AE - Area of Effect spells question

Looking at my future Wizard spells, I see so many different EA type spells. What are the differences between:

AE PC v1 - what si PC v1?
AE PC v2
PB AE - have no clue, what PB stands for
Targeted AE - does this mean, I need to click on NPC first and then is AE damage around that NPC? Or I need to click on the ground and AE damage happens around that area?

And any other type of AE that may be on another classes (since I have many)

Which one is just the most basic AE, when you cast the spell, AE damage happens around you?

 

Note that the "Rain" spells hit in up to 3 waves, but with a max of 4 hit attempts ( which could result in damage or a resist). And they have an innate HUGE resist chance.
So if you Rain 1 mob and it stays still, you hit it 3 times in 3 waves.
If you Rain 2 mobs, you get 4 hits in 2 waves, then it's over.
If you rain 4 mobs, ? I think you get 4 hits in 1 wave, then it's over ?

They are highly situational and generally suck, but for some classes like Shaman, the best DPS nuke they have.

 

Thank you very much. Basically PB is 'normal', 'regular' AE I had in my mind.
I now understand targeted, rain AE also, great

 

Good explanation thank you very much.

Also, your comment, that are situational and that generally suck is of a big value. Will save me on spells platina

 

Rain Nukes have a 20% chance to resist each wave. I’m not sure if that 20% is additive to the normal resist chance due to saves or if it is a floor for resist chance. But generally speaking rain Nukes aren’t worth loading on our server.

I know on TLP servers due to the removal of that resist chance modifier and spell value revamps, rains are the best DPS for wizards for quite awhile. But here they are awful.

 

Thank you, that's all I needed

 

Oh, and I forgot to add - a rain can't be the killshot, or it will resist 100%. yet another silly thing, inherited from the super-old era in which DoT/rain deaths would poof a corpse because of some dumb backend code that didn't assign the damage to the caster, treating it like an NPC killshot.

 

Another prof rain is not that useful