Summoner Merits [Feedback needed]

Davion

Davion

.::[free yourself]::.
Adventurer
Joined
Mar 17, 2005
Messages
1,279
Age
43
Location
Atlanta, GA
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Bastok
Main Job
BlackMage-Male
Secondary Job
RedMage-Male
Third Job
Scholar-Male
I'm in a merit kick and thought about revising my Summoner merits before I get too far into them, if you consider this not too far in:

ffxi_20100223_185433-1.png


The game cuts off the Group 2 merits but I have each Blood Pact open and I just wanted some advice on what to do here before I get to far into it. My Summoning Magic merits are at 0. I already have Elemental Magic at 8/8 and I started on Enfeebling because of Red Mage so I'm in a bind because of that on what to do. Any feedback would be great.
 
What i'm going to do


5/5 mab (3/5 currently)

5/5 att (1/5 currently)


I have _+37skill from gear that will help my acc and thats not including the stuff you can get from sea(dynamis only) and theres some ah stuff i can still get ie austere slops and feet; the same gear also focuses for macc for the magical side. I'd merit it if I was that much into smn but there's so much skill gear that I dont think it's worth it, be a real nice boost to elemental siphion though! Also some of the gear that can be fulltimed ie smn bracers is used with my -bp set and such(no nashira or af+1) helps me put over the capped smn skill I have.

on stuff that matters I'll use my smn skill gear anyways because missing for the mp used isn't an option esp in lowman groups; -perp is nice, but there isnt rush to kill the mob any quicker and I find myself using the jmp for other things like buffs and favor with diabolos while waiting for the next bp.

tier II

damage doesnt increase, just gives a tp bonus that makes it faster to cap; geocrush has an additonal stun effect which helps and the merit bps are all ranged like diabolos's so it helps, I just went with what I thought looked best only thing was that i got one from the light side and one from the dark side. Heavenly Strike and Meteor Strike do nice numbers on zeni monsters, the more tp the better obviously I've used them on Iriz and Dea to great effect. Good for armed gears when the element is applicable as well but after the first gear falls off I try to switch to physical as damage should be slightly better atm.

I'd get geocrush just for a free stun but it's not imperative to me since I'm not a job thats relied on for stun, just a nice perk.

Hope that helps some
 
I generally say Heavenly Strike to 5 is all but mandatory since Shiva's so generally useless without it and Ice is a strong element, even ignoring the rest of your meriting.
 
K. Ishitar said:
.

tier II

damage doesnt increase, just gives a tp bonus that makes it faster to cap; geocrush has an additonal stun effect which helps and the merit bps are all ranged like diabolos's so it helps, I just went with what I thought looked best only thing was that i got one from the light side and one from the dark side. Heavenly Strike and Meteor Strike do nice numbers on zeni monsters, the more tp the better obviously I've used them on Iriz and Dea to great effect. Good for armed gears when the element is applicable as well but after the first gear falls off I try to switch to physical as damage should be slightly better atm.

I'd get geocrush just for a free stun but it's not imperative to me since I'm not a job thats relied on for stun, just a nice perk.

Hope that helps some
Click to expand...

I'm more prone to do Heavenly Strike to full that the other. I have Chaotic Strike for stun and its a bit more potent that Geocrush's stun effect. Also, the TP bonus that the help messages states in the merits does increase the damage output from the Tier II blood pacts, you can test that from using Shiva's Heavenly Strike once, then let her melee, use Rush, use <pettp> to check her TP, then use Heavenly Strike again. You'll see the change in damage. I sometimes use Rush first cause it doesn't use up any TP and she gets a TP return if I"m not mistaken.

Also I found this in wiki:
Additional Notes: Additional merit points spent increase Heavenly Strike TP bonus by 40.

* This attack ignores and strips any Copy Images on the target.
* TP bonus was increased to 0 > 40 > 80 > 120 > 160% in the June 6, 2007 version update and corrected back to 40% from 60% (per upgrade) in the April 2009 update.
* As with other magic Blood Pact: Rage attacks, TP does increase damage. (Linearly, with no TP tiers)
* Formula is (floor[512+1.72*(TP+1)] + floor[(Avatar's INT - Monster's INT) * 1.5]) * MAB(of avatar)/MDB(of monster) * Day/Weather
* Shiva has MAB IV trait at Lv75 and 82 INT.
 
Personal merits:
Avatar Physical Accuracy 5/5
Avatar Magical Attack 5/5

Heavenly Strike maxed out and all the other pacts unlocked.
I used to be 5/5 on Physical attack but honestly on anything higher then level 85 (HNM level) the difference is so minor you don't notice them unless you crit all hits really.

So I traded those off for Magical attack when SE released the Royal Redingote which I of course augmented with Magical attack +7.
An unresisted Heavenly Strike from a freshly summoned Shiva on a mob at merit level (79~82) does 1183 damage.
 
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lemme clarify, the tp will help it cap its max damage at 300% tp as in supply free tp but with 5/5 in one merit bp the damage is still the same as a level 1 with both having 300tp. The reason I'll work on capping mab before merit bps, of course not downsizing the usefulness of merit upgrades for them as the extra tp off the bat definitely helps the damage and means less mp spent on letting your avatar tp feed.

