Wait...are you guys seriously getting upset at the OP?

Why does the idiotic BLM who sarcastically posted have the most upvotes?

Can you actually compare the only class in the game who has absolutely no resource problems with anything? Don't be a jerk. Your post was trash and a complete strawman argument.

Was -that- the joke?

OP's concern is a serious one, and everyone is suggesting extremely dumb things to do instead of actually helping.

First of all, I've looked over the mana efficiencies of our spells.

One of the first things you need to drop is Ruin II.

NEVER ruin II, even once, except to fit in that 2nd Fester during RS.

It is by far our most inefficient spell (and only a "max" of theoretical potency over Ruin I for fitting in oGCDs.

Second, drop Thunder on multitarget enemies. It really, really is inefficient (borrowed from our gluttonous BLM "friends", who think they're so special with their infinite mana).

Third, drop miasma II on single target.

Fourth, drop Thunder on single target enemies, unless you have contagion for it. Yes I know this sucks and is a fairly painful dps loss, but it is again, our least efficient spell.

Fifth, and you should almost NEVER get to this point, drop Ruin.

As for fester vs energy drain...this is also a solution, but I don't know how it fits into our priority for what skills to drop.

Energy drain is worth 250? or so mp. So we have 250 mp to "gain" 150 potency that we lost from not using fester. Even using our most inefficient spell (Ruin II), we get roughly 160 potency out of that.

Thus, yes, if you're starting to run low (don't wait until you're dry, start going into "conserve" mode at around 40% mp post aetherflow), start doing the above.

FWIW I would drop thunder before going into energy drain, and save energy drain (at least 1, preferably 2 flows) in case you don't have mana to refresh your other DoTs. I would probably energy drain before I stopped using Ruin.

Also on any fight where the bard is singing for the healers, you shouldn't have any problem with mana.

That being said, yes, the game is stupidly unbalanced when you only have 1 dps class that fakes mana mangement but really just has infinite mana.

If every class did 20% more damage than BLM, then did 20% less damage when out of resource, then sure, that makes sense, thats a class mechanic.

But if every class does roughly same damage as BLM, then do 50% less damage when out of resource, that is ridiculously unbalanced.