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So as I am understanding it based on 10 levels of Arcanist....
Aetherflow is both a spell and a buff?
I cast Aetherflow, and the spell gives me a one-time infusion of Magic Points, and then gives me the "Aetherflow State" which is kinda like a stance?
and the Aetherflow buff lasts until I Energy Drain once, and then Energy Drain consumes it?
So I should be casting Aetherflow repeatedly, all the time, instead of only when I am low on MP?
You should always try to keep your Aetherflow buff up. After a while it will start to give you one or two stacks of it instead of a single one, which means you can cast more of Energy Drain (And other abilities like I think Shadow Flare, Lustrate and Bane) between Aetherflow uses
You should be using it whenever it is up, for now. Using it early and continuing to use it throughout an extended fight is much more effective than waiting until you are low or out of MP as the former makes your MP last much longer, whereas with the latter you will likely just run out of MP again.
Eventually you will get improvements to Aetherflow which will give you 2 to 3 charges of it with one use. When that happens, you will need to weigh your MP recovery vs. "wasting" Aetherflow charges as the skills that use it are very powerful.
Yes and no.
Aetherflow is a buff sorta. It gives you the ability to cast certain abilities, ie. your important ones: energy drain, bane, fester(smn), sacred soil(sch), lustrate(sch)....so you want to have your aetherflow active at all times. the mp regen is just a +. I recommend using your aetherflow charges somewhere between right after cast and just before the cooldown is up so your not standing around unarmed so to speak. timing is important especially if you go scholar with the acn
You have it largely correct.
Aetherflow is a spell that grants you charges for more complex abilities.
The most useful of these abilities are lustrate and fester. Lustrate is your scholar's emergency heal, whereas fester deals a large damage spike and drastically increases the damage of your dots. Other abilities, such as sacred soil and bane see some use, but are much more situational. The earliest ability, energy drain is best used if you have aetherflow charges left and don't want to waste the stacks.
You gain max stack of aetherflow per cast, but you start with a max of only 1 stack. Later levels increase your max stack to 3.
The aetherflow charges are treated as a buff with no timer. They will remain so long as you do not change class or expend the charge with certain abilities.
If you don't know what to do with the aetherflow charges at low level, it's perfectly normal. Aetherflow does not become crucial or complex until lustrate and fester become available. At which point, you may find it difficult to manage the number of aetherflow stacks you have and develop techniques for it.
Until then, it is best used for mp recovery. For now, simply get in the practice of having max stacks as frequently as possible, and expending all the stacks before renewing it. You can worry about more complicated techniques like expending and quickly renewing it to use 6 stacks at once, or timing it to meet certain healing/dps checks at higher levels.
The spell restores mana based on your maximum mana (thus making a large manapool interesting but not too important) and grants you stacks of the buff depending on your level. The "buff" got no further benefits but being a second resource to very powerfull spells you get.
You want to use aetherflow on cooldown to make use of these spells 98% of the time. If its off cooldown and you got stacks left you wasted a valuable resource. The exception is as burst damage or burst heal is needed. You might want to save them then to have 6 Stacks available.