hi! sorry for your poor experience, for the spells to work you have to complete the qte sequence, the "something" that appears after you press 1, 2 or 3.
also, do you mind sharing your screen specs? as everything might be just a ui scaling issue, for which we are terribly sorry and will try to fix in the nearest time. =(
hii! you just have to click the keys that appear in the blue circle above your character after activating a spell (through clicking 1,2 or 3. You shouldn’t rush the process because it might ruin the sequence (unless it says double, then you need to repeatedly press shift two times). this is why I would advise you to use spells before you attract a huge swarm of enemies because it will give you more freedom to get the sequence right. when I played I managed to lure them one by one even when they were grouped. Hope this helps! let us know if you have any more questions :> we as a team are also in a process of patching the game so thank you for the feedback