[Tallia]

I've found that I'm at a forked road in my merit plans for Pup. I've always been a big fan of the Sharp Shot frame. It's my frame of choice for just about any event. I do use Spirt Reaver on occasions and Soul Soother for soloing. But as far as endgame goes I tend to drift to either Sharp Shot or Valoredge. The later because I'm too lazy to re position sometimes.

So far my merits look like:

Auto Melee 1/5
Auto Magic 5/5
Role Reversal 1/5
Ventriloquy 1/5
Finetuning 3/5
Optimization 3/5

I have the Pantin gloves and will be acquiring the Moogle quest heml for a total of 8% haste.

The plan is to pimp the Sharp Shot frame. I'm still doing research into the effect of Optimization on ranged attacks. It has similar wording to the tension springs which do influence ranged. If optimization has little to no effect on ranged then would it be better to go with the last 2 merits in fine tuning to offest the acc hit caused by the drum magazine? I will be getting, most likely, the Pet ACC and Pet ATT upgrades on the Mirke coat as well.

As far as the skil upgrades. Everyone and their mother is on the melee bandwagon. However, with as many melee ACC bonuses as we get (target marker, stabilizer I and II and heatseeker) the extra ~10 RACC from the 5 merit upgrades would make sure the ranged wouldn't miss much and pimp out armor piercer a bit.

So should I got finetuning or optimization? Melee or Ranged?