New Frames please?

[Alhanelem]

No, PUP needs no more frames or heads.

No, SMN needs no more summons or blood pacts.

That's basically what you said.

It's not a matter of need. It's a matter of want. It's called content. They give new stuff to jobs all the time. Did RDM really "need" Temper? Did BLM really "need' Meteor? Did we really "need" new weapon skills (at least when they arent much of an upgrade over anything)? No, we didn't. That's not a reason not to have them.

Caitsith is one avatar to a job that operates differently and is widely considered one of the most useless jobs.

You say that like there's some guarantee that Cait Sith is going to drastically change summoner for the better or something (and for a "most useless job", i sure end up playing it a lot more than PUP). That's not likely to happen at all. They will most likely be just another toy, just like another frame/head would be. This is the exact same situation and don't try to pretend it's not. New attachments don't help as much as people think because we already have good attachment builds and unless we get more capacity/more slots, any new attachment is going to see limited use at best.

Frankly I don't care if the new frame bakes cookies or does handstands. Every job deserves new content.

[Retsujo]

I personally wouldn't mind different frames that catered to specific melee damage types. Blunt, slashing, etc.

[Kysaiana]

The only frame combo puppets are missing really is a heavy DD melee frame. While it might be cool to have a puppet with a buster sword for an arm, it would be easier for SE to just make valoredge not suck as a damage dealer, instead of making it a PLD that can't heal itself outside of cannibal blade, and holds hate VS the master alone about as well as a real PLD without Almace VS any DD in the game.

On a side note, if they're going to continue to add attachments, it would be nice if they would increase the slots/elemental capacity so we can actually use them.

[Spiritreaver]

I personally wouldn't mind different frames that catered to specific melee damage types. Blunt, slashing, etc.

Huh? Isn't this already possible? VE is slashing, SS is blunt/piercing during TP-with piercing for WS, and the mage frames are blunt.

The only frame combo puppets are missing really is a heavy DD melee frame. While it might be cool to have a puppet with a buster sword for an arm, it would be easier for SE to just make valoredge not suck as a damage dealer, instead of making it a PLD that can't heal itself outside of cannibal blade, and holds hate VS the master alone about as well as a real PLD without Almace VS any DD in the game.

On a side note, if they're going to continue to add attachments, it would be nice if they would increase the slots/elemental capacity so we can actually use them.

Totally agree about the elemental capacity increase, it has needed to be raised or straight-up taken away for years.

On the other point, i always thought of VE as a WAR. Yeah it has the shield arm, but i always thought that was just SE's commentary on how they wanted WAR to be-sword/shield. Just my opinion anyways.

[knauerpower]

I have recently returned to the game and am shocked to see bst with another TH pet. Can pup please!!! Get some sort of TH advantage? If not a new puppet or head, at least an attachment? Although I think a THF bot would be pretty sick. Dual wielding daggers lol maybe that's just me. We always seem to get left out in the cold.

[Spiritreaver]

I have recently returned to the game and am shocked to see bst with another TH pet. Can pup please!!! Get some sort of TH advantage? If not a new puppet or head, at least an attachment? Although I think a THF bot would be pretty sick. Dual wielding daggers lol maybe that's just me. We always seem to get left out in the cold.

Still don't get some ppl's obsession with this idea that pet jobs need TH. Unless its TH+3(which isn't going to happen at this point), why bother?

[Balloon]

This is a post I made quite a while ago on ffxiah, and never got round to posting here. I'm sure it won't be seen or heard, but as I grow continually discontented with the state of pup, and my inability to use it in most areas of the game I thought it could be worth posting. I'm sure this just amalgamates a lot of the information already in this thread. (Sorry for the Quote tags, I'm just trying to make this a little less WallofTexty)

Attachments

As for expanding via attachments I really hope Square realise that we have a finite number of slots and elements to work with, and include an expansion. Some of the already existing attachments should be innate - Shield mastery, counter, double attack to name a few. Some of those job ability/trait attachments are non-negotiable. An attachment to prioritise curing on a frame that was designed to with the intent to replicate white mage is counter-intuitive.

As for creating attachments that are meant to emulate certain jobs I fail to see how that'll improve things. Many people draw analogues to pld and Valor (as evidenced by it gaining Invincible via our new 2hr), but without a native mp pool that can't be recreated. Most other slots on the mage jobs are accounted for. Barrage turbine is a great example of an attachment done right, though it does eliminate wind maneuvers, which messes with haste and can cause the wrong ws to go off.

