BST Merits

[Graelinn]

Surely you knew this post was coming eh? After hitting 75 I admit... I am somewhat at a loss as to what to do with em.

I have only racked up 1.5 since hitting 75 (and getting about 20k buffer) so I am by no means sitting on a ton of Merits i need to spend. But, I just don't know what i want to do.

I was thinking about Axe Skill
I was thinking about Crit %

Sadly its not like i have many other jobs that i can Pre-merit for. I have my WHM to sublevel, and my NIN is next. I love BST, and plan on continuing with it for a while.

So what do you Merit, what are you GOING to merit, and why? I was also thinking of -emnity, but with my luck I would fall in love with NIN while getting it the rest of the way up to Sub Level and that seems like a bad thing to do for NIN.

Any feedback or personal experience/opinions would be greatly appreciated. Not looking for someone to hold my hand through this, just very curious what the BSTs out there Merit, and why.

[Thoronas]

Re: BST Merits

I'm nowhere near the lvl to do merits yet but I do know what I am going to merit.... Call pet timer. That, axe and possibly evasion are the 3 I'm most interested in. Then again I'm still a noob comparably.

Call pet timer needs no explanation but I think axe and evasion would be nice. When I hit higher lvls in bst Im definately going to be trying more solo nm hunts and with better accuracy and evasion it would only make it easier.

[RunningDemon]

Re: BST Merits

I did Crit+ first, and am in the process of doing axe.

After that my plans are STR, MP, and Call Beast in no particular order.


Crit capped is +4%, which is awesome and capped axe is just godly, giving you +16 attack, and greater accuracy.

[Sigmara]

Re: BST Merits

As RDM main I merited MP 5 times to have more MP as BST too, it was really usefull until I was able to wear my gaudy, now it's a bit pointless. At least it was what I was thinking untill I started some BCNM. Having more MP for such fights can really help and they will come handy if you want to lvl WHM.
HP are mainly needed for PLD, so IMO MP merits are never wasted : yeah maybe sometimes less usefull but you wont have to cancel them. This would be a good bet until you find what your end game will be like and thus helping you to choose for other merits.
As far as BST merits are concerned : I m still wondering witch I will pick : killer or pet timer ? ( I m a killer fan but pet timer looks soo good >.< )
Once you choosed witch skills/attributs/JA you are going to upgrade, just go with what you feel like and keep the fun going.

[Omni]

Re: BST Merits

i am also no where near merits for bst but i think you might find benefit in meriting mp graelinn. id assume galka mp isnt the greatest.

axe skill is a must i think, as with any melee job. weapon skill is atk and acc rolled into one.

what about sic timer?

i think for myself, disregarding the time it would take to get these merit points, id go with hp (taru), axe skill, sic timer, call beast timer, str, crit %, and evasion skill.

[Kakusaijin.]

Re: BST Merits

and my NIN is next.

For the love of god cap your Critical Merits! You will notice them sooooooo much.



Let me lay it out to you like this. At 70, you get Fudo. Fudo give +3% Critical Hit Rate in each hand, and are not Rare. At 72, you get Senjuinrikio which will only give it's +6% in the hand that it's in. (It's really weird, but people believe it is because it is an unlocked Latent. All of these weapons seem to be that way.) I personally will be using Senjuinrikio/Fudo once I hit 72, and will keep those as my main weapons forever. The reason you would want Senjuinrikio in your mainhand over the Fudo is because of the fact that the +6% will only affect your main hand, and most of the strikes in Blade: Jin and Blade: Ku come from the main hand. This will increase your chances of doing higher damage, despite the lower base damage.


Not to go into a rant, but trust me, those are the merits that you will not want to go without on Ninja. Almost everything else is secondary. (Evasion might be cool, but I didn't merit it at all. I had only 1 critical merit before my BST deleveled and I just quit it. :x)



If you're wondering what Beastmaster specific merits you should look into, I'd probably look into doing Tame, Reward, and Call Beast timers. You can never go wrong with a lower Tame timer. I mean, it's not signifigant, but you would still never be better off without it.

Also, I would never touch Enmity merits at all. There is too much Enmity-/+ gear available to you already, I don't see why you would want to mess with something so delicate. (Since it applies to all jobs, and can make or break some of them.) Just wear Crow Gaiters to melee in if you think you're doing too much damage. (I switched between Ogre and Crow, since there isn't a lot of great foot slot options.)

