Merit SuggestionsFollow

I'm curious on the Physical and Magical Attack and Accuracy which way most summoner's went. I'd love some feedback on what seems to be most useful for you and why? I've been on a three year hiatus. Coming back, I see some promise in the new Meritable Magical Attacks. I'm thinking I may put mine in Wind Blade, as I have a tendency to favor Garuda. Need to figure out what to do about the merits that go along with the physical and magical bloodpacts.

Also, in attributes section, where'd you put points: +Mnd, +Vit, etc.? I've not finished out my other subs yet, for /sch and /rdm and I'm not sure that putting a lot into mind is still going to be as useful?

As far as other stats go, I'm thinking evasion boost, some staff boost, spell interrupt down, -enm maybe, smn skill.

Any feedback from fellow summoners on anything merit related would be appreciated. :) Take care.

No, I level summoner only, subs for summoner, that's it. :) So I can stick all those merits into things that benefit me.

Yeah I had 2 merits in physical accuracy and 3 in physical attack. I was wondering if it's best to put another 2 and 3 into magical, or pull the merits I've got in physical. I'm not sure what to do there.

Thank you for the advice. :)

5 in STR is probably the only valid choice. Kind of like getting suppa is only choice.

Back in the days (currently on a break still, damn credit card...) I was planing to get Phy.Acc & Mgc.Acc.
SMN isn't my main so I though with the lack of gear and merits that improving the overall accuracy would be a good idea.

Since then a lot of things happened. I never took the time to merit my SMN, Add-On Scenario came out with new gears & stats. Now there's Abyssea and other stuffs...

Now, I wonder if I should go with Phy & Mgc Atk instead of Acc since this can be covered with skills (overcap ?).
Well still havn't took any precise decision here, I still lack of Merit BP and now still 75... A lot to do before =P
Someday I'll take a decision, just hope it will be the good one =P

If you are going full on 8/8 SMN magic merits, I think it'd be safe to go with 5 P. Attack/5 M. Attack. That is what I have done. My merits combined with the gear I swap into for Predator Claws pretty much guarantee I connect my hits except for the odd miss here and there. I think maybe 1 in 20 hits will be a miss. Who knows whether that is because I don't have P. Acc merits or whether those misses would have happened anyway? I've wondered whether I should drop a P. Attack merit and stick a couple merits into P. Accuracy, but it might just be for the placebo effect because nobody really knows when avatar accuracy is capped.

As discussed above, don't put any merits into M. Acc. Complete waste.

i know alot of people put their merits into wind blade, but i went 5/5 on Geocrush. I really like the additional stun that geocrush has and it's really nice for when ever i'm in a group that kites an NM, makes it stop for a few sec so kiter can do some nuking, and Titan lasts a bit longer because of it. plus titan gets stoneskin and earthen armor. then i unlocked the rest of BPs. i'm currently working on magic acc and magic att, idk if the acc helps but i feel like it'd give me more consistent numbers.

Geocrush is my favorite merit BP for these very reasons. I think it is by far the most useful merit BP and I'm surprised more people don't merit it. I have 5/5 Geocrush and 5/5 Heavenly Strike (because of Atma of Beyond), and I have not once missed not having access to the other 4 merit BPs. Although I do wish I had the pretty animation on Levi's BP. Geocrush is ugly ; ;



Edited, Oct 29th 2010 11:22am by Polltergeist

I think most of us have 5/5 Wind Blade not because it is any better then the others but simply because most of us alternate with PC depending on the situation.

I am currently at 5 Wind 1 Geo and 1 Heavenly strike.

I also have 5/5 MATT.

I am really on the fence on what to merit next simply because we still have 14 lvls to go and if one of the other avatars gets a BP that surpasses PC, it might push me to merit that avatars BP, similar to how PC has influenced people in to meriting Wind Blade.

Like some have already said, group 1 merits have always been a mixed bag. How you prefer to play influences your choices... but to break down your realistic choices..

Elemental Spirit builds are all but dead by now. They don't get new spells. Few people ever invested in this build in the past (I did), and the only reason why anyone would still use this today would only be Light Spirit and saving like 5-10mp during Elemental Siphons.

Between Physical and Magical Accuracy, it actually makes more sense to pick Physical Acc, even if you were to use both of them, because avatar magic attacks with enough smn. skill are relatively far more accurate than physical BPs ever will be, even with merits.

Also, the fact that you cannot miss magic attacks makes this more true. A magic 'miss' is a full resist, which are rare as they come, and they still deal damage. Physical 'miss' is 0 dmg on single hit BPs. You've got less to lose with lower m.acc than phys acc.

And... avatars (lets forget about spirits for now) aren't capable of dealing magic attacks outside of BPing, so your physical acc merits will come to more use than magical, especially now that we're able to keep them out full-time in Abyssea and meleeing hits can actually amount to something.