Mage Frames

I know that our mage frames got quite the buff recently, and for that I am thankful, but there are some more changes I would like to see implemented. Damage gauge + Optic Fiber I feel is broken, never do I need a cure at 80% hp, often this will create scenarios where my mp will burn at stupidly fast rates. I'd like to see Damage gauge either removed or changed to grant an afflatus: solace type effect and the curing behaviour to be innate to the frame. Furthermore, I would like to see Soulsoother cast cure 4, instead of just 5 and 6. With the changes to cure 4, and vivi-valve + 1 LM it can easily cure for 600, which my dumb little cure-auto often cure 5s me for.

Allowing us to have a "Support Deploy" ability would be amazing, sometimes I don't want my auto to nuke or enfeeble. It would push the enhancing magic aspect of RDM frame to a new level.

AI, Head stats, and Animators.

I know that the head of the frame is the AI of the automaton, and the body the stats, however I think with some minor changes to that formula we could see some interesting combinations that would expand upon the versatility. Merely relegating mp to the frames head would allow us to create a pld-esque frame, while the standard valoredge head could be focused more on attack. I also feel that the head slot should home some job specific traits; Red - Autorefresh or Fastcast, White - Cure Potency + Black - Magic Attack Bonus + Rng head - Snapshot Valor - PDT or Attack.

Animators pale in comparison to other melee options, their inclusion (and the fact it precludes us from using any ammo) deprives us of both weapon skill and melee enhancing options. For a job that is already attack deprived this is much more detrimental than it sounds. If you insist on keeping them then they should at least be congruent with their description - I fail to see how +Dex has any bearing upon speed or directness of commands. Apart from very loose lore they act as nothing more than an annoyance, and everytime you add a viable melee ammo for pup it's as if you're taunting us.

Other adjustments I'd like to see include: More job ability attachments, allow Barrage turbine to consume only 1 Wind maneuvre, innate job traits like counter, double attack etc (That are further enhanced by the use of coiler etc), Auto acc buff. Reworking of harlequin.

This post is long, I apologise for that, brevity was never one of my strong suits. The rest of this is an addendum to what I wrote on FFXIAH.

Mo' autos, Mo' problems. (Problems for PUP in high level content.)

I don't claim to understand the Dev teams rationale and philosophy behind jobs, it feels as though certain jobs are tiered and better for fodder content. Pup is definitely one of those classes. Yet at the same time contrivances such the proc system in Voidwatch relay a message that you want all jobs to be used for endgame content. There's a massive, currently insurmountable problem with that.

Puppetmaster is a job based upon a pet, alone it pales in comparison to nearly every other melee. Automatons either die immediately or have such low accuracy and attack as to be worthless. I know that autos damage is calculated differently, and that the formulas for this are seeming mysteries. However unless this largely (and I mean largely) unbalances the job it is time to allow outside buffs to hit pets.

Job Ability Idea: Emulate - Copies beneficial effects from Player to Automaton (Including Temporary Items).
I hear the balance bell chiming, but frankly PUP is currently useless on any high level content. Anything requiring Embrava (NNI) and even on fodder content is largely outclassed by other jobs. This would put us closer to other jobs. I doubt highly it would let us surpass SAM WAR or

Pup, against todays content, performs poorly. Autos are as defensive as a wet paper towel, and about as potent. You still add mage options to our gear selections. You're adding new jobs without fixing what is already there. As you continue to add high level content the disparity between jobs is becoming increasingly evident. PUP will be forever the whipping boy of our community, along with dnc and thf, unless some attempt to fix the underlying causes of the problems.

[Theytak]

It seems like there's a good deal of information in there that is either simply incorrect, or that I disagree with, but goddamn, I think you've managed to out Wall of Text me. I'll edit this post in response at some point, when I have the time to sit down and chew my way through that.

[Balloon]

It seems like there's a good deal of information in there that is either simply incorrect, or that I disagree with, but goddamn, I think you've managed to out Wall of Text me. I'll edit this post in response at some point, when I have the time to sit down and chew my way through that.

I'd be interested to know what you think is wrong. I know that calling PUP bad is a sweeping statement, but I've tried to be factually accurate in all other regards. I will amend anything that is simply incorrect. I don't think a 'great deal' is though.

And yeah, the post really got away from me. I'm not good at being concise. I'll probably make about 20 edits to try to get it towards reasonable levels.

[Theytak]

I'd be interested to know what you think is wrong. I know that calling PUP bad is a sweeping statement, but I've tried to be factually accurate in all other regards. I will amend anything that is simply incorrect.

And yeah, the post really got away from me. I'm not good at being concise. I'll probably make about 20 edits to try to get it towards reasonable levels.

Your summary of why and how pup is a bad job is inaccurate, somewhat uninformed, and demonstrates that you probably don't know much about FFXI math. Pup is not a top tier melee DD, no, we'll never out damage a mnk or a war, unless KKK get involved, but that's a separate issue, but we can easily keep up with and out pace non pure DD jobs, like thf, dnc, nin, bst, etc. We're far from the worst DD job, atm, we're sitting sort of around lower-middle.