plan on leveling pup.Follow

The usually accepted "Best order" is:

Sharpshot > Stormwaker > Valoredge > Soulsoother Head > SpiritR Head

This is generally due to the fact that you can't skillup ranged before you get sharpshot. I suppose you could swap Storm and Valor in the order, however, I feel that Storms magic casting helps on skilling up more so then harle's magic.



Looks like your talking about Sharpshot, so this is what I'd typically use.

Flame Holder
Attuner
Tension Spring I
Scope
Turbo Charger
Replicator
Stabilizer
Target Marker
Coiler
Optic Fiber
Flashbulb
Armor Plate II

The Armour plate, is basically a "One slot left, chuck something defensive on" attachment, it could be replaced with a water based attachment for MDef depending on what your fighting, or just about anything really. The expensive ones here are TurboCharger, Coiler, and Optic Fibre, however Coiler drops from the ZNM "Ob", and it's fairly easy to do, you can keep him controlled on PUP with you maneuvers while higher level friends kill the actual NM.



Generally accepted SubJob use is

/MNK to 25 - PUP gets their own MA trait here
/WAR to 75 - I doubt your going to need shadows on the way up, I never really did. It was the automaton that pulled hate, not me!

at 75 I used /war, with /nin occasionally, but I most use /drg, as a go between the DD /war and the defensive /nin. At 80 I'm still using /drg

Hope it helped, if your on the Phoenix server, /tell me, I'm Maginmartin in game

Target Marker
Coiler

Thats 4/6 thunder slots, so I only have 2 left to put in

If you're just starting out, you don't need to sink all the gil into pup right away. These are the stages of building up your sharpshot, IN MY OPINION.

The basic five attachments for sharpshot are below. These tools are the ones that really drive the puppet:

attuner
target marker
scope
replicator
stealth screen


After those first five, I would suggest stacking accuracy and attack:

stabilizer II
heat seeker
tension spring II
(leave the last fire attachment spot open, because of the third step)



The third improvement would be to pick up this combination:

flame holder
heat sink



Eventually you'll want the expensive toys, like Turbo Charger and Optic Fiber. Don't feel the need to sink millions into a job at level 15.

WEll I only plan on soloing while I am waiting on a pt that's why I was going to pick up VE as the second frame so that way I have SS for pts and VE for soloing

Sharpshot -> Stormwaker -> Valoredge -> Soulsoother -> Spiritreaver. For most pups, this is the best order. Sharpshot's ranged skill is abitch to cap at first, so getting it at level 10 vs level 20/30 is a huge benefit. It's also our best party puppet early on, because it's damage easily out paces valoredge for a long time, and the jungles/garliage, with their piercing weak mobs.. mmmmmm

For solo though, I don't think you really understand how pup solo works after the nublet levels. Pup solo is vastly different than bst solo; the master tanks, not the puppet. Even with it's sexy def buff, Valoredge still isn't an amazing tank for anything you'd solo for exp. However, pup gets a sh*tton of evasion (both from gear and traits), and Stormwaker gets cures up to Cure IV, as well as enfeebles and nukes to support you. The dynamic is reversed, essentially. Stormwaker is better to get second, because having your magic skill leveled up is vital the further you get in the game. Not being able to quickly get Cure V at 66 is always disappointing, and the Tier IV/V nukes that Spiritreaver gets access too at high levels, in combination with the ridiculous amount of MAB pup can get, makes us one of the best Magic Damage jobs in the game.

Sadly, as much as I love Valoredge, it's only benefit is that it has durability that far outstrips the other pets. It's sort of like our version of CurrierCarrie, but with less HP and more damage output. VE shines in kite fights and such, but it's generally the last puppet obtained because all puppets have melee skill, so it's the easiest to skill up.



