Merits For A Endgame RDM

to cap slow you need 5/5 merits, plus proper dmnd as kvazz said. that being said, most people cannot tell whether there is a difference between 35 or 36 or 37% slow. that's not to say you shouldn't aim for it though.

Group 1

5/5 Ice accuracy
5/5 convert recast timer

Anyone who says wind should get an Auster's Staff and call it a day. Gravity will land on anything not immune to it with no problems and honestly, most things in newer content are immune to it anyway, and accuracy will not increase the time it takes for old mobs like Despot and Faust to become immune to it either. Ice benefits Blizzard/Paralyze/Bind.

Group 2:

5/5 Slow II
5/5 Paralyze II

A little more debatable. I find Bio III to be largely a waste of MP since all I ever use Bio for is to stop things from regening. Dia III is usually a waste as well, although it never hurts to use during a zerg while another RDM is Chainspell stunning. Phalanx II may have been useful if capped prior to the level 80 cap, but since /SCH can accession Phalanx, it's completely redundant. Blind II is worthless.

I went as a event RDM with
5/5 Earth
5/5 Ice Macc in group 1
Dia III 2/5
Slow II 4/5
Paralyze II 4/5.

1 minute (or better even more) Dia is for Zergs far better then 30 secs especially when you only join the fight to Dia III and drop after, but this depends how your LS handle Zergs. If your only task is to Dia III and sit around waiting for mob to go down then well 1 merits could do it aswell, but if you are busy cureing or you need to drop then 1 min is a nice number cause most Zergs end around over 30 secs but less then 1 min. Thats just my point of view, if you prefere to recast every 30 sec then its up to you^^

I didnt put any merits in Convert, but lets keep real, in event situation you have a BRD or COR with you, together with Refresh and 2 (or 3 with Cuffs/Shoes) Autorefesh you have so many MP to use together with /SCH i hardly ever need to wait for Convert Recast while Cureing, buffing, debuffing and Nukeing if its usefull to do so. It would be such a waste of Merits.
If you are serious about MND Build Slow 2/Paralyze 2 (which all RDM should) you welcome all macc you can get without sacrifice MND slots. Since you will cast in Club + Shield and like 0 Enfeebling gear and like 0 macc on gear. I hardly ever need to use Staff for Slow/ppp in Events (A PPPed Omega or Ultima with full MND gear is really nice^^) I have something like +80 MND for this and it could be still more cause i dont have Morrigan legs/shoes or some new stuff. This is all my personal expierience and its allways up to you what you really pick.

Dont listen to someone saying you arent Cureing enough or Nukeing enough just cause you dont need Convert Merits, it allways depends on the Situation you are in, what extra buffs you get, what subjob you have and so on... as /sch you can aspir SO MANY MORE MP (if you fight mobs with mp for sure), so you have problems to spend them all lol.
I duoed alot with my BF some NM's and VNM's, he has full Convert Merits and he has the Bio 3 5/5 but mostly he is /nin and i am /sch. He converts constant and in the end he still need to wait for its recast. just with /sch i nuke more then he does and my mp are still at 50% when he converts again.

not to mention pld has access to phalanx natively now and will soon be able to reach cap if cap isnt raised with update.


If he's asking about what merits to use here he doesn't have refresh body and head.

Best way to describe the situation is convert merits are a waste and not noticed until you really need them. Then you really notice them.

I guess you could argue what with all the new gear/atma/ levels, its not as necessary as it used to be, but then again neither is macc. What with how enfeebling magic increases but caps on mobs don't really seem to require more skill, your gaining levels that's giving you skill that you can use to rep macc gear pieces.

Anything that you can land slow on in abyssea it lands easy on. anything you can't land slow on you can't land slow on. Earth merits aren't going to help you nearly as much as that oh ***moment when you save the day during a wipe because you were able to get mp the second you needed it and saved the tank.

5/5 convert (a must) you need MP resources asap, specially for endgame events/solo

5/5 ice (you need those binds to land) don't waste your time meriting wind , gravity is only for emergencies when bind wares off too fast or bind broke, on top of that nms build resistance to gravity way too fast

5/5 bio 3 it does help on kill speed , specially when you are soloing a bcnm or ksnm/ anything with time limit, who wants to be 3+hrs soloing something with bio2... genbu takes me 1hr and half now, it used to take decades with bio2, any soloer knows what i'm talking about,

