Cure IV (conserve MP)

[Theytak]

In general:

Not at all sorry about my view on this. I seriously consider it in the same vein as worrying about delay from using manuvers or the ongoing crusade by some to have Asuran Fists on PUP 'just because'. We all know how SE operates by now in regards to PUP and if having to pay attention to auto MP and actively work to keep MP up(just like mages have to incidentally) is one of the last areas where the job is struggling? That is fine by me, especially after the MASSIVE AI overhaul automatons recently got.

While I agree with your sentiments on asuran fists (we don't need it, shijin spiral and stringing pummel are both stronger, and it doesn't give us any new skill chain properties, because asuran fists and stringing pummel have identical SC properties (Gravitation/Liquefaction)), I know you've read my math as to the problems with maneuvers and why their delay severely hurts us in high haste situations, so I'd prefer you not ignore it, please. I also completely disagree with your stance on the issue in question here, but I'll respond to that with this,

I spent so many years dying because Klaxon felt the need to -na me instead of give me ANY cure. So my personal view on being able to force my little buddy to cure me at all, is very forgiving of what cure he uses. Its just another case of different strokes for different folks.

Two Cure 4's for 176mp(88x2) or one Cure 5(135mp) or one Cure 6(227mp); as long as i'm getting the bleedin' cure when i NEED the bleedin' cure, i couldn't be assed sweating which one Klaxon lays on me. That's me though of course, i'm easy.

As to not fighting stuff with no AOEs, is that somehow a bad thing? If i'm about to do an activity ingame and i know upfront that it is going to be AOE heavy, as much as i love PUP-its not gonna be my first choice. If others only have the one option of PUP for everything, i feel a bit for them-but ultimately its on them to diversify their available jobs.


That's about all i have to say on it. Feel free to lay into me as needed. Not the first or last time my view on something ingame isn't the more popular one.

I've spent just as many years dying because Caroline was being a derp as you have, and while I agree that any cure is better than no cure, I don't agree your "we should be happy with the shitty system they gave us because it's better than it was" sentiment. There are still several major flaws with Soulsoother/Stormwaker that really need to be worked out, and we shouldn't just sit by and idly accept that we got any change to them.

I've already explained my feelings on the issue of mp efficiency in this thread, so I'm not going to reiterate them, but I would also point out that for the most part, the -na over cure system IS STILL IN PLACE. If you have 1 light maneuver, your puppet will prioritize curing. However, if you're, say, in abyssea, and try to put up 2-3 LM to boost your cure potency for a bigger heal, this will cause your puppet to revert to -na's before cures. This is somewhat helped by cures and nas being on separate timers now, however there is still a universal delay and that can be enough to completely fuck you over.

Additionally, there are other issues. For example, we still can't force regen, and the puppet won't cast regen on the mobs where it's most desired; we still have to be fighting something DC+ to get regen at all, even though regen is all we need against most EP mobs, and TW mobs aren't even liable to touch us to begin with. They also removed our method of healing sleep when they took it off of eraser, which I still don't understand, and there's the ever present problem that our healer pet can only be used in combat, and with the separated recasts, this issue has been made worse because it's now more difficult to deploy the pet on a random mob you don't actually want to fight just to get your buffs up, because it'll cast slow or dia or something while the global recast is down, which means we need to spam deploy and retrieve, which is both annoying, and logistically stupid. It really makes absolutely no sense that we don't have an ability like, "Support" where the puppet acts as if it's deployed, but only casts healing and defensive magic. This would be so incredibly useful for both soulsoother and stormwaker being usable outside of combat, and also for allowing stormwaker to not drive you insane by starting the first fight where you don't need a buff with a damn thunder IV before you even get a chance to establish hate. I could go on, but I really don't feel like it.

Yes, look at how hard you don't care. If you didn't care, you wouldn't have said anything in the first place, much less posted huge rambling walls of text that amount to nothing more than "the job isn't bad because I have no idea how the game works". Your post couldn't be any more stereotypical of a delusional garbage-job special snowflake. You are not special because you are happy with a bad job. People who would like the job to not suck are not pretenders or posers. If you can't make a valid point and have to resort to "in my imaginary fantasy world I have been a pup longer than you", then you are better off simply keeping it to yourself. If you have an actual argument as to why obvious bugs shouldn't be fixed, then present it. If you don't care, then don't argue against it.

1. Pup is terrible. It is the least popular job, and the least useful job. There is literally nothing in the game that pup excels at. Every single thing you could possibly do, another job can do better.

2. Making pup better will not stop it from being fun. Fun and useful are not mutually exclusive.

Pup is not, in any way, the worst job in the game, and if you honestly think that, you're either very narrow minded, and parroting something you read posted by someone else who doesn't play pup and has no idea what they're talking about, or are just a terrible pup. I've got a very good idea how this game works, and I quite often post math related to the game mechanics, especially those related to pup. I've run all the numbers around the job, I know its strengths, and its weaknesses, and it is very far from "terrible" or "the least useful" that you're claiming it is.

