F*** SE and here SCH (PUP Discussion)

[Knightblade]

Wow, are you stupid?

Their hand-to-hand skill almost means nothing. Especially not on the first floor where everything have low evasion and low defense. What makes MNK's pull ahead at start, and this is assuming no one have any cells unlocked (that means, pre-chest patch only), the MNK will outdamage the PUP because of higher Martial Art. Assuming they'd have the same Martial Arts level (which they don't), then yes, MNK would pull ahead of PUP. However, as it is, the reason MNK outdamage PUP is not because of their hand-to-hand skill. Their hand-to-hand skill is, just like WAR, THF and NIN, one of the reasons they're useful on the first floor. And before weapons etc. PUP will outdamage said jobs (notice how I didn't mention MNK there).

However, right now, post-chest patch, a MNK will always outdamage a PUP. Not because of higher H2H skill and Martial Arts level, but because they will most likely be your tanks. Thus, you gear them up first. this means they get first weapons, first equipment, first melee stat cells, first ability etc. Partly because you want them to tank on first floor because of Counterstance, which speeds the floor up by a whole lot.

However

If you gave the PUP the all of that first (which would be stupid, mind you), then naturally the PUP would outdamage the MNK. My point is, you can't ever compare job's damage in a situation such as Salvage, where most of the people will be partly unlocked, and some of the people fully unlocked, as they will lack stats, equipment etc. Especially on pet jobs, whose pets go under the same restriction as their master, and they are likely to not get STR cells before melee jobs. A MNK will outdamage all other jobs on first floor, including WAR and SAM. So saying a MNK will still outdamage a PUP in salvage is moot, as a fully-unlocked PUP will easily outdamage a completely locked PUP, and vice versa. The reason PUP don't get unlocked in Salvage is the same reason THF and many other jobs don't get unlocked. They are usually not a key job. MNK, WHM, RDM, THF and BRD are key jobs. However, the MNK is the only one that needs to be completely unlocked to be effective. MNK is a heavily geared-based job, which PUP is not. A MNK with only ability and weapon unlocked will be outdamaged by a PUP with only weapon and ability unlocked, simply because the PUP have his pet. The PUP, on the other hand, will never get said cells before a MNK, simply because a MNK is more versatile and important, while a PUP is replaceable. PUP, like all other melee jobs, take a back seat in Salvage.

I guess it depends on your group though. A WAR, or hell, even a SAM, could take a MNK's place in Salvage, assuming you have no MNK. A MNK will still be more useful, though, due to Subtle Blow.

I admit defeat here, since I shouldn't have talked much about salvage since I've never done it yet. Thanks for explaining, though.

PS: I don't have anything against PUP, I just think SE did a bad job at doing it, and *could* have made it good.

 

[Knightblade]

I'd love to see how a PUP in full Usukane would do, though.

PUP get Goliard Saoi too, which gives 4% haste, pretty nifty.

 

[Uzor]

Full Usukane gives 13% haste, though.

MNK also get one of the best melee belts in the game, Black Belt, which alone is only 1% less haste then what's on the entire Usukane Set. Black Belt and full Usukane puts MNK at capped equipment haste, heh. PUP get 18% with Swift Belt.

 

[Romper]

Full Usukane gives 13% haste, though.

MNK also get one of the best melee belts in the game, Black Belt, which alone is only 1% less haste then what's on the entire Usukane Set. Black Belt and full Usukane puts MNK at capped equipment haste, heh. PUP get 18% with Swift Belt.

Any idea what the enhancement to haste on Usukane does?

 

[Uzor]

the Usukane set itself gives 8% haste. The Haste bonus is thus 5%. The whole set itself is designed to cap MNK haste with it equipped, assuming said MNK have Black Belt. That's why the set itself only gives 8, 13% with full set equipped.

 

[Liefe]

I admit defeat here, since I shouldn't have talked much about salvage since I've never done it yet. Thanks for explaining, though.

PS: I don't have anything against PUP, I just think SE did a bad job at doing it, and *could* have made it good.

PUP *IS* good. People just don't really invest in merits/gear for it, and at least for the gear part that is due to the very limited amount of really decent gear for it. IMO it should have access to other MNK/SAM/NIN gear. Shura/Fuma/Kote,etc. It only makes sense being that it's on usukane..

The only *real* issues PUP has, aside gear availability, are automaton survivability/recast on Activate, Valoredge being grossly underpowered when compared to the other 2 major frames, and Magic Mortar being a joke.

 

[Romper]

PUP *IS* good. People just don't really invest in merits/gear for it, and at least for the gear part that is due to the very limited amount of really decent gear for it. IMO it should have access to other MNK/SAM/NIN gear. Shura/Fuma/Kote,etc. It only makes sense being that it's on usukane..

The only *real* issues PUP has, aside gear availability, are automaton survivability/recast on Activate, Valoredge being grossly underpowered when compared to the other 2 major frames, and Magic Mortar being a joke.

