are all merit ws worth getting?Follow

At one point I heard of ppl doing 1/5 of Entropy to use it just for the MP return. But any other time its pick 3 and max them out.

The merit WSs have huge mod bonuses at 5/5 merits, but at 1/5, these mods are fairly pathetic.

SE has mentioned they will (probably) be adjusting the merit weaponskills. They plan to boost the base mods at 1/5 merits and reducing the bonus for each merit point after that. When that happens, having merit weaponskills at 1/5 might be worthwhile in some cases, but until then, it's better to max 3 of them and call it good.

No, 100% is only when it's at 5/5. As if right now, 1/5 merits is 20%, 2/5 is 40%, etc. Once this update comes (whenever it comes), 1/5 will be 80%, 2/5 will be 85%, and so on. 1/5 into a weaponskill after the update will be like 4/5 into it before the update.

SE messed it up. Byrth and others over on BG did some testing on them when they came out and it was clearly indicating 20% for each merit, not 17%.

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/106679-Test-Server-Findings?p=4917512&viewfull=1#post4917512

edit - wow, longest refresh ever, got beat by hours. Yeah, the Alpha is 0.85, so a 20% mod ends up being .17, at 5/5 it ends up being .85.



Edited, Apr 27th 2013 7:39am by TybudX

For the most part, you need put 3 or 4 into them to make them on par with the previously best WS. Shoha gets useful at level 3 or 4 (depending on your build), but some just don't seem to catch up in some cases. NIN is one such WS. Mileage can vary based on what you are fighting and gear choice, but for the most part I was very disappointed when I first took it to 5/5. Still tweaking the build periodically hoping it will blow me away one day, but more often than not I wind up using Jin over Shun unless I'm going for a chain.

Guess that's really about the only reason to have some of them unlocked without maxing the points...to have WS chain options you might not otherwise have, or for utility (like Entropy).

Not knowing what gear you have or what levels your jobs are, 5/5 Shijin Spiral is great for Monk. It loses to Victory Smite in Abyssea but you need Verethragna for that. The biggest problem with Blade: Shun is Ninja. It's a good WS if you have Kikoku or good attack buffs, but Ninja is really only good inside Abyssea, with Blade: Hi, for farming other Empys. Shun is good, but unless you are a main Ninja you will get more mileage out of other merit WSs.

Really that's it. It comes down to what your main jobs are. The only one of the merit WSs that is truly lolzy is Apex Arrow. I can't think of a situation that exists where a Ranger would want to use it over something else.

edit - I should note that Blade: Jin is Ninja's next best WS option inside Abyssea if you don't have Kannagi, or is at least comparable enough to fully merited Shun that it's not worth it to use the merits on it if you want to use them on a different WS.

Edited, Apr 27th 2013 11:19am by TybudX

The good weaponskills are worth dumping a merit into if you want job versatility. I currently have axe, great sword, dagger, h2h, merited, with 5/5 in dagger and 1 in the others, leaving me 7 merits left to allocate. I'm working with many jobs now and haven't done much abby exp ally since capping combat skills and exp on over half my jobs, so I just merit as i get exp from normal play. Most of my jobs are fully merited in t1 and 2 job specific and all basics are covered, so the last ws merits will come soon enough. But there are some merit weaponskills that are pretty terrible even at 5/5. I know firsthand that apex arrow is one of them because it only has a 3.0 fTP mod, whereas sidewinder carries a 5.0 tp mod. Even if I merited apex to 5/5 the agi mod wouldn't be enough to make up for the weaker mechanics. The current bows have such insane base damage to begin with, and with the way bow fSTR mod works it's better to spam sidewinder than merit apex, so long as i can hit. I've tinkered with 1 apex merit but the difference between sidewinder and apex was pretty huge. The scythe weaponskill is another lackluster choice, which is why dark knights nowadays don't even use their iconic weapon much and mostly stick to spamming resolution. However if you wanna merit 6 or 7 or even 8 weaponskills and keep only one or two maxed out, the new mods make it much more forgiving to do so. 1 merit provides the equivalent of more than 4 merits under the original specs, so there's a lot of leeway for personal preference in the merit skill category. It's much more forgiving to work with many jobs and many weaponskills now than it used to be. Some people dislike the weaponskill changes, but I'm fairly content enough with the system as it is now.