BLU tier 2 merits

[Rik]

So far I've merited Assimilation 5/5 and 1 upgrade in Diffusion (mainly for teh lulz but I still find it handy to have). I'm not really sure what to do with the remaining 4 upgrades, lowering the timer on diffusion doesn't really seem worth the trouble, so I'm trying to decide between 4/5 convergence or enchaintment.

The added mab and macc of convergence are nice and all, but I don't find myself nuking or spamming breaths much lately, also 10 min timer is kinda meh.

Enchaintment on the other hand, it comes into play every time I use chain affinity, which is usually whenever it's ready. Still, 40 tp bonus would only really help me when on /thf casting cannonball, since I probably wouldn't even notice the added accuracy on disseverment and those two are basically the only spells I use chain affinity with.
From the (very limited and approssimative) tests I did, it seems 40 tp on a 0% CASA cannonball would amount to a 5-6% dmg increase in a capped pdif situation, which isn't a huge amount but it's not too shabby either.

Regarding my playstyle, BLU is my main job and I try to find a use for it in every situation, but usually it boils down to party healing + light DD (dynamis, limbus, einherjar etc) or head butt whore + moderate DD (usually in smaller events like nyzul). Of course I still enjoy my fair share of solo play, may it be campaign or merits or the random wotg bc. My ls doesn't camp hnms or stuff like that, so while I devoted a lot of my funds and efforts to get a decent cannonball build, in the end I only use it when fighting Odin and some ZNMs.
I have a MND nuking set and a HP breath setup, but aside from the occasional "I want to feel like a (extremely gimp) BLM" moment, and niche events like the wyrm ks99 or the bugard nm in maze monger, I don't find myself nuking too often.
Lately I've been joining ls merit parties with nice results so I'd probably be interested in meriting what would help me more in that situation. On that topic, does anyone know if mp drainkiss stacks with convergence? I know mab doesn't have an effect on aspir spells, but convergence mab applies to breaths and 1k needles, maybe it works with mp drainkiss too?

Thanks in advance for any help on the matter.

[Shinryuu]

Nothing to do with your original merit question but I don't think you've thought about the possibility of BLU tank yet, based on your post. I think you'd enjoy that. There's been a major topic about BLU tanking ranging from Byakko to fire resist sets etc., search for it.

[LD]

The correct answer is don't worry about it. Assimilation is the only G2 every BLU absolutely needs, everything else is niche. If you have something better to blow merits on, do that first. After that, stop meriting, they aren't worth the effort.

[Classikmage]

Nothing to do with your original merit question but I don't think you've thought about the possibility of BLU tank yet, based on your post. I think you'd enjoy that. There's been a major topic about BLU tanking ranging from Byakko to fire resist sets etc., search for it.

Do you have a link to the page? Search function hates me usually, never seems to work as intended.

[Arthars]

i stopped at 1 diffusion(for occasional aoe warmup or refuel if we dont have a haste for some god damn reason) and 5 blu points

thats all for now but i was thinking 4 enchainment to your current blu group 2 should be ok....but i really dunno if its worth the 17 merits

[el_tio]

The correct answer is don't worry about it. Assimilation is the only G2 every BLU absolutely needs, everything else is niche. If you have something better to blow merits on, do that first. After that, stop meriting, they aren't worth the effort.

Enchainment's far and away the best G2 thing to merit, considering how large the effect is on the frequently used CA...unless you're going to argue somehow that TP mods aren't a continuum. Assimilation's nice to have but it's just a luxury. Convergence is just for e-peen screenshots, the only real use for it is that it can prevent you from hitting and aggroing unintended targets. If you wanted it to be useful you'd have to go all the way which is just giving up too much IMO. Diffusion's not worth putting more than 1 in, IMO, and that I'd want for diffusion exuviation hate. And that's what I think.

So I'm going to do 5/5 Enchainment, 4/5 Assimilation, 1/5 Diffusion.

[LD]

Enchainment's far and away the best G2 thing to merit, considering how large the effect is on the frequently used CA...unless you're going to argue somehow that TP mods aren't a continuum.

http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/ffxi-...ml#post2504064

If I'm right, it's completely useless before 50-90%. If I'm wrong, the usefulness of even 1 more set point outweighs that of a 0.01 bonus every 2 minutes. Also, you're a moron for saying anything other than Assimilation is the best G2 when the job is built on whoring as many stats and traits as possible (the former being doubled during CA, increasing their potency beyond whatever +50% might offer.).

