What exactly earns a Vanguard Merit in the mothership raid?

[Ukase]

You can say I have no life. I have 4 level 50s.

 

An ice/ice blaster, a fire/rad Sentinel, a fire/fire brute, and a rad/stone tank. They've all done MSRs.

 

 

My ice blaster will get ...1000? 1200? Vanguard Merits. As much as 1400 last night. Or was that this morning? I forget.

 

My brute...maybe 400? My sentinel maybe 600. My tank got 278 Vanguard Merits. I pulled half the sides at least a dozen times, giving them either judgement, if it was up or several fireballs if it wasn't, as I pulled them to the bowl.

 

This can't be simply a question of AoE's, can it? Are we going to now have to wonder who on our team has rain of fire, blizzard or ice storm? Do we fuss if 5 of our teammates do nothing but spam heals and buffs?

 

I'm feeling a little discouraged for my melee characters. I can't hardly consider my fire brute a single target damage character. Consume, Burn, fire sword circle, Combustion, blazing aura - it's all AoE.

 

Can someone shed some light on what the discrepency comes from?

[Shinobu]

 

My understanding is it's one VM per Rikti kill that your team did any damage to (couldn't say for sure if it's "any damage at all" or "a certain amount/percentage of damage", but I believe it's any at all).  People with AoEs on your team help a lot.  Having an active player with Water Blast or Fire Blast?  Priceless.

 

HOWEVER...

 

If you're too far away from the rest of the team, you don't get credit.  So yeah, herding is a thankless job.

[Ukase]

So that's the difference then, it would seem. Makes sense. The less squishy my characters, the further from the bowl they go to bring in the ritki.

 

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you!