Automaton massacre: The need for some form of Automaton damage mitigation

[Balloon]

I understand that Puppetmaster might not be the greatest DD in the world, but with Oatixur, good gear, and Divinator it can be respectable. Except in any new content.

Keeping an automaton alive is a great deal of work, when a single WS can take it down 50%-75% and with only repair and items to keep it alive, and role reversal to keep it alive.

Maybe something to allow our pet to mitigate more damage, maybe changing replicator to no longer be when your HP is low, and having shock absorber be more potent.. And more native PDT.

It's just tedious having your automaton dead more often than it is alive.

[Balloon]

I'm not talking about for solo content, I'm talking about new content - Content where large amounts of PDT and shadows are required in order to even survive.

There's next to no way for automatons to recover in a speedy way - Beastmasters have repair and around 6k hp for their pets, Dragoons can function perfectly well without their wyverns and Summoners can quickly resummon their pets.

'Knowing how to play the job' - really is a nonissue here. We're talking about new content. Not level 75 content that you solod.


Even with AF1+4, Guignol and Miniexpac pants it's hard to keep an automaton alive in new content, and if your solution to that is "Keep 3 Light maneuvers up" ... a solution that eats massively into dps of both automaton and master, and even if you were just using whm automaton anyway would cause the pet to cure at 90% which is massively inefficient,. then there's a problem. We're simply much less effective in new content thanks to a mixture of a need to micromanage our pet, our lack of automaton and the need to balance automaton stats and master stats.

It's strange to me that DRG, a job less focused on their pet, can manage to keep their wyvern alive longer than an automaton can stay alive. When I did AA TT with 2drgs their wyverns stayed alive for a good 70% of the fight, whereas my auto died in the first couple of minutes.

[Balloon]

The only way I can see that is with a lot of earth maneuvers, in which case you're eating so far into yours and your pets DPS that it becomes a moot point. JA delay is a huge problem in this game. You'd also have to alter out some of the attachments and it's already a crapshoot with the accuracy automatons have.

The game doesn't accomodate a jack of all trade job. And part of the solution to that would be allowing us to not worry so much about our automaton HP.

[Balloon]

But the idea that Pup should somehow be more powerful is not something I would go with, it is already powerful in the right situations and if played in the according way.

I don't see the balance in having a job that can sometimes kite a little better when there's effectively 0 content based around that. Let's not pretend that all content is equal. When 90% of the new content is geared around mobs that spam AoE, and that require high levels of PDT and Damage Mitigation to survive, then jobs should have some way of dealing with that. Most do in the form of shadows, or having a whm around that can help you deal with it.

I took my automaton to skirmish in Out'Rak - I could stay alive thanks to our WHM. My automaton had to eat Back to back AoEs. It has 1.2~1.3k hp depending on your animator. When 1 of those does 700 and the timer on repair is 3 minutes I fail to see a way it could have survived, sparing spamming maneuvers and severely reducing my dps.

Call beast is also on a 5 minute timer, and pets usually have enough hp to last that long, if not there's reward, if not there's muslum. We have to respawn our pet with 330 hp. It dies near instantly if we can't repair it quick enough. In terms of pet survivability, BST has us beat and then some.

Pup has a place, but that place tends to be doing Ilvl < 110 and soloing old content. All I want is for some way to make it even remotely viable on content that has heavy AoE

[Balloon]

I don't even.. All I said was that in party content the automaton can not stay alive. I didn't mention solo. I didn't mention always using WHM auto, in fact, I rarely do outside of solo situations.

You might not have a problem with automaton survivability in your content, but I fail to see how others don't if their automaton is in melee range. All the AA have extensive aoe abilities that hit for upwards of 1k . And no, sacrificing lots of Master Haste acc atk etc is not a solution to that problem. Eating mountains of ja delay to keep up 3 earth maneuvers isn't either. You become useless either way.

Try going to an AA as a melee character without shadows. Without PDT. You'll die. That's the situation our automaton faces.It's not about being 'uber in all situations' - It's about being completely useless in many.

Also, putting 5 merits into Repair means we lose upwards of 10 acc in either ranged accuracy or melee accuracy. Once again, something we can't afford to do. With a RoE animator you already sit at around 710 accuracy, which isn't enough to have even a 30-50% hit rate on content greater than Normal. Even on normal my automaton had trouble hitting with just RoE.

Divinator helps a little, but I'd still argue that Regimen, Hurch'lan, Stabilizers, scope, and a whole slew of other boons are needed just to get an acceptable hit rate. Then you need to pile on the attack attachments, Turbo charger 1 and 2, Optic Fiber and what you're left with is very little in terms of slots.

