Which puppet do you start off with?
You dont get access to four puppets until after you get ur ult. So youre effectively laning with one less ability than other heroes because of your passive. It doesnt really do anything until your ults in play, which is not ideal.
Also, the ability upgrades are something to consider. Do the upgrades, upgrade all the puppets, or does each upgrade give you access to one additional puppet, or a combination of both? Something to think about
You start with the first one - Pantalone, the one that can pull enemies in and act as a turret. You suppoosed to take your 2 ability first for AoE burst+pull. Actually i think second ability should be already unlocked by default when you start a match, because other abilities don't work without it.
Pantalone can shoot souls and his attacks ricochet, so your farm and line pressure will be decent.
About being able to swap puppets from the start - maybe it could work like that: you can press your ult before unlocking it to swap, but it does not give you any other ultimate effects. Or maybe having one same set of abilities for the early game would make it more fair for the enemies.
About upgrades:
Pull the strings - just a regular ability, it can have upgrades like other regular abilities
Release puppet - cooldown reduction, charges, radius. It applies for all variations of this ability
Flaw - Bonus movement speed after applying spirit damage from the passive; Passive spirit damage increased; apllying X instances of the passive damage causes explosion
Ult:
When you take it: Pantalone is invincible after being released for 1 second
1 point: Landing gunshots makes Dottore shoot 2% faster
2 poits: Capitano gets extra health, scaling with spirit
5 point: you are invisible while controlling Alrecchino