RDM Merits

What to merit and in what order? I see this question a lot on forums and get asked it in game from time to time so I thought I would throw my thoughts down into one post and refer to it as needed. Now this is just my suggestion and not the absolute way to do it. So with that in mind here is my sort of mini guide.

I think way back when I started to first merit I went with enfeebling first but I sure wouldn’t do that now if I had to start over. Of course that was pre ToAU so keep that in mind. With today’s fast paced parties I would definitely go with convert then mp first. If nothing else this will make your time meriting easier. I remember as a new to 75 RDM having about 750 mp and not much better with my convert gear. That would be rough to get away with in today’s party atmosphere. Remember its going to take well over a million xp for your RDM merits so anything to make it go by better is a good thing.

After that I would invest a bit here and there. Say like 3 in enfeebling then switch over and do some Group 1 or 2 merits. Usually upgrading something just 1 time gives no noticeable effect; it’s the combination of things that really add up. I also would avoid high cost upgrades and go to something else until you must spend the high cost merit points. For instance using 5 merit points to go from level 4 to 5 convert is probably less useful than using those five to say get level 1 and 2 mp(3 total merits) and boosting enfeebling form 1 (already upgraded once) to level 2 (another 2 merit points). If I had to map out a plan it may look something like this.

3 MP
3 Convert
3 Enfeebling
1 Slow II
3 Ice Accuracy

Total cost at this point is 27 merit points. This touches on all the basics for the job and gives back real benefits. You have given yourself a 10% increase in convert time, added a new spell, and made all your enfeebling spells better while adding more nuke accuracy for Blizzard III as well as increasing base mp.

From here I would work on capping vert, Enfeebling, and ice. Probably in that order unless you really want to go ahead and boost enfeebling first. Then after that just gradually work them all until capped. You may find boosting mp next will help you out more but you may not depending on what you do and who you party with. The problem with mp is it gets pretty costly going up to 5 merit points per upgrade for the last 4 upgrades making it not as cost efficient.

In the end my merits will look like many RDM 75

8/8 MP ( I am a big fan of mp. The more you have the more you can do)
8/8 Sword (though this is more for PLD)
8/8 Enfeebling (self explanatory)
8/8 Elemental (also leveling BLM so double usage)

5/5 Convert (goes with my MP philosophy. Not always used every time your timer is up, but when in intensive MP situations it makes things so much easier. Think of it this way. 1 Piece of refresh equipment gives you 1200 MP an hour. A max convert timer gives you 1 more convert in an hour than someone with out the upgrade. I have 1100+ convert MP so it’s like adding in another refresh piece over time. In a 30 minute BCNM I can get in 4 verts if I use one up immediately at start (through chainspell abuse). In long drawn out solo fights I can throw out nukes faster since I got more mp to burn. All in all there just isn’t any significant reason to not merit this in my opinion.)

5/5 Ice Accuracy (this is a no brainer as far as upgrades. Increases your blizzard III accuracy (most accurate of our nukes thanks to skill on ice staff) and bind, a random spell that you want to land ASAP when you need it. Also helps with paralyze accuracy. So boosting three useful spells is a win in my book)

3/3 Slow II (this is very useful at even one upgrade but not sure the final 2 are a big enough boost to warrant spending more merits on)

5/5 Para II (I know many don’t like this but I get some crazy procs on boss fights once in a while, the main benefit of going to level 5 is it gives more accuracy meaning you can drop some macc and skill gear in favor of more mnd for a better proc rate. The fact I have Ice accuracy merits makes this even easier.)

2/2 Phalanx II (very nice for salvage and other end game things. I only would go with 2 upgrades as this makes the duration of the spell equal to that of refresh making it easy to throw into a casting routine)

Everything else is being dedicated to other jobs so not really important here. That’s still 164 merit points for just RDM, or in terms of xp 1,640,000 spent. The amount and the time it takes to get there is why I suggest starting with convert and mp so you can make that journey a little easier. Of course if you use another job to merit on then you can adjust accordingly.

So as you may have noticed for RDM specific merits I didn’t put anything into wind or earth. Some RDM’s really like wind and a few boost earth because of slow II. Wind to me just doesn’t make sense and I’ll explain why. The 2 big wind spells for RDM are Silence and Gravity. Both are very good spells but have limitations that can’t be overcome no matter what. Gravity’s biggest downfall is that mobs (NM’s anyways where the accuracy matters) become resistant to gravity. No amount of gear or merits can make this built in game function go away. Also Gravity doesn’t increase in power in any way. Mobs don’t get more encumbered with higher skill or stats. The evasion effect is also not increased but static. So the only thing to gravity is whether you land it or you don’t. Very few mobs resist gravity unless they are immune, making the increase in accuracy wasted here. The same holds true for silence. Most mobs are easy to land silence on or they are immune to it, so once again wind merits just don’t cut it for me. Also for must land silence situations you can sub blm and use elemental seal for it (like for suzuku or whatnot).
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As for earth merits the only reason people do this is for slow II. Slow 2 is already a very accurate spell so meriting it to land is redundant. The only reason you would merit earth is so you can drop some skill/accuracy equips in favor of more mnd to make for a stronger slow. It’s not a terrible way to spend merits but to be honest I don’t think it’s more beneficial than the others you can get. Also using merits for a chance to improve one spell seems like a waste.

