Best Sub For PUP

just my 2 cents worth of my love for playing pup..

/war: good for parties, gives a higher attack value & gives you berserk & warcry

/drg: good for parties, gives access to wyvern earring latent effect & acc bonus aswel as jumps

/dnc: good for soloing, gives acc bonus aswell as cures & ability to erase urself for those times the automaton wants to cast poisona instead of cure V

/sch: good for when you are using it in combonation with blm automaton, you can sleep quite effectivly while the automaton nukes, can solo some things like a blm can that way (but not all things)

/nin: good if you are fighting things that require shadows due to some nasty attacks or what have you

/drk: fun to do souleater & stringing pummel...realy fun (not all that useful though)

there are obviously some other jobs that make decent subs depending on ur situation & your playing style, but these are just the ones i use the most

my personal preferance in merits(when i am alowed to come pup) is /war, my stringin pummel WS set has almost +100 acc bonus to it, normaly get all hits to land

This coming from a pup that leveled it as soon as it came out and was my 1st75. I still consider it my main. I did almost all of CoP, ZM, and ToAU on pup. Here's my advice and it may be hard to take:

1, Best for solo; /NIN, /DNC. /SCH.

2, Best for meripo; Go level another job because getting from 1-75 is going to be faster than getting a meripo on pup. "Well guys only 2 people seeking for DD.. a DRK75 in full AF gear, or a PUP...." Unless they share more than 1 brain cell between the 5 of them, they will take the gimp drk, trust me.

3, Endgame and HNMS; Go level another job because even if you do get into a good HNMLS you will be treated like an afterthought. Kinda like the fat kid getting picked last for teams in gym class. And if someone's gotta sit out, guess who it's going to be.

4, You will almost always be considered LOLPUP regardless of how high you parse, what you can solo, or how bad you can make other jobs look. People are ignorant and refuse to step back and look at the whole picture rather than pinning you as a "gimp MNK with a pet". Trolls and idiots lurk everywhere. People will always pick another DD, no matter how gimp they are, over you.

5, Life will be easier if you just go level a usefull, what I like to call , "Dime-a-dozen job", that everyone and their grandma has like RDM or SAM. That way you can still do meripo and endgame and avoid the tedious hours of soloing lfp. Merit and get gear through your your other job and enjoy the rest of the game on your PUP. BRD and COR are also awesome for this.

6, For every good PUP there's a lot of gimp LOLPUPs out there /MNK or /WHM in full AF and str gear and only the cheapest attachments keeping up the status quo. Try to offer them help and advice, but don't expect them to listen. After all someone's gotta keep the fine LOLPUP title going strong.

7, Don't QQ over being called a LOLPUP and being treated like a fat gimp red-headed stepchild MNK. Unless you've been living under a rock you knew the LOLPUP stigma before you started leveling it. You're not going to change anyone's opinion. Kinda like a WHM getting to 75 and being surprised that people actually expect them to heal.

Anyway that's /endrant and the hard truth about PUP. Enjoy.

Here on Kujata PUP in endgame is pretty much welcome and the EGLSs are open-minded. I was in 4 different ones and in some cases i was even expected to come as PUP before all my other jobs (SCH, BLU or DRG). The point is: you sometimes need to force the leaders to see a potencial, thats all, if you dont have the patience to do that you rly leveled the wrong job and wasted your time, period.

Fail. I mean... really...

Fail because 1 guy got lucky with an open-minded ls lead on Kujata? Hey I guess all pups should jump over there if it's such a pup-friendly server.. Hope that ls lead is recruiting.

pup is damn good for a lot of things and i think its becoming more and more accepted. by no means are they back bone jobs to any situations i can think of, but when situations already have that solid foundation, pups can certainly be useful. couple good examples that come to mind are a few places in salvage and grauberg weapon augment fights in particular, which they actually are awesome for. granted the groups already got what they need, id gladly take pup to anything. ..even tho i still say lolpup and make fun of even the leetest of my pup friends >.>

No. Fail because you simply discourage anyone that wants to try PUP and say from the very beginning that it is pointless to try to let ppl see the potential of the job you chose and like, because this is simply wrong and exactly this is why this attitude still remains after what? 3 years?

