I don't think it is too much of a threadjack, as fireball is an essentials mage spell. The conversation got onto fireball when it was pointed out that fountain of flame does virtually the same damage, but has other features to make it a good spell, while fireball has features to make it a not so good spell.
So you can really think of this as "why is fountain of flame good, while fireball is so lackluster".
I personally think the answer is: While damage is cool, wizards need to bring more than damage to justify being a wizard instead of re-rolling as a striker and just helping the party more.
Fountain of flame does this by doing damage on par with fireball, being enemy only, and creating an enemy only damage zone that doesn't need to be sustained.
The burst 3 on fireball just isn't useful in practice, because you are going to hit your own party members. Damage AoEs are a major threat against party members because healing surges matter to them. Damage AoEs are not a major threat to monsters because they don't care about finishing 3-4 encounters before running out of surges, all they care about is staying in the combat for as long as possible to deal damage and force healing surge use by PCs.
Focusing fire reduces the total monster "up time" more than spreading around AoE damage does.
Controller powers reduces the total monster "up time" by either turn stealing effects, forcing monsters to attack party members with high defenses, sweep several minions with a single standard action, or create punishment zones that deal out huge amounts of damage over the combat if they are violated.
Swishing some AoE damage around isn't useless, but it is far less useful than the two previous options.
Fireball is bad, because all five party members can't cast fireball, and even if they could, they'd not all roll high enough to all go first. So the monsters would get into the party, and then the fireballs with a burst 3 would just end up hitting party members, or catching as many monsters as would be hit by a nastier spell with a smaller burst.
Not everything a character does has to be super optimized. However, if you've ever been in a game where everyone brought a sub-par character, it really messes the game up. It is pretty aggravating for a DM to have a party that will suffocate when they are placed inside a wet paper bag, as it involves a lot of work to constantly come up with ways to "fix" adventures because the PCs get hammered by easy combats.
So you can really think of this as "why is fountain of flame good, while fireball is so lackluster".
I personally think the answer is: While damage is cool, wizards need to bring more than damage to justify being a wizard instead of re-rolling as a striker and just helping the party more.
Fountain of flame does this by doing damage on par with fireball, being enemy only, and creating an enemy only damage zone that doesn't need to be sustained.
The burst 3 on fireball just isn't useful in practice, because you are going to hit your own party members. Damage AoEs are a major threat against party members because healing surges matter to them. Damage AoEs are not a major threat to monsters because they don't care about finishing 3-4 encounters before running out of surges, all they care about is staying in the combat for as long as possible to deal damage and force healing surge use by PCs.
Focusing fire reduces the total monster "up time" more than spreading around AoE damage does.
Controller powers reduces the total monster "up time" by either turn stealing effects, forcing monsters to attack party members with high defenses, sweep several minions with a single standard action, or create punishment zones that deal out huge amounts of damage over the combat if they are violated.
Swishing some AoE damage around isn't useless, but it is far less useful than the two previous options.
Fireball is bad, because all five party members can't cast fireball, and even if they could, they'd not all roll high enough to all go first. So the monsters would get into the party, and then the fireballs with a burst 3 would just end up hitting party members, or catching as many monsters as would be hit by a nastier spell with a smaller burst.
Not everything a character does has to be super optimized. However, if you've ever been in a game where everyone brought a sub-par character, it really messes the game up. It is pretty aggravating for a DM to have a party that will suffocate when they are placed inside a wet paper bag, as it involves a lot of work to constantly come up with ways to "fix" adventures because the PCs get hammered by easy combats.
