SMN mp needs sorting out

[Ronove]

I don't think people are requesting to remove the mana bar from a SMN but make doing what we need to do to stay competitive a little easier with a little more mana. As a SMN I don't think I should have unlimited mana--I know that's not fair, but I also don't think it's fair I have to go above and beyond to stay close to our BLM in Final Coil, but when I do that, I run out of mana. It doesn't feel balanced this way. Yes, you can compare SMN to melee then but unlike melee, SMN doesn't get a personal ballad. Melee + bard need TP song around the same time so it's not as much as a DPS loss compared to if a BRD just did ballad for SMN. So we have SMN with BLM (class buddies akin to drg, mnk, brd, and nin being class buddies) and BLM never needs ballad and that itself I think is unbalanced in that aspect.

Regardless, yes BLM have to go into Umbral to get MP back but their Blizz III, Blizz I still does about the same or more damage than an Energy Drain if I recall (I don't have time to do my own testing). After one Blizz III+Thunder II or Blizz III+Thunder I+Blizz I, BLM have full MP to go back to their Fire casting. And that's rinse and repeat. Yes, SMN has Aetherflow but if you're already just about OOM when you hit it, that mana you get is going to be gone if you go back to your regular rotation. Yes, you can use a stack or more to do energy drain to get a nice buffer of MP but compared to a BLM's umbral stage, SMN are still doing less damage--we can't just return to our regular rotation like a BLM can. I really don't mind using Energy Drain to get my MP back; I fully know that's what it's for and will use it if I need it, but if I have to use two or more so I don't have to plead for ballad, it starts to make me wonder why I didn't just roll BLM.

I understand that mp is not the only issue here but is the KEY problem for lowest dpsing. Just an example I can comfortably hit 430+ dps no echo in SCOB but if I do my same rotation on T10 I drop to 245 and hardly touching 300.... Due to the fact I already run out of mp by second set of adds....

I think you're doing something terribly wrong if you drop to anything under 300. I can do 430 in T10 without completely running out of mana (though yes, I come close by second set of adds--our first week in there I did run out of mana but I've done it enough times to know when and where I can use my regular rotation and where I have to cut back), although I do use one aetherflow stack for energy drain during the last phase to make sure I don't run out completely.