Ascension — your limit points are a currency now

Some of you cleared the +50 Promathia content in about a day. That is not a complaint — it is the reason this update exists. Treasures of Aht Urhgan is coming with a +60 treatment, and the people who breeze through content need somewhere for their kills to go once the merits are full. Now they have one.

The short version

• Every limit point you earn is banked, forever. The limit bar still ticks and still pays a merit at 10,000, exactly as before — the bank fills beside it, from the same kills.
• The bank buys Mastery tiers: permanent power on eight lines, and every squad member you call is paid your tiers.
• The bank also buys merit points at 10,000 each, whenever your wallet has room.
• Merits got a real menu. DWMerits (/merits) shows this server's true totals, assigns past the stock menu's caps, and carries a Job Points tab.

How the bank works with the merits you already earn

This is the question everyone asks first, so here it is plainly. Nothing about the old system changed. When you earn limit points at 99, they go into the same limit bar they always did, and when that bar reaches 10,000 you get a merit point, automatically, like always.

What is new is that the same limit points are also written into your Ascension bank — every one of them, permanently, whether or not the bar was full, whether or not your merits were capped. The bar is a bucket that empties into merits. The bank is a ledger that only you can draw down. Retail already works this way for capacity points sitting beside experience; Ascension does it for limit points beside merits.

The bank belongs to the character, not the account. Your squad is the character you are playing, so the points that arm your squad are the points that character earned.

What the bank buys: Mastery

Eight lines. Each tier costs more than the last (tier three costs three times tier one), so the first tiers of everything come quickly and the last tiers of your favourite line are the long haul.

• Vitality — +20 max HP per tier, 25 tiers.
• Spirit — +15 max MP per tier, 25 tiers.
• Prowess — +1 to STR, DEX, VIT, AGI, INT, MND and CHR per tier, 20 tiers.
• Precision — +2 accuracy, ranged accuracy and magic accuracy per tier, 20 tiers.
• Ferocity — +2 attack, ranged attack and magic attack per tier, 20 tiers.
• Bulwark — 1% less damage taken per tier, 10 tiers.
• Vigor — +1 Regen and +1 Refresh per tier, 10 tiers.
• Devastation — +1% weapon skill damage per tier, 15 tiers.

Filling the whole sheet is on the order of ten thousand kills. That is the point. Buying works anywhere, takes effect the moment you click, and never heals you — it is progression, not a potion.

And the part that matters most on this server: your squad inherits every tier. A member's HP, MP and attributes are computed by the same formula as a player's, with your merits and your Mastery folded in, at the member's own job and level. The modifier lines land on each member the moment they are summoned. Buy Vitality and Bulwark first and your whole party gets tankier at the next call.

Merits from the bank

Your merit wallet still fills from the limit bar as before. But if you would rather turn banked points into merits — say you want to finish a job group before you start on Mastery — the Ascension tab has Buy 1, Buy 5 and Fill wallet buttons at 10,000 limit points each. Typed: !merits convert 5.

The merit menu that tells the truth

If you read the last patch: the stock merit menu shows retail's category maximums and refuses clicks past them, while the server's real ceilings are far higher — Weapon Skills 70, both job groups 20 on every job, Attributes 210, Others 20. DWMerits is the window that shows the real numbers and keeps clicking where the menu stops. Its Assign tab lists any category or any job's two groups with the real ceiling and the cost of each next step. Assignment still asks for your Mog House, exactly as the menu does.

The new Job Points tab shows any job's job points, capacity points and every category with its next cost, a raise button, and the gift ladder in words with what you have unlocked lit up. Job points, like merits, are paid to every squad member you call — judged at the member's own job — so this is where you build the White Mage you never play yourself.

Where to find it

DWMerits ships in the launcher's Default set; /addon load dwmerits picks it up mid-session, and /merits opens it. Everything the window does also works typed: !merits, !merits bank, !merits ascension, !merits ascend vitality, !merits convert all, !merits jp whm.

Go earn some limit points.