Merit Weapon Skills

Ok, I'm having problems figuring out what 3 merit weapon skills to grab.

I have(will have) access to the dagger, H2H, Scythe, Great Sword and Bow/Gun weapons.


What 3 would be the best to pick up, and will probably not have the Empy weapon version WS for a while on any of them. Or, what 3 to get even if I had the Empy WS?

Personally, given those options I would do Dagger, H2H, and Great Sword if you don't have the Empyrean WS. If you really like RNG/COR, the gun option isn't bad either. If you had all the relevant Empyrean WS, I would say Dagger, GS, Gun.

GS is a must if you use it as a weapon on anything end game content.

H2H and Gun, you pretty much need the merit WS unless you have an Emp WS. Even relic H2H users use the merit WS a great deal of the time.

Scythe is a good WS too but it's INT mod if I remember correctly and requires a ton extra gear to carry to make it good (along with having a good scythe) to make it near having Resolution with an easy to get GS such as the Hoarfrost or trial GS. A great GS plus Reso is hard to beat these days.

Dagger is a great WS but not make or break like Resolution is. On normal dynamis and abyssea content, Evis works just fine if you have a better use for another merit WS here. If you make an Emp dagger, then Evis + Emp WS will work just fine. If you have the extra 5 merit slots, then by all means merit dagger. It is worth it.

Seeing your options, I would also take Dagger + GS + Gun.

Is the bow WS worth it? After doing some reading and all, decided to go the Bow route on my Ranger and wondering if the Bow WS Merit is worth picking up.

No.

You did reading and decided on Bow over Gun?

But bullets are soooooo expensive!

there been any word on when SE is going to redo the mods on the merit ws's to make them useful with 1/5 merits? i remember hearing about this back in like late jan. but haven't heard anything since. was kinda lookin forward to it as i have several jobs lvl'd that could make use of them.

G.Sword and Gun are amazing. Along with Axe and G.Katana, they are unbeatable even by any of their REM WS.
Scythe is also pretty amazing, but damage wise G.Sword outclasses it. Its worth noting, though, that you practically refill your MP every time you WS with Entropy.

/2 cents

The only reason I merit Apex arrow is so I have a bow ws on sam/war to sc with without needing /rng if I wanna derp around watch myself do flips. Not a serious bizness merit ws.

(up to 3-4k to trashmobs, 2k to anything halfway serious like odin if you 5/5 it)

Do something good like 5/5 Last Stand instead

Good ammo is just for idle sets!

G.Katana is very powerful but fudo/kaiten have the advantage on capped ratio, still if you remotely like sam shoha will not let you down and is one of those "goes without saying" things like G.S. if you play Drk.

After update would it be possible to downgrade Shoha and Shijin to 1-2-3/5 without so much of a loss in damage to not make it worth it to open room for more merits? And if possible what merits 1-2/5 would beat current nonmerit WS for melee jobs other than Resolution? (Staying 5/5) Just curious so if needed I can get a jump start on the reorganizing before the update to save time beforehand.

i may be wrong but i thought if you wanted to keep WS competitive you would have to stay at least 4/5 - i dont know how that would leave us for even being able to make 1 more WS 4/5.. but until SE release the patch we wont know for sure

Pretty sure they said theyre gonna make 1/5 a 65% mod with a 5% increase with each upgrade with 5/5 remaining the same. I'm just too lazy to math it all out and risk errors in it.

I would wait till the update.. I have Ruinator/SS/Last Stand 5/5 got Spharai and Annihilator, probably will go 3/5 Ruinator and get 2 others.. I just use Ruinator for Dynamis. and probably get 2 others WS for some jobs I don't use too much, but when I have to.. don't have any descent WS to use.


They said that time ago, after 1 merit will be the equivalent to 4/5 now(80% before lvl correction), the rest will be 5% increase per merit point

Like Sonoske said,
1/5 = now 17% after 65%
2/5 = now 34% after 70%
3/5 = now 51% after 75%
4/5 = now 68% after 80%
5/5 = now 85% after 85% (100% before l.c.)

Edit:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/29831-Overall-Battle-System-Adjustments-for-the-Future


So not exactly 1/5 will be 4/5... just "close to"..

I have been looking forward to this update. Unless you use a WS as your main WS (Relic GS, GK, etc) or its part of your "main" job, 2/5 will be plenty to be able to use the WS effectively.

So people who use thf or bst only for dyna likely to drop down (I know I will). Going to drop last stand to 2/5 also since I only have it for those times where it's better then WF.

This change i think is a good compromise since it will let people mess around with WS that they would never get to otherwise, yet still means you can only have a few MAX WS.

While it is a compromise, it's still not good enough for quite a few of us. I probably will still have 5/5 in all my WS's even after the update.

I will most likely end up doing 4\5 Entropy and 1\5 Req after this patch for sure.
If I do use Apoc, it's usually for Catastrophe.
Having Req as an option on BLU will be nice for sure, so I'd say sacrifices like that will be worth it for sure.
But let's say you're a pimp SAM, DRK and DRG, and want Reso, Shoha and Stardiver, idk if this update really is gonna do anything for those people.

That cost me a Patriarch Protector's Arrow back in the day. ;_;

this update wont make a difference for some ;;

options are drop 3 WS down to 4/5 (and lose 5 % on each WS) and gain 1 more WS to 3/5 (and lose 10 %)

or drop 1 WS to 1/5 (and lose 20 %) and again gain 1 more WS to 3/5 (and lose 10 %) but at least keep 2 WS at full power

question is how will a Mod % relate back into damage - we should check out the DPS sheets as it may not be that bad at 4/5

edit:

in fact eyeballing it quick seems modifier to dps difference seem about the same so 4/5 would loss about 5 % total dps.

Depending on how often you use Apoc vs BLU, I'd consider turning those values around. Like, if you want to have Req for those niche uses where it shines, a 4/5 Req could be more useful. Having a 1/5 Entropy would still do the trick for MP - unless you always use Entropy with Souleater for dmg reasons in which case we're probably back to w/e of those 2 ws you end up using more.

This is what I am most excited for, I have re-merited so many times and this will allow me to drop entropy down and pick up req again, which would be really nice to have now that t. Scythe is gimped. I.e going War to BR now and swapping to sword when needed. (As disgusting as that sounds)

How is this stacking up now that the patch came out and the % per merit is only 3%?

Here are the actual released bonuses. This same information can be found in the update notes, but it seems people don't often look at them.

Pre-adjustment Bonus: 17% 34% 51% 68% 85%
Post-adjustment Bonus: 73% 76% 79% 82% 85%
Points Needed Pre-adjustment: 10 15 20 25 30
Points Needed Post-adjustment: 20 22 24 27 30

Those aren't the numbers with the patch. With the patch numbers, new-1/5 slightly beats old-4/5. 5/5 is unchanged.

So many choices now with the update. I can't choose ;/

Currently my mains are RNG(Yoichi) DRK(Apoc comin soon like on stage4 soon) SAM (Masa).

Play around jobs are COR(Arma) BLU/PLD(Almace/Aegis) NIN(Kannagi) DRG(lolnothing). I have BST also but that's only Dyna farming and I'll probably remove 5/5 Ruinator once i'm done with Apoc. So that leaves me with 10/15 to play with.

Suggestions?

1/5 Stardiver
1/5 Resquiscat
1/5 Ruinator
1/5 Last Stand
5/5 Entropy
5/5 Shoha

That leaves one point for shits and giggles.

Damn that's gonna take quite a few merits! TO VW!

Anyone got any decent screenies of 1/5 damages?


Edit:
OUTSIDE Abyssea.