[notoriousfat]

Im new to 75 smn and i need to know what to merit. what is every ones experience with the meritable BP?

[JudicatorAldaris]

Pretty much personal preference.

I went 5/5 for Avatar acc/attack, I just like my avatars doing full damage.

I went 1 in all group 2 and 5 with geocrush because I like the extra stun effect as well as its damage it good.

You can't do smn merits wrong...you can just play the job wrong. What ever you put your merits into you won't be gimping yourself.

This post has been edited by JudicatorAldaris: 02 March 2010 - 09:19 PM

[Sakka_Valefor]

personally, I'm going to go:

8 smn magic
5pet:magic atk
5pet:physical acc
5 wind blade
1/1 the rest.

My reason for wind blade: Garuda is -2perp all the time.

This post has been edited by Sakka_Valefor: 02 March 2010 - 11:31 PM

[notoriousfat]

yeah i was looking at the BP and they are magic based. So i assume meriting Macc/Mattk would be more beneficial to the BP.

[Sakka_Valefor]

notoriousfat, on 02 March 2010 - 10:21 PM, said:

yeah i was looking at the BP and they are magic based. So i assume meriting Macc/Mattk would be more beneficial to the BP.

Yup. However, it won't hurt to go 5MATK, and 5Phys ACC. Even with 5/5 T2 merits, i think avatars need 2-3 hits for the whole 300%TP bonus. The Phys. Acc also helps when using Garuda Predator Claws, or even Fenrir, so it's not completely focused on one playstyle.

[Pulsahr]

I advise to consider your stuff to choose wisely your merits.
I have the ACP body that makes physical accu +15, magic accu/attk +7.
I have the fay crozier that gives accu+5 and MAB+4

So, i mertied for magic attack +5, physic attack +5 (enough accu on stuff).

For magic BP, the nuke is not really incredible unless you raise it 3+. I chose to merit only 2 BP, at max : Garuda (due to perp cost, i let her up really often, so raised tp, so bonus damage), and Shiva (because ice is efficient on the majority of mobs, and Shiva <3).
the other reason for this choice is one for MB light, another for MB dark.
At first i raised Ifrit lvl 3 and Shiva lvl 3 (when max group 2 was 6), That was a good choice too, one for light, one for dark (Ifrit's BP is really nice too), and both elements are efficient.

Hope it helps ^^

[Alkar]

Get Physical Attack and Magical Attack to 5/5 for Group 1 (you get enough accuracy from gear/ skill over cap, don't waste merits on that).
Group 2 merit at least 1 BP to MAX and then either pick another or unlock all of them.

[Lilsoulreaver]

Alkar, on 03 March 2010 - 07:55 AM, said:

Get Physical Attack and Magical Attack to 5/5 for Group 1 (you get enough accuracy from gear/ skill over cap, don't waste merits on that).
Group 2 merit at least 1 BP to MAX and then either pick another or unlock all of them.

I actually don't agree with you on this. I merited Physical Attack 5/5 and I wasn't impressed with the results. I deleted all 5 and put them into physcial Accuracy and noticed a huge difference. Especially in Chaotic Strike. Acc is a huge part of these BP's. If your hits don't connect. then it's pointless. Thats my opinion. SMN Magic Skill plays a huge part in the resist/ACC of your magical BP's. So if you have good skill, resists are few. So I agree, Magical ATK is the way to go. I did a 2020 Magic Burst with Heavenly Strike the other day. I was estatic!!! I'm sure others have gotten more as they have more SMN Skill with Marduk's and stuff, but that was an accomplishement for me. but it all comes down to what kind of SMN you want to play. Like it was said earlier. All of them inprove SMN in some way shape or form for the better. If you're a predator Claws nut, then Phys ATK and ACC is the way to go. If you're a Magic Burst nut and you take you're smn to a lot of Kirin style fights, then Magical is the way to go. If you want to be balanced and be able to do good damage either way, then split them up. Or, if you like to Solo with Elementals, cap the reduction time out. Do I have official testing to verify these claims, unfortunately no. I can just go off my experience in the job for the last 3 years.

[notoriousfat]

Over all what is stronger the predator claws or a fully merited BP?

