BLM Merit Group 2.

[Loren]

So, am I to assume you similarly did your group 1 merits something like 2 in four of the elements and 1 in the other two, or maybe 1 in each and a few in elemental seal?

No, they're two separate choices.

AM II all have high base DMG, taking advantage of obi + relic tonban adds about 220+ dmg in many cases, so I like to expand the situations where I can do that. By contrast, the effect of upgrading one for MB purposes seems small and limited, at least for me.

For potency merits, Ice and Lightning have an advantage over the others because of the difference in tier IV potency. Of course there are situations where you'll be using other elements, but you have to decide which you'll be using more often. Especially on lightsday and darksday, Blizzard and Thunder are the most efficient.

Note that I disagree with BLMs who say "only get ice + thunder obi. only get ice + thunder staff" because that's unnecessarily limiting. Group I merits force you to choose though.

[Shuemue]

I got them all because they're pretty. If I need MP efficiency I use Tier III/IV anyway.

[Suiram]

Different choices maybe, but the same principles are at work. Due to diminishing returns from adding MAB, you're going to be improving the other spells by adding potency to them moreso than you are giving thunder or ice their 4th or 5th upgrade. The reason most BLMs don't do that is because they recognize--often rightfully--that they're not going to be using anything but ice and thunder 95% of the time, so the other merits are essentially worthless. It's not really any different for AM2. You're not really going to need to cast any other elements 95% of the time, so why not get 10 more magic accuracy and 6% MB bonus in the spells you already get a 10MAB bonus for?

Note I don't care how someone does their merits, it's fine with me if someone else upgrades Flare II, ES recast, Earth Potency or Double Attack. I even considered getting all the AM2 at first just for the animations and having all spells. I just think it's silly for someone to extol the virtues of "being versatile" with group 2, while being as homogeneous as everyone else with their group 1 merits.

[Judai]

yaya, af2 pants, obis w/e. I mixed it up, was typing in a rush. AM2s work fine solo, 2 AM2s and a T3 nukes and dead pudding. I do Chain 4 just fine, though I rarely solo on BLM anymore because I have 75BLU now. SE keeps making more mobs that are Thunder/Ice resistent and I think having all the AM2s is a better option then having 2 that do an extra 200ish damage on a MB.

I am enjoying having more nukes to cast now. It all depends on what you want and how you play. If you want to be the BLM with the 2.8k MB on Fafnir and get munched on for a min, maybe surviving as you are cure bombed maybe dying. Go for it, it's not going to be a big deal imo. If you want to have a couple extra nukes for some random shit, get them all.

Either Burst a little harder on the random SC/MBs you get or use an extra nukes for something like xp during Earth weather/day or on a Ghost mob in Limbus or w/e. Neither decision is going to make or break you.

btw last I checked:

ver·sa·tile
1. capable of or adapted for turning easily from one to another of various tasks, fields of endeavor, etc.: a versatile writer.
2. having or capable of many uses: a versatile tool.

Having nukes someone else doesn't have (or speaking languages someone doesn't speak) is more versatile. In the rare occurance they are needed, they are in fact, more versaitle.

[ashke]

I'm 4/7 on the obis and 5/6 on the AM2s, and the versatility has always worked well for me. Going 5/5 Thunder/Ice on potencies.

(I also have the s.tonban)

For AM2's - I think it's a matter of personal choice, and that's a decision each of us has to make.

For my personal choice, there have always been enough BLMs that 'go for broke' on MB damage on HNMs in all my LS's that choosing flexibility hasn't ever caused a discussion, and has probably helped out a bit.

So, I've missed some shinier/happier Burst II MBs, but on the flip side, casting a Tornado II on Ouryu on fly as other BLMs begin a FreezeII/Blizz4 salvo has helped a bit. Flood II has been nice on Suzaku, but I have yet to try it on Cerb.

The drawback, as mentioned, is the room it takes. I tend to pick/choose my gear sets based on the task at hand. As a result, I very rarely carry all of them with me, in fact, I usually only bring Anrin to dynamis, it's in my mog next to my dynamis LS pearl the rest of the time. Likewise, if I'm heading to fafnir, I'll usually only have Rairin.

__
If I was going to fully merit one, I'd pick Burst II over Freeze II. I see ALOT more Light/Frag skillchains that darkness/distortion, and Freeze II already has the staff working for it w/ +10 elemental and +5 INT. My 2 gil, though.

[Loren]

It's not really any different for AM2. You're not really going to need to cast any other elements 95% of the time, so why not get 10 more magic accuracy and 6% MB bonus in the spells you already get a 10MAB bonus for?

I would say the effects of concentrating group I (+10 magic attack full time) and group II (+6% dmg on MB) are significantly different.

From the viewpoint of someone who casts AM II when sudden damage is needed but rarely on a skillchain, concentrated group II merits add nothing. Guaranteeing ~220 extra dmg from obi/tonban does.

