Pupdate 10-28-2011

[brayen]

Could you make it just a single light maneuver and not 2+. There really is no reason to have 2 light maneuvers up just to make sure its healing... In fact, if you could do the following:
1 light maneuver with damage gauge equipped stops all enfeebles and makes cure> status cures (aka blindna) > enhancing.

I dont know about you but if i am at 25% hp i really dont need haste > blindna > then cure.

While i agree that 2 light is WAY over the top just to make sure it is performing right, i think removing all enfeebles with the set up would be bad. prioritize the casts sure but would suck to lose out all enfeebles just to make sure you can get your cures.

[Babekeke]

How about you make it so it stops casting silence on mobs like crabs/beetles that have no spells as well while at it. Please please please!

And apply the same to fellowship NPCs! (please). Though I think it won't be possible, since the current coding appears to be that if a mob has mp, pet will cast silence. Crabs and beetles are generally Paladin mobs.

[Kristal]

Does the automaton still try to cure aura/sphere status effects on the test server? I've fought a few mobs like Amun on the normal server (solo, PUP/NIN), and it's rather annoying the automaton is trying to Poisona a debuff that's expiring within 2 ticks AND is reapplied the next tick anyway...

Also, what IS the term SE uses for the continuous aoe effects? Players usually use "aura", but some newer gear has similar effects called "sphere".

[Dfoley]

Yes it still tries to cure aura status, I don't think there is a way to code for it not to since the status is "poison" and not "Aura: Poison" the pet just sees poison and tries to cure it.

I would love for it to be different, but I think we might be stuck with that.

[Cyranda]

If Cooldown is a prelude to attachments that increase overload chance (through focus on reusing maneuvers or just increasing burden per maneuver), they should be absolutely amazing and not just fiddling with numbers or stealth normalizing of damage.

I remember saying this back in September, and though I thought about it in relation to attachments, I knew the developers were going to try to do something to force PUP to use Cooldown despite PUP objections to the ability. It's the case of a developer designing an ability and, instead of listening to players who say they don't like it, trying to make it "attractive" by making it a critical ability and doing something obnoxious in the process.

In the case of having to put up three light maneuvers to get the WHM puppet to prioritize healing, that's just ridiculous. Two isn't much better. Why on Vana'diel would the developers think it was a good idea for a PUP to spend a minimum of ten seconds (20 with 3 maneuvers) trying to get a WHM puppet to do its primary duty in addition to making sure that it also can't have both a dark and an ice maneuver while doing so (thereby not allowing it to refresh its MP or spend less/cast faster). What else should a PUP with a WHM automaton be doing? Certainly it shouldn't be trying to get the puppet to actually Cure someone for far longer than that person probably has to live and then risking making it stand there casting Protect/Shell/Haste or removing status effects if an ability with a 3 minute Cooldown isn't up.

What kind of engineer/goldsmith (or whatever Ghatsad is) would design a WHITE MAGE whose last priority is to cast Cure? One who likes to see other people die?

[Treyd]

Yes it still tries to cure aura status, I don't think there is a way to code for it not to since the status is "poison" and not "Aura: Poison" the pet just sees poison and tries to cure it.

I would love for it to be different, but I think we might be stuck with that.

The weird thing is this: When I am inflicted with paralyze, the auto casts paralyna to cure it. When I am inflicted with a paralyze "aura" the auto casts Erase for no effect. It has to be seeing something differently between the two. I wouldn't think it would be too hard to home in on this difference, similar to how they plan to fix the erasing sleep problem.

I can still manage a cure between erases so it's not game-breaking, but if we're going to do all this testing we might as well try to get everything we can right!

[Laxedrane]

Preliminary findings, Magic Mortar can be resisted, and has a HIGH rate of resistance.

Harlequin Head, Stormwaker Frame, 1051 HP (only HP boost was animator +1) 10 WS vs level 0 wild rabbits in west ronfaure. Variance in TP has no effect on damage.
Magic Mortar: 91, 365, 365, 91, 365, 91, 91, 365, 365, 91. 91 = 1/4 damage (91x4 = 364, + decimal rounds up to 365 since it's taking a quarter of an odd number)

HYPOTHESIS (Read: NOT proven fact, but rather, educated guess as to what the out come will be based on 5 and a half years of playing pup and crunching pup numbers, that I will attempt to confirm/disprove via testing)

Base damage = current automaton melee skill, but can be resisted based on current TP. 100% TP: 50% chance of dealing 1/4 base damage (~1/12 max HP), 200% TP: 25% chance of dealing 1/4 base damage (may be 1/2, I'll have to do some testing here to determine if it's the same resistance or not), 300% TP: 0% chance of resistance. Additionally, base damage is added cumulatively to the damage dealt based on missing HP.

