Phalanx II Merits

i have gotten 4 merits into it atm and could put 1 more to finish RDM merits off but how much better(whats the difference in) is Phalanx 1 to Phalanx II and a full merited Phalanx II?

Depends. If you have it fully merited and got 350+ enhancing then it's the same. Think you need merits for that though. That being said phalanx you only need 320 skill to cap.

Well ok phalanx 2 will have slightly higher duration. That being said I recently compltely dermited it and bio III because neither are realy worth having anymore. While Blind II has proven to be pretty nice now that evasion tanking is back especially when used with para/slow

Basicly, Phalanx II is useless.
Do slow and para 5/5.

Ehh depends what you do.

Slow/Para/Bio3/Blind are all very good.

SE needs to raise Merit limits per spell/ja so I can cap them all. >:P

If I remember correctly, a fully meritted Phalanx II is equal to Phalanx I. Anything less than full merits is inferior. Phalanx II at 4/5 is 3 less damage reduced than Phalanx.

The only benefit you have right now as 4/5 is 30 second longer duration. At 5/5, you will have 1 minute longer duration, can cast on any person in the group, and will have the same damage reduction making it better except MP cost.

The question comes; is this better than the other options Red Mage has in Group 2 merits?

rdm/sch for aoe phalanx I and merit something useful XD

Given the awesomeness of rdm group 2 the answer is easily yes

That would be really nice. Would give us something to spend these darn merits on. I'm kind of worried that I'll be capped merits and sit on 20/20 merits when the next update comes around.

But if that happened we couldn't all be unique butterflies. :(

Actually that's what I'm doing now. And that's after fully meritting my 5 85s and fully meritting hp then demeritting to fully do mp then going back to hp again....

Update your merits page! I was totally gonna stalk you.

Explain me how lowering mob's delay by a mediocre % (going from say slow2 1/5 to slow2 5/5) is more usefull than phalanx II.

Also what is more usefull than Dia III ¿

You are doing it wrong.

So are you.

I was the super motivated person and got 700 merits before Abyssea came out...wish I wouldn't have done that. Since visions the only thing I use merits for are rearranging and im typically 10/10 and now 20/20.

OHWAIT! I just got pld to 90 and it's not fully merited yet..I know I know lolpld.

Yes because there is only ever 1 situation a rdm is going to see and its zerging.

Eh, it's an option, but you do have to assume /SCH, and reserve a Stratagem for it.

It's certainly a niche thing, but it's nice to have at times. IE, undispellable spikes on an NM.

2/5 Dia III
5/5 Para II
3/5 Slow II is what I did and its worked for me.

Dia III isnt just for zerging so not sure why that idea is floating around.

Pchan is (oddly enough?) about right.

I'd say Phalanx II merits depends on what you do. It's nice to be able to phalanx people when you're not /sch, or save a stratagem for something else, but hardly essential.

Then again, none of the G2 RDM merits are really essential (Maybe 1 Dia3/Para2/Slow2 as a starting base) so it's really a matter of taste.

I did
4/5 slow2
1/5 para2
5/5 phalanx2

Its my 2nd char, i like having phalanx2 on my support, find it useful for my tastes. I'm not some hardcore endgame/solo'er, dia3 and bio3 i don't have tons of use for. And ya 1/5 para2, i don't have a huge mnd build so why go 5/5 if i'm not casting a serious para.

With the way the game is now and being more about big cures then anything else, the reduction that Phalanx II offers is hardly going to make or break you.

I guess it does depend on what you use RDM for and what events outside of abyssea you do.

Yeah really phalanx IIs main use was salvage...

To be honest, beyond 2/5 Dia 1/5 Slow II 1/5 Para II there's nothing even remotely make-or-break in RDM's G2. Phalanx II certainly isn't the worst thing you could merit... I'd argue it's at least better than Bio III, not that that's worth meriting at all now.

Only gimp rdms think like this. Why bring rdm if not for dia III ? This is 15% def down or around 17% damage boost. It's better than chaos roll.

I use BLU + RDM for tanking pretty much any NM in Abyssea and Phalanx II is very nice, especially on NMs that have additional effects. There's very few nms that will do over 60 damage per hit with cocoon + defender + phalanx ii and a good pdt set. It's also great for rounding up tons of mobs and using charged whisker to kill them quickly. You don't need phalanx to accomplish this, but with phalanx fully merited, you have the option of rounding up any type of mob you wish, rather than just mnk type mobs like mandies. I dual box my RDM so I knew that for what I was going to use him for, I would want phalanx. It just depends on what you plan to use your RDM for. You can always go RDM/SCH and accession the phalanx too, but fully merited it lasts for at least 4 minutes, which can be extended with AF3 gear and stuff.

Phalanx II is a waste of merits, I had 5/5 and capped possible gear for it back at 75 cap and it was used to rarely it was worthless. I'm 5/5 Slow II and 5/5 Para II now which I think is ideal for what I use RDM for, Dia III is too MP/time to keep up unless you have a few merits in it but I don't think diminishing Slow II is worth that for duoing.

How is Bio III useful? The ONLY use it had is to speed up solos but now its useless for even that.

Thanks for all the info, Going to leave at least 1 merit on it and use the rest for the other ones.