You can merit Sword a few points if you want, but I'd probably do Axe first, too. Sword has application to Ninja for Spirits Within (Used a lot on Gods.) but not so much for Beastmaster. And who knows, you might end up loving Warrior, and those Axe merits will help with that, too. (The criticals, too.) Scythe would be a good secondary if you're really into meriting.

Edit: Added the links for convienence.

[Graelinn]

Re: BST Merits

Excellent replies, please keep em coming. Oh, and I may have confused you slightly Kakusai. While it is certainly possible that I will level NIN beyond 37 (I have this sneaking suspicion that I will love it...) for now getting it from 22->37 is my goal.

I am thinking i will either do some Crit then Axe, or do Axe then Crit with those two definitely (so far >.>) being my top priorities.

Emnity... you know, you are right. I was hesitant already just thinking about toying with it, and truth be told i have spent 75 levels learning how to manage ihate. Adding difficulty by tweaking it via Merits would likely just mess me all up again =P

MP... I have spent so long with so little MP. I never did have astrals, got by with RSE for a decent amount of time, and well... that evil NPC wouldn't let me get my Gaudy until level 58... so I have also learned to make do with that what I can. More would be nice... but not sure it is at the top of my list. My best friend (a 75 SMN and up and coming BLU) and I were talking about MP Merits for me. As SMN he loves having Max MP Merits as it does him a world of good. But... he commented that he rarely sees me at full MP, and I seem to do fine when i have low MP. And he is right. Gaudy keeps me going just fine.

So we will see.

If you have any more opinions I am quite enjoying them all, so keep em coming.

Oh, i forgot, Beastmaster Specific Merits... i just can't wrap my head around getting these, well the timers at least. It seems so so minimal after upgrading them a FEW times. Killer Traits seems equally confusing in similar ways... 1% each merit. I just don't know how much that miinimal timer reduction would come in handy. I have plenty of thinking to do.

[Victim12]

Re: BST Merits

At first I put two upgrades into axe skill, thinking I'd take it as far as I can before working on anything else. But now I just put one merit in critical hit and I want to cap that first now. I think it really makes a difference and it works on any of the other jobs I'm leveling too.

[Myriads]

Re: BST Merits

Hello,

I have done a lot of merit work. It's slow as I solo it, but my progress:

First up were all 8 axe merits. The +16 Acc and +16 Att is a massive plus and shows when I go in for those final kills.

After that I did 1 crit hit merit, but started to wonder if I wanted to crit more often for hate reasons, so I decided to wait on these.

I'm now working on Killer effects. I'm 4/5 for them now, and the +4% proc shows. Stacked with the job trait killers, my Tatami and the Af pants I figure I'm intimidating about 20% of the time on EM's and down (more on lower, I often intimidate every other on low twtbw) If you solo these are well worth it.

After these I'll do Evasion (8 more cannot hurt)

After that it's MP. I thought about it a lot, and feel that 80MP >80HP and as my other play jobs are all mage sorts it will help.

Ather this stuff the rest is 'eh'. Nothing that thrills. I suppose STR when I have nothing else to burn points on.

I'm also currently hoarding merits in expectation of the Merit changes in the June update. I have my fingers crossed on hopes that they will let us buy the ability to charm current uncharmable classes (9 merits to charm Weapons? Yes Please!) or to reduce the exp bite with pet out (1 or 2 merits per % sounds fair) So my above plans may change based on what they offer us.

I'm pretty ick on the timer reductions for the other 5 job merits. I can see the value, but it seems like such a minor improvement on them....

[Firedevil]

Re: BST Merits

I am in the same boat as Myriad. My main focus is axe skill. I am at lvl 4, and I can tell a massive difference in my accuracy already. Case in point, I got a 3rd merit point 2 days ago, and after my pt split, I went back to Al Zahbi and Beseiged was starting. I forgot to add my merits to axe before we were attacked the first time and I swear it was like a whiff fest during that first beseiged on lvl 5 undead.

After the first beseiged was over, we had Momool Ja Savages coming, so I ran to MH and put the 3 points into axe skill. I was hitting those guys, which were also lvl 5, almost every swing. I also did Dynamis last night for the first time since getting my axe skill above lvl 1 and I noticed a major difference in my hits landed and in my damage.