[el_tio]

Yeah I remember that, but I don't remember anything backing it up.

What's this .01 bonus you're talking about, anyways? Enchainment's a 10 TP bonus, which translates into more than .01 on a FTP mod spell.

5 set points nets around 3 of a stat usually. Using a more or less accurate hypothetical example with Cannonball, a spell with high stat mods, a spell has a base damage of 166, which goes up to 168 (generously) from getting bumped up a FSTR and WSC tier. Or a 1.2% gain. It's pretty much the same with CA on, going from 251 to 254, another 1.2% gain.

If under 100% TP has an effect, the FTP mod on Cannonball would go from 1.75 to 1.875, or about a 7% gain.

Really, the bonus from the set points is trivial compared to Enchainment, unless you're spamming spells until your MP pool is dry. I do like having the extra comfort tho so I'm taking 4/5 Assimilation. The extra points aren't really "needed" unless you're inefficient in setting your spells/can't make up your mind on what you want to set.

[jimbobsonofgod]

The only blu merit i regret getting is diffusion.
If i wasn't so lazy I'd ditch it and put that into enchainment for 5/5

[LD]

Spoiler: show

Yeah I remember that, but I don't remember anything backing it up.

What's this .01 bonus you're talking about, anyways? Enchainment's a 10 TP bonus, which translates into more than .01 on a FTP mod spell.

5 set points nets around 3 of a stat usually. Using a more or less accurate hypothetical example with Cannonball, a spell with high stat mods, a spell has a base damage of 166, which goes up to 168 (generously) from getting bumped up a FSTR and WSC tier. Or a 1.2% gain. It's pretty much the same with CA on, going from 251 to 254, another 1.2% gain.

If under 100% TP has an effect, the FTP mod on Cannonball would go from 1.75 to 1.875, or about a 7% gain.

Really, the bonus from the set points is trivial compared to Enchainment, unless you're spamming spells until your MP pool is dry. I do like having the extra comfort tho so I'm taking 4/5 Assimilation. The extra points aren't really "needed" unless you're inefficient in setting your spells/can't make up your mind on what you want to set.

.......Just merit Assimilation.

Spoiler: show

I don't remember anything refuting it either. There are only two people on BG who I look to when I want to understand BLU, and one of them supported my view point by stating that there's probably a reason all physical BLU multiplying markers are at 0, 150, and 300 instead of 100, 200, and 300. It wasn't certain, but it's no less reasonable than anything else. I didn't post that as proof that I'm right, I posted that as proof that I question the usefulness of Enchainment before 100%.

The fTP span on Cannonball from 0 to 150% is .375. Divide that by 15 and you get 0.025 for every 10 TP, assuming that the growth rate is constant and that it begins at 1. Both are unknown. If both are true, yea +0.015 is an extremely significant amount over my approximation referencing no particular spell. -_-

Blu isn't just CB, even in end game. Even if it were, doubling stat mods DOES contribute more than a ~7% increase to the multiplier. Does that make 1 or 2 or 3 stats more powerful? No, but if you didn't whore as many stats as possible, you wouldn't have as much to double and then you wouldn't have as much to multiply.

Don't get me wrong, CB is a significant boost when you're holding back spells for 2 minutes (Pro-tip: A BLU doesn't need to spam spells to still hemorrhage MP. If you're not using them at a decent clip, it's either because you can't or wont, not necessarily because you shouldn't.) However, in any other situation, it's not going to be affecting most of the spells you use. An additional spell or a spell upgrade, on the other hand, can completely change what you're able to do and how well you're able to do it without being restricted to a JA. That is how 1 set point is superior to Enchainment.


Frankly, CA has become a lot like Focus/Dodge on MNK to me. They're powerful, but it wont improve a good player's performance unless it's under special circumstances (CA + CB, Focus + 2H). I don't purposefully not use them, I just forget. If I notice that I need them, I realize I have bigger problems than a lapse in memory.

[Meian]

Assimilation 5/5
Enchaintment 5/5 or -- 4/5 and one into Diffusion for emergency Exuviation hate control (if you plan to tank as Blu)

No doubt about it

[Suiram]

I know that Nagamaki showed at some point that fTP increases linearly from 100% to 200%, and then 200% to 300%, so if something has 1.0, 2.0, and 4.0 fTP respectively, then at 150% it'd be 1.5 (halfway between 1.0 and 2.0%) and at 250% it'd be 3.0 (halfway between 2.0 and 4.0). My personal unverfied belief is that this happens in 256ths. Incidentally, I was looking at spirits within last night, which is listed as 4/32 at 100% and 6/32 at 200% on other wiki (which would be 32 and 48 if calculated as 256ths), and at 143% TP it was 38/256, which would be (floor(16*.43)+32)/256. The fact that so many other fTP values for WS and BLU spells use 256ths makes me assume this is similar to how it works.

