FFXI: Merits and expansion packs

[thistlechaser]

Since Wings came out, I've been running around and just doing without sitting down and thinking. This lead to a costly mistake tonight on bonecrafting mule Kat (but at least I didn't spend 40K of her 60K GP on a key item before I spotted my error!). So it's time to plot some stuff out...



Kat's goal: Bone 80, for reraise items.
Irony: I stopped doing H&C, so now I don't get the special coral anymore. c.c Should go back to it.
She really only needs to get to 75. 75 + 2 + 3 = 80.

Has 60K GP now. Apron would permit stopping leveling one level sooner (75/76). Probably should still get another 40K for the key item to make reraise foo.

Tigerfangs cap at 79, can probably finish on those, but have 8 stacks of wyvern scales. Tigerfang skilling = nearly breakeven gil-wise though.

So not leveling another crafting mule after this. Blah.



I've also been wanting to plot out merits. Before Wings, I got most of my merits (47 of them!) from Besieged. Eh, assuming I'm counting out merits right. I did four HP increases so that would count as 10 (1+2+3+4), right? Not 4? I hope I'm counting them right, because 47 from (almost) Besieged alone is pretty impressive! (Roughly 5 of them came from Campaign, but I'm not sure of the exact number.)

I'm sitting on five unspent ones now as well, and I have no idea where to put them. The DRK job specific merits are majorly meh, and I wouldn't spend a merit point on BRD if you gave it to me for free.

Evasion and crit hit up are capped.
HP has 4 increases and MP 3.
Marksmanship has 4 increases (for COR), but I'm not sure about putting 4 more into it.

Enmity down is semi-tempting, but what if I wanted to level a tank job? I know you can un-spend them, but they're lost that way. Plus, there are a surprising number of times I actually want hate on DRK.

Enemy crit hit down is vaguely tempting, but not really. A normal hit to my DRK is basically a crit hit.

Greatsword/scythe? Big old: Meh.

STR has only one merit in it now, because the idea of spending six (and then nine!) merits for one point of increase makes me cringe. However, until COR hits 75 (forever from now), I really have no place else to put them...

I wish there was a "general damage down" thing to merit (not just crit hit). I'd feel silly meriting VIT though.

It's odd having so many merits and no where I really want to put them...

---

I keep wavering back and forth on Wings. I sure do wish it had some "magic" to it. On one hand, it's super great to be able to come home at lunch and make 1-2K XP -- that's an amazingly great improvement for WoW FFXI! But on the other, that's all the expansion really has. The zones are nice and the new cities are nice and the new music is nice, but there's no "Wow!" factor at all for me.

Today I went into Al Zahbi for the first time in almost a week and I started grinning. That darned wide smile stayed on my face for a good ten minutes! What a wonderful, pretty, beautiful, special city that is! So exotic and exciting and new even after all this time! Why doesn't Wings get some sort of reaction like that from me?

I'd trade all this free XP and easy merits for the excitement of when we first got ToAU.

Comments

[deckardmagnus.livejournal.com]

The DRK job-specific merits are actually rather potent.

The Group 1 ones are somewhat meh, but you can buff the hell out of Last Resort by capping Last Resort Effect & Last Resort Recast. Then combine that with Group 2's Desperate Blows, which is a stellar ability - under the effect of Last Resort, you essentially get super haste. Muted Soul is nice too, lessening the enmity on Souleater.
I'm a fan of the DRK merits, personally.

Putting merits into a weapon of choice is one of the best bang-for-buck merits you can do. Each merit is like a piece of +2 atk, +2 acc gear and that gets pretty potent. The difference between 276 and 292 is a lot (using Scythe as an example) and puts you at a point where you really never have to eat acc-food like sushi again unless you're fighting something super IT. I have Scythe capped and love it, personally.

But yeah, that's my merit plans for DRK-specific, are 5 LR Recast, 5 LR Effect, 3 D-Blows, 3 Muted Soul... but that's me and how I plan to play the job and you may be totally different on that :)

I'd put your 5 merits into HP and finish that (I also have 5HP/3MP merits).

Don't do enmity down, most people I talk to say that it's bad bad if you level a tank later and that your better bet, something universally applicable, is to merit enemy crit rate down as an alternative.

[calandra.livejournal.com]

I've been looking at %spell interrupt down, as well as enemy crit down. Both would seem useful for you.

Meriting your main combat skill (h2h for me) helps a lot. I can eat meat almost everywhere now.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

My playing style makes merits a little different for me than for most people. The only thing I really do is Campaign (used to be only Besieged) and so I don't ever use food on DRK -- I hit just fine, and if I miss it's not a big deal. No one parses Campaign battles!

I am pondering the spell interruption down. On one hand, I feel like I don't cast all that much, but on the other I fly through my MP pool (400-ish) pretty darned fast, so it's got to be going somewhere!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'd put your 5 merits into HP and finish that (I also have 5HP/3MP merits).

That's just what I did! 5/3, too. It's nice to have that all done!

... but that's me and how I plan to play the job and you may be totally different on that :)

I think that's a big part of my meriting issue. I wasn't joking on LS when I said all I do is Campaign -- really, other than crafting and chatting, that is all I do. I don't do Limbus or Salvage or Dyn-I can never spell it without tabbing. I don't join merit parties. On the rare rare rare occasion I XP (I hate XPing) it's with a LS static party.

I think I'll skip the LR part of your suggestion. While it sounds good, I don't like to do stuff that lowers my defense in something like Campaign/Besieged -- something where I usually have no support outside of myself. Weapon sounds like a plan though, mixed in with STR (since STR will help COR as well as DRK).

Thanks for the info! :)

[iniadelphinae.livejournal.com]

I'll agree with deckardmagnus on the DRK merits. Don't know them that well myself, just by what I've seen a DRK in our ls do.

Weapons are well worth the merits spent. It is just never a bad thing to be able to take off some piece of ACC gear and replace it with STR or ATT. 4 GS, 4 Scythe, 4 Marksmanship, 4 Evasion... that's already 16/20. That would leave 4 merits to put into another job's weapon if you wanted, or it's easy enough to up most of them to 5 since combat merit cost caps at 3.

5 Merits sitting out there? Cap out HP/MP by upping MP to 4, and that'll leave you with just one sitting out there. Or take HP up to 5 and spend them all :P

Leave enmity the hell alone. Among other things, I'm pretty sure -enmity affects how much hate you plant with Trick Attack. Other than crit hit up, I'm going for Spell Interruption down in the Others category. But then, I've got 3 mages leveled and will probably be subbing NIN most of the time on THF. Crit hit down seems like a pretty good choice if spell interruption isn't an issue.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

5 Merits sitting out there? Cap out HP/MP by upping MP to 4, and that'll leave you with just one sitting out there. Or take HP up to 5 and spend them all :P

That's what I did! :D I made another one last night, so I finished HP/MP and still had one left over.

4 GS, 4 Scythe, 4 Marksmanship, 4 Evasion... that's already 16/20.

Yeah, I think I'll do the weapons and STR, probably alternating between them.

I realized I'm thinking/worrying too much about this. I can basically get a merit a day, so I can do everything! Even stuff I'm not really lusting after.