The problem is that you're looking at pup through zerg-colored glasses. Pup is not a zerg job, that is a fact, one which I have done the numbers on many times, and is unlikely to change, short of an act of god. Pup not performing as well as other DD jobs in high-haste, high buff situations does not, however, suddenly mean that pup sucks in every other situation.

In response to your first point, let me explain both why pup is the least popular job, and why its popularity has absolutely no reflection on its overall ability. I won't deny pup's popularity being what it is, since SE has given us the cold hard numbers. However, you really shouldn't be so dense as to assume it's a matter of "pup sucks, so it's unpopular" because throughout the history of FFXI, that has never once been the case for any job. There are several reasons pup sits at the 20th slot, and trades off with corsair, but "pup being terrible" is not one of them.

One of the most prominent reasons are the very high start up cost (pup is one of the most expensive jobs to fully gear, because of the cost of the attachments, especially those from ashu talif) and while over time, bst, rng, nin, and cor will all dwarf pup's cost due to the cost of their consumables/ammo, pup's big price tag comes very early, and in very large chunks. Aside from the high start up cost, there's also the high level of competence necessary to play pup well. Pup is not a job that one can simply deploy the pet, engage, swing for TP, ws, rinse, repeat. You can't play pup like you would a mnk or a sam, and expect to be remotely proficient at the job. Pup requires a lot more active thought, attention, and especially gear, than most other melee jobs (though it has blu rivaling it on the gear front). Further, there is that annoying stigma that's been stuck with pup since it was released before it was ready, which, while no longer true in any sense, is incredibly persistent. There are other, smaller points for our popularity, but they're not really important atm.

Beyond that, though, to say that there is "literally nothing" that pup excels at is both a complete crock of shit, and incredibly loaded. Your use of the word "literally" is completely wrong, because there are, in fact, things that pup has the #1 slot for, such as single target nukes with the same spell (pup thunder V vs blm thunder V vs sch thunder V, pup will come out on top if you account for universally possible things, like day/weather procs; and no, I'm not saying pup is a better nuker blm and sch both nuke faster and more often, and have more variation in their spells), greatest ability to customize one's pet's stats (and actually the only job with this ability), greatest melee damage from a job that is capable of casting cure VI, a job capable of casting T5 nukes, as well as being the only job capable of casting both cure V/VI AND use T5 nukes (not at the same time).

Finally, pup does, in fact, have two claims to fame. First is our evasion, and by extent, our survivability. No, point for point, we do not have the highest evasion. That belongs the thf; and our spot as 2nd best was stolen from us when dnc got Eva Bonus IV, since they have a higher evasion skill, however that 6 skill difference is negligible. Further, While thf has the best evasion, thf can't heal itself without bloody bolts, which aren't really that reliable on anything very difficult. Dnc and Pup are effectively tied for the role of best evasion soloer, since waltz's recast timer and TP cost cause it to effectively mirror pup's 15 second global healing recast. After that, pup's strongest point is, and has always been, hate generation; or rather, lack thereof. We nuke essentially hate free. While we don't put out as much damage as the heavy DDs, we rarely ever have to hold back, either. We're able to put out just enough damage to make a dent, but not pull hate. Sure, this is rather irrelevant at the moment, because of how badly the hate system works at 99, but that doesn't mean it stops being true, it just means it's lets obvious.

Honestly, the last bit of your point, "Every single thing you could possibly do, another job can do better." blatantly ignores something very important. How many other jobs are capable of using T5 elemental magic, High level healing magic, and very respectable melee numbers? Sure, Whm will heal better, Blm will nuke better, and Mnk will put out more damage, but I've never seen a monk cast thunder V or cure VI themselves (ignoring DB alts, because 2 characters are not 1 character).

Now, the word I'm about to use is often a cause of controversy for us, but it's really hard to deny; pup is one of the most versatile jobs in the game. Pup is a hybrid job, and always has been. While, of the hybrid jobs, pup is the least able to quickly switch between roles on the fly, it trades that for being the most potent of the hybrid jobs in almost all of its roles. Compare the other hybrid jobs that can melee, and pup is easily the strongest in that regard, though if they really put effort into it, dnc isn't far behind, and can pass pup up in certain situations; and while we're not able to put out the same level of magic damage as blus, we can very easily compete with schs if hate is any issue at all, and since the healing magic buff, pup has become a very strong healer, if geared right and played intelligently (sub sch or whm). We're no whm, but we can hold our own against a sch or a rdm, and in some respects, surpass them.

Pup is a fucking amazing job, that can do a lot of shit in a single job that most other people have to level, gear, and merit 3-4 different jobs to accomplish. Saying it's terrible in this day and age is just ignorant. Zerg's aren't everything, and when a job can do more than just melee, you can't measure its total value purely by its performance in zergs.