5/5 slow2 (a must) it's about 35% slow down effect you need it asap specially when you are soloing without kiting

paralyze2 it's a waste of time, it's not that relevant to para1 but for accuracy wich if overrated now, specially on lvl 80 and ice merits, enfeeblin magic will be a joke on lvl 99
dia3 it's only for party/merits/salvage, you don't need physical down effect for solo
blind2 for ballista purposes only

i really hope they raise cap of Phalanx D: Ok right now dont need to carry so many gear to cap it but wtf SE? 28 dmg Phalanx at 99? plz no ><

He said he has BLM with 3 Morrigan, dont know which so i guess his gear shouldnt be so bad and a RDM head is easy to obtain (we got 3 in last Dynamis Tav... together with the 5-6 RDM heads we got during LS break orz)
As i said it all depend on the situation what you do and what you have with you, for me Convert Merits were allways "solo" Merits to speed kills up, same as Bio III lol I am not that much a solo RDM either, i just dont have the patience/time for long solo fights XD My LS normally has for bigger fights 1 WHM for 1 Tank and RDM is the WHM Support to Refresh all and for Debuffs. So Convert really isnt needed for me as you said aswell, you wont notice them until you need it^^ But i dont say that it isnt for others, its my expierience.

Never said to not cast slow in full MND and the thing about 75 MND is such a joke. Mobs have different values so suggesting a blanket statement is like suggesting the 320/120 blm build back in the day. If you were the run of the mill blm sure that will work for majority of stuff but is the best? No.

The difference between something that is slow II with 1 merit and with 5 is 5% reduction when you are capped. Hate to break it to you but anything worthwile you wont be capped on. Meaning new ***. Our base stats didn't get a boost and we've gotten hardly any increase in mnd gear last patch.

On things that you can cap on a tank isn't going to give two shits about 5% increase reduction because its almost not even noticable. On top of that an extra few procs on paralyze will counter that slow difference. I'm not saying slow II is worthless or you shouldn't spend the merits but if you going to put them into slow and paralyze you better put paralyze higher or equal to it.

***is situational yes but more often than not. Being /sch /nin or any sub if you want to burn the mp in some fashion you can. "aren't going xyz enough" isn't what I'm implying. A "skilled" rdm will probably be able to handle all their duties and perform just fine without needing to convert much. I'm not saying you are gimp if you dont ride the timers. What I AM saying is you can be as efficient as possible by doing those extra nukes and cures. People come here asking advice to improve their game. I gave them a response that clearly outlines an improvement. Just cause its not something you or others would do doesn't make it wrong.

He didn't suggest a blanket statement, he said 75 more MND than the target, and he's more or less correct.

you are right. my apologies I read it as +75 mnd

Personally I think I'm going to go for 5/5 ice and wind acc. My mp is pretty good and given that most things nowadays are either not too hard to enfeeble or flat out immune with nothing inbetween that should allow me to demerit enfeebling so I can finally merit blu or maybe dark.

Right now T2 I'm:

1/5 phalanx II: I salvage alot so it's kinda useful to have especially if I don't have Ja yet, can't get in range, or and busy using strats for other stuff like AOE cures, stoneskin, enspells, nas etc.

3/5 bio III: Nice for soloing and pretty much anything less you might as well use bio II. Also rather useful for rdm/blu blood soloing

3/5 slow/para: Both nice debuffs and just putting similar amounts into it. Partly stopped because I ran out of merits and partly because another 1% or 2 isn't much of a difference.

0/5 blind II: I'd actually like to play with this. Blind helps more than people give it credit. But who evasion tanks lol.

0/5 dia III: 1 would be nice for zerg but outside of that mp cost/duration make it suck unless you put alot into it and it's really not worth putting alot into it.

Noooo never exclude Convert 5/5. It is THE most important one. Wind Acc is a joke.

I've never been in a situation that it would've done anything but slightly speed things up. Hell I convert more on my blm nowadays then my rdm. And I play rdm ALOT more. And I'd like to grav gods without enfeebling merits.

It's not a slight speed up :X it's very useful against NMs like Ovni and the such which need to die, fast. Convert 5/5 is in my opinion among the best if not THE best group 1 merit in the game and I wouldn't give it up for anything. Split Ice and Wind if you have to, but never give up Convert.

I seriously don't think you understand me when I say I rarely ever use convert on rdm.

Not all people have the gear and mp management to accomplish this though. If you have the gear, merits(mp) and /sch you can cast non-stop in dyna (buffs, debuffs, nukes, cures) and absolutely never run out of mps.

I know. Which is why I was saying I don't merit it. Not saying no one should. I must say though it worked alot better when I still had magnetic earring. Being an taru with mp merits helps too

Group 1: 5/5 ice pot and 5/5 convert
Group 2: 5/5 slow2 and 5/5 Para 2

I see a lot of debate on if 5/5 convert is really necessary, and all I can say is it is.

