Tips For An Aspiring PUP?

Hello all,

I was hoping to get some advice on a new-to-119 pup. I got Comeuppences from the unity coffer, and I used the new Intetmediate RoE to get a full Foire +1 set, and I got a Divinator from Tenzen... But after that, I'm lost.

Side note: I haven't legitimately played PUP in four years, and even then, I wasn't super dedicated. But now, I want to be. So I'm asking for some advice in a couple categories...

1.) Armor. I know the Foire +1 gear isn't exactly super stellar for end-game, but I'm hoping it's good enough to help me get better gear. What would you guys recommend?

2.) A weapon. Again, I know Comeuppences isn't the best, but is it worth upgrading? Or should I mix it and go with something else? I have the Niribu H2H weapons, should I augment them or try for something else, like Midnights? (Btw, I'm not really able to play enough to get two Mythics atm, and I'm currently working towards Tizona, so let's assume I'm not getting a mythic lol).

3.) Attachments. I have a good selection, but not all. What would you guys consider "Must-Haves", providing I want to be able to do everything if I must? I want to be able to PUP in a variety of situations.

4.) Skill ups. My autos skills are embarrassingly low. I've read reives are a good place, is that still the case?

Again, I don't expect answers all at once; any help you could give would be amazing! Thanks in advance!

In order for anyone to properly answer this question, we need to know what you actually want to do with PUP. Because this job uses more Gearsets and has more ways to play it than any other job in the game.

Well, ideally, I'd like to be able to adapt to using any of the major automaton "settings"; magic damage, healing/buffing, ranged, and melee.

But if I had to pick to 'major' goals, I'd say potentially tanking, and DD with either off-healing or off-nuking. (So either a good Stormwaker or either Soulsoother/Spiritreaver).

I'm not really sure if you could reliably main heal or nuke, cuz as I said, I'm really out of the PUP game, and I don't see many on my server.

If you want good cp convince a aoe reisjima pt you can pull. As long as you got 12move speed 50 dt /war defender def fewd rdm auto for master cures and phalanx your golden

maximize your dark magic skill and utilize any available drain/aspir potency or dark affinity gear you have, you'll probably want /sch to get nearer to having native dark skill

Good luck with that.
Been trying for the past 2 months and no luck so far.

Use /sch, it'll suck, but aspir from other subs will suck worse.

Kidding^^, I don't play pup but the current ambuscade set is available to PUP. It offers nothing to pets (which is pretty laughable of SE) but it still might help you kill things you need to kill while you're gearing up. It has lots of accuracy which is very nice.

Once you're done with it, it fits nicely on storage slip 23, forgotten about til you may find a use for it again.

Forgot to comment on this.
Whaaaat?
Comeuppance+1 are arguably the best non-RMEA weapons.
What do you mean with "I know it isn't the best" lol?

PUP's most useful role is as a tank now, so your most important set for endgame content is going to be geared toward pet DT-. Anwig Salade is still king for head slot, and for the other 4/5 visible slots, either Rao C path or Taeon with Pet: DT-4%, both are more or less sidegrades.

Taeon: slightly more DT-, can get regen augment for puppet, and whatever from snow slot (I've redone mine for a set of 4/5 Pet: Meva for fooling around).

Rao: more HP (in addition to just being more HP, it helps a little bit with enmity decay which is based on max HP), regen for master, pet acc (can be a negative, actually, if you're like me and generally dislike your puppet gaining TP to potentially mess up people's SCs more often)

Rao+1: is actually the best, but is only for the extremely wealthy who also have access to HQ cursed gear, and want to brag about a white box that's basically absolutely meaningless. There's practically zero chance your tanking automaton will be significantly affected in any fight by using Rao+1 over NQ or Taeon. Any time you're actually at risk of puppet death, it's going to be more based on mechanics that would kill a PUP using Rao+1 OR NQ/Taeon.

A tanking set to shoot for is something like:
ItemSet 343933
- Mantle with pet regen+10 (other augments negligible for tanking)
- Weapon could also be Ohrmazd (pet DT- augment up to 5%), or old Oberon's Sainti (pet DT- up to 5%). I kinda like Midnights D though, particularly due to the near-KKK level overload suppression, which does matter a little when putting up a bunch of fire maneuvers shortly after zoning or calling a new puppet.

For master gear, see the end of my response to #2.


Like Sechs said, other than RMEA, Comeuppances+1 are basically the best H2H there is from a purely master DD focused standpoint. Only a very well augmented pair of Condemners would compete if we're talking non-RMEA.

However, if you're actually punching stuff on PUP these days, you can also use a hybrid set with Valoredge and should be better overall damage. In that case, Ohtas are ideal due to the massive accuracy and pet haste.

Ohtas + Ambuscade cape (with pet haste augment, which to me is 2nd priority behind a tanking mantle) are 10% pet haste each, so toss on another 1-2 pieces (Hurch'lan Sash would be my preference) to get to 25~26% and at/near pet haste from gear. Use pure master gear in other slots.

