RDM Group 2 Merits.

[Ari]

Holy shit lol, why do these topics always end up with 2-3 pages of battles over diffrences of opinion..thx to the 1st page.. i can make my decision based on what i'll use it for in the future...but this may never end it seems..

This reminds me of our merit discussion orgies on ls chat back then Lede, good times lol
think we can agree that meriting is dead boring at least - . , -

how did you split it up in the end?

[zagex]

I'm curious to know why most RDMs put more than a merit in Slow II.
It might be just me but why spend more merits into a spell that gets minimal improvements (magic accuracy on Slow II should be RDMs' last concern unless you fight Cerb and Khim a lot; the Slow potency gained is nowhere as close as the improvement level 1 Slow II has over Slow I) over spells that noticiably improve the more you merit (mainly Bio III and Phalanx II).
The difference between level 1 and capped Slow II is something like 3% potency cap right? It was posted somewhere a while ago.

Can someone link that?

[FailureMidgard]

I'm curious to know why most RDMs put more than a merit in Slow II.
It might be just me but why spend more merits into a spell that gets minimal improvements (magic accuracy on Slow II should be RDMs' last concern unless you fight Cerb and Khim a lot; the Slow potency gained is nowhere as close as the improvement level 1 Slow II has over Slow I) over spells that noticiably improve the more you merit (mainly Bio III and Phalanx II).
The difference between level 1 and capped Slow II is something like 3% potency cap right? It was posted somewhere a while ago.

Other than Blind II which is demeed the worst of T2 merits, RDM has so many good options that "wasting" half of the 10 upgrades they get on a single spell seems less proficient in the long run.
Besides what's the point of saying "Salvage RDM, HNM RDM" and so on?
Those who have said job leveled really play it only in specific scenarios and for nothing else? Seems weird to me.

First off, it's 4% roughly, which is nothing to call useless. The difference between slow1 and slow2 (1/5) is just under 6%. Sure, it's a better investment for 1 point, but 4 more points for 4% and added accuracy (which helps you land reliably with a full mnd set you need to actually hit said cap) isn't bad at all.

Bio effect doesn't change, just the MP/casttime used.

It's personal preference, and it is based on what you do. Yea, some people generalize to "HNM RDM" or "Salvage RDM". But that being said, you could go to a "non solo RDM" or a "non Salvage RDM". Look at all the events you do on your RDM, look at what is harder/etc. Customize your merits to what you do/will see the most use from. Doesn't have to be a general thing someone on the forums suggested.

[Ambir]

I'm curious to know why most RDMs put more than a merit in Slow II.
It might be just me but why spend more merits into a spell that gets minimal improvements (magic accuracy on Slow II should be RDMs' last concern unless you fight Cerb and Khim a lot; the Slow potency gained is nowhere as close as the improvement level 1 Slow II has over Slow I) over spells that noticiably improve the more you merit (mainly Bio III and Phalanx II).
The difference between level 1 and capped Slow II is something like 3% potency cap right? It was posted somewhere a while ago.

As was touched on above, on tougher mobs you get a lot more potency than just the 1% increase per level, simply because the increased Accuracy due to the merits lets you sub in potency gear. You can still land the spell, and it does a lot more.

Slow is a spell with effectively uncapped potency on endgame mobs, so anything that adds accuracy, (HQ staff, Slow II merits, Earth Merits) can effectively be used to add potency instead, by providing the necessary accuracy to land the spell without using your equipment slots (which are then used to boost your MND).

[Ahlah]

Getting Dia III is like meriting Wind accuracy, in theory it does boost the accuracy of wind based spell such as Silence and Gravity, but in practice it has very little impact on the outcome.

There is no reason not to max Slow II. Nonzerg HNM battle and solo fight can last for hours, there will be plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong. An unfortunate double critical attack, a badly timed TP move can put hours of effort in drain. How will you feel if your low man party wipe to Tiamat at 1% after 2 hrs of long grinding fight?

5/5 BioIII cuts the mp cost and reduce TP feeding to target mob. 10TP is fed to target mob everytime RDM recast Bio III, It doesn make a huge difference especially when RDM is straight tanking and NM is below 25% HP.

Try meleezerg/salvage/merit party with Dia II and Dia III, probably won't even notice any difference.

[Kirschy]

I didn't see it noted here, so I thought I would mention it.

