[dev1135] Rework the new 2-hour and abolish the 2-second JA delay.

[Kametame]

I don't often post on the the forums here, but the general quietness about the new 2-Hour ability on the Puppetmaster forum irked me. This should be the primary venue where we voice our concerns about our favorite job. As a career PUP since the job's release, I've had enough time to look over the mechanics of the job, how far it's come, and where it needs to go to compete.

That being said, the 2-hour definitely needs reworking (and a couple other quips that I would really like to see happen to the job as well that will be noted later on in this post) and here's how:

Harlystrikes (Harlequin Mighty Strikes)
This is a terrible idea simply because this WILL NOT reduce from the fact that harlequin has been and will always be a terrible choice for any Puppetmaster after level 10. It has sub-par melee and magic skill (which tranlates into that will not make it at all viable in the arena of rapid damage dealing. Even if you were to have three Wind Manuevers with a Turbo Charger attached, you're sacrificing a great deal of accuracy or attack from Fire or Thunder Manuevers.

Valoredge (Invincible)
Situational at best, but if you're doing Voidwatch, someone else is most likely tanking. Valoredge is quite tough with the proper attachment setup in a scenario where a pet can get away with tanking something -- However, Valoredge has a very strong aspect that should be enhanced more, which is its rather strong melee swings. That being said, it would be better if either Mighty Strikes or Blood Weapon were to be used on Valoeredge along with a moderate delay reduction to its attacks.

Why not swap in the Harlequin head?
Simple. You don't get the full benefit of the melee skill and elemental slots from full Valoredge. You also don't get the same amount of attack speed or health compared to full Valor either.

Sharpshot (Eagle Eye Shot)
From the calculations done over by Jinte at Allakhazam (see here (http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=253&mid=134377124216912230)), this is a very gimped version of the already gimped 2hour that is Eagle Eye Shot. A suggestion would be -- like the previous one -- to reduce the delay on ranged attacks to about 2 seconds right after firing off the un-nerfed version of EES.

Full Stormwaker (Chainspell)
You have to be prepared for this one before you pop your 2hr, which isn't a bad thing. It requires at least one Ice maneuver up and NO ICE MAKER. Ideally, you'll have to keep 3 ice maneuvers most of the casting is going to be wasted on debuffs and buffs. It's a perfect "oh shi-" button for solo, but you'll have to gimp your auto's potential damage for a flurry of T4 nukes. So it's decent at best.

Spiritreaver (Manafont)
Manafont will only give us 2-3 underpowered nukes due to us not being able to keep up after the first nuke on Maneuver cooldowns. There's also the global spell cooldown timer of 4 seconds, which it has to wait through, so that's at least one more spell that it could've gotten off instead of standing around aimlessly.

Soulsoother (Benediction)
This one's pretty useful, so nothing here.

The sole biggest fix you can do that can make PUP a lot more viable is to abolish the 2 second post-JA timer that happens after Maneuvers.

[Mathieu]

As you said, since most people don't use Harlequin past level 10, it is pretty irrelevant to complain about what 2-hour it has.

I disagree, Invincible is a far better option than Mighty Strikes and far, far, far better than Blood Weapon. Here's the reason why, Invincible gives an option that otherwise isn't available and, when needed, is a very useful two hour. On the other hand, if you want some more damage, you can still use Overdrive. The difference between Mighty Strikes and Overdrive is much, much smaller than the difference between Invincible and Overdrive. As for Blood Weapon, why bother? Invincible lasts the same amount of time and gives you time to heal using other methods. It also isn't going to be screwed over by a couple of unlucky misses. Also, a lot of the power of Blood Weapon is that it basically allows you to ignore the downsides of some Dark Knight abilities, which Puppet Master doesn't have.

Eagle Eye Shot has some situational uses. Your suggestion is something that Overdrive already covers.

[Theytak]

As you said, since most people don't use Harlequin past level 10, it is pretty irrelevant to complain about what 2-hour it has.

