Blue mage Meriting

[Prothscar]

Will have to be a very significant boost to buff duration to make Diffusion worth meriting fully. 1/5 could be argued, but still have only very niche uses. Here's why:

Buffs that are suitable to cast with Diffusion:

-Animating Wail (Can be done by just about any mage or support job and can already be AoE'd by SMN. It does make it much more MP efficient for the BLU though.)

-Battery Charge (I would rarely ever consider this tbh. It's more MP efficient for the BLU, but Animating Wail is moreso.)

-Triumphant Roar (For circumstances where you don't have attack+ temp items. Its duration doesn't make it very useful for anything except zerg type situations and other boss encounters that you do not expect will last long.)

-Magic Barrier (Questionable since every other form of Stoneskin overwrites it and it's only good for magic damage.)

-Exuviation (Not so much anymore, but it alone used to be worth merits in Diffusion.)

-Orcish Counterstance (Idk, this would mostly be for fun. I don't see it being terribly useful in any real situations especially due to the duration.)

-Occultation (Meh. Would be better if Blink wasn't wiped by AoEs, but it could be ok for some stuff.)

-Amplification (A decent MDB and MAB boost for a decent enough duration.)

-Saline Coat (For some sort of oh shit moment where you know there's a big magical AoE coming up. Honestly, these situations are incredibly few and far between and the duration is pretty trash.)

Buffs that are not suitable for Diffusion:

-Cocoon/Harden Shell (Why)

-Pyric Bulwark (One free physical hit isn't that impressive. In my experience it doesn't work on dangerous AoEs either.)

-Memento Mori (Duration is far too short to be worthwhile.)

-Reactor Cool (Why)

-Warm Up (Why)

-Plasma Charge (Why)

-Barrier Tusk (Duration is too short.)

-Regeneration (Worthless when a mage can provide a stronger regen where you'd want one.)


For 5/5 Diffusion to be effective you'd have to have a 10m or more Animating Wail, which would mean we need at least 75% buff duration from merits. You'd also have to hope that those buffs don't get dispelled or otherwise nullified, limiting the usefulness further. Several buffs aren't even worth casting in the first place, and most others serve very very little purpose.