Most of SMN short comings are addressed in the AF3 set. One that is not is blood pact recast time, it hampers our ability to not only keep up with other jobs but also our effectiveness in the battle when we really need to pull of a say a healing ward or an offensive blood pact when no other jobs can get close or worried about time (such as in voidwatch). Also necessary to keep hate on avatars since SMN have horrible hate control between themselves and their avatars, unlike other pet jobs. Besides that, most of the gear that was used to cap -blood pact bonus are pretty irrelevant now. See YY robe, out classed by AF3 +1 and +2 for perp reduction as well as increasing Avatar attack damage and out classed by Pluviale as a resting/refresh piece with bonus MP and regen. If you're using the older gear to reduce perp cost, you're doing less damage overall even if you're using blood pacts faster.

Perp cost on the staves are negligible at best right now, but wait until the next level cap raise when perp cost increases again. If I'm not mistaken, average perp cost now with JUST AF3 +2 and evoker's ring sits at around 3 mp per tick if you don't have the right avatar out to gain the -perp cost during the day/weather and let's face it, not every smn have AF3 +2 and some avatars are just ineffective against certain mobs so day/weather isn't going to make them any better.

So overall, you have a staff that effectively knocks off 10 seconds from blood pact and 6mp from perp cost, which makes this already loads more better and effience over HQ staves, fay cozier, and bahamut staff. Coupled with YY Robe if you're unable to get full AF3 +2 knocks caps the -15 seconds to blood pact delay in two pieces. However coupled with a few minor -BP equipment like Caller's earring and tiresias' cape, you have have the benefit of -BP without sacrificing the any benefits that the AF3 set offers.