I also forgot to add the other reason I chose Ifrit/Shiva, multihit avatar bps would help fuel the merit bps faster, but this shouldnt be a determining factor really another slight perk since you're letting the avatar tp feed anyways
 
Eeh, well yeah..

Merits don't increase the maximum damage of a merit pact, that is true.
I might misunderstand what you are saying, but if I understand you correctly you think the damage increases in tiers?
I can tell you it does not, the amount of TP increases the pact's damage by a static number as the formula in Davion's post also sais.

Additional merits give the pact an increase of 40% TP per upgrade, so merit upgrades give a pact the power of 160% TP.
Your merit pact's 'base'* damage will increase as such also, however this also means you only need 140% TP to reach the damage cap of a merit pact instead of the full 300%.
So it also effectively decreases the MP drain needed for perpetuation by more then 50% to reach the maximum potency.**

*Damage dealt by the pact with a fresh unengaged summon at 0% TP.
**Depending on avatar accuracy.
 
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I'm that vague? basically I've been trying to say what you've just said shirai ; ;...
 
I read what you guys said again. I dont think it was vague I think it had to do with how I read it and how you worded it and the time it was.....but basically it words like Martial weapons and Hagun.
 
I think avatar acc and magic attk will be great that's what I'm doing now. I decided to removed my enfeebling merits since most of the time I'm playing RDM as a healer but I can still enfeeble with no trouble on resists unless the mob in question is just generally resistive so its ok in my eyes because of what I want my jobs to do. That's what merits are for right? I'm going to go 8/8 on Summoning Magic. I tend to solo things that no one will help me with but my Summoner can handle it alone so it's easier this way cause I can test what will work and what will not work at full potential.

One thing I've noticed: if you dont have Garland of Bliss, please get it. The defense down is quite noticable after following up with Predator Claws and even Rush.
 
Its a nice weapon skill. I like it because its one of 2 staff weapon skills that can , finally, close or open a light skill chain; Vidohunir being the second.
 
I may consider when SE decides to give our physical level 70 pacts (or those we may get leveling to 99) level 3 skillchain properties.
 
Right now I have:

3/5 Physical Accuracy
2/5 Physical Attack
5/5 Magic Attack

I'm thinking about dropping the physical attack ones and just adding them to physical accuracy though. Especially since I ended up getting attack on my crozier and Redingote. For tier 2, I put 1 in everything and took Heavenly Strike to 5/5. I decided to do this after seeing a SMN MB it for 2200+ on an aura statue lol. Definitely made my jaw drop. Oh, and Davion if you catch me in-game and need help/company duo'ing something, feel free to send me a tell. I'm always looking for an excuse to use my SMN on something.
 
Caelia said:
I decided to do this after seeing a SMN MB it for 2200+ on an aura statue lol. Definitely made my jaw drop.
Click to expand...

You mean my MB in the highest damage thread? (which was 2.024 damage)
That was also with Royal Redingote Augmented with Pet: MAB.

It can even go higher barring the right conditions. (Day/Weather)
And can even be upped higher if you're ever lucky enough to get an Astral pot from that solo ENM.
 
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The benefits gained from enfeebling merits, imo, far outweigh the benefits from summoning magic merits. Red mages need to hit a certain skill cap to land enfeebles consistently on higher level mobs like HNMs, etc. Honestly I'd only suggest smn skill over enfeeb if you're a smn main and rarely play rdm. If this is the case..your next question should be..do I want to be a magic damaging smn a phys damaging smn? If you want to gear more towards magic damage then I highly suggest getting macc/mab merits and 5/5 Wind Blade and 5/5 Heavenly Strike. Wind Blade because Garuda is our cheapest avatar, and Heavenly Strike because ice is widely known to be strong against a lot of mobs as well as there are Morana's Pigaches that add MAB to shiva's magical BPs. If you're going for phys damage then I suggest acc/atk merits and just unlocking wind blade and any other bp of choice. It really comes down to how you'd wanna play the job and how you wanna gear it.
 
Shirai said:
You mean my MB in the highest damage thread? (which was 2.024 damage)
Click to expand...

Definitely impressive, but no the SMN I was referring to was a friend of mine on another server. The highest I've done was 2300 on orcs while farming a Tigris Stone. This was with MAB merits, Redingote with MAB, and Crozier with MAB+3.
 
8 summoning skill
5/5 m.acc
5/5 m.att

1 of each and 5/5 in Grand Fall

Reason for leviathan is because its mainly for use on mobs that are normally resistant vs lightning/ice. Also it can still mb a darkness/disto if you know its coming. Beyond that, its just my personal favorite one also.
 
Do you all just go 5/5 and 1/1/1/1/1 because you just like seeing your avatars doing new tricks? Or do you actually use the Tier II abilities enough for you not to just g o 5/5 and 5/5?
 
I do HNM so I did this for my SMN
8/8 SMN skill
5/5 Avatar Att./acc.
5/5 Heavenly Strike
5/5 Thunderstorm
 
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