This sounds like a big problem to me as PUP is a pet job and all of the damage comes from the pet.

 

[Moink]

This sounds like a big problem to me as PUP is a pet job and all of the damage comes from the pet.

there are ways to keep the automaton alive and such. the fact that it has most mage abilities like convert, conserve mp, refresh... hell it even has role-reversal and ventriloquy. the master who lets his auto die prior to 20 min recast is a poor one. without merits pup still has repair and the melee frame can push almost 2k... however even after all the defense parts... it gets hurt pretty badly... SE needs to enhance its defenses and possibly even its melee. The RA Frame is also wonderful and can do much better if they made a 2nd scope for it.

meriting the job isn't too hard

however...

the magic cap can grow slowly and painfully

 

[Moink]

edit:
It reminded me of skilling up summoning magic pre- bloodpact skill ups

 

[Tim Wakefield]

makes sense

Remember, this is FFXi...

 

[Reya]

I would have to say when it all comes down to it in the end, PUP like most jobs in this game is situational I personally enjoy playing PUP, mine being 67 and taking a break, I absolutely love to play. I am a ranger frame PUP, and can say that in my personal experience partying in the past, I have changed quite a few minds on the job. For example, NINs love the ranger frame, between flashbulbs and daze stuns, nins can save a few hits when shadows are down and need a little more time to get off a spell. However, when fighting birds, little Pama gets many pecking furrys to the face T_T

Now in going back with what I mean by situational, PUP, I found is great for things like capped BCNMs, capped missions, and other such areas requiring some kind of restriction. I can solo pretty well with specific mixes of pup frames on bcnm30 and bcnm40 mobs. Doing CoP missions to help out some of my friends with PUP has also been a lot of fun. I am not sure how to explain it but I suppose having that extra hand to help out, being your automation during number restricted events, can really make life easier. He's like an extra party member!

Now, you will have to excuse me on this next example, I remember seeing it briefly on a message board sometime in the past, but automations have a great number of attachments when looking at some of the harder things in the game. I remember seeing a screen shot of a Kirin burn, and a PUP's rng frame was hitting Kirin for regular melee and ranged attack dmg. He was hitting Kirin between 40-60 with melee attacks and ranged attacks were going between 90-120. I have these attachments on my frame and when I picked them up, I immediately saw a difference in my dmg output. Don't quote me on this, but I think automations have the ability to ignore certain types of defenses that HNMs posses. I can't wait to get my pup to 75 and merited to give Pama a shot (heheh pun) on some of the larger monsters FFXI has to offer... that is if my LS would let me XD.

I am not putting PUP on this awesome platform saying it's the best job in the game. It's really just situational, at least this is how I feel. Will I attack jobs saying they suck without really understanding why they act or do the things they do? No. Imagine if PUP did have higher H2H skill and access to more weapon skills and gear.. can you imagine how over powering that might be? Sure Usakane is really nice, but not the most common thing you will see many lvl 75 PUPs in unfortunately. I think in theory the job's main spotlight was to be on the pet and not the puppeteer him/herself. I know sometimes I get jealous of Pama >_<! Pulling out big numbers is nice, but this game has more to offer than just that.

Oh and I say a big hello to my fellow brother and sister PUPs ^_^/)

 

[Liefe]

there are ways to keep the automaton alive and such. the fact that it has most mage abilities like convert, conserve mp, refresh... hell it even has role-reversal and ventriloquy. the master who lets his auto die prior to 20 min recast is a poor one. without merits pup still has repair and the melee frame can push almost 2k... however even after all the defense parts... it gets hurt pretty badly... SE needs to enhance its defenses and possibly even its melee. The RA Frame is also wonderful and can do much better if they made a 2nd scope for it.

meriting the job isn't too hard

however...

the magic cap can grow slowly and painfully

Yeah, the PUP who lets their sharpshot frame die before the 20 minute recast because it gets one shotted (or near one shotted) by Pecking Flurry/Rushing Drub is so unskilled after doing a giant damage WS. (/sarcasm off) It's like a RNG/WAR taking hits and unfortunately the replicator only activates once HP is fairly low. Yeah, you can always retrieve the pet and wait to kill the mob with its WS, but that nerfs your damage output pretty significantly.

Also, no PUP in their right mind would use VE on pretty much anything over SS or maybe SW. Maybe on skeletons since the Bone Crusher addition. But seriously, how often do people EXP on those now?

 

[Mishaela]

They do need to lower Activate's recast. That and maybe make it so automatons don't have non-existent defense.

Armor Plate/Equalizer are alright, and Goliard Trews [huge] might help, but it's still comparable to having a WHM with Jelly Ring and Divine Breastplate trying to tank VT/IT mobs.

 

[pchan]

Yeah how useful is a PUP once the SAM get his gear back? Yeah right off the bat PUP is helpful because you know it has hand to hand skill.

