A Question on Merits

[Aodh]

I've been stuck for a while now deciding how I'm going to proceed in meriting. I have 5 jobs at 75 that I use very regularly, but I can't decide where I'll get the best value out of my merits without having to back them out later.

Jobs: SMN, WHM, RDM, BLM, BLU

SMN Merits: I've unlocked Wind Blade and Heavenly Strike, but I really wanted to see if someone tests the TP effect on upgrading to see if it would make any difference overall. Regular merits are 5 merits in Physical Accuracy and 3 Merits into Magic Accuracy so I only have 2 left.

WHM Merits: I have 1 merit into cure potency for regular merits, so I have lots of opportunity there. Of the new abilities, Pro V seems like shit for the merits (+5 def, yeah....). Shell V seems harder to prove it's effectivness, but I'm assuming it's about the same on level 1. Martyr (sp?) I'm not too keen on, if I'm that desperate to heal someone I'll benediction. Devotion however seems to be the WHMs jewel.

RDM Merits: Dia/BioIII Duration and effect aren't really even worth touching. Blind II, Para II, Slow II, Phalanx II all have minor upgrades over the originals, but people aren't sure about the effect upgrading them REALLY has. How much more does Para II do at Lv3 over Lv1? If you keep it at 1 is it even worthwhile? No regular merits in RDM, not sure where to start with them and their effects.

BLM Merits: Of all my jobs, AMII has got to be the most fun I've had on BLM for a while. SE basically said 'We don't want you burning HNM, but... If you participate in a party and burst AMII, then we don't mind you doing a fuckton of damage.' But the question is then, unlock them all for all elemental weaknesses/bursts, or jack up Burst and Freeze II? What's their difference between Lv1 and Lv3? I haven't got any other merits on BLM as I was kinda just leaving it alone until I got a Novio and AMII, it's a nice damage increase worth meriting now. (This was my 4th job leveled for more fun than use and I'm almost never on it for HNM because of SMN/WHM/RDM hence no merits).

BLU Merits: SE must have been on crack again giving Physical Potency and Magic Accuracy. I would have thought it the other way around. Or it could just be the TP affects of Physical are enhanced, so that Disseverments poison's increased, or Head Butt stuns for longer. Anyways, I'm not sure where to put the merits in CA recast, Physical Potency or Magic Accuracy.

My Magic merits are capped with 2 and 2 in Elemental and Enfeebling, then 4 into BLU skill. BLU I had a blast leveling and is the most fun to burn exp on, but the most useless on HNM due to the sub-par weapon skill and low damage swords for BLU. I would be interested in hearing peoples opinons on the new merits and any findings they've come across so far. ^.^/

[MisterBob]

RDM Merits: Dia/BioIII Duration and effect aren't really even worth touching

That kinda stood out. I'd say durations are worth meriting, considering the MP cost of the spells and the fact that their duration base is 30s. For endgame activities, Dia III is pretty decent to merit. Obviously if you're only doing TP-burns, whatever, the mob isn't living more than 30s anyways. Bio III would probably be good to merit if you're into the whole Avesta-style soloing thing.

[Kaylia]

Isn't bio3 only one more dmg than Bio 2?

[Aodh]

Tests in the RDM forums were showing 1-3 points of damage difference. Dia II is just as good in burns as III, the Lv1s of all spells are only marginal increases, the JAs good, but with way too long recasts intended to be meritted into long recasts. :-/

[thestalkmore]

For RDM i'm going 1 Dia III, 3 Paralyze II, 2 Slow II. I may switch paralyze and slow though, depending on parsing and numbers people find out. BLM will be 3 Burst II, 3 Freeze II.

[Aodh]

For RDM i'm going 1 Dia III, 3 Paralyze II, 2 Slow II. I may switch paralyze and slow though, depending on parsing and numbers people find out. BLM will be 3 Burst II, 3 Freeze II.

My fear is pumping Freeze/Burst II up to level 3 and doing a whopping 100 damage more per burst -.- I wouldn't put it past SE...

[MisterBob]

For RDM i'm going 1 Dia III, 3 Paralyze II, 2 Slow II. I may switch paralyze and slow though, depending on parsing and numbers people find out. BLM will be 3 Burst II, 3 Freeze II.

Bleh, the AM damage increases are marginal at best, and tests are showing you only get the accuracy during the MB. Prolly going to go for all spells except Quake, and put the remaining merit into Freeze II (Since it technically will be doing the most damage, and half the mobs in this damn game are weak to it).

My fear is pumping Freeze/Burst II up to level 3 and doing a whopping 100 damage more per burst -.- I wouldn't put it past SE...

