When I first read the new conjure barrage/volley spells, and noticed that they don't target allies, I though of them as similar to an evoker casting AOE spells or a Sorcerer using careful spell, and in most cases they are. However I just realized that in certain situations they are so much better.
An evoker and a Sorcerer using careful spell both can only chose a limited number of people not to affect. A ranger can use a Conjure spell and chose any target hit to not be affected. Most of the time that won't matter because a Evoker or Sorcerer can ignore enough people to cover the whole party, but anytime you have a large number of allies on your side, or innocents to protect, the Conjure spells become exponentially better.
There are tons of situations where the difference will matter, particularly in more narrative based fights, instead of dungeon crawling. An evil necromancer raises a hoard of zombies in the city, and they are mixed in the crowd. Your party rallies the citizen of a village to city to fight off the attacking orc army. A ranger can drop a Conjure barrage on a crowd and hit dozens of enemies without hurting any allies. A Conjure Volley can hit over a hundred enemies. Correct me if I am wrong here but they are by far the biggest AOE spells in the game that won't hit any allies. I don't think there are really any other spells in the game that can came close.
Most of the time full casters are going to going to be much better killing large mobs of enemies. Better enough that most of the time rangers won't even bother trying to cast one if they have a full caster in the party. The new ranger spells actually give them there own niche. One that seems really fun and flavorful for a ranger. I am actually excited to try them out now.
I am just picturing a situation like you come across a caravan being overrun by bandits, and they are mixed in among the caravan attacking people, and my ranger firing dozens of arrows and unerringly hitting every single bandit. I might be more excited about actually trying the Conjure spells out than anything else in the playtest so far, and overall I am actually really happy with the playtest so far.
