Should we all level a merit job first?

Zeoaesir

Zeoaesir

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Usually the preffered job combinations for a merit party is.

RDM
BRD
NIN
WAR
WAR
MNK

(The DD elements can usually include a swap between a WAR and a MNK)

I have no great snobbery regard what I say yes to in a party. Chain 15+ are very possible with standard party set ups. In fact the last two merit pt I've been in have been solid exp with combinations of which didn't include BRD and the ideal set up mentioned above. Too many people would rather spend an hour or two seeking <cannon only> when they could have got 20k from that standard set up.

MY preferred job is BLM. Exp is quite good in a burn and nice and flexible solo/duo etc, but I usually seek for merits on my WAR. Invites are quick and it's fun.

So should we advise people coming up to 75 first time to level one of the 'ideal' merit pt jobs? It would lead to them having a less frustrating time seeking and lead to an overall greater avg amount of exp obtained per hour.
 
the people up and comming now adays are ignorant enough about exp parties and tactics as is. we dont need to encourage it.
 
Zaltana said:
the people up and comming now adays are ignorant enough about exp parties and tactics as is. we dont need to encourage it.
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Truth, cannon parties are absolutely horrible for teaching people the wrong things (BLMs don't learn to control, MNKs don't learn how to skillchain, etc).


However, putting that aside, I would strongly encourage any newbie to take WAR or RDM as his first job. WAR gets him acquainted with melee tactics and tanking, RDM with... just about anything a mage could possibly do. And both are useful in all kinds of things. Plus, leveling WAR or RDM means they're not trying to suck, er, level NIN, COR, RNG, or any other job that really requires a high-level to fund.
 
We all know the answer: "Level what job you like most." The hard part is finding out what job you like most.

The way I see it is that you have to break it down into categories.

1. Tanking
2. Damage Dealing
3. Healing
4. Buffing / Enfeebling

Healing limits you of course, where damage dealing is very broud. It can be both with mages and melee's. You can be a job that DoT like mnk or gives big bursts of damage like blm. It can be both with mages and melee's. That's another thing. Mage or Melee? You have 18 jobs to pick. Then you have to take into account if you would rather play a job you love vs. invites for it. Such as PUP. Invites can be almost never.
 
Lol I've leveled PLD to 75 and nearly DRK to 75 I am also working on WHM and THF post 50's, I guess I am leveling all the wrong jobs for merit partys really. But then all you really need to get into merits regulary are a solid core of friends who dont care what you bring.

Meriting can be the great social fun for all, people just need to learn that. :)
 
Cua said:
Then you have to take into account if you would rather play a job you love vs. invites for it. Such as PUP. Invites can be almost never.
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From my experience, PUP doesn't get less invites than BLM -.-. I had do solo 63-75 on BLM lol.
 
We don't need any more horribly gimped 75 "cannon" jobs that think Scythe is a good alternative weapon for WAR...
 
I dont like it that you hardly get aPT when you dont have one of the jobs mentioned above... really sad that the "normal" PT setup like it was before ToAU almost died completely. I think its really sad. I personally have more fun in a "normal" PT than in a cannon PT. Maybe thats one reason why I like low lvl PTs sometimes (as long as it is no 1k/hr PT in the dunes... I am talking of Exp PT that work fine)
 
I find the idea of forcing someone leveling a job to 75 they dont like repulsive and I'm irritated you could suggest something like that.

Am I one of those cannon only people? Yes I am. It's because a majority of the non cannon people suck and the cannon jobs are already a crapshoot as to whether or not they have anything decent. If the cannon parties I find on occasion suck or get less than half the exp I know they can get then can you imagine how the non cannon ones are?
I've had a summoner go afk for the entire party. Theives that dont gearswap as well as other dd.(I just cringe more when it's thf because that's my "main" job) Lets not forget charlo the meree RDM running around in gear that could easily make him a top dd on another job and not doing any curing whatsoever except for when he uses convert.