A job as weak as puppetmaster currently is shouldn't have to make all those sacrifices, because it makes bringing one untenable. 'Oh hey. I'll bring my pup, but don't mind me I'll just have to sacrifice HUGE, HUGE amounts of damage in order to keep my automaton alive, and even then he'll probably only hit 50% of the time because I had to remove all boons he could get to throw on earth attachments and maneuvers... What's that? You'll just bring literally any other job. Okay :('

When your perspective is "New Colonization Reives" I'd hazard a guess that we're not talking about the same content. I can keep my automaton alive with nothing in those.

I also don't think you understand just how damaging ja delay is. Keeping 3 maneuvers on at all times reducing dps by as much as 20-30%. Then you're reducing it further with repair, then even further with attachment choices, then even further removing 5 merits into something useful.

[Balloon]

That's entirely the problem. That's entirely the problem I am outlining. You are a detriment to everyone if you're stacking earth and using Valoredge. That's entirely the problem.

I don't even mean the whm frame. I never once even said that. That isn't the frame I was talking about.

I never said it should be perfect in every situation but it's just not usable in 90% of the current, relevant content in this game. And by that I mean Delve, Skirmish 3, and High-level Battlefields including SKCNMs higher than or at Normal Difficulty.

Screw it, give the whm auto Damage taken +10%, that's not even remotely what I was trying to say. When you base your entire job on the efficacy of a pet, you would think that it could at least compete in 90% of todays relevant content. Which it cannot. ANY job can compete better than a 3 earth maneuvered valoredge. If I used PDT claws I'd have to give up oatixur, which is another reason why it'd be untenable to invite me.

I'm not saying I should be a Monk + A pet. I'm saying that Me + A DD pet should approach, but not surpass a monks ability to deal damage. It doesn't.


And no, really, a wisely placed maneuver is not the difference between a loss and a win. Taking any other dd instead of a pup can be though.

And the RNG automaton doesn't even position itself out of 90% of the games AoEs for christ sake. It stands 15 yalms away. Most AoE is 20 yalms.


I'd like you to give me one situation where a Puppetmaster is more beneficial in todays current end game content than another dd. Because you can be situational, but if those situations aren't situated in the current Meta-Game then what's the point. The current Meta is focused around HighLevel Battlefields and Skrim3/Delve. PUP does not strive, nor does it even compete well, in those.

[Balloon]

PUP shouldn't be able to go to events because Automatons are like laptops. Okay.

One of those little machines is literally an analogue to paladin.

[Feary]

This highlighted quote also applies to most DD except MNK, they have been excluded from events for a long while now. I have a decent WAR but nobody will take it over a well-geared MNK. Lots of jobs are excluded from mono-content including Pup.

Your avatar lists MNK as your main job, so you could use that in events requiring a heavy DD, and most events would take you over other DD jobs in a flash. PUP was never designed as a party-based heavy DD in the way that MNK is, it is possible that you played MNK as main and are concerned that PUP is not as relevant in events, which is true. Pup was always a technical job, not a brute force job, and this dates back to the birth of Pup in 06~.

In AA for example, I am always asked to go WHM, sometimes THF, only a few times have I been told Pup is OK to bring, but I am used to that because people want brute-force DDs, PLDs or WHMs in events, and Pup has been this situational pet job for the eight years I've played it - its nothing new. And the fundamental thing is that Pup was never suited to certain situations, while it excelled in others. So it isn't news and I'm never surprised when people want MNKs and I'm told to bring my WHM lol. Because Pup is a versatile tinkerer job and it *never was* what people wanted as primary DD or tank etc.

BST is the same, it was never a heavy DD job, it was a highly risky pet job where a few mis-charms resulted in the Bst dying, and jugpets died in six hits. Stout Servant patch changed the pet job situation regarding pets dying so fast. But the three main pet jobs were never welcome in XP parties for example, Bst were hated, Pup was mocked and bullied, Smn had to go around for years with "Back-up cures / Do you need it?" in their LFP comments and use all their MP spamming cure II for hours just to get an xp party. In many ways Pup and Bst fared the same in events. That is because those jobs were never like MNK, which is the classic brute-force DD.

Re; automatons specifically they are small machines and if you own a laptop you will know how easily they break. They are not heavily armored Paladins, or brute-force monks, they are just small tinkered contraptions and when they were added to the game this was reflected in them dying so fast. But Pups learned to adjust by using the autos strategically in situational ways, and over the years Pup became the best kiting job and the best target-kill job for timed battles where you have to ignore the adds and kill the boss only. Pup is a very powerful job but only in the right situations, and this is a technical matter relating to the nature of it being a small machine.

