New Jobs' Merit 2 Abilities Discussion

[Alisha]

my blue mage is only lvl 42 but convergence looks good since up to this point poison breath has been my most consistant spell against IT's. i would of loved something like diffusion for monk -_-

[Havok]

I really like 3/3 assimilation. Can set in a few extra spells for some more +stats and more spells in ballista :D. Gotta hate it when you are 44/45 and can't do anything else.

how does 3 points = a few extra spells?

assimilation is worthless. I'd see a point in it if you could get a boost of at least 5 points. enchainment might be nice if you actually merit/solo on blu, which I don't. 3/3 diffusion/convergence for me, since the two traits are trash. at least I can be a bit more versatile this way.

[Suiram]

Assimilation sucks and should have been 2 set points per upgrade, but just going by the number of situations where I wish I had 1-3 more points I'm still going 3/3 in it.

[Xrave]

3/3 Winning Streak and Snake Eye is the way to go since you can force lucky numbers or 11s. Fold is fairly useless since zoning or logging to the character selection screen clears busts. It's not even worth it to in crease Loaded Deck for a 20 minute ability that still might fail.

[Max™]

Just one thing.

Does 8/8 Combat abilities not affect Cor DD at all?

8 Sword (Joyeuse) or 8 Dagger (or whatnot) + 8 Marks = not helpful at all?

Harsh.

[Repairs]

For those that say Assimalation is useless: You are basically saying meriting an atrribute (like str or dex) is useless...

Think about it... lets use Upper Cut as an example: adds 2 str and 1 dex (costs 3 points); to add 2 str in merit attributes costs 9 merits, and to add 1 dex would cost 3 merits, total of 12 merits = max assimalation.

I think this is why SE didn't give anything higher, because if they did they would be better then meriting attributes.
___________
Anyone else notice using BA -> Convergence (level1) -> magic hammer = only 5-10 extra damage?
___________
*1000 needles will never be cost effective, so don't bother comparing it BLM. In terms of magic damage, BLM will always win. We need to find good practical uses for Convergence.

[safer]

i havnt gotten around to playing with cor much in xp pt, typically im needed on whm

but i believe cor sword skill caps at the same level as a war B- ... with 8 sword merits + joyeuse + suppa and access to similar acc. gear, hitting shouldnt be a problem.... the times i got to play with cor i didnt have sword merits nor suppa, but still was able to build tp quickly... now its just even better

as for tier2 merits.. im thinking of going 3 snake eye, 1fold, 2 winning streak.
there will be situations where u cannot zone/logout to remove busts or bad rolls (in the case snake eye was down, and you rolled unlucky or something) having fold to remove that and reapply it will be valuable in keeping good consistant rolls on...

loaded deck isnt that great cause random deal is on a 20min timer like many said.. its not worth it even to cap random deal down to 15min or w/e it is

all in all im happy with these merits and hope cor af2 will provide similar satisfaction

[Kylen]

Fold is fairly useless since zoning or logging to the character selection screen clears busts.

I beg to differ. How many times are you really close to a zone when you double-bust, or have the time available to spend a minute logging out and in just to clear busts? I suspect that like most COR's you probably roll more conservatively when you have 1 bust in order to avoid double-busting, since it really is a pain to deal with and logging to clear the busts often isn't an option.

It's not even worth it to in crease Loaded Deck for a 20 minute ability that still might fail.

It won't fail now, ever, if you have more than 1 ability waiting on recast (after SE fixes it on today's patch). You may be right though that being on a 20-minute timer there may be better things to merit instead; I'm still waiting to hear more testimonials from COR's who have merited Loaded Deck before deciding for sure. If it comes down to turning a useless 20-minute ability into a half-decent one vs. 20 more seconds of roll duration, that's a tough choice.

Just one thing.

Does 8/8 Combat abilities not affect Cor DD at all?

8 Sword (Joyeuse) or 8 Dagger (or whatnot) + 8 Marks = not helpful at all?

Yeah, it's no Ridill WAR boost, but being able to go 8 sword/dagger + 8 marksmanship will definitely help us out in merit parties. Should be very nice for Soboro SAM/RNG's too.

[Tomino]

Does 8/8 Combat abilities not affect Cor DD at all?
8 Sword (Joyeuse) or 8 Dagger (or whatnot) + 8 Marks = not helpful at all?

if we're talking of meripo, COR dd already fits them nicely; besides, BRD+COR combo is already overkill aside from corsair damages.

still I'm quite doubtfull on corsair performance on something slightly harder than the standard meripo. anyone with capped combat merits tried Demons in Xarca, stuff on sea and so on?

[LD]

For those that say Assimalation is useless: You are basically saying meriting an atrribute (like str or dex) is useless...

Think about it... lets use Upper Cut as an example: adds 2 str and 1 dex (costs 3 points); to add 2 str in merit attributes costs 9 merits, and to add 1 dex would cost 3 merits, total of 12 merits = max assimalation.

I think this is why SE didn't give anything higher, because if they did they would be better then meriting attributes.
___________
Anyone else notice using BA -> Convergence (level1) -> magic hammer = only 5-10 extra damage?
___________
*1000 needles will never be cost effective, so don't bother comparing it BLM. In terms of magic damage, BLM will always win. We need to find good practical uses for Convergence.

