Optimum Merit Set Up

[Ultimagi]

WHM/SCH lacks Convert.

WHM/SCH doesn't need it.

[Valisk]

Wyvern damage being taken into consideration.

I hate it when people don't take wyvern damage into consideration. It may only be a few % but that adds to the DRGs output and I don't understand why people write it off. (Not directed at you Callisto)

[Tsuko_Asura]

WHM/SCH lacks Convert.

The only time I was ever riding my Convert timers in a merit party was when I was in the 50's and 60's healing MJSP parties.

[Callisto]

Same, that's the main reason I always got beaten by DRGs while leveling WAR, lol. I've matched and rarely beat the actual DRG ocassionally but more often than not the Wyvern put them over me, I can't recall more than once or twice when I was able to beat both combined.

[Spider-Dan]

I don't think that's so clear cut at all with DRG getting a minimum of 53 Acc and 8 base D naturally over a SAM/WAR and Jumps/Wyvern damage being taken into consideration.

Accuracy not particularly relevant, as SAM will be capped on ACC (spamming sushi) while wearing full haste.
D+8 and ATK advantage is relevant, but SAM will have 'zerk.
You are left with 2A, 140TP meditate + sekkanoki, STP advantage vs. jumps.

[Tsuko_Asura]

As well as Overwhelm, helping bridge the gap between Penta Thrust and Drakesbane.

[Spider-Dan]

If your Red Mages are using Gravity on every Wivre, that's one thing, but the light melee that a proper WHM/NIN has to offer makes up for the lack of Dia III, and even if you have two people handling Erase(which isn't usually the case), it still has quite a recast. Esuna is quick, and rids everyone of the problem instantly.

1) WHM/NIN is not WHM/SCH
2) Erase recast has never been a factor on wivres, in my experience

I'm not saying that WHM/SCH won't work. I'm saying that there is no reason to choose WHM/SCH over RDM, while there ARE reasons to choose RDM over WHM/SCH. Therefore, in a discussion of "optimum merit set-up," RDM is selected.

[Khamsin]

The only time I was ever riding my Convert timers in a merit party was when I was in the 50's and 60's healing MJSP parties.

Your melees should teach my melees how to keep shadows up. They'd sooner use their TP than put shadows up first. If they could, I'm sure they'd jump at the chance to sub SAM and sheath their ridills for a 2hander and just let me cure spam them.

[pchan]

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

Focus/aggressor/madrigal. If your DDs eat pizza, they will cap accuracy while keeping their haste on them. North camp is actually less evasive than middle with pizza, as the middle camp has more puks and more obuscate (I get ~90% only there while I get 92-93% at jade sepulcher). Lurkers are no problem.

[Tsuko_Asura]

Your melees should teach my melees how to keep shadows up. They'd sooner use their TP than put shadows up first. If they could, I'm sure they'd jump at the chance to sub SAM and sheath their ridills for a 2hander and just let me cure spam them.

People who show up to my merit parties /NIN find themselves leaving very, very quickly, obviously barring top-notch Thieves.

[Callisto]

Accuracy not particularly relevant, as SAM will be capped on ACC (spamming sushi) while wearing full haste.
D+8 and ATK advantage is relevant, but SAM will have 'zerk.
You are left with 2A, 140TP meditate + sekkanoki, STP advantage vs. jumps.

I'm not personally sure what a 'strong' SAM polearm build looks like compared to a DRG TP build, but as often as birds largely resist SC damage I can't really compare Sekka vs. other tools since having one Rana without Hagun buff and a mostly resisted darkness may end up as less than just 2 plain Gekkos.

As far as Berserk that's definitely a large chunk, though it's only 60% of the time and DRG should naturally have at least 100 Attack up on a SAM from the skill difference/Aurum or Askar body, and mithkabobs(if we're giving the SAM Crab Sushi spam I think we can assume this for the DRG).

Edit: Ignore the Sekka comment, my brain isn't working and I forgot we're talking Polearm.

[Tsuko_Asura]

1) WHM/NIN is not WHM/SCH
2) Erase recast has never been a factor on wivres, in my experience

I'm not saying that WHM/SCH won't work. I'm saying that there is no reason to choose WHM/SCH over RDM, while there ARE reasons to choose RDM over WHM/SCH. Therefore, in a discussion of "optimum merit set-up," RDM is selected.

Which is why I'm not suggesting WHM/SCH.

As far as I'm concerned, Mystic Boon changed the way White Mage should play in a merit party.

[FailureMidgard]

agreed except bullshit drg is with polearm sam for sure, I've never lost to pole sam so far and good ones always tied or beaten them by small marginal[2~5%/wyvern's dmg].

You also think 66 attack beats out 9% haste though. Sorry, I think you're wrong here.

I don't think that's so clear cut at all with DRG getting a minimum of 53 Acc and 8 base D naturally over a SAM/WAR and Jumps/Wyvern damage being taken into consideration.

You're missing the fact the sam has +19% WS damage, and WSes ~35-40% more often. Dragoon has it's benefits, but a good/wellgeared sam should beat out a dragoon. A lot of sams don't really have proper pole setups (half don't use full haste, a lot don't have usu body, etc).

[Spider-Dan]

Focus/aggressor/madrigal. If your DDs eat pizza, they will cap accuracy while keeping their haste on them.

Did you miss the parts where I said "if you have acceptable accuracy on Lurkers, you have MAJOR overkill on everything else" and "if you add accuracy specifically for lurkers, you have to give up haste/ATK"?

Pizza for Lurkers means you aren't eating meat for everything else.
Madrigal for Lurkers means you are giving up March or Minuet.

[Ultimagi]

1) WHM/NIN is not WHM/SCH
2) Erase recast has never been a factor on wivres, in my experience

1) You don't need to /NIN to melee.
2) Esuna is still better, no matter what you say.

[Tsuko_Asura]

1) You don't need to /NIN to melee.
2) Esuna is still better, no matter what you say.

The goal is still to accumulate TP as quickly as possible, which DW will help with.

[Spider-Dan]

Esuna is not better than Dia3.

And anyone who is saying "I never need to convert" better be partying with fulltime Hasso/zerk/Counterstance DDs. If the word "shadow" is coming out of your mouth, you just disqualified yourself.

[Tsuko_Asura]

Esuna is not better than Dia3.

And anyone who is saying "I never need to convert" better be partying with fulltime Hasso/zerk/Counterstance DDs. If the word "shadow" is coming out of your mouth, you just disqualified yourself.

I get what you're saying, I just believe that the combination of Esuna and light melee more than evens the playing field.

And I'm certainly not suggesting that I don't use Convert, I just never find myself riding the timers. In most situations, its pretty superfluous.

[Callisto]

I don't party with /NINs at all, but with 10-12/tick Refresh and a minute or so down with cookie between Haste cycles I still rarely need to ride the timer, especially on birds. If the DDs are going all out they're probably killing fast enough that they aren't taking massive amounts of damage.

And you can't assume RDM = Dia3, I'm a career RDM and still did not make that part of my merit set.

[Ultimagi]

The goal is still to accumulate TP as quickly as possible, which DW will help with.

There would be some extensive math involved in the MP efficiency of Dual Wield versus Light Arts.

Esuna is not better than Dia3.

And anyone who is saying "I never need to convert" better be partying with fulltime Hasso/zerk/Counterstance DDs. If the word "shadow" is coming out of your mouth, you just disqualified yourself.

You use Dia without shadows and your melee magically never die? Your melee are /NIN to block reflects or /SAM to do more damage, not both.