I had a hard time on Kujata aswell, but once ppl see you're not one of the "bad PUPs" you are very welcome and i dont think this is restricted by server. Tho, saying that you shouldnt try it at all will result that noone accepts or want you as a pup, period. I'm just saying this in general, not offending you in any way.

I like PUP.

pup's No.1 pro thatthey have is they can fill the roll of healer, magic DD or physical DD pretty wel, but not they are by no meens No.1 at any of those things, and with soe practice you can swap frames & attachments in about 20 seconds ready to fill the roll that is needed

/sigh

Do I really need to make another pup info post to dispel all the lack of knowledge people have about the job again? Blegh, here goes.

PSION'S ULTIMATE GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING PUP
(Or how I learned to stop hating and love the robot)

::Long post warning::

First, we must begin with what puppetmaster is! This job is known as a pet class, because it well... uses a pet! While summoners get their magical avatars and dragoon's their flying rats, we get an adorable faceless bucket of bolts that starts out weak, but through attachments, can pack a nasty wollop and adapt to nearly any situation. The combat ratings for puppetmaster are:

Master: C H2H, caps at 225 (or 241 with full H2H merits, or 248 with merits and faith torque, putting pup in a new damage tier for H2H)
B evasion, capping at 250 at 75, and 3 evasion bonus traits, giving another 34 evasion
B- in guard, capping at 240 at 75, adding to pup's durability if capped.

The master's role varies depending on the need. For exp, /mnk till 25 (when the master gets it's own martial arts trait), then /war til 75 and even in meripo is the standard. /drg is another option, but shouldn't be used unless you have a very great haste setup (i'm not talking swift belt + turban here, if your gear haste is 17% or higher before wyvern earring, then you might want to consider it). Even then, it's best to save /drg for parties where haste and marches are going to be used. For solo, sub whatever makes you happy, though /nin for tougher mobs, and /war or /dnc for easy stuff is common. For endgame, if the master will be meleeing, /war or /nin depending on need, if not, usually /sch for support/minor drain damage and lasting mp to keep up with the automatons infinite mp trick, or sometimes even /cor (mainly for kirin, go go puppet role!). You can even sub /drk for certain events if an extra stun is needed. If you're called upon to main heal a party, which sometimes happens, /whm or /sch is best, though if the monster doesn't use AoEs you can't avoid, /dnc works well too. Just keep your automaton undeployed til you need a big cure, then deploy for instant cure IV or V, depending on level, while you support it between the 18 seconds recast. Just make sure not to get any enfeebles or damage on you or your automaton, so it doesn't default to focusing it's next heal on you instead of the tank.

For weaponskills, combo > backhand blow/raging fists depending on party/support > howling fist > stringing pummel is your best choice for damage. Stringing pummel is a REALLY powerful weaponskill for the job. 6 hits means that it's got less chances to whiff than asuran fists, but more chances to land than a 2 hit ws, keeping it's damage fairly steady. The ability for it to critical hit makes it even more powerful, and with a decent build, you can expect it to average around 750-850 on parse in meripo, with great build/support letting it spike to even 1.5k on greater colibri. Oh, and it has the same skillchain properties and str/vit modifiers as asuran fists, only the str/vit mods are around 30-40% or so instead of asuran fists 10% of each. Go go darkness skillchains with tachi: gekko!

