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

[Zardnaar]

Magic Missile is great for breaking concentration.

It is. That's why it's C tier vs D.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

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.

Yes! They will clump up right on top of the martials or caster... depending on what they do with 80 feet of movement. One may hide. Another will move and dash for 80 feet from over a hillcrest. They will converge at their opponents like most high movement enemies. If the DM is not maximizing their monster's actions... then maybe. Otherwise high movement enemies SHOULD often have a good degree of separation due to the nature of turn order in DnD. Usually I have at least 2 roving monsters right in the parties face before the Wiz even gets there turn. Now you have several wolves that took initiative to run right into the fray and maybe 2 of them still hanging at their starting spots... making something more targeted into an optimal move and making a emanation a waste again as often happens

 

[Gladius Legis]

It's S tier for around the level 5-6 range when it can bring a whole crowd close to or at death. It's D tier after that when enemy HPs scale too much for it to do either one of those.

So yeah I guess it averages out to C tier.

 

[GrimCo]

Magic Missile is great for breaking concentration.

It's also great for enemies behind 1/2 and 3/4 cover at longer distances, since it's autohit spell. But official adventures aparently rarley have encounters with enemies using environment for tactical positioning.

Ranking spells is very campaign dependent. It's hard to have universal ranking since it depends on few key factors.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Slow, Hypnotic Pattern, fear etc?

I don't like slow. It is an all or nothing spell. And the debuff is not big enough to justify its cost. I'd rather upcast hold person.

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

Yes. But area damage spells do help there.

Xp budgets you can't really get up to large numbers anyway without using fodder. And vs fodder you don't need fireball anyway.

I don't think you are correct here. Fooder tends to be annoying as hell. Clearing them up in a single cast really helps.

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.

Don't use CR2+ as fodder. Better use CR 1 and below, even 1/2 or lower and use most of your budget on higher level foes. CR 1/2 are what were minions in 4e. If you fear they are nit threatwning enough, just up their attack stat a bit. Give a CR 1/4 creature an attack stat of 16 to 18 and you are looking at +5 to +6 to hit. And not totally bad damage.

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.

One fireball leaves them alive as does one debuff that is easily countered with a dispell or even easier way of breakong concentration (magic missile etc.)

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.

Yes. But fireballs are way more reliable than debuffs especially if HP is below 14.

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

Don't use WotC encounters.

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

10 Ogres are tough no matter what. And a very biring fight IMHO.

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

Ok.

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.

No. Other options are fine. Does not make Fireball a bad spell though.

But I guess C tier is ok, as are most other spells. Any spell above C is actually quite imbalanced, as spells should all be situationally useful.

But having read your "spells you should use" thread makes me wonder if we play remotely the same game. Which is great btw. That one game does not play exactly as each other.

Yay.

And the spells not really worth upcasting.

Agreed. Except when you don't have any spell at level 4 that is useful or if enemy minions tend to have 15 or 16 hp and ok dex saves. Upcasting it make sure they die.

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.

Yeah. Since players are usually less than 3 people clumped up, and some have evasion, damage spells are not the most fearsome. On the other hand, until level 4 or so, where they might face a higher level wizard, a single fireball might end the fight right there.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't like slow. It is an all or nothing spell. And the debuff is not big enough to justify its cost. I'd rather upcast hold person.

Yes. But area damage spells do help there.

I don't think you are correct here. Fooder tends to be annoying as hell. Clearing them up in a single cast really helps.

Don't use CR2+ as fodder. Better use CR 1 and below, even 1/2 or lower and use most of your budget on higher level foes. CR 1/2 are what were minions in 4e. If you fear they are nit threatwning enough, just up their attack stat a bit. Give a CR 1/4 creature an attack stat of 16 to 18 and you are looking at +5 to +6 to hit. And not totally bad damage.

One fireball leaves them alive as does one debuff that is easily countered with a dispell or even easier way of breakong concentration (magic missile etc.)

Yes. But fireballs are way more reliable than debuffs especially if HP is below 14.

Don't use WotC encounters.

10 Ogres are tough no matter what. And a very biring fight IMHO.

Ok.

No. Other options are fine. Does not make Fireball a bad spell though.

But I guess C tier is ok, as are most other spells. Any spell above C is actually quite imbalanced, as spells should all be situationally useful.

