What Merits to take?

[Malacite]

So I'm really at a loss for what to pick on my G1 merits.


Accuracy and Magic Accuracy seem like the best since they give the most return on investment (3 points per merit vs 2) however others have told me (and also just from using relic feet holy crap) that avatar attack and MAB will have a huge impact on damage.

[Shirai]

Re: What Merits to take?

Personal G1 merits:
5x Avatar physical accuracy.
5x Avatar Magical attack.

If you can boost your summoning magic skill to over ~310, magic accuracy shouldn't be a big issue barring the monster's own buffs (Shell), natural magic evasion and resistance to the specific elements.
Summoning magic skill however doesn't help your avatar's accuracy while being idle, so those merits will help you when you're soloing higher level and evasive mobs or are TPing your avatar for a merit pact damage boost.

As for avatar physical attack, to be very blunt, I had those merits for a good 2 years, but I never noticed a huge difference on anything higher then exp/merit mobs.
Magical attack merits however did have a significant and more importantly, noticable impact.

[Zoltar]

Re: What Merits to take?

I merited Avatar Physical Attack/Physical Accuracy. I love spamming Predator Claws, and if you love moves like this, merit physical all the way. IMHO, there will always be a BLM for magic nuking....just my two cents though

[Shirai]

Re: What Merits to take?

Don't get me wrong, I love using physical pacts on a lot of things.

Now if you use summoner on Heraldic Imps, Soulflayers, Greater Colibri and Groundskeepers you may notice a bit of a difference in Physical damage if you have it merited.
I however use summoner on mostly HNM related mobs, I have compared average Predator claws damages with a lot of summoners in my carreer going on mobs like Tiamat, Cerberus, Khimaira, etc. but also the more accessible like Sky gods, the Proto- weapons, ZNMs and VNMs and always came to the conclusion that the difference always has been extremely marginal.
Marginal as in the difference of average damage per pact being around 5 to 8 damage per PC versus unmerited summoners and those that hadn't even reached 75 yet.
Now that I found a terrible waste of 150k exp.

Besides that, a lot of the (H/Z/V)NMs are very susceptible to magic damage wherein the magical pacts are becoming a lot more consistent then the physical pacts.

[Zoltar]

Re: What Merits to take?

When doing VNMs/Gods/etc, most SMNs I see use magic like Heavenly Strike, Thunderstorm, etc. I find that with weather/day working on your side, you will still lay good numbers close to those with magic merits. For soloing/DD/NM-hunting, I like physical, just my two cents though. And my summoning magic is capped too, which helps. Did you merit this yet? Without gear you should have almost 300 I believe...

[Malacite]

Re: What Merits to take?

Okay thanks for the feedback. I haven't done extensive testing but it seemed like my Relic boots were causing a pretty dramatic increase in PC damage so that's why I asked.

I'm also considering just waiting until level 99 is available because SE said we'd be getting more new avatars & pacts for existing ones. I don't want to merit myself for one kind of pact and then get screwed when the new ones are out and it turns out they're the other damage type.

[framerate]

Re: What Merits to take?

There is no wrong answer, but I'm 5/5 MAB and phys attack. Get my accuracy from SMN magic and gear.