Check page 18 about halfway down the page in the general guide thread for TP sets and a lot more discussion.


* can really be used for all loadouts, depending on your free attachment capacity.

Tanking (top priority):
Strobe I&II
Flashbulb
Optic Fiber* (definitely use it everywhere)
Auto-Repair Kits*
Mana Jammers*
Armor Plates*
Galvanizer

DD automaton:
Turbo Charger I&II (by far most important)
Coilers
Acc/Atk attachments

WHM or RDM automaton:
Mana Booster
Power Cooler
MP/refresh stuff
Vivi-Valves I guess

BLM automaton:
Don't use it? The relevant ice/dark attachments are pretty obvious though. Ice Maker, MAB and Macc stuff, the darkness burst attachments maybe to set up extremely impractical fancy spike damage numbers?


Probably? Though they go down a lot faster now. Honestly I'd just go fight stuff and deploy the puppet. Can pick up a cheap Percolator and equip it to make the process slightly faster (passive effect even with 0 water maneuver, increased skillup rate with more water, but at the expense of stuff like haste/DA from wind/thunder).

For tanking, automaton skill is basically meaningless so don't feel stressed if you're not capped on melee skill (and you will be soon just letting the puppet tank).

Capuchin I noticed your comment about Automaton WS ruining SCH WS.
Happened to us once or twice.
I was wondering... if you can sacrifice an automaton attachment slot (but can you?!) for Inhibitor and then put yourself (the master) at 1000+ TP, that means that in theory your automaton should never use a WS, right?

Unfortunately no, It will still WS. I've tried this in a few CP parties, and it would still *** up sch SC's.

Best to do is deploy, let it voke, retrieve and let it wail on auto without redeploying.

Cap, I agree with you to an extent as far as taeon vs rao. Personally, the extra -4 combined DT you'd get from using max -dt Taeon for a tanking set has nothing on the extra +400HP from Rao. In many situations, if acc is that big of an issue screwing up SCs, just swap in a smoke screen (+eva -acc) and you'll be fine.

What about the Anwig? Would it still be worthwhile to grab the Rao head? I'll probably do it anyways but gonna ask regardless

Anwig's -10DT/haste+5 is too good to pass up, imo.

The Inhibitor only changes the WS logic by making it actively look for a WS opportunity from any source, so there's really no way to stop it from SCing whether or not you're at 1k+ TP. The Inhibitor is really only useful for nuke parties if you can coordinate with a SCH for him to open for your PUP, in order to save on strategems. Even at that, it requires good communication and is somewhat unreliable unless you're closing with Cannibal Blade. I mean, good communication will help you either way; you can just tell the SCH when your Auto is at 1k, so he can watch for the Auto to WS and resume normal combat flow. Otherwise, you get stuck with people who play with max filters on and just start wasting Death nukes on interrupted SCs. Not trying to place the blame here, just saying, don't be me and make dumb mistakes.

Of course, the most practical way to avoid interrupted SCs in NM fights is to just use Tactical Switch when your Auto hits 1k TP. With floored accuracy, the Auto should build TP slowly enough to catch this with Switches cooldown, but it's highly dependent on both luck and how often the mob hits your Auto. If you gotta Switch more than once in a fight, then all you gotta do is flush your TP with a quick weapon swap before you Switch again. It's the most independent way to manage poor WS timing, but not always perfect. Honestly, since most pick-up groups seem 100% opposed to PUP tanking, I'd say it becomes less of an issue as you play with a reliable group. You can either make a macro to inform the mages, or just use a voice-chat system, etc. I mean, not to change the subject, but if this game required constant call-outs, that would more than likely be the PUP tanks job anyway (But that's mostly irrelevant to the main discussion here).

when it comes to weapons,i really think ohtas would be the best one all around for pup. that 70+ acc (master & pet) haste 10% (pet) is just too good. since lott of mobs now n days, need 1100+ acc, that would be a huge help.

Visucius's Mantle will be the best back all around as well. acc & att 20 master and pet rocks. 10 haste for pet is nice. the regen 10 is ok but it overkill imo. we already got Auto-Rep. Kit IV and lot of attachments that keeps him alive and tanking super well. with 100jp iam tanking high lvl mobs just fine

It's worth noting that inhibitor is actually counter productive when you don't want the automaton to WS, due to the store tp effect.

Should have just stopped at Rao +1 is the best.
I often co-tank with someone that has NQ gear. His auto will die to things that only get me to about 50%. There are a few contributing reasons for this. One is the obvious, my pet has more HP to begin with. The second is less obvious, "ARKs calculate their HP boost AFTER armor, which means you're actually getting more than 125hp. Auto Repair kits also recover a percentage of maximum HP, so it helps there too."

Please review page 9 of So you wanna tank on PUP? for greater detail. Thank you, again, Tru, for figuring out and sharing so much of the inner mechanics of PUP.

