automaton magic skill does nothing for nuke damage beyond macc, is that correct? I don't know how, but I managed to convince myself it added potency in some way.

melee skill sets melee base damage, ranged skill sets ranged base damage, but those are both the case because the puppet has no actual weapon with which to derive a base damage. Nukes work the same for puppets and players, the puppet just substitutes "Automaton Magic Skill" where it would otherwise use "Elemental Magic Skill" in the accuracy checks.

[Zhronne]

Well, I suppose the added accuracy could come in handy after the debuff reform, since debuffs will actually stick.
Altough our automatons don't really have a huge array of debuffs, but they can be nice while soloing, once you can actually rely on them on stuff that matters.