I will just say, as my final offering, I don't disagree with you on any deep level and I see your points which are valid, and I don't have anything against SE buffing autos if that is what they want to do. I'm just saying that Pup was never a brute force DD or a supertank job, it is a quirky pet job with lots of variable playstyles and strengths/weaknesses depending on the situation.

LOOOLLLLLLLLLL. Random shout party wont invite me on my war. LOLLLLLLLLL so lets /whine and compare two totally different situations.

why is every post about someone being mistreated by job selection. its never just about the job or Player skill. Here there is a legitimate claim to pup and you must bash it.

if your playing skill and networking is decent you will get invites on WAR. Like all the other DD excluding BST or PUP and by extension SMN. They are pet jobs and excel/built as solo jobs and have a niche.

Stop trying to compare apples to oranges.

bst/Pup will never be sight out for the highest content or anything over ILvL 110. Like Delve or Skirmish, basically anything worth doing in a party setup 6 or higher. If they are its only because the group of players are being sympathetic to the player.

the reason why? it will require a strategy too accommodating to the PUP and not the other 5+ ppl in the pt. like an all pet burn.

like Balloon is trying to post. Maneuvering as JA and choose maneuvers for attachments is so detrimental to pup. it cant even been considered as a low to mid end DD. You are just stuck trying to either support your Automaton, sacrificing DPS or not using your Automation because its dead. again sacrificing DPS.

this is why PUP is truly LOLPUP.

Thank you balloon for pointing this out. hopefully. they take your posting in to serious consideration.

ps this is why i lol at all the pup because they have no idea why thier job is bad. instead of explaining this to them. i just troll them and say lolpup.

if you are claim to be a serious pup and dont know this about your job. then you arent a serious pup.

[Damane]

Well you keep talking about how using maneuvers is time-consuming and lowers your DPS, to which I say again that PUP is not a DPS MNK, it is a sophisticated pet job and maneuvers are the primary requisite of Pups, using the right maneuvers wisely can change a fail into a win. I wouldn't send my auto near the AA mobs unless it was valoredge and I was stacking earth maneuvers. If I was meleeing I would use the party WHM to cure me and a ranger frame positioned away from the NM.

From what you're saying is you want a sort of "monk with a damage-resistent PL" type of situation but that isn't what the Pup job was ever about. It is a pet job designed to modify the auto to adapt to different situations which I outlined earlier.

All that said, I will repeat the thing about we should be allowed to upgrade our magian fists to lvl 117 at least, with pet pdt say -25 on the finished piece. But in the meantime I don't have a problem doing new content on Pup, I know that this job was never intended to be perfect for every situation, it is a situational pet job not a dual-box MNK+WHM.

this has nothing to do with DPS or not, JA-delay affects every job and imho should be fixed/removed whatever. It effects most those jobs that have to use JAs alot: PUP (extremly) DNC, RUN. SCH to some degree with stratagems. Not only does it kill your DPS it prevents you from acting, I can count several times I missed on SCH a stun because I was in JA-Delay, or a cure because of JA delay.

While yes PUP is a Pet job, it is a DPS job in my eyes, with the versatility to adjust itself with different matons.

[Frost]

I agree to a degree that the maton is a little, um... "flimsy". But the issue I have, as someone pointed out earlier: It's a "Jack of all Trades, Master of None".

I admit I skimmed most of this thread, but I did read most of it until it turned into walls of text. That being said, my only addition, and it doesn't' really pertain to anything mentioned is the following (and it's based on what I usually hear in regards to Pup):

- Should the maton be a better paladin, than a paladin?
- Should the maton be a better ranger, than a ranger?
- Should the maton be a better healer than a white mage?
- Should the maton be a better melee than a [insert melee job here]?

- Should the master be a melee better than, or equal to a monk?

I hope you're seeing a pattern. Pup is a job that's just too much of everything, and in lies its own downfall.

The second the maton or master becomes 'good' at anything, it becomes the best at that thing because it has the other half as well. It's a nasty balancing act. Say if the Pup was as proficient as monk (for argument's sake), then you're have a heavy DD + a minor DD/Healer/Nuker/Ranged attacker. Flip that for the maton, if it was 100% a ranger, then it's a ranger + minor DD/extra DPS.

If the combo was 50% one job and 50% another to make a complete job, it's rendered 100% useless, as two half people aren't' the best way to play this game.

