pup, where did you go wrong.

[Gwodien]

why was this job derailed by people who wanted to be a powerful DD (mnk like) with a niche pet when this job should have been entirely almost like the necro from DAoC, the ultimate in useless master/powerful pet combo using maneuvers to ultimately Control the pet.

instead i saw people whining about how they dont hit hard enough and cant compare their h2h dps to that of a sam or a war or a rng or even a blm or the pet of a smn or bst's beast and how they have to constantly use maneuvers to manipulate the pet, or how little dps they did without having the pet out... which is the most backwards thing ever considering the pets dps/healing was the staple of playing this job, it was the pet's job to do that...

maybe instead of improving AI and making the automaton basically just auto-everything, they could have removed it entirely and let us Que attachment based JA and WS kinda like bst but using maneuvers more like a power supply instead of trigger, e.g. needs 2 thunder to activate, have 2 thunders, use ja or a /command to activate that pet's ja and consume the maneuvers, or set spells and set priorities based with attachments/letting us que them up like blood pacts/blu spells. this class turned out backwards and im so let down by other pup enthusiasts that confused this job with a melee DD and argue that giving us more control of the pet is detrimental and takes away from the job, which makes no sense, the master shouldn't be the primary dps.

when i left the puppet was strong, capable of soloing (valoredge) em-t mobs with little/no help and maybe dropping a repair once in a while, now its so weak it cant even survive an easy-too weak mob at 88. not a fun thing to return too.

so disapointed... in how this job turned out...

adding this to clarify and make my point obvious.

Then SE is further crippling us by giving us some of the worst gear selections. Its as if the devs WANT the job to fail (ie: not putting pup on Caudata Belt, thats a big middle finger from SE right there).

this is the very point im making, stupid comments like this where SE get confused on how to build a PET class. caudata belt is a PURE DD belt. and NOT A PET belt.
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my point is, im disapointed in how the job turned into a melee DD like drg and not a PUPPET master. unlike like how bst or smn uses their pets to do the dirty work.
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[Helyos]

I agree with most of your post. What most dont realize is the master can become pretty capable of damage. It just takes alot more work to do. Which makes sense. You cant expect to get all the benefits of mnk handed to you when mnk doesnt get a Cure VI spamming robot sitting behind it. Our strength has always been in versatility. Not raw damage output.

Now, that being said, I didn't understand this:

when i left the puppet was strong, capable of soloing (valoredge) em-t mobs with little/no help and maybe dropping a repair once in a while, now its so weak it cant even survive an easy-too weak mob at 88. not a fun thing to return too.

...What?

[Rafien]

I love the requirement of using the attachments. It allows the PUP to be incredibly strong, but not overpowered because you have to que in each maneuver. With that being said, I run into very few mobs that I can't solo as PUP. Take the time to gear yourself and keep both your skills up [Automaton and yourself] and you'll have little problems.

Sure you're not going to get the raw damage output, but like Helyos says, does mnk have a bot running around casting Cure VI at your command.

[Dreamin]

IMO, right now, out of the 4 pet jobs, PUP is head and shoulder way better than both BST and SMN in terms of having the right fixes in place to make the job what it needs to be. BST really is only a jug job now unfortunately and doesn't have any jug pets that it can zone with. SMN, let's just say it's still stuck in the level 75 days and need some massive amount of fixes to make it catch up to at least to BST.

[Gwodien]

I agree with most of your post. What most dont realize is the master can become pretty capable of damage. It just takes alot more work to do. Which makes sense. You cant expect to get all the benefits of mnk handed to you when mnk doesnt get a Cure VI spamming robot sitting behind it. Our strength has always been in versatility. Not raw damage output.

Now, that being said, I didn't understand this:

...What?

tldr at bottom. im very wordy.

yes, it was a poorly written part with no back story. basically, back in the days of 75 cap. i could essentially use melee frame/head like a bst jug pet, activate, engage, and manipulate using maneuvers to let the pet tank for me, using repair oils/+1 as a healing option and using cannibal blade for more self healing. so i could either a) stay out of mob aoe range [awesome for things like besieged and campaign] Or b) let it tank so if it hit the fan, i could gtfo safely and vary rarely ever ran into issues. (then i had to stop playing for work related issues) but now, with how far behind the tanking ability has become (basically its pretty crappy, even with blink and eva attachments still not enough. and using the harlequin frame and blm head using dread spikes is right now the Better option for tanking, shock absorber, replicator and both armor plates and its a pretty mean tank and its dps is higher because of spikes and spells, and can drain too! just have to use economizers for MP. and because its tanking, magic mortar does some impressive numbers) so that has basically made the melee frames tank side almost pure paladin in the fact that its lesser to things that werent designed to tank. but even then, the harlequin route is still far from strong enough, making all pet frames very reliant on the master doing a majority of the work and not even paying attention to it at all. (to be fair, i gave up on this job when i was watching a trio of pup/dnc using rng frames basically out do an alliance of players in aby... but not before trying outside aby, where letting the pet tank for me on an even matched mob only meant very quick death for pet and i pretty much ended up killing it while trying to change it to something else. then killed it without automaton out, for fun, as pup/dnc)