As far as I recall, attuner/flame holder don't stack, and attuner doesn't work on mobs under T, so you're probably better off using Tension Spring I in it's place. you can wear both tiers of attachments, btw, if you didn't know. Lemme think... for pre-daze Sharpshot, I'd recommend this setup:

Tension Spring II
Tension Spring
Flame Holder
Scope
Accelerator II
Turbo Charger (if/when you can get it)
- Alternative: Accelerator (Until you get Turbo Charger)
Stabilizer II
Target Marker (On mobs it applies to; Same as Attuner; T+)
- Alternative: Stabilizer (If fighting mobs that Target Marker doesn't work on)
Shock Absorber (100 HP stoneskin is brokenly strong until around 30)
Auto-Repair Kit II
Flashbulb (If solo, or in a party and the tank needs it; don't use it if you're with plds 37+, it's really @#%^ing annoying to cast flash and get a "no effect" message)
- Alternative: Auto-Repair Kit (If you need extra oomph to your ARKII's regen, like if the mob has nasty damage AoE)
- Alternative: Eraser (If fighting mobs with nasty AoE debuffs; Crabs, Worms, Bats, Triple Bats, Beetles, etc)
Heatsink
- Alternative: Stealth Screen (whichever you prefer)

Optical fiber is pretty meh for melee frames. The miniscule benefit it gives isn't worth the slot it takes up 9/10 times. It's real use is for mage frames. As for inhibitor, if you want to use that, go for it. I'm not a fan of it for a multitude of reasons, none of which are worth delving into here.

I'm not a fan of replicator either, I'd rather keep the wind maneuvers to keep my turbo charger/scope active. Up til around 30, Shock Absorber/Accelerator II/ARK II should be enough to keep the puppet alive with occasional Repairs, after that, you just need to learn to not let your puppet WS at the start of the fight, and how to keep it alive.

Speaking of; that's one of the things you'll have to learn. Sharpshot can be a bitch to keep alive w/o a really good tank, so you'll have to be able to know how to hold back with it. Basically, always keep a watch on your puppet's TP, and the mob's HP, and how much hate the tank has, and don't let the puppet WS if it's going to rip hate AND get killed. If it's not going to rip hate, you're good. If it's going to rip hate, but the mob won't live long enough to kill it, likewise. If the puppet's gonna get killed though, it's not worth it unless you're activate recast is up. Learning hate control is a pretty crucial part of the job.

Stormwaker's Cures are a lot more useful when soloing than VE. That, and it's enfeebles are amazingly handy, and the occasional nuke is always nice for kill speed.

I pretty much agree with the above two posts. ^ ^

I think tension springs/attuner serve me better than a flame holder. A TP move is when your automaton is likely to take hate; boosting that damage can only make that more likely. Doing so is even at the expense of not having manevers up for other stuff, so it seems more like a downgrade to me. A pup's power comes form its automaton and the automaton's power comes from maneuvers. A good pup will have 3 maneuvers up at all times and a flame holder isnt condusive to that. For similar reasons I only equip an eraser when I know I am going into a situation where there will be alot of AoE status ailments that will significantly impact damage output. Icemaker is for 1-shotting so that is ok, but beyond this discussion.

When using sharpshot, generally I cycle Wind > Thunder for TP, until I have Thunder Wind Thunder. This was on colibri, since I didn't have merits in Melee, I liked to get the extra acc from 2x thunder

After that its a simple matter to stick a dark maneuver up at 80~90% TP

Subjob wise, I'd also put in that /drg with the Wyvern earring, is an excellent balance between /war and /nin.

More haste, acc bonus and attack bonus job trait, jumps for faster TP gain, lose hate via that one jump.

As always, sh*t is situational

/drg takes a lot of work, gear, and attention to keep up with /war, and on pup, that attention is already somewhat spent on maintaining the puppet, so I'm not really a fan of further distracting from the focus.

/war and /nin and /dnc have all been covered well

/sch is the only one that's mostly gotten a side mention. I absolutely love /sch, and unlike /drg, which is mostly just a "I'm bored of berserk, let's play with jump" option, /sch is actually incredibly useful in a lot of unique situations, and it's a sub every pup should have. The most obvious is if you're manaburning anything, your sleep will honestly only be a bit less accurate than a blm's you gear right, and that's a killer thing to have, especially at /sch40, when you get accession+sleep, sleepga never hurts. I normally sub sch in dynamis and either solo (in terms of party build), or stick with the blms, unless we're low on DD, but then I'd normally just bring war. Between Sublimation and gear, I rarely run out of mp for more than 10 seconds, ever. It's also handy for low man stuff where you're hurting for healers, or you can't/shouldn't melee. And of course, there's also the fact that Drain is the most mp-efficient nuke in the game, and our drains are generally pretty solid.