merits and do they make me a bad mage?

[Katarzyna]

Hey, good luck curing when you have 5 mp left from somone that is dying, so instead of tossing a possible 5-600 HP Martyr you'd rather kneel down with a tank in red hp and tell them "sorry no mp to cure you" sigh...where do these whms come from...now while i'll admit martyr isn't the most useful, the very few times it is usefull it HELPS, stop knocking abilites just because you've never tried them.

Mob hits tank for 150 damage

tank hp = 50 hp "shit!"

[WHM] mp = 10 "sorry dude cant help you"

[WHM with Martyr] WHM uses maryr (insert name here recovers 556 HP]

Tank "!!"

Done. this was just a example of a rare occurance that it CAN help. don't knock it. never max it of course.

A merit in the useless JA known as Martyr is a merit taken away from something useful, live Devotion for Shellra V. Protectra V isn't as awesome as Shellra V, but I still recommend that every WHM put 1 merit into it. (Anymore than that, then you're wasting merits.)

But Martyr? Seriously? No. Never. Your extremely rare situation is extremely rare due to the fact that there's probably a shit load of other mages (RDMs, SCHs, BLMs, hell even BRD/WHMs and maybe, just maybe, SMN/WHMs if you LS doesn't hate SMNs too much) that can cure while the WHM rests on MP. A simple tell to your RDM refresher warning them that you're low on MP, you NEED to rest and if they could cover your curing/hasting tank for 3 minutes goes a long way.

If you're in a situation where you find yourself out of ALL your MP more than once in a blue moon, then you're wasting MP on stupid shit. Being a WHM isn't just about keeping people alive, it's also about MP management. MP management, unfortunately, is a dying art among WHMs. I've seen way too many WHMs spam Cure 4 and 5 (for the love of god why?!) when a couple of Cure III's would be sufficient and then they bitch that they have less than 100 MP constantly.

Martyr is an argument based on MP management, and not an argument over the extremely rare "oh shit" moment where everything goes wrong. (This is assuming your LS doesn't wipe to Genbu) If you completely suck at MP management, then you should work at getting better. No respectable tank is going to curse your out because you ran out of MP for whatever reason and you didn't Martyr them. Most full time melees even know Martyr is a waste of a merit.

As far as Regen goes...

I find a Regen III is sufficient enough. There's never been a situation where I said to myself "Shit if I merited Regen I would b a better WHM." It really depends on your LS and what they do. Bar spell merits + Cleric's Pantaloons (or +1 if you're so lucky) is extremely useful. I still sub SMN more often than SCH, so Cure Cast Time is better in my situation. (BRDs are a rare commodity in my LS. If they show up, they're automatically picked up by the BLMs and DDs, so I always have a RDM in my party. And Sublimination + Refresh doesn't work)

[shaddix]

martyr is better than pro v

[Katarzyna]

I fail to see how something used once in a blue moon is classified as better than something used potentially every 30 minutes.

Also, Shellra V 5/5 Devotion 5/5 > Martyr. No matter what way you cut it, Martyr is a useless merit, given the choices of Group 2 WHM merits.

[shaddix]

Well its 5 extra defense, that has like no effect on anything. People blink tank, NM do high damage because their base damage is massive, defense does very little to help. If SE wanted to make pro V worthwhile they would make it have a -%physical damage effect like shell has -magic.

I've been in a couple situations where martyr would have helped. Hundred fisting mob perhaps and both your big cures are down etc etc. ( i am devout 5/5 devo 5/5 shell )

[Shinryuu]

If SE wanted to make pro V worthwhile they would make it have a -%physical damage effect like shell has -magic.

Been saying that for years, 100% agree. 2% per upgrade doesn't seem broken and it makes WHM group II an actual challenge to pick, kind of like RDM.

[Sheebs]

o_O that's precisly what regen is mainly FOR you cast regen on them so there hp gradually recovers instead of you spam curing them so they can generate hate, that's what the Hate Managment comment i stated in my previous posts was implying, i think it's you who needs to learn to read...



Wait, what? lol when did i say cure IV recovers 50 HP..what on earth are you talking about...i already explained that whole thing in my post..i said if they are DOWN to 50 HP and the whm is out of MP..seriously. did you even read the post? i'm kind of confused here..

Do you even read posts? Man I am done wasting my time responding to this. I didn't once address the martyr issue once in my post, it was all about regen.

