Why Go /NIN To Meripos?

DNCs guys. Merit with them.

<3 They bring the best of both worlds to a party. Got chain 250 with one main healing once. Only stopped cause we all had to pee eventually.

Yeah, DNC is an awesome job. Just make sure they have 10% Haste Samba, because that also really helps other DD's damage-output. Defense down-steps are also hot.

Exactly, quick kills, haste for all and pretty much nonstop healing without the need for ballad/refresh or otherwise. Not to mention they still add some damage to the whole thing as well.

Yup! COR/DNC is actually not that bad either if you don't have a hardcore DDCOR (better than COR/WHM for healing if joy/merc) but still not as hot as a DNC obviously. You can still have /DD subjobs and the RDM or WHM doesn't have to curebomb as hard.

I realize a lot of BRDs don't use these, but they should be pulling with a Lamia/Troll/Mamoolbane and such anyways, as to avoid that long reflecting from the colibri. If your DDs are good, then elegying them shouldn't matter.

As a SAM, I refuse to /NIN at G.Colis...I'll admit the majority of it is not really needing merits anymore. There's a couple of loose ends, but I'm not in a rush since I don't use other jobs nearly as much as SAM. So if a pt leader refuses to let me /WAR I'll just leave and not really care about it. But even then...

-ichi wastes a *** of time casting so that spell doesn't exist to me in merits
-third eye. yes it's random, but 1 or 2 anticpates are all you need if the other DDs can carry their own.
-physical reduction gear.

I hate meriting. But I try to do it right if I have to do it.

Any melee job should have at least some "***hits the fan" gear swap. More DEF, more VIT, -dmg, whatever is available. I know I have one god forbid third eye gets blown after one proc. Hell even +eva if it comes down to it, anything to potentially mitigate dmg when you know you're gonna eat it.

I do like the idea of pulling with chakram, but as a BRD myself, i'm not wasting any IS on that just for pulling @ Colibri camp, when elegy is just as good, and is beneficial to mages (less hits taken per mob = less cures, and thus more mp over all for keeping haste/dia up without worrying about being low on mp for if ***hits the fans). Also, you can counter the 'long reflecting from the colibri' as a brd, by pulling, and keeping the mob slept, or just let it attack you (+50% slow is massive)

edit: again, I only believe that WAR can do /NIN without majorly denting its DoT (depending on the WAR and setup). I may have forgot to mention, but a lot of my parties are box'd pts (I'll box a COR, or a WHM sometimes, so having to heal myself less cause i can do Ni > Ni, or > Ichi at times helps me in the long run)

More rdms need to /sch!!!

May not be "needed" to kill them, but if you're going for 30k+/hr and consistently chaining them, then it sure does help.

I dunno what merit pts you got goin down in Asura, but I don't need seigan in a merit party.
Only if I know them. A pick up dnc? Sorry, not happening. Most of them don't know how to play the job properly and will be the last person to engage, activating the samaba when the mob is already below 70% hp, ect. I could go dnc myself, but no dagger merits, no suppa, and would lose a really good dd.

@Erikthecleric

There's almost no excuse not to have one of the Imperial Standing chakrams with you if you merit on BRD often. They only cost 4000 IS! You get that from one decent merit party. While I prefer to pull with Elegy, I will never hesitate to pull with my Lamiabane if I need to snag a bird/mamool from another level (ranged attacks have a longer range than spells/songs) or if I need to get a bird into camp quickly.

For your average merit party, Elegy works fine, but it'll slow you down and reduce your pulling options in a good party.

going as /NIN for everything is cruise control to Coolville.

@ Eeek

Being that I have roughly 150~ merits left til i'm fully capped, spending any amount of IS isnt justifiable for me :/ I'd rather spend that 3k on an ISNM pass, and save up for another, and make a profit, then grab a throwing item to pull JUST for when I get to pt @ bird Bhaf camp. I don't even go BRD more then half the time tbh, so again, I dont see the point in spending a single IS on something like that.

edit: if it were sellable, I would've done it, but it would've been buyable and I wouldn't have needed to spend IS on it in the first point, making that kind of a moot point >.>

I hate sam/nin, I think it's really dumb and terrible. It should only be used in low man tanking situations or in situations where you're fighting some mob with HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE AOE that shadows absorb(fluid toss).

Don't forget that this does have its uses outside merit pt's.

If you're trying to pull something, and it's out of range of provoke and it wouldn't be safe for you to run into the middle of a group of mobs to voke it, Ranged Attack ftw! Same goes with Ninjutsu =P

If you're out of range of WHM/BLM magic, then you can whip out a chakram and pull ^^ Don't forget, that Ranged Attacks aren't subject to being interrupted like spells if their target moves out of range before it's thrown~

Samurai's should /nin 1% of the time. Nyzul Boss floors are a good example of that 1%. /war /thf /dnc apply in all other circumstances.

However, Being asked to /nin to birds is 1 simple fact, Healers are asking to be Leeches.
I'm DOING MY JOB by subbing war, why don't you do your damn job and make sure I don't die? Maybe haste me so you can get that bad *** 30k+ exp/hour?
I go /war regardless of what's being asked. Getting that 30k+ exp/hour takes teamwork. I'm here /war with 95% acc (polearm mind you)on birds, burning MY food, and you want to leech. Why don't you go astral burn, instead of wasting everyone's time?

