Any of those oddball WHM/PUPs out there?Follow

Hiya!

Been around for 6 years and I have leveled many many jobs up as a result. Anyway, I've raised my PUP to 75 during that time as well and have worked with it and attempted to be as versatile as I can be with the job. One combo I found to be pretty effective in some setups was going PUP/WHM with a Soulsoother Automaton.

For those already completely familiar with Soulsoother, you can skip the next paragraph:

*For those not too familiar with PUP, they have many frames and heads to use to customize their playstyle, making them adaptable to situations on the fly. The Soulsoother Automaton has the ability to cure other party members with powerful cure spells (they even have access to Regen III and Cure V at the highest levels). Not only does the automaton have powerful cure spells to use, but all of their cures are hate-less, too! And with the ability to Deactivate + Activate to restore its MP (if it has full HP), a PUP/WHM can easily main heal even a roaming party! The only reason why such healing is not well-known is that PUPs have to be very skilled to pull this off, have the necessary attachments, and the biggest reason of all: PUPs do not have Haste or enfeebles.

Anyway, long story short, I have become very adept with being a main healer as PUP/WHM (this was a time before SCH was available). And seeing the advantages of having an automaton to aid the healer, I decided to go WHM/PUP and give that a go in a few parties. Surprisingly, it is a very effective combo. As members of the party start dropping to yellow, I Deploy the automaton and he would periodically cast Cure III on the party members, the Cure IIIs being hateless. Also, with a Flashbulb attached to it, he would also Flash the mob as well, using a type of Flash with 99.9% accuracy on it (so skill need not be a factor).

So ultimately, I see a savings of MP just at the start of the fight (46MP Cure III, 25MP Flash). Since he is doing his own thing at this point, this frees me up to do a few others things (Haste, Paralyze, Dia, Regen, etc). And if things start going south fast, I can start throwing cures out myself.

On top of that, I can also perform (what I dubbed myself) the Double Flash. This Double Flash is incredible for NIN tanks. And if a PLD is in a party, we can all perform a Triple Flash. Simply put, in a fight, I deploy my automaton and he uses his Flashbulb, a low enmity and extremely accurate Flash, blinding the target and causing a whiff fest for 10 seconds. Then I do my Flash (higher enmity, but if the tank Provoked or the melee did some good damage, this should not be a problem), which will provide another 10 second whiff fest. For a NIN, this will greatly lengthen the use of his shadows. For a PLD, they can use Flash as well, for an additional 10 seconds of whiff festing (I rather have the PLD Flash first to get hate before I start using Flash myself). For a NIN, that's 20 seconds of crippling blindness which can really save on damage. For a PLD, that's 30 seconds of useless mob flailing that can really save them on enmity and damage (since they aren't losing hate from bloodtanking).

Of course, since then I have unlocked SCH and have been using WHM/SCH for 70+, but whenever I sync below 70, I find myself going WHM/PUP and it is still surprisingly effective in many situations. Yes, Penury can save me on some MP, but the automaton can save me 46MP from him using Cure III and 25MP from him using Flash. Yes, Celerity can help me rapid fire Hastes on the party, but I can deploy my automaton to Flash and Cure, so I can start pushing out Hastes to the party. Yes, Light Arts can help my Enfeebling Skill, but my enfeebling is capped on WHM, plus I swap in my AF for added Enfeebling Skill and other appropriate equipment to still reliably land enfeebles. In the end, it has quite a few benefits.

And, on top of that (and I blame an oversight on SE for this), if you sync down to someone's level and your main level is still above your automaton's level, he won't disappear. What this means is say my 75WHM/37PUP joins a level 37 sync party in East Ronfaure(S) on some birds. I'll sync down to 37, but my automaton won't disappear, since he is 37 too. This means I now have my WHM37 with a level 37 WHM automaton (essentially two excellent healers for the price of one party slot!). But of course, once you drop to 36 in a sync, bye-bye automaton. Also, if your level 37 automaton in this party gets killed (or you get killed), you may reactivate him, but if you're still under sync, he will just return as a level 18 automaton.

