puppetmaster merit's

[Annalise]

The other thing is that Jinte did some testing to find that ranged merits increase the base damage of the sharpshot's ranged attacks... which makes them much more attractive now. The staple used to be 5 melee (affects all frames), 5 magic (used to give blizzard iv or other new spells). It now seems to be 5 melee and 5 ranged, as stated above magic merits are just a small amount of MACC now.

[Anza]

Worth noting that Automaton Melee skill is THE most useful merit for any physical DD puppet including Sharpshot. For Sharpshot, more melee skill to bring up the weak C+ melee skill means faster TP from automaton melee strikes (which in turn means more frequent WS, very important since WS make up a larger proportion of SS's total damage than any other frame). Even mage frames can benefit from melee skill, for example farming solo alongside SW or Soulsoother and letting the puppet melee.

The old standard choices for Tier I were 5/5 Magic (gain new spells) 5/5 Melee, period. The only reason to do otherwise was if you NEVER used Spiritreaver frame.

Current day, now that there's no difference in spell list at 99PUP regardless of magic merits, it's much more of a realistic option to go for Ranged merits over Magic. 5/5 Melee is still absolute though.

[Dawezy]

Is that confirmed about the Magic Skill? if so I may aswell nuke it, cap the melee. I've had Valoredge tank alot of NM's since I got ahold of that Ducal Guard Atma.

[Annalise]

Is that confirmed about the Magic Skill? if so I may aswell nuke it, cap the melee. I've had Valoredge tank alot of NM's since I got ahold of that Ducal Guard Atma.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Automaton_Magic_Skill

Last spell learned is at 389 (Thunder V) which is obtainable without merits. Nothing is learned past that. So once you hit 389 skill, you should still continue to cap it for the MACC of course, but merits aren't really doing you all too much but a few MACC.

[Dawezy]

Auto Magic Skill is at 444, with those merits and Empy +2..

Yeah, might be a bit overkill?

[Tetsujin]

I'm doing 5/5 Magic, this is because I haven't gotten Tranq. and level 99 yet.
Even without the tranquilizer an automaton's magic accuracy is unrealistically great. So when I do get there, I'll reallocate my magic merits into melee.

[Tetsujin]

About me choosing 4 and 4 on Optimization and Fine-Tuning rather than 5 and 3...

I'm essentially trading 5% attack, defense and 5 MAB for 5 [ranged] accuracy and evasion.
Even though Atk/Def/MAB are extremely attractive, I'm choosing accuracy for now.

Maybe I'll switch to 5-3 when I hit/cap skills for 99.

[gilmour]

Yeah but you aren't trading 5 for 5, you are trading % for static, and every level you gain mean you lose more and more. Going to assume pets are 2 handed formula and that its 70 dex at 75 and 80 dex at 99, no merits into skill at all and no + stats/skill from gear.

EG at 75: 269 skill
ACC = 315
ATK = 323

With 4/5 merits you are adding:
ACC = 315 + 20 = 335
ATK = 323 * 1.2 = 387

With 5/5 and 3/5 merits you are adding
ACC = 315 + 15 = 330 (1.5 % loss in acc)
ATK = 403 (16 atk gain for 5 acc loss)

AT 99
ACC 455
ATK 463

At 99 with 4/5 merits in both
ACC = 475
ATK = 555

At 99 with 5/5 and 4/5
acc = 470 (1.0% loss in acc)
atk = 580 (25 atk gain for 5 acc loss)

Of course numbers could be less depending on how they treat pets dmg, but you get the idea. Not to mention cirque gear with + skill and stats is only going to make the merits more and more useful for 5/5 optimization

[Tetsujin]

Wow. I'm glad you went out of your way to work that math out.
Makes for a pretty convincing argument. Definitely gonna look into reallocating sometime soon, especially since automatons are typically accurate as hell anyway.

[tendo64]

I'm current 5/5 on Melee and Ranged atm, but I plan to move those Melee merits into Magic when I get the chance (1mil exp into a new merit ws, first). I'm also 1/1/3/5 on group two, and I can honestly say I love-love-love Role Reversal, and almost never use Ventriloquy. Even with repair kits, I have more HP than my mage puppets, so when there's a WHM available, or I'm subbing DNC or SCH, I will gladly give my HP to the puppet for a quick Reactivation without having to waste an Oil or wait on Regen. When I'm helping friends farm currency in Dynamis and I'm on PUP/DNC, I'm probably using Spiritreaver. After I WS and take a few unlucky blows, Role Reversal will save my life with a much greater frequency than letting 1 mob kill my automaton (while possibly more continue to beat me up). That being said, in tandem they can work wonders with Oil's strong Regen.