We can disagree about whether it is worth obtaining depending upon the individual. It takes a lot of effort and/or gil to get it. But the white box isn't meaningless if you want to tank the toughest stuff. It can save you from having to run in as often (or at all) to Repair and simply is the best.

Assuming 4/5 Rao+1 versus 4/5 NQ Rao...

100 more base HP and 4% more DT- (noting you're likely capped anyway on PDT-) is the difference between your friend's puppet dying and yours alive at 50%? Really??

I have a bit of a hard time believing that. What NMs, exactly, is this happening on? If there's that much difference between two players, my thought is that there MUST be some other reason(s) to explain such a discrepancy, not just white boxes on Rao gear - player skill, different attachments/maneuvers, gifts, other gear differences, pure luck (triple attack crit on one puppet, not on the other), etc. I know ARK is based on max HP, but 25 more HP a piece x4 is not THAT dramatic of a difference.

That being said, yeah, the +1 set is the best for PUP tanking. I'll leave it up to anyone reading this to determine for themselves whether they feel that Pet:DT-1% and HP+25 is worth roughly 25-30M a piece (or 50M+ for body) - based on my server's prices for Voodoo pieces.

My personal opinion: any player capable of tanking a mob with Rao+1 would be able to tank the same mob with NQ Rao and see no significant difference. I find automaton death to nearly always be due to mechanics/gimmicks (that aren't going to be significantly different based on 100 more HP or a bit better regen), not just being unable to keep up with the mob's DPS.


I'm not saying the Regen+10 on Visucius's is a game-altering thing, but (1) you will want to use the cape anyway for Automaton level+1 and (2) there is no other augment choice that even matters for tanking (I don't find acc/atk and generating miniscule enmity from puppet attacks to be meaningful).

And still, +10 regen is far from an insignificant amount. Especially considering the dearth of other PUP tanking back options; before Ambuscade, Contriver's Cape (MDB+4/Eva+10/Regen+1) was probably the best option.


Haha, I actually typically DO use a smoke screen for that little bit of extra acc down! Normally fits in in my last "free" slot in my tanking setup. Still, that's extremely minor - it's only Acc-5 with no dark maneuvers up.

I agree that Tactical Switch is usually sufficient to do the job though. Pet gets near to 1000tp, use switch, zero out your own HP by changing weapons! Still, 3min JA recast sometimes isn't quite enough, and the puppet has a magical way of gaining TP unexpectedly quickly RIGHT as your SCH preps a SC. Otherwise, my SCHs have heard me say "don't SC yet Pamama's gonna mess it up!" more than once...

Little prediction though: June update notes say new automaton attachments are coming. S-E said several months ago that it might take a few months but they'd consider looking into a way to prevent automaton WS. Wouldn't shock me if this is related, and a new attachment helps remedy this minor tanking annoyance.

-5 acc, plus optic fiber bonus! :p

every little bit helps! haha

Teles during Dia aura is the best example. Not having to run in and Repair can be a huge relief. We aren't a full-on pet linkshell, so we still use mages to kill it. My pet can survive the aura and an immediate CC afterwards. As long as I am far enough away to not get hit, the fight can continue without much interruption even if a mistake is made and CC happens.
This is without using OD, as I don't want to boost my pet's stats and risk greater TP gain. Also no COR rolls, for the same reasons.
It makes a big difference.

That's right, Inhibitor just makes the auto wait for anybody to WS and try to chain off that, it doesn't care.

The only way to win is not to play. Or something like that. Of course when you retrieve, that means you'll be near the mob to get "sunburn" if it likes to do AoE Bad Stuff. So that won't work against everything.

It bothers me when I have to switch out my Kenkonken for Ohtas because of accuracy, but I deal with it.

Also, no reason you can't get a second mantle and put pet regen on it for tanking only.

oh that nice man, didnt know, thought they was rare/ex, overlook it,

What bothers me is the severe lack of damage on it compared to other options. I could do without the acc; make up for that elsewhere, but ffs...

And now that everything and its brother for pup has -overload on it, they could remove that and put some master/pet atk/acc... make it worthwhile again ><

So the extra HP+100 and small additional regen/tick (how much is the regen/tick difference from 100 HP in a typical tanking setup anyway?) is really the difference between your puppet at 50% HP and your friend's ending up dead? Sorry, somehow I still don't believe that.

Like I said, Rao+1 is still best. But I guess it's up to whoever is considering it as to whether it's worth the cost!

Now, I do agree with the point that sometimes the extra HP makes Rao/Rao+1 worthwhile versus Taeon (like the Teles example). But to me the difference between comparing abj. gear to Taeon (HP+400~500 difference) is key, not the difference from Rao NQ to +1.

Yeah, I'm really confused. Wouldn't 50% be ~2.2k hp? There's no way in hell

/shrug It is what it is. It's the additional regen from the ARK, not just the higher HP. We're talking about Puppetmaster here, I don't have any reason to lie.

Something had to be different. There's no way that 100hp allows ARK that must power. Did you guys have the same gear, and same attachments/maneuvers?