Well, let's say the potency on MB is actually +3% per, and not +3 MAB (which it probably is, and as most BLM should know, 1 MAB != 1% damage). 6% on a 1.8k burst would be an extra 108 damage. So yes, you'll only be doing 100 more, maybe even less.

[Jeryhn]

Out of all of these possible merits you can do, Devotion for WHM and the AM2 spells seem best to do first.

I'd say max out Devotion, and at least unlock the rest. You'll never know if you'd want Martyr to cure someone after you've already fired off Benediction and you have no MP.

I'd say unlock all the AM2 spells (except Quake2, stone magic can fuck off). Pour the extra combo point into Freeze2, which will be the best AM2 overall due to the use of Ice/Aquilo's Staff.

For the Bloodpacts, unlock each, do not pour points into one Bloodpact. The TP Bonus you get is extremely small for extra merits, and you'll be better off having all 6 for elemental advantages (yes, you'll even want Geocrush despite it being earth elemental for the Stun effect).

For RDM spells, I'm just going to unlock all six. Your decision may vary, but since you don't expect to be the top enfeebler in your linkshell given how you've merited your magic skills (kinda the same way I am), meriting all six for more spell selection might be good for you too.

For BLU, physical spells are win. Max out Chain Affinity Recast and Physical Potency.

[Kaylia]

I will get all ancient II, and use thunder 4 like I did for the last year. MB doesn't happen enough to make it worth it to merit them more than once. Thunder 4/Blizzard 4 will still be more mp efficient in almost every situation


Quake/Flood might be more useful on a long run than other Ancient 2 since they are real improvement over the IV version. Flood also lower thunder resist for all your blm buddy who will use thunder 4.

[SephYuyX]

Im also waiting for the diffrence of a lvl1 MB vs a lvl3, if its under 3~400 im not gonna waste my time upgrading, Id rather open all the AM instead. It would be more beneficial in the long run anyway.

[Kaylia]

Well, let's say the potency on MB is actually +3% per, and not +3 MAB (which it probably is, and as most BLM should know, 1 MAB != 1% damage). 6% on a 1.8k burst would be an extra 108 damage. So yes, you'll only be doing 100 more, maybe even less.

Didnt the description say +3 m.atk on MB? >_>


Blm's base iirc is 1.44. Add +6 from weskit, +5 from z.hand, +5 from moldavite, +2from yigit pump (could add yigit hat, novio...etc). We are looking at a 3-4% dmg increase

[Decay24]

For RDM i'm going 1 Dia III, 3 Paralyze II, 2 Slow II.

I was thinking the same thing but I might put one in Slow II and Phalanx II. Going to cap out Para 2 to see how it works with my Ice Magic Acc. merits and Enfeebling Skill merits.

[nivlakian]

Well, let's say the potency on MB is actually +3% per, and not +3 MAB (which it probably is, and as most BLM should know, 1 MAB != 1% damage). 6% on a 1.8k burst would be an extra 108 damage. So yes, you'll only be doing 100 more, maybe even less.

Didnt the description said 3% m.atk on MB? >_>


Blm's base iirc is 1.44. Add +6 from weskit, +5 from z.hand, +5 from moldavite, +2from yigit pump (could add yigit hat, novio...etc). We are looking at a 3-4% dmg increase

The description just says "by 3" iirc which could mean anything and the base at BLM70+ is 1.32MAB. So, as Misterbob said, you can expect that you'd be getting something in the 100s or less depending on previous MB damage.

[Illverin]

WHM Merits: I have 1 merit into cure potency for regular merits, so I have lots of opportunity there. Of the new abilities, Pro V seems like shit for the merits (+5 def, yeah....). Shell V seems harder to prove it's effectivness, but I'm assuming it's about the same on level 1. Martyr (sp?) I'm not too keen on, if I'm that desperate to heal someone I'll benediction. Devotion however seems to be the WHMs jewel.

For WHM you would need to wonder how often you use each of the two abilities. Personally I am going to max out Devotion and unlock Martyr and the two V buffs, just to have them. While I know 5 DEF doesn't seem like a lot, knowing SE there will probably be an opportunity to increase the max number of points you can put into group 6 at some point in the future. So while there are marginal benefits to having Protect V right now, in the long run it is still an improvement with a possible opportunity to expand upon these skills. To me, Devotion seems like the most used ability hence taking it to level 3. Even though increasing Devotion to level 3 only takes 5 minutes off the recast time, it is still the best choice as far as I can see.

[Aodh]

For WHM you would need to wonder how often you use each of the two abilities. Personally I am going to max out Devotion and unlock Martyr and the two V buffs, just to have them. While I know 5 DEF doesn't seem like a lot, knowing SE there will probably be an opportunity to increase the max number of points you can put into group 6 at some point in the future. So while there are marginal benefits to having Protect V right now, in the long run it is still an improvement with a possible opportunity to expand upon these skills. To me, Devotion seems like the most used ability hence taking it to level 3. Even though increasing Devotion to level 3 only takes 5 minutes off the recast time, it is still the best choice as far as I can see.

