SMN - Aethertrail Stacks

Hello!

Decided to post here since I never experienced it outside PvP.

Started playing this game about a month and a half, and PvP - 2 weeks, and noticed that sometimes after using all 3 stacks of Aetherflow (usually after full dots > Fester > Energy Drain > Pain Flare for quick Dreadwyrm Trance), I just end with 2 or even 1 stack of Aethertrail, and so I can't attempt it for another minute or so.

It doesn't happens often, so I usually just let it go, but now it happened 3 times in a row in the same match of The Feast (all against a MCH).

My character is mostly in 205 PvP gear + some of the 200 and 230 PvE. So I'm here basically trying to understand what are the possible reasons that may cause my Aetherflow stacks to sometimes not be "refunded" as Aethertrail in the PvP scenario, if anyone could enlighten me.

Thank you in advance.

Hitting fester too soon so that it goes off before your dots are applied will leave you out of 1 stack.

That's really my only guess, that you're hitting someone with fester before the dots are on them.

Monks can dispel your Aetherflow with One Ilm Punch, PLD can as well, however much less often. Could be this?