Puppetmaster Guide: By Kristan

=Introduction= Welcome to my Puppetmaster Guide...which is exactly what it is, a guide. So before I even get any further into it let me say this. EVERYTHING in this guide is just me stating my opinion based on my personal experiences while leveling PUP. My reason for writing this is to share my opinion and hopefully help out readers. I plan on pretty much putting all of my experiences (the ones I can remember anyway) here so expect it to be long. The Puppetmaster Guide: By Kristan.

=Introduction to Puppetmaster= Puppetmaster is a very versatile job that uses Hand-to-hand (and to a far lesser extent, Daggers) but most importantly, the Automaton, to perform. In this performance, the Automaton should shine, not you. For those of you who just read that and are going "wtf is she talking about", I mean the Automaton should be your focus. With you only having a C in Hand-to-hand you can expect yourself to have Accuracy and Damage problems as you progress. Keep this in mind while gearing yourself for EXP Parties. Oh yeah, about EXP Parties. Puppetmaster doesn't get very many invites. It isn't that they are terrible jobs, that's just what their reputation seems to be. A PUP can be a DD, Tank or Main healer, among other things depending on the level and situation (by all means, please don't try to do it all at once). Chances are, the majority of your levels will come from soloing or duoing. I will go in depth with those later on in the guide however. Let's get to support jobs!

=Support Jobs= I've unlocked every job. As a result, I've gone and personally used them and paired them with Puppetmaster to see what happens and these are my experiences. I'm going to cover the other 19 jobs but some are rather obvious answers (PUP/BST for instance...wth...) but anyway. I do EXP Parties, Solo, Duo and PvP so...I guess I'll cover it! Headsup that I leveled subs for various situations and I advise you do as well instead of trying to take an easy way out.

Warrior
Starting off subbing Warrior will not be very benefial. The only thing I can imagine it being useful for is Provoke for pulling hate of your Automaton which you can't even do till 10. Provoking in a Party Setup will most likely get you killed at this level so the more you think about it, the more this sub seems to fail early on. BUT ONLY EARLY ON. Once you hit 30 you get access to Berserk which is a very nice attack boost for your melee and more importantly, Weaponskills. At level 50 you get Defender for Defense and Double Attack for the offense. You will probably fall in love with Double Attack for H2H. At 70 you get Warcry which can further increase your attack. To maximize it's usage, try making a macro for it so other party members can see it coming. That way, they can utilize the attack bonus as well. Obviously you'll want to stack it with Berserk and let loose as well. The Warrior sub also offers benefits to Attack and Defense thru traits. Overall this sub becomes more useful at 30 but it becomes a very good DD sub post 50.

Monk
This support job offers the Martial Arts trait before PUP has access to hit (which is 25) but it should be noticed that the Martial Arts traits MNK get to not combine with the ones PUP gets. This should be your DD sub till 20 or 25. You will gain the ability to use Boost before your Weaponskills which is always an added bonus. If you don't have problems holding hate off your Automaton, the ability to counter while soloing isn't bad either. Post 25 you begin to aquire things like Dodge and Focus. Subbing MNK also gives access to Cestus Belt and Mantle (+5 h2h skill and Enhanced Martial Arts respectively) but it might not compare to the DD that subbing Warrior offers. This sub is situationally useful post 25, but other than those situations I wouldn't use it for EXP Parties.

Thief
A popular sub for DD jobs however most DD jobs have JA and Traits that let them act on their own. PUP does not. (If that statement confused you... WAR has Double Attack, Berserk etc. PUP has Activate, Repair and Evasion traits...) so you lower your damage over time by a rather devastating amount for the sake of critting on a ws (don't even bother using this sub if you aren't post30). If you want to SATA something, wait till Howling Fist at 65 or Dragon Kick at 75 but even then I still wouldn't use it in an EXP Party. If you wanna messs around at 75 you could always Magic Mortar to SATA Dragon Kick. Overall, I'd only use this sub for farming.

Black Mage
Well...let's face it. You are not gonna seriously cast Black Magic with this sub in any exp party. For soloing it just fails compared to what other subs offer. For PvP you get access to Ice Spikes post 40. Other than that, this sub just never seemed viable to me. Leave the nuking to SpiritReaver, he will do much better than you =P

White Mage
While it's still a mage sub it definitely has more uses than the Black Mage sub. You still have a low MP pool and it should be noted that if you rest the automaton will rest as well, regardless of its HP/MP. That automatically drops the usefulness of this sub. You do get access to a refresh piece (Vermillion Cloak @59) as well as Protect, -na spells, Barspells, Shell, Stoneskin and Reraise. The Automaton can cover Erase so that is not a major issue. Divine Seal + Curaga might come in handy sometimes but overall the only real thing from this sub is poor healing, Stoneskin and Rerase. There are items that grant Reraise.

Red Mage
Pretty much the same thing as White Mage. You do however get access to Bio and Dia which are rarely resisted. You still get Stoneskin but you get the added bonus of Phalanx. This can be a useful combo for soloing or leveling Guard skill. I assume with higher levels in Guard, Phalanx would make this an ok sub for PvP as well. You always have Enspells to play around with as well. You don't get Ice Spikes with the added paralyzing effect, but you do get Blaze Spikes for added DoT.

Paladin
Don't knock this out as an option yet!