JA Ability Idea

Figured I may as well throw in my two pennies on this since a lot of people are making suggestions.

We've all been talking a lot about fixing the AI and changing the elemental alignment of WS and stuff. Got me thinking on whether there might be an easier way than rethinking the auto's entire AI.

How about a JA that makes the next maneuver used a fourth maneuver and an override command? Like. Say you're messing around with Burts and soulsoother. You're going to want light up for flashing and cures. But even if you have wind up to make it Knockout, the light will force a worthless MM every time. But this fourth maneuver would only control WS priority, but not activate attachments or be consumed by maneuver eating attachments.

Maybe make it two JAs, one that gives you a spell casting override and one that gives you a combat override. Make them shared timer with like a 1m recast and a 5m duration.

I dunno how easy this would be to program. But we already know how to control our puppets, something like this would just let us eliminate conflicts between attachment use and behavior. Then our puppets could nuke and cure with 3 dark refresh on, and Bone Crusher with 3 fire up, if we want them to.

Yeah this is actually a good idea... Just cross your fingers that SE actually reads the forums and is "inspired" by your idea... it would definitely make controlling the pet easier. I usually struggle alot with trying to use Flame holder on ranger pet because if you forget to reuse a dark manuever to reprioritize Armor Piercer, you'll end up using Arcuballista which is loads weaker and a big waste of TP. The only problem I see is that with this, we can use 3 fire manuevers on pretty much any weapon skill for our pets which might make them much stronger than SE possibly intended... I know that when I use 3 fire manuevers in conjunction with inhibitor and then do Stringing pummel with my pet's tp at 100, it'll force him to use Bone Crusher which does 1.2k dmg on IT mobs with 3 fire manuevers up which is way much more than the typical 400 dmg it usually does.

Combat Form
Recast: 1 m
Subcategory: Fire Form, Ice Form, Wind Form, Earth Form, Thunder Form, Water Form, Light Form, Dark Form.
Description of category: Use an elemental form to affect how your automaton fights.
Description of individual forms: Your automaton will favor [element]-based weapon skills and spells.
Duration of effects: 5 minutes, or until a new form is used.

Does that sound like a tangible form of the ability you're after?