I disagree, Invincible is a far better option than Mighty Strikes and far, far, far better than Blood Weapon. Here's the reason why, Invincible gives an option that otherwise isn't available and, when needed, is a very useful two hour. On the other hand, if you want some more damage, you can still use Overdrive. The difference between Mighty Strikes and Overdrive is much, much smaller than the difference between Invincible and Overdrive. As for Blood Weapon, why bother? Invincible lasts the same amount of time and gives you time to heal using other methods. It also isn't going to be screwed over by a couple of unlucky misses. Also, a lot of the power of Blood Weapon is that it basically allows you to ignore the downsides of some Dark Knight abilities, which Puppet Master doesn't have.

Eagle Eye Shot has some situational uses. Your suggestion is something that Overdrive already covers.

Except no. First, invincible would be useful for a puppet like sharpshot, which has no survivability at all, but between stout servant, VE's natural DT-, the changes to armor plates, mana jammers, and a piece or two of pet PDT gear, VE's already nearly indestructible if you prepare ahead of time. It doesn't need invincible, however, because unlike pld, VE only has one hate pulling ability, strobe's provoke, and using that means your losing some of VE's fairly solid DoT (fairly solid relative to the other puppets, anyway).

Further, while I've stated several times that overdrive is stronger than this new 2hour, you're still vastly overestimating it. All overdrive does, offensively, is give the pet a big chunk of JA haste. This haste does not affect recast times, or sharpshot's ranged attack delay. Yes, overdrive let's you use maneuvers without overloading, but with the 10 second recast, that's still only 6 maneuvers over the course of its duration, and you can pull off 6 maneuvers without overloading through gear alone. Melee haste is very strong for VE's DoT, and to a lesser extent, sharpshot's TP gain, but given the nature of pet damage, mighty strikes would be fairly powerful in the hands of a full, properly fit VE. Additionally, overdrive does, essentially, nothing for the mage puppets. This 2hour isn't much better in that regard, especially manafont, and to a lesser extent chainspell, but at least it has something.

The fundamental problem with this glorified piece of shit ability is that it focuses on the puppet, when in all fairness, if it wanted to see any use, it would need to focus on the master.

[Kametame]

I appreciate anyone's contributions to this thread, especially Jinte, who's taken the time out of her schedule to conduct any the rigorous maths. I've conducted my own calculations using my automaton and have fallen well within uncertainty bounds of Jinte's calculations.

Nothing's going to get better if we don't let out how we really feel about these additions and any suggestions otherwise. Judging by the looks of it, we've had a couple community reps come by, so if a thread gets big enough, they could show their presence. As a PUP who's long participated in the realm of endgame, we need to point out the flaws with the job in order to get them addressed.

[xiozen]

I wonder if the devs can explain: I know the new special job abilities would share the 2 hour ability timer, but would the abilities themselves allow for an overlapping of the special job abilities + the old 2 hour abilities? or would one overwrite the other...

Example: PUP uses 2hr Overdrive (then uses a Revitalizer) + PUP uses sharp shot frame for Eagle Eye Shot

Once EES is used, would that end the 2hr timer or would Overdrive be maintained to allow for enhanced maneuver effects?

A clarification would be cool. Thx.

[Theytak]

I wonder if the devs can explain: I know the new special job abilities would share the 2 hour ability timer, but would the abilities themselves allow for an overlapping of the special job abilities + the old 2 hour abilities? or would one overwrite the other...

Example: PUP uses 2hr Overdrive (then uses a Revitalizer) + PUP uses sharp shot frame for Eagle Eye Shot

Once EES is used, would that end the 2hr timer or would Overdrive be maintained to allow for enhanced maneuver effects?

A clarification would be cool. Thx.

Regardless of my opinion of you, that is, honestly, a very good question that I hadn't thought of. It's not that hard to test out on the test server, either...