Puppetmaster: Changing Common Practice?

[Pompidou]

This thread is a roundabout mages meleeing discussion. I'm levelling puppetmaster to 37 at the moment to have my walking around looking cool blm sub for its mage-automaton. The job is, for all intents and purposes, a mage w/o spells, at least without the puppet in consideration. A C rating in its best melee skills, the defense of a mage, and not enough melee augmentation gear to bring them up to what I used to believe was par. My Blm has a B- rating of some sort in Staff, Summoners have a B. I think Whms have a B+ in hammer. White Mages and Red Mages also have better defense from AOE TP moves. Puppetmasters melee alongside their puppets. Many do, at the very least. The population seems divided between /war and /whm and a victor is not yet apparent. Now, I'm not saying puppetmasters shouldn't melee. I like "thinking outside the box". I'm not saying mages should melee. I respect the status quo and follow all the accepted rules. I'm asking: does the community even know what it believes anymore?

Let's look at the reasons a mage is given when s/he asks "why can't I melee".

1)You won't hit hard enough with your B rank weaponskill - just give mob TP.
2)You won't have the accuracy with your B rank weaponskill to make a difference.
3)Your crappy defense will cause the healer to waste more mp on you from AOE moves.
4)You need to be resting mp.

Now, reasons 1 and 2 apply moreso to pup's C rating. Reason 3 is equal to all pertinant jobs. Seems to me, the community only really cared about reason #4, and used the first three reasons as red herring BS excuses to win arguments. I don't really take a strong stand on either side of the issue, but I do like people to believe their own arguments.

 

[Solitia]

Speaking on behalf of BLU:

1. BLU has rank A in Sword, so even as a Taru I do decent damage with sword.
2. BLU has rank A in Sword, so I have decent ACC on exp mobs.
3. As for AOE, yes, perhaps unfortunate, but I can at least Healing Breeze from my place in the melee side of things to even things out. Also, the BLU range for many spells is so small that I might as well melee.
4. I rest MP when I can. Whether or not I switch to Dark Staff when I do so depends on my TP and on my MP (if I have particularly low MP I'll switch to Dark Staff). Also whether or not I'm getting Refresh/Ballad 2 factors into this decision.

I know you didn't ask about BLU specifically, but that's the BLU side of things.

 

[Uzor]

3)Your crappy defense will cause the healer to waste more mp on you from AOE moves.

That one I have honestly never heard before if you really mean it the way you say it... mainly because there's not many exp mobs that have AoE TP moves that actually do damage based on DEF and not magic DEF <.<; I can think of one, and that is Weapon's Whirl of Rage. All other TP moves can be avoided by not standing behind the tank <.<;

If you mean moves like Cursed Sphere that's AoE (and also based on magic damage), they can be easily reduced by keeping the correct bar-spell up, and if anything, RDM/BLM(with WHM or RDM sub)/WHM takes less damage from them then other jobs 'cause of Magic Defence trait...

 

[Trippyhippy]

That one I have honestly never heard before if you really mean it the way you say it... mainly because there's not many exp mobs that have AoE TP moves that actually do damage based on DEF and not magic DEF <.<; I can think of one, and that is Weapon's Whirl of Rage. All other TP moves can be avoided by not standing behind the tank <.<;

If you mean moves like Cursed Sphere that's AoE (and also based on magic damage), they can be easily reduced by keeping the correct bar-spell up, and if anything, RDM/BLM(with WHM or RDM sub)/WHM takes less damage from them then other jobs 'cause of Magic Defence trait...

There are plenty of AoE attacks that mages are better off standing away from. Like Aoe Sleep from mandys. Great Bleat From rams. Aoe Silence from Dhamels. Bomb Toss. AoE Poison From Flys. Bubble Shower. Sticky Thread.

It doesn't neccesarily haev to do with Damage as much as Status effects.

 

[Euphacent]

Dhalmel silence, crawler poison and slow, and fly poison are all frontal aoe. Now tell me, who really stands directly behind the tank? Maybe a thf or /thf and that's it. Mages are rarely there. Also, when was the last time your party almost wiped because of bubble shower? :/

 

[Tagrineth]

Also, when was the last time your party almost wiped because of bubble shower? :/

Well, you know... that bubbly bernie can be really nasty sometimes =/

 

[Jakey]

I used to mele inbetween nukes for a little extra damage up untill like 37-45 where it seemed everything I fought had a nasty AOE to avoid and then my skill had fallen behind so I just gave up on it. Now even with skill, the use of elemental staves for nukes really makes meleing pointless as tp is always reduced to 0 and the staves do such incredibly poor damage, not to mention the nasty AOEs everything seems to use and I just don't have time to mele in a good party anymore, need to be recovering mp for huge chains.

I lvled with Qutera a lot, if anyone remembers her she was mele whm turned mele smn and she always meled but it was ok because she always kept up with her healing duties and the parties were usually pretty good.

I don't really know what a PUP does, they sound like a smn without: bloodpacts and the ability of always calling more pets, to me. I've partied with one on my pld and they seemed worthless to me, as did the BLU. noobs trying out new jobs without somone to tell them what to do just doesn't seem to work well.

 

[Uzor]

There are plenty of AoE attacks that mages are better off standing away from. Like Aoe Sleep from mandys. Great Bleat From rams. Aoe Silence from Dhamels. Bomb Toss. AoE Poison From Flys. Bubble Shower. Sticky Thread.

It doesn't neccesarily haev to do with Damage as much as Status effects.

I know, but the OP said it as if they would take more damage from them. He mentioned nothing of AoE status effects, he specifically said

Your crappy defense will cause the healer to waste more mp on you from AOE moves.

which I pointed out wasn't the real reason.

 

[Pompidou]

Ah well. My only real point was that the new jobs might make us reexamine the "rules" we've adhered to for so long, else a double standard arise. I'm ignorant on Blue Mage, as it's a job I have to keep below level 5 untill I can get the quest Gustaberg Tour out of the way, lest I have a quest that's impossible to ever complete. Blue Mage seems like it too goes against the grain in terms of party dynamics. Maybe this will lead other backline jobs to question the dogma they follow so blindly? Maybe it'll cause frontline jobs to see that Blue Mage and Puppetmaster aren't destroying EXP/Hour whilst fighting up front with all the drawbacks held against their more traditional magely cousins? Vive la Revolution?