How to see incoming aoes?

[Seif]

Seif is referring to the "Lock on" focus. There's another function which is defaulted to shift-f on computer, and.... I'm not sure what it is on the controller, but I'm sure you can do it. This adds another target health bar to your screen and allows you to have stats on two monsters at once. Very useful for fights like Garuda.

I actually quite like lock on, it makes strafing around AoEs quite easy, but it's situation at best. But that is neither here nor there. As long as you are targetting Garuda, you should be able to see her cast bar, which is just above and to the right side of her big HP bar.

Ok so locking on is not needed? Just normal targeting without the diamond cursor.
Lock on happens by l3 button and it makes movement away from enemy superslow. So any round ground aoe is almost unavoidable. That's what I mean because I accidentally press it on all the time.