BST Merits help please...Follow

I'm a new 90 and working on my merits and was wondering what the best way to spend them is. Please any advice for a new BST would be appreciated.
Thanks, Belaal

I went 5/5 CB, 2/5 on sic and 3/5 on reward, but I'm just going to move to 5/5 reward. If I ever get the +2 body I'll consider doing killer effects but it's nice to have a quick reward when you need it. Especially lately in duo/trio options I'll find myself having to hold an NM for a time while a party member switches jobs to proc a !!, and you gotta have reward ready asap.

In Group 2 I'm 5/5 BA (did this back when I could use funguar pet at 75, hope it still is useful in the future) and 5/5 feral howl. Xilk's right, it is not reliable for a lot of high level NMs outside of abyssea and virtually no NMs inside, but there isn't a better choice imo. I do still use it from time to time tho and it has saved me, so not changing it probably.

You will want 5/5 beast affinity. Nazuna's the only pet with sleepga, so you'll need her at 96 to still be anywhere near useful for that at 99. Unless they add another sheep, but I doubt it.

I got rid of Feral Howl and dumped 5/5 into Beast Healer, it's nice knowing the extra regen is there. I don't really miss feral howl a whole lot, it did work pretty well as a stun with the recast right down but it's by no means essential. Having said that it's an instant claim tool with a decent range, and you can still use it while you have a pet. I might just put some merits back on it soon at the expense of BA, for the time being.


Edited, Apr 10th 2011 11:27am by blowfin

Only when used, the recast on JAs is set when you fire them and doesn't change (barring recast-reset moves some NMs have).



The effects apply while you're equipping them. So you can swap between PDT-, eva-, reward+ axes as you need to.

In generally speaking, if I'm not having utilize Call Beast on the fringe of the recast timer, then I'm going to attempt a tougher NM next time. I can't see a general scenario in which ignoring Call Beast makes sense. I'm leaning towards Reward since pet TP moves are extremely situational as far as making or breaking a tough battle - whereas pet survivability is alwasy a critical factor. Also, maybe it will be different once I'm capped and properly geared, but my pet doesn't always have TP when the recast on sic is up. It seems like if you get it too low you're just sitting around wiating for TP anyway.

Anohter point is that if a hard NM does a move that is critical to counter, then a pet ability is probably not going to be reliable enough to help. It's probably a bad example, but if you are relying on Head Butt to stop Gates of Hades, you are probably going to fail.

On the other hand, how many fights come down to shaving 15 seconds on Reward recast? If you are needing to use Reward that much, then something will go wrong before the fight is over anyway.

I guess my point is that there is no game changing merit for BST. These are merely little tools that offer slight assistance when doing what we do. But none of them will routinely be a difference maker - unlike many other job's merits.

So you are telling me that shaving nearly 25% off our most important ability, and possibly the most powerful job ability in the game, is a "little tool"?
And Its apparent you dont solo much on bst if the scenario of using reward the very second its up is a "losing scenario" to you.

The only question that matters during BST NM solo is, "Does my jug pet survive long enough for me to resummon another pet". Anything that doesnt add to that survivability is badly allocated resources.

The abilities Call Beast and Reward have a direct impact on the ability to solo harder and harder mobs. The other abilities simply allow faster kills on a mob you otherwise would have been able to kill anyway. For this reason, Reward and Call Beast are really the ONLY choice for tier 1s.
Tier 2, same argument for Beast Healer as above. I did 5/5 Feral Howl as well, simply to have a 5min cooldown, ranged instant claim move when I have a pet out. I never ever use sheep (leech better hp tank, ladybug better evasion tank, rabbit better DD) so i dont care about Beast Affinity (as of now of course)

Edited, Jul 2nd 2011 4:24am by ShadowsongLakshmi

why do you feel leech is better hp tank? Leech is great tank in many situations for the water resistance and blunt damage reduction, but leech really has quite low total hp.

Gotcha. I don't tend to use nazuna very much either. For DD, you really NEED to keep rage up, just to have the attack match many of the others.