Thread: WHM melds for a casual-ish player?

When in doubt, Crit/Det is always good. You can add PIE if you find MP to be an issue, but using Assize, Lucid, and Thin Air more often tends to solve that. You can also add some VIT on the right side if you find you need it to survive stuff, but that tends to not be an issue outside of high end content.

Disclaimer: Substats generally won't make or break your performance as a WHM. Weapon damage and MND come first.

Somewhat soapbox-y and maybe an unpopular opinion from a career WHM raider:

VIT > PIE as needed > SPS > DET = CRIT

• Don't be that healer with Direct Hit melds. Direct Hit does nothing for your healing output and is only a very nominal damage improvement anyway. Even if your cohealer is handling more of the actual healing burden, at least choose something that impacts your healing AND damage output (spell speed, determination, critical hit).

• VIT VI meld your jewelry- all of it. If you mess up a mechanic and die, odds are that your party is going to wipe, or at best, you'll be stressing out your cohealer. Even if you are reliable and consistent at mechanics, you'll probably be amazed at how often that extra HP can bail you out. You can get clipped by a beam in O7S or stumble through Trine in O8S as examples this tier. Per Yoshi P - "I think players’ overall run will go more smoothly if they try melding grade V vitality materia to their accessories."

• ABC! Always be casting! Are you not casting Stone IV or keeping your dots up during healing downtime because your MP is too low? You may need to meld more Piety. Managing Thin Air, Assize, and Lucid Dreaming well should all come first, as well as refresh from a MCH or BRD, but there may come a time when you feel the sting of not enough MP. Personally that didn't occur for me until the last third of O8S, but don't be afraid to add more Piety if you find yourself consistently low in a fight.

• Finally, between Determination, Spell Speed, and Critical Hit, I tend to favor a balanced setup, leaning a bit more towards Spell Speed. Determination is consistent and improves baseline damage/healing much like MND, but is also fairly weak. Critical Hit offers more potent healing and damage than Det, but critical heals are usually wasted anyway. Spell Speed gives a modifier to Aero II, Aero III, Regen, Medica 2, and Asylum, but more importantly, SPS lowers your GCD. You can easily shave a tenth of a second or more off of your GCD, which can be the difference between clutching out a heal before a tankbuster.. or not! Some may argue that you'll always be precasting for upcoming damage, so GCD doesn't matter, but breathing room isn't a bad thing, especially during progression. Side note, with a faster GCD, you may feel you need more Piety to keep up.

Your mileage may vary, but the above should set you (and by extension your group!) up for success in clearing and farming high-end content. If your goal is maximizing personal damage output in a like-minded group that doesn't make mistakes, that's another matter.

End soap box.

Originally Posted by CaeliaCat

[*]Don't be that healer with Direct Hit melds. Direct Hit does nothing for your healing output and is only a very nominal damage improvement anyway. Even if your cohealer is handling more of the actual healing burden, at least choose something that impacts your healing AND damage output (spell speed, determination, critical hit).

Finally, between Determination, Spell Speed, and Critical Hit, I tend to favor a balanced setup, leaning a bit more towards Spell Speed. Determination is consistent and improves baseline damage/healing much like MND, but is also fairly weak. Critical Hit offers more potent healing and damage than Det, but critical heals are usually wasted anyway.

First, yes. Direct hit is only a minor dps increase. But it still is. And frankly, you don't need more healing after prog. If you've learned the fight you should know when damage is coming and how much you need to heal. Should you meld it? Probably not, because most players don't speedkill, and that's where dhit is most relevant. But that doesn't mean direct hit is worthless.

Second, crit isn't so much about landing that sick crit tetra or cure2, as it is about the crit stones/aeros/HoTs.

Practically speaking it doesn't matter (both melding and *why* one meld is better). You can meld whatever you want. You only need *enough* gear to pass checks.

As for the why, you aren't looking at stuff like crit healing and such. You're looking at dps. And we already have the tier% gains for crit/det/dhr, so it's already solved in that respect. So opinion of crit vs det doesn't matter compared to the raw numbers.

Originally Posted by CaeliaCat

[*]VIT VI meld your jewelry- all of it. If you mess up a mechanic and die, odds are that your party is going to wipe, or at best, you'll be stressing out your cohealer. Even if you are reliable and consistent at mechanics, you'll probably be amazed at how often that extra HP can bail you out. You can get clipped by a beam in O7S or stumble through Trine in O8S as examples this tier. Per Yoshi P - "I think players’ overall run will go more smoothly if they try melding grade V vitality materia to their accessories."

This. Most in prog should be melding vit, even as entry level as O5S. Healer misses you with Assize? Head On and you get targeted for Winds? That Vit helps. Eating an extra stone or pain in 6? The burn in 7? Vit is so unused for how good it is. Most look at vit, and think it doesnt increase numbers. But dying is 0 dps.