A sad fact is that the chances of finding a person on a non-cannon job in acceptable gear is much lower than finding a decently geared cannon job because the cannon jobs can easily be replaced.

You might think I'm wasting my time for 2 hours being lfp but im actually doing other stuff in RL or going out and farming ingame/talking to lsmates.

It's also cheaper to be in a good party than a loong boring slow one. I prefer get 1~2 hours of quick ridiculously fast exp and GTFO. The last thing I need to do is play my job until I'm sick of it in a slow party while being ticked because I know that the peole there could easily double thier exp/hour by paying attention or taking 5 minutes to go get some gear.
 
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Level whatever the hell you want to level, you can get merits with any job. It's not like you have to cannon or manaburn to get them.
 
I'm 75 bst and i solo'd alot of merits up in sky(67 merits in one month well on my off time well i had my cast on my foot) cause thats what i had to do to get by. I played the job on how it was seen fit to, tried to better it by soloing some merits myself. Worked out great. I'm nearly done Meriting its areas. Axe, Job area, HP, MP, Crits, enmity-, fully merited. Almost done with STR merits to. I've tried to make merit parties on my old server, ppl would just laugh, but i made some great friendships with the people who gave it a shot, and surprisingly, it worked out great sometimes, we were getting just under 10k a hour most times. Once we had 12k a hour going for nearly 5 hours. Thats not bad in my opinion. When people talk about leveling a meriting only job, i die a little inside. People need to get out of there little holes in the ground and try something new. I solo'd my bst up. Doesn't mean i didn't try to level it or start merit pts with it. I opened my mind and gave things a shot. Others should do the same.

I'm also a 75 smn. I merited twice the entire time i played smn. Just enough to cap the job area merits(took me 2 months waiting on parties or smn parties and soloing, i took anything, cause i didn't get much of anything in invites case, this was before bst was 75) sense nothing else really effects the majority of the job, the avatars which is many endgames back on diabolos i was just a buffer or Spike DD in parts. Especially Kirin fights of course. Rarely we healed people as a main. We did it. But it wasn't what we were there for mostly. We adapt. Thats why i love the job.

Incoming small-medium rant...

I shoot people in the face that say smn is only a healer and a healer only. They base the reason for not letting us join these merit pts cause there jobist and only care about exp and not learning more skills or about other jobs abilities. We have the ability to be a jack of all trades in some areas. Screw your war/mnk/nin burns with a RDM healing(Summoners aren't always proud of it, but we can heal ok and are willing to if you offer merits sometimes). You'll never get better in the "gaming" aspect if you keep yourself that simple minded. All your doing is being good at gaining exp. But by these parties you lack the skills to work effectively with other jobs which could make you fail in the future. 5 blms and a rdm in a party learn no self control. They wonder at times when at fafnir why they pull hate and die with opening with a Burst II.

I've seen a fully merited War suck cause he didn't know anything about other jobs then just TP burning things. Sad.

If a Bst can merit in a merit party, and do it well mind you. Any job can. People need to see this. Its how you do it and make of it that will better you in the end.
 
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I'd say this thread should be called "Should we all level a cannon party first?" because that's what you're really talking about. Any job should be able to get into a party for merits.

Either way, my answer is "Hell, no!" There's no point in leveling a job you despise just because it could lead to faster merits.
 
There is no such thing as a "merit job" I've gotten big numbers in merits in PTs with a different setup as the one you describe. They might not be better than this ideal PT, but they get the job done.

ps. I've been getting merits soloing as SMN in Al'Taieu since 2006. You can merit/lvl as the job YOU have the most fun with. ^^)/
 
Hot damn, I've been doing it all wrong!

Zeoaesir said:
I have no great snobbery regard what I say yes to in a party.
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So should we advise people coming up to 75 first time to level one of the 'ideal' merit pt jobs?
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You kinda canceled yourself out here and lost me/irritated me/depressed me.