At the moment it seems like the balance is about 80% on both. Which for hard stuff makes it a waste of a slot/liability, as there are the things a Pup could be, but in their respective forms; I.E. Mnk, Whm, Rng, etc, etc, etc... On older content makes it easily 160%+ of a character, which makes soloing/independent content amazing. You don't hear 'top tier DD' complaining about the inability to solo stuff. Everyone has a role, find yours.

In closing, I got to say, "Old Dragoon" suffered from the same problem Puppetmasters do. It's the players... If you go in game and onto forums and complain so frequently as to why your job 'sucks', people will believe you. It's akin to going on a date or job interview and the first words out of your mouth is why you're such a loser, you think you're going to get very far?

Find the job's strengths and go with it. I love the job for what it does for me, but I'm not going to waste my time and everyone elses trying to shove a square peg in a round hole.

[Balloon]

You don't hear 90% of top dier dds complaining about the inability to solo stuff because it isn't that relevant. What exactly are you all soloing that a MNK/DNC can't? Salvage? Dynamis? Most jobs do fine in there. We're not even really the best soloer, thanks to the fact that our automaton has some truly abyssmal AI. I'd argue that BLU is far more effective, and DNC, and those can actually compete better at the content that I'm describing than pup ever could.

I don't want to change it to be like other jobs. PUP is unique, and with the right combination of gear, can be powerful in it's own right. But it's hindered by a few very solvable problems. One being survivability and the other being JA delay. You keep thinking I want it to be like other jobs, but I see no reference to that in my posts. Being able to actually do content isn't 'like other jobs'. It's kinda the point of jobs in this game.

I really don't think the request is that unreasonable. I don't know why you keep thinking I'm asking for our job to be turned into a MNK+RNG instead of just asking for the one unique aspect of our job to be able to, you know, actually be utilized effectively.

And your argument seems to boil down to 'PUP was always bad, so why fix that.' It's an incredibly defeatist attitude. PUP was born out of mismanagement and compromise, why keep it there? (Referring to the fact it was Necromancer, was given a C h2h skill and was generally appalling.)


This whole 'find your niche' thing is so incredibly pointless when that niche isn't relevant. What have we got, Kiting (I can't think of a serious reason to ever do this) and soloing old content (though not as much as say BLU or DNC can accomplish.)

Then there's the 'It's the players that think pup is bad.' No. Just no. lolpup was more accurate back in the day, sure, but it still applies.

I mean your argument has just been wrought with strawmen that you're basically discussing something completely different to me. I don't want PUP to be this do-all ubermench of a job, but you know what, if I feel like going pup to something it shouldn't be such a chore. It applies to no other job, going BLU, or going DNC might not be the ideal solution to a problem, but it's not so laughably awful that nobody would take me. Same applies with BST. I don't want pup to be the best at something. All I want is for pup to be at least partially relevant. I like the job. I want to use it for something other than soloing salvage.

[Balloon]

Your view doesn't really affect the actual mechanics of the game. JA Delay is a thing, and the last thing pup needs is the -30~40 acc that an ilvl 117 claw would give. All your solutions are based around compromise, which is the last thing pup needs.

Manuevers destroy DPS. That's a fact. Using maneuvers in battle is a bad thing. It's a bad mechanic because of JA delay.

Your uses are so niche that it's laughable. Why are you treating what I'm saying like is LETS REPLACE ALL OTHER DDs WITH PUP. I can't go to Skirmish/Delve/AA/Celestial Nexus on pup, because my automaton dies too quickly.

I mean I can't even begin to comprehend your argument that pups af is silly so the job should be too. Seriously?

And you should really take 5 minutes to understand the limitations of this game if you think maneuvers are an acceptable solution to anything.

Of course you don't have a problem, you're going to crap tier content.

[Balloon]

I don't even see what's offensive about that, the word crap? You've cited New Col reives, Soloing level 75 nms, and GEO AF quest. That's not the content I'm talking about.

By the way, there's a reason Monk is taken over other jobs and it's pretty much the exact problem I'm talking about. They're not the best DD, really, but they have more HP and can survive some of the larger AoE moves. Most jobs have ways to mitigate this, even Wyverns. Automatons don't. That's the problem.

[Frost]

Baloon, assuming you're just really upset and passionate about what you're talking about, I suggest you reread what some people here have written with a more objective eye. What people are saying, and what you think they are saying (by way of restating their comments) are a little "off".

If you wish for me to clarify further I will, but you seem like a smart guy and I think you'll figure it out. We're on the same side, try to see why I said that.