This post has been edited by notoriousfat: 04 March 2010 - 05:26 AM

[Koryuu]

It all depends on gear, your summoning skill and what you plan to use smn for
For example I have skill merited and almost all +skill gear so melee accuracy isnt much of a problem but because I went 5/5 in 2 merit BP I have an issue of resistances since Ive only got 2 elements to choose from so I went for 5/5 Magic Attack and Magic Accuracy

I leaned towards magical merits because Physical BP are awesome without much extra help whereas the magical needs help
Im considering remeriting though probably keep 5/5 windblade and 1/5 in the rest so I can abuse weakness's Im just curious how much damage they do with flat TP (tbh I should merit 5/5 heavenly strike or grand fall but I dont want to give up meteor strike which despite having limited use looks the best of them all)

[Lilsoulreaver]

Koryuu, on 04 March 2010 - 05:57 AM, said:

It all depends on gear, your summoning skill and what you plan to use smn for
For example I have skill merited and almost all +skill gear so melee accuracy isnt much of a problem but because I went 5/5 in 2 merit BP I have an issue of resistances since Ive only got 2 elements to choose from so I went for 5/5 Magic Attack and Magic Accuracy

I leaned towards magical merits because Physical BP are awesome without much extra help whereas the magical needs help
Im considering remeriting though probably keep 5/5 windblade and 1/5 in the rest so I can abuse weakness's Im just curious how much damage they do with flat TP (tbh I should merit 5/5 heavenly strike or grand fall but I dont want to give up meteor strike which despite having limited use looks the best of them all)

I thought the same thing when I was meriting. I was looking to expose weaknesses. I do a lot of FoV in sky fighting Dolls. Predator Claws phails more often than not against dolls so I use 75 Nukes. Dolls are weak to lightening so I took out my 3/5 merits from Metero Strike and put 5/5 in Thunderstorm. Heavenly Strike at 5/5 does = to more damage. Less of a chance to resist being Ice magic. Something with any SMN Magic spell. They all seem to do the same base damage regardless of weaknesses.

[Rakshaka]

I went for
5 in Heavenly Strike: useful because not many mobs resist ice, and because you can do some nice sleepga/nuke combos with this
1 in each of the other 75 pacts: for versatility
5 MAB: With physical acc, physical attack, and magical accuracy, you can't really tell a difference in the damage you do. With MAB bonus you'll see it every time.
5 Elemental Perp: This one's not a very popular choice, but 5 merits in here brings elementals down to celestial avatar perp costs. I enjoy using my spirits a lot in different situations, and this helps a ton with that. Nothing like a free (except minor perp cost) flare/cure 5/curaga 4 spell.

[Koryuu]

Lilsoulreaver, on 04 March 2010 - 04:17 PM, said:

I thought the same thing when I was meriting. I was looking to expose weaknesses. I do a lot of FoV in sky fighting Dolls. Predator Claws phails more often than not against dolls so I use 75 Nukes. Dolls are weak to lightening so I took out my 3/5 merits from Metero Strike and put 5/5 in Thunderstorm. Heavenly Strike at 5/5 does = to more damage. Less of a chance to resist being Ice magic. Something with any SMN Magic spell. They all seem to do the same base damage regardless of weaknesses.

Not what I meant I used to do sky/sea so wind blade was a must have for kirin and Jailer of Faith since wind nukes are resisted less often against them, meteor strike is my favourate so I had to have it but even with capped skill and MACC It gets resisted by all the sky guards more often then it isnt the only use Id get out of it was Despot + Faust (ice type mobs)
Damage for all the Merit BP is equal but as I said depending what your planning to use Smn for should factor what you pick

Like I said I should really go 5/5 heavenly strike or grand fall (or 4/5 and 1/5 in titans for earth based stun) but I will probably go 1/1 in all the others so I dont lose DEMON FIREBALL!

[notoriousfat]

ok so from what im seeing the general consensus is having atleast heavenly strike 5/5 and MAB 5/5. the others are up to me. If all the dmg is the same for the merit BP, i guess it only makes sense to have the one ability that gets resisted the least for one, and then choose another that i like for the hell of it. I thought about going 5/5 on heavenly strike and 5/5 on thunderstorm.

I chose thunderstorm for 2 reasons. 1) I love ramuh 2) All the blms i see use either ice or thunder in all LS events, so i figure having those would be most beneficial.