[Chen]

so either give the PLD 300~ mp so they can cure iv themselves 3-4 times, or use marytr & run into AOE range and put yourself in low hp at the same time.

the situations where marytr is going to be needed more than devotion is not worth losing the -2mins30 on recast. might as well merit banish affect for the amount of times you'll be needing it v undead

[Shin Volcano]

A merit in the useless JA known as Martyr is a merit taken away from something useful, live Devotion for Shellra V. Protectra V isn't as awesome as Shellra V, but I still recommend that every WHM put 1 merit into it. (Anymore than that, then you're wasting merits.)

But Martyr? Seriously? No. Never. Your extremely rare situation is extremely rare due to the fact that there's probably a shit load of other mages (RDMs, SCHs, BLMs, hell even BRD/WHMs and maybe, just maybe, SMN/WHMs if you LS doesn't hate SMNs too much) that can cure while the WHM rests on MP. A simple tell to your RDM refresher warning them that you're low on MP, you NEED to rest and if they could cover your curing/hasting tank for 3 minutes goes a long way.

If you're in a situation where you find yourself out of ALL your MP more than once in a blue moon, then you're wasting MP on stupid shit. Being a WHM isn't just about keeping people alive, it's also about MP management. MP management, unfortunately, is a dying art among WHMs. I've seen way too many WHMs spam Cure 4 and 5 (for the love of god why?!) when a couple of Cure III's would be sufficient and then they bitch that they have less than 100 MP constantly.

Martyr is an argument based on MP management, and not an argument over the extremely rare "oh shit" moment where everything goes wrong. (This is assuming your LS doesn't wipe to Genbu) If you completely suck at MP management, then you should work at getting better. No respectable tank is going to curse your out because you ran out of MP for whatever reason and you didn't Martyr them. Most full time melees even know Martyr is a waste of a merit.

As far as Regen goes...

I find a Regen III is sufficient enough. There's never been a situation where I said to myself "Shit if I merited Regen I would b a better WHM." It really depends on your LS and what they do. Bar spell merits + Cleric's Pantaloons (or +1 if you're so lucky) is extremely useful. I still sub SMN more often than SCH, so Cure Cast Time is better in my situation. (BRDs are a rare commodity in my LS. If they show up, they're automatically picked up by the BLMs and DDs, so I always have a RDM in my party. And Sublimination + Refresh doesn't work)

All you need (realisticly) is devotion level 3, after i stoped HNMs for a bit i found my self almost never needing devotion, so for people that don't do HNMs Devoton level 5 isnt needed at all, which can go to martyr if you like to be a whm ready for ANY situation, idc if you merit or not, but it's not a bad ability to have, you call it a rare occurance, but that devotion isnt used as often as you think, hell i found mys elf giving it to rdm and blms i was in pt at points, "Oh shit" moments are based off just that, when somthing unexpected happens and you need to react fast, and martyr is there for that, AGIAN don't start with the lolmarytr bashing bs, it's not a USELESS and NEVER used ability, of course devotion would be a better choice, even pro V 2-3 levels is good, like i said, unless you're stricly a HNM WHM, you won't be using devotion literly every 10 minutes, remember, not every whm does HNM, i will admit /5 devotion IS NEEDED for big endgame events, but other then that, Martyr is acceptable, not useless.

Do you even read posts? Man I am done wasting my time responding to this. I didn't once address the martyr issue once in my post, it was all about regen

Ok me and you seem to hit a communication snag, cause i don't know what you are talking about, you said somthing about cure IV recovering 50 hp..i didn't say that at all, are you sure you're the right person? confused badly atm o_o

A merit in the useless JA known as Martyr is a merit taken away from something useful, live Devotion for Shellra V. Protectra V isn't as awesome as Shellra V, but I still recommend that every WHM put 1 merit into it. (Anymore than that, then you're wasting merits.)

Man what? Martyr is not USELESS ifd you don't know how to properly use your whm other then cure 3-4 and raise that isn't my issue, there is nothing wrong with that ability, not going to repeat my self. i didn't say Merit the shit out of it..i said it was acceptable. as i said above, unless your an HNM WHM you can get anyway with anything merited in that group 2, i really wish people would stop calling abilites useless just because they don't know how to use them, what IS it with one minded job people..

But Martyr? Seriously? No. Never. Your extremely rare situation is extremely rare due to the fact that there's probably a shit load of other mages (RDMs, SCHs, BLMs, hell even BRD/WHMs and maybe, just maybe, SMN/WHMs if you LS doesn't hate SMNs too much) that can cure while the WHM rests on MP. A simple tell to your RDM refresher warning them that you're low on MP, you NEED to rest and if they could cover your curing/hasting tank for 3 minutes goes a long way.

