Merit Weaponskills, Which Ones Are Good?

I just came back from a 2 year hiatus, and got WAR, MNK, RNG, NIN, COR, DRK to 99. I've put some merits into some of the weaponskill categories, and was greatly disappointed by Blade: shun earlier, as it seemed to do the same as ku. My question is which ones are worth getting just 1 tier in, which are worth maxing out, and which are just garbage(Blade: Shun)?

None of them are worth just 1 tier. You have to 5/5 them to make them worth anything at all, and some become monster WSs.

Most useful merit WSes imo (pick which ones you would be most likely to use): Resolution, Entropy, Exenerator, Tachi Shoja, Last Stand, and potentially ruinator if you become a big dyna bst.

Damage on any of them will not be impressive until you 5/5.

Blade Shun is good, better than jin, IF you dont have kannagi and play nin a lot.

Last Stand is excellent with 5/5. best marksmanship weapon skill

And blade:shun is certainly not garbage if you 5/5 it.

which become the monsters?

For those jobs I'd do Last Stand, Resolution, and Upheaval 5/5 since you don't have a Ukon.

maybe advice would help me better if I explained which jobs I am aiming towards. MNK, RNG, and COR I try to pimp out, working on Armageddon/Verethragna. NIN I try to keep it relevant for soloing and tanking. DRK and WAR are just there for when I need em.

With those jobs @ 99 you'll get the most use from Resolution for Drk and War, Last Stand for Rng and Cor and the h2h one for mnk, Can alway build a Kannagi for nin fo Blade hi

I'd probably go for Resolution, Last Stand, and either Shijin Spiral for MNK or Blade: Shun for NIN. You'd need to 5/5 them.

There's not very much reason to do both Resolution and Upheaval. Your DRK will need resolution, but it gives you the option to use it on WAR for a mighty strikes WS anyway. Shijin Spiral and Blade:Shun are not amazing weaponskills, but at 5/5 they'll offer a decent increase to the respective jobs.

Worth noting that both Resolution and Blade: Shun get massive boosts from elemental gorget/belt because they get the fTP bonus on every hit.

All the merit WS don't start being impressive till about 3 points in. I definitely recommend 5/5ing any you plan on getting though.

So, from everyone's input I'm now thinking Blade: Shun, Resolution, and Last Stand.

If working on Vere for Monk, don't waste merits on the h2h ws.(Victory Smite is better the big majority of the time)

Last Stand is a must for RNG and COR, even with Armageddon (Wildfire will become a situational ws for RNG, and LS will for COR)

I'd honestly do atleast Resolution if you want to even use DRK.(It's _very_ strong vs anything else the you'll have)

NIN Inside abyssea will be using Jin, so doing 5/5 Shun is'nt anywhere near a must. And I assume inside Abyssea is where you'd wanna use NIN the most :P

Upheaval is a very good WS for WAR OUTSIDE of abyssea(or during Mighty Strikes inside, but Resolution is even better for that). You'll be spamming Raging Rush inside still.

So, I'd actually probably do Last Stand, Resolution and Upheaval or Shun, depending on if you plan on using WAR or NIN outside of abyssea the most.

I'd agree that Last Stand and Resolution seem like definite choices for this selection of jobs. Last one depends. My perspective as someone who had a similar situation of 4 possibilities for my set of jobs (MNK PUP NIN THF RNG COR DNC), with two "definite" choices (Exenterator and Last Stand) leaving only one remaining choice:

Shijin will be something you want if you don't have Vere for your MNK (including Spharai MNKs). If that's you, I'd prioritize that over Shun.

Shun is nice outside of Abyssea, but (1) Kannagi is one of the easier Empys (I'd rather do a Kannagi than deal with Chloris for Vere), and (2) Whether you have Empy or not, NIN outside of Abyssea tends to be used for stuff where a slightly better WS doesn't make that much difference. Difference between Jin-Shun is not as big as difference between Asuran-Shijin for non-Empy MNK and NIN discussion.

