Having a few issues with combat/gathering

[Naryoril]

So there is no helping either issue,all there is to it is to adapt or move on i suppose?

There is nothing to adapt to, you only need to understand how the system works and you'll never think "i wasn't hit by that, why did i take damage?" If you understand how it works, you'll always know whether you'll take damage from those AoEs before the damage actually hits. It's not a latency issue, even with a latency of 0 things would be exactly the same, it's just how the game works. The animation of an AoE skill does not matter in any way when it comes to whether you are hit by it or not.