AOE Skills and Ophelia build

Quick question as I forgot, do aoe skills take death blow when calculating damage or is is it only visible stats? Looking into Ophelia and how to use her and I feel this set maximizes her player phase. She needs to have 2 other mages to have blazing wind ready turn one which is kind of a lot to ask so you can always have one mage and infantry pulse or ostian pulse. After that she should have blazing wind ready every turn after and she should be able to take units out efficiently like this. L&D is used because I think aoe skills only take visible stats into consideration but if that's not true DB4 us probably a better option. Hardy bearings is used because you'll be DC units into vantage range so you would want to prevent that. Also I feel +atk is better than +spd. Initially I was disappointed with her speed but after looking into it she's more of a one-shot unit so it doesn't matter as much. So what's your thoughts on her and what do you believe is the most optimal way to run her? Thoughts on my build? Oh and blazing wind or growing wind? Never really used any aoe skills so I'm actually not sure which one to use XD