I don't know how you think that physical is better at aoe when magic can easily and routinely dump large damage puddles everywhere that also inflict status effects. The simple act of making someone wet lowers resistance and that's not something armour protects you from.. granted, magic damage is lower on an individual target, but there's more instances to apply it.
I think physical is better at AoE, because
it is. Elemental puddles matter 0% until armor is stripped and even then it still requires more actions to get similar results as to what a physical class can do. Arrow Storm > basically everything elemental. It doesn't just strip armor and cause CC, it outright kills
almost everything that it hits. It's also very easy to Battle Stomp the armor off of a few enemies AND knock them down
with one action.
The other reason physical is better at "AoE" is because in the majority of encounters, enemies are not bunched up together and almost exclusively come in pairs at most. About the only time you ever end up with more than two enemies in close enough proximity before spell AoE matters is when you're taking too long to actually kill them. When you have a group of two enemies, at least one of them is going to outright be killed on the round of any given physical character (especially true if it's a Ranger). Not so when it's a caster. Two enemies and two Rangers equals two dead enemies. Two enemies and two casters equals
maybe two burning enemies, where the burning effect isn't going to be enough to kill them.
Also,
unless you're an all ranged team, planting fire or shock effects all over the ground isn't really all that helpful. It impedes your own team just as much.
Before commenting on these things, it's helpful to actually have experience with them and not just theorycrafting. Play the game all the way through with 2x Rangers and 2x anything else that's physical (can even be a third Ranger), then try doing the same thing on your next playthrough with 4x non Summoning elemental casters. The difference is night and day. Even four Rogues, who have arguably the weakest AoE (they can use the same Warfare abilities, but at lesser effectiveness than what a Two-Handed build can) will have a much easier time. Backlash > Rupture Tendons > Chicken essentially kills any non major boss enemy in the game.
