Phalanx II Merits

I'd disagree. Because now you can just be nuking again instead of dotting. Using a dot wont speed things up in a world you could either just casted another nuke never did.

It only sped things up before because half the time you spent running around refreshing waiting on more mp or convert recast. Hence efficiency was very good. Now since it isn't efficient it's not. Actually keeping dots up in abyssea might slow you down now lol

Get a better potency build and suck less < 5/5 slow/para was never *** needed lol Idk why people think it was. >_>

Was never needed, but it IS better than slow/para1, so why not?
Bio3 is useless now.
Blind II is decent now, but I'd prefer slow or para.
Phalanx II is useless most of the time.
Dia III is nice, as allways.
Personally, I prefer slow/para 2.
Makes it easier to straight-tank stuff solo, and more time to get off nukes.

Also idc about what wiki says (not like I think there was really much testing done in the first place) there is a noticeable different between a kurayami:Ni (assuming the nin even uses it or can land it) and blind II. Enough for me to split merits between that and slow/para

5/5 on both is just a waste though. 3/5 slow 2, 2/5 para 2 then mix/match whatever you want would be better, Dia3 is *still* better than Dia2 for NM fights; Bio3 is kinda useless in abyssea, but works well outside for soloing ***, blind 2, eh>.>

Also if the updates make salvage pertinent again 1/5 phalanx II might actually have a use again lol.

If I'm on RDM these days, it's usually when I dualbox stuff I need better enfeebs for than I can do on BLM/WHM.
And as for dualboxing, I'll rather play it safe than try to speed it up, as I'm not the best duoboxer:P
And I think you underestimate Blind II, it's pretty strong compared to Blind.

Im aware, but really? 5/5 into both para 2 and slow 2 isn't going to make that big of a difference. Esp at 90, bio3 4/5 or 5/5 atleast lets you have a greater DoT granted most people don't solo or whatever anymore, but it's nice in some situations. Even dia 3 is better than fully capping just two spells heavily based on MND and arn't that hard to land anyway

Slow 2/para 2 cap out with enough MND. With a decent MND build/Abyssea buffs, 5/5 in both is doing *nothing* with you. All it does is let you use less MND in your potency builds. That's about it.

Again after multiple fights comparing blind II and kurayami from a nin the nin started telling me to blind it because the difference in evade rate was that noticable... not to mention it lands so much easier. Plenty of resistant nms in abyssea.

Dia III has always suffered from it's duration. It's dot is pointless. Putting multiple merits into it is kinda lame since it doesn't make it better just cost less effectively. But on anything worth casting it on you'd have to cast it all the time unless you were zerging. That being said as mobs def rises so that we can't cap pdif even with 999 att so def down abilities will start playing a more important if they don't fix the att cap... like so many other things in the game made for lvl 75 play that they still haven't adjusted.

Bio III used to be good. But now it's faster to just nuke. The def down effect is still occasionally useful especially as boss as rdm/blu pdt/def soloing/tanking can be. But seems a bit much just for that especially with still haven't bio II.

Dia III sucks...? Do we play the same game?


Eh I never really saw Bio3 as good imo... Main use was RDM solo but even then the extra merits into slow or para at 75 were more beneficial imo in addition to still having group benefits through other merited spells that RDM has. Also assuming you mean atk down and not def down.

***died fast before Abyssea too, what is the point of meriting anything then?

Yeah att down. And well I did rdm soloing back when you could rely on grav/bind. So I rarely even wasted mp on slow/para. Really surviving was rarely my issue unless I took to long and resistance built too. So killing faster was pretty nice.

Also by that logic, why merit blind when your whm can cure bomb w/o regard to MP? Why merit para/slow when losing HP isn't an issue or most heros mob will resist it? Why merit bio3 when DOTs are useless since ***dies fast? Why merit phalanx 2 when you can also get cure bombed or sub sch? Just kinda redundant to state that ***dies fast. The extra % of defense down will prolly be more beneficial than something like blind2 or bio3 imo over time. You only really need 2 merits into it to make it worthwhile anyways.

That still leaves another 6 points up for grabs. I personally went:

Dia 2/5
Para 5/5
Slow 3/5

Going from 3 to 5 slow II only lowers the mobs attack speed by 1.5% if there is no elegy. Less if there is

Mob won't live in 60 seconds....

Def down is becoming alot more important as previously mentioned.

On pretty much all NMs? lol

Concidering to do 4/5 para/slow or just 3/5 on slow to get 2 diaIII, but idk for sure yet, dont use RDM very often >_<

You should be using Dia3 on almost any mob when you have melees about.

I'll be honest, I don't ever play RDM. It's use since Abyssea has severely diminished. If I was to play RDM, I would keep those merits. MP is a non issue, nukes are the way to go for damage but in most cases you are holding a NM to proc w/e. In that case you are just there for support. When the ***is proc'd, toss a dia3 and go to town on nukes. Doubt whatever it is will last that long (besides MP isn't an issue, can reapply dia if needed) unless its a heros NM. In which case, few of them resist slow/para outright.