Which New Weapon Skills To Merit?

I'm wondering which new WSs I should merit? Here's a few items you may want to take into consideration:

- I have 17 jobs between 91 and 99. Not leveled are: PUP, COR, SCH
- As much as I hate this term, I'm a "casual" player.
- As such, I've been happily LS-less for almost 2 years, so, gear-wise, if it's post-75 and I can't buy it off the AH, I probably don't have it.
- In the past year, or so, I've spent most my time EXP'ing/meriting in Abyssea
- However, I don't have very many (good) Atmas
- I also don't have any quested/weapon-based weapon skills outside of the old school, level 71 ones (Evisceration, Asuran Fists,Steel Cyclone, etc.)
- The jobs I play the most (recently anyway) include: WAR, MNK, DNC, PLD

The great katana WS was a bit of a no-brainer, and I got that to 5/5 yesterday. Now I'm trying to figure out which other two are worth meriting. I've heard the dagger one is pretty good, so, I'm leaning heavily towards that. I think I've also heard archery/marksmanship is pretty good too, but I very, very rarely play RNG (and COR's not level'ed). So, I'm considering hand-to-hand, since I play MNK a lot and might level PUP eventually... I'm also considering pole-arm, almost simply because it's STR based.

Suggestions? Thanks in advance!

GA, dagger, sword?

Edit: And maybe take out GK and replace with H2h? If you could be using others that you'd use more, why waste merit slots?

Shijin Spiral and Resolution/Upheaval I'd say~

Pre-Abyssea, I played SAM a lot... but in Abyssea, SAM seemed to get overshadowed by almost every other DD. But, from what I can tell, Tachi: Shoha makes SAM worth playing again.

Shijin Spiral is pretty hot outside abyssea (and inside sometimes; i don't know an average vs Ascetic's Fury with RR/GH/Apoc, but if you lack those atmas entirely it would be good)

Resolution is amazing; I've seen some WAR and DRK decimate EXP/Dyna/Old Endgame with it, which is where a "casual" player would be generally. Plus, STR mod on this, which makes it easy.

From what I've noticed, Shoha breaks SAM again.

Puts sam on par with war more like. But yeah, best new ws added was shoha pretty much.

Yep ;) This'll make people cringe (for numerous reasons)... because I don't have a good GK, yesterday in Abyssea I decided to just largely solo as /DNC with my Soboro, and my average Shoha was ~1600 dmg on Dolls, peaking around 3400 dmg (I'm assuming those were crits and/or multi-hit).

Exp everything less... Specialize in one or two jobs you like more... The answer will come to you.

Tachi:Shoha
Blade:Shun
Stardiver

Agreed, I just don't want to put 100 merit points into a WS that ends up being worse than one I already have.

Side note: I've been playing for almost 8 years and put years into end-game LSs... after like my 5th end-game LS in as many years, rather than quit the game entirely like so many others do, I decided to just play it "casually"... plus I've gone from college student to adult/high-paid business professional in those 8 years, so, priorities shift and the allocation of my spare time has changed. Oh, how I yearn to be a 21 y/o college student again and be able to spend 8 hours a day playing FFXI ;) Kids, it sucks growing up... don't do it :P

Shijin and Upheaval.

Don't do Resolution it's not worth it

'Shopped or brewed

If I were you I would educate myself about game mechanic a little before you decide on anything.

I'm impressed by this WS:

Both of those are with mighty strikes, right?

Razor was on WAR that night, so probably. I can't speak for Generic.

Polearm gets good numbers in Voidwatch. But, then again, my "melee DD"s are PUP DRG BLU NIN THF. >_> So yeah... h2h polearm dagger for me!

Lol what are your magic DDs?

How does stardiver compare to drakes though? In your WS sets.

Am I to imply from your post that Shoha can't crit? If that's the case, thanks for letting me know in your own "special" way :)

Posting MS Resolution pic even as joke is as misinformating as posting abyssea Shoha with 2x triple attack proc -.-;

Shoha - If you play SAM its a must have WS now.
Resolution - If you main is DRK get it. If you have Apocalypse and you have hard time choosing which WS to merit you can pas on this one. Obviosuly if you have Ragnarok that is a must have.
Shijin Spiral - Have Spharai? Get it. Otherwise you should have Veret and use Vsmite. You dont have Veret or Spharai? Get one or forget about MNK lol
Upheavel - Have Bravura? Get it. If you have Ukonvasara this Ws will only be an option for Mighty Strike so merit it only if you really dont need other mertiable W for other jobs.
Exenterator - If you use DNC or THF for farm then you probably should merit it because it will significantly boost your kill speed and improve this farm.
Requiescat - Only if you play BLU as your main and lack of other DDs or want to have everything for BLU (this is used for SC Darkness with Quadratic Strike)
Ruinator - If you farm on BST a lot.
Stardiver - If DRG is your main.
Shun Dont know much about this.
Last Stand - If you think about your RNG seriously, get it.

Unless you use SA, no it can't. No WS without "Chance of critical varies with TP" can crit on its own.

D: MS? lolwut (WAR doesn't have 375mp :3)

This has been an interesting thread... a wide variety of answers. And I learned something new about WSs :)

One common thread seems to be that Resolution is worth getting. Unfortunately, I haven't level'ed GS since the release of Abyssea, so my GS skill is still 270-ish. So, the question now becomes, is Resolution worth hours and hours of skilling up? :)

Couldn't disagree more about this statement. Spiral does well outside of abyssea, and not to mention you didn't even include pup, which has Pummel which is already a comparable WS to smite (and pulls ahead in some cases). Its a good side WS for pup or mnk in VW if you want to try to mix it up a lil bit during the stagger zergs.

Only WSs that can crit are the ones with "Chance of critical hit varies with TP." description.

6000 is not 8400.