Any reason to use Stone II now?

[Velox]

I think this aspect is what bothered me the most out of anything. It just flat out power creep. Atleast stone1 still has good slow utility. But S3 is identical to S2 in ever way besides more potency.

Power-creep is one of the most common forms of keeping skill bloat down though. New skills replace old ones, either in the same rotation or a slightly modified rotation. Since the number of rotational skills is approaching the maximum feasible number of most classes as of 3.0, it's safe to expect a lot more of these types of skills in 4.0.

[Fevelle]

Why not create only Traits then? Enhanced Stone II... Or add a Blind effect to Stone II. It's not like Blinding mobs is something overpowered, but it adds utility to the spell.

WHM DPS rotation is FAR from aproaching its limit. We basically just spam the same spell AGAIN and AGAIN after doting. I can understand your POV for the other classes, but for WHM, I really want Square to add some utility to our spells so they don't just get left behind.

[Blood-Aki]

Same reason you'd use Ruin or Malefic: Better mana efficiency.

AS someone stated, the only situation that would matter is FATEs..otherwise, those are pretty useless for the most part. Maybe at some point in savage, but honestly if you're using those, you're already low on MP and the last thing you should be doing is DPSING at that point anyway. so yea, No real situation you'd use ruin (smn, cause lol ruin on sch) or malefic, or stone 2. SMN may get a small pass on the very rare situations you would use ruin, however.

[Kietsu]

Stone II may cost less MP than Stone III, but it is not more MP efficient than Stone III.

Stone II
170 Potency/442 MP cost=0.384 Potency per MP spent.

Stone III
210 Potency/530 MP cost=0.396 Potency per MP spent.

As has been mentioned, the only reason to use Stone II over Stone III is if you're level synced down to below 54.

...holy crap that's dumb. I don't play WHM so I hadn't realized those were the numbers on the skills.

For comparison, Astrologians get the following:

Malefic
150 Potency / 353 MP = 0.425 Potency per MP

Malefic II
200 Potency / 530 MP = 0.377 Potency per MP

Scholars get the following:

Ruin
80 Potency / 176 MP = 0.455 Potency per MP

Broil
170 Potency / 530 MP = 0.321 Potency per MP

So... yeah. But for WHM, apparently you might as well just macro:

/aerror off
/ac "Stone III" <t>
/ac "Stone II" <t>

[Aika_Nakamura]

Mana conservation is all I can really say.

There's some cases where you simply don't have the MP even after juggling Assize and Shroud of Saints. It's specific when, but it's also pretty hard to conserve mana in some cases.

In reality, though. Probably level-syncing.

[mp-please]

...holy crap that's dumb. I don't play WHM so I hadn't realized those were the numbers on the skills.

For comparison, Astrologians get the following:

Malefic
150 Potency / 353 MP = 0.425 Potency per MP

Malefic II
200 Potency / 530 MP = 0.377 Potency per MP

Scholars get the following:

Ruin
80 Potency / 176 MP = 0.455 Potency per MP

Broil
170 Potency / 530 MP = 0.321 Potency per MP

So... yeah. But for WHM, apparently you might as well just macro:

/aerror off
/ac "Stone III" <t>
/ac "Stone II" <t>

That's because broil/malefic II are lv 54 skills and ruin/malefic are lv 1 skills, meanwhile white mage has stone I at lv 1, stone II at lv 22 and stone III at lv 54. To make a proper comparison to sch/ast you need to compare stone I to stone III

Stone I
140 potency / 353 MP = 0.396 potency per MP

Stone III
210 potency / 530 MP = 0.396 potency per MP (now that's hilarious)