If anyone else wants to test this theory too, more data will always be welcome.

edit: due to me being a dumbass, I JUST noticed that harle/waker has 365 melee skill. I changed heads to valoredge (for more light slots) to boost HP, but noticed the change in melee skill to 370, so I figured wtf. I tried it. Result? 370 damage. Took off cirque +2 pants, damage? 360. So Magic Mortar Floor = Current Auto Melee Skill.

Of course, there's more to it than that, since people are reporting numbers in the 400s, but vs tw bunnies in ronf, the damage is 100% consistent. I still have a lot more things to test, though

edit 2: ok, the 100~200 TP resistance window applies to ALL damage for the ws. I used DEA to activate with 31% HP, then proceeded to do 20 more magic mortars. damage was again consistent, but was also , again, resisted literally half the time. 10 ws came out 811 damage, 10 came out 200 damage. I've never seen magic mortar resist before, and I don't think I've read anything about anyone getting magic mortar to randomly do 1/4 damage vs anything normal... I'm flabbergasted.

Additionally, I tested with increasing the puppet's max HP by 200, and base damage didn't flinch, it was static 370 damage (when it didn't resist for 92 damage) with valorwaker and af3+2 pants at both 1051 HP and 1267 hp.

What the fuck did they do to this ws...

edit 3: done testing for today, magic mortar has given me a migraine.

edit 4:

Ok, smn's have blood pacts, bst has sic/ready, drg has w/e their forced breath JA is called. I want some pup love. Let's axe cool down in favor of something like this:

Striking Maneuver: The Player chooses one of the weaponskills currently available to the automaton and forces the automaton to execute it. The automaton must have at least 100 TP for this ability to be successful.

Get rid of random weaponskilling at random TP%. Get rid of maneuver priority. Just give us WS like all the other g'damn pet jobs have, simple, easily controlled, and so much less aggravating.

Based on this, sounds like to me they turned magic mortar into a true elemental weaponskill. Have you tried to test it with tranquilizer, loudspeakers, manabooster, and mattk or macc claws? Might also be worth checking if it does amber in abyssea now.

[autobot]

Soulsoother should have priority of curing without light maneuvers period especially if you are below 80% hp. Its a whm head. Status removal should come second, only gaining priority with 1 or more water maneuvers only taking priority if more water maneuvers are used than light when hp is below 80%. When HP is above 80% i think its reasonable to have status removal/enhancing above curing priority. In no way shape or form should this head not have 100% curing priority when HP is 50% or less. Im not going to tell my WHM to wait till i get into critical before they cure me.

Stormwaker should prioritize enfeebles, healing with a light maneuver, then enhancing with a water. And as above when HP is below 50% it should have 100% priority for curing. No RDM is going to enfeeble over keeping their party members alive.

Spiritreaver should prioritize nuking over everything unless MP is below 20% or possibly lower. A dark maneuver should throw drain/aspir as priority (providing it has less ice maneuvers), then enfeebles. If my puppet needs MP that badly I'm most likely just going to deactivate anyway.

Whichever head is equipped should always have highest priority for whatever job its mimicking. If the purpose of maneuvers is to change the behavior of the puppet then we will do so with the use of those maneuvers. We dont need the puppet doing useless things over important things. Healing should never take a back seat to anything especially in low HP situations.

And i really dont see how its hard to get this right. In FFXII with the use of gambits my party members knew exact priority of what i wanted over what and this should be no exception especially with curing.

[Chamaan]

I hate having to ask more than once for a Whm to cure me. I love when I don't have to ask at all. That's what you're effectively telling us we need to do: ask our puppets more than once to do the job we geared them to do. Soulsoother should require 1 maneuver to prioritize curing above all else, Stormwaker 2, and Damage Gauge should lower the requirement by 1 maneuver just from being equipped.

The automatons are supposed to have their AI modeled after the finest mages in the Empire. I've always thought that this meant that the Aht Urhgan Empire had the stupid mages to ever pick up a staff. Now you're tinkering with the AI, make it not suck, yeah? If you really want us to use Cooldown that badly, lower maneuvers to 5 seconds. Or give us a Hasso style stance for our puppets that doubles burden per maneuver. Just give it to us and see how it works out, I mean that's the point of the test server, isn't it?

[Dohati]

And i really dont see how its hard to get this right. In FFXII with the use of gambits my party members knew exact priority of what i wanted over what and this should be no exception especially with curing.

yeah, i've actually been thinking about this specifically. if SE can't make automatons do what we want, then why don't we just get puppet gambits? then everyone can be happy with their automatons' priorities. change them at the automaton workshop in whitegate or something.