[Question] Why do veterans recommend against starting puppet?

• ichigoyeh wrote on 2014-03-06 09:36
  So, as I understand, the general consensus between veterans is to not start as a hybrid talent/skill set like puppet or gunner.
  
  My question is why do they recommend against starting as a puppeteer, and recommend a base talent like archer/warrior/mage.
  
  No offense, but I strongly lean towards the bias that is puppeteers being OP.
  
  1. You gain 245 BASE damage for your puppet just by ranking control and the marionette itself.
  2. In addition the puppet already has 80% crit as well as 65% balance, these are not accounting for ANY of your own stats and gear.
  3. Crisis gathers mobs and climactic can do a 3 shot AoE 550% for a total of 1650%. There is almost no risk (unless hitting two keys may damage your hands).
  4. Puppetry's two passive damage increasing skills (puppet/control) amount to 263 ap, after of which only two core skills need to be learned (549 ap for crisis climact).
  
  I understand that you gain stats from finishing base skill sets, as well as a few necessary skills (WM/Assault slash/etc.), but those are lesser priorities, right?
  
  And in comparison a melee talent would get an additional 20 max damage, the rest is up to gear and stats. Combat mastery adds damage to puppets as well (at least I believe so), so I did not account that.
  
  Do enlighten me, I started a puppeteer and ended up ranking core skills after fully ranking the whole skill tree to master (except wire pull and snare... come on) from other skill sets (WM/etc). I felt I did more in most SMs, even with a beginner control bar, in comparison to peers that (probably) did not know what they were doing. I want to know if I took the hard way, especially with almost everyone speaking in favor of ranking the base skill sets first.
  
  P.S. Combat power gained from puppetry is near minimal, allowing you to train other skills still relatively easy, meanwhile ranking the combat or magic tab means... well... death.
• Rukuna wrote on 2014-03-06 09:43
  Puppets are powerful in the beginning yes, but their damage compared to others at your level drops off dramatically soon after because you do not have the strength and dexterity to back it up. That's why people say do close combat, archery, and life skills first because then you can get the most out of the skillset.
  I am not an expert on the subject, so do not take my word for it, however a search of the forums will back me up.
• Howhurl wrote on 2014-03-06 10:02
  Depends on the level of SM you're in. I highly doubt a master puppeteer with minimal stats can do anything in HM missions in terms of damage except using crisis to gather mobs.
  
  Crisis take skill to use in a party, which is most situations in your case. You have to know when to pull mobs in if they are knocked down to avoid instant attacks. Act 7 can hit 3 times but is extremely situational and connection dependent.
  
  Lastly, puppet skills have quite the CD, so if you don't have melee/range ranked, you're just a sitting duck waiting for skills to reload. Doing melee/range first is the best way to go about puppeteer. It was designed to be a hybrid skillsets; don't limit yourself solely to it. Damage wise it has one of the best AOEs in game, but that's about it.
• Carlonia wrote on 2014-03-06 13:30
  Personally I recommend against it for the following reasons:
  
  -Puppets are not forgiving with lag. I know this from personal experience, using them with lag can have disastrous consequences, especially for players with low HP/Def/Prot.
  
  -To have useful damage, you need high Strength and Dexterity. Master Puppeteers with no other skillsets are a huge burden for other players in the harder missions.
  
  -Mobs can still aggro the puppeteer, and that is bad if you don't have the HP to tank sometimes.
  
  -Hard to learn to control. I can't imagine a completely new player being able to learn puppets in less than month.
  
  -Grindy skills. So. Very. Grindy. And you don't have access to Crisis and Climactic from Day 1.
  
  There are more, but I'm at work and getting weird looks...
  
  Go Warrior/Archer first then do puppets when you're over 500 Str or Dex if you really must...
• arochia246 wrote on 2014-03-06 14:38
  There's also the issue with load times for the skills. Can you really use Act 6 + Act 7 combo when you don't have r1 of both skills? Act 6 radius is pitiful when it's not r1 and Act 7 load time is annoying, even at r1.
• jimpatrick wrote on 2014-03-06 15:35
  @topic yes i agree with you its not like puppetry would do anything less than other skillsets would.i always see ppl saying you should do this and that first,im still using dual wield not because its good but because i like it.i didn't even rank smash & wm till ttl 1k with dual wield because like using normal attacks.
  