For gear, lots of low level options have opened up recently, mainly focusing on the automaton, which with the more expensive attachments is friggin broken til the 60s when other jobs can finally catch up, and we have more options now for endgame that are great choices. lavas/kushas rings, virtuoso belt, promtitude solea, spurrer beret, moogle hat with ws build, surge subligar, enkidus, usu and more all make the master's side of damage even easier to raise than before, while marinara pizza with it's wonderful boost to both att AND acc helps pup, that needs much of both. While many people think the master is weak, in reality, C in H2H isn't nearly as painful as other weapons, and by the time you reach meripo, you will often be doing about 50-60% of the damage, with automaton doing the rest, if you gear well and have merits. (you get buffs/food/more gear options, that the automaton doesn't)

For the frames:

*Harliquin (rarely used, initial frame)
B- in melee, magic, and ranged (which it doesn't use :D), capping at 240 at 75
320 base delay

Harliquin's got dia I and II, cures I-IV, and casts slowly. However, he's got the fastest melee delay and decent melee skills, and his weaponskill knockout hits fairly hard and lowers enemy evasion greatly. The highest level weaponskill, magic mortar, does damage based on how much hp is missing and bypasses resistances, and when it first came out, was broken and could do over 3.5k damage if maxed out. :3 Nowadays however, it only does a pitiful 600-1.2k or so if you do the same method of running his mp out and bringing him down to 1 HP, at which point a bunny staring at him wrong will finish him off. It does however, have fusion property, letting the master self light skillchain with dragon kick, or self gravitation with MM > stringing pummel. He's rarely used, but the harliquin head is useful to equip on stormwaker if you want it to cure and only cure.

*Valoredge (meleebot, used in HNM and kited fights where magic isn't the best option. with the right attachments, automatons treat creatures such as kirin like slightly more defensive/evasive even match mobs.)

A- in melee, capping at 269 base, or 279 with full melee merits.
no magic or ranged skills
Has native shield bash trait
360 delay (same as most staves, but hits around as hard as a greatsword)

Valoredge is rarely used in exp due to his weak weaponskills, but in HNMs his high melee skill, fairly low delay, and ability to hit kited mobs with ease makes him a valuable asset to monsters like kirin where the master won't hit very well or at all. With attuner and target marker, coupled with turbo charger's haste, coilers double attack, heat seekers accuracy, and other goodies, he can hit said kirin for 55-90 a whack (usually around 65-75 damage, with crits hitting over 120, but your milage may vary as I'm nearly fully merited), and hit with 15% haste or more, 10% double attack, and parse about 85% to capped acc, and use cannibal blade, a normally weak weaponskill, but is like spirit taker, doing a consistant 360ish damage and healing him for the amount dealt. Oh, and it never misses. Oniwaka always parses first on my kirin fights, though diabolos and rangers make decent second and thirds.

*Sharpshot: This is the frame of choice for monsters that con incredibly tough or lower, as his lower melee skill and hp doesn't hurt him like in HNMs. This sucker has some real powerhouse weaponskills that rarely miss with proper attachments, and often pulls hate in EXP.

C+ in melee skill, capping at 230 at 75 without merits. (attachments make this not as bad as it sounds though, his melee acc tends to hover around 80% for me, and I'm still missing two melee skill merits)
No magic skills
A- in ranged skill, capping at 269 base at 75.
400 melee delay
Fires a shot every 20 seconds, but being an ability, the shot fires instantly. Shots are classified as throwing, therefore you have to be 10 yalms or closer for it to do max damage and accuracy.

This tin can of terror makes tiny mandragoras and greater colibri alike tremble with fear, and it's powerful weaponskills shred enemies apart. By the 50's, he gets daze, powerful and stuns the target for a couple seconds, and by the 70s, the almighty armor piercer, that like it's namesake, ignores target defense and does around 1.4k to piercing weak targets. (and unlike slugshot, has native high accuracy.) It ALSO has gravitation property, letting it skillchain off tachi: gekko and the like and flat out destroying colibris when it happens to close and mirror darkness. With the right attachments, you can have this guy shred through exp mobs with ease, and he makes a great partner in events where you have to shred lots of weaker enemies, such as cities dynamis where you aren't nuking, salvage floors before the boss, nyzul isle, assaults, and meripo.

