BLM Merits

[BRP]

If you will be fighting Wyrms(or anything of similar tier) anytime in the near future, then Elemental Skill might be more important enough to merit first. However, if it's mostly just Sky, Sea, Assault, and that kind of stuff, then you might really want to consider Potency first, as it will help you much more on soloing.

[Seditedi]

Ele Skill -> Thunder Potency -> Ice Potency -> AM2s
Ele skill is definitely the most effective merit for BLM to do before anything else.
Thunder potency is nice, but uh... 10 MAB is nothing if you are getting resisted from not having decent elemental skill...
BLMs meriting AM2 before potency kinda makes me sick :/ 10MAB > AM2 so meh.

[Suiram]

Upgrading AM2 before the other stuff is silly, I'd agree. Putting 6 merit points into just unlocking freeze 2 and burst 2 at least is a good idea, I feel. If I was a first-job BLM hitting 75 now, I'd do that first and foremost.

[Kaylia]

Errant are better than druid slop imo.
8int = 4m.acc and some dmg

Has this been proved?

I remember reading somwhere that some recent tests pointed to the whole 2int=1macc but Ive allways been very sceptic about that.

Every other stats have been confirmed to give 0.5 (0.5atk, 0.5evasion, 0.5accuracy, 0.5r.acc, 0.5def). It's not too much of a stretch to believe int work the same. Int definitively has an impact on accuracy, and it's less than a 1:1 ratio, but still significant enough...so 0.5 sound about right. In the even my assumption is not correct, the real answer would still be between 0 and 1..which isnt too far from the initial guess.

6) MP merits are handy but as mithra Id still go for all of above first as increasing damage and lowering resist will make you more effective soloing mobs in any situation than another 80 mp. Get them once you have the rest done imo.

I believe mp is underrated on BLM. The first 3 upgrade are pretty cheap, and 30 mp will help a lot. It apply to every jobs, level cap, weakened and situation where your mp pools matter. I wouldnt recommand them first, but I don't think it hurts to have when everything else cost 3-5 merits.

Personally, I'm going 4/4 mp/hp. Living is just as good as mp pool, and works for even more jobs.

Wow at this thread.
To any blm that merits potency before ele skill, you're a fucking idiot.
You'd melee in STR rings too I guess? That's basically what you're doing if you don't cap ele.

Not fair to call them (and me?) idiot, pretty much everyone agree both are situational and have not the same worthiness depending what you do. Pretty much everyone also agreed that 5merit/1potency instead of 2-3 elemental level is stupid, and vise versa. Capping one without touching the other is stupid.

The comparaison to str ring isn't fair either. BLM accuracy is usually close to caps on everything VT and less..so depending what you fight, you don't need more of it. If I had 95% accuracy on collibri, then yes, I would melee in str ring

[Kaylia]

"Lowering ice resist on JoL"? I'm sleepy and might be wrong, but if JoL is weak to ice, wouldnt wind heal it for 1k dmg? Kinda like that time I lowered shen thunder resist with flood 2...not a proud moment.

Yeah it would, but it's not always in wind/ice mode. Has other modes too, when nunking with ice is still just as effective and then lowering it's resist would be good.
I actually thought that when I made my original post, and thought someone will probably point that out and I should edit my post, but I just got distracted at work and didn't get round to it lol.

Yeah, cant do that fore fire/ice/wind modes. We usually uses more melee DD than blm on jol anyway, since most of our blm are on adds duty. I remember using flood/tornado a few times on our last JoL, but I dont think it has a big impact in the end.

BLM's are cool like that, unless Rambus gets involved.

Almost true, but you forget the /WHM argument

[Seditedi]

/agree with Shueme
meriting potency before elemental magic skill is comparable to meriting Strength before Combat Skill for a melee.........

[evilpaul]

Putting 21 merits into something that does little/nothing to help you solo before you solo the next 45+ or so merits that do is what I'd call retarded.

[Kaylia]

Putting 21 merits into something that does little/nothing to help you solo before you solo the next 45+ or so merits that do is what I'd call retarded.

Most people at this point have a job that is good in tp burn. No reason to merit on blm when I get an average of 20-23k/hours on warrior

[SephYuyX]

I leveled WAR just to merit :/

[Kiro]

/agree with Shueme
meriting potency before elemental magic skill is comparable to meriting Strength before Combat Skill for a melee.........

