How to use AOE spells effectively?

[finalpatch]

Hi folks, so how exactly do you time/aim your spells so that they hit the intended targets without damaging party members?  The tanks can pin down enemies so they make easy targets but then the spell will hit the tanks as well.  If I do not charge my tanks in then the enemies will be moving which makes it very difficult to aim the spell, the spell may very well be wasted.  Even if the spell does hit,  in most case there's only enough time to get one AOE spell out before the enemies reach the party.

 

[Infares]

The red part of the AoE allows friendly fire, the yellow part doesn't. You can configure your formation so that you can keep friendlies from harm. Otherwise, you can have a V shaped formation and position your aoe characters at the back of it and use them to pull groups with their aoe spells and then clean up whatever's left. 

Jacking up the Int of your Aoe characters will also enlarge the yellow non-friendly-fire zone in your aoes and make it easier to avoid friendly fire.

[Blackthane]

Open areas: manually command your caster to flank the mob and use your spells. To avoid having mobs run all over the place so you're maximizing the number of targeted enemies, always let the tank engage enemies or pull off mobs one by one (usually 2 or 4 out of 6~8 will rush your tank). To control the battle and where mobs will position themselves, only one tank will deliver the opening shot and maintain mobs' attention. 

 

Dungeons: use tank to hold a position so the mobs can't get through a doorway (aka chokepoints), throw out Withdrawal (level 1 priest spell) and let caster stand directly behind encased roadblock and spam your AoE. Take note your caster can still die from foes' AoE and range attacks, and if you get greedy and try to position a 2nd caster behind the tank, he could get in the line of fire of the 1st caster too. 

 

Not being a smarty pants here, the other way is to use ciphers. 

Edited April 4, 2015 by Blackthane

[finalpatch]

The red part of the AoE allows friendly fire, the yellow part doesn't. You can configure your formation so that you can keep friendlies from harm. Otherwise, you can have a V shaped formation and position your aoe characters at the back of it and use them to pull groups with their aoe spells and then clean up whatever's left. 

 

Jacking up the Int of your Aoe characters will also enlarge the yellow non-friendly-fire zone in your aoes and make it easier to avoid friendly fire.

 

Well this just means Hiravias is a rather poor druid because his yellow circle is next to non-exist with 11 INT

[PrimeJunta]

Which is why they buffed his INT in 1.03.

[Matuse]

The other solution is to stick primarily to "Foe AoE" abilities. They can be cast wherever you want and will never touch the party - just be careful that nobody in the party has been confused/charmed, because then they WILL get hit.