Obviously you've never been in a an "oh shit" situation, what you going to do if they all out of mp, one is dead or hell, just not close enough, last i checked none of those jobs can heal for 5-600 HP without DS and even with it wouldn't match it. maybe you just havnt been in the many situations i have been with whm, it comes with expriance, again, if you don't know the full extent of the job, don't blame it on the abilites.

If you're in a situation where you find yourself out of ALL your MP more than once in a blue moon, then you're wasting MP on stupid shit. Being a WHM isn't just about keeping people alive, it's also about MP management. MP management, unfortunately, is a dying art among WHMs. I've seen way too many WHMs spam Cure 4 and 5 (for the love of god why?!) when a couple of Cure III's would be sufficient and then they bitch that they have less than 100 MP constantly.

That is just being a shitty whm and has absolutly nothing to do with what i am even talking about. MANY whms are bad at the job, but im talking about a "useless" ability acttualy having some use, not who will run out of mp and cast expensive spells.

Martyr is an argument based on MP management, and not an argument over the extremely rare "oh shit" moment where everything goes wrong. (This is assuming your LS doesn't wipe to Genbu) If you completely suck at MP management, then you should work at getting better. No respectable tank is going to curse your out because you ran out of MP for whatever reason and you didn't Martyr them. Most full time melees even know Martyr is a waste of a merit.

Martyr is an ability that does exaclty what WHMs main priority is...RECOVERING HP, but instead of using MP it uses your HP instead 1 time, how the fuck is that useless? a free Cure V (assuming you stack your hp before using) using HP is not...

The main thing here is people bitching about "waisting" merits into it instead of caping an ability you don't even really NEED maxed half the damn game, NONE of WHMS merit ability in group 2 are usless if you know how whm works it's not hard to understand.

As far as Regen goes...

I find a Regen III is sufficient enough. There's never been a situation where I said to myself "Shit if I merited Regen I would b a better WHM." It really depends on your LS and what they do. Bar spell merits + Cleric's Pantaloons (or +1 if you're so lucky) is extremely useful. I still sub SMN more often than SCH, so Cure Cast Time is better in my situation. (BRDs are a rare commodity in my LS. If they show up, they're automatically picked up by the BLMs and DDs, so I always have a RDM in my party. And Sublimination + Refresh doesn't work)

I merited barspell and cure cast time stricly for HNMs and didn't even touchj regen but im not agaisnt regen being merited it's UP to the WHM My biggest point i am trying to make without going thru 3 pages of LOL YOU MERIT MARTYR noobs rant is i'm not going to watch people call people noobs and tell them they wasited merits just because they merit an ability you don't approve of. (not nessessarly you, just people in general) it all depends on what that WHM does.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[shaddix]

NONE of WHMS merit ability in group 2 are usless if you know how whm works it's not hard to understand.

pro v is actually pretty useless.

I was thinking earlier about doing 4/5 shell and 1/5 martyr 5/5 devo, but I'm not sure. Any advice? I do dyna and salvage, and i will start doing limbus here soon.

Also it's hard to understand some of these posts, but martyr isn't supposed to be used when everyone is out of mp, if you had 5/5 devotion then you wouldn't have run out of said mp. It really is just a big instant cure for ohshit moments. Though sadly you have to be so close that it isn't so instant seeing as how you will often have to run in to use it. I will probably just stick to 5/5 devo 5/5 shell lol.

[arshesney]

Don't look at Martyr as a last resort when you're out of MP, it has a great advantage over cures: it is instant. Even at capped cast time (light arts + clogs + merits + loquacious) you will still need at least a second for the cure to take effect, that applies to every other RDM/BRD/SMN/whatever could be sitting next to you with full mp.
Shorter Devotion timer is nice, but you don't NEED the whole 5/5 deal: any PLD worth his name knows mp management, and between (auto-)refresh/ballad they have to waste their mp to run out (it can happen, sure, but not every 10 minutes).
The added defense from ProV ain't even worth the 3 merits or the extra mp, only good for your BLUs e-peen.

[Shin Volcano]

pro v is actually pretty useless.

LOL Yes, Defense increase is comepletly useless and should not be in the game, hell why do we even cast Protect to begin with, wtf was i thinking? seriously...this one isn't even worth the bother. because EVERYTHING attacks with magical attacks, of course.

