Fireball or liquid flame?

[skill]Liquid Flame[/skill] [skill]Fireball[/skill]

Liquid Flame casts in 1 second as opposed to 2, hits nearby foes as opposed to adjacent, but that extra hitting of nearby foes is conditional. It also has double the recharge time.

I've always used Fireball, but it seems like almost every Fire Ele I play with uses Liquid Flame

I use both
No problems then

Not really what I was expecting...

my skillbar is usually

GoLE
Glowing Gaze
Fireball
Meteor Shower
Fire Attunement
Searing Flames
Res
LB Gaze when necessary..when not, I've started to bring Serpent's Quickness...either that, or Mark of Rodgort

I would and do take Serpent's Quickness over either of them, unless skill-capping or otherwise constrained as to my choice of secondary profession. It's probably better for the sheer AoE damage alone, AND it also accelerates energy management.

When I also have room for one of Fireball/Liquid Flame -- which is actually pretty common, as I play mainly just with AIs or else my wife and AIs, and hence don't always have to bring rez -- I favored Fireball for a while, but have switched back to Liquid Flame. And Lightbringer's Gaze IS better than either of them, where applicable.

Basically, unless Searing Flames is going to get disabled a lot, the 2-second cast of Fireball gets in the way of maximizing your SF hits. And if you're in a zone where disabling is that bad, you probably want the faster-casting Liquid Flame anyway.

How spammy is your bar without that skill slot? Lots of time = Fireball, not a lot of time = Liquid Flame.

Peace,
-CxE

Quote:

I like liquid because it's not a projectile. I do use both, though,

I dislike projectiles, hence liquid flame. It is better against running enemies because it cant miss, and when people are standing still they are usually attacking or casting, so it does aoe. A 1 second cast is a hell of alot harder to interupt than 2 seconds and finally spamming skills are boring (they might be effective but still.... boring).

Liquid flame is far better as it isnt a projectile and always does its damage. If used allong side searing flames, the recharge on LF doesnt really matter much as you can just spam SF while it recharges.

Depending on build I'll either use Fireball or both.

Reasons are because Fireball is non-conditional, and has half the recharge time. Being a projectile screws it in some cases, but that's rarely a problem (almost any build you use neither LF or FB will be your primary skills).

My usual SF build looks like the following:

Searing Flames
Fireball
Glowing Glaze
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Mark of Rodgort
Meteor Shower
Fire Attunement
rez or Glyph of Sacrifice (I hate 5 second MS casts)

alternatively, I'll run the same minus MS and throw Liquid Flame in there. Lots of spamming, lots of damage, good energy management.

In a searing flames build, liquid flame is better as you can squeeze it in between casts of SF without disrupting your tempo.

Almost everywhere else, fireball is better from the lower recharge and unconditional AoE.