Let's ignore the fact that the OP was from two years ago for a moment.
I agree.
Mmm, the problem is that SE hasn't been clear on that. Our puppet has the functionality and design to NOT be disposable, but the stats and durability that... well... force it to become disposable against anything with any kind of AoE at all. I'd rather the puppets (other than fucking valoredge, SE. Valoredge just plain is not designed for situations where our puppets get slaughtered, so only making that one puppet more durable does us a fat lot of nothing.) be made at least a little more durable, than more disposable.PUP isn't designed to have to dump Automaton types at random just like BST isn't meant to have to dump pets constantly -- it happens because they tend to go after mobs way more powerful than themselves but it was never truly intended. Meanwhile, this is excessive. The only instance when you don't have time to set up your automaton from scratch is when you're trying to quickly change to your healer to save your life when you were previously DD'ing, and that requires all of 2-3 attachments and takes less than 10 seconds with actual practice.
I won't disagree here, either. Maneuver dependency for WS is absolutely stupid, especially given the advent of the new sic and drg's breath-forcing JAs. Just give us our pet WS on a pet ability already and be done with it. There's absolutely no way this will make us too strong or impact balance in any way other than giving pup a tiny helping hand and easing the headaches many of us get.Again, excessive and unneeded. This serves no real purpose. Removal of maneuver dependency from WSs would be nice to improve the potency of those effected by ATK/R.ATK via Fire Maneuvers, but arguably most of the ones you'd use this one (Armor Piercer comes to mind) are solid within their own right without it.
Being one of those who's represented it better, I will agree.This has been suggested on several occasions and represented in better ways than just "Do it, it hurts mah melees"
First, I'd like to point out that you said the puppet wasn't designed to be thrown away repeatedly, yet you now claim Valoredge to be expendable. Think about that for a moment.Valoredge is a tank, he doesn't need to deal more damage. Again, you're not supposed to be able to solo giant mobs with him, he's an third-tier tank at best and due to his expendable nature he more than accomplishes this task outside of Abyssea, and inside of Abyssea accomplishes 10 times as much. If you intend to do damage, you need to be using Spiritreaver or RNG.
Now, Valoredge is supposed to be a tank, but really, it isn't most of the time. I always get annoyed at people who call VE a "paladin puppet" when it very clearly is not. It's a sword&shield using warrior. It has War~Mnk level HP, War-esque stats, and casts no spells. That's part of why I was so agitated over the new SP abilities, when SE gave VE Invincible instead of mighty strikes, when VE is not only clearly a warrior (shieldbash be damned), but the only puppet who can actually take advantage of mighty strikes at all, since SS's ranged attacks don't crit, and Harlequin is garbage.
Also, don't knock VE's damage potential. Sure, it's no sharpshot, but it's no slouch, either, especially with string clipper. To be fair, though, part of what VE has in offensive strength is just that it stays a live a moderate amount of time longer than SS does, so that gives it more time to deal damage.
that is indeed the case.If you have enough light maneuvers up he -does- prioritize cures when using Damage Gauge (which doesn't increase the cast rate of -nas)
Aspir triggers at 75% MP. That's basically two nukes. There's no "balancing and controlling" maneuvers here. You nuke twice, then your puppet gets a hardon for aspir like it just discovered porn. It's an absolutely terrible AI design. I mean, if it auto-emphasized them at 25% I could understand and that would be fine, but 75% is ridiculous. No, it doesn't matter if you're ADD nuking, but ADD nuking is not always an option.No. Learn to balance and control your maneuvers, then we'll talk.
I assume you meant RDM, not BLM, given the puppet in question, and I won't deny that I'm pretty happy with how Stormwaker handles enfeebles now, though the silence thing still bothers me. If anything, Stormwaker is -too- nuke happy now, but that's just my own personal taste.Damage Gauge. Debuffing is part of a BLM's job, get over it -- or rather, to quote a GM: "Working as intended."
The problem is that harlequin does have some potential, and that SE seems to realize it, which is probably why they haven't given us some stuff. Atm, though, it's basically just an excuse to fuck with us. "We'll give your puppet ONE useful two-hour in mighty strikes.... but you have to use that shitty newbie puppet you haven't touched since level 10! trololololol"His purpose is to be your intro automaton. He doesn't, and likely will never, have one beyond that. Even if they added some kind of new, advanced version of him you'd still likely have this frame/head in your inventory.
Yea, within functionality if you're lucky. Both sharpshot and the mages consider "max range" to be 15'. If you deploy from 15.01~17.9 (max deploy range, which is too short anyway), the puppet will not stay stationary, but rather, leeroy jenkins its fragile little butt right up against the mob and then stick to it. If you set it at 15' and the mob takes a step? Off goes the puppet to flail helplessly as it gets slaughtered by AoE.You need to learn to properly play the job before trying to dictate how it should be changed. The only reasonable request within this is for a cycle command that prompts a buff to be cast and maybe a stay command which stops attack rounds -- everything else is already well within PUP's programming and functionality.
We need a command analogous to stay. There's absolutely no reason we shouldn't have one, other than SE being to damn lazy to bother.
You mean that it was meant to be a solo only job that doesn't have a place in any endgame content of note, because it can't keep up in any of the roles it's able to fill, and its primary tool, the puppet, has the survivability of wet paper within said content?PUP -is- what it is supposed to be. It has no more problems now than any other job has and is actually quite comparable to almost every other job in the game with regards to usefulness and potency when played and geared properly. You new scrubs are actually starting to annoy me.
You wide-eyed idealistic scrubs are starting to annoy me.
No matter how much you scream and shout about how pup is already amazing, it won't change anything. Pup is a great job for lowman content, but at present, it is not something that anyone will seriously consider including in high level stuff for any reason other than "We're short one person, and the only option left is a pup" or "let's just go dick around." because we simply cannot pull our weight relative to other jobs.
Bullshit. Make your puppet ws without 20-50 excess TP. Make your puppet cast regen when you want, not when it wants. Make your puppet cast the spell you want every time in any situation, not just when the AI allows it. Can't do it, can you? There's a reason.You HAVE control over what it does. If YOU as an individual don't, its because you don't know what you're doing. Other than a random buff or -Na coming out on occasion when you underestimate your current health percentages, then the automaton is almost completely predictable and rigid in its control (hell, even then it is completely simple to predict what he'll do when you have Slow, Poison, and Blind effect on you.). If you adopted a previously, expertly trained dog that performed given tasks rigidly and to the T within range of solidified, numerical classifications its not the dogs fault that you don't know that hand sign X means sit and hand sign Y means for him to come. Its not his fault that he does something you didn't want while you're giving the wrong commands -- and that's the reality of Puppetmaster. A lot of the time (not all, the AI is far from infallible), it's the player's fault ended up face first on the ground, not the auto's.
Pup does not have control of the puppet. It never has. At best, we can give suggestions and guidelines. Our puppet is a finely tuned piece of sentient machinery, yet we have less control over it than a bst has over some wild animal they met 30 seconds ago. You can't tell your puppet when to WS, just suggest which WS to use. You can't tell your puppet what spell to cast, just make a suggestion, and hope the AI agrees with you. You can't make your puppet stand where you want it, because it's an individual and won't allow you to suppress its freedom! In other words, our automatons' AI has been upgraded from "Winged Rat" to "slightly less than those idiot unique butterfly pups who used to sub dancer and solo campaign to 75 wearing full AF and only leveled the job "because no one else likes it" or "because its unpopular." In other words, our AI isn't much better than it was, it's just a lot less likely to completely screw you over.