Pretty stupid comment. If the sam he is in the tank PT he wil do 30% of the dame together with the 2 other melees. If he is not he will not get gear unless those free lotted. W/e the jobs are outside tank party they do crap damage like the main PT doing 90% of the damage, unlike they are say BLM or ... guess what PUP.

 

[Uzor]

PUP *IS* good. People just don't really invest in merits/gear for it, and at least for the gear part that is due to the very limited amount of really decent gear for it. IMO it should have access to other MNK/SAM/NIN gear. Shura/Fuma/Kote,etc. It only makes sense being that it's on usukane..

The only *real* issues PUP has, aside gear availability, are automaton survivability/recast on Activate, Valoredge being grossly underpowered when compared to the other 2 major frames, and Magic Mortar being a joke.

You have to remember, though, if the master's melee capabilities were on-par with MNK, they would be grossly overpowered. And SE wouldn't want that. That is one of the reasons people don't like PUP, as they look on the master and ignore the pet, then go "lolPUP".

 

[Myrrh]

LolPUP

 

[Khajit]

I look at both and go LOLpup.

 

[K. Ishitar]

You have to remember, though, if the master's melee capabilities were on-par with MNK, they would be grossly overpowered. And SE wouldn't want that. That is one of the reasons people don't like PUP, as they look on the master and ignore the pet, then go "lolPUP".

Still, you think at least they let them do the questable wses for their main choice of weapon, every job has access to one at least but pup gets none.

 

[hellstorm]

lolBLU for dispels.

Really this is the only real challenge on the RDM's dominance over dispel (note I said dominance not monopoly). Its kinda irritating, but hey, thats part of the design concept of SCH is to be a little like everyone.

That being granted they need to get off their asses about improving RDM melee to continue on one of RDMs unique aspects (which to this day has never been sufficient to fully explore). SE said they were looking into it, and they should do something or else RDMs only future will lie only on Refresh and Enfeeble skill, and to a now much lesser extent, curing.


Only other thing I have to say is: new SAM ability is cool, but SoboroSAM will still pwn non-SoboroSAM (pre-Hagan/6-hit) <.<

Actually I'm hoping the reason they did give sch dispel is for down the road rdm will get some new spells that be highly useful and because we now have few thing exclusive will make it non-overpowering,

I haven't parsed PUP since the update but it was never really horrible if you were geared/merited appropriately.

It's real fatal flaw though is the fact that if the automaton dies the PUP is out of commission for a very long time. Yes, you can deactivate (but potentially dismiss the pet while its damaged if it gets hit and then the 20 min recast applies). That's if you're ADD spamming for maximum damage output.

Unfortunately at this point the reason most people could reasonably lolpup about is the general assortment of gear they have available to them (yes i know about usukane, but that's considerably difficult to equip yourself with than say..a haubergeon and sky gear). The automaton itself is quite a beast (and the new SS weaponskill is pretty strong) and since the howling fist chances, PUP weaponskill potential has gone up a lot. If they added real melee gear to PUP that was a step below usukane but a step or two about pahluwan PUP would be set.

That aside..wasn't this thread about SCH?

SCH was substantially underpowered compared to other mages when it was released. I'm certainly glad they didn't wait to make a sizeable impact on the job's performance like the Aht Urghan jobs, or Summoner, or Ranger. They did the right thing. My only complaint is that instead of investing in the power of the helix spells and giving them an INT bonus or reducing the tick/damage time that they just passed the tier4 spells onto the job and ignored its own specific spells. The addition of new powerful magic is welcome, but I wish that they would have tuned some other stuff as well or maybe even instead.

I agree with this they gotten very lazy as of late. They instead of widening the uniqueness of jobs they have closed it almost completely. Thf big thing was shark bite and dancing edge and in some ways sneak attack. Both no longer exclusive. stealing mazuka from brds. Then sch pretty much taken away half of whm and blm arsonal, and 1 rdm exclusive spell. Then there also the raise II which rdm been asking for years. Yes, I agree they needed a bump and this certainly is a bump, but i wish they could have at least gone exclusive instead of copy cating spells/ablities.

 

[Moink]

Yeah, the PUP who lets their sharpshot frame die before the 20 minute recast because it gets one shotted (or near one shotted) by Pecking Flurry/Rushing Drub is so unskilled after doing a giant damage WS. (/sarcasm off) It's like a RNG/WAR taking hits and unfortunately the replicator only activates once HP is fairly low. Yeah, you can always retrieve the pet and wait to kill the mob with its WS, but that nerfs your damage output pretty significantly.

Also, no PUP in their right mind would use VE on pretty much anything over SS or maybe SW. Maybe on skeletons since the Bone Crusher addition. But seriously, how often do people EXP on those now?

Replicator, Shock Absorber, Flash Bulb (no, i'm not saying have all equipped)... c'mon the auto has enough self defenses prior to a master stepping in and saving his pet. key for the master is to work together to help keep one alive, otherwise whats the point? C skill in h2h and C- in daggers are not saving graces. the VE frame was brought up because it too can save itself with CbB.