The only times you would use Devotion:
- PLD out of MP, to give them a boost. But you should have a RDM so this would only happen in emergencies.
- Backup healer out of MP, so you restore theirs so you can rest, again only in an emergency.
- DD out of MP (BLM) and the mob is almost dead, in an emergency.
- When someone runs out of MP in a party without a refresher, but even at 15min that's not enough to replace a refresher.

Bottom line is that it should only be used sparatically otherwise your party isn't functioning the rest of the time.

[Vail]

For WHM you would need to wonder how often you use each of the two abilities. Personally I am going to max out Devotion and unlock Martyr and the two V buffs, just to have them. While I know 5 DEF doesn't seem like a lot, knowing SE there will probably be an opportunity to increase the max number of points you can put into group 6 at some point in the future. So while there are marginal benefits to having Protect V right now, in the long run it is still an improvement with a possible opportunity to expand upon these skills. To me, Devotion seems like the most used ability hence taking it to level 3. Even though increasing Devotion to level 3 only takes 5 minutes off the recast time, it is still the best choice as far as I can see.

The only times you would use Devotion:
- PLD out of MP, to give them a boost. But you should have a RDM so this would only happen in emergencies.
- Backup healer out of MP, so you restore theirs so you can rest, again only in an emergency.
- DD out of MP (BLM) and the mob is almost dead, in an emergency.
- When someone runs out of MP in a party without a refresher, but even at 15min that's not enough to replace a refresher.

Bottom line is that it should only be used sparatically otherwise your party isn't functioning the rest of the time.

another good time that is over looked is when using a PT setup with two whm (vs HNMs) where one whm needs to /heal and the other has to cover, Devotion is a great tool to minimize the need to /heal between two whm

[MisterBob]

For WHM you would need to wonder how often you use each of the two abilities. Personally I am going to max out Devotion and unlock Martyr and the two V buffs, just to have them. While I know 5 DEF doesn't seem like a lot, knowing SE there will probably be an opportunity to increase the max number of points you can put into group 6 at some point in the future. So while there are marginal benefits to having Protect V right now, in the long run it is still an improvement with a possible opportunity to expand upon these skills. To me, Devotion seems like the most used ability hence taking it to level 3. Even though increasing Devotion to level 3 only takes 5 minutes off the recast time, it is still the best choice as far as I can see.

The only times you would use Devotion:
- PLD out of MP, to give them a boost. But you should have a RDM so this would only happen in emergencies.
- Backup healer out of MP, so you restore theirs so you can rest, again only in an emergency.
- DD out of MP (BLM) and the mob is almost dead, in an emergency.
- When someone runs out of MP in a party without a refresher, but even at 15min that's not enough to replace a refresher.

Bottom line is that it should only be used sparatically otherwise your party isn't functioning the rest of the time.

another good time that is over looked is when using a PT setup with two whm (vs HNMs) where one whm needs to /heal and the other has to cover, Devotion is a great tool to minimize the need to /heal between two whm

Devotion is PT member only. How often are 2 WHM in the same party? We usually do Tank/Tank/Brd/Rdm/Whm/SMN or Tank, depending on the situation. Once our COR hits 75 maybe he'll dominate the last slot

[Sykes]

I was originally planning to max Devotion, but I came to the conclusion that the situations were I would need to use Devotion more often than every 20 minutes are extremely rare. I would definitely unlock it because it's great for a little emergency MP for someone, but I'm not certain that the benefit for reducing the recast time down to 15 minutes is really worth the cost.

Right now, I'm debating between maxing Protectra V and Shellra V. Has anyone done any real testing with Shellra V? With Protectra V, it's easy to quantify the difference, but it's much more difficult to do it with Shellra V. My inclination at the moment is to put 3 upgrades in Shellra V and 2 in Protectra V because, given that my LS uses NIN tanks for a LOT of end-game stuff, it seems like Shellra V would come in more handy (depending on how that difference is quantified).

I haven't ruled out putting 1 in Martyr, 1 in Devotion, and 2 in Protectra V and Shellra V, but I'm really not very convinced in the usefulness of Martyr.

[Not Kuno]

For BLU I'm going to do Physical and Chain recast.

For BLM I don't know what to merit. I have many different options and I cant choose. We hardly SC and when we do its never darkness, so maxing out Freeze is dumb. Same with Burst, we dont sc often and usually Im just nuking things normally so I wont get the extra dmg. Choises are hard. ;;

[BRP]

Something to think about is... SE is probably going to raise the combo max for traits/abilities to 10 and each will be capped at 5.