Now, although I did preach a lot of how great this sub can be, there are a lot of drawbacks to consider with this sub. First off, enemies that prevent you from getting out of AoE range and hit hard with AoEs would demolish an automaton, leaving you technically as a subless WHM in such situations (so it may be a bad idea to come to some NM fights/events as this). Also, the minimum requirement to even start using the Soulsoother is that your PUP has to be 40 (where you can do the quest to get the Soulsoother Head) and I don't see many WHMs suddenly going out to level their PUPs to get to that point. Another thing is that you can't have anything in the Ranged Slot of your equipment, as you need an Animator to properly use an automaton in that slot (not sure what profound equipment would be in the ranged slot, but just another downside).

But other than that, it is a pretty solid sub that has served me quite well on my leveling of WHM and syncing in parties. It has also proven quite a useful sub on my SCH job as well (going SCH/PUP), as I can use Flash with this combo and have support cures while I use my Arts, Addendums, and Strategems to aid the party. I tried as RDM/PUP before, but this is only good if you don't need -nas or Curagas (rare at low levels, but good for beetles). Never did BLM/PUP and would probably have to be very drunk to do that.

I just brought this thread up, as I can't be the only WHM/PUP out there, wandering about, earning the nickname from my party members as "Doctor Altairs + Nurse Comedie". But then again, I may be the only one, as everyone says WHM/SCH is just awesome and the way to go....and I agree, WHM/SCH is quite amazing (and I use it a lot for events and 70+), but I'm just providing another option and information from my experience.

TL/DR VERSION:

WHM/PUP:
Benefits
-Hateless support cures (essentially a free support healer)
-Magic from automatons do not draw magic aggro (thanks to PsionofPhoenix for reminding me of that)
-Use of the PUP-stun (Flashbulb + Deactivate) can make you lose aggro or distract mobs to allow the party to sneak by (revealed later in the thread)
-Low enmity, highly accurate Flash (which can be followed by your own Flash)
-Saves MP by having automaton heal for you (46MP saved on Cure III and 25MP saved on Flash)
-Can become an overpowered healer when syncing down to some parties, due to SE oversight on automaton scaling
-Healing support leaves you time to do other things (enfeeble, Haste, Regen, -na spells, etc)

Disadvantages
-If forced to take AoE attacks, it can kill a half-level automaton fast
-PUP 40 minimum requirement (to do quest to get Soulsoother)
-Animator required in ranged slot for proper automaton use

Edited, Aug 28th 2009 8:38am by Altairs

Great analysis, and thanks for the info on the sync down of pup info! I also didn't know that. There is two other big advantages pup has over other spellcasters, though only the latter would have any use to a whm using pup sub. The first is they can cast while running, by simply retrieving after deploy. This is a huge boon to nuking as pup, but cures fire off so quickly it's rarely noticed as soulsoother healing.

The second big one, is that automaton's cures generate no aggro from magic aggro mobs like elementals. If an elemental pops in your camp or the like, you can still have the automaton support the party a bit while it gets the heck out of there. Of course, cure III won't be a huge support, but it's something while your party recovers its balance from the confusion.

Yes, used correctly, ADD (activate-deploy-deactivate) trick could do wonders for saving your butt in aggro situations. The only problem that I could foresee with it is that used as a sub, your lvl 37 puppet fighting lvl 75-80 mobs is probably still going to get hit through flashbulb on occasion. The flash is powerful, but It's still possible to be hit through flash. I don't quite understand if a puppet has some sort of hidden evasion skill/trait, but I do know that the mobs will generally have increased accuracy against it as their level loom over the puppet.

This could leave you puppetless for up to 20 minutes if using the ADD trick, sadly. =/

But yes, for puppet main and possibly puppet sub on higher level monsters, the ADD trick would be another useful asset to add to the mix.

Quickly pointing something out, you said the Soulsoother could not enfeeble? Yes it can.

Other then that, I'm just passing through, a good read though

It would still use dia or bio since they always land, but yeah I get where your coming from.

Edited, Sep 21st 2009 11:12pm by MagingMartin

PUP is actually a good sub for many jobs especially at lower levels.