Smn Meriting- Group 1 & 2?

I was wondering what are the most useful merits for a solo smn in group 1 & 2, i'm not planning on doing too many event-related things with my smn, so I'd like some advice if possible, i'll answer any questions to get a better understanding of what merits i should expend.

For group 2 I decided to get one of each and then 5 into Geocrush, its pretty useful :) And as for group 1 I kinda evened them out with 2 points in Physical/Magical Accuracy and 3 in Physical/Magical Attack.

As long as you have a decent Summoning Magic skill set and capped (or close to capped) Skill the best merits for Cat. 1 are 5/5Atk 5/5M.Atk if you bother with 75BPs (According to your post you likely will).
Period. Theres really no better way.

Avatars are amazingly accurate with an average skillset, and on those mobs too physically evasive Magic shines.

That being said Group II Merits all have the same power, its entirely based on your preferences.

I'm going 5/5 in 1 and 1/5 on the others simply to have each element ready for when the situation calls, I'm putting mine into Shiva because of a certain Atma giving about +60MAB to Ice spells (<3)

Edit: Basically get a good Summoning Skill set and cap Atk/matk in cat.1 and then Choose your favorites for Cat2, cap at least 1.

Edit2: That and you can Merit Summoning Magic Skill, which along with increasing Elemental Siphon returns, raises Avatar Acc/Macc and in some cases increases Favor Potency (I'm not sure what cap is going to be @ 99 though)

My group 1 is Physical acc 5/5 and Magic attack 5/5, group 2 I chose 5/5 wind blade and 5/5 thunderstorm. I used to have 1/5 geocrush but took it off so I could max wind blade.

Merit BPs are the same as BLM's AMII, in that they all have the same base dmg. Dmg increases the more TP your avatar has as well as day/weather bonuses can affect them. Each merit adds a 40 TP bonus, 5/5 on one merit BP will give it the strength of 200% TP at 0TP (Roughly a 500dmg difference depending on how much avatar MAB you have). I would recommend you max out at least one BP of your choice.

I chose wind blade because with the right gear garuda is far cheaper to keep out than the others, to me she's the most versatile and the most cost effective, being able to deal both physical and magic dmg at will, then can aoe blink/haste/cure.

Basically this except I put the other 5/5 into Ramuh. The merits make a huge difference, and it's a large enough elemental spread you should never be ***. Used to have Garuda instead of Shiva, but Beyond Atma is too om nom to pass up. (Still maxing out my Shiva merits :<)

personally i love having meteor strike and avatar magic acc/att capped so i can keep ifrit out with favour so my party gets double attack + every minute or so i can do a 1.5k Bp while keeping up a hastega and possibly ecleptic growl or earthen ward cycle up most times i do this in heavy dd prtys i get lots of complements (makes abyssea alliances really easy too especially with ethers and /rdm)

I was originally planning to go 5/5 into Wind Blade and Heavenly Strike, but then the AF3 was revealed. Now my plan is 5/5 Wind Blade (Garuda's cheaper to maintain) and 1/5 all the others.

atm for Group 1, my plan is 2 into Acc, 3 into Atk. Vary depending on how resists/wiffs seem to be going. I will admit though, others are right. Avatars can be surprisingly accurate. Or they can get three half resists on EP Lesser Colibri @ 84 for no reason at all.

I did

Group 1:
5/5 Avatar Attack
5/5 Avatar Accuracy
(Most people seem to do ACC and Magic ACC, but I like physical blood pacts more)

Group 2:
5/5 Wind Blade
5/5 Heavenly Strike

IF you need more accuracy for general meleeing then TP in Evoker's legs. If that isn't enough, then you can add Summoner's hands as well in place of Carby mitts or Nash gages. If your cost goes up by 1 per tick it really isn't that noticeable in the grand scheme of things.

Always BP in the hands as there still isn't any better gear out there. If you are still getting misses you can BP in the legs as well. All these things are options you should consider BEFORE you merit accuracy. Those 5 merits are put to MUCH better use in M.ATT.

IMO of course.

Necrobump, but may be worth revisiting with Abyssea in mind. For me I did magic acc, magic attk, wind blade, heavenly strike. I had grand fall but I changed to ice after getting Atma of the Beyond. Personally I think it's a waste not to focus on avatar magic in Abyssea. 2500+ dmg merited BP's are standard. PC will only do that sometimes with the right crits and physical atmas.

This, except I haven't bothered with macc merits, I rarely resist even on Abyssea NMs just from skill over cap, so I gear for avatar MAB in the slots that have it and wear skill in the rest.

I also don't want to change my thunderstorm to heavenly strike, one main reason being thunderstorm allows me to deal good dmg against the 3 Ironclad NMs that me and a friend do sometimes (only weak to thunder and water.)

Edit: They will most likely be bringing out more Iron giant mobs in the next expansion, and i'm assuming they will have the same resistances, so having grand fall or thunderstorm is nice for those.

Having both Garuda and Shiva pacts merited will *** you over if you get something that's ice-based. You need to have a better spread, replace Wind Blade with something like Thunderstorm or Grand Fall. :/

Id say Heavenly Strike, Magical BP are by far better nowadays, and Shiva gets MAB traits. MACC and MATTK for group 1

How exactly does that *** me over? Just because I'm not emulating BLM nukes doesn't mean I'm doing it wrong. I have Atma of Gales at my disposal, Garuda's cheaper to keep out than the others celestial avatars, so why not? I had Grand Fall for years before I took the merits out and the only thing I found it great for was Suzaku.

It *** you over because of elemental spread. :/ That's all I was saying.

All the celestial avatars and diabolos are BLM and get the same MAB traits as a player BLM, also for those who dont know shiva DOES NOT get mab from her own favor, and using favor while nuking is fail anyway since it reduces avatar magic attack.

too lazy to read up but from my personal research i found that:

1) if capped or overcaped smn skill u got acc/macc boost so for group 1 the best thing to do is to cap attack (5/5attack 5/5 mattack)

2) more or less all the magical BP are same dmg w/ same merit points.
So it may be good to find 2 avatar u use the most and 5/5 there BP
personally i did garuda coz i have yavu's staff+1 and for other one...i shouda take geocrush coz i use titan for stoneskinga often but saw some others smn w/ thunderbolt and it seemed nice...but finally after 5/5 on it...it's not that good...as good as others...so take whatever u like it's all the same (of course depending on mob u fighting and elemental weakness)