*Stormwaker: this is mainly used in solo, for when you have monster's that enfeeble and don't want the na > cure while solo glitch to kill you. (fix it already, SE -,-) It can nuke, it can cure, it can enfeeble, it can even melee decently! It's the red mage that makes red mages jealous of it's nuking capacity, stormwaker!

C+ in melee, caps at 230 base
No ranged skill
A- in magic skill, 269 base (though if you didn't merit automaton magic skill first thing, get to work lazy ***)
no info on melee delay, but probably similar to harliquins. But they won't melee unless deployed at melee range, or the enemy comes to them.

Good old stormwaker casts every 24 seconds with mana booster equipped(though like all magic frames, this recast timer is set back to 0 when deactivated then reactivated, letting you do back to back spells once a minute if he isn't damaged), and has access to cures I-IV by 75, most enfeebles except gravity, and nukes up to thunder III with full magic merits. With a maxed out magic build though, said thunder III can hit exp mobs for 1k+ and too weak mobs for 1.2k+. :p He's useful, a jack of all trades if that's what you need. He has the same weaponskills as harliquin and the other magic frames, with lower hp but much higher mp than harly. (harliquin has 246 max mp base at 75, instead of stormwaker's and the other magic frames 886 max)

*Soulsoother head, slap on stormwaker body for best results: The whmbot that won't put white mages out of buisness, but makes one hell of a support for a party. Great for main healing a DD party in events when you're low on mages, or slap him in the tank party to take a load of hate and mp burden from the real white mages keeping them alive.

C in melee skill, caps at 225 base
no ranged skill
A+ in magic skill, caps at 276 base
same delay as whatever frame you slap the head on. :p

Good old soulsoother head, when equipped on the stormwaker body, has high mp, access to all -na spells except erase/esuna, cures I-V, all enfeebles except gravity (and with it's high magic skill, can land them nearly as well as a red mage, if not as potent), and has the ability to cure other party members. it's curing priority is messed up cause the dev team is full of retards, being cure status ailments on master/itself > cure master/itself if hurt > cure person who's currently tanking > cure hurt people not tanking > status cure anyone who needs it if water maneuver is up > enfeeble the mob. Hence, if you cure with this, make SURE you and the automaton are status free and above 90% hp at all times, so it focuses on the tank and members who need it. This, coupled with you needing to support between big cures, makes /sch or /whm the subs of choice while healing. It's cure Vs can heal for over 700 hp with AF pants, and it's cures generate NO emnity whatsoever. None. You can dia a mob, then get smacked around by it all day, and it can cure you all day without ever pulling hate once. (enfeebles and meleeing generate normal emnity however. :p) The same goes for all automaton's cures, but this trick comes in handy if you need to heal someone kiting mobs around but can't generate hate well. The DAD trick comes in handy for reseting mp to full, emnity to nonexistant, and recast timer back to 0 (ready to use), as it does for all mage frames. All in all, useful support, but rarely used outside of solo. But oh goddess does it come in handy in emergencies. I generally keep damage gauge equipped, fill only 4 dark slots in attachments, and put mana channeler/ice maker in the easiest to reach slots when nuking. This way I can deactivate blmbot, change the head to whmbot, swap ice maker for mana booster, and take out mana channeler, and activate within several seconds or less, ready to toss cure Vs on the party when the whm runs out of mp/dies or other similar problems arise.

*Spiritreaver: AKA destroyer of worlds; shatterer of BLM egos... Seriously. Just. Wow. With max magic merits and the right attachments, you can make baby satan cry with envy for the havoc you can wreck, and put the fear of automatons in all witnesses.

C in melee skill, caps at 225 base
no ranged skill
A+ in magic skill, caps at 276 base
same delay as whatever frame you slap the head on.