I personally used to have Exenterator Shijin and Shun when I wasn't playing my ranged jobs as much. When I got back into COR and picked up RNG, I replaced Shun with Last Stand.

Realmrazer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! because clubs are cool

Reso, LS, Upheaval.

Upheaval is redundant with Resolution for WAR. I'd get Shijin Spiral for outside of Abyssea while you work on Verethragna, and get/use Ascetic's Fury inside.

Resolution, Tachi: Shoha, Ruinator are my choices. Reso and Shoha so I can play DRK and SAM in VW, and Ruinator so I can farm dyna faster on my BST. :) Can't go wrong with STR mods.

Ehhh, he doesn't have a ragnarok I think, what's war best gs after that, Jingjang? :/

Etourdissante is cheap and does better than any Great Axe he'll probably have in the near future.

The potato peeler or Etourdissante are probably WAR's best non-R/M/E weapon due to resolution spam. Upheavel is four hits but doesn't copy fTP and use's VIT instead of STR for it's WSC (no double dipping), it also requires some pretty high end gear (Shadow / ect..) to get really nice numbers on it. Where as WAR can easily gear out a cheap & dirty Reso build from AH and abyssea content.

The good think about the peeler is that it's 504 delay makes a 6-hit "free" (only 20~21 Store TP needed) and a 5-hit feasible. Makes it a good cheap stand-in weapon to use while your building your *real* weapon (Ukon or Wagnarok). Obviously they'll be using a Dies irae for inside abyssea RR spam.

Blade:shun certainly is garbage, take a week and make a kannagi
But on topic, shoha all the things!

Thought I'd add my 2 cents, as stated if you will be playing RNG/COR last stand is a must so that should probably be your priority. Next up depends on how well geared your DRK/WAR is... It's all well and good people saying Resolution cos that's what u will use in voidwatch but if you don't have gear to back it up then you won't be going those jobs. That being said Resolution is a massive monster weapon skill.

So if you aren't planing on doing Vere/Kannagi any time soon I'd probably recommend:

1. Last Stand
2. Shijin
3. Shun

Switch 2&3 round depending on how much u play each job.
Or substitute one of 2 or 3 for Resolution if u are/are going to be well geared.

Worst case u just remerit something else cos exp is hard to get..

Good luck

Speaking from experience, if you play NIN for that purpose I would not bother with Shun. You'll solo mostly in Abyssea and in there Jin is much better because of the critical boosts. Shun is decent enough outside of Abyssea but when will you use NIN that much? There isn't an awful lot to solo and RNG and COR will be more suited to party based content.

Unfortunately the gap between Shun and Jin isn't that enormous outside of Abyssea (where other merit weapon skills earn their bread, so to speak) and I believe there are better choices with the jobs you have. Like everyone else I would recommend Shijin Spiral, Resolution and Last Stand. When you finish Verethagna maybe then get Shun in place of Shijin Spiral if you haven't got other jobs by then.

Honestly, Shun isn't very good compared to most of the other weapon skills for the jobs they go with. Looks cool though!

Agreeing with Comeatmebro here.

Considering your job spread, I'd do Resolution and Last Stand for sure with the third being Shijin or Shun. NIN likely won't see much use outside of Abyssea, where Jin is a better WS anyway, unless you really like NIN and want to play it outside. MNK is also not such a powerhouse without Vere/Victory Smite or Spharai/Shijin Spiral but if you love the job it might be worth 5/5ing just for the sake of having a competitive WS on a job that you actually like playing.

Just a note on Solrain's comment regarding MNK not being good without Vere or Spharai isn't strictly true if you have Acetic's Fury with decent DD atmas in Aby.

Very true. In Aby, MNK gets the NIN treatment where Ascetic's is a pretty decent WS but much like NIN's Hi/Jin comparison, Victory Smite is leagues ahead of Ascetic's Fury inside. Even Backhand Blow is a strong WS in relation if you don't have Ascetic's.