Soulrend AoE WTF

It's recently come to my attention that Soulrend has the AoE tag but as soon as you try and dip into the area damage you net zero gains. Please enlighten me, why does a gem that has an AoE tag get no beneficiary effect from Area damage or conc effect?

It's not intuitive, but none of Soulrend, Bane, or Essence Drain deal Area Damage.

What they do is apply a DoT in an area.

So they benefit from anything that increases DoT damage or Chaos Damage, but not Area Damage.

Notably though, because Concentrated Effect will reduce the area of anything with the AoE tag CEff will reduce the area for no benefit.

It just does not display on the offence DPS.

The same thing happens with Divine Ire.

Divine Ire is different in that the channeling part doesn't do Area damage but the kamehameha does. So Area nodes/supports will affect the big final damage but not the amount done whilst channeling.