MNK merit tips

Tim Wakefield

Tim Wakefield

Subligarka
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Joined
Jun 19, 2004
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41
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Pittsburgh
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Monk-Male
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Beastmaster-Male
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Quetzalcoatl
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Well, I just hit 75 on my first job, and know absolutely NOTHING about merits, how they work, or where I should start placing them. I'm assuming things like STR, Crit+, and H2H skill, but I am not positive on how they are set up in said categories or whatever. Any assistance on a meriting plan for ol' Timmy boy? Are the 4 new JA's worth it? Help me outtt przzz.

I don't really plan on leveling any other jobs immediately. I'd like to finish my PLD eventually, but am in no real rush to do so. Thank you.
 
Crits and h2h first.
Kick attacks when you feel like em.(I'm sure theother mnks can tell you when it's best to get those merits)
Always leave str merits last because they will make you scream out in horror at the agony of having to get that many merit points.
I cant reccomend much else since im not a mnk and quite frankly it's all situational from that point on although I hear pennance and formless strikes at least have some use to em.
 
I forgot what I merited first but I believe it was h2h, after that crit+, and then JAs. I saved stats for last because they required a lot of merits.

edit: lol, Khajit beat me by a min... ; ;
 
This isn't the order I did it in but if I were to do it over I'd do...

8x h2h
4x crits
1x formless strikes
5x kick attacks

where you go from there is up to your play-style.

For group 1 if you don't plan to really solo or tank ever, you can do 5x focus recast or maybe split with chakra recast. If you think you'll be taking some hits, counter is the way to go.

For group 2 Invigorate really comes in handy again if you take decent amounts of damage. Penance is pretty lol so I'd recommend against it. My personal plan is 1x formless strikes, 3x invigorate, 2x mantra. Mantra's kinda for fun though and probably should be done last if ever, could do 3x formless instead if you want to.

Afterwards if you really want to you can do STR, but you'll want to kill yourself the whole time you're doing it.
 
I did 3 Invigorate and 1 formless and called it finished.

Yeah, I could do 3 formless, but I'd rather have it be recast instead of just boosting your weapon damage by an additional 1/10 and 1/5. I don't use it enough,or rather, don't fight enough mobs when its up before I manually remove it, to find much benefit from that. Dropping it down to 5, or even 6 minutes, would be a much better use of additional ranks.
 
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Minimum 10k buffer before even starting merits, merits are useless to lv 74's
 
Rappa said:
8x h2h
4x crits
1x formless strikes
5x kick attacks
Click to expand...

WIN!
H2H skill 1st.

Flameass said:
Minimum 10k buffer before even starting merits, merits are useless to lv 74's
Click to expand...

Capped Onry. Just leave your "mode" on XP man. You'll cap out and never, ever worry about buffers. When you die and lose XP, the next XP you get will cap you out soon enough and then you continue on your merry way, meriting.
 
Sneakypants said:
Capped Onry. Just leave your "mode" on XP man. You'll cap out and never, ever worry about buffers. When you die and lose XP, the next XP you get will cap you out soon enough and then you continue on your merry way, meriting.
Click to expand...

This.
 
You max exp buffer really just depends on what job you die on the most.
The more you die and the less r3 availiable the more of a buffer you will need.
If you have dynamis northlands acess add in another 10k exp for your buffer.
Add another 10k for salvage.
To my knowlege mnks dont do alot that can repeatedly kill them in endgame and if they die a r3 is always handy.
I generally used to buildup buffer on my thf from assaults and by swapping to exp mode during sky farming. It adds up faster than you think.
 
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Only thing I can add that hasn't been said, and i'm sure won't be bad advice is to leave your STR for last. It takes a lot to merit that, I think the last 3 "upgrades" are worth 9 merit pts and considering the only thing it will affect is your WS, i'd say all the other things people have posted are better to invest in first.
 
Whether you get your buffer in merit parties and then happen to get random merits when messing around, or only get merits in merit parties and rebuffer (and get merits when you're done) when messing around, it ends up the same either way. There's no advantage to getting your buffer in non-merit parties as opposed to merit parties.

Switching to merit mode early just leads to more instant gratification but you *should* grit your teeth and fill up your buffer at some point anyway, and the sooner the better. Once you do it - be it sooner or later - you can basically just leave yourself permanently on exp mode after that. If you've been doing a lot of dying lately, well, you need to rebuffer from that *anyway*. And if you haven't, then you can go straight into merits.