What about Macc? Have you seen the need for it? What exactly does it do, just lower the resist rate?

[Lilsoulreaver]

notoriousfat, on 05 March 2010 - 03:52 PM, said:

ok so from what im seeing the general consensus is having atleast heavenly strike 5/5 and MAB 5/5. the others are up to me. If all the dmg is the same for the merit BP, i guess it only makes sense to have the one ability that gets resisted the least for one, and then choose another that i like for the hell of it. I thought about going 5/5 on heavenly strike and 5/5 on thunderstorm.

I chose thunderstorm for 2 reasons. 1) I love ramuh 2) All the blms i see use either ice or thunder in all LS events, so i figure having those would be most beneficial.

What about Macc? Have you seen the need for it? What exactly does it do, just lower the resist rate?

MAcc to my understanding is exactly that. Magic Spells don't generally "miss". They will always do some sort of damage. The higher your MAcc, the better chance you have at doing full damage all the time. But as I mentioned before, if you have a capped SMN Magic Skill, Capped Merits, and good SMN Magic Skill gear, you will not have to worry about meriting that ability. Where ever you don't have gear to put MAcc bonus, put a SMN Magic Skill piece. You're ACC will be on part most of the time. I don't see many resists on my SMN when using Magic Pacts. But if you would rather keep other types of gear on you at all times, then meriting that will be useful.

[Shalafi]

Koryuu, on 05 March 2010 - 04:54 AM, said:

titans for earth based stun

Afaik, geocrush's stun is not earth based; there was some testing done on it when it first came out and I believe the outcome was that the stun effect is still thunder based.


EDIT: I can't find it, maybe I dreamed it

This post has been edited by Shalafi: 08 March 2010 - 12:39 PM

[fyreus]

Shalafi, on 08 March 2010 - 12:13 PM, said:

Afaik, geocrush's stun is not earth based; there was some testing done on it when it first came out and I believe the outcome was that the stun effect is still thunder based.


EDIT: I can't find it, maybe I dreamed it

Hate to necrobump here, but I've landed a geocrush on kirin while he was casting a pet and he interupted. Having used all types of stun/bash effects, I'm sure the stun is still earth based.

[Pergatory]

fyreus, on 10 May 2010 - 02:27 PM, said:

Hate to necrobump here, but I've landed a geocrush on kirin while he was casting a pet and he interupted. Having used all types of stun/bash effects, I'm sure the stun is still earth based.

Wow that's sweet, did he then only summon 3 pets total for that battle? Or did he re-summon the one you stunned?

[Suljin]

notoriousfat, on 05 March 2010 - 03:52 PM, said:

ok so from what im seeing the general consensus is having atleast heavenly strike 5/5 and MAB 5/5. the others are up to me. If all the dmg is the same for the merit BP, i guess it only makes sense to have the one ability that gets resisted the least for one, and then choose another that i like for the hell of it. I thought about going 5/5 on heavenly strike and 5/5 on thunderstorm.

I chose thunderstorm for 2 reasons. 1) I love ramuh 2) All the blms i see use either ice or thunder in all LS events, so i figure having those would be most beneficial.

What about Macc? Have you seen the need for it? What exactly does it do, just lower the resist rate?

Blms use bliz/thunder the most because SE was dumb and made spells in elemental tiers unequal in damage, ordering is stone < water < wind < fire < ice < thunder < stone II . . .
and it follows that pattern of dmg till thunder IV, being the most powerfull magic spell compared to all elements. The only reason blms would use any other element then would be for 1) dmg from ice/thunder would be overkill and saves mps 2) slightly faster cast time 3) recast on ice/thunder not up 4) mob is weak to other element and or resistant to ice/thunder

As far as I know, all the meritable bloodpacts are = in dmg rating so there is no dmg arguement for which to choose.

[Shalafi]

fyreus, on 10 May 2010 - 02:27 PM, said:

Hate to necrobump here, but I've landed a geocrush on kirin while he was casting a pet and he interupted. Having used all types of stun/bash effects, I'm sure the stun is still earth based.

Don't see how one instance is any proof.

Apparently the jury is still out, http://www.bluegartr...458&postcount=3