Add a haste effect to maneuvers.

It's no secret that the delay incurred by using maneuvers cripples a Puppetmaster's potential dps, despite being an essential aspect of the job.

I understand that the developers may be reluctant to entirely remove the job ability delay penalty, so I hope that adding a haste effect to maneuvers (for the master) would be a good compromise.

I don't know what the exact potency of the haste effect ought to be, but I would hope that it would be fairly generous to help close the gap between Puppetmaster and other damage dealing jobs.

Thanks for the consideration! <3

One thing they could do if they aren't going to remove job ability delay, is to make maneuvers last 5 minutes like Rune Enchantment and have a lower recast so I'm not constantly reapplying them every minute. Increase the burden per manuever or lower the natural decay if concerned about the future of maneuver gear and Kenkonken.

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Originally Posted by Rwolf

One thing they could do if they aren't going to remove job ability delay, is to make maneuvers last 5 minutes like Rune Enchantment and have a lower recast so I'm not constantly reapplying them every minute. Increase the burden per manuever or lower the natural decay if concerned about the future of maneuver gear and Kenkonken.

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While that's a good solution too, I'm personally not satisfied with it. I think PUP would be less fun and less versatile if you eliminate its micromanagement aspect. The whole point of having a customizable pet with fluid AI influenced by your actions is to be able to match it to the situation as it changes. Letting maneuvers last for five minutes is perfectly fine when you're not having to react to changes in the flow of battle, but when circumstances inevitably do indeed change, you'll find yourself having to use new maneuvers anyway, which will still penalize you with JA delay. It would also severely decrease the worth of attachments like Flame Holder and Ice Maker, which are currently staples for their respective set-ups.

I think adding a haste effect to maneuvers is a far better solution. With a haste effect, we can make up for the time lost, while still maintaining our versatility.

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Originally Posted by sweetidealism

While that's a good solution too, I'm personally not satisfied with it. I think PUP would be less fun and less versatile if you eliminate its micromanagement aspect. The whole point of having a customizable pet with fluid AI influenced by your actions is to be able to match it to the situation as it changes. Letting maneuvers last for five minutes is perfectly fine when you're not having to react to changes in the flow of battle, but when circumstances inevitably do indeed change, you'll find yourself having to use new maneuvers anyway, which will still penalize you with JA delay. It would also severely decrease the worth of attachments like Flame Holder and Ice Maker, which are currently staples for their respective set-ups.

I think adding a haste effect to maneuvers is a far better solution. With a haste effect, we can make up for the time lost, while still maintaining our versatility.

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I disagree because it does not eliminate the micromanagement aspect. If you are changing between more than 3 consistent manuevers, you will still do so. Thus the need for maneuver related gear to still have a place to lower burden. I also disagree on the "severely decrease the worth" of attachments that expend manuevers. Letting them naturally last 5 minutes has no bearing those attachments as a good burden setup would barely affect it. I can easily put up x3 consistently rotating Cooldown if I needed it now so unless you aren't carrying this gear, it has no effect on swapping/changing maneuvers.

I agree with you that JA delay is horrible in all cases against all jobs, however they have commented before they have no desire to remove it. Going with that in mind, it is a good middle ground to a job that is plagued very horribly with job ability delay, more so than any other job in the game currently. I don't think that adding haste to maneuvers is the solution. I'd like to hear a scenario where "circumstances inevitably change" so frequently that you need to swap so many maneuvers that you're worried about overloading with the current set of gear.

The concern is not overloading; you're right about that. The concern is racking up delay and slowing down your damage output.

For me, the general scenario is as follows: let's say I'm using the sharpshot frame and head. Depending on its current TP, I want to have a specific combination of maneuvers active. While its TP is low, I want to use a fire maneuver so that I can get the most use out of it as possible before it is expended by Flame Holder. Next, depending on the target, I want to put up either a thunder or wind maneuver to speed up its TP gain by increasing accuracy/double attack and haste/ranged accuracy/possibly also snapshot, respectively, as necessary. However, many bosses use large aoes that will quickly kill pets. I might find myself needing to use an earth or water maneuver to activate schurzen or steam jacket to mitigate damage that would otherwise devastate the fragile sharpshot frame. Yet even if you're fighting a boss that does not use devastating aoe abilities, your solution only saves you the delay that would be spent to apply the wind and thunder maneuvers, but I still have to reapply a fire maneuver every time my pet uses a weapon skill, costing me precious time. I also get delayed when I do eventually have to reapply the wind and thunder maneuvers.

In my solution you are NEVER penalized for using a maneuver of any kind, because the haste should be enough to at the very least make up for the lost time.

I wouldn't mind them making the maneuvers last longer, but for the reasons I stated above, I don't think it would make PUP competitive by itself.

