Savant's Pants +1 Not Activating 100%?

The "Enhance: Penury" according to the wiki, says "Gives Conserve MP a 100% chance to activate when using Penury or Parsimony."

However a Test I did has me a bit confused, I tried with Reraise II and Cure IV, with two pieces of conserve MP gear.

The cost of Reraise II show in the interface under each effect:
135 (With Light Arts Active)
180 (With Dark Arts Active... though cannot cast without Addendum: White)
150 (With neither Active)

Using Penury (which does not stack with the 10% Light Arts Bonus)

Wearing Clarus Stone (Conserve MP+3) and Austerity Belt (Conserve MP +8)
943 -> 901 (Cost: 42mp)

No Clarus + Austerity
901 -> 859 (Cost: 42mp)

Without using Penury:

Wearing Clarus Stone and Austerity Belt
859 -> 724 (Cost: 135)

No Clarus + Austerity
724 -> 589 (Cost: 135)

I'm a bit confused regarding Conserve MP, I'm wearing Savant's Pants +1 AF3 which should have Conserve MP always active under the effect of Penury. Yet as you can see there's no difference in final MP consumption between wearing the extra gear for Conserve MP over the base Conserve MP.

So I did another test under Light Arts with Cure IV.

With Penury:

Wearing Clarus Stone and Austerity Belt
940 -> 916 (Cost: 24mp)
Try 2: 28mp
Try 3: 22mp
Try 4: 35mp

No Clarus + Austerity
916 -> 881 (Cost: 35mp)
Try 2: 33mp
Try 3: 24mp
Try 4: 38mp

Without using Penury:

Wearing Clarus Stone and Austerity Belt
881 -> 801 (Cost: 80mp) (couple of tries since Conserve MP isn't always active)
Try 2: 80mp
Try 3: 40mp
Try 4: 45mp

No Clarus + Austerity
801 -> 721 (Cost: 80mp)
Try 2: 80mp
Try 3: 80mp
Try 4: 80mp

Needless to say I'm confused.

Conserve mp+ gear only give you a higher chance of it proccing.
So if you have 100% chance of it activating, wearing conserve mp+ gear is useless.
Idk if I read this wrong, got kinda confused (sleepy and tiered).

Well the "Conserve MP" +# is basically %.

So if you have "Conserve MP" +8 belt on, that adds 8% to the base job trait of 25% resulting in a possible 33% mp cost reduction. And 100% chance meaning that the trait would actually kick in. Least as far as the wiki explains it. So the way I read it is that "Enhances Penury/Parsimony" as always applying Conserve MP to a spell when under the effect of one of those MP saving stratagems.

I was originally testing because I wanted to see if Conserve MP would take effect after the 50% reduction or before it. But given the results I'm confused.

I'm no sch but a quick glance at the conserve mp page and the savant's pants +1 page shows the amount conserved is random, always.

Sch pants just provide a 100 chance.

Edit: As a note approximately and average are used here because of the uncertain nature of conserve mp.

In essence with the "Conserve MP" gear on, I have a higher 'chance' of saving more MP than without. But will always have 50% off the final result with Penury/Parsimony.

Guess its another one of those things left to chances.

If you have penury/parsimony on you'll get the 50% off no matter what. If you put conserve mp gear on then it enhances the chance but if you use the pants then your chance is 100% to proc BUT... How much is still random. So as Kvazz said, there's no point in wearing the conserve mp gear.

Again, I'm no sch so I'm perfectly willing to defer to someone with more knowledge on the subject but this is what I gather from it and have confirmed via wiki.

No, +25 from trait means 25% chance of it proccing at all, the amount of mp you save is random.
+8 from the belt would add another 8% chance of it proccing on your spell.

So then the Conserve gear is mainly only useful for when you're NOT using Penury/Parsimony (and the +1 pants).

Yep

Well... least I didn't spend much on either item, will probably keep it as part of my 'white' setup til I come across something better for ammo/belt.