D&D (2024) Fireball is a C Tier Spell

[Zardnaar]

Wolves fall into zombies for me. Creatures that woikd clump up as they don't really conceive of things like fireball.

Zombies would walk over spike growth though. Wolves won't.

 

[Zardnaar]

It is the go to spell at 3rd level. It’s a gigantic leap in power and my first choice unless the campaign specifically restricts it. Since I play sorcerers and evoke wizards it’s not suboptimal unless I am encountering fire immunity monsters or environments that specifically negate it. It is S tier.

Slow, Hypnotic Pattern, fear etc?

Read the new DMG more. They're saying be very careful with encounters where PC are out numbered 2-1.

Xp budgets you can't really get up to large numbers anyway without using fodder. And vs fodder you don't need fireball anyway. Convenient I suppose but you've basically won already just by turning up.

Alot of hit point inflation in 5.5. You get fireball at 5, by 8 encounter xp budgets are 5-10k. If you use a few enemies hp totals are 80-120ish CR 3-5 depending on the monster.

CR2 is 450xp. Hit points are 50-60's it seems.

At level 5 xp budgets are about half of 8.

Fireballs not really worth upcasting but Raw by the time you get it the HP totals are high. Sure you're not really expected to kill them but depleting a monster of half its hp or a 1/4 still leaves them alive. 5E monsters hit hard. That's still a lot of incoming damage.

DM pretty much has to use CR 1 to hit large swarms by xp budgets. CR1 and lower has terrible saves. Leaves the very open to getting wrecked by whatever.

Most encountersvin WotC adventures top out at 1-2 npcs per player. Often less 1-4 critters.

10 ogres pr any other CR2s (allosauris, bandit captain etc) is a low fight at level 8 high at 5.

A low or medium encounter (cake walk in 5.5 tbh) has to use fodder RAW.

Very narrow window level 5 and 6 really. Assuming DMs using encounters remotely close to RAW. Ideally they're clumped up, not fire resistant etc. And even if all those boxes are ticked you don't really need the soell vs other options.

Yay.

And the spells not really worth upcasting.

Getting hot with fireball still sucks. Player HP totals are 3.0 levels still. Lots of healing though I've had level 7 pcs tank the equivalent of 4-5 fireballs (glyphs, exploding barrels and zombies). It's just damage. Hold spells, fear, slow etc will usually attract a counterspell. Fireballs a maybe.

 

[wizard71]

Slow, Hypnotic Pattern, fear et

All those are concentration effects. You can’t stack them and only slow is selective unless you are a sorcerer. Unless I was involved with creatures that have fire immunity I would take fireball over any of them.

 

[Zardnaar]

All those are concentration effects. You can’t stack them and only slow is selective unless you are a sorcerer. Unless I was involved with creatures that have fire immunity I would take fireball over any of them.

Read the new rules?

Even if they're not fire resistant new critters have buckets of hp.

CR 2 is often 50-60' CR 5 is getting up around 100-120.

NPC spellcaster types have less. Eg CR6 mage packing 81 iirc.

Fire resistance your spell basically complete sucks. Debatable if it's worth taking a feat to get around it even as a dragon sorcerer.

 

[FrogReaver]

All those are concentration effects. You can’t stack them and only slow is selective unless you are a sorcerer. Unless I was involved with creatures that have fire immunity I would take fireball over any of them.

Slow is okay if enemies have some distance to cover to get to the party and the party is not composed of some players that will charge to melee regardless. It’s far more situational than fireball IMO.

Hypnotic pattern and fear are very dm dependent. Even more so than fireball. Both have tons of enemies that are immune and on top of that the dm may decide the enemies daisy chain each other awake from hypnotic pattern or for fear that an enemy spends one turn dashing to a corner in a smallish room and then due to their interpretation of the spells wording that the creature then gets to act normally next turn (just with the standard frightened condition). *not to mention the limited Range and cone nature of fear makes it much harder to avoid targeting allies.

 

[Zardnaar]

Slow is okay if enemies have some distance to cover to get to the party and the party is not composed of some players that will charge to melee regardless. It’s far more situational than fireball IMO.

Hypnotic pattern and fear are very dm dependent. Even more so than fireball. Both have tons of enemies that are immune and on top of that the dm may decide the enemies daisy chain each other awake from hypnotic pattern or for fear that an enemy spends one turn dashing to a corner in a smallish room and then due to their interpretation of the spells wording that the creature then gets to act normally next turn (just with the standard frightened condition). *not to mention the limited Range and cone nature of fear makes it much harder to avoid targeting allies.

They still miss their turn if they wake opponents. In effect it's still an AoE Comnand:Halt. Slow best at range still cuts danage by half even if they're close.

Charm immunity is probably a lot less common than fire resistance. And on critters you woukd want to use Hypnotic Pattern on its very rare.

Spells like spirit guardians also exist. They're haven't quite figured out how to abuse it yet but have occasionally double dipped it for 6d8 radiant.

 

[wizard71]

Read the new rules?

Even if they're not fire resistant new critters have buckets of hp.

CR 2 is often 50-60' CR 5 is getting up around 100-120.

NPC spellcaster types have less. Eg CR6 mage packing 81 iirc.

Fire resistance your spell basically complete sucks. Debatable if it's worth taking a feat to get around it even as a dragon sorcerer.

The buckets of hit points make a lot of your concentration spells less appealing. You still have to burn them down. Fear causes a panic which is great out in the open but breaks as soon as a monster runs around the corner. Legendary Resistances makes any of your spells moot. A lot of the spells you listed allow saves every round so with the enhanced hit points it’s likely the DM rolls well to break a spell before a monster is down.

 

[Zardnaar]

The buckets of hit points make a lot of your concentration spells less appealing. You still have to burn them down. Fear causes a panic which is great out in the open but breaks as soon as a monster runs around the corner. Legendary Resistances makes any of your spells moot. A lot of the spells you listed allow saves every round so with the enhanced hit points it’s likely the DM rolls well to break a spell before a monster is down.

They buffed martial damage. Saves are also generally bad on wisdom saves. Odds are they won't make it.

You're buying time for martials to do their job, avoiding danage reducing need to heal.

In sone cases you're ramping up damage as well eg paralyzed.

If combat is generally lasting 2-3 rounds even 4 shutting something down for 1 round is huge. Espicially if it's a boss eg command halt.

Don't use spell slots to ve a vad martial imho. There is a tine and place for direct danage though but you have better options.

Spirit guardians lasts more than one fight. Have you seen it comboed with slow? Basically it shuts them down, free damage and if you punt them back into spirit guardians they take the danage again.

New command and tashas are so good. CR 14s shut down (they were immune to fire as well).

 

[Ashrym]

Yeah.... I gotta say that Fireball is definitely not a general go to spell for me. It's a go to spell for damage spells at that level but that's not the same thing.

 

[mellored]

Iconic doesn't make it S tier. Magic missile is iconic. It's barely usable imho.

Magic Missile is great for breaking concentration.