Ruin 1 or Ruin 3?

So I'm leveling my SMN and having a lot of fun with it, but...I'm a little confused as to when I should be using Ruin 1 or Ruin 3. Given the excessive mana cost of R3, I clearly shouldn't be spamming it, but R1 does such little damage. Should I treat the Ruins like Jolt and Impact, where I alternate every other cast, or is there a specific rotation I should be following?

Also, wtb Sustain please, SE

EDIT: I should have noted it in this post, but I do mean outside of DWT. In Trance, Ruin 3 is the only thing being used.

IIRC when you enter Dreadwyrm Trance Ruin 3 cost significantly less + extra damage

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Originally Posted by Pence

IIRC when you enter Dreadwyrm Trance Ruin 3 cost significantly less + extra damage

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Well, of course, and Tri-disaster also gives both Ruins a nice little damage boost. But it's not like casting Ruin 3 outside of DWT makes you go OoM instantly, and it makes me wonder if I should be casting it outside of DWT more often and when.

Yes Ruin 3 out of dreadwyrm is a dps increase, try to stay above 2000 MP though. Lucid Dream is also dps increase because it allows more Ruin 3s out of DWT.

You would try to use Ruin III mostly because of the extra DPS, but yeah it is a drain on MP so personally I'd do a few RIII's and then switch to RI's to keep my MP roughly balanced. During DWT you should only be using Ruin III anyway, though once you get Bahamut out you may go on a R3 rampage here as well, but honestly as long as you are managing MP and are dishing out steady DPS then it's whatever works for you. No one will really be that fussed unless you are doing savage content, to which by then you'd have a decent way of working your rotations anyway.

You can use Ruin 3 out of DWT, how many Ruin 3s depends on a few things. Do you have Lucid off cooldown, is there a bard/machinist that can use Refresh, are you willing to use an Aetherflow charge for Energy Drain. Generally, try to stay at around 2k-ish MP or more if you're uncomfortable with it still.

Thanks for your advice, guys! I'll play around with it, still leveling up, only 66 right now, but I'll try to work on weaving in more Ruin 3s into regular usage.

It depends. If you are using Fester or Painflare you would want to do a Ruin III followed by a Ruin II for the CD synchronization. If you are low on MP then do a Ruin I followed by Ruin II. Otherwise I just spam Ruin III or Ruin II depending upon MP and how much moving I need to do. To be honest I don't even use Ruin I anymore unless I'm sync'ed below level 54. Between Aetherflow, Energy Drain and Lucid Dream I rarely run out of MP unless I get distracted.

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Originally Posted by Claviusnex

It depends. If you are using Fester or Painflare you would want to do a Ruin III followed by a Ruin II for the CD synchronization. If you are low on MP then do a Ruin I followed by Ruin II. Otherwise I just spam Ruin III or Ruin II depending upon MP and how much moving I need to do. To be honest I don't even use Ruin I anymore unless I'm sync'ed below level 54. Between Aetherflow, Energy Drain and Lucid Dream I rarely run out of MP unless I get distracted.

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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you're losing out on DPS by burning stacks on Energy Drain to get more MP to spam R3 (150p from Energy Drain + 50p from R3 over R1 = 200p), instead of saving the stacks for Painflare/Fester and switching to R1 when low on MP (depending on ST/AoE. Painflare gets the same 200p but is AoE, Fester gets 300p.).

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Originally Posted by Riyshn

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It's kind of true. Energy Drain has the same potency as Ruin III at 150, with the bonus of draining HP and MP from the target. But ED really would be a last resort if you need MP more than anything, as there are much better effective choices to use your Aetherflow stacks on.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

It's kind of true. Energy Drain has the same potency as Ruin III at 150, with the bonus of draining HP and MP from the target. But ED really would be a last resort if you need MP more than anything, as there are much better effective choices to use your Aetherflow stacks on.

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As I said "Between Aetherflow, Energy Drain and Lucid Dream" it is rare to run out of MP. I wasn't trying to imply that Energy Drain is a preferred action. There are times you need to rebuild MP quickly such as after dying where Lucid Dream and Aetherflow are on CD. ED fills this need. The key point I was trying to make is MP is not that restricted of a resource as there are ways to rebuild it.

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Originally Posted by Claviusnex

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Oh I'm not questioning your own methods in any way, just trying to clear it up a bit for Riyshn, thats why I said "it's kind of true" because there can be exceptions. Rarely ever had to use Energy Drain myself, but definitely you wouldn't want to be using it too much if your left with zero stacks and still 20s cd to go. I know a good SMN can manage stacks but for some it's easy to panic and go a bit crazy, ha.

I find I can just R3 spam, only stopping to refresh Bio/Miasma, just fine without running out of mana purely through the use of Lucid and Aetherflow. I do it until its time for DWT, R3 spam more, flare, AF back to almost the top of my mana. Rinse repeat. Stopping temporarily for AOE's and switching to R2 on the fly also helps with MP management.

If I use R3 -> R2 spam though, that's when MP runs out faster. The only thing I question is if it's better to R2 spam with Bahamut up.