Even for someone with max Ice/Lightning potency, the "lesser four" AM II with obi + tonban will beat Freeze II and Burst II, especially during that Firesday -> Earthsday stretch where those two spells are weakened.

I don't really run into inventory problems with my obi set either. 60 spaces is a lot considering BLM can get away with some full time slots like back, feet, rings, etc.

[Nerull]

btw last I checked:

ver·sa·tile
1. capable of or adapted for turning easily from one to another of various tasks, fields of endeavor, etc.: a versatile writer.
2. having or capable of many uses: a versatile tool.

Having nukes someone else doesn't have (or speaking languages someone doesn't speak) is more versatile. In the rare occurance they are needed, they are in fact, more versaitle.

That agrees with what I said >.> Versatility implies usefullness. Learning a spell, or a language, that has little to no usefullness does not add versatility. Variety, sure, if you're looking for a euphamistic term to describe your reasoning. I realize the point of the discussion wasn't vocabulary, I'm just a nitpick when it comes to such things.

[Jeryhn]

I pretty much agree with Nerull's setup. 3x Freeze and 3x Thunder seem ideal because of the combination of the tiering system through your other spells along with typical Group 1 Merit setups.

I personally see Freeze being the strongest spell out of the six, because it will always be the most powerful and most accurate because of the common use of an Ice or Aquilo's Staff along with it (INT + elemental skill + elemental staff bonus). If anything, Freeze should be a higher priority than Burst in most cases.

[Judai]

If you learn the random language, you prolly have a use for it somewhere. If you learn the spells, there are uses for them. It just depends, do you want to be a epeen BLM or have a couple extra semi-useful spells. It's versatility, whether you see it that way or not. It's a small versatility but it's still being able to adapt to a situation better then someone else.

[Mashu]

How strong are the benefits of obi and af2 pants? Are they enough to overcome the 10MAB you'd get from group 1 merits, along with the 13 INT and -9 Enmity you'd get from wearing Penitents and Mahatma Slops, along with the 10 Macc you'd get from fully meriting Burst2 and Freeze2? (Doesn't seem worth it to me, but what do I know.. my BLM is nowhere near 75 yet )

And another question for my aspiring BLM.. are AM2s even worth it in terms of MP spent compared to Tier IVs? I'm going to be an lolElvaanBLM, so this question is a bit important to me.

[Kaylia]

Tornado: Kirin/Ouryu
Flood: Fafhogg/tiamat (and lower thunder resist)
Flare: Jorm/undead (cycle between burst and flare)
Burst/Freeze: Good against almost everything.

You can also cycle between all your ancient on manafont if you are trying to deal a ton of dmg. You will be forced to use many tier 4 because of the recast if you only have freeze/burst

Quake is the only one I've trouble to justify. It's not good against any HNM, or at least, not better than the one above. Even on pudding, quake is overated to some extent considering you have 10m.atk bonus on ice/thunder. You really don't need the weather bonus

[Judai]

How strong are the benefits of obi and af2 pants? Are they enough to overcome the 10MAB you'd get from group 1 merits, along with the 13 INT and -9 Enmity you'd get from wearing Penitents and Mahatma Slops, along with the 10 Macc you'd get from fully meriting Burst2 and Freeze2? (Doesn't seem worth it to me, but what do I know.. my BLM is nowhere near 75 yet )

And another question for my aspiring BLM.. are AM2s even worth it in terms of MP spent compared to Tier IVs? I'm going to be an lolElvaanBLM, so this question is a bit important to me.

Not sure what you mean by the first question. Obi and Pants are very strong. 10% bonus for each attribute. Day10%, Weather10%, Double Weather 20%, so potential 30% boost to spells.

AM2s are solid MP/Damagewise. I prefer using them in solo xp and in most HNM/Gods fights over T4s myself. I'm Taru though and have a vast MP pool.

[Loren]

How strong are the benefits of obi and af2 pants? Are they enough to overcome the 10MAB you'd get from group 1 merits, along with the 13 INT and -9 Enmity you'd get from wearing Penitents and Mahatma Slops, along with the 10 Macc you'd get from fully meriting Burst2 and Freeze2?

Obi doesn't add damage directly, but it guarantees day/weather procs of +10% dmg per icon, which only have a small chance of kicking in without the obi. Pants are +5% dmg (and have 3 INT on them).

Suppose it's Firesday. My gear vs. target mob give me and INT difference of 0 (before pants and belt) and Magic attack of 60 plus HQ staves. I'll pretend for a moment the AM II constants are 800--they're somewhere around there.
Flare II with obi/tonban would look like:
800 + 6 (INT) * 1.6 (M.Atk) * 1.15 (Staff) * 1.15 (day/weather) = 1705 dmg
Burst II with penitent/mahatma and lv5 lightning merit would look like:
800 + 26 (INT) * 1.7 (M.Atk) * 1.15 (Staff) * 1.0 (day/weather) = 1614 dmg

91 dmg may not seem impressive, but when you consider the cases where there's matching day/weather or double weather, that final multiplier can be 1.25 or 1.35. There are also cases where day/weather is fire or earth and gimps your ice/lightning spells. The level of the Burst II merit doesn't matter since we're not MBing.