[Balloon]

I read what you put, I understood it, I just don't agree. Being more effective at older content and solo content is not a good justification to being absolutely useless in current content.

I never asked for the automaton to become the 'best' at anything, I never even asked for a buff in damage from either automaton or master. I think puppetmaster is in a good place in terms of damage, to be honest, barring a few accuracy concerns from the automaton. All I ask is that the automaton shouldn't have to die after 2 AoE in content that where heavy AoE is the norm.

This isn't even a new problem, it was a problem in voidwatch where the pets were given no mitigation too. If anyone is misrepresenting peoples arguments it is Stompa, who seems to think I want puppetmaster to be the worlds best healer, damage dealer and paladin. All I want is for the entire focus on my job, my pet, to be able to be something I can rely on.

I can't think of any decent content that pup excels at. I can farm dynamis and salvage on it, but I can equally do that on THF or DNC or MNK/DNC if I so wished. I can't solo older content with the same efficacy as BLU due to a combination of bad Automaton AI, MP management and AoE. I just wish people would stop pretending that puppetmaster sits in a good place because of it's ability to do outdated content.

When my Automaton is alive we can compete, when my automaton is dead 90% of the time we cannot. I don't think the proposed 'solutions' are solutions at all. If anything, they're worse.

I don't think the problem is that I'm trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I think it's that I have a square peg on a board made of nothing but round holes. I'm bad at metaphors.

[Selindrile]

Before I say what I'm going to say, don't get me wrong, I -do- think Pup could use a buff, and I wouldn't be opposed to automaton survivability.

That said, I've done many SKNM Difficult, and AA Difficults with Pup in the party, they're actually one of the better DD for many AA because of their ability to clear hate. They're used somewhat frequently here on Fenrir.

I haven't done nexus or fulcrum with them, but there's a lot of other jobs I haven't done them with either, that don't get to go to AAs either. If you're not familiar with the strategy, use /nin to avoid AoEs, keep your pet out of range (which is easy to do if you know what you're doing) and use ventriloquy and dismiss your pet to clear your aggro, it's extremely useful with a Pld tank. If your Pup has a good Acc TP set and uses sushi, you're a worthwhile DD because you can also clear your enmity and keep DDing where the most other DD (except Drg, or Rng, who can get away with /Drg) just have to suck it up with bouncing aggro till they die.

Delve after the latest update, is not so bad, and while I haven't done it with a Pup yet (I've only gone twice after the delve adjustment), I can't imagine it being a problem, especially Tojil, and I used to have Pups in my delve farming runs before the strategies were well known and people started actually killing bosses consistently instead of just farming.

And Pup does have the edge on Dyna farming for their ability to target WS procs, nobody else can do that efficiently. That said, if you've got no competition, just going Thf is probably better. But if there's a decent amount of JA proc competition at that time, Pup is quite nice to be able to target WS proc instead and so not overcrowd the mobs.

All that said, JA delay is a huge issue for Pup, and I'm a giant fan of making JA delay much, much lower, for Pup's sake, for Run's, and especially for Dnc, reducing JA -> attack delay considerably would allow you to use more maneuvers without sacrificing so much DPS.

TL;DR: I don't think Pup is in the dire situation the OP describes, but it could use a buff, as could most jobs that aren't the extremely popular ones.

[Balloon]

I'm not really claiming it's dire, I already said I think it's a potent enough dd. I just want my automaton to be alive more.

[Ravenmore]

At this point there not much reason to level anything other then mnk for DDs so any argument that DDs shouldn't all be able to do the same thing is out the window. Don't really care about pup but really mnk is so good why would you take any other job other then you couldn't find enough people willing to whore them selves out on a job they hate to gear up a job they like. Really it not just pup it's every job that isn't whm, brd, mnk, sch and pld for the time being for a few fights and only a few.

The only real solution to this is give every job the same level of safety net mnk has and a JA that does the same as formless strikes until then you will have content that people just mnkx3, brd, whm sch their way though. People can sit here and say it's a player base problem but the real problem is SE doesn't know crap about balancing jobs in the first place. I can tell party leaders till I'm blue in the face that my blu(really no pun intended) can keep up or do better then most shout crap mnks but they will still take the shout craps cause it's just like back when sam was top of the heap simply due to it being the hardest job to derp up. Leaders don't have the time for me to list off every gear set I have to get to the level to pass shout mnk when they can just take the shout mnk and be done with it.

Sadly though Se won't buff other jobs up to the same level, they will nerf mnk into a unless job and then some other job will take it's place (most likely mura sam).

