Skills - Fireball

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They changed this skill in the latest update. Energy cost is lowered to 10, and recharge time is reduced to 7 seconds.

u can buy ths spell at yaks bend

You can also get this skill from the "Caravan in Trouble" quest in the Eastern Frontier.

updated:
10 energy 7 second recharge

now much more useful to secondary eles

and to primary eles !

Eastern Frontier? Is that near Piken Square?

Quote:

Does this do 7-91 dmg to everyone in the area overall or to each target idividualy in the area?

Each person in the area of where Fireball went off is hit for 7-91 damage. This means that it can become a very potent (and efficient) spell against packed groups of enemies.

I don't think fire damage spells should ordinarily be used by anybody except primary elementalists (Conjure Flame would be an obvious exception) -- they're too dependent on attribute level for their effect.

That said -- Fireball rocks. Even against a single target, it is slightly more energy efficient than Flare. And the advantage goes up a little more if you note that you get 30% of the costs back under Fire Attunement, but only 20% of Flare's.

It also turns out to be better than Immolate against almost all targets, at least if you have a superior rune taking your Fire Magic up to 16 (which still leaves Immolate's Burning effect limited to 3 seconds, i.e. 42 points of degen). There are a few exceptions late game, but only a few, and by then you have a good enough energy management elite that you can run and frequently recast them both if you like anyway.

I like Immolate. Even if vs most enemies it does sod all damage in comparison to Fireball, its short cast and instant hit making it great for picking off that Shadow Monk that just ran out of your nuke zone with extremely low health or that 1 straggler thats a bit too far from the monk. Would be nice if at 16 fire it was upped to 4 burning though...same with most of that sorta spell. Would give a bit more incentive to add that 1 extra point onto Fire.

Fireball is a cornerstone of many fire builds. It's economical, recharges fairly quickly, and works in conjunction with other fire spells well.

Arena fire spiking is almost reliant on Fireball, both low-end (RP char arenas) and high-end (lvl 20 arenas).

Incendiary Bonds -> Fireball is one of the first combos a fire elementalist learns to use. In the arena atmosphere, it doesn't matter much that you're saying 'Hey, I'm going to spike you in 3 seconds', because nobody on their team is going to pay any attention to that, usually.
Normally, you can pump out 203 almost instantaneous fire damage this way, with an extra 42 supplementary degen damage.

Incendiary Bonds -> Fireball -> Immolate is the first extended spike combo you'll probably use. IB will normally trigger around the time Fireball strikes, usually a little before, for the initial spike. Following up with Immolate 1.75 seconds later (you'll lose a second of Incendiary Bonds' burning time), you pump out a little more direct damage and burning time.
Here, you can push out the same 203, and another 53 direct damage, and 2 extra seconds of burning, for about 326 (256 of which takes place over the span of 2 seconds) damage over 5 seconds. Often enough to make a large difference in arena matches.

Replacing Immolate with Mind Burn {E} is also effective for the arenas, for single target spiking, or substituting Flame Burst is good for PbAoE spiking (ie - 2-3 targets are in close proximity to you, and this'll let you spike them all).

Without a single skill from above (say Incendiary Bonds is recharging, or Mind Burn), Fireball can still be used to spike with just one of the other skills nicely. It's just that integral+flexible.

Aside from combo synchrony, Fireball is an amazing spell in its own right, with a high amount of efficiency, that scales up moreso when you can hit multiple targets (which, considering the amount of warriors you'll see in the arenas, is not uncommon at all). If you're a pyromancer, regardless of what build you use, I don't really suggest letting this spell leave your bar.

Edit: Removed a few redundant words x_x

I like it and it's often up when I do fire, just wish I could cast it in less than 2 seconds
[and for the mesmer congregation, still get my 16fire out of it]