RDM Merits

hello newly obtained rdm asking for merit advice~

group 1 im thinking mainly ice/earth macc for slowII/paraII?


group 2 i wanted bioIII/diaIII/slowII/paraII/phalanxII but not sure how to break that up

i think convert recast is kinda negligible now what with abyssea/voidwatch, but not sure if i should be using other macc merits than ice and earth. id get blindII to have all of group 2 but not sure where i should spend the points in group 2. ive heard many rdms just have slowII/paraII/bioIII also. mainly just lookin to have a more fun mage job other than cure bombing on my whm...plus i think slowII sounds pretty fkin sweet

anyway, tldr; what are your merits?

Ice MAcc is solid, Earth not so much because Slow basically will or wont land.

It really depends on how you play the job, capped Bio3 was invaluable for me over the years.
Was able to solo so much back in the day with help of the duration of that spell.

VW procs are important, so cant go wrong putting at least one into each Enfeeble.

I wouldn't recommend basing merits off just one or two events, but to each his own.

For whatever it's worth I setup my RDM merits as follows:
8/8 Enfeebling/Elemental/Dark Magic skill
Tier I
3/5 Convert Recast
4/5 Ice Magic Acc (thnking Para II)
3/5 Earth Magic Acc (thinking Slow II)
Tier II
2/5 Dia III
5/5 Slow II
3/5 Para II

I went 5/5 Convert and Ice Acc, then 5/5 Slow II, 2/5 Para II and Phalanx II, 1/5 Blind II. I don't do VW as Rdm so..

5/5 Convert
5/5 Ice Accuracy

At least 1 in each of Slow II, Paralyze II and Dia III.

Do not merit Bio III. Seriously, don't.

I don't mean to come across a *** here but when was the last time someone actually converted and the 5/5 merits allowed for recast to be there? It's possible to have something like 12 or 13 mp/tick refresh outside which imo greatly pushes the gap between 'verts. Only time i've really needed to is in VW after burning all my mp and temps on trying to proc then realising i was supposed to be healing :3

I was thinking the same thing, but I didn't want to be the one to say it.

It'd be easier to make a case for not meriting Convert if our other Tier I merits were less terrible. Personally I try to operate by the rule of thumb that if I'm not running out of MP, I should probably be nuking more.

*shrug*

Okay, it's possible to have that much Refresh and not "need" Convert as often. What's your point? What would you rather put the T1 merits into?

For your consideration:
http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Bio_III
http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Phalanx_II

On my RDM alt:

5/5 Ice, 5/5 Wind (silence).

5/5 Para II, 4/5 Slow II, 1/5 Phalanx 2. Maybe 3 times a year I look at convert and it isn't up again.

IMHO Bio III is for soloing RDMs. Mind you its useful for them.

If you use rdm for anything but solo you'll want Dia III instead. 30 second duration on 1 merit is really annoying so I prefer to have atleast 2 though it does nothing but help the duration. I'd also recommend focusing on slow over para since para is rarely going to land on most mobs of value anyway.

I haven't played rdm on anything of value in along time so I doubt my advice will be current but I have to agree with what some others here were saying. With all the refresh gear I have, I have a very hard time running out of mp. I don't think meriting convert is really worth it for the small difference in recast but honestly with nms how they are the mob is either easy to land debuffs on or is immune to them so magic acc isn't really all that useful either. I very rarely ever have to use my high accuracy set and nearly always cast in full potency. I used Ice and Wind for para silence and gravity when I played but that decision was made back at 75 cap and I never really felt the need to change it.

I wish my rdm was useful enough to warrant bringing it out again. My chapeau is getting dusty.

Silence and gravity never land on anything of merit so wind merits are essentially worthless. I'll just keep convert merits, the only thing I would come close to considering is thunder magic accuracy for Stun/ThunderIV.

Current Merits due to VW:

2 Dia III
1 Slow II
1 Para II
4 Phalanx II
1 Blind II
1 Bio III


I could drop Phalanx II for more Dia, but then I'd get depressed knowing I have even less spells to help the pt with, no matter how minute others think it is.

I can't think of a single NM that is both silenceable and resistant to silence, perhaps you could provide some elaboration here?

