Red Mage meriting

[Greatguardian]

On my end? It's a matter of defense totals.

It's a flat 10 Accuracy reduction above Blind 1 floored or capped, but speaking plainly, that's an additional 5% evasion rate, for 1 merit.

Slow II, an additional 4% Slow to your cap requires an additional 4 merits, and even then, you might not see the benefit of that in shorter fights. You ESPECIALLY won't see the benefit of an additional 1% Slow with just one merit for quite a while.

But the additional 5% evasion rate can proc on any attack round or even some TP moves. So long as you're not hard floored or capped on evasion, the extra accuracy loss is more beneficial for the merit, if not for the MP. Think of it as a defensive Brutal Earring in that sense.

And if you DO manage to cap the potency on the spell itself, it's as effective as the Ninja Ni Blind without having the ninja or crapshooting tools trying to land it /ninja.

For a merit I really didn't feel a strong purpose for, I found it a worthwhile purchase to add that additional defensive measure to my spell library. Though, again, I wish these were scrolls.

This assumes that you're bringing the monster's Accuracy from capped to uncapped. If you're actually talking about a Red Mage's defensive repertoire, that will never happen ever. If you're talking about increasing the evasion of a Thief, Dancer, or Nin/Dnc, then it's generally superfluous since these jobs can floor enemy hit rate fairly easily on most things.

Honestly, the only real situation where Blind or Blind II would have any effect at all would be where you're fighting difficult monsters (Neo Dynamis Arch NM/Tome NMs, VWNM) with an Evasion tank that isn't receiving Mambos. That seems ... improbable.

Pre-Nerf Blind 1 was actually a decent Enmity spell, but Blind II is the same enmity for more MP. Honestly it's pretty much a wash.

[Hyrist]

You're making false assumptions of two major points.

1. That every one of the monsters I am facing are difficult enough to automatically cap accuracy against me in every circumstance, and the use of Blind II is unable to break that rate.

2. That every Evasion tank I assist has the gear to force themselves into capped evasion against every monster.

In pratice, I find neither of these cases to be true, and therefore Blind II is of use.

Your argument is fine on paper and on paper I agree. The game itself, however rarely fits into paper math, and parses of evasion rates have proven to me how often evasion is not at the assumed absolutes.

If I may anticipate further arguments, you'd tell the Dancer to "Suck Less" and me to stop fighting weak mobs, right? Until such a time both my friends receive the gear needed to hit evasion cap dependably enough, and until I am finished with my weapon trials, Blind II will still have a use. And will continue to be useful whenever I encounter that "Grey Area." Where I am not certain that evasion is capped or floored.

Again, I currently have no other use for that one category point, all it would due is stack more duration on Dia III, and I'm already comfortable where it is.

Once those circumstances change, or the merit categories are revised, I'll re-evaluate my choices. It's not as if merits are precious things these days.