Life Points

Is it worth spending merits to upgrade this? I used a few merits but seems kind of pointless to me now.

Yes. Life points are like a 5th battle stat. They can make a difference between winning and losing

True, just wasn't sure if I was better off leveling or doing the merits but I'll just max it when possible.

Combine the two. Life points are essential.

If you are an attacker, and war with your faction, life is essential and probably the most useful merit upgrade aside from critical hits.

If you on the other hand play economically, and don't fight other players, life has little point.

It depends on your play style mostly.

whilst i concede that it CAN make a difference, there are few cases where a few % extra life will be the deciding factor, as it is far more likely that your opponent will either have significantly more or less stats than you

Since i'm so close to maxing it anyway i'm going to just complete it.

Not true, especially with the new mission system (equall stat totals), and if you are in a HoF faction ,while chaining, like Franky the life is more than just a 5th battlestat. And on top of that come the high battle stats. For example someone with 2b vs someone with 2.5b of a hypothetical stat, that doesn't make much of a difference on how hard you'd hit etc, hence life would be essential to outlast your enemy.

then how come when (for the missions you mentioned) when i solo people double my level and ten times my age i come out on top basically without exception?

life does matter, but to a lesser extent than you think

Because your stats are still to low for life to make a difference. Look at for example beerstein.. from what I heard he has barely been able to complete a single mission.

The different is that at your and my level we usually either greatly outstat someone or they greatly outstat us most the time.. Lets say you have 2 mil dex it only takes someone 4 mil in speed to double your dex. For someone with 1 bil in dex that theoretical other person has to have 2 bil. A lot more time goes into getting that extra 1bil than it did for the person to get the extra 2 mil in the first example.

So lets just say the range of players you can put up a fight is 500k-2mil, outside that range they either beat you easily or you beat them easily most the time. Now at 1 bil your range is 500m-2bil, these are just very rough numbers. So as you get more stats your range of players you can put up a fight against grows, making every little advantage more and more important.

Edit: And the reason you can solo these players is because they have shit stats for their age and they have been cherry picked for you to be around par if not less in total stats than you. They arent some random joe player.

the targets are selected for you based on your battle stats, if they were "cherry picked" i would be fighting the level ones who have one login and never played ever again

i'm a level holder, which cuts back on my life, there has not been a fight when life made a difference, i either get kicked in the head for a one shot, or i lose a little life and win

Yes but thats just you. To say that life doesnt matter for anyone is not considering the fact that you have low stats compared to the players in a high ranked warring faction or players with high stats in general.

I think life is very close to being as important as the four combat stats you can train.
When your life is low lesser opponents can beat you with a critical or a few lucky shots, if your life is high enough they would stand no chance.

Spend all the merits you can on life as soon as you can and dont cripple yourself by level holding.