When I initialli did my slow tests, I used fraps and recorded the attack delay of various mobs and counted the frames between each attack, and over the full duration. Unfortunately this produced non-exact results, and I was forced to use pvp/ballista and recast timers to obtain x/1024 results.

The reason I mention this is, is that for real-game applications, my initial results provide some important results. (Because when do we care about mobs recast timers?)

#1 The frames per attack round animation vary.
#1a. Most mobs have 2-3 different attack animations which each have a different frame duration and create an even greater variance between each attack round.
#2 Attack animations appear to change in discrete steps. Slow 2 /w 1 merit is undistinguishable from Slow 2 /w 2 merits in terms of attack delay on bees. Even over the full duration of the spell! (There are numerous explanations one could give for this, but they are mostly untestable. My theory is truncation of attack delay.)

What does this mean? A tank who casts Utsusemi between attacks, isn't going to gain any noticable advantage from a small increase in slow%. A tank attempts to account for lag, and uses the attack round animations when casting Utsusemi. But unfortunately lag + frame variance in attack rounds make the slow increase undetectable for a specific attack round. The obvious counterargument is that the benefit is still there, and could still possibly help. I just feel it's important people understand the truth of it.

The second point is to show that unless you're breaking the next tier/step on a mob, 1-2% extra slow might have 0 effect on a mob attacking your blink tank. Maybe the mob's recast timers are affected slightly, but it won't help your tank in blinking. In the case of Tiamat in flight, your tank won't be taking any less damage over the same duration of time /w that extra 1-2% slow unless it hits that next step/tier.

While I am bashing slow a bit here, I do it on the faith that people should understand the benefit of their merits. Small increases in slow% can be undetectable. But keeping a high MND build, taking advantage of the mg accuracy granted by the merits, and combining elegy all add up.

[Thorny]

No I did mean Ix' DRK. I know it's easier and better to kite if you have someone takes the adds away for you. I've duo'd him a few time by kiting and tossing hate. Bio III is really for solo though since you can't get rid of his Qns solo + the gharh + the pot on the way to the kiting room.

use reraise, pop, chainspell gravity qns, go to end of kiting room, die, reraise, tag ix, kite until unweakened, continue to kite for 6-8 hours, collect deed

[Shin Volcano]

This reminds me of our merit discussion orgies on ls chat back then Lede, good times lol
think we can agree that meriting is dead boring at least - . , -

how did you split it up in the end?

Avi lol....i can't stand meriting at all, i only do it when i REALLY have to..it's still at the same point right now because iderailed to doing other jobs. but when i am done with them i'll just go slow 5/5 unsure about para..and dia for that matter.


PS: you better be behaving..i should have been left this server already, but somthing just keeps me here...

[Red Demon Taoist]

Forgive me if this is common knowledge, but where are the tests that show that
1)Paralyze 2 procs more than paralyze 1

2) More merits in Para2 mean more potency.


The only tests I've read were in Kanican's LJ where the results actually showed para2 proc'ing LESS than para1. Leaving 1 to assume that the only real benefit of para2 is the added accuracy. But that test was very incomplete iirc and Kaeko admitted that it was quite inconclusive.

i

[Raineer]

Forgive me if this is common knowledge, but where are the tests that show that
1)Paralyze 2 procs more than paralyze 1

2) More merits in Para2 mean more potency.


The only tests I've read were in Kanican's LJ where the results actually showed para2 proc'ing LESS than para1. Leaving 1 to assume that the only real benefit of para2 is the added accuracy. But that test was very incomplete iirc and Kaeko admitted that it was quite inconclusive.

i

I asked that several times in the thread and there's no response, just a couple gut reactions.

[Red Demon Taoist]

I asked that several times in the thread and there's no response, just a couple gut reactions.

That's unusual for these forums. (bump)

[Kirschy]

http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/59134...e-testing.html

The testing for this is just horribly annoying~

[Red Demon Taoist]

http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/59134...e-testing.html

The testing for this is just horribly annoying~

Wow, I've looked at that about 5 times and just now noticed the 2 different sets of tests. So that's that.

I'm more willing to believe that yes, since Para2 offers substantially more potency that more merits could easily mean slightly more potency.

Looks like I'll be meriting Para2 after all and retracting my "waste of merit points" judgments on the eleventy billion rdms with para2 in my LS's lol