Steam Jacket is reset if there is no water maneuvers present, it's not a great switch to in danger attachment. I do agree with you that job ability delay is a hindrance for PUP and other jobs as well. I also agree that PUP could use more love to make it more competitive. I'd personally rather seem them boost PUP by removing the constant repetition of reapplying maneuvers once a minute. While also adding more potent attachments and either adding new frames with more attachment slots or just expanding slots in general. The biggest problem I see is that with any difficult content, the automaton's DPS falls dramatically because it cannot be buffed (sans COR rolls you'd only use in a pet party) or altered with food, which the current attachments do not make up for.

I think the major differences of opinion we have is the ratio of master/pet output. I agree on the problem but I don't agree on the exact solution. However, I respect your opinion.

May I ask you, then, what is your ideal master/pet damage output ratio?

I feel the automaton should be doing more damage overall than the master if using a damage dealing frame. If maneuvers were set to 5 minutes and their recast was lowered to 5 seconds, I would personally be completely ok with where master damage out is. There have been a lot of master improvements; From raising hand-to-hand skill, putting the master on the best light armor DD pieces, and the weapon selection is great. A well geared master can already outpace their automaton and hold enmity over them without trying to. I don't think the master needs JA haste to be competitive. It isn't a MNK and it's already a strong solo job by having high defensive capabilities. I'd rather see the damage partially alleviated with longer maneuvers and the rest of the discrepancy focused on the automaton itself.

Adding Haste to maneuvers wouldn't help that much, considering the two second-ish JA delay is the largest problem in situations where delay reduction is already capped at 80% and those two seconds can eat multiple attack rounds.

Just increasing Manuever duration would be much simpler and wouldn't run into that issue.

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Originally Posted by Rwolf

I feel the automaton should be doing more damage overall than the master if using a damage dealing frame. If maneuvers were set to 5 minutes and their recast was lowered to 5 seconds, I would personally be completely ok with where master damage out is. There have been a lot of master improvements; From raising hand-to-hand skill, putting the master on the best light armor DD pieces, and the weapon selection is great. A well geared master can already outpace their automaton and hold enmity over them without trying to. I don't think the master needs JA haste to be competitive. It isn't a MNK and it's already a strong solo job by having high defensive capabilities. I'd rather see the damage partially alleviated with longer maneuvers and the rest of the discrepancy focused on the automaton itself.

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If I recall, the DD automaton frames did more damage than the master during the 75 cap era, no? I enjoyed that, but especially with the buff heavy route XI's endgame has now gone, I just feel as though it isn't viable. I would be completely fine with going back to PUP/SCH and letting the pet do the dirty work while I helped remove status effects if I could count on the automaton being durable enough to survive the constant massive AoEs so prevalent today, and more importantly, if the pet could realistically be enhanced by other players. I shouldn't have to have a dedicated pet party or have to annoy a COR to mess up their roll rotation. No, if we're going that route, then I would have to insist that pets be included as possible direct targets of bard songs, corsair rolls, geomancy, and perhaps even healing, enhancing, and applicable blue magic, because if they make pets naturally as powerful as someone with a full suite of enhancements, then it's going to be severely overpowered outside of alliance settings in which we shouldn't have that level of power. Yet, as you mentioned, if you leave the pet's stats as they are, then they are rendered completely ineffective in alliance settings in which it is expected that we SHOULD have that level of power. However, unfortunately, I'm fairly certain that the developers do not want to let pets be directly buffed by other players, so I am not hopeful for such a solution.

Instead, my solution keeps in line with the direction the developers have been taking PUP by further enhancing the master.

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Originally Posted by SpankWustler

Adding Haste to maneuvers wouldn't help that much, considering the two second-ish JA delay is the largest problem in situations where delay reduction is already capped at 80% and those two seconds can eat multiple attack rounds.

Just increasing Manuever duration would be much simpler and wouldn't run into that issue.

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That is a troubling point. Assuming oatixur, base delay is 576, minus 160 for martial arts (approximately 28% reduction), 25% gear haste, 43.75% magical assuming potent enough double marches and the spell Haste itself, and we have 22.5% of our original delay remaining... Therefore, in a max buff setting, we'd be able to get about 4% haste from JAs before capping.

However, if you skip Advancing March and assume only ~32% magical haste, that allows for 15% JA haste, which is more around where I'd like it to be: 5% haste per maneuver. Essentially, if my suggestion were to be implemented, it would allow for PUPs to join a party of MNKs and/or NINs and just get Victory March and otherwise some combination of also important Minuets and Madrigals while still capping delay reduction. Perhaps that's not ideal, but I think that allowing a bard to use a different song is still worthy of consideration.

That said, I think increasing the duration of maneuvers is a worthy suggestion, too. Maybe we can see both? :D