Well now, how should we say this... blm is outdated. A relic. Fear the coming age of the robots! Ok, to be honest, blm still wins when you need to empty an mp pool asap (though mana booster, condenser, tranquilzier and 3 ice maneuvers means it can cast every several seconds, which comes somewhat close) and It still has AoE spells that come in handy... once in a blue moon. Oh wait, vanadiel has blue moons every watersday. And I guess blm still has sleepga I and II, important stuaff that no one else ge...oh wait, scholar main gets those too with manifestation. Oh dear. Well, when it comes to the rest of the fights, automatons will beat blms hands down, provided both know that they're doing. This bad boy gets all enfeebles but gravity (though it rarely uses them since it's busy nuking :p), abs-int, and all nukes up to aero IV (or up to blizzard IV with full magic merits, hence why you need to merit that asap!)

Now, there's a few tricks about this frame that blm doesn't get, that makes it so powerful. First off, we have to understand that automaton's don't get their power from high int coupled with some MAB like blm does. Instead, automatons get their power from somewhat low INT (76 with 3 ice maneuvers, around 90ish if you use abs int before nuking) coupled with a %@$#load of MAB. This means on high int mobs like kirin, blm is going to beat automatons in damage slightly, but on those mobs valoredge does better than magic anyways on kirin so sucks to be them. '-')b However, on monsters with magic defense bonus but normal INT, automatons will shine even more than normal than just normal mobs, as their high MAB counters the MDB and gets through anyways, though lower than mobs without MDB traits. But what about it's accuracy? Don't worry, tranquilizer with 3 ice maneuvers, combined with 286 magic skill, and the +25 or so pet magic accuracy for automatons you can get makes it so that you will almost never resist except for a few bitchy mobs. (again, kirin, and stonewall, the grauberg pixie NM oddly enough) And for those few, valoredge tends to work better anyways. What about power? Well, with one ice maneuver, you can expect to see high tier IV damage, around 1k-1.2k on exp mobs, and with 3 ice, AMII to over AMII damage on the same mobs. (think 1.5-2k+ here, and if you don't believe me...:
This one is on an aht urghan attercop, with abs int used and burn on mob, no day/weather bonus or drachen roll.
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh196/Psionphoenix/img_20091028_031236.png

and this one is my current best, done to a tundra tiger with double ice weather kicking in, abs int and burn on mob, and again no drachen roll boost.
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh196/Psionphoenix/img_20091027_210404.png

General nuking protocol for pup is 1 ice nuke > charge up 3 ice > nuke > deactivate > activate > deploy (DAD) > repeat. However, depending on the situation, you might see one do abs int > then 3 ice nuke and repeat due to not enough hate to hold against one nuke, or even just 3 ice nuke once a minute if hate's REALLY bad. Or you just want potshots. Seriously, pup is evil when it comes to cheap shots. Some monsters call for nuke zergs, using mana booster to its max, sacrificing high power for high casting speed. These nukes tend to be weak, around low teir IV damage, but highly accurate and coming at the rate of 4-5 a minute.

There are several reasons pups deactivate after two nukes. For one, blmbot uses aspir if the mob has mp and he's below 75% mp, wasting a magic recast timer. Two nukes takes you below that threshold, while deactivating/reactivating resets the automatons MP back to full. It also resets the recast timer to 0, letting you nuke again faster. reactivating also resets overload thresholds to slightly above overload chance, so all that burden you've been accumulating toward ice/water gets reset back down to only slight risk of overload. (and with mnd/int gear over the automatons mnd/int, and AF gloves + buffoon collar, you almost will never overload when coupled with condenser) Deactivating also makes the monster think the automaton has "died" in a sense, completely removing it from the hate list. This means an automaton can nuke and pull hate, deactivate before it gets hit, and activate again with the monster forgetting it ever existed! :O in fact, if someone aggros a monster without anyone touching it or having aggrod it by resting (which puts them on hate list), a pup can use magic or ranged attack or ability from automaton to grab it's attention, then deactivate to make it deaggro. However, some NMs like those in campaign don't have a "dazed" period of nonaggro, and will promptly reaggro anything in range. lol.