[Balloon]

While we're on the subject how is that a Wyverns Acc is around 100 more than an automatons base acc with divinator?

[Psion]

Not only that, target marker and attuner aren't working, so we lose out on that acc, and the stabilizers aren't even a % based acc boost, but a static one. Even with 3 thunder maneuvers we gain like 40 acc at most. not nearly enough to make up for the horrifically low acc automatons have (even WITH divinator, which adds 50ish accuracy over eminent if you include the boost from stats.) My automaton pretty much has floored accuracy on hard mode arkangels, making anything but black mage automaton useless, and even that only does about 2-3% total damage in a fight. Automatons really are only good for some back up heals during a fight and sacrificial hate dumps using ventriloquy for a master now.

And i agree with you wholeheartedly with the flimsiness. said ark angels basically one shot oniwaka with dual armor plates every time they AoE, from full health. Nothing's going to assist with that, save boosting all automatons defense quite higher than what they currently are and/or quintupling their HP pool. Maneuvers also need to be increased in their duration to 5 minutes so there's actually use in using them. Just adjust their burden to match the new duration and call it even. There will still be a need to change maneuvers in certain situations, and in others we will still just keep the same maneuver combo up full time.

Some basic complaints i have with automatons:

-They're squishy. oh so squishy.

-Their accuracy is terrible. Oniwaka has around 700 accuracy at best. My pup has around 950 with madrigals and sushi, and even I have about 80% accuracy on difficult arkangels. This means that Oniwaka's accuracy is floored in the same fight, making him useless for damage. We need our target marker and attuner fixed, and stabilizers changed to a % acc bonus instead of static boosts. 5% and 10% base for stabilizer I and II would be a fairly nice start to fixing automaton's accuracy issues.

-JA delays coupled with having to maintain 3 maneuvers (that means 6 seconds of every minute lost for the master, damage wise, or 10% of the time) is a damage killer. our maneuvers need a greatly increased duration to make up for this.

-Our black mage automaton's magic acc is terrible against tougher foes, even with tranquilizer, 3 ice maneuvers, and optic fiber. Not only that, our teir V nukes are hardly much better than a teir II nuke from a black mage, and we can only cast a nuke every 30 seconds (and it takes 10 seconds to cast!) give us a massive magic damage boost augment that put our black mage bot closer to a real black mage, and an attachment that changes its AI to spam lower teir nukes with the rare tier V nuke. Also toss in a tranquilizer II attachment to help us get over the massive magic evasion tougher mobs have. I'm not joking just how lopsided a match it is nowadays. When a smn/sch can outdamage an automaton's nuke output over 10 minutes in only 1 minute, something is seriously wrong. Before our black mage bot could nearly rival a black mage in power. now... not so much.

-Valoredge sucks. he can't hold hate, and strobe is pathetic at generating enmity. And because automatons take hits like a wimp against tougher foes, he loses what enmity he has faster than he generates it. We need a strobe II, attachment that keeps him from losing hate, and better defense/self healing capability. Even if he can't rival a pld in power, at the least he should at least be able to hold hate against a naked meleeing black mage. (he doesn't.)

-Harlequin got left by the wayside. he needs a revamp. mighty strikes is nice, but perhaps giving him a second hit per round, like a hand to hand user, and improving his damage output would help, as well as giving him a unique powerful blunt ws.

-fine tuning needs to be adjusted to 5% boosts, not +5, like optimization is. in the days of 75 cap it might have made sense, but in the days of ilvl gear and monsters with ridiculous evasion, +5 acc is nothing.


Now don't get me wrong, there's been some nice adjustments, such as the change to magic haste for the turbo chargers that was much welcomed. but there's a serious need for a super pupdate like we got from days of old, because pup has been left by the wayside ever since ilvl gear. It's time for the dev team to come and save us pups from the shunning of the community once more because of our jobs shortcomings. We're not demanding to be the top DD for everything, but at the least it should be great enough that when we say we have pup for an endgame event, people gladly let us come as our job, instead of making us come monk or dragoon or ranger.

[Balloon]

Not only that, target marker and attuner aren't working, so we lose out on that acc

Also, just from the brief tests I've performed, it appears that Heat Seeker isn't working, or works differently than adding an amount of Acc. This was tested with thunder manuevers and without, and during different HP% and times during a battle, there was never an increase in accuracy.

They mentioned food, but I hope to god that we don't just get Pet acc + food that completely forgets about the owner. That'd be the worst.

