So I meritted with a PUP today

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

I moved over to Odin this week to join up with some friends I've made over the last year on the LBR forums. I've mostly just done merriting since I arrive (kinda relieveing to not have endgame obligations).

So my third Merit PT was with a few of the members of the VanaFellowship LS I joined. And our leader was Reseph, who I'd say is just about as much a PUP enthusiast as I am a COR enthusiast.

He wanted to use his Automation, Genta, to main heal. I was a little wary and I'm known to be partial to my /RNG sub, but I subbed WHM and brought a heap of MP gear just in case. We decided to do the Troll Camp in Mount Z and Reseph also went /WHM

PT was WAR, SAM, NIN, DRK, PUP, COR.

I don't think /WHM was a mistake, but I was rather surprised at how little I had to use it. More and more, I just started slipping back on my melee gear and, with no mage line to concern myself with, I would only seldom step back to use Evoker's on myself or Reseph.

Most of the time, though, Sanction refresh was enough. So I just kinda, well, OK Corsair's Roll and Samurai Roll was pretty much the whole PT set of buffs. A SAM + Samurai Roll is just ungodly now. You almost don't need another buff to go with it.

Anyway, I was pretty impressed with how the Soulsoother automation worked out. It wasn't a huge chaining PT by any means, but it was a refreshing PT to say the least. And just before the PT started, we happed to pass a manaburn Trio with two PUPs and a BLM. It was then I learned that with merits, Automations could learn Blizzard IV.

If they can just keep the Automations from DoTing and Draining mobs, PUP's a manaburn invite now, too. I'm told thats possible if you buffer an Ice Manuver, Deploy for nuke and then call it back. Still, a degree of control over that would be nice.

Anyway, I gotta say I'm impressed with the changes. I think I'll put off jumping back into endgame for now and take some time to level PUP on my Taru, it seems to finally have the support versatility that I originally had hoped it would.

Only thing that pisses me off is that it may replace my DRG completely. I liked soloing DRG but Muffin just can't compete with Cure V and I enjoy strong support elements in my jobs. Its not stealing any love from BST, though, I f'n earned that job more than any other and its still very rewarding to me.

[LilithAngel]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

With the recent update, PUP is starting to come into its own now. It's assuming more of the support role now than before, and its identity is starting to become formed. The job still requires a bit of work, but now the brunt of that work is on the player to make the job perform, not SE to "finish" it. There's still quite a lot SE could do with such a versatile job, but they're at least headed down the right path now.

[KingOfZeal]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

I will say PUP has become much more interesting since the update.

Last night, I was lucky enough to trio with 2 other PUPs. Initially, I had the Soulsoother head, the second PUP had the Spiritreaver (BLM) head, and later when the 3rd pup joined they used the Valoredge frame (which, I don't think they had any other frame -- they were using that one and the Harlequin all night).

My ONLY problem with the Soulsoother head is that, while it will heal other party members, it can't heal other puppets. If that were possible, we would have been absolutely awesome. However, since the Spiritreaver is so powerful (it was always parsing #1 while we were in this setup), it was always taking hate and died a few times.

I do love my Soulsoother, though -- while it's limited on the dark attachment slots, I use a Mana Tank I and Mana Converter, and we're set to go on soloing. A single Cure 3 will heal himself from the convert, and the Light Maneuver (which I could stack the Auto-Repair Kit I and II with all the light slots we get) takes him to full just before the recast on the convert is up.

Glad to see I can look forward to meriting on PUP once I get to 75.

[Malacite]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

@ . @ My PUP is only lv 10, and will be staying that way until I finish getting Maat's cap, but damn I wish I hadn't taken Valoredge first now ; ;

These new heads really make me wish I'd taken Stormwalker ><

[Taskmage]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

As I hear it, it's best to get the ranged frame first, if for no other reason than ranged skill is a pain to raise and it sucks to catch up if you get it later.

More on topic, that's awesome to hear. Not only that people are creatively finding effective ways to use pup, but that we have a new option for main heal.

[Gobo]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

@ . @ My PUP is only lv 10, and will be staying that way until I finish getting Maat's cap, but damn I wish I hadn't taken Valoredge first now ; ;
These new heads really make me wish I'd taken Stormwalker ><

Doesn't really matter anyway, since you can't get one head until 40 and the second one at 50.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

More on topic, that's awesome to hear. Not only that people are creatively finding effective ways to use pup, but that we have a new option for main heal.