5/5 earth really has no use, if you're having trouble landing slow2 it means you either have problems with your gear or you should have an ES rotation or something.

Personally I built my rdm for power. My goal is to push as much MP as possible. I hate sitting on my hands not riding my convert timer. There is always something to do with your extra mp in an event.

If you dont have mp problems, which I doubt is likely, then you have too much mage support or something. Pull you extra mages out and put in some more DD to speed things up even more.

And especially lowman. Hit your convert timer up with MP to spare? Nuke nuke nuke. Play more aggressively. You can always take advantage of a lower Convert timer barring EXTREME situations.

I have a strong distaste for nuking in light arts...

You could say you could almost always nuke more and use more mp. But you could also say you could need more whatever acc.

I also might add the vast majority of the time I use convert outside of soloing is because something unexpected and bad happened. Which happens semi often largely due to suckiness of the other support or people doing silly things like thinking its safe so feeding the mob tp or whatever.

In those situations I needed to burn alot of mp in a short period of time. Which is a part of the reason I don't ride the timer and just nuke more.

Cause what happens when I need the mp and there is no convert?

A scenario which occurs more without Convert merits :p

Wind accuracy merits are only even somewhat useful once only very occasionally. Convert has the potential to be useful 100% of the time you play RDM. Sometimes it won't help, but I'm very positive about saying that it'll always be more useful than Wind Accuracy, always.

Meh. It doesn't fit my play style 99% of the time.

I am usually support. And usually in a position where I might need alot more mp.

As such convert is a back up and nothing more. And as such recast is never an issue.

I've had too many times where I've need vert and didn't have it in the past and everyone died to feel comfortable in most situations not doing so. Consistently give me another support job I can trust to pick up the slack if I'm low and sure I'll do it. But that is so so so rare for me

Bio 3 just to dual box zombie kill Sarameya for cash and prizes $$$

for my soloing RDM:
Convert 5/5
Ice 5/5

Bio 3 5/5
Slow II 2/5
Paralyze 2/5 (For both of them, i never have a problem w landing)
Phalanx 1/5

I just solo'd Faust today and killed him. It was fun to solo, but it took 40 mins or less. Which it is why i merited convert full cuz i will always need MP.

If I was to play now I would go for:

Cat 1

* 5/5 Convert - More MP is always useful, I don't care if you can manage your MP well enough; I prefer to be cast every spell I need to, not start thinking about which buff/debuff/cure/status I should ignore. And if I am in a luck situation where I have "too much" MP then I can always find something to use it on.

* 5/5 Ice - Useful for bind and blizzard both are indispensable for soloers; and ofc Paralyse. There maybe an argument for 5/5 earth if you only ever play RDM in an alliance on HNM/NMs.

Cat 2

* 5/5 Slow II - Solid and dependable debuff that you can count on. Paired with a good MND build this is incredibly effective and keeping your tanks alive and reducing your overall MP requirements

* 4/5 Dia III - Another 5% off the mobs defence, that's 5% increase in damage from every one who is attacking (assuming uncapped attack), which results in a 5% shorter fight time, which in turn is 5% more mobs killed and 5% more drops.

* 1/5 Para II - Personally I would sooner not have Para II, but I think I would need it just to overwrite other RDM using Para who don't understand dMND. I would sooner move to 5/5 Dia III.

Phalanx II is a joke, Phalanx I can be turned into AOE by RDM and SCH which removes the need for it at all. Also its primary use (Salvage) is now 'old' content.

Bio III is for soloing, if you solo then you will want this, but personally was never a big soloer so didn't worry too much about this.

I'll continue to drive the idea home to assure you not to follow some of the few outlying people:

Group 1:
5/5 Convert - As you said, you're a team player. The best you can do for the team is to have a reliable amount of MP for when the team needs it. If one of your other healing mages starts to disconnect or has to afk, then you basically would have to cover for them. This would put a strain on your MP. Meriting Convert a no-brainer for any situation. Period.

*/* Ice/Wind/Earth - As a team player, you have more options for your other Group 1 merits.

Benefits of Ice: Increased accuracy on Blizzard(RDM's most effective nuke). Even in a team setting, you may be needed to nuke in order to speed things up, or to kill an enemy that can't be killed by meleers(think Apollyon immunities). Increased accuracy on Bind. Think of a time when a RDM may be called to support-kite a Dynamis-Xarc boss. That enhanced bind accuracy could save your tank from getting murdered. Finally, increased paralyze accuracy. You can focus less on enfeebling gear, and squeeze out much more MND gear if you decided to merit Ice Accuracy.