I agree wholeheartedly on Valoredge and Harlequin. I've always loved Harlequins model too, it's such a shame that he's just the level 10 frame that never got love beyond that. I wouldn't mind seeing the Valoredge frame get some dmg buffs, especially their ws, to make them compete with Sharpshot. He has around 966 defense with a divinator, and while that alone isn't going to save him against AoE spam it does help. He just sort of sucks, though.

[fjamesfernandez]

Wow so much rage in this thread. I am a fellow PUP and honestly I don't have the problems that you guys have; but for starters (because I know how people can get and text is evil) I am not claiming that I am a better player than anyone else. Everyone has their own way of playing and suggestions and combining tactics to make your own is the way to go.

Now yes, So our Automaton are squishy, but how are you going about the fight and knowing your mob. If you are soloing and have your pocket WHM knowing that the mob does AOE damage why have your pocket WHM close to you? and are you buffing your it with earth and wind maneuver before hand? You are already setting up your own failure by spending time doing maneuvers and Ja to save your automaton. Clearly you needed to give space between the MOB, You, and your Automaton.

Doing Maneuvers do not take away from your DPS and if it is, its because you are doing them right after your character attacks and not during. Its like NIN casting shadows You either cast shadows after you get hit or during your character is in the hitting animation so that you can keep on going. The only way you can really lose your DPS is if you have to reposition yourself to keep your automaton away.

Valoredge isnt all that hopeless. Yes strobe can be crappy with flash and of course your pocket PLD isnt going to keep hate if you are pounding out the DPS, duh. First and foremost, you are the tank for the most part, not the other way around. The trick is using your damn JA. You build enough hate than transfer it over using "Ventriloquy." If you want you can even put on some enimty accessories to build a some what max hate and then transfer it over. There is many ways you can address this.

As far as ACC goes, I am not having any problems with hitting things on new content. Look over what animator you are using and make sure that the attachments you are using isnt effecting your melee or racc. For instance "drum magazine" it clearly says youll sacrifice racc for ra speed or if you are using hammermil which will give automaton slow to increase shieldbash. Attacking at a slower speed not only messes its dps output but its hate as well.

So again, I cant say too much because I am not there to see how you play on PUP. Only issue I had on updates is the increase of delays on Activate, deactivate, deploy and retrieve. That has messed me up but I gotten use to it. Oh but i do agree on the out dated frames and some being left in the dust lol PUP should of had an EMP frame and Relic frame if you ask me.

[Balloon]

Why do people keep thinking we're talking about solo content. I just want to say, for reference, here on out. I'm talking about ilvl 115-119+ party based content using a DD frame.

We're talking about AoE from new content where the automaton would be in melee range. And if you think that Maneuvers don't take away from your dps then you don't understand JA delay. It's a real thing. It's the reason you end up losing dps when you use boost on mnk.
Even besides that, the whole deploy it out of range can be tricky when the automaton has a penchant for standing 15 yalms from a mob.

I don't use Drum Magazine on newer content. I'm not stupid. I know what attachments are.


if you are using hammermil which will give automaton slow to increase shieldbash.
Hammermill does not do that. The word Induce means inflicts onto the mob.

Look at Psions post for reference.

This really isn't a matter of subjectivity anymore; /checkparam gives us a perfectly good indication of how lacking an automatons Acc is. 3 Thunder + Divinator + Some acc gear put me barely around 800, which is not even near cutting it for a lot of content. It's shocking to me that a Wyvern with a 119 weapon has over 100 base acc than an automaton with divinator, when a wyvern is ostensibly a secondary component for that job.

JA delay has been known for a long time, and it's worth knowing about for any job considering the pretty substantial hit you take on dps when using it. MNKs, for instance, should know when and when not to use boost. There's very rarely a reason to. It warrants a discussion of it's own, frankly, as it's one of the games biggest flaws when it comes to balance of jobs like RUN, DNC, PUP and some other JA heavy jobs.

And I don't mean to sound annoyed or angry, but when 4 different conversations are going on and diverging from the one I'm trying to have it can be quite frustrating.


Yes strobe can be crappy with flash and of course your pocket PLD isnt going to keep hate if you are pounding out the DPS, duh.

I don't think you should be saying duh to someone who appears to know quite a bit more about what he's talking about (Psion, not me). Pounding out the dps isn't relevant, look at what he said, it can't keep hate against a naked level 99 spamming t1 spells. It has strobe, and only strobe, as a way to generate a decent chunk of emnity on it's own.

