Quote Originally Posted by Renshi View Post
I'm serious, you guys talk about Merit in FFXI and other MMOs like it's common knowledge, while my only experience in MMOs that lasted long was in Ragnarok Online and Aion and I've never hear about things like Merits, or if I had, it was masked in another word, so enlight me please =)
Merits in XI did:

1. Lets you increase your stats beyond the level cap since they weren't raising the level cap beyond 75 at that point, kind of like point allocation here in terms of stat "customizing".
2. Lets you increase your magic/physical skills, something lacking in this game but this basically pushed your enhancing/enfeebling/elemental/healing/etc magic another tier or two.
3. Unlocks new abilities or spells, e.g Dia/Bio III for RDM or Freeze/Tornado/etc II for BLMs.
4. Lets you enhance your weapon skill levels, which basically bumps them a letter grade (which means more accuracy/attack/unlocking weapon skills that aren't job specific etc.)

That's the main purpose of merits, in terms of FFXI's merit system. As of now they also allow you to unlock and enhance your weapon of choice final weapon skill.