Merit SuggestionsFollow

5/5 Automaton Melee
5/5 Automaton Magic

1/5 Role Reversal
1/5 Ventriloquy (some people prefer to skip this and go 4/5 Fine-Tuning, but I find it useful)
3/5 Fine-Tuning
5/5 Optimization

When it comes to PUP merits, there really is no "suggesting".This is the correct way to merit.

And for those people who think that +5 acc/r.acc/eva/MDB on top of the previous +15 is going to be in any way remotely as useful as JA on a 2 minute timer that completely changes PUP and how it can manage hate (and can be used as a somewhat ranged claiming tool native to PUP75), then they have no business being PUPs.



Edited, Apr 22nd 2010 2:36am by bsphil

Absolutely right. Sorry to just make a "me too" post, but I want to stress that the above is completely correct and having more voices saying the same thing is a good thing to make that clear.

Good point that H2H should also be considered. And the "doing it right" list of merits is the final product. What order you prioritize getting those merits, and H2H if you can do weapon merits (i.e. not already maxed out from other jobs), is more up to your play style. There's not one "right" order if you have a reason for prioritizing one thing over another (though there could be a "wrong" order - say, a PUP who predominantly uses Spiritreaver going for Fine Tuning merits before anything else)

For H2H, it's worth noting that 4 merits (at a cost of 1/2/3/3 for a total of 9 merit points) brings you to a new DMG tier. See this thread for more info. Especially for the comparatively low cost when comparing to the higher levels of Tier 1/2 merits, H2H (which also increases your acc/atk in general) is probably a good value to increase at least to 4 before finishing up all of your PUP job specific merits.

If I had to prioritize, I'd probably do 1/5 Ventriloquy and 1/5 Role Reversal first. Then things get a little more hazy. If you use Spiritreaver with any regularity, you'll be more inclined to get right into Automaton Magic Skill (especially this, to open up Fire/Blizz IV) and Optimization. But maybe you use Valoredge/Sharpshot much more often (i.e. maybe you merit a lot on PUP), and if that's the case it's not crazy to prioritize Automaton Melee skill and finishing off your own H2H.

Eventually, good PUPs will end up with the same merits. But there are a lot of different paths to get to that end result.

Edited, Apr 22nd 2010 7:46pm by Anza

These 2 quotes, while sounding very contradictory, are 100% the correct way to handle it IMO.

My path for merits started out with magic skill 5/5, followed by opt 5/5 after hearing about how powerful the nukes were. Before the update, with these merits, magic mirke, and relic feet, I was able to barely 1 shot tigers in Xarc [s] with only 2 ice maneuvers, gaining the ability to infinitely chain them easily.

Post update with the +int and magian pet weapons, you don't need all of that, so you could even use your Mirke for something else. Even though it's a weird path, I wanted to focus on the magic side of pup and thanks to these initial merits, I was able to solo the rest of the merits at Xarc. Even though it's only around 10k-13k/hr, it's extremely easy without much chance of death or paying attention. Nearly fell asleep once since I just hit the same 6 macros over and over.

For camp, I alternate moving between the traditional blm camp and right at the C.A. As for the technique, I follow something similar to this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxV3UmbIzFg
For maneuvers, I do water>ice>ice>nuke>ice>ice> wait for bliz4 recast> nuke. If this still leaves them slightly alive due to not having merits, it may be best to do triple ice nukes instead.

As for the amphitere, might want a flash deaggro macro. It seems to attack more often than it used to when roaming around.

From this, the only ways to screw up are resists and overloads which stop the chain.

While I am on the topic of Spiritreaver, instead of opening another thread I'll just ask here. Is Mana Channeler worth considering over Ice Maker at all? Or possibly 2 Ice / 1 Water?

Why would you use Mana Channeler over Ice Maker? Use both together. It's not like they compete for slots. Even if you run Water >> Ice >> Ice >> Ice, you still get some MAB out of the Mana Channeler, with no Water Maneuver up at the time of nuke. You're going to be using Water for Condenser's effect, anyway.

Maybe you meant Mana Booster? If so, I still wouldn't swap Ice Maker out for it. Ice Maker does more for your nukes than any other attachment.

I was having trouble just with daze alone in the 50s and 60s.

I loved that level range personally. Since maximizing the puppet's damage took such little effort, I was able to focus almost completely on my own damage output. In a party w/ a friend of mine leveling SAM, we had a PLD 'tank' that leeched good EXP for a couple hours. The people with hate were either myself, my friend, or my puppet the entire time. One person made the comment, "Why is our PUP tanking?" It was fun/funny.

For the group 1 merits why is 5/5 melee 'correct?' The main frame typically used for physical damage is SS and it gets a lot of ranged damage. Why not 5/5 magic and 5/5 ranged?

Currently my merits are 4/5 magic skill for soloing.

Since I am so early in my meriting I am debating RR before or after vent. Is it better to take hate muself in an exp party or feed oniwaka my hp in addition to my own? Amm frames but stormwaker have more hp than my little taru self, but i can be cured. ;)

Oniwaka SS goes splat quickly, so I guess Ventriloquy would be better.

The group one merits seem attractive to me over group 2 initially since they sync and I have only been in one lvl 75 tp burn so far.

I really can't see meriting magic before capping optimization being better for soloing, but I guess I could be wrong.. and I can't see ANYTHING being more useful than Role Reversal as a first merit.

I can 1 hit tigers in xarcabard s with 3/5 magic merits without optimization. I have been looking forward to that for a long time. ;)

I got my merits a long time ago, when group 2 didn't exist yet, so I ended up with
melee 2/5
ranged 2/5
magic 5/5
activate 1/5.

Was thinking of shifting ranged to melee for a while now, but I'm waiting on the level cap increase to see if they increase the max upgrade cap first. I'm hoping we will be able to cap ALL merits by lvl 99.

Group 3 merits: (Tiers are unlocked at lvl 80, 85, 90, 95, 99. Each upgrade costs 5 points)
* Increase Group 1 upgrade cap [+3/+3/+3/+3/+3])
* Increase Group 2 upgrade cap [+2/+2/+2/+2/+2])
* New stuff
* New stuff

Probably idle dreams, but it would be nice, still...

Paper thin automaton defense and the need for harder hitting nukes.