I am not near merits yet, and I probably won't be for a while. But what I see being said here is this:
  • 18 jobs to choose from, and "as a suggestion", only five jobs are viable in a merit party, so don't bother leveling anything else first.
Dang, that hurts my Dark Knight pride :\ I guess my White Mage wife and I will go change our jobs entirely...

Skaw said:
Level whatever the hell you want to level, you can get merits with any job. It's not like you have to cannon or manaburn to get them.
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Truer words have never been spoken.

Khajit said:
I find the idea of forcing someone leveling a job to 75 they dont like repulsive and I'm irritated you could suggest something like that.
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Sounds like:
Just a suggestion said:
Mithra shouldn't level anything but THF or RNG
Elvaan shouldn't level anything but PLD or WHM
Tarutaru shouldn't level anything but BLM or SMN
Hume shouldn't level anything but RDM (zomg)
Galka shouldn't level anything but MNK or SAM
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don't it?
 
A mix of both is ideal, really. If you cannon to the extent that you don't learn what jobs are capable of and don't learn basic game mechanics like skillchains and hate control, then yes, that's harmful to you.

On the other hand, if you do happen to know what you're doing, why go for 10k/hr when you can go for 20k/hr? If the 10k/hr has other things to make it fun (like the fact that you're out there with friends or something and having a blast), sure.

But if you're just there for exp, you might as well get it efficiently. It takes tons and tons and tons and tons of merits to max out (it was calculated out to be, what, 2 or 2.5 times the amount of exp needed to level a job from 1 to 75?), why make that any longer of a process than it already is?

And finally, just to flip sides one more time, there is no reason whatsoever why you should ever be forced to play a job you don't enjoy, or play a job in a role for it that you don't enjoy.

Although granted, there are limits. It's one thing to want to play a RDM in a support/debuffing role rather than a main healing role. It's another thing to want to play a RDM in a DD role. If you can't argue your case and have most people with understanding of game mechanics nod and think it's a reasonable idea, then you probably shouldn't do it.

Point being, seeing as I've argued both sides at this point, there's no clear-cut cookie-cutter answer. You need to consider all these factors in deciding what you want to play and how you want to play it. It's no better to bandwagon-cannon 100% of the time and not learn anything outside of that, than it is to fight-the-system, anti-bandwagon 100% of the time and eke in your merits at a rate which wastes your own time (and if partied, your party members' time as well) compared to what you could potentially be doing.
 
I will only do my BST merits as a BST. If I don't get into a meripo, I jugburn, no jugburn, I duo, no duo I solo even if it is more time efficient for me to level brd and meritwhore idc, if I don't like a job enough to merit on it I won't merit it.
 
im not gonna lie and say i dont like cannon parties. they are fun when the players know what they are doing. what many rising players dont undestand is that their equipment and previous merits plays a big factor in the high exp chains they hear about. i was in a cannon yesterday that was decent at first. 3 war 2 bard and me on rdm.we went doing chain 100+ but we were still making decent time. 2 of the warriors had to jet and we got a monk with shura's and haiadate and another warriror with a ton of merits already. the exp increased noticeably.

another thing is that people with this high end gear dont have hours to spend in gimped merit parties to begin with. they camp HNM's they have scheduled events or they have IRL responcibilites to attend to. so 1-2 hours of good exp is what they need to keep strengthening their character.

we all know that player quality is at an all time low these days. boxing them in to "cannon" jobs is just gonna make us have gimper parties in the future when they hit 75.

:2cents:
 
People from before already said it, "level whatever you like." You will still get merits if you don't have a nin, war, mnk, brd, or rdm leveled. And yes it would probably require more time seeking time unless you make your own party, or in a ls with alot of people with 75 jobs to start making a party. Personally I really don't care if its a cannon party as long as the people are good and I get exp/limit points.
 
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