Question About Skill+

i;m new to the word of Smn and have a question about Skill+. i know the higher the skill the better the Avatar is, but my question is, do you need to full time the skill or only pack it on at time of Avatar cast?

It depends on what you're doing, really. I use full skill gear for Magic BPs, Wards and have 317 skill on to enhance Avatar's Favor if its active. The more skill you have over the cap will enhance avatar attack/accuracy, etc, though certain "enhances avatar attack/accuracy" gear proves to be more effective than whatever skill you can place in that slot.

(Am I making sense?)

Edit: you only need skill gear swapped in when executing an action, otherwise you can sit in perp- gear. Unless you're trying to enhance favor, then you need to sit in skill gear that puts you at 317.

ok, so only really worry about skill when using a BP and Favor, other then that idle in Perp-. another rumor i heard was that you only need to activate Favor in Max Skill then you can take off the skill for Perp-, anyone know if thats true?

Yeah pretty much. Not sure if you have spellcast or not to use both -BP timer and skill, but -BP is probably ultimately the most important depending (caps at -15, so throw in extra skill and whatnot where you can). I'm also fairly certain you must perp in skill gear to Enhance Favor. :x

You do have to perp in skill gear to enhance Favor.

But, in order to be efficent, you need to take care of the most important thing of being a SMN, which is perp- gear.

Whats the point in having BP- gear if you have to rest every 3 minutes?

Best you can hope, without having a relic, is to have 317 Skill (with merits) AND -8 perp gear. Its possible, but very hard, and requires a lot of determination to get it.

Good luck with that.