  

  Quote from Carlonia;1204484:

  Personally I recommend against it for the following reasons:
  
  -Puppets are not forgiving with lag. I know this from personal experience, using them with lag can have disastrous consequences, especially for players with low HP/Def/Prot.
  
  

  
  
  which skillset doesn't get affected with lag?can you chain fighter skills with lag?can you even use cs with lag?i rarely act6+7 because of my asian lag but i still use puppet cuz [S]of act4[/S] its op.
• Kouki wrote on 2014-03-06 15:40
  Short answer: You need multiple stats for better damage. Also, puppets are hard to control especially for new players. Not to mention you need money from the start, more-so than melee(assuming both use their beginner weapon).
• SlurpTASTY wrote on 2014-03-06 17:55
  To quote myself:
  
  

  Quote from SlurpTASTY;1174677:

  To put it simply, without the max damage to support it even puppetry can be lackluster.
  
  A simple example (ignoring the gain in dex/str from rank 1 puppetry skills on both characters):
  
  This is my alt with control bars on:
  
  

  [Image: http://puu.sh/5zC8j/38fb8d2c7c.jpg]

  
  
  Say she has rank 1 of every puppet skill
  
  (47 * .7) + 190 (maxed colossus/pierrot damage) + 55 (maxed control marionette) = 277.9 max
  
  Now say she uses rank 1 Crisis then rank 1 Act 4
  
  277.9 * 2 = 555.8 damage
  
  +
  
  277.9 * 3 = 833.7 damage
  
  = 1389.5 damage total
  
  Now lets compare this to Slurp (using the same gear for him as the alt, I don't actually have puppetry ranked yet so my stats are not buffed from puppetry skills):
  
  

  [Image: http://puu.sh/5zCmX/adb504fb98.jpg]

  
  
  Say he has rank 1 of every puppet skill
  
  (350 * .7) + 190 (maxed colossus/pierrot damagE) + 55 (maxed control marionette) = 490 max
  
  Now say he uses rank 1 Crisis then rank 1 Act 4
  
  490 * 2 = 980 damage
  
  +
  
  490 * 3 = 1470 damage, my act 4 does more than both my alts skills combined
  
  = 2450 damage total
  
  Although you do have a point it gains power faster than range/melee, having the stats to back your puppetry up makes a huge difference. I wouldn't even consider Slurp to be a good benchmark for a character with developed stats as my dex is still low and the only strength I have is from carpentry.
  
  Also I do realize Slurp is level 101 and my alt is level 43 but even if they were at equal levels the point still stands.
  

• Syrion wrote on 2014-03-06 18:06
  Most veterans are wrong, puppet is good for a starting class
• Cyrene wrote on 2014-03-06 18:26

  Quote from Syrion;1204532:

  Most veterans are wrong, puppet is good for a starting class

  
  
  I guess it's okay. Idk, My friend that I used to know started as a puppeteer, while I'm not sure of his spending routine on mabi as he was sort've poor, his puppetry (atleast his act 7 came out pretty decently) He ranked most of the skills to max and never really had any trouble. While he couldn't solo a hardmode sm or elite like me he was still perfectly fine holding his own.
  
  But mabi used to not be about one hitting enemies, so taking 2-3 hits to kill a goblin for example wasn't a problem back then. I guess now, no one is given that leisure due to power creep and if you aren't steamrolling through content, then whats the point of keeping you around.. Idk I'm not very smart when it comes to these things.. People will leave you behind unless you are dedicated to the game and plan to non stop train skills and move on to archer and warrior. But training archery skills and racking up dex is and can be a b*tch so thats why I would advise to avoid it unless you enjoy archery.
• ironwoman wrote on 2014-03-06 18:49

  Quote from Syrion;1204532:

  Most veterans are wrong, puppet is good for a starting class

  
  
  It's good early game but falls off terribly mid-game, which is where most people would be.
  That being said, it's better to have a solid skill set with less cd issues than puppet.
  
  Slurp's linked thread already explains enough why puppet isn't the best starting class. You can do it if you want, it's not as terribad as starting gunner. It's just that there are better classes.
  
  Rather than just having one sentence, I'd like to see more reasoning behind this. Also not sure how you can say most veterans are "wrong" when your profile says your character's level is 157.
  
  At the point where warriors reach enough stats to solo hm, pure puppets won't. Like I said, they fall off starting from mid-game without stats to back up.
• SlurpTASTY wrote on 2014-03-06 18:55
  Also I consider my character to now be developed enough to efficiently use puppetry. I will do the calculations again with my character now to show the difference once I am home.
  
