Merit Point Adjustments

Sadly when you look at Ilvl gear, there is no such thing as "natural bonuses" anymore... all you get is the ilvl simulated garbage. There isn't one single item comparable to say, Byakko's Haidate, yes mani legs (can) be, but that's attributed directly to being 20 levels of stat added to it and no actual addition. And given the option putting dex on them is pretty rare.

I understand that their "theme" was to leave dex off pants, int off feet etc, but where's the pieces with ACTUAL stats on them? If they made us legit 119 and took ilvl garbage off, they'd have to re-design thousands of pieces, cause they'd all have zero stats... we're getting HOE'D hardcore, but there isn't enough complaining about it (imo).

In actual regard to the merit increase however, it's about time, also what's everyone going to pick for third attribute to 15? We're all going to do 15 str 15 dex, and 15... agi??? lolvit? pick the one that best suits the new mods for ws's? Probably int/mnd for the insanely newly overpowered magical ws? "Coudsplitter OP nerf bst zomg DD can't compete now!" *lol*

They could lock out certain job abilities from subs if they'd be too broken.

Nice to see the caps for combat skills being extended from 32 to 56, and the defensive stats going to a full 8 upgrades. However where is the upgrade to Merit WS totals? 3 Merit weapon skills for a possible 7 capped combat skills? Dear SE this isn't 2002 anymore, The Merit WS group should double at least. 6, 5/5'd WS at the minimum, or just pull the band-aid off and let us cap them all out. Having to "play favorites" for having a useable WS per weapon type is dumb.

Having looked at what job abilities and spells would be affected by increasing the level cap, I'm rather underwhelmed. Composure is largely a quality-of-life thing and not at all game-breaking. Super Jump and Triple Attack are nice enough bonuses but rely on using two subs that are not commonly used. Elemental Siphon would be rather weak due to Summoning Magic skill. Divine Veil almost isn't worth mentioning. I suppose Valiance would be slightly abuseable, but it's presently a weak JA (outside of its merit effect) since most mobs use a multiplicity of different elemental attacks.

The 50s were levels you didn't look forward to because of abilities (all the spells are pretty negligible at level 100+) but rather for your Artifact Armor. It'd take getting the level cap up to 120 just to start hitting a few genuinely interesting buffs (Dread Spikes and Retaliation, for instance), but even those aren't really game-changing.

Why is there even a need to increase levels? That's powercreeping you know. I'd rather see refining of game mechanics so that you can use strategy to win, rather than brute force.

It may not seem like much, but giving everyone Super Jump(in tandem with High Jump) has the capacity to make tanking a thing again in the absence of rangers.

^This.

Seriously, I have three jobs. I play DRK THF and COR at 99 on a regular basis, and have BST, PLD and WAR retired. The biggest problem with the lack of merit weaponskills is that you could have a job, but f you don't have the merit WS (or a 119 R/M?E with a great WS added on) then that job is super gimpy, and you have to resort to using WS like Rampage for BST ...

I wanted to level COR, I wanted Last Stand, but it meant demeriting Ruinator. I also want an Apocalypse for my DRK, but I have no room to get Entropy, so what's the point? It's the same for THF, I have to use Exenterator, otherwise I have to use Evisceration which is only any good in Abyssea. For COR I wanted Last Stand, but I also wanted Requiescat, but I couldn't have both, so I ended up with Last Stand and getting my Armageddon to 90 so I could Wildfire also.

It annoys me. SE adds ways to level jobs with minimal effort, they add job points for each job, they will be adding more merits so you can cap more combat skills, but without the right weaponskills, there's no point in any of them except for the select few jobs that you have a decent WS for.

Nothing worse then getting asked to come on a job that you really want to play, and someone asks you before an event .. "have you got this WS?" and you have to say "no, I have other WS merited so I can't get it".

Seriously guys ... can I get a head bang?

Not that the merit WS cap isn't obnoxious, but you're exaggerating tremendously. Simply unlocking one of them is more than adequate for absolutely everything. Neither you nor anyone else will ever notice a difference.

Also, Apocalypse is bad regardless of how many merits you can put into scythe, so there's that.

Ummm ... I know many DRKs who would disagree on the Apocalypse statement. Also I am a pure DD, I'm not about to go 4/5 on Reso, Last Stand or Exenterator, because a WS on 1/5 isn't good enough. I don't like it, I don't like having to weaken a WS I use very regularly so I can put one stage on a WS that I might use on the rare occasion when I get asked to play the job. I know they lowered the difference between stages for merit WS but I still notice it very much.

For his job he really needs at least reso/last stand and maybe exen though. And he really has to give up on Ruinator and Req for it, unless going for 1/5 or something.

Hopefully next WS update can fix it.

That's all well and good, but you're wrong. Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.

All of those weapon skills are still excellent at 1/5

Yep, exactly this. I use THF a hell of a lot for farming in dynamis/salvage/adoulin areas so Exenterator is a requirement for THF. I do ARII and fighting the Chariot with Evisceration is a lot harder then using Exen. I have 119 Ragnarok, what kind of DRK would I be to have anything less than 5/5 Reso? MNKs already have too much of an advantage in some content.

