When talking about Kabbalist, there are many problems, but the most urgent problem is how the class just has abysmal skill factors.
Of all the skills, Merkabah has by far the worst scaling.
Every skill level only adds +92% SFR and another 3.1 x skilllevel%,
starting at 1x 92% SFR at level 1 and capping at 5 x 104.4% = 522% at skill level 5.
If we go back to the time before Re:build, Merkabah had always access to level 6 since Divine Might was still on Cleric, and the SFR was 350% x 6 = 2100% at skill level 6.
That’s not much, but it was a lot more than it currently has.
The skill factor was then lowered, like most skill factors, but unlike most other skill factors that were gradually increased, especially during the large rebalance patches on episode 11 and episode 12 patches, Merkabah was never touched again, and now it just received another ability that doesn’t help the initial use of the skill,which is for damage purposes.
The damage purpose is evidential from the basic skill properties, which make the skill a high velocity multiattack skill. You can only make use of its Divine Protection ability and its arts if you also activate the Slow Movement attribute to modify the movement speed to a level where those effects actually become viable.
Here is a solution of how to save the skill:
Merkabah
maximum skill level 5
skill cooldown : changed to 20 seconds
skill factor : changed to 1234% + 462.8% per skill level past level 1
number of chariots: +1 per skill level (unchanged)
Merkabah: Reduced Movement Speed
when active: increases skill cooldown by 15 seconds
This means Merkabah has 20 seconds cooldown without slow movement activated, so you can use it as a damage skill when you don’t need the support abilities, and 35 seconds with the slow movement attribute active.
The skillfactor adjustments are based on the recent Miko balance of Gohei(15428% SFR at maximum skill level with 20 seconds cooldown), a skill that has similar properties as Merkabah.
To make up for the additional effects you get from the slow movement attribute active, the cooldown is increased to its current state (35 seconds), meaning you have the option to trade off the buff effects for a reliable damage skill by keeping the attribute off.