What Merits To Get?

I'll be doing BST's merits after I finish off RDM and DNC, so any suggestions on what to do them as? I'm pretty sure I wanna put 5x Beast Affinity and 5x Killer traits, but after those, what's the best way to spend them?

I'd do killer instinct. Since they updated circle effects that can be rather useful if you come prepared. Beast affinity is probably good unless you can get new jugs up without it. Not sure

Already plan to do those, i'm looking for past those. Not sure how to split up the remaining points among the other choices.

Obviously I've never used it... but I'm told Feral Howl kinda sucks

I'd recommend:

Group 1:
5/5 Call Beast Recast

5/5 Tame Recast (soloing NMs and whatnot)
or
5/5 Sic/Ready Recast (With glyph axe)

Group 2:
5/5 Beast Affinity
?/5 Feral Howl (Nice to have a terror, might save your life)
?/5 Beast Healer (Help recover your pet's HP)

Feral Howl is the lesser of two evils, in my opinion. Killer Instinct is situational, Feral Howl can be used against anything.

If you fight a lot of vermin, amorph, beast, lizard, and plantoid type mobs, and this is assuming you are pretty much using jug pets, I'd suggest 4/5 Killer Instinct, 1/5 Feral Howl. If not, then I would do 4/5 Feral Howl, 1/5 Killer Instinct. Both JAs are good enough to have at least one point into.

As for Group 1, I'd go with 5/5 Reward 5/5 Sic/Ready recast myself. 5/5 Call Beast is good if you're constantly waiting to recall jugs.

All personal opinion, of course.

Is the Beast Healer effect strong enough to justify getting just one merit into it? Or would 1 into it basically do next to nothing? (I don't use beast a whole lot, and I heal my pets very rarely, only when fighting an NM or something)

If that's the case, wouldn't bother with Beast Healer.

Honestly, I don't know. For Group 2 I only have 5/5 BA because the rest really are not worth it to me right now. I do plan on getting at least one merit in Feral Howl when I have extra merits.

Beast Healer would seem only ideal if you bothered to go with Reward Recast in group 1. However, I would say Beast Affinity is a must, and have at least 1 for Feral Howl, for those 'oh ***' moments.

Sic/Ready recast would be great for overall ease of killing and total dmg, especially with Glyph Axe.

But for group 1, it's really a matter of making your jug last longer with heals from reward recasts, or having the next one available quicker. Matter of preference I suppose.

But IMO I would do Call Beast recast as there is nothing worse than not being able to call out a pet when you need it most, and if you're going to solo some tougher NMs, no matter how many pet biscuits you toss at it, even with regen enhancements, they'll go down much quicker than anticipated.

I choice to do

reward x2
sic x3
feral howl x1
beast affinity x5

Suppose it kinda depends on what you do and fight.

Killer instinct can be well killer in zergs and such... enough where people might even let you bring bst to it lol

Group 1
Call beast timer is incredibly helpful if u plan on doing all bst endgame and/or all jug soloes.
After that Killer effects or Reward timer are both good options.

IMO tame recast is lame.

Group 2
Bst affinity is popular but may end up useless if new jugs scale to 99.
So for now its a Yes but later might be a NO.

Killer instinct is useful if u run with a lot of normal jobs (integrated bst).
Feral Howl is mostly useful for fast claiming but is also decent for quick stunning.

Beast healer can be strong with -15 reward timer hat and full reward timer down merits.

I did x5 call beast, x5 reward, x5 beast affinity, x4 beast healer and x1 feral howl

This is what im working for as well, Mainly using BST to solo, so Reward, call beast and extra regen is win for me

Honestly Feral Howl has never helped me so I went 5/5 Beast Healer 5/5 Beast Affinty 5/5 Call Beast and 5/5 Reward