Unlike the pokemon master beast master who uses a jug too choose his pets (yes charm is rarely used due to lack of useful/charm-able mobs at 99), much shorter times on pet healing ja and the zoning thing being the only real downside to that, and if bst is farming things like dynamis without even needing to really use pet foods, but a bst without beast is pretty weak, which is why its still a pet job.

when you talk about pup being head and shoulders above the other pet classes, thats because the master is doing so much of the work that it isnt really a pet class, its basically just a DRG version of mnk with a much more controllable pet.

which is what im complaining about. this job went from being all about the pet, to neglect the pet. all you need is damage gauge and maybe some filler attachments, stormwaker frame/head or even whm head for added brokeness and dont even need to worry bout maneuvers for 90% of the fight as the AI will take care of what it needs to be doing, except in a few exceptions where it loops 1 enfeeb cause the mob is immune to it, and that will likely to be fixed soon as im sure there is a post about it below... sub something like dnc or nin and you are practically unstoppable.

im not here to complain that the job is weak. im here complaining because it was fixed backwards, imagine if the bst got a massive boost in ability to do damage, not the pet, the player, to the point where it can almost solo entirely without the pet or got a jug that let it use Imps or dragons or even worse, more then one pet. Or smn got a line of spells or JAs that meant it could use all the spells the elemental spirits had access too as long as one was out or let you control the elemental spirit entirely, making avatars obsolete as you could now spam tier V or VI spells and just release and resummon the pet with full mp...........

in short (or tldr)
pup is broken. owner almost matches the dps of a mnk, better evasion then a nin, hands free healing ability on par with most healing able classes with easy to achieve unlimited mp and, when able, capable of almost instantly doubling its dps using rng frame, you have a very Badly fixed job or one that not even the devs knew where they where going with it (like the writers from lost). a job that was supposed to be all about developing and learning to control your pet and growing as an automaton owner where not knowing what your doing meant failing and death.... and its not. which is why i stopped playing this job... its boring and too easy and i know "dont like it, quit it." and i did, started playing something else that has made me feel like a part of an MMO and not a massacre simulator. im just here to voice my disgust in what the community that proclaimed to be For pup did to this job, while they themselves had no idea what the job was all about...

that's basically it.

[Helyos]

I think I understand where your coming from. You used to play the job where the pet would tank, kind of list a bst would and play support for it. I'm a fan of the playstyle, maybe not as much as you, but still appreciate it.

Unfortunately, the fact is valoredge will probably never get on par with a jug pet as a tank. Jug pets have twice the hp, twice the attack power on regular hits, and can heal alot of hp with just a reward. Not to mention being able to dual wield -pdt for pets, which is a whole other discussion in itself. But after that, it's all they can do. You can't really expect Valoredge to be a jug pet in tanking when it gets the ability to be so much more.

When it comes to really tanking the hard stuff, I think the better approach has always been master out front from the beginning. You say there's been alot of changes to the job since you've been away, but SE really hasn't strayed much from PUP's original design. We've always had High EVA, and anyone who's played this game since the times where you actually had to use tanks PLD and NIN, could tell you that if the mob hits to hard, its better to not take the hits at all.

The only thing SE has really touched on the master itself is the H2H skill, besides that it's the same old job.

About Valoredge, I'm sorry you were disappointed. I don't know exactly when, but SE decided recently that passed 80, a decent challenge+ can hit you. Hard. Don't believe me head over to Dyna-Sandy and take a few swings from a DC Orc MNK. If you don't proc him he WILL drop you.

They have given us a few ways to counter it though. Did you use Galvanizer and Barrier Module? 2 thunder maneuvers with Galvanizer gives the puppet a pretty decent counter rate, and BM makes that shield on its hand actually account for something. You can also take advantage of some -pdt gear for pet to soften those blows. Lastly, turbo charger+coiler+pet haste gear. Take the time to make sure these are in place if this is your play style. Guaranteed VE will be pumping out twice as many cannibals easily.