I was thinking earlier about doing 4/5 shell and 1/5 martyr 5/5 devo, but I'm not sure. Any advice? I do dyna and salvage, and i will start doing limbus here soon.

trade one devo merit for a shell one and you're golden, trust me, Shellra V caped is a god send.

Also it's hard to understand some of these posts, but martyr isn't supposed to be used when everyone is out of mp, if you had 5/5 devotion then you wouldn't have run out of said mp. It really is just a big instant cure for ohshit moments. Though sadly you have to be so close that it isn't so instant seeing as how you will often have to run in to use it. I will probably just stick to 5/5 devo 5/5 shell lol.

wtf? Devotion can't be used on your self, this makes no sense what so ever and has nothing to do with your own MP pool. not to mentioned it's on a 10-20 minute timer (depeneding on your merits) and last i checked you have to be close for devotion to. 5/5 is your choice. Martyr is a an EMERGENCY ability, just like your 2 hour...didn't think it was that hard to figure out.

[shaddix]

LOL Yes, Defense increase is comepletly useless and should not be in the game

Nono what I was saying is that 3 merits for 5 extra defense is never going to be comparable to a devotion or shellra merit. Five extra defense will have virtually no effect outside of getting beaten on by a bunch of chigoes.(very little base damage, very high attack speed).

Devotion can't be used on your self, this makes no sense what so ever and has nothing to do with your own MP pool. not to mentioned it's on a 10-20 minute timer (depeneding on your merits) and last i checked you have to be close for devotion to. 5/5 is your choice. Martyr is a an EMERGENCY ability, just like your 2 hour...didn't think it was that hard to figure out.

I know it can't be used on yourself lol, I assumed everyone would know that I'm talking about using it on other people that can cast cure. You do have to be close for devotion but devotion isn't an emergency ability so the time it takes to run in and use isn't a factor.

Good devotion sets can get 350+ mp, if that is on a ten minute timer that averages to 1.75mp/tic used perfectly(350). Obviously you can't do it perfect so we can say 1.4. And I stated in the portion of my post you quoted that martyr is an emergency ability, I was speaking to Katarzyna about posts I don't understand. Edit:i forgot about the mp it takes to cure yourself up, here's hoping to penury regen III hoho!

Martyr is an emergency ability, but there are plenty of situations where you have to run in to use it, which is going to take 1-2 seconds so it's effectiveness as an ohshit tool is crippled. Of course if you only do events where you're standing right next to the tank, then martyr is fantastic and definitely worth the merits.

edit: we both have naruto avatars lol

[Spekkio]

pro 5 is a waste. if you're spending merit slots on it, you're handicapping yourself unnecessarily. i think there's very little debate on that. as for martyr, that may be more of a personal preference question. it's obvious that if not martyr, the only option is 5/5 in devo/shellra5 so let's think about the merits of leeching from each one.

i think you could make a very strong argument that leeching merits for martyr from devotion if the majority of your tanks are pld is a questionable choice especially due to the fact that as you add more merits, each merit is worth a greater % of the recast timer down. eg, your 2nd merit in devotion reduces the recast from 20 to 17:30, a 1/8 reduction or about 12.5%. meanwhile, your 5th merit into devotion reduces it from 12:30 to 10:00, a 1/5 reduction or a full 20%. depending on how you analyze it, the 5th merit in devotion is worth almost twice as much as your 2nd merit. if you mostly have nin tanks (idk, maybe you lowman stuff and have nins) then you could consider pulling from this i suppose. even then, you can't discount the value of stuffing the MP into your rdm or blm instead, so devotion is almost never useless.

leeching from shell 5 is the other option. mdt caps out at 50%. if your regular tanks have aegis, merits beyond your 2nd have no impact on them. alternatively, if your tanks do not have aegis, every point you spend in shellra5 reduces the MDT gear they need by ~1% (yes, this is obviously a very poor estimate, but it's good enough for those who don't want to sink their teeth into the nitty gritty of mdt math and fractions of 256 each piece represents.) slash off a few % and that lieutenant's sash they needed is able to be swapped out for an MDB item or something else of value. in addition, shellra5 is useful at higher tiers if your non-aegis tanks are caught w/o their mdt gear on when a mob uses a magic ws, as well as for your other party members who are far less likely to have a solid MDT setup on when they're whacking a mob that decides to use an AoE attack.

thus my conclusion is that without aegis pld as my general tanks, though i see the merits of martyr (i made a pun!) my inclination is to still go w/ 5/5 devo/shell. if you are going to deviate from this path, i'd probably go 4/5 shell and put not more than 1 point into martyr. it has useful situations to be sure, but how many of them are situations where blowing bene is not just as viable an option? yes. you generate a lot more enmity that way, and you have a 2 hr recast, but it allows you to free up the martyr merit to be used elsewhere. it's a personal preference to be sure though, neither one makes you a BAD mage, as long as you actually USE that merit and use it effectively.