I suppose Last Stand isn't crucial to have on 5/5, but consider the fact I do Ark Angels on Difficult so it needs to be as good as possible to keep the damage flowing.

The point is, we shouldn't have to gimp our WS to gain access to other WS, we should be able to cap at least six merit weaponskills to the MAX like Bahtbaht said.

Yes, your arbitrary ceiling is much more reasonable than their arbitrary ceiling.

Everything else, lol.

Personally I'm very surprised people are interested in having and using the most powerful weaponskill.

Just look how many there are to choose from. Why do you limit yourself in such a way?

Not really, I hated the 5 stages thing since merit weaponskils first came into force. Who in their right mind would put a WS on 1/5 before they updated it? It was terrible, it had no purpose.

It's not arbitary, it's logical. Why give us access to so many jobs if we can't use the best weaponskills for those jobs? It makes my Beastmaster virtually useless .. unless I want to stand there and watch my pet kill. I'm not about to put Ruinator on 1/5, because that sucks, I suppose it's better than nothing, but I got so used to 5/5 Ruinator it would suck from my own perspective. Maybe you are fine with 1/5 WS, I am not, and it's the same for many other players.

I would gladly build an Apocalypse, build a sword set for COR, and bring my BST back to life if they let me have 5/5 Entropy Req and Ruinator on top of what I already have. What's wrong with that? Does it break the game? Not in the slightest, if anything it promotes more gameplay, it promotes you going out there and adding new ways to play your job. I would love 5/5 Reso and 5/5 Entropy, I could switch from Rag + Reso and Apoc + Entropy depending on situation, it would make the game much more fun.

Does anyone else have a problem with putting merit WS on 1/5?

I've kind of noticed that if I have 5/5 Shijin Spiral and exclusively use Combo everyone will be disoriented enough that I win the parse.

That's an epic idea .. I should start using Slice or Shadow of Death more often to throw people off. :)

HP 30
MP 0
Maximum merits 15
Total: 45

This is what its going to look like. At least i get 150 more hp.

Max you can get for HP is 15.

So, you have to get HP/MP/Merits at 15....

Obligatory:

Everyone seems to gloss over the fact that they didn't say they were increasing the limit individual for merit categories in that merit group whilst they were clear about doing so for others. I suppose there's a slight vagueness in the fact that the merit category cap is currently the same as the group cap, but there's really nothing to suggest it will be possible to do something other than 15/15/15.

If that ends up not being the case, I'd be surprised, but I suppose it's possible.

I do have to say, it's VERY odd to think that Square is giving us a category (hp/mp/merits+) and allowing us to cap all 3, effectively capping the entire category... No other category can be fully capped out, most of them only 50%... so yeah... there's that.

I could see how someone might think that it's weird and incorrect also, meaning they should be able to get 30 in hp instead of 15/15/15 it's very uncharacteristic of Square to do what it appears they're doing.

There's no choice to be made, it's just "well yeah I'll cap all 3 since I can" completely the opposite of the Weaponskill category mentality.

Well, they could completely rip off all the merit point cap band-aids and just allow us to cap -everything- and that would still be an improvement. Look at the merit groups already, they are not "choices", they are in almost all cases a way to distinguish good choices from bad. Very few jobs have anywhere near more then 2 good choices per group. Does anyone think ***like WAR's "Aggressive Aim" is a good choice, it's a laughable one. IF SE allowed us to cap everything would it drastically alter the jobs one would bring to endgame content? Likely not. It would however give mage players overall a nice boost, RDM in particular would make out well.

Of course I 99% agree with that, the only jobs personally I can't 5/5 2x and regret it are thf and cor(mainly just cor... assassin's charge I could probably drop), everything else I can live with being 5/5 x2.

Just saying that it's uncharacteristic (at the moment) to make the category completely capable. I'd LOVE to see all the caps removed, since they don't have much if any purpose, other than being obnoxious, which clearly gives people at SE wood seeing us complain about arbitrary things that shouldn't be there.

I'm so glad they changed this. I can finally put merits into other skills I wanted to be higher.

I've been looking for areas in Adoulin for solo, which areas do you tend to use for merits?

P.S. Sorry for OT question...

If we have back double exp week/weekend, i cant see any exp party being better than single exp party in doh/woh gates (can reach 2k exp per kill, imagine 4k, would be broken).

Even without, a good party that can maintain for some time the chain, can easily even out the merit abyssea party due to time to cap lights.

If soloing, i sugest cirdas cave. Mobs there are easier and will net high exp and cp by fast killing and very massive amounts of mobs grouped. I like the spiders/fungars/worms/leech that group together in 2 areas close of each other, can clear a area and walk to the other, and still keep the chain.

Also, if you keep the crystal and conflict quests active, can net high amount of sparks/exp by roe.