Final thing and I'm done. Towards the end you complained that the job got too easy, but in the beginning you were complaining that pet tanking is now too hard. Which is it man? You're making it pretty hard to see the light if you're taking such a double sided stance.

[Gwodien]

drg is to war, as pup is to mnk. and pup gets the freedom of being able to choose a sub and still get maximum control of the pet. and we dont even Need to control the pet for it to do things most jobs would kill for.

bst without pet is useless, mage without MP is useless, nin without tools is useless, ranger without a ranged weapon is useless. pup or drg without pet? still fully able to DD on par with most other DDs. but drg was meant to be that way.

pet tanking is not about being too hard, its a non-option and without me doing most of the DD and tanking i'd have no hope of killing anything. targeted arguments are nice, but again, overall, this job lost its way from being about controlling the pet to just ignore it and balls to the wall DD, you yourself used the argument that all you really need is whm head, stormwaker body and damage guage to save yourself (pup being able to save and swap attachments thread) but thats a targeted argument as well and not what i was trying to point out.

the argument that a dc mob can hit hard and we NEED the high eva is a valid argument and not the point i was trying to make. nor was the inability for the pet to tank the entire point of the original post, altho i failed at delivering that point in the original post and i apologize for that.

pup is a pet class that isnt reliant on its pet to acheive the same things that other jobs who are reliant on something are. pup isnt a pet class, its a DD hybrid at worst. and a fully capable DD with a personal rdm/whm/rng at best. that is my problem, and this is Outside aby as well, where a lot of other jobs loose that ability to be broken and become reliant on parties and dedicated healers again.

pup is a pet class like drg is a pet class. instead of spells or ws to trigger the breaths of the wyvern we get maneuvers, and even then you dont need to use them for the pet to achieve its goal of healing or using WSs. and it shouldnt have been that way...

a real puppeteer gives its puppets the illusion of being alive by controlling it and making it act in ways to trick us into giving an inanimate object life!

/rantoff

[Mayoyama]

pup or drg without pet? still fully able to DD on par with most other DDs.

Um, no lol. DRG falls way behind other heavy DD (SAM/WAR/DRK) unless you have mythic.. and I highly doubt anyone would class a PUP "on par" with MNK for dps (especially given the skill difference and the huge amount of gear mnk gets that pup is excluded from)

[Helyos]

Agreed with above. When I said, people dont realize pup can DD if work is put into it, I definitely meant mythic level pup.

[Elphy]

when i left the puppet was strong, capable of soloing (valoredge) em-t mobs with little/no help and maybe dropping a repair once in a while, now its so weak it cant even survive an easy-too weak mob at 88. not a fun thing to return too.

so disapointed... in how this job turned out...

How are you not surviving ep-too weak mobs at 88? Either your skills or your gear are extremely gimped or you are just not utilizing your jobs potential. I capped guard by pulling a horde of dc+ mandies at 99 and picking them off one by one while using sharpshot auto and never feared ko. My little auto can even solo dc+ mobs with only the occasional repair.

Agreed with above. When I said, people dont realize pup can DD if work is put into it, I definitely meant mythic level pup.

I've said it before and I will say it again. Pup is a job that takes gear+SKILL, unlike other dd jobs where you can just gear them and go on auto-pilot like war, sam, etc. A good pup, although not a top dd, can certainly hold their own. I can easily out-kill most bsts in dyna for instance and can rock out Meeble, Salvage, etc. The only advantages bst has over us is the low recast timer on call beast and massive reward+ gear. Sure we have dues ex but we get a weakened auto and the normal activate timer is still 20 minutes. Should definately be reduced to 5 and meritable like call beast, esp since our autos are a little more squishy and not nearly as controllable by us.

I have seen plenty of pups out there who dont even equip an animator, use manuvers or even know the basics behind how to use them. The lack of info and the ambiguous abilities and descriptions on attachments make it so people who dont really put time into testing or reading up on the job really cripple its reputation. Then SE is further crippling us by giving us some of the worst gear selections. Its as if the devs WANT the job to fail (ie: not putting pup on Caudata Belt, thats a big middle finger from SE right there).

Regardless of the hate, I love pup and wish I was able to play it more. So tired of hearing lolpup then after being the only one left alive to finish the fight, still getting lolpup by ppl who died half way thru. So rage inducing