[ambutter]

I still sub SMN more often than SCH, so Cure Cast Time is better in my situation. (BRDs are a rare commodity in my LS. If they show up, they're automatically picked up by the BLMs and DDs, so I always have a RDM in my party. And Sublimination + Refresh doesn't work)

I cringe when WHMs use this logic to justify /SMN over /SCH. It's like a PLD subbing /WAR instead of /NIN because they're only gonna use one sword...

[Lycidia]

I cringe when WHMs use this logic to justify /SMN over /SCH. It's like a PLD subbing /WAR instead of /NIN because they're only gonna use one sword...

^ This

If you're going to argue bad merits = bad mage, let's try for "don't know how subjobs work" = bad mage.

Light Arts + Strategems + Conserve MP but still using /smn because Sublimation doesn't stack with Refresh?

Might as well just have 5/5 Martyr merits, imo. About the same level of thinking involved.

[Spekkio]

let's just leave the strategems out of it b/c it's hard to calculate those. let's just examine the impact on mp cost reduction. yes, you get a cast time reduction too and that's very powerful as is sublimation, but if i can demonstrate that the MP savings before these effects trumps /sch, the rest is icing on the cake. i'm also ignoring the effect of getting aspir from /sch since some mobs don't have MP, it's rather inaccurate, etc.

ok. so light arts is a straight up reduction of 10% of the MP cost of any spell you cast, rounded down (i THINK it's rounded down, correct me if i'm wrong.) so for cure3, you save 4 mp out of the 46 you'd spend. haste, 4 of the 40. so let's just eyeball the savings at 9% to account for that little bit of wiggle room. let's also consider that /sch gives us conserve MP. the base trait of conserve MP will let you keep about 7 mp for every 100 you spend (reference, ffxiclopedia article on conserve mp which has been experimentally verified before iirc), so that's 7% mp reduction right there. your total MP savings before strategems is ~16% give or take 1%. now, for /sch to be more MP efficient than /smn, you must spend N more than mp/minute for some N. to find N, let's do a little algebra.

N*.16=20
N is the MP you spend per minute as stated above. .16 is the MP savings you get from /sch as computed above. 20 is the MP recovered from autorefresh from /sch.
N=20/.16=125 MP
well lookie there! if you cast even a single cure5 every minute, /sch is already worth more MP to you than /smn.

based on the above calculations it should be glaringly obvious that /smn is woefully less MP efficient than /sch regardless of the use of sublimation or strategems.

[shaddix]

Numbers I looked at months ago, in best case scenario for /smn's higher max mp being beneficial, it simply matches /sch without sublimation. Sorry I can't remember any details at all on my testing haha, I just remember seeing that they are quite close when the higher max mp makes a difference such as a zerg.

Though the tests I remember took into account stratagems, perhaps saving 20mp on avg or something. But did not take into account sublimation.
Though obviously for prolonged fights, what spekkio stated above is the only thing to consider.

edit: obviously with sublimation you essentially have a higher max mp <_< You just can't get refresh until you use up that sublimation, though it should still outstrip smn sub if you're dumping all your mp at once.

[Shin Volcano]

Originally Posted by Katarzyna
I still sub SMN more often than SCH, so Cure Cast Time is better in my situation. (BRDs are a rare commodity in my LS. If they show up, they're automatically picked up by the BLMs and DDs, so I always have a RDM in my party. And Sublimination + Refresh doesn't work)

I think i just died a little on this one...there is absolutly no viable excuse to even think about /smn if you have /sch...unless it's a special event where you need to carby pull.

[Chen]

/smn when you have SCH is about as useful as having martyr meritted

[drwaffles]

I've never seen any use for Martyr. If you've an abundance of MP at your disposal, why bother using it? If you're short on MP to the point that you're required to use it, nine times out of ten you're probably fucked regardless.

5/5 Shellra V and 5/5 Devotion. Remember that nothing in Devotion's description says that it's only allowed to be used on PLDs.