Merit Point HelpFollow

Hey guys, need some help with spending merit points. I have 3 currently and have been holding off using them.
I have currently maxed my smn magic skill at 269, and with my equip its up to 304.
I got the royal redingcoat and did the perp-2 aug and the pet acc + 15 for augments.

I really love dropping the Predator Claw with Garuda seeing how much damage she can do, so I guess that is the type of attack style I want to play.

I have heard a little of heavenly strike, and haveing sleepga out with the pet might be pretty cool if I could deal as much damage as Predator Claws.

Anyways, suggestions please, will go from here :) Thanks in advance, RockFisch

Edited, May 11th 2009 10:55am by RockFischNC

Recently remerited to:

5/5 Heavenly Fall - Because I like Shiva but hate Rush.
4/5 Geocrush - Because it is so hyped, and you just know no BLM will ever merit Quake II so you offer a different nuke than BLMs.
1/5 Wind Blade - Because it is the cheapest avatar to keep out and build TP to reach higher damage numbers. Also not the most common BLM merit nukes.

I dropped Ifrits BP, which I had used about 4 times since getting it. Completely useless to me, perhaps useful if you like fighting fire weak mobs.

I dropped Levi's Grand Fall, because while water is good at many things, I really only used it for the animation anyway.

I dropped Ramuh's BP, because there will never be a time when they'll ask me to come SMN and MB instead of COR and boost the Burst II casting BLMs.


I also happen to have 3 macc merits for roughly 10 base macc boost to these.

I still have 2 older accuracy merits but I'm not sure I want to drop those. Sometimes my avatars seem to have the worst accuracy even with smn skill and gear boosting them.

Lastly I have 5 spirit merits just because I disagree with meriting for performance and prefer to merit for fun.

You are combining Grand Fall and Heavenly Strike, not sure which you are referencing ^^

All 75 BPs do the same damage - the only difference will lie in the particular mob's resistances. If you are fighting an ice resistant mob, Heavenly strike will do less than all others. If fighting a mob that is wind resistant, Wind Blade will be the least effective, etc etc.

You're past the minimum 299 skill line, so you aren't in dire need of summoning skill merits but I wouldn't rule them out still. They certainly won't hurt and provide a very nice broad increase in abilities rather than one specific area.

As for group 1 merits, no one can tell you how to spend them. Sounds like you like Pred Claws a lot (I'm in the same boat). I did 5/5 physical acc & physical atk, and it's working very well for me. I can generally do more damage with Pred Claws than folks can do with a Lv5 group 2 merit BP. I'm also frequently the only guy using Garuda on an evasive mob, where other SMNs are using Spinning Dive or merit BPs, and generally out-damage them by about 20%. On the other hand if you use a lot of magic BPs, then the magical merits can also be extremely beneficial. Group 1 merit preferences all come down to your play style, no one can tell you what will be the best universally.

As for group 2, it's been pretty well covered already by the other responses. However, I will caution you not to follow the crowds on this one. I've seen people specialize certain merit BPs for all kinds of different reasons, Geocrush for its stun effect being the only truly exceptional one relative to the others. I've heard of folks using Wind Blade because they like Garuda, Heavenly Strike or Meteor Strike because they want to improve an otherwise fairly useless avatar, Grand Fall because let's face it, it's gorgeous... and my personal favorite, Thunderstorm to utilize Lightning Threnody which is frequently cast on HNMs to boost the BLM damage output. There are reasons to justify any of them, and I won't tell you which to do, but I will say it's important to have at least one that's 5/5. Each additional level has a very high impact on the damage. Don't just spread all your merits evenly, pick at least one to build up. For me personally, I have 5/5 Thunderstorm and 1 level in every other. This gives me a nice strong endgame BP which aligns with the spells the BLMs will be casting for the sake of threnodies and magic bursts; while also giving me the ability to exploit elemental weaknesses of any kind.

Ok here is now my merits went.
Group 1

Avatar physical accuracy 3
Avatar physical attack 3
Avatar magical accuracy 1
Avatar magical accuracy 1
Elemental MP cost 2

Group 2

Meteor strike
Heavenly strike 3
Wind Blade 3
Geocrush 1
Thunderstorm 2
Grand Fall 1


I might change the elemental mp cost and boost the Avatar magical ones one each some day.

I like to try to mb with shiva or Ramuh in partys or nm fights. Garuda's wind blade was a no brainer when I was doing lots of Kirin fights. Sometimes her spell did more than any blm on him.

Oh, I also Capped my Smn magic skill (Merits)

Edited, May 14th 2009 12:13am by Tailmon

Not only Grand Fall, but all Merit BPs can hit though shadows.