Red Mage Merits Discussion

[Mystery]

I have heard many suggestions of how to change Red Mage's Tier 2 Merits. I have the following but I've heard other people with their setups and I was wondering what people have and why. This just seems like an easier way on forums so I can just get a bunch of input at once.

Paralyze II 3/5
Slow II 3/5
Blind II 2/5
Dia III 1/5
Bio III 1/5

Bio and Dia just in case the situation arises. Mainly focusing on Paralyze and Slow with a little in Blind. I was thinking this would get me most of the good spells avoiding Phalanx II because most tanks are PLD and PLD has Phalanx without me needing to cast and there would only be a slight boost from 5/5 Phalanx so the gain wouldn't override the benefits of slow/paralyze/blind.

Also, what do you guys use for your T1 merits? I have two locked at 5/5 because I figure that would be the best way, kind of like my BLM setup except this would be accuracy for my enfeebles.

 

[Myrid]

Skip Blind entirely unless you often duo stuff with an evasion-tanking class- nin, thf, dnc, etc. Put those two points into slow to cap it out. Bio's really only useful when capped out 5/5 for pinning/kiting, if you don't do that often then skip that as well and put that point into Para. 1/5 Dia, however, does have its uses: 30 second defense down on exp mobs, or overwriting a dia2/bio2 recently cast on a mob so you can sleep it in 30s.

And yes, phalanx2 is pretty useless now. If a non-pld needs it you can always sub SCH and give them stoneskin while you're at it.