Optimum Merit Set Up

[Damane]

Best exp/hour I have had has always came from 3 DD, RDM, BRDx2/BRD&COR parties, either at MMJSP or at colibris taking all the birds reach-able and killing wivres/mamools till other birds repop. I have never had the privilege to merit in a 2 DD, 3 support and 1 healer party, though.

dont put the cor into the 3 supports, a fully fledged cor will shoot every mob 1k+ detonators out in a BRD BRD COR DD DD RDM pt. That is no exagaration. (at least on birds)

[Darlantan]

Indeed, I was just trying to point out I hadnt got experiences with double bard and cor.

[Milkster]

My best Setup so far was BRD COR COR RDM SAM (Polearm) DRG @ Middle birds. Cleared out the middle and half of bottom camps we averaged around 32~33k/hr with COR/WAR/DRK/SAM Rolls and I believe March/Minuet. Another Party that came close was DNC DRG RDM BRD SAM COR. DNC is sick I had to do very little healing or hasting since Waltzes and Sambas are instant ~.~

[Atolm]

My best setup has been so far DRG x3 BRD x2 COR on birds. 1 DRG subs /mage, and with one of the brd's is more than enough to heal. COR subs /rng. Pulling from both camps you can parse 30k/h easily.

[Neosutra]

Any exp party I'm in.

[Dimmauk]

My top 3 favorites are:

Bird camp
3xDD(WAR, SAM, DRK, MNK, DRG)
2xBRD
1XRDM

Bird Camp
3xBLU
2xBRD
1xCOR

KRT
4XMNK
1xBRD
1xWHM

Ranger and Thief parties on Birds is fun too, but I havent seen that in a long time.

[Milkster]

Any exp party I'm in.

Hot. How long until the tattoo is finished I'd rather look at the front than the back?

[Neosutra]

Hot. How long until the tattoo is finished I'd rather look at the front than the back?

Last part (right chest) this Friday. But I need to get some of the other parts recolored, as they didnt set as well as I like.

As for the OP:

My favorite exp party has always been:

Rdm Brd Cor 3 solid melee. BrdX2 is generally superior damage than bard/cor, but the corsairs roll makes the exp much better. Favorite camp is middle birds pulling from top and bottem as well and suplementing with Wivres.

[SephYuyX]

PT:
SAM/WAR
SAM/WAR
SAM/WAR
SAM/WAR
COR/WAR
BRD/NIN

Outisde:
WHM/SCH
RDM/WHM

[Spider-Dan]

I don't see how middle MJSP can compete as a camp. Too many puks, not enough mamool.

North MJSP is better (only 2 puks) but:

a) you have to deal with Lurkers, which require you to drop some haste or attack for accuracy, slowing kill speed
b) when you start killing really fast, you have to fight wyverns, which use paralyze and dispel (not to mention Fang Rush) too often to be a desirable merit mob; dispel is particularly problematic for parties with CORs

At birds/wivres, I think the best party is probably:

RDM BRD BRD COR DD DD

with DDs broken down into three tiers...

tier 1- KC RNG, Soboro/Yoichi SAM
tier 2- PLM SAM, PLM WAR, (BB MNK/WAR?)
tier 3- Relic THF, elite DRG, elite RNG

[Drace]

I don't see how middle MJSP can stand up to birds, as a camp. Too many puks, not enough mamool.

North MJSP is better (only 2 puks) but:

a) you have to deal with Lurkers, which require you to drop some haste or attack for accuracy, slowing kill speed
b) when you start killing really fast, you have to fight wyverns, which use paralyze and dispel (not to mention Fang Rush) too often to be a desirable merit mob; dispel is particularly problematic for parties with CORs

At birds/wivres, I think the best party is probably:

RDM BRD BRD COR DD DD

with DDs broken down into three tiers...

tier 1- KC RNG, Soboro/Yoichi SAM
tier 2- PLM SAM, PLM WAR, (BB MNK/WAR?)
tier 3- Relic THF, elite DRG, elite RNG

Seconded - even with the best DD in the game, wyverns can still drop a couple of time consuming TP moves. I've personally had by far the best results at Birds with 2x DD, 2x BRD, RDM, COR as well.