The 0%, 150%, and 300% thing is just because that's how Studio Gobli has it labeled, I'm not sure how they arrived at it, or if it's certain, but I think it's a safe assumption to use for now. So since Cannonball is 448/256 at 0% and 544/256 at 150%, 50% on that assumption would be 466/256 (as floor(50/150 * 56) = 18, and 18+448 = 466). The question I raised in that linked thread was that maybe there are 3 "pieces" instead of 2, a 0 > 100 line, a 100 > 200 line, and 200 > 300 line, instead of the two 0 > 150 and 150 > 300 lines. Sadly, I think it might be difficult to test something so specific with the way crit pDIF is now? Maybe someone has ideas. Anyway, assuming it is around what I wrote just now that's a 4% increase in damage, not that bad, at least for that one situation for that one spell.

[LD]

Sandbagged one of my points while supporting the more important one.

http://epicwin.org/img/luckystar/review/05.jpg


It just seems more likely that SE was lazy and only started growth at 100%, like WSs. I don't pretend to know exactly how WS calculations are framed, but I doubt they would enter useless numbers from 1-99% when it's impossible for WSs to fire at that point. Does that mean physical spells definitely don't have them? No, but my point is I think SE just CP'd for the whole set and I've never seen anything that made me think otherwise.

[Suiram]

It's partly my fault, I think, for being unclear in the BLU thread on this subject. This is all I was really trying to say in my post there:

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/5226/ftp.jpg
http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/ftp.jpg/1/w1083.png

I don't mean to dispute that it is piecewise-linear between the reported fTP values, I was only doubting the number of pieces (two versus three). Although, like I said in my above post, in the absence of further evidence I would assume just the two pieces, since it wouldn't make sense why Studio Gobli wouldn't report 100 and 200 if it were 3, but it's kind of too late to test this all easily now.

[Wolfknight]

I decided to do some testing with tp and Vertical Cleave using 70 + 72 str all CASATA VC on the lvl 0 rabbits, and heres results only did 5 data for each tp and 10 for 0 though:
NO TP:
1953, 1758, 1904, 1888, 1741
1926, 1886, 1788, 1927, 1868
25% TP:
1714, 1772, 1758, 1809, 1953
50% TP:
1684, 1784, 1664, 1883, 1740
75% TP:
1939, 1666, 1728, 1747, 1896
100% TP:
1918, 1722, 1918, 1942, 1689
Averages 0, 25, 50, 75, 100
1863.9, 1800.6, 1751, 1795.2, 1837.87

I know it's not enough to conclude anything but from the results, it certainly seems like adding tp under and up to 100% doesn't increase Ftp atleast on Vertical Cleave, maybe it just raises attack cause it seems to effect stronger mobs more, if someone wants to try testing with cannonball to proof otherway feel free.

[Suiram]

Vertical Cleave has static fTP of 3.0, regardless of TP. ;x If you are interested in testing more, maybe try with Death Scissors? 1.5 at 0% and 2.75 at 150%.

[Wolfknight]

Vertical Cleave has static fTP of 3.0, regardless of TP. ;x If you are interested in testing more, maybe try with Death Scissors? 1.5 at 0% and 2.75 at 150%.

really I wasn't aware X.x, I assumed all spells varied at tp since before I've noticed increased dmg in tp for VC on tougher stuff, I'll play with death scissor tomorrow then.

[LD]

Headbutt has the same TP growth as CB (though much lower D, obviously.)
Ram Charge could work too.

[el_tio]

I'd recommend just doing a set of CAs with 0 TP and a set of CAs with 90 TP (or less if you have enchainment). It should show a more clear distinction than doing a set at 0, 25, 50, 75, etc.

[Vegetatheprince]

I am 5/5 enchainment, 4/5 assimilation, 1/5 diffusion. (capped CA recast as well) I think you have to choose what type of Blu you want to be, breath/magical or physical, and stick to it in both group 1 and 2 merits.

Hoping April will mean I can do skill and last 4 sword.