But having read your "spells you should use" thread makes me wonder if we play remotely the same game. Which is great btw. That one game does not play exactly as each other.

Agreed. Except when you don't have any spell at level 4 that is useful or if enemy minions tend to have 15 or 16 hp and ok dex saves. Upcasting it make sure they die.

Yeah. Since players are usually less than 3 people clumped up, and some have evasion, damage spells are not the most fearsome. On the other hand, until level 4 or so, where they might face a higher level wizard, a single fireball might end the fight right there.

Generally you're not getting hit by fireball at level 4. I have seen it via flameskull.

I use WotC adventures as a point of reference as every DMs slightly different in how they do encounters. It's how we end up with nuh uh we play this way you're wrong type discussions.

I did check mine in 5.5 they're mostly medium and high RAW.

I remember one encounter from CoS that had 20 odd critters but they cane at you in waves.

WotC is also saying don't do that. I used 10 ogres as an example same adventure had horde of berzerkers CR 2 each irrc. CRs 2s are your fodder at higher level RAW.

You could go to CR1 I suppose bit in those scenarios you're competing with other spells like spirit guardians and you don't need fireball anyway. The rest if the party should be able to clear out mist of it anyway and round 2 maybe 3 are functionally mop up.

5.5 buffed healing so even if you take sone damage from the fodder it's mostly irrelevant.

So yeah very narrow window of opportunity level 5/6 assuming you come across those type of encounters and everything else checks out (initiative, not fireballing allies, etc.

 

[Zardnaar]

My encounters are usually 1-2 monsters per PC+1 or 2 tougher ones. Rarely use solos unless their CR is close to double the parties. CR 13 can turn up around level 7 or 8 RAW and in WotC adventures.

So Typical encounters 7-12 activations easy ones 5 or less or fodder. I've thrown 40 Kobolds at PCs before.

 

[Ashrym]

I don't take hold person on classes who cannot easily swap prepared spells because it's only effective against humanoids. Compared to slow in the same slot it's two humanoids (hold person) vs up to six creatures (slow) so I prefer slow.

On a wizard's who can easily swap spells taking hold person for those areas or adventures high in humanoids can make more sense, but it seems inconsistent to argue the benefits of fireball over numbers when it's less effective against smaller numbers and then not do the same with slow, which becomes more effective versus six than hold person is versus two.

I prefer hypnotic pattern to most 3rd level spells and also prefer slow or fear to fireball. I prefer stinking cloud to fireball too. I also prefer major image, sleet storm, and summon undead.

Fireball not being a concentration spell is helpful but I don't mind the concentration restrictions for the effects on other spells.

Fireball definitely has it's uses, but it's not always useful. I'll take haste instead because it's always useful.

When I played a bard in 2e I always grabbed fireball when I could. When I play a bard in 5e I never take it and it's easier to add now. The reason for that is the hit points of the monsters compared to the damage of the spell.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't take hold person on classes who cannot easily swap prepared spells because it's only effective against humanoids. Compared to slow in the same slot it's two humanoids (hold person) vs up to six creatures (slow) so I prefer slow.

On a wizard's who can easily swap spells taking hold person for those areas or adventures high in humanoids can make more sense, but it seems inconsistent to argue the benefits of fireball over numbers when it's less effective against smaller numbers and then not do the same with slow, which becomes more effective versus six than hold person is versus two.

I prefer hypnotic pattern to most 3rd level spells and also prefer slow or fear to fireball. I prefer stinking cloud to fireball too. I also prefer major image, sleet storm, and summon undead.

Fireball not being a concentration spell is helpful but I don't mind the concentration restrictions for the effects on other spells.

Fireball definitely has it's uses, but it's not always useful. I'll take haste instead because it's always useful.

When I played a bard in 2e I always grabbed fireball when I could. When I play a bard in 5e I never take it and it's easier to add now. The reason for that is the hit points of the monsters compared to the damage of the spell.

Slows also a wisdom save iirc.

 

[Retros_x]

I'd agree. When playing a wizard I rarely have more than one pure damage spell prepared in general and most of the times its fireball. But I only use it if I hit 4 or more enemies and there is no control spell that saves resources of my party better.

But control is way more efficient. Let other classes do the damage that are better at damage dealing anyway and focus on making them hit better, manipulating the action economy, protecting your allies.