[fjamesfernandez]

I know you meant party based from reading on other pages. I haven't tried AA with PUP yet to check on the ACC there. But I know Zero was hitting with no problem on REM runs on Normal and higher and I don't have Divinator yet so that something I have to look into. Ill check the delays on Ja's. I just know that while attack and the animation is done and you pop a maneuver it takes about 3 sec to start attacking again while doing the JA during attacking doesnt seem to effect me.

It's good to read some thoughts here though so we can notice things that we didnt bother before :D

[Balloon]

You can't really eyeball that stuff, but people much smarter than I have mathed it out.

There's a collection of dps spreadsheets that show just how detrimental they are - FFXI DPS (https://docs.google.com/folderview?id=0B0A0wGYYRRdaZjdlNTdkNTEtMDMyYy00OTVmLWI4N2ItNDMwMDI1N2VkYWZk&usp=drive_web).

[Feary]

No, I do runs with my LS. And they go with MNKs for DD, or all-mage parties. They don't want WARs, and they rarely accept PUPs. But you can ignore the bigger fact that most shout parties also prefer MNKs over other DD if you want, we can all pretend this doesn't happen if it makes you happy.



Thats the old insulting term that made Pups excluded from xp parties in the old days, and made some Pups quit the game in disgust. Good to see you are keeping the prejudice alive. Infact there's nothing lol about Pup. I used to get requests to solo Cop "magic pots" battle for people who were stuck on the mission, on my Pup four years ago, because the deactivate system made Pup the only reliable job to solo it. Also I solo'd WOTG last boss on my pup for people who were stuck on that mission, years ago, again because Pup's deus-ex kiting ability made it soloable when most other jobs found it impossible to solo. Solo'd T4 black dragon on Pup, which is a tough mob to solo because of bio aura and HP-down etc. it was a very hard battle to solo even a year ago and theres nothing "lolpup" about it. And btw I did all that using the "slow" maneuvers system which isn't a problem at all unless you are a very impatient person.



Thats pretty childish, plus I never claimed to be anything, I said I've played Pup for eight years. And in 2006/2007 I had to solo and duo Pup to 75, incredibly slowly, because of the "lolpup" myth created by elitist snobs, which meant Pup didn't get invited to xp parties so we solo'd / duoed to lvl 75 very slowly. You learn a lot more about the job soloing it to 75 than you learn by keying in Altepa[a] btw.

My first post here was offering advice because the OP was complaining about his auto dying. I merely pointed out a strat that works for me to keep that auto alive. He then said his auto died in the new colo rieves, so I offered my experiences on that which is that my whm auto hasnt died in that rieve and he could try this strat.

I was actually trying to be helpful at the start of this thread, because I haven't had the problems this OP has got and I offered my strat to try and help him. But then it got ugly and now we're back to "lolpup" and "you aren't a serious pup" and this other childish playground insults.


i'm not pretending it doesnt happen. you're pretending its because its your a war or rather a non-mnk. there are other factors, which in your grand scheme of thinking "if i want to do content its my damn right to play whatever job desired/ regardless of my progress or battle strategy." you will never agree with those factors because it doesn't serve your purpose so you will try to disprove/ignore.

The fact that you mention that you are in a linkshell and they still dont invite you. i think that serves to reflection of your own abilities, your linkshell leader(s) character and not a job abilities.

which leads to me to my original point, the one you think is childish. lolpup is not a myth, Pup has been given the nickname Lolpup for two reasons. one is the job abilities in the grand scheme of job selections and two the abilities for players to understand how to play the job. Most people who play pup are fans and not really players who want to get somewhere.

IMO Pup as a concept is awesome and to play it is unique and entertaining. therefore making it a novelty. Nevertheless, i find it fun but in actuality i know its lackluster. although, i have all the AF(s) 5/5, animators,endgame gear, All attachments and took the time to skill it up without pages. i would never suggest or demand i go pup or any job to content that i know another jobs would be better at. i'm just not that selfish or self-centered. ironically, i find that people who do this are childish. i look at the whole picture of 22 jobs and the battle strategy not the one job in the the stragedy of i want to play in that moment. Over the years, its been getting better, much better. either way, which is why balloon made such a post, because it needs improvement. Namely, the JA Delay from constant use of maneuvers and having to favor attachment elements.

yes you give many many many examples why players arent pup effectively and how they dont know how to play etc etc, yes i agree that is the bigger issue. however this issues you have mentioned can be solved with exposure to the job, educating the playerbase of the pup strengths and weakness.

the real important issues balloon and i have mentioned cannot be solve this way, it must be solved by s.e making a job adjustment.

p.s sorry to other ppl in post, i only read his comments to me and hit reply.