Help With Blm Merits!

Before I start I guess I should say that I am elvaan and in no way is my main job blm, in fact I don't normally go to events as blm but I just wanna finish meriting blm so I can move onto something else.

Current Merits that would work for blm are..
8/8 MP -ehh
8/8 Elemental Magic
8/8 Enfeebling Magic

Cat1:
5/5 Lightning Potency
5/5 Ice Potency

Cat2:
2/5 Burst2
2/5 Freeze2

Cat1 is done and I'm not going to mess with it..my question lies with Cat2. Is it better to do 5/5 to both Freeze2/Burst2, or I was thinking to do 3/5 Burst/Freeze and 1 into Flare, Tornado, Quake, Flood. Is one option better than the other, I was just curious about this..and if any other blm wanna help out i'd appreciate it.

Oh yeah and before anyone says anything..I'm not going to merit Int.

When would you -ever- use Flare II truthfully? Never, ever... If you're going to be MB'ing, it will be with Freeze II or Burst II...

I'm kind of torn up on the Cat2 for my BLM too but thinking more along the lines of like just having burst, freeze and tornado myself.

5/5 Freeze 2
4/5 Burst 2
1/5 Tornado 2 (If you plan on using BLM for Kirin otherwise do 5/5 Burst 2)

Just my 2 cents.

BLMs in my end-game also use Tornado II for Jailer of Faith fights. It helps when we just MP burn him down with AMII spells and if we're hit with slowga, 90 second recast with slow turns into a nightmare. So having three spells for him is nice.

As they said already, but rubbing this in so it sticks. Your category one and stat merits are more than fine. However, I cannot think of a single time that Flood or Quake will be used. And if they *ARE* a reasonable spell due to monster element, you can cast Freeze or Burst and with your merits in potency, it would equal moreless what it would differ in weakness. Tornado has it's *very* few uses, and is worth unlocking. However, without an Auster's Staff, it's not worth it.

Burst 4
Freeze 5
Tornado 1.

Why not Burst 5? Although all AM II have the same base damage, people tend to forget Freeze WILL do more. Why? Aquilo's Staff has 5 INT on it, bringing the base cap up. :)

YES YES YES :D

I tell soo many blms to do this even just for fun over practicality.

I have lvl 5 ice lvl 5 thunder lvl 3 freeze and burst and lvl 1 rest of am2s.

I had changed it from lvl 5 freeze and burst lowered them to 3 made no change in no magic bursted dmg on the spells acc which wasnt a major concern of mine for mobs i freeze and burst outside of wyrms.

We can go through each of the additional 4 am2 uses such as flare2 for mad bomber in salvage and other bombs. Mnk does fk all dmg to mad bomber and it has to be killed fast, blm flare2 >> firaga3 >> fire4 is sweet. Thats if you lack sams or w/e.

Tornado good for lol kirin kited fight and Ouryu as well as other nms with weakness to wind. Same again with flood2... suzaku
and Tiamat. As for quake2 this is probably the least useful am2 tbh.

Reason i got all am2 is cos unresisted they all do identical dmg and obi and af2 pants for tornado/quake/flood/flare will beat freeze/burst with af2 belt and slops even if the freeze and burst have 5/5 merits in ice and thunder potency.

Solo dmg pudding figures :

lvl 3 freeze2 with 5/5 ice potency meritson iceday with obi and af2 pants = 2412

lvl 5 freeze2 with 5/5 ice potency merits on iceday with obi and af2 pants = 2412 still

lvl 3 or 5 freeze2 with 5/5 ice potency merits on any other day than iceday with af2 belt and mahatma slops = 2158

lvl 1 tornado2 with 0/5 wind potency merits on windsday with furin obi and af2 pants = 2230ish sry forgot exact figure here its 2220 to 2255 forgot both ring a bell.

Either way it shows the pattern i wanted it to show, which is suggestive that all am2 is nice to have. Even if its just to cast 1600 quake2 on dyna mob where other blms doing 1200-1400 freeze2 and for a change in spell sfx/animation :D .

But used in Endgame... Majority of the time you'll be using Burst... Faf/Nid, Tiamat, it works on Behe, etc. That's why I have 5/5 Burst II and 5/5 Freeze, since I never really need another wind spell if I cycle Freeze II, Blizz IV, Aero IV, Stoneskin, Aspir, etc. You have more spells than just your nukes, remember that.

Just my 2 cents.

I was gonna back-up the 5/5 freeze, 4/5 burst and 1/5 tornado (for kirin and faith if you do those often), but I think Basilo makes a really good point.

I'm not sure there's anything that's susceptible to only one type of damage, so if you go to the effort of getting all 7 obis (can't imagine why anyone would ever need light obi) and have relic pants, then you know you have the option of doing a full powered AMII on any day. It also means you'll have to have a complete set of HQ staves, whereas I know a lot of blm's will only have thunder ice dark, but I can certainly see the advantage. And really, you're only talking about changing ice and thunder from 5/5 to 3/5, it's not that bad.

WHM for Temenos and Nyzul, or just the completionist. BLM should never need light obi (except of omg Dia Magic Burst!!!! =O!)

Banish MB!

Actually I was thinking magic hammer for blu, but considering I use it like, two or three times a nyzul run (I generally run around with about 10 refresh, so MP is soooo not an issue) and almost never in temenos, it's really not worth the inventory -1.

And since I'm sure people are wondering how the hell I have ten refresh:

Refresh : 3
auto refresh : 1
relic body : 1
sanction : 1
Balrahn's ring : 1
Ballad II with storm fife : 3

And then Karu will generally pump that up to 12 with double ballad if I do somehow manage to spend all my mp.