Spellcasting in PoE

[Noin]

Am I the only one finding the spellcasting in PoE too... excessive? In most fights, I find it the most effective to barrage the enemy with AoE spells and then finish them off with single-attackers. Also, I almost never use single-target spells because often AoE deal more damage to single target as well. Moreover, there is a powerful AoE for each level, so it's not like DnD where you had to make do until you got to the 5th level and got your fireball, and then the next spellcasting level was mostly Breach and Stoneskin again. In PoE, even the 1st level mages have the Fan Of Fire which often deals more damage per target than single-target high-level spells.

And I am missing longer spellcasting times like in BG. So that you can see - your enemy is going to cast something nasty! Time to react! In PoE there is almost no chance to react accordingly, if the enemy has started casting something, you have a problem.