How to distinguish Good Aoe Circles from the Bad?

From my experience, what may look beneficial to stand in may carry a debuff, or what looks threatening actually isn't. Is there a quick, clear way to tell which is which? Or is this simply learned as you keep playing?

Blue circles are friendly NPC or party member using AoE limit break.

Pulsing red circles are always bad. Primals (Ifrit/Titan/Garuda/etc) have different, more flavor-ful AoE indicators.

You would have to give an example of an AoE indicator that gave you something good that you didn't expect to.

The only jobs with floor AoE are BRD's Flaming Arrow and SCH/SMN's Shadow Flare. Shadow Flare looks like no other mob AoE in the game so you should have no trouble recognizing it. Flaming Arrow is pretty faint so "thick" fire effects from say Twintania, Ifrit, or Hydra should be easy to distinguish from it.

Hi, thanks a bunch for that! I wasn't familiar with Flaming Arrow, and so I was very confused until now as to whether it belonged to Ifrit, or another party member.

edit: Scratch that, I spoke too soon. I will elaborate. I frequently find fiery AoE circles under Ifrit in hard mode, but I don't seem to take any damage from them. Could these be the Flaming Arrow you mentioned?

Probably. The only other flaming circles you should see in Ifrit would be

Eruptions: Cracks on the ground.
Radiant Plume: Large thick disc of fire.

These don't persist and Ifrit has a cast bar when using these. So Flaming Arrow is probably what you've seen.

You can turn off player effects so the only AoEs you see are an enemy's.

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Originally Posted by SeraviEdalborez

Probably. The only other flaming circles you should see in Ifrit would be

Eruptions: Cracks on the ground.
Radiant Plume: Large thick disc of fire.

These don't persist and Ifrit has a cast bar when using these. So Flaming Arrow is probably what you've seen.

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You've been a great help. Thanks for clearing this all up for me. :D

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Originally Posted by Lucke

You can turn off player effects so the only AoEs you see are an enemy's.

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Definitely going to try that. Great tip!

Blue = good. Red = bad.

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Originally Posted by Yoninxi

Blue = good. Red = bad.

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Yeah, Titan's Landslides are awesome to stand on.
</sarcasm>

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Originally Posted by Lucke

You can turn off player effects so the only AoEs you see are an enemy's.

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Does that also prevent you from being able to see Sacred Soil? Some player aoe effects are beneficial to stand in. :)

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Originally Posted by Naria

Does that also prevent you from being able to see Sacred Soil? Some player aoe effects are beneficial to stand in. :)

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It does prevent you from seeing Sacred Soil.