WHM merit points: Where should they go?

[ItachiKujata]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

You'd pretty much have to be /SCH all the time then if you're not going to fully merit cure cast time... whether that's worth it to put into regen or not is up to your play style... personally I have cleric body and didn't see the point of regen merits in my current style of play.

[Saren]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

Pretty sure I will stick with maxing out cure cast time merits even though I /sch for almost everything. Being able to hit 35% reduction irrespective of subjob is too nice to pass up. I love regen for exp and sky farming etc but I don't really need a more powerful regen. I do now have a fairly compelling reason to go try for a Salvage LS though.

I'm not sure how the whole juggling marduk body (assuming you can get one) and Nobles around so you get the cast bonus and your 10% cure potency would work though, 0.3 seconds off the casting time is definitely not worth losing 10% potency. I think it's something like cast time is decided at the start of the casting and potency is decided at the end but thats 'something I remember reading somewhere' knowledge so not sure how reliable that is.

PS: Thanks StarvingArtist for the gear listings My brain died a little when I got to that part.

PPS: You can get even more cast time down with /rdm but I left it off because when are you honestly going to /rdm for anything.

[Callisto]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

2. Just get two cure cast time merits to get you up to 35% reduction (with light arts, cure clogs and Loquatious) which is the tier 2 on cures and close to the soft cap on curagas (you lose ~0.1 second), miss out on the curaga tier and lose your tier 2 cures when going /blm or /smn etc but frees up 3 merits for regen.

I'm not a WHM, but still I couldn't imagine something being more beneficial that this setup, Cure Clogs aren't super difficult to get, and Loq is steadily becoming easier to obtain as well. I hate saying that any subjob is the end-all be-all for any job, but /SCH really is stupidly nice for WHM, unless you're in dire need of Escape from a WHM I can't think of any other reason to sub something different for normal WHM play, and if you're /NIN meleeing or something for fun, you're probably in a situation where shaving that extra second off of your Cure cast times aren't a huge deal.

[Icemage]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

I'm not a WHM, but still I couldn't imagine something being more beneficial that this setup, Cure Clogs aren't super difficult to get, and Loq is steadily becoming easier to obtain as well. I hate saying that any subjob is the end-all be-all for any job, but /SCH really is stupidly nice for WHM, unless you're in dire need of Escape from a WHM I can't think of any other reason to sub something different for normal WHM play, and if you're /NIN meleeing or something for fun, you're probably in a situation where shaving that extra second off of your Cure cast times aren't a huge deal.

There's cases where WHM/BLM trumps WHM/SCH, but they're few and far between. Elemental Seal + Repose is a perfectly valid tactic in cases where dark-based Sleeps won't work very well.

As for Cure Clogs, I wanted very much to like them. I farmed Bonnacon personally for about a week and a half to get a pair, and was crushed to find out that they actually weren't very beneficial.

Nowadays, you'd have to pry my Herald's Gaiters out of my cold, dead Tarutaru fingers. Failing that, Rostrum Pumps are still better.


Icemage

[Callisto]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

As for Cure Clogs, I wanted very much to like them. I farmed Bonnacon personally for about a week and a half to get a pair, and was crushed to find out that they actually weren't very beneficial.

I'm currently 0/9 over the course of the last month trying to get them for my g/f, I've gotten a total of 3 Buffalo Meats and 1 hide in those 9 kills, lol.

Kind of amusing at least, one night I was farming him and g/f didn't want to cook dinner even though it was her night to, I got to use the line "I've been slaving over hot Buffalo for 3 hours for you!" as leverage.

Regarding Rostrums, really I guess that's a min/max deal, I would assume the ideal would be cast cures in Clogs then swap Blessed feet for potency/recast, cast everything else in Rostrums...but that's also how I'd play WHM, I don't know if I necessarily expect my g/f to go hardcore with min/maxing macros, lol. I've always felt that Rostrums are a bit of a turd, the recast reduction is less than NQ Blessed and the casting reduction is barely noticeable, especially if many other spells are set up in some sort of tiered form of cast time reduction similar to how the Cures appear to be.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

Kind of amusing at least, one night I was farming him and g/f didn't want to cook dinner even though it was her night to, I got to use the line "I've been slaving over hot Buffalo for 3 hours for you!" as leverage.

LOL Priceless!

As for merits in cure cast time, absolutely a must in my book. Regen merits, not worth it. In endgame, the stuff hitting the tank hits for way more than a silly regen 3 is going to help. I use my regens religiously but don't think they are worth meriting. Now for merit parties, yes that would be a nice touch. So in the end I guess it depends on how you are going to use it.

EDIT:

Nowadays, you'd have to pry my Herald's Gaiters out of my cold, dead Tarutaru fingers.

LOL Never gonna see this in my FFXI lifetime.....hell even in irl lifetime!

[Saren]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

Nowadays, you'd have to pry my Herald's Gaiters out of my cold, dead Tarutaru fingers. Failing that, Rostrum Pumps are still better.


Icemage

Mmmmmm Herald's Gaiters but so far out of my reach right now.

Sorry but screw rostrum pumps, they are drastically over rated for what they do for you. I still need a pair (map mp build, regens, enfeebling) but they aren't the gods gift to whm feet that people make them out to be.

If I can find that post about the whole when cast/recast time is calculated and when potency is caulculated and I can crowbar the alterations into my macro setup then I will be swapping them as Callisto said, cure clogs for speed, blessed for potency and -enmity.

Callisto: as people have been saying regen is lovely and whms tend to use it as much as they can but for a lot of things it's just not practical. It's either dangerous because of the long cast time or worthless because of the tendancy towards overcuring in endgame. If regen merits gave a cast time reduction instead of extra hp/tick then that 2 cure cast time build might be more drawing me more.

