Originally Posted by
Arcon
Your entire argument is that you can compensate for the shortcoming in skill by doing certain things, and while that's mostly true, that argument in itself acknowledges that there is a shortcoming with lacking skill. All the things you said you can do to make up for it means you can't put that time and MP into good use outside of keeping buffs up. And no, even with 500 MP Siphon you can run out of MP even if you only spam Blood Pact: Rage, which you'll find out if you ever do trials. Skill makes a significant difference for SMN, both in solo and especially in group situations (good luck landing Shock Squall on endgame content with anything less than 400 skill).