So, I think almost everyone agrees that Axe Skill is probably most important. I have found that a lot of people swear by Crit%. While I understand the reasoning, I have only put one point into it so far. I was meriting in sky at first having no hate problems with dolls at all. Then I put that merit into Crit% and all of a sudden, I am doing a lot more crit hits than normal. That 1% increase is really noticeable. I wasn't expecting that much, and I was getting way too much hate. Since I am now meriting in Mount Zhayolm and not noticing much hate control problems, I may go back to it. Just beware, that the Crit% will increase your damage in Rampage, but you may wind up with hate problems if you crit too much.

Other than that, I am trying to decide what to put my BST Merits into. I am thinking Call Beast and Reward since I like to BC/KSNM. But I hear the Killer Trait Enhancement is also nice. I'm undecided right now, so I am doing nothing with them until I cap Axe at least.

[Thoronas]

Re: BST Merits

Here's is my reasoning for wanting to do Call Beast timer. With full merits on the timer you lose 50 seconds, bringing your delay between jugs from 5 minutes to 4 minutes 10 seconds. When I hit 75 I don't intend to do much in the HNMls scene but I would like to try my hand at some nm's solo or in a duo. Now with /nin I stand a fairly good chance of surviving for a little while but one thing I'm not sure of is my pets.

I would really like to know what some lvl 75 bsts experience is with some nm's using nothing but carries or panzers and whether or not the jugs last long enough. If they do then the merits in call beast are useless but if that extra 50 seconds will add even an extra 500 dmg over time due to jugs being called out faster in my fights I think it would be worth it.

[Kaindar]

Re: BST Merits

Here was the path I took so far on my merits. Currently have 62 so far and they make a huge difference on my BST. I also have RDM at 75 and plan to max out stuff for that job as well but some of the upgrades benefit BST as well. PLD is a 3rd job I have at 59 but not leveling it until I am done with RDM + BST merits.

Eventually I am going to level WAR to 75 also, so all my merits will carry over for most part. I look forward to seeing how much of a DD machine I can be with.

Currently Done:
8 Upgrades ---> Axe
4 Upgrades ---> Critical Hit Rate
4 Upgrades ---> STR (Working on #5 now - 2/9)

Future Road Map:
- Finish -Enemy Critical Hite Rate (1/4 - good for all jobs)
- Finish Sword Merits (1/4 - Helps RDM, PLD, & WAR, not so much for BST)
- Complete 8 MP upgrades (Helps RDM + BST solo)
- Complete 5 BST Call Beast Timer Down upgrades
- Complete 5 BST +Killer Effect Upgrades
- Complete 5 RDM Convert Timer Down Upgrades
- Complete 5 RDM Wind ACC Upgrades

[TaruBST]

Re: BST Merits

So far, I have:
HP + 20
MP + 40
Emnity - 1

First this I did was Emnity - 1 because both jobs I play (BST and WHM) do not want hate.
Then I realized, both BST and WHM hardly ever get hate as is anyways... I started to do MP.
With MP + 40, BST/WHM with MP+20 gear (trainer glove), I already have 254 MP, so I thought it's enough.
Then I started on HP. I was going to do HP + 40 as well, but killer effect + seems good.
I might max killer effect + now.

[Glamdring]

Re: BST Merits

Ok, so 1st pardon me for being the resident nit-wit, but I have a problem. I am a BST/brd or Brd/bst as the fit takes me, and I plan to take BOTH to 75. Obviously I cap Cha and just as obviously MP is as useful to me as a hemhorroid, now what do I use? I thought you could only spend so much on jobs, regardless of how many jobs you choose to split them between? I'm thinking timers, but the Finale timer is just as important to me as the Call pet or reward timer. Those of you with multiple 75s please sound off and tell me how the hell this thing really works please ?!

[Taskmage]

Re: BST Merits

I don't have multiple 75s, but I can tell you how it works. The general merits like stats, skills, and hp/mp apply to all your jobs once you buy them. If you buy CHR on your bard, your bst will get the extra chr too. There is a limit you can put into each group, but it's not like you have to split them between jobs, since all jobs get the benefit.

The job-specific merits like timers, each job has a category and you can only merit them if you have that job at 75. Each job-specific category has its own limit, seperate from the others. If you merit finale, that won't impact what merits you can choose for your bst. Job-specific merits only apply when you are using that job as main, and only if that job is 75 (not under the effect of a level cap).