Benefits of Wind: Increased accuracy on Aero(a lackluster RDM nuke). There may be things immune or strong to Ice/Thunder(Gigas monsters) that you would have to use a different type of nuke. Otherwise(even if you merited Wind Accuracy), you should be nuking with Blizzard or Thunder. Increase accuracy on Gravity. On most new monsters, gravity is out-right resisted. On some of the older monsters, gravity grows in resistance(becomes impossible to land regardless of how much magical accuracy you have). And finally, there are some monsters that have no resistance to it at all. Having merits in Wind Accuracy will basically only benefit you for the 3rd group of monsters, which you probably wouldn't need to gravity in the first place. Finally, increased silence accuracy. The only monster I can readily think this would be useful for is Suzaku. Most of the other dangerous monsters in this game will be immune to silence if their spells are potentially damaging. If your LS was made only to kill Suzaku, then you should definitely merit Wind Accuracy...

Benefits of Earth: Increased accuracy on Stone.. the worst of all mages' nukes. Let's face it, the only reason you would merit Earth Accuracy is for its benefits to Slow II. Meriting this will allow you to push more MND gear instead of enfeebling gear for Slow II. While Ice/Wind have three spells improving from their accuracy merits, Earth has a single spell.


Knowing this, Convert and Ice 5/5 is what I've done. On my original character, I made the mistake of not doing this. On my second character, I made sure to go this route. Don't make the same mistake I did.

Group 2 merits are a different matter, as many of the people have already said. Really, it's come down to four spells. Blind II has been assume to be useless since the start, and is simply too unreliable to depend on. Phalanx II has lost its niche since the arrival of /sch and PLD's access to Phalanx. And even if you're not /sch, you could better your team by focusing on the other merits. So, that leaves us with Slow II, Paralyze II, Dia III, and Bio III.

5/5 Slow II - As has been said, it is a dependable improvement of at least 4% more slow with full merits. The fact that the merits also increase the accuracy of the spell will allow you to push more MND into your gear to (hopefully) cap the slow effect on the monster.

*/* Paralyze II/Dia III/Bio III - A team player, as you've stated you are, will probably not see much use out of Bio III. The attack down effect isn't enough to turn the tides of a battle in most cases. The DoT effect is substantial, but when in a group setting, it has very little noticeable difference. So we'll just narrow it down to Paralyze II and Dia III for your case.

Benefits of Paralyze II: A noticeably more potent paralyze effect. Also, more accuracy when trying to land the spell. Paralyze II, unlike Slow II, has a much more variable duration. You'll notice sometimes that it may paralyze the monster 3 times in a row from the moment you've cast it.. but right after the 3rd proc, it suddenly wears off. Now.. you've just spent 36 MP on a spell, that you may have to recast in 10 seconds. And the spell may not even proc over its short(or long) duration. This is partly the reason why I think Slow II is a definite victor. You will always see results with Slow II, however, Paralyze and Paralyze II are simply too variable to rely on. Not to mention the huge MP consumption that Paralyze II can take. You could cast 6 Paralyze Is with the same MP a single Paralyze II and could see the same exact results. Slow II will ALWAYS be better than Slow I, as long as you used the exact gear for both.

Benefits of Dia III: As a team player, this is a great spell. Whether this needs the full 5 merits is debatable. Honestly, in my time playing. Having a DoT effect that lasts long(I have Bio III at 5/5) has saved my *** before. Before a wipe, you can toss a DoT on the enemy as you're dying. You can use this time to zombie the monster easier while people are resting their weaknesses off. Other than that, the defense down of Dia III can really improve damage done by your allies. Between Dia III, Light Shot, and Angon, you can reduce a monster's defense by 40%. On high defense monsters, this can really make a DD's day.



My personal opinion for your case would be to go 5/5 Slow II and 5/5 Dia III. I'd also highly suggest 5/5 Convert and 5/5 Ice. With those ice accuracy merits, you can push as much MND as you can into Paralyze I, which would probably outperform most mediocre RDM's Paralyze II with a single merit and using high enfeebling gear. These are the most general RDM merits for team events in my opinion. Now if you do a single specific event, or if you only bring RDM to a specific event, then tailor your character to that. "I only bring RDM when we go kill Suzaku. I'm going to merit Wind Accuracy" or "I only bring RDM to salvage, so I'll just merit 5/5 Phalanx II" - These are fine situational uses, but won't be very applicable to many other events.

Being a taru*

That's funny.. I didn't think this thread was about you specifically.

No it isn't. But it would be part of the reason I I do it that way... not to mention it's not like being a taru rdm is so unique..

It's not unique. I was simply correcting your grammer. Because I'm a grammer nazi.

Should correct his grammar too.