Oh, and by using retrieve after deploying to start a nuke (and yes, we can pick when the automaton casts, just deploy when it's recast timer is ready and it will cast right away, which means we can time nuke with the rest.), we can RUN while our automaton is casting, meaning we can nuke a kited mob with ease, or nuke while running the hell away, or other various things. This applies to all automaton magic spells, but only nukes are long enough cast time to notice it much. All these things combined together make pup a master of damage over time, where anything over a couple minutes means the automaton is gonna pull ahead over the blms and even scholars.

All in all, puppetmaster is a powerful job. It's often thought of as a jack of all trades job, but the reality is it's more like mime, just as powerful as the jobs it mimics in most ways, but with some divergence from the jobs it copies, giving it different advantages and disadvantages than the originals. The fact that you have to control the AI of an automaton while performing your own duties as the master means you have to be good at multiple tasks, and a perfectionist when it comes to jobs. This is NOT a job you can halfass and do decent in. The job is 30% gear, 30% attachments, and 40% skill, with a dash of food tossed in. The attachments ARE going to cost you an arm and a leg for the good ones, but they never grow old or outdated, and the gear part is dirt cheap, usually only costing you time and effort to get. Skill however, is something that has to come from the heart. If you don't love the job, then don't even think about touching this baby or you'll be a detriment to everyone. If you DO love the job, then make sure you are fanatical about it. You have to understand how magic formulas work, how emnity works, how H2H formulas and meleeing work, how ranged attacks work, and how pet jobs work... even how soloing and healing works. Mastering pup will mean you've mastered just about all the roles in the game, and have a good grasp at the rest. Not doing your homework however and being cheap will make it difficult for you to even outparse a dragoon's wyvern, nevermind a black mage.

Pup: where having fun is serious business.

(Psion Enterprises is not liable for any damage to the eyes or brain from information overload)

(Note: I have gone pup to dynamis, including outlands/dreamlands, ZNMs, Sea, Sky, salvage, assaults, and limbus. I have also solod a lot of NMs, including some that most jobs can't. I also have meripo experience as pup, since people know that I actually do good damage and I'm safer than inviting a random SAM who leveled the job halfassed only for meripos. Seriously, level the job you love and you'll do far better than the average ::insert common job here::)

Obligatory tl;dr

Well... I did warn you. =p

first of all thats not to long.. thats ridiculously to long...
and blm outdated? lol.. since when does ANYTHING AT ALL besides blm get sleepga II ? wth does /sch got to do with it...
im pretty sure a couple pups cant stun order when needed either...

not to discredit pup in anyway, i do pretty much love em.. just wow @ the blm hate <,<

My bad, meant scholar main job, using manifestation sleep II to sleepga a group of mobs. (despite it saying "so and so casts sleep II" on a bunch of mobs, it still bypasses shadows, so for all intents and purposes, its sleepga II. Fixed that, lol. ^^;

And since pup would be subbing /drk for stun order, I would hope they would be able to stun when needed, seeing as how that's under their direct control and not automaton AI.

got me on both. still, i definitely dont feel like blms outdated.. sure you can substitute things, but just because you CAN doesnt mean you should necessarily.. pups and schs on top of blms is awesome for sure, but simply replacing all the blms with pups and schs.... idk

could prolly get away with doing dynamis and anything really w/o blms.. just duno what the point would be other than to say, "we did it"

The only reasons BLM is still there:
- ga-spells
- AM I/II

other than this I rly dont see where BLM should be better than a SCH. You gotta be a goddamn good BLM to make a valid exception here, meaning good damage while keeping a good dmg/mp-efficiency. A 320/120 build not hard to get on SCH and overall SCH has a lot more options a BLM has, because thats simply the advantage of hybrid-jobs (RDM, BLU, PUP etc.).

Uh oh... you guys noticed it? The "BLM vs SCH"-curse reached this thread D:

I like /dnc and i use it in party too. I don't main heal, but i keep up a drain samba and such to get a little hp for people. I just personally always liked the combination.