Honestly it's not necessarily about the value of Convert merits right now so much as it is the fact that all other options in that category are even less useful in that they don't help at all. It is possible and potentially beneficial to expend MP faster than a non-merited Convert will allow, but good luck getting any use out of macc merits nowadays.

you won't need phanax 2 if you /sch.

the first perk is phalanx 1 is stronger than 2.
second perk is /sch will make your rdm stronger. between light and dark arts, accession and manifestation you can do far more. not to mention mp cost in light/dark arts being reduced as well as half cast time/mp cost with sch ja's

I primarily did wind because of dynamis(75) mobs casting annoying spells. Such as blm and rdm mobs and pets like scorps and crows and the crows being wind based made it more difficult to keep unresisted duration. Is it useful now? Probably not but neither is anything else. Rdm group 1 is lackluster with the current enfeeb system and how easy mp is to get and keep. I've changed my group 2 a few times but I've never felt the need to change 1.

There are some limits to it though. For example, if you're doing Salvage (which, yes, is old, but it'll be revamped sometime), you may have restrictions that favor main-job spells (needing subjob + JA on the first floor, where Phalanx is most useful, on top of ability to cast, means dumping a lot into the RDM off the bat).

Or, more generally, even if you are /SCH, not needing to reserve Strategems for Phalanx may be helpful.

Accession Phalanx is a great potential tool, but really so is Phalanx II, depending on the individual's typical RDM activities.

Most of my RDM merits are just left as they were from back when I actually used RDM more often. Cat1 is Ice 5 Convert 5, Cat2 is Phalanx 5 (from Salvage), Dia III 2, Paralyze II 2, and Slow II 1.

If for w/e reason your play style doesn't deem it useful, its still a VW proc.

Brd nms lol, But yeah, lol >.>

thanks all for the info~

for now i went:
4/5 ice
3/5 earth
3/5 wind
===
3/5 para II
2/5 slow II
2/5 dia III
1/5 phalanx II
1/5 bio III
1/5 blind II

my group2 is just to have all spells, but ill probably take off bio III and blind II and put into phalanx II and slow II or something

new job just looking to have fun. ill probably bring it to emp farming nms and such, will still need more practice to bust it out in salvage/voidwatch/ein/etc., until then ill just go whm :/

i did earth 3 thunder 2 ice 5 cat 1
cat2 is all spells rest on para but this was at 75 capp havent changes since then but works for me atm

I don't remember exactly as i'm not logged in but i think i capped ice potency and dropped the rest in earth. For Paralyze2/Slow2 respectively.

I can't think of anything that resists slow to the point earth macc merits are going to help at all. at 75 the only mob I remember that resisted slow2 was... Odin I think? and the land rate was like 30%ish or something like that. Either way macc merits weren't going to help you.

Agreed with the sentiment that convert merits are mostly unnecessary, however I find the rest of the category even more useless.

Many things have changed since the level upgrade updates. Before the updates i had merited

Category 1
Ice 5/5
Wind 5/5

Paralyze and Gravity due to kiting... i thought gravity was way more important than slow at the moment cause most of the time slow landed anyways besides a few resists which you will get...id rather land gravity than slow in most cases for event nms such as kirin etc...... Now i might take 1 or 2 off and put it on earth for slow...since its very rare now we use gravity for anything anymore unless you are doing old events which most likely it will land more successful since enfeebling skill, int, and magic accuracy is legit. i honestly never bothered with convert recast...to me it was pointless and useless especially now with temp items and abyssea.

Category 2 is obviously changed since voidwatch has made new procs that i didnt even use merits on blind 2 and dia 3...if you plan on doing voidwatch wouldnt hurt to throw 1 on there now. They are proc spells now but thats up to you.

Yeah Dia III was ok for soloing since it lowered the defense but most likely you werent soloing as often.... so i put Bio III merit in instead since more events i felt reducing attack was a little more important where rdm can dispel many defense buffs. Either way its preference.

before update category 2 i had...

Slow II- -4
Paralyze II -4
Bio III-1
Phalanx II -1

now i just might take off 1 each of slow and para to throw on dia and blind to just have the spell in general for procs when needed.


But that is all just what ive done and my opinions on it so hope it helps :D