Defender

[Kyrial]

Am I the only one who wishes that instead of Defender Recast (which is nearly useless since the recast is the same as the duration already anyway...), we could merit Defender effect? For example, defense +5% attack-5% per merit, for a total of defense+50% attack-50% with 5/5 merits. It'd be awesome for skilling up, which is something WAR can spend a LOT of time doing if you're addicted to blue numbers like me...

[Arcon]

I very, very, very much approve of this. Very useful, not game breaking, and it would finally give me a reason to spend 5 of my 20 fulltime merits to cap my group 1 merits. I almost decided to spend those on Warcry Recast, just so I can claim to have WAR "fully" merited, but once I sobered up I decided against it. I would really appreciate this.

[Byrth]

I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're proposing, but I have a question for you:
How would anyone remotely serious about WAR not already be at 5 Berserk and 5 Double Attack?

[Kyrial]

I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're proposing, but I have a question for you:
How would anyone remotely serious about WAR not already be at 5 Berserk and 5 Double Attack?

I think a lot of WARs don't bother with any category 1 merits besides 5/5 Double Attack rate. I sure haven't. Sounds like Arcon up there hasn't either. Ever heard of the term Bergressor? The 2 are practically one ability to me. Having different timers on them would drive me nuts. Maybe it's because I'm not one of those Abyssea-era WARs?

[Byrth]

I think a lot of WARs don't bother with any category 1 merits besides 5/5 Double Attack rate. I sure haven't. Sounds like Arcon up there hasn't either. Ever heard of the term Bergressor? The 2 are practically one ability to me. Having different timers on them would drive me nuts. Maybe it's because I'm not one of those Abyssea-era WARs?

Haha, agree that you aren't an Abyssea era WAR. Let me guess, Ridill is still the best?

[Kyrial]

Haha, agree that you aren't an Abyssea era WAR. Let me guess, Ridill is still the best?

No, I'm not part of the hardcore endgame crowd either. Always been a Great Axe WAR. I'm just one of the people whose play experience doesn't revolve around leveling/meritting and NMs. If anything, it revolves around quests and missions, and when I don't have any of those I feel like doing, I tend to work on capping skills, making magian weapons, crafting, or collecting things like maps, abyssites, useless atmas, etc.

[Arcon]

I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're proposing, but I have a question for you:
How would anyone remotely serious about WAR not already be at 5 Berserk and 5 Double Attack?

I don't see any merit in reducing Berserk recast at all. If you use it out of sync with abilities like Aggressor, Warcry, Blood Rage, Sekkanoki and Warrior's Charge, you're just gimping your own damage. So I'd like to ask the opposite, why would anyone remotely serious about WAR want to gimp their own damage by doing that? It was just a useless thing to merit before Abyssea as it is now. Sure, there's nothing inherently wrong with meriting it, but actually using it out of sync makes you worse at what you do, so why would you?

If anything, meriting Warcry would make most sense out of the category, since occasionally you would use Zergressor before Warcry, cause you're trying to save it for a WS or something, so that for the next time Zergressor is up, Warcry would be up as well. However, I didn't merit it for aesthetic reasons, I simply like all my timers to be on sync. It's also why my only PLD group 1 merit is Cover Effect Length, the rest just doesn't make sense to merit.

[kingfury]

Am I the only one who wishes that instead of Defender Recast (which is nearly useless since the recast is the same as the duration already anyway...), we could merit Defender effect? For example, defense +5% attack-5% per merit, for a total of defense+50% attack-50% with 5/5 merits. It'd be awesome for skilling up, which is something WAR can spend a LOT of time doing if you're addicted to blue numbers like me...

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I'd merit it and use it Yes Please! There are times while tanking using -50%PDT gear where i pop Defender in hopes to further reduce the dmg but nothing's doin', and I'm like, "Awww C'MON MAN!! Reduce the damn dmg already!! It's called DEFENDER!" ><' lol
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It would be magnificent to have something push our DEF to the shear pimpness of what PLDs can reach, so I'm all for it ^^ /
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And I say let us have our old group 1 merits as they are and just add this in with the new lvl 90~ group merits wherever they are lol All I know is, there better be some serious friggin -MDT% option in those new merits to come lol

[noodles355]

Oh my god there is so much fail in this thread.
By lowering the recast of Berserk, and not stacking it with all your other job abilities at once you are gimping your damage? Are you insane? That is just completely incorrect.

Firstly: You don't even need agressor inside abyssea.
Secondly: If you don't have the skill to hit two different macros at two different times then quit the game and go play Hello Kitty online.
Thirdly: The damage you gain by having berserk up for longer (or rather not having berserk for shorter) outweighs the effects of stacking it with every other job ability you have.

But you must be one of those wars who thinks that because they stack all their JA together for one weaponskill every 5 minutes that they are an insane damage dealer and absolutely kick ass. Go home.

Edit: You're also using Sekkanoki wrong.

[Arcon]

Firstly: You don't even need agressor inside abyssea.

You mean, don't need it outside of Abyssea, at least not for accuracy. Inside of Abyssea, even with all the buffs, is the only place where there's mobs who still demand some accuracy at least. With proper gear you won't need it on most of it, but it's a nice bonus for those certain situations.

But especially with all those buffs you can't underestimate a WAR's evasion, not on NMs, but other mobs. Having evasion reduced helps with Retaliation. So if you really wanna do damage, without regard for taking any (which currently encompasses 90% or so of my WAR activities, both in- and outside of Abyssea), this helps nicely with generating TP. I have a 40% evasion rate against dynamis mobs, with Aggressor I can floor it. And not only will this give more TP to use while under Berserk, but it will increase Retaliation damage too.

Secondly: If you don't have the skill to hit two different macros at two different times then quit the game and go play Hello Kitty online.

That's not skill, that's ill planning (or being slept/stunned/amnesiad while you were using your other JAs). And why would I play Hello Kitty online? Crafting is even more annoying there.

Thirdly: The damage you gain by having berserk up for longer (or rather not having berserk for shorter) outweighs the effects of stacking it with every other job ability you have.

Got proof for that? Enhancing a higher value by the same percentage as a lower value yields exponentially greater results, which make up for the ~17% increase in relative duration (which is not a 17% increase in the actual effect, since some of it will be out of sync with the other effects, which would profit from it).

Unmerited Berserk:
0.6*1.25 + 0.4 = 0.15 = 15% overall increase
Fully merited Berserk:
0.6*1.25 + 0.23 + 0.17*1.25 = 0.1925 = ~19% overall increase

So you just gain a 4% overall difference, meaning even at 800 Attack, would only net you an additional ~30 Attack, averaged over time. But occasionally, you will have a lot less attack on the abilities and weapon skills that matter, WSs loaded with Warcry or Blood Rage, self-skillchaining with Sekkanoki and closing with a Warrior's Charge WS. That alone would probably be enough to make up for the entire 4% Attack increase, not to mention Warcry and Blood Rage last enough to get several WS in.

You're also using Sekkanoki wrong.

You don't know how I'm using it and I'm fairly certain I use it correctly.