Necrobumped, but the best sub depends what you're doing.

Merit pts: /drg (With a haste setup), /war without.
Soloing: /nin, /dnc, /sch

Possibly after the lv 99 update, /mnk for salvage.

Dancer FTW in general.

If you're going /dnc in pts..or anything other then soloing, I laugh at you.

i didn't look to see how long the post was, just putting my thought. also to the topic, i like /nin also for parties.

with pup getting A skill in H2H and depending on how your Automation is set: it seems very variable on (BEST) sub.
I may not be 75 PUP with merits to be considered for best input but i'm lv'ing it, and i love it.
Solo /DNC with Mage Automation rocks for me.
we will see in higher lvs.
Even in Parties /DNC is better for acc bonus than /war
at least till A skill.

Never laugh at the pup healer. It seems to me that people in this VIDEO GAME count out as much as possible.

I use /DNC mainly because i solo or duo!! ^ ^

When I lvl'd PUP I made all/most of my pt's and used /war through to 75. This easily works since with PUP's low h2h skill you "usually" won't pull hate unless you go balls out and ws right from start of fight.

For soloing purposes, I guess it all depends on what frame/what you're hunting/ what your play style is. I find pup/dnc useful for campaign but I will still use /war if I'm doing some easy FoV in cape where I'll use SoulSoother and keep berserk up when its cool down is up.

To the person who said that people would choose a gimp drk over a decently geared pup, you're wrong. Granted a random merit pt wouldn't be able to see what gear each is wearing but hypothetically they do know, they'd be stupid to take a gimp anything over a well geared pup. I've done merit pt's and was able to land consistently in the range of 900~1.2k stringing pummels and my Sharpshot frame landing AP's for at 1.5k.

lolPUP is a stigma that people accept because they don't understand the job's capabilities, and/or don't really care since they have their favorite job that isn't pup.

On a side note, with the update ushering a huge jump from C to A h2h skill for PUP, I bet they won't be so considered lol or overlooked for pt's since they'll be able to keep up on their own AND add to the pt mechanics by altering their maton's frame depending on what's lacking or needed.

Honestly, after evaluating the situation a number of times, this update is far from broken. It will catch pup up, put them where they need to be to be able to stand on common ground with other DDs, but it isn't going to throw them to the top and beyond.

I like pup because it has an "autonoobexclude" feature for noobs like Kormix.

From a lvl 75 standpoint I almost always /war for pt's. I'll use /dnc when soloing or low manning. Assuming their isn't a dnc in the pt already. /sch nice if you really wanna play the mage angle. Though I've yet to find a practical use for it as I have rdm and sch at 75, and would never ever want a pup to come to anything for heal/nuke over physical DD honestly.

I know sub sch has been mentioned tons of times in this thread and no disrespect to Vegetto but I remember him saying PUP wont reliably sleep anything tough+ at the time I was 65ish PUP so I had to wait before I could test for myself how high a lvl mob I could handle. I swore I remember seeing a PUP/SCH solo Aerns the VT ones that drop the HQ organs.

Anyway just hit 75 PUP myself yesterday evening got my inferno claws started, but just now I thought id quickly test sleep1 on VT marid as PUP/SCH with the gear currently available to me.

Plutos Staff, Bugard grip+1, Sturm's report, Maats cap, Enfeeb torque, Enfeeb earring, Morion+1, Omega ring, Balrahns, nothing atm for hands, errant body, prism cape, nothing for waist atm, mahatma slops and goliard clogs.
Puts me at : 272 Enfeebling, 68+41 int no food and 11macc.

20 Sleep 1 on VT Marid no resist full duration is enough confirmation for me, shame sleep1 duration is quite short... then again I wouldnt be resting as I would If I was soloing on blm.

Tempted to go try my success rate on an inc tough lamia ranger I think thats pushing it a bit though.