FUCK YOU I DIDN'T DO MY LIST IN ANY KIND OF ORDER I JUST PUT DOWN WHAT POPPED INTO MY HEAD OKAY I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPOSIBLE

[Xhu]

Putting 21 merits into something that does little/nothing to help you solo before you solo the next 45+ or so merits that do is what I'd call retarded.

Most people at this point have a job that is good in tp burn. No reason to merit on blm when I get an average of 20-23k/hours on warrior

I like to solo on BLM - a nice LS merit pt is great and I get much faster exp on my BRD but I also like to solo/duo when I only have an hr or 90 mins to play.

And its relaxing and fun to get 5/6k ph and talk shit to LS etc rather than manically running round trying to pull everything with a pulse. Each has their own rewards ^^

[Kaylia]

I'm not dissing blm solo/duo xp at all. I do it pretty often for buffer or when I'm bored. I was just saying blm solo isn't the only way to get merit, and getting 10 m.atk (320 000xp) before 16 elemental (210 000xp) and other merit isn't always the best solution. You can probably 3 shots pudding by putting 2points in both thunder and ice (60 000 xp)...everything after isn't useful to increase your xp/hours at that camp.

[Xhu]

I'm not dissing blm solo/duo xp at all. I do it pretty often for buffer or when I'm bored. I was just saying blm solo isn't the only way to get merit, and getting 10 m.atk (320 000xp) before 16 elemental (210 000xp) and other merit isn't always the best solution. You can probably 3 shots pudding by putting 2points in both thunder and ice (60 000 xp)...everything after is useful to increase your xp/hours at that camp.

Funny looking at the exp numbers for each I havent actually thought about them in terms of actual exp before for totals for each category - you have a good point.

http://picshome.com/v2/download.php?id=38A598221

I'd always thought OMG INT thats gonna take me forever. Its only (^^) 50k more than the potency max ed out, and that wasnt too bad

I have always looked at thunder and ice seperately so elem has always seemed a alot more exp to get. I think i'd have probably approached it differently if I had looked at it in these terms.

[SephYuyX]

I laid my merits out in a "omg wtf this shit is gonna take forever" way too.
http://users.livejournal.com/trixi_/62822.html

[layoneil]

/agree with Shueme
meriting potency before elemental magic skill is comparable to meriting Strength before Combat Skill for a melee.........

it's not comparable because apparently math is hard. the first two levels of potency are cheap, while the first level of STR is the same as the highest level of Skill.

when everything costs 3 points, sure you should prioritize Skill over other things, but when stuff costs 1 and 2 points doing the cheap stuff first isn't a bad idea.

[BRP]

Also... 1 STR isn't exactly the same as 2 MAB. Neither is Elemental Skill the same as Weapon Skill. You can't really compare magic to melee, so it's kind of a poor point to bring up.

You know, order isn't really going to matter too much as long as you make a lot of merits in a short amount of time. If you do have a meleeburn job, then you should be able to get a big chunk of your merits in a short time. If you don't and will be forced to level on BLM, then order might matter a bit more... and you might want to consider solo vs HNM.

[Shuemue]

You can't really compare magic to melee, so it's kind of a poor point to bring up.

Yeah. Right. Sure.

Simple fact is that elemental magic skill is accuracy. If you're going to do anything other than solo xp on blm, you should merit ele magic.

Go ahead and toss 1-2 merits each in potency, and grab Burst II, but if you want to do end game stuff with your blm, your primary focus better be 8 ele merits before you're anywhere close to capping potency.

[Sidanoir]

70 BLM and no Water IV (25k in)...SOMEONE PUT one on sale... >

No fire or aero IV on ah either <.< /emo

Im going to do:
Finish elemental (almost done cause of RDM anyway)
Burst II x1
Freeze II x1
Potency
Get more AM IIs!
Have hp/mp stuff mostly done

[Shuemue]

Go solo Sapphire Quadavs?

[Sidanoir]

Go solo Sapphire Quadavs?

If I had more time to play I would...a few LS mates were bored and tried for me but no luck....
Actually ironic thing is did ISNM 3 days ago...and it dropped for someone else in group and I just assumed that hey its lolWater IV its always on AH....