In light of that, physical acc also contributes to magic attack, since more acc = more tp gain = more tp for magic BPs. assuming you use them, which you should be.

For Group 2, you'll want at least 1 point in each BP for versatility - celestials don't have good magic BPs without them. Additional merits are good for specialization in an avatar you think you'll use more often. All are just as good because unless the mobs have specific extreme elemental weakness or resistance, they'll do very similar damage.

I'm torn now with my merits, but not really at the point where i want to change them. I still use my spirit build for triggering magic weakness in abyssea solo and small groups, and with atmas the spells do land for a decent amount. I've hit magic trigger with banishIII soloing antlion for my horn a few times now, of course that point is null if you're in a big alliance or with a blm who can cast all those spells. I think i'll switch them out for acc or something once i'm done getting all the stuff i want from NM's in abyss. With how easy exp rolls in now with abyssea, even without doing a party particularly for exp, I just switch merits around at will every 3 days or so. Would be nice to see them at least get tier V spells though.

Edited, Oct 31st 2010 1:51am by shadowkind

With how accurate magical BP's are, I don't think we'll miss the +5 skill. Baibai BP'ing in Marduk Shalwar/Oracle's Braconi, hello Caller Legs +1!

Thank you all, this is just the information that I needed. :) Helped a lot.

100% trigger conserve MP would be great. I wouldn't expect 100% MP conserved though.

Wow so many people did physical attack.

Personally I decided against meriting avatar physical attack because of this.

EDIT: I will quote it so people do not have to go digging for it.



Edited, Nov 9th 2010 7:45pm by BelenosSwiftWater

2% is not completely and utterly worthless. Completely and utterly worthless is 0%. In this game, 2% is actually fairly significant. People pay millions upon millions for 1% more haste, for 1% more accuracy, or for 1% more MP efficiency. I love my physical attack merits.

It's all relative, really. Magic Acc merits are a complete joke, magic BPs almost never resist. Physical Acc merits are similar... it's possible to get so much accuracy now through skill and equipment that it's hard to imagine it won't be capped on BPs, so the only real benefit for Phys Acc merits is for the normal melee swings of the avatar. I honestly think the two Acc categories have the least payoff, and the two Attack ones have the most.

However, since I basically never use magic BPs at all, I have yet to drop my Phys Acc merits in favor of Magic Atk merits. For now, I'm quite content at full physical, and my SMN seems to utterly destroy every other SMN put up against it. It's often joked that the equipment and merits available for SMN don't even really affect the damage, it's just as random with or without it. I found this to be true for a long time, but then at some point I pulled ahead of the crowd. I don't understand exactly why my Pred Claws is so much more powerful than the other SMNs I play with, but I'm afraid to touch it now that it's working so well.

I think in the end, what's better (magical or physical) may really come down to what's more practical for you. For magical to excel, you really need all the bells and whistles. Get your Pet:MAB+11 staff, pick up an Eidolon Pendant, get your Caller's Pendant & Sash, etc. Merit Heavenly Strike 5/5 and magic attack 5/5, and of course, get Atma of the Beyond. For physical to excel, you need your Summoner's Doublet, Bracers, and Pigaches, and use your Sacrifice Torque as more than just an anti-sleep device. Merit 8/8 summoning skill, along with physical attack and possibly physical accuracy. If trials and newer content isn't very accessible to you, physical is much easier to pull off on the older equipment. If older stuff like relic armor isn't accessible to you, then you may wish to focus on the magic aspect more. If you're somewhere in between, you get to pick or do both!

The thing about physical accuracy merits is that you never know how much is "enough" with Avatars. Unlike player experiments with ACC, studies on Avatar ACC I find are somewhat lacking and/or inconclusive. I posted above that I was one of those who put 5/5 P. Attack, 5/5 M. Attack, but recently after capping myself on merits for all my jobs and having literally 10/10 merits and 9999/10000 I decided to play around with respeccing. I just deleted all my P. Attack merits and now sit at 5/5 P. Acc and 5/5 M. Attack. Yes, I have 8/8 SMN magic and lots of other ways to get +skill over cap. For now though, I don't care. I've had Pred Claws miss on highly evasive stuff like Flame Skimmer in Abyssea and I want to see what happens when I cap out the ACC to be as high as it can get. For now, I'm sacrificing that 2% attack, which I don't feel is as worth it as 15 pts of accuracy (3 per merit).

And yeah Perg, I feel the same way about my SMN and Pred Claws vs. other SMN's. I macro in Doublet +1, Bracers, Sacrifice Torque, and Pigaches +1. Too many SMN's don't macro in stuff to buff their avatar's BP's, and it shows.

Thank you guys for this info. :)