/blm is useful for a lot of missions and I would rather make sure I can hit that 35% when I do have to go /blm than build exclusively for /sch and be slightly crippled by changing subs plus I do use curaga quite lot in endgame and merit parties and though I don't need that 0.3 seconds it would be cool.

[Callisto]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

Out of curiosity, Divine Seal timer is a merittable option is it not? 3 merits in that would shave a full minute off, that might be nice for Divine Veil if nothing else, since you'll have exactly 3 slots leftover. If 3 extra Cure Cast Time merits would be for the most part wasted for the 90% of the time you were on /SCH, and 3 Regen would only be marginally useful at best, would DS timer not be somewhat useful? I know that one of the hugest bitching points I hear from WHM is the 10 minute timer on AoE status cures.

I can say that with 1 minute shaved off of Convert it's definitely noticeable in larger fights, but DS is of course not exactly as dynamic as Convert in most situations.

As far as /BLM, really I don't see anything past possibly CoP 8-3 that you'd really need your WHM able to ES Sleep/Repose something as a critical part of winning the fight. That's what BLMs and RDMs are for, and most things that are only sleepable with Light-based are generally stupidly prone to forms of it, I really cannot think of one you'd need ES for unless your Divine Skill is terribly gimped.

[Saren]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

It's meritable but.....meh. The only reason you hear whms bitching about it so much is because sch can pull one of our 'post 37 ooo exclusive reward for taking the job seriously' tricks 10 levels earlier than we do and can do it more often (ten times as often by the time they hit 70) which is just slightly into taking the piss territory. Part of me is really starting to hate bits of accession. I mean it would be nice if we could do it more often but it's not something I spend hours grouching over and it would take more than a 1 minute reduction to get me excited about it. I would rather go for regen than divine seal if I wasn't going to max cure cast time.

edit: I've not gone /blm for ES + repose, only ever for ES + sleepga like CoP 8-3

1 minute off your convert timer is what though? an extra 1000mp ever 90 minutes? 1 minute off a divine seal timer is a maximum of 81 mp saved every 90 minutes if you are using it for status removes and you only get that if you have to do a full 5 extra single erases ontop of the one you would have AoEed. You actually get slightly less mp back from it if you use that extra charge in 90 minutes to convert a curaga 3 into a curaga 4 ><

[Kirbster]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

I didn't want to start a new thread, but If i wanted to merit my WHM for endgame activites (I have RDM for merit parties), which merits would work best?

I'm under the impression that:
Cure cast 5/5
Barspell 5/5
Devotion 5/5
Shellra V 5/5

would be best for an endgame WHM.

Any suggestions welcome.

[Olorin401]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

I didn't want to start a new thread, but If i wanted to merit my WHM for endgame activites (I have RDM for merit parties), which merits would work best?

I'm under the impression that:
Cure cast 5/5
Barspell 5/5
Devotion 5/5
Shellra V 5/5

would be best for an endgame WHM.

Any suggestions welcome.

Been thinking this out myself as I gather some more merit points.. Here's what I have & what I plan to do:

Cure Cast 5/5 (maxed)
Barspells 5/5 (maxed)
Total 10/10 (maxed)
---------------------------
Devotion 2/5 (Increase to 3/5)
Protectra V 1/5
Shellra V 3/5 (Increase to 5/5)
Martyr 1/5

I thought about going the 5/5 Devotion route, but just having P5 at the first tier is fine and I've come to really love Martyr - a 0MP cure bomb with seemingly no emnity is always useful in an emergency, tho I've started using it more often since getting sub-SCH (I'm in the job ability menu a lot more.. heh)

[Callisto]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

I think Martyr is at least worth unlocking b/c it's a great 'ohshit' ability, I honestly don't think Protectra V is worth unlocking aside from not wanting to look awkward casting Pro IV but Shell V. The increase in Defense is marginal at best, and in terms of actual damage taken by party members it wouldn't even be noticeable.

Shellra V is awesome, get level 2 at the minimum, but higher is nice for tanks who haven't been able to quite pimp out their Magic damage reduction sets. Devotion is hot sex on a fucking biscuit, max it out, and when I log on tonight I'm going to harrass Olo in /t's until he does the same. ^^b

Edit: In regards to 5/5 Cure Cast Time merits, check the top of this page and I think the one before it too, with the advent of /SCH and new info on Cure casting time tiers, depending on how you play WHM you can specifically set it up to only need about 2 Cure Cast Time merits with Cure Clogs and /SCH, allowing you to free up some merits for other stuff...the debate is on if any of the other stuff is really useful, though.

[Olorin401]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

....and when I log on tonight I'm going to harrass Olo in /t's until he does the same. ^^b

/away until Rona gets peeved at me (again)

Yes I agree that the def+ from Protectra V is negligible. (Personally, I wish Protect strength was scaled by MND in a way similar to Cure potency, with Pro5 being uncapped and extra merits adding a bonus multiplier) Still I just like having it around for the bling value. Is it worth getting rid of to have a 10 min Devotion timer? Probably.

[Kirbster]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

Hmm, I'm shifting more towards Regen merits now, It's one of WHM's key spells.

And as stupid as it sounds, If i want faster cure casting speed, that's what my RDM is for heh.


I'm sticking with 5/5 Devotion and 5/5 Shellra V tho, i think. I'm a bit far off to be thinking about merits, but hey, I'm bored at work lol.

[Callisto]

Re: WHM merit points: Where should they go?

You want to at least hit the minimum tiers of cure casting time, it really does make a difference in terms of getting that big Cure V off when you need to. Regen merits are nice for merit parties, farming, and lowmanned kited fights or other things where MP efficiency and enmity reduction is better than getting people cured right a way, but for normal straight tanking at endgame many times you don't really have the luxury of relying on Regen as much as Cure V.