Andyman's Merit Spending Guide

Qualifications for writing this tutorial:

• I have 634 merits
• I've been playing this game actively for over ten years
• I did some math and stuff
  
  

Nerve Bar - Increases maximum nerve by 1 point: I recommend spending points into this upgrade if one or more of the following situations applies to you:

• You refill your nerve bar with 25 points on a daily basis
• You work in a pub and regularly refill your nerve bar with job points
• You log into the game and, more often than not, have a full nerve bar

If none of these situations applies to you, and/or you do not care about crime count, money from crimes, or crime experience, then do not spend ANY points into this upgrade as it'll be a complete waste of merits.

Critical Hit Rate - Increases critical hit rate by 1%: I highly recommend spending points into this upgrade if one or more of the following situations applies to you:

• You are in a faction where attacking/defending is important. (ie. Not a reviving faction or crime faction)
• You regularly land hits on your enemies. "If you don't land hits, you don't land crits!"
• You are chasing the critical hit awards
• You have a desire to increase your average damage output

If none of these situations applies to you, then do not spend ANY points into this upgrade. NOTE: Other than mission reward laser attachments and the Anatomy biology education, merit upgrades are the only way to increase your critical hit rate... so if you care about damage output I recommend maxing this upgrade to 10/10.

Life Points - Increases maximum life by +5%: I highly recommend spending points into this upgrade if you care about attacking/defending. Life plays a huge part in the current battle system and is the only battlestat you cannot train in the gym. Furthermore, this upgrade will directly correlate to how much life you naturally regenerate and how much life you will gain by using medical items. Much like the Strength/Speed battlestats work together to increase your damage output; the Defense/Life battlestats work together to keep you alive. If you truly don't care about attacking/defending, or have a completely insane amount of Dexterity, you may consider skipping this merit. This is another upgrade I recommend going 10/10 on.

Crime Experience - Increases crime success ability by +3%: I recommend spending points into this upgrade if one or more of the following situations applies to you:

• You are trying to increase your crime experience (higher chance of success = higher chance of experience gain)
• You are wanting to increase your average cash gained per crime (higher chance of success = higher chance of payout)
• You are chasing crime merits

If none of these situations applies to you, and/or you do not care about crime count, money from crimes, or crime experience, then do not spend ANY points into this upgrade as it'll be a complete waste of merits. NOTE: Several crimes have a "success cap" after you reach a certain natural nerve bar; 60NNB players will likely find very little value in this merit branch.

Education Length - Decreases education course length by 2%: I recommend spending points into this upgrade early-on for new players. Finishing education courses leads to permanent gains, some of which are vital to becoming a strong player. For all other players, especially players who have finished all the education courses, you'll definitely want to reset your merit tree when you finish all the educations.

Awareness - Increases ability to find items: *Edit* Awareness has been changed to where it's likely not worth upgrading. NOTE: The average value of the items you find in the city will increase greatly upon completion of the HIS2180, HIS2190, and HIS2200 education courses. (You have a chance at finding more valuable items)

Bank Interest - Increases bank interest by a small amount: Interest gains from the bank are a solid form of "consistent guaranteed income" for all players. The return on investment is relatively low with bank interest; however, it is an extremely consistent manner of increasing your cash flow. In Torn, your money = your potential to increase battlestats... so anything you can do to consistently increase your money is a step toward consistently increasing your battlestats. (Many players will simply use their bank interest to pay their drug rehab bill.)

If you are an extremely active player who regularly uses your cash as trading capital, as company funds, for stock speculation, or as buy-mugging seed money, then I would steer clear of spending merits in the bank interest upgrade. If you only log into Torn a few times a week, then I would look into maxing the bank interest upgrade immediately. NOTE: Your bank interest rate can be increased through the TCB stock benefit. If you have the bank interest upgraded to 10/10 you should definitely have the TCB stock benefit or be working toward acquiring the TCB benefit.

Masterful Looting - Increases money gained from mugging: I highly recommend this upgrade for players who regularly mug. I've found through my own (anecdotal) testing that you can double your mugging gains from upgrading Masterful Looting to 10/10. Updated 29/10/2019, mugging adds +50% gains from mugs at 10/10. If you do not mug players due to instead focusing your attack efforts on level-experience gains, increasing faction respect gains, or increasing your enemy's hospital time, then I would completely avoid spending merits in this upgrade.

Stealth - Increases ability to stealth attack: This upgrade is extremely beneficial if you are seeking to increase the number of stealth attacks you carry out... which can be useful for chaining, mugging, and just being cool like a ninja. If you don't attack and chain often, I would avoid this upgrade completely. (NOTE: I welcome any comments regarding stealth... stealth is an area I am not very knowledgeable in)

Hospitalizing - Increases time when hospitalizing people by 5%: This upgrade can be useful to make your enemies burn through their medical timer quicker... but it's fairly easy to counter through reviving. I'll note there is a Duke mission that requires putting a player in the hospital for a certain number of hours (I think 12 hours total) which gives this upgrade some usefulness... and it's super useful for top ~500 players who are utilizing Stricken weapons with the full aggression faction branch unlocked to help whitescreen enemies; but until more hospital missions come out, I would recommend avoiding this upgrade completely unless you're a top 500 player who actively wars.

Addiction Mitigation - Reduces the negative side effects of addiction by -2%: This upgrade does nothing to reduce rehab cost per xanax nor does it reduce the negative % from the drug itself, it only reduces addiction's impact on your workstats and battlestats. This is useful if you're working in a competitive industry or trying to get more $ from your company director!


Employee Effectiveness - Increases employee effectiveness by +1: This upgrade is useful if you're trying to qualify for a job for which you don't have the workstats for. It can also help keep the company you work for competitive in terms of qualifying for 10-star each week!

Brawn/Protection/Sharpness/Evasion - Gives passive bonus to strength/defense/speed/dexterity of 3%: These upgrades are very beneficial if you are focusing on attacking/defending. If you increase your battlestats evenly, I recommend using merits to increase these upgrades evenly as well. If you whore a stat, it's typically best to whore the upgrade to 10/10 as well.

If you don't care about attacking/defending or your effective battlestats, then I don't recommend putting any merits into this upgrade.

Weapon Mastery - Increases damage and accuracy of weapons by weapon type: For players who do not care about attacking/defending and the damage you'll do in battle, skip these upgrades entirely. If you DO care about attacking/defending and the damage you'll do in battle, you'll want to focus on the weapon type you most commonly use in battle. In the current battle system, the best weapon type is hands-down the Rifle weapon type. The Gold AK-47 is technically the best Rifle in the game... albeit it comes with an astronomically high "end game" price exceeding $20,000,000,000. For us poor people, the best obtainable Rifle in the game is going to be the Armalite M-15A4. Rifles such as the Armalite M-15A4 not only have superb natural damage/accuracy stats, but also accept both a very wide range of weapon modifiers and special ammo that can further improve their damage and accuracy. That said, for players who focus on attacking/defending, I highly recommend maxing out the Rifle weapon type mastery upgrade, and ONLY the Rifle weapon type mastery to 10/10. (Some players may argue melee weapons, and therefore melee-type weapon mastery is a better upgrade due to melee weapon's ability to not have to be reloaded... but when you do the math you'll find the huge boosts in accuracy and crit % that can be applied to a rifle far outweigh the gains from a lesser-melee weapon not having to be reloaded)

Hopefully you found this insightful. Happy Merit Hunting!

Special thanks to PrincessJulie for spell checking.

- Andyman