I wound up with the necromancy AOE spell, I don't remember it's name. Low damage huge aoe friendly fire is inevitable. trying to get to chain lightning now simply because shooting sith forks out of your hands looks cool, but leveling is slow now and all the steps along the lightening tree are more or less a write off.
The walking bomb spells are pretty good though, and the mana siphon from necromancy is a great booster after a fight.
Overall I'm overwhelmed, the only party member doing any consistent damage is Mortigan. Started the Redcliff battle 4 times, got wiped out 4 times. Don't have enough mana potions for a prolonged fight.
I'm thinking about restarting (again) to get my build right. Unfortunately no cheats that will let me do that.