And another question for my aspiring BLM.. are AM2s even worth it in terms of MP spent compared to Tier IVs?

For every single cast, no. Their main uses are when you need damage immediately, i.e.:
- facing some Dyna/Limbus/Assault/NM mob with bad TP moves, a well timed AM II can eliminate the last 25% of its HP to avoid spam mode
- when soloing, if the mob is at a certain HP% then an AM II can finish it without requiring another sleep/bind cycle
- Magic bursts, multiplier bonus on larger spell = more damage
- Manafont: chaining AM II deals the most damage in 60 seconds

[Mashu]

Not sure what you mean by the first question. Obi and Pants are very strong. 10% bonus for each attribute. Day10%, Weather10%, Double Weather 20%, so potential 30% boost to spells.

AM2s are solid MP/Damagewise. I prefer using them in solo xp and in most HNM/Gods fights over T4s myself. I'm Taru though and have a vast MP pool.

Sorry for the poor wording . I meant... how much more damage would one be able to deliver by nuking with day bonuses (10%?) over the MAB+10 from group 1 potency merits?

edit: question answered in the post above..

[Kerberoz]

Lvl 3 Burst2
Lvl 1 Freeze2
Lvl 1 Flood2
Lvl 1 Tornado2


With that setup I get what I want (max burst2) with the other AM for the odd LS event where it's needed. I only really ever MB with burst2 so that setup works great for me. If you do ls stuff where you'd need Flare or Quake then put that instead.

Same

[Alpsyche]

I went
Burst II Lvl3
Freeze II Lvl3

One dark maxed.
One light maxed.

I like ePeen as well.
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e189/Alpsyche/wow.png
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e189/Alpsyche/Nid.png

I thought I'd miss Tornado II on Kirin (which I've fought once in the past 6 months) and I really don't at all.
I thought I'd miss Flood II to reduce Lightning Resistance. But in a good LS, some people are well balanced and more Burst II seem to do more than a solo Flood II and then MBing Burst II.

Each to their own. If I really wanted to be ePeen, i'd reroll the BLM as a Taru...

I'm Elvaan ftl.

[Calais~]

I chose:
2 burst
2 freeze
1 tornado
1 flare

I did notice a difference in resists after I had upgraded Burst and Freeze, so I definitely recommend that. I don't really do sky, but I do use Tornado 2 quite a bit still. It looks cool and I get decent numbers out of it, especially with AF2 pants (too lazy to farm up another obi). I'm honestly not sure how huge the bonus is to casting a Tornado before a bunch of Freeze's, but I like to pretend I'm helping anyway. Flare I have used all of twice and both times were out of boredom, so I'm probably deleting that soon. I'll probably try out replacing it with Flood so I can play around with it before Burst 2.

[SephYuyX]

Really the only reason im considering getting all the AM2 is because I like to see the spell effects, the only reason im leveling WAR is because I can use a lot of different weapon skills. Yeah im wierd, I like things just cuse they look cool.

So lvl3 will do 6% more than lvl1, really thats not enough of a difference for me to burst and freeze to lvl3, but the acc is nice I suppose. Chances are ill never even use the other spells if I unlock them in a battle situation, ill just nuke a random mandy now and then.

My merits are probably the same as every other BLM, link in my sig below, but even though.. I dunno, I should do burst and freeze lvl3, but meeeh.. I dunno.

Im still in the middle.. but I think im leaning towards lvl3 burst and freeze.

[Reapz]

My group 2 Merits went a little like this (still missing one level, that will go into Burst II eventually, not bothering with these merits at the moment)

Burst II LV2 - MB most of the time and second strongest because of potency merits
Freeze II LV1 - Strongest because of potency merits and Aquilo's stats
Tornado II LV1 - Ouryu mainly, Kirin
Flood II LV1 - Suzaku, Tiamat, Fafhogg?(Whenever you want to free nuke at the end or something)

Even though I do Kirin as SMN all the time and Tiamat as SMN most of the time they were still worth meriting for me.

[ashke]

(Burst II *3, Freeze II, Flood II, Tornado II) is a great build that gives some flexibility w/ the power/accuracy on the AM2 you'll cast for MBs the most. If someone couldn't make up their mind, this would be my recommendation.

I really see that, all AM2s, and fully upgraded Burst/Freeze as the 'three popular builds' that seem to be followed the most. They're all strong builds, and they all can be used w/ good results.

I still like my Flare II on Firesday though, and can't wait to bust out a Quake II in double sandstorm. >.>