So got about a month’a worth of updated to get to so here goes.

Dynamis

Monday we did glacier and I was highest priority for RDM body. So yea no drop. The run went well though. So can’t really complain and they finally went and did the boss pull the way I had wanted using just a single thief to run the dragons back to start and just binding and voking the boss till it was time. I missed the Thursday run to do RL issues. The next Monday was xarc and we got another RDM hat but nothing else. That Thursday I missed again this time do to a new LS I have joined (more later). The following Monday was glacier again and guess what? RDM body dropped. I lotted a ….67. However luck was with me as the only other lotter rolled a 43. So 5/5 RDM relic finally. Now to focus on PLD or maybe think about calling an end to a lot if not all my dyna runs. Other than the pld body I have no interest in anything else there.


Limbus

Did a chip farming run on Monday. Got a whopping 10 coins since we added in the few we got from the last 2 omega fights. Been saving up to get a brutal earring and I now have 51 coins total. After that I need to upgrade PLD boots, RDM hat, and then probably grab a boxers mantle. So yea I still need a lot of coins. Not sure I’ll get the mantle but it is something I been thinking about. Ok cant remebr every run after but did a few chip farming runs, got a total of 68 coins for my earring now. Did ana omega (that I missed) and got good drops, hands and legs. That’s nice since it moves me up the list. Not much else to say.


Salvage

Tuesday we did another LBC run. Killed him with only 8 members this time and it was actually much easier and a pretty clean fight in general. We had one bad spot and had to take a wipe. He was down to like 25% at the time and regened up to 40% before we had our bard just dia and die over and over while the rest of us healed to full. Once ready we took it down with no major incidents. Got another usukane leg (that’s 3 in a row) and a marduck’s hand. Then Friday my salvage group finally managed to take down LBC as well. Got horrible drops (some head pieces no one wanted) but hey now we can do it and that the guy who drops the morrigans 25 I need so its good news. Did a few more arappago runs and guess what, this past Friday after who knows how many kills of the NM the morrigans robe 35 dropped!!! So I got and now am really close to having my RDM more or less finished as far as I am concerned. There are a few other upgrades I could make but this is the last major thing that will add a significant amount to my repertoire.


Other.

Lets see got my DRK to 59. It had been slow going for a while but then invites picked up and the leveling just took off. So as you can see I been leveling drk a lot… I would love to get this to 75 but now that I have the robe piece I have a major need for gil. All my efforts when not at an event will be focused on nothing but gil making.

Been trying to get a run going to get a swift belt. I keep asking and have got a few people to say they will come help but I’ll probably have to shout for a party. That could take a while.

SE announced they are going to allow you to switch nations and have your OP warps put on hold so they are still there if you switch back. Now I think I will finally change to windy and go after the MC bracelets so I can break 340 enfeebling skill, not that it’s going to make much difference. I think were I am now at 334 is pushing the bounds of usefulness and I should stick with stat boosters to make them more effective. Still this is more a long term project and more for completeness sake so not in any rush for this.

There was also a mention of new mage food which I must say will be interesting. The player base is going to want something fairly significant. Like a 10% boost to accuracy/potency/damage or whatnot. This however is going to be very empowering so I can’t possibly see them giving more than either a flat number increase or a smaller 5% increase. Giving too much will make a lot of skill gear unneeded/wanted as you would just switch out to stat gear. This would make having some of my gear pointless although it would also make the food only really useful for HNM’s where you need the boost and not in normal party play.

Other tidbits from the announcement include reduced cost dynamis and an increase in northland drop rates. I know many are thrilled about increase drop rates but damn it’s going to make my hat seem like not as big a deal. Oh well that’s really just me being prideful. Honestly I see tons of RDM nowadays with the hat. It’s not rare really anymore. Uncommon yea but not rare.

PLD gets a new spell and campaign is getting more rank ups. I hope with the rank ups they release more gear for the Iron Ram set. I am very interested in what the body piece will look like stat wise. IF its on par with the rest then you can forget about wanting the PLD relic altogether.