Fressh 99 - Wich Automaton To Use ?

As a brand-new Pup 99, I had a question (probably a really silly one):

Is there a specific automaton I should focus on?

So far, I’ve mostly used the Sharpshot, and I have to say that the skill-up part of that machine is a real pain...

If you a a fresh 99 char, not much gear etc then the sharpshot puppet may be your best SC partner as far as leveling goes. Valoredge is primarily for tanking though can be good on bones. When you get your gear/gifts together the nuke frame can take over as master h2h will quickly overtake puppet especially with buffs so self-sc + MB can wind up being your best dmg combo.

Skill wise be sure you're using percolater + optic fibers and skill up food. All effect skill up gains on puppet(though OF is more an assumption tbh)

Your automaton ranged skill will get there eventually, just keep on using the sharpshot body when you can.

However, in case you were unaware, you generally will want to use Valoredge head with your Sharpshot body. That will make the puppet chase the mob and attack at close range, instead of standing at a slight distance like the Sharpshot head's logic. Helps for TP gain purposes (ranged attacks behave like automaton JAs and are used on a timer, but in between the automaton can melee), and Sharpshot body can still get melee skillups if you are not capped (lower cap than VE body, but all frames still have melee skill).

I think Nariont is probably right that for solo JP/Exemplar farming, eventually the nuking puppet dropping MBs on your skillchains may end up as max total master+pet DPS (and is certainly viable). But the SS and VE frames can be good melee sidekicks and SC partners.

thanks a lot for these advices !

brand new 99 probably going to have a lot of trouble solo skillchaining without sharpshot, I'd think.

any combination of master + pet + sc partner trust with shantotto 2 bursting will be fine for job points, and if you're soloing those you'll have more than enough time to skill up all the frames.