/rantoff

How about this, someone explain to me why in some merit pts the DDs can go long periods of time without ever taking damage then there are others where the DDs are taking constant damage, leaving me next to no chances to rest for MP.

Now moving on to Fekye, you won't understand the healer's point of view until you've actually done it yourself and I suppose I won't understand the DD point of view until i've done it but you know what, you're right it's my damn job to keep the pt alive as the healer but you know what when i've had pts where everyone is dying every few seconds the first thing i'm dropping is the haste cycle and that's when DDs start getting on my back.

Personally if its a pickup party i think /nin you wont earn as much exp as the next party but you can never be sure that the other DD will ever do as much DMG as the next, nothing worse than going to merit on birds and spending the whole time tanking.
Linkshell party or with friends well then go DD/DD you know the people and what they can do and even if you die no one will complain about it.

People /nin because they don't trust the healers i /nin for pickups because i don't trust people, i know for sure ill get more exp /nin and staying alive than than being dead and getting nothing.


LS/Friends: DD/DD
Pickup: /NIN

It really does depend on the setup of the party and how well each player can do their job. I've gone to merit parties both as RDM/WHM and DRK/SAM either with:

- BRD, RDM, 4xDD
- BRD, RDM, COR, 3xDD

Here are some of the differences I've spotted (this is based on Birds and not on Mamool):

#1: One DD's damage is higher than the others, taking hate more. This can be a blessing as you can solely concentrate on keeping that one person alive while the other DD support and not take much damage at all. With that, a Haste cycle isn't interrupted and you can keep up the pace for 10 minutes before converting and just keep going.

#2: All DD are equal in damage. Bouncing hate means you have to make sure all DD are healthy, but that's not a bad thing either. Good DD/SAM know how to use Seigan w/ Third Eye properly and are trying to reduce damage taken. Can keep Haste cycle up and convert after 10 minutes without much of a problem.

#3: All DD are equal in damage, but not really paying attention. This is much harder as now you have potentially more people to cure. A quick example: one DD takes initial aggro but third eye goes down after one shadow, they take damage and need healing. Through the fight, another DD takes hate but prehaps forgets to have Third Eye up while WS'ing, and the bird decided to Pecking Flurry his face. Now we have to heal two people in one fight. Sometimes this happens now and again which is fine, but if it's a repeated occurance then the mage is in trouble of having no MP to support due to excessive curing.

Ideally you want no mage to be resting at any time. If they have to rest here and there for the last minute before convert then that's OK, but if they're having to do it 8-9 minutes before convert is up you know something is seriously wrong.

When MP is gone haste is gone, and when haste is gone the fight slows down and there's the potential for more damage for the bird to inflict (while it decides to grin and Pecking Flurry just for kicks.)

So back to the actual question xD I don't believe that anyone should seriously consider /nin to a merit party, but if a DD is having trouble with controlling how they take damage it might be an idea to ask politely to switch in /nin and come back. Who knows, it might be their first merit party ever! Be polite about it and sometimes you'll be surpised how some people adapt and play better (then again some people don't, in which case their rubbish and need a /facepalm.)

Absolutely. I did this the other night with some guy that had 4/5 merits on haste samba. It was amazing.

I do wonder though what's the best setup to get the most volume of birds for max exp though.

I hear of pts that don't even go to camp with a proper healer.

4x DD, BRD and a COR/WHM. I hear the EXP is sick.

I've done 5x DD and RDM myself and chained pretty easily. We pretty much kept the whole middle level cleared with the next mob popping about 50% into the last one.

As a matter of fact this wasn't even a proper meritpo. I had say 2 72 SAMs in it and we chained to about 80 before we decided to call it.

When I'm not Barding I always go /WAR to my merit partys on SAM, I can't stand how nerfed ***is as /NIN if I can get away with attending events as /WAR like einherjar which is always a hit or a miss.

I agree. The main thing I always notice is Utsusemi. In the time it takes me to cast, I could've been doing damage.

Of course, I'm also one of those crappy Samurai that goes to merit parties with an Onimaru because my polearm skill isn't capped. :x

SAM/WAR (Soboro & Yoichi) DRG/SAM(Gungir) BRD/NIN BRD/WHM COR/WHM RDM/WHM = Win~

BRD, COR, RDM, DDx3 /war or /sam

Dont invite sucky dd and MP wont be a problem

Usually in merits I'll DRG/mage by default if I don't know the healer. If people ask or I'm with friends then I'll /SAM. But if asked to /NIN I just politely tell them to go pound sand then proceed to campaign or poke on bunnies in Cape Teriggan.

This is all situational. If you have sam's that want to go /war or drg's that want to go /sam to bird party, it's always best to have a strong warrior in the mix that can toss out provoke as often as possible to keep the birds off the sams long enough for them to WS. Bardx2 or bard/corsair or I won't go to a meripo. While I do think sam's peak at higher numbers /war, they don't always put out higher parse numbers. I think the main reason for this is the fact that it's almost impossible to keep hasso up full time if you go /war to a party. Once again, all is situational. If we were talking about mamool camps, this wouldn't even be a discussion lol. Don't always blame the mages for parties not working out with /war or /sam DD. I've seen plenty that think it's ok to eat pecking flurries again and again without even trying to put seigan/third eye up.

Lol pecking flurry as a taru is why I still /nin on rng at 72. Damn thing can take off over half my health. Think I need to make some kind of def/pdt set for rng maybe or evasion.

And well it's just better on my thf and blu usually anyways