  

  [Image: http://puu.sh/7lprv/15696685a8.jpg]

  
  
  Say I have rank 1 of every puppet skill
  
  (530 * .7) + 190 (maxed colossus/pierrot damagE) + 55 (maxed control marionette) = 616 max
  
  Now say he uses rank 1 Crisis then rank 1 Act 4
  
  616 * 2 = 1232
  +
  616 * 3 = 1848 damage
  
  = 3080 damage total
  
  6776 and 3056.9
  
  Also the more multipliers, the bigger the gap is. This means the gap will become even larger when you crit and the gap will be huge when using act 7 (which, IMO, is puppetry's main damage dealer). A crit CC with slurp and r5 demonics (assuming both hits crit) will be 20k, a crit CC with my alt in the same situation will hit 9k.
• RegisAreus wrote on 2014-03-06 19:30
  I think because most veteran know what's best. Like when I started lots of veteran/pros/knowledgeable players kept telling me to rank windmill and refining, so it be easier and more beneficial doing it later. Of course I didn't listen to them, just ranked whatever I wanted, because a game is no fun if you have to do things exactly/a certain way. But it would be wise to get a main class, also build up your dex+str to get it out of the way so you can focus more on puppetry later+ the huge damage difference. But if you want to be like me and want to do whatever you want then just rank puppetry. So do whatever you want as long as you're having fun then theres no point in worrying about it.
  :cheer:
  
  Also because of that I died a lot in shadow mission, that i'm a fail player+i'm not any class cuz it be an insult to other that worked hard on their stats for that certain class, and I don't have the stats to back up my class.
• Renzato wrote on 2014-03-06 19:55
  Ethe is a noob, it's okay. ; )
• Syrion wrote on 2014-03-06 21:45

  Quote from ironwoman;1204543:

  
  
  Also not sure how you can say most veterans are "wrong" when your profile says your character's level is 157.
  
  

  
  
  here's a vid of me getting owned by icemines at level 157
  
  [video=youtube;QHPRaLoSZpc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHPRaLoSZpc&list=UU_6RBhFiAx9RvCjWFwzHS9A&feature=c4-overview[/video]
  
  Starting a new character, most players will want to level up and get AP for skills etc. They'll mostly be running SMs, which generally favor AOE skillsets. DPS wise, puppet is only less efficient than melee, with the assumption that you have some funding to buy a pair of focused beam swords or something similar. For single target DPS, going magic and rushing firebolt->magic weapon mastery with a chaincast wand is probably the best but there's not many things that you can run for efficient EXP that way.
  
  So it's mostly between starting melee or puppet if you have efficiency in mind, previous assumptions withstanding. The reasons puppet is more efficient for starting players are the following:
  
  1) Puppet is burst oriented, while melee has its dps spread out (crisis->act 7->act 4 combo every ~20 seconds vs wm every ~4-5 seconds). This hurts clear efficiency a lot for melee because without pets for positioning and aggro control, your dps will be a lot lower after the first wm (cuz you spread stuff out) unless you kill everything in one hit (which you won't, you are early-mid game). This is in contrast to puppetry's combo which can much more viably clear a wave in one shot.
  
  This point is kinda moot if you have a bunch of ice dragons when you make your first character. So depends if you do.
  
  2) Puppets scale in natural tankiness when you rank them. They can actually take quite a few hits with just r1 in the puppet. In fact they are practically invincible in basic-adv in my experience. Your character can still draw aggro, but overall this makes it easier to not get instantly popped by a shadow warrior at early levels considering that crisis provokes enemies, and can give your puppet infinite defense.
  
  3) You can manipulate aggro by summoning/desummoning puppets. When you don't have a lot of pets, this is useful.
  
  A lot of the reasoning does come down to beginners not having many pets.
  
  The argument melee scales more efficiently is true, and in theory, puppet scales half as fast as melee/range from stats since you have to increase 2 stats for the same amount of damage gain.
  
  This isn't as bad as it sounds though, because developing a single stat has depreciating returns. You would rank the skills that give the best AP/time efficiency for stat gain first(things like refine, ranged attack for dex and combat mastery, mining for str) which gives you 2 sets of efficient skills to rank for more damage. There are also very efficient overlapping skills like combat mastery and ranged attack that give both str and dex.