[Callisto]

I've never really had Lurkers or Skoffins make much of an impact, though usually the DDs are using pizza and/or are WARs with Aggressor, and the Skoffins never really get off more than 2 TP moves.

As far as MMJSP Middle vs. North, there's more Puks to deal with, but especially with very high killspeed a lot of times at North I find the party spending too much time walking between mobs for my taste, Puks die in maybe 15 seconds and there's always a mob directly in front of you at Middle.

Birds may possibly be a better camp, but I can't remember the last time I've had the entire place to myself without idiots trying to camp on top or a DRG soloing or some shit.

[Spider-Dan]

I've never really had Lurkers or Skoffins make much of an impact, though usually the DDs are using pizza and/or are WARs with Aggressor, and the Skoffins never really get off more than 2 TP moves.

Lurkers are always going to make an impact (unless you have THF with capped Feint, but who brings THF to mamool?). Their evasion is dramatically superior to everything else that you are fighting. This means one of two things:

1) you do just fine on Lurkers without changing anything, which means that your accuracy is MAJOR overkill on everything else, and should be switched out for more haste/ATK
2) you need extra accuracy for Lurkers, which means that you are necessarily dropping haste/ATK to get it

[Zatho]

Got around 31k exp per hour once at birds, setup was 2 brd cor DD 2 war/sam rdm. Best party i have ever been a part of got 9 merits in 3 hours.

[Callisto]

No I agree that some changes are made, generally dumping Haste for Acc(as BRD when I know we're coming to the Lurker/Infiltrator x2 side I'll sometimes toss up March/Mad instead of March/March), but unless someone badly whiffs a WS(ocassionally I won't think on COR and try to Slug instead of Deto) I've never seen them make a noticeable impact on the chain. Yeah it'll take 3-5 seconds longer on that specific kill, but nothing that major that it's going to make a several thousand XP/hr impact.

[Tsuko_Asura]

The number of people suggesting the use roll combinations that don't include Corsair's is extremely alarming.

[Callisto]

I still have yet to find myself in a situation where there isn't always another couple of mobs directly in front of us to kill if you include Wivres/Skoffins/whatever, though I've never really attempted to calculate if it'd be better to exclude those mobs and use COR roll.

[tsola]

A lot of people still keep mentioning RDM; why?

WHM/SCH is just as good; Esuna is extremely useful on Wivres too, if it does Demoralizing Roar early enough.

[Tsuko_Asura]

I still have yet to find myself in a situation where there isn't always another couple of mobs directly in front of us to kill if you include Wivres/Skoffins/whatever, though I've never really attempted to calculate if it'd be better to exclude those mobs and use COR roll.

Always. Even if you're in a medicore party that isn't killing Wivre, you're looking at thousands of EXP/H difference just by using Corsair's Roll. Dan can probably correct me on this, but I'm fairly certain the average of a max-Snake Eye Corsair should give you ~18% bonus? If you're getting 25k/H beforehand, that's an additional 4,500/H.

[Shin Volcano]

A lot of people still keep mentioning RDM; why?

WHM/SCH is just as good; Esuna is extremely useful on Wivres too, if it does Demoralizing Roar early enough.

This, tried and tested my self, WHM/SCH is very much capable of keeping up even in some cases better then rdm due to there massive curing capabilites if shit hits the fan, as long as your meele aren't retarded. problem is still to many one-sided people afraid to not even attempt one.


and i like how MNK is never mentioned in any "optimum" set ups, are they the basterd childs of merit pts now? i can't remember the last time i even got invited as mnk...

and please do NOT mention KRT, that exp comes no where near any TOAU area...