Make Fireball a level 5 spell

[tazoz]

Earth elementalists have Lee's deconstruction, Air elementalists have poisonous cloud, ice elementalists have refrigeration at level 5, all of these are actually better than fireball. sticky flames nerf has made fire elemntalists surprisingly weak and they really need some sort of boost, this seems to me a logical change.

[eith]

Earth elementalists have Lee's deconstruction, Air elementalists have poisonous cloud, ice elementalists have refrigeration at level 5, all of these are actually better than fireball. sticky flames nerf has made fire elemntalists surprisingly weak and they really need some sort of boost, this seems to me a logical change.

Fire elementalists are in no way weak. The sticky nerf barely affected them at all. I actually like the change to sticky, since it never misses now, its very powerful.

[tazoz]

Eith, the new sticky flame has its uses and is still a good spell but the old sticky flame was over powered as hell, you could pretty much use sticky flame the entire game and it was the most cost effective spell. The new sticky flame is fantastic in certain situations but it's generally not the best of ideas to close in on most late game creatures as a caster. (the old sticky flame was also very accurate)

On the other hand, fireball is a good spells but is considered the lesser of the two level 6 fire spells, fire elementalists have a huge gap between level 4 and level 6 spells and fire desperatly needs a spell to fill this gap. If fireball as a level 5 spell is deemed too powerful there is always the option to reduce the damage or return it to level 6 later on, I assume it's a very easy change to make.

[LunarHarp]

Fireball may do less damage then bolt of fire but it never misses. I have always found it better against those pesky high EV creatures. Delayed Fireball makes it even better.

Also I have found SpFE get along with the new sticky flame quite nicely.

[tazoz]

I'll try to explain it a bit better, every elemental school has a level 5 mass kill spell except fire. Ice has refrigeration a single school spell which is the most powerful offensive spell in the game short of the level 9 spells. (it can clear snake, swamp, shoals, elf by itself with very little risk), air has poison cloud(can clear lair and elf easily but suffers from it being poison, it synergizes well with mephic), Earth has deconstuction (weaker than fireball, but smite targeted and can hit creatures not in sight not to mention a tool to dig it's also a single school spell.)

Fireball can hit high evasion creatures and deals some nice damage but also makes alot of noise, cannot be used at close range in corridors (making the noise deadlier), there is no doubt about it that in specific situations it's better than the bolts , but so are the rest of the level 5 offensve spells.

To put things in proportion, earth got a massive boost in making the spells single school, making stone arrow the best single target spell for its cost and buffing sandblast and deconstruction.
With the addition of tornado air has easily become the best school in the game just because tornado is broken. (but fun)
Ice has remained mostly unchanged except the reduction of the cost of freezing cloud (no idea when this was done), but it does have refrigeration.(I explained above how powerful the spell is)

Of course one can come up with reasoning why not to change it, we don't want to make the game easier, fire is still a playable school but in the end making fire ball a level 5 spell won't unbalance the school and will make the starting book a bit more interesting in the early game. it will also give a much more interesting dilema deciding between fireball and fire bolt as for now bolt is better in most situations except versus snakes and wisps and bees and when a monster is runing away. (which aren't really level 6 worthy creatures and situations.)

Remember that the change to how noise works was actually a nerf to fireball.

[FlyingPants]

"Ice has refrigeration a single school spell which is the most powerful offensive spell in the game short of the level 9 spells. (it can clear snake, swamp, shoals, elf by itself with very little risk)"

BRB making an IE

[rabidweasel]

"Ice has refrigeration a single school spell which is the most powerful offensive spell in the game short of the level 9 spells. (it can clear snake, swamp, shoals, elf by itself with very little risk)"

BRB making an IE

Well the self damage is a slight balancing factor but yeah the spell is insane if you have the right setup for it.

I like this suggestion, fireball is one of those spells that I tend to put off learning because the circumstances under which it's the best choice to actually cast are pretty restricted, and bolt of fire is a lot more versatile overall. If fireball was lower level I'd definitely use it over bolt of fire where there were mana/hunger considerations, if nothing else.

[ieattime20]

Yeah, when you put Fireball beside Refrigeration it looks sort of sucky. The self-damage and potion-shattering is a good mitigation, but dropping your potions and going Ice Form (why not? more HP, more strength, rPois) makes it an easy win button. It even kills U-Boat Gators in Swamp.

[shiweera]

I always fount Fireball at lvl 6 pretty viable and strong enough. It is not really an argument that other classes have lvl5 mass kill spells. Not every class has to play the same. That it is harder to remove the hunger cost for Fireball made the game more interesting to me.
Fire conjurers also have bolt of magma as a lvl5 spell which does irresistable damage and hits pretty strong. (You can even kill iron golems with it). So no gap between lvl4 and lvl6 spells.