Damage over time AoE skill improvements

A whole lot of people have complained about the new update because, as they say, it makes the many damage over time AoE spells like Firestorm nearly useless. (Of course, most PvP players know it's always been that way)

My opinion on that is that if making the AI run away has made the spells useless, the solution isn't to make the AI stupid again, it's to make the spells not suck. And so, this thread.

In my opinion these spells should be relatively weak if the enemy immediately escapes. Their power should be in that if you manage to keep the enemy inside for the duration, through snares or bodyblocking or whatever, they should do more damage than most other spells would be able to in that time.

Attribute ranges are 0...15

Fire Storm: Increase damage to 5...37
Lava Font: Increase damage to 5...37
Searing Heat: Increase damage to 5...37, foes are set on fire every second (instead of at the end of the effect), fire duration scales from 1...3
Eruption: Increase damage to 5...42, foes are blinded every second (instead of at the end of the effect), Blind duration scales from 1...5 seconds
Maelstrom: Increase damage to 10...32
Chaos Storm: Reduce cost to 10 energy, reduce recharge time to 20 seconds
Symbol of Wrath: Reduce recharge time to 15 seconds

/signed since the enemies now run aoes need to be boosted.

i'm all for these changes. we all know aoe spells were junk that was no secret. only pve noobs relied on them heavily. with the recent change they have all become defensive spells instead of offensive.

increase the dmg and if they have some sort of effect on end of duration it should happen when they move out of range of the spell.

Well, the AoEs arent "junk" they just..cost a lot.

I can only think of 3 reasons to us an AoE.

1. The enemy is balled up. And even if this isnt a healing ball, its still smart for allies to stick close together for support. If a team consist of warriors and they are focused attacking, ..they are balled up.
The downside is, even if you get the team to split up they are just going to regroup at a new location.

2. Your team just dropped a snare. If you snare 1 or a whole group of people, an AoE will pay off. It will pay off more if you snare a group of people.

3. You want to control a location. Smiting and Traps is best for this because you can cast at the location you want controlled. But,..however its done, the result isnt damage, but control....or damage if bonehead doesnt get out of the AoE.

Realisticly only in the second situation would I say that an AoE is used for the damage intended.

Ive always been of the opinion that AoEs should have tracking or cast at a location rather than a target. Not fast tracking, but fast enough to keep people moving or taking damage.

I totally agree

My solution is a little bit different, instead of increasing the damage, I would prefer to:

-increase the AOE radius
-reduce the mana cost
-shorten the casting time
-shorten recharge
-can target an area instead of a particular foe (toggle-able)

In my perspective, only increasing the damage is still not enough for me to use DoT-AOE, because of its high mana and long casting time.