As for what to upgrade, I'd agree to knock out H2H and crit+ first. As for which order you want to do them in, or if you want to alternate or something, that's up to you. The total cost is the same. You'll get the most effect, soonest, by alternating though. (First upgrade to each cost 1 merit, second to each costs 2, third to each costs 3; fourth crit+ is 4, while fourth through eighth H2H remains 3.)
 
Oh yeah, I didn't mention that my next step was getting a buffer. I was gonna do 20k, but now that you mention it, I guess it would be better to just suck it up and cap it out. As for the rest, thank you. Very handy info.
 
I'd go for this order:

7 hand-to-hand (8th isn't nearly as important, but it is nice)
4 crit
5 kick attacks
1 formless strikes
Combination of Penance/Invigorate depending on how you play
Some amount of counter/focus/chakra if you feel like it

Mantra is totally fucking useless.

Penance is excellent, I throw out Chi blasts in merits and mobs never get off more than one TP move, most of the time they don't even get that; and these are mobs that aren't killed in 5 seconds from spamming weapon skills. With all of the subtle blow gear/merits that monks and ninjas can get, stacked with Penance, it makes mobs far less annoying and saves mp.

Definitely get a buffer first though.
 
Sneakypants said:
Capped Onry. Just leave your "mode" on XP man. You'll cap out and never, ever worry about buffers. When you die and lose XP, the next XP you get will cap you out soon enough and then you continue on your merry way, meriting.
Click to expand...

Actually this is the correct answer, i was screwing around on blm today, went from 6k buffer to 33k buffer, 11k to go before i can ditch blm and go back to meriting as ninja.

I was just saying before that everyone needs a minimum buffer, and capped buffer is ideal.
 
As the others have been saying:

30k+ buffer, or be a smart person and let it cap
7/8 Hand to Hand
(1 Formless at some point after this if you do anything endgame)
4 Crit
5 Kick Attacks
8th Hand to Hand
Penance and Invigorate
5 Counter
5 STR
some MP merits

Why MP? Because if you'll only be saved from death by your HP merits, you're probably going to die in the next 10 seconds anyway since that means the WHM isn't paying attention. MP merits are useful to any mage job, MNK/WHM, MNK/DRK, etc. On top of that, you're a galka, you have oodles of HP and next to no MP... can you even Raise on MNK/WHM with no MP gear? >_>

Invigorate is endlessly useful, I don't know how many times I've survived in dynamis, or sky, or solo, or elsewhere, only because of that extra 240 HP regen, especially outliving some DoT. Penance is just as useful, not letting that mob do a second 500 damage TP move in the first place. Mantra's only place is with 3+ kracken DRKs. Formless is really pointless to give more than one merit, and way too good not to give one.


And on a somewhat unrelated note... Sea gorgets won't do anything for Asuran Fists, so don't bother getting one.
 
Those are sea torques that give skill... but yea, no 300+ for MNK. :(
 
I noticed I party and ballista alot so... I've alotted my merits in the first group (focus, dodge, chackra , etc..) for a better "solo" I guess. But if you dont think you should worry about taking to many blows , on top of that you have tons of hp , you could easily consider meriting your JA's instead of straight "Counter."

You'd want Penance though... I havent picked up what Mantra or Formless is good for yet although Formless just sounds like a good thing to have, and I'm gonna get Invigorate soon.
 
Mantra is for making your DRK's do a little more damage with soul eater. Formless strikes is good for mobs that are either immune or resistant to physical damage, or dynamis mobs that use invincible.
 
Ino... said:
But if you dont think you should worry about taking to many blows , on top of that you have tons of hp , you could easily consider meriting your JA's instead of straight "Counter."
Click to expand...

No, it really doesn't work that way... Dodge merits are flat-out laughable, more focus is terribly useless when most MNKs are either eating sushi or have the gear to compensate... and thus pull enough hate to justify counter merits. Chakra is a debatable merit, I'd certainly put points in there if they increase the group 1 merit cap... but counter merits will usually protect against more damage than Chakra merits will heal, at least in a solo situation. And in a merit party, you WILL have a trigger-happy healer who makes all your fancy chakra/invigorate merits utterly useless, by Cure III/IV'ing you every time you hit your chakra macro.

(Counter is normally 15% / 45%, merits bump it up to 20% / 50%, and it's noticable)
 
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