Quote Originally Posted by Threads View Post
Apparently I've read the patch notes more carefully than most because they make no mention of this. The new job guide does not make reference to this either.

Regardless, I choose to believe you. As you are apparently experts on all things FFXIV. I still find it odd that they choose to combine Stone into 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 as you level up but do not do this for aero leaving aero 2 and aero 3 separate.
The Stone series spells all serve the same prupose: single-target nuke. And with the Heavy removed from Stone, there is no reason to ever use the lower level spells as long as you have access to the higher ones.

The Aero spells are different. Aero and Aero II are both single-target DoTs, so they upgrade. But Aero III is an AoE DoT, so it doesn't upgrade because it actually has a different use case.

It's the same reason SCH and SMN actually got different Ruin Mastery traits. SCH just needs the one nuke, so (Except Ruin II, which is instacast and is used for movement/weaving) Ruin/Broil/Broil II could all be safely combined to minimized hotbar space. SMN actually had different times it wants to use Ruin vs Ruin III, so those were left seperate.

An argument can be made that having the DoTs combine sucks because now we have one less DoT that we can apply and have ticking away at any given time, but apparently SE has decided that this is the path they want to take on that issue.