Glad to see others feel about the range of magic as I do...but that last comment about not liking the indicator because someone would grow to not understand how the magic works, that..I dont understand.

AoEs are simple to understand, what this would do is all you to see the optimal positioning you need to be, to cast your next spell when attempting to cover the best range possible.

If you have 3 mobs around each other, you select one, there's a chance that even though in your perspective it could hit all three, it'll only hit one. You select a different one, it has the chance of striking down two, or if you select the last it has the best possability of hitting all 3 at once, utalizing positioning and strategy rather than just blindly shooting off spells and wasting mp.

They want melee classes to rely on positioning when using skills, I dont see why mages are any different.

Hell, there could become a day when, if they can really do well on the landscape and really signifiy the difference between rock, grass, sand, snow, etc that a Geomancer class would benefit from such ideas, moving from one spot to another to benefit from the type of ground they are touching, be it a puddle, a patch of rock, sand, etc.

And having it on the screen as a visual guide is good too, as Illriginalized said. Thats how XII did it anyways. It may be easier to use as well, if you have a cluster of mobs together and you're trying to nuke them all down at the same time, if you put your spell on one mob, it may not hit the one all the way on the outer edge of the rest of them. You wont know that until you've casted. But, with visual guide, you can see the one on the end isnt effected by the range, so you adjust as necassary and blamo. Death to all.