I don't know if it could keep the pace on burn PTs where BRD's are Horde Lullabying everything and damage is going everywhere, and it may not be the best choice for HNM healing, but I think it could get a place in areas such as Dynamis, Limbus and definately Salvage.

Problem with Limbus, though, is there is still not much there for ToA jobs, BLU gets Ultima/Omega drops, that's it. Hopefully this is addressed before WotG.

For parties, I think it would be asinine to turn away a PUP completely now. What's more is it opens up mage subs for PUP in the way SE seemed to intend for it at the start. Whatever bases the Automation couldn't cover on curing, the PUP can cover, with the exception of Stona.

[Jensen]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

One thing ive always thought about when lvling pup is that /whm or now maybe /sch
could be very effective me and my static partner a sam have thought about getting me a vermy for parties when i would be needed as a backup healer or even main looking at some of the high end mage gear pup gets i think its safe to say pup may have been intended to melee at all in partys in certain situations where additional curing is needed

[Guren]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

Finally someone else that had good experiences with a PUP. I been trying to prove how well us PUP can do in any party, including end game, for so long. I have posted my screen shots of my massive WS damage, but I think it is time for me to show some of my parsing data in different camps.

When I merit on Greater Colibri I use the ranger automaton with out a doubt.
When I merit in the Troll camps, I spam Blizzard IV using the BLM automaton and doing the following:

Ice manuever -> Deploy -> Casts Blizzard IV -> Deactivate -> Activate -> Ice Manuever -> Blizzard IV again.

It may seem like a lot, but it goes really fast and it is a double cast for massive chunks of damage that go hateless if you play it correctly. When you deactivate you lose hate, and if you get hate off the second Blizzard IV your tank is not doing their job, but if it is early casts then you can just ventriloquy and get all hate off your automaton.

All the of following I just named is also amazing against endgame monsters like Kirin. I have been in a Kirin party with me as a PUP, along with 3 other PUP. We absolutely destroyed Kirin in under a minute using hard nukes and magic motar.

Thanks for the read guys, and great topic bbq, glad to hear you are going to try PUP out.

~Guren

[Jaice]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

I'm glad to see you are going to give this job a shot BBQ I'd really like to see your thoughts on PuP - from the little I've been able to toy around with it the job is fantastic but really spendy to get started pending on which type of frame you want to play around with in the beginning. The main reccomendation I can give is to get the stoneskin attachment attached to your puppet asap, include the strobe to provoke and you've got a tank that will last from level 1-10 without taking much damage ^^ there's also a few others that are fun for the early level such as blaze spikes and enthunder - If you have the monies laying around you could buy up every tierI & tierII attachement from a vendor in the port town north of Whitegate i think the total was 90k -101k gil but I'm uncertain and unable to access Wiki from work >.<

[eticket109]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

Wow... this thread is old. Shame that 7 months later most people still don't give PUP much credit for anything.

Seriously though Jensen, try to pay attention to thread dates before you reply in a thread. People get uptight about necroposting and this thread was long dead.

[Jaice]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

It is an old thread but I'd still like to see what BBQ's thoughts are on PuP >.>;;

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

Actually, with my current job load and SCH and BST being a large priority for my Taru, Foobar, I just can't find the time to level PUP. Also had the joy of watching Reseph evolve into a total queen and having to deal with his crap on LBR.

My opinion of the job is still fairly favorable, its just my opinion of the player hit rock bottom. There are probably better PUPs out there.

I think the job has potential overall, but at endgame, its limited potention. Its obviously going to be great for things like Limbus, Dynamis, Nyzul or Salvage. Its also fairly decent for Missions, though with CoPs you have to get over that 50 hump before you can make the job viable for 30 caps.

But it has the same endgame problems as DNC, BST and DRG. In situations where TPing a mob is not welcomed, these jobs are rendered completely powerless. And there's really no one to fault for not wanting these jobs for that but SE - SE needs to consider some useful traits/abilities for these jobs so they can be vital in such content as the rest of the jobs out there already.

What sucks is that PUP is even more reliable a healer than DRG's wyvern is, but people are still too scared to let an automated healer step in for a real one. I suppose one could point out that a THF or /THF could slam hate on a BST and the BST could Snarl that hate to his pet to take some pressure off a tank, but pardon me if the FFXI community isn't slow to think about such things - they're content to do things with what's worked since RoZ content.

[Malacite]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

Very few of us like to let our minds prance outside the box BBQ. It's a sad thing.

[Jensen]

Re: So I meritted with a PUP today

very sorry got lost in reading all the pup threads forgot where i was >.<