White Mage Merits

[Llana_Virren]

Also give me a serious situation in which you use devotion. It is useless in abyssea and voidwatch. Whm isn't invited to nyzul or to farm dynamis for coins either. Seriously tell me when you use it?!

The facts are that shellra V is the only merit that does anything. You can argue all you want that you are a better whm for 5/5 devotion, but its not true. If you feel like wasting strategems to protect V your pt one could even argue you are making a worse choice.

Again, for the sake of being a broken record, I am not saying that Devotion is the almighty choice; the problem with Protectra V is that it sucks and isn't worth any merits.

I do not think I am a better WHM for capping Devotion; but I think I am a more resourceful one for putting merits where they are potent, versus "unlocking Protectra V because it looks funny casting Shellra V and Protectra IV".

And I have yet to understand how using strategems on a party buff is a waste. What are you using those strategems for if -not- to buff your party? (Or, before my LSs main DD line had all their screens, a double Accession>Cursna on the two DD parties came in very handy).

The point of this entire thread was that Shellra V is the only merit worth the time. I agreed with that since the beginning of the thread! Learn2read. The issue is that after Shellra V, Devotion is the only other category which can justify the merits. Protectra V currently does not, no matter how people look at it.

Going 1/5 in a category is not because of its usefulness, but because people have OCD about having access to every spell. If you can wrap your head around the idea that Protectra V is garbage, then you'll understand why I haven't put a single merit in it. Hell, if I could go 6/5 in barspell potency, that'd be better than 1 merit in Protectra V.

[Retsujo]

Devotion is pretty seldom used as an ability, but there are times when you CAN use it effectively to change the tide of battle, and those rare times are very helpful, indeed. They certainly don't happen often enough to make Devotion a serious merit, but between that and Martyr, it definitely gets more use.

Going 1/5 in a category is not because of its usefulness, but because people have OCD about having access to every spell.

I'm 1/5 ProV and 4/5 Devotion because of that right there!