Meriting an Attribute is useless, that's why everyone does it last.
Any stat (STR,MND,CHR,etc.) you put merits into isn't going to make a real difference (unless it's INT & you're a BLM, even then, a bit questionable. -_-)
JSM are generally more cost-effective, Penance, Angon, AM2's ffs, so it shouldn't be so ridiculous to expect Assimilation to be the same.

Why should we pay more MP for a spell that will invariably do less damage than another job's?
Their power isn't even the issue, no one expects to match a BLM in that department, it's the fact that most BLU magic spells cost more MP than their BLM equivilent or more than is reasonable.
We're not BLM, so we should do damage like one, but we shouldn't hemorrhage MP like one either.

[Lordender]

Why should we pay more MP for a spell that will invariably do less damage than another job's?
Their power isn't even the issue, no one expects to match a BLM in that department, it's the fact that most BLU magic spells cost more MP than their BLM equivilent or more than is reasonable.
We're not BLM, so we should do damage like one, but we shouldn't hemorrhage MP like one either.

Play any past FF that has blue mages in it they always have had high mp cost spells >.>

[Priran]

Their spells were also generally either unique, powerful, or otherwise incredibly useful.

FFXI BLU isn't better at anything than anyone else, aside from soloing Imps. They're good at soloing imps.

[safer]

still I'm quite doubtfull on corsair performance on something slightly harder than the standard meripo. anyone with capped combat merits tried Demons in Xarca, stuff on sea and so on?

ive gone cor/rng to kirin before.. was awhile ago,
i had full acc gear(+100 r.acc or so and sushi... overkill prolly) + only 3 marksmenship merits... i have to look through my screenshots, but slugshots hit for like 500~ish
cant remember what normal shots hit for, but prolly like 50-70?

ive done dyna-xarc too.. wasnt horrible either.. though i was not /rng for it, and focused more on support, but slugs still landed decently

[BRP]

FFXI BLU isn't better at anything than anyone else

This game is so broken! BLU should be the best at everything!! bawwww, ect

I think SE added BLU to fufil the fantasies of melee RDM everywhere. It's very versatile. They are capable of strong magic DD rivaling SMN and BLM if they put enough effort into it and still can do things like melee DD and all that jazz.

[Septimus]

FFXI BLU isn't better at anything than anyone else

This game is so broken! BLU should be the best at everything!! bawwww, ect

I think SE added BLU to be the job that Red Mage was supposed to be. It's very versatile. They are capable of strong magic DD rivaling SMN and BLM if they put enough effort into it and still can do things like melee DD and all that jazz.

Fixed.

[Priran]

FFXI BLU isn't better at anything than anyone else

This game is so broken! BLU should be the best at everything!! bawwww, ect

That's absolutely, totally what I was going for. Gee, you're a sharp one.

[Villian]

I really like 3/3 assimilation. Can set in a few extra spells for some more +stats and more spells in ballista :D. Gotta hate it when you are 44/45 and can't do anything else.

how does 3 points = a few extra spells?

assimilation is worthless. I'd see a point in it if you could get a boost of at least 5 points. enchainment might be nice if you actually merit/solo on blu, which I don't. 3/3 diffusion/convergence for me, since the two traits are trash. at least I can be a bit more versatile this way.

Well think of it this way, when I set up my spells set for cannonball with all the good spells I usually end up with 41/45 (+56str/+35vit). With assimilation that increase my points up by 7 points left instead of 4 points. So yea, you can change your set up around, I now have +58str, +36vit with clear mind as a bonus. I'm sure it's not much but it helps my set up to get +60str/vit once I get a shadow mantle and wing sword+1, and an extra +3str boomerang when I'm in old area that is not controlled by bastok. (Wish I didn't toss bibiki seashell)

Also I'm a ballista player so the extra 3 points can help me remake my spell set in ballista to make me more annoying. :D

[Damane]

I just picked up pup again and solod now to lvl 18. I must say the merit abilitys would help me alot on soloing, if I would have them. As it stands now I am not very impressed by the solo abilitys of a PUP. BST is better in the category of soloing. So if SE decided PUP to be a solo job, then I must say they screwd up... I can kill even match stuff fine, but thats with signet bonus on and as for tough enemys I have to say at least its fun to play. SE needs to work alot on PUP if they want to make it a real solo job.

An enhanced guard trait (like shield mastery) that kicks alot more in when you fight lower tough and below mobs would beef up soloing a bit. And for gods sake reduce the fuckgin casint period of the PUP lol

or if they want to make a more party friendly job they should ad a /pet "Assist" <t> command that lets the PUP at least cast cure spells/buffs on a PT member for the whole of the fight. I find it very limiting that the only thing I can offer to a PT is either dmg (which will scale probably alot down the later lvl), enfeebs (that are casted faster by a rdm or whm) or co-tanking (that can be done from any other melee in the PT then my maton) or ZOMG flashing mobs (which occurs once every min or so).

[Bagel]

There are PUPs who seriously seem to think that flashing the mobs is the coolest thing ever and is PUP's niche.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

There are PUPs who seriously seem to think that flashing the mobs is the coolest thing ever and is PUP's niche.

When I first read that PUPs thought that was the best thing about the job I couldn't stop laughing.