D&D 5E (2024) Fireball Vs Chromatic Orb Late Tier 2 Thoughts.

[TigerDude]

Fireball has save for half. CO optimized in effect has no save it's rare to miss. Its also any element. Fure one of the more common resistances. Lvl 4 spell slot it's 9d6 save for half vs 6d8 90 or 95% accuracy in effect with 10% crit chance. .

Critical hits and paralysis is what you're missing. 6d8 becomes 12d8 vs 9d6 no save.

COs reliable as well, bounce is 30'. FB is very dependent on creatures being clustered. If the DM spreads the out 20-25 feet apart CO is good to go FBs semi useless.

I've seen lvl 6 CO duplicate a chain lightning on 2 paralyzed targets then bounce and hit the other 6 targets. 16d8, 16d8, 5 targets 8d8 no save in effect (95% accuracy + rerolls). Over a large area as well (100'+)

Fireballs not really worth upcasting beyond 4th level. Occasionally you get a 200 hp one but it's few and far between. Light cleric may upcast it along with fiendpact Warlocks otherwise rare scenarios imho.

I don't understand your paralyzed comments. If CO is better against Paralyzed opponents, that's a bit of a different argument, though now FB gets auto-fails on saves. The thread isn't "FB vs CO Late Tier 2 against paralyzed targets thoughts."

Getting back to straight rolls, at L8, I expect to have +5 spellcasting, so +8 to hit, Maybe +10 at L9 with a +1 magic item to improve and Prof at 4. You will miss enemies enough to notice.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Fireballs not needed for that. Our group would just radiance of the dawn stuff like that assuming they knew it was that weak.

If you have that available, good call.
If not. Fireball.

And new zone spells better for that anyway (10/level duration).

Use concentration. Which might be better used for different things.

Of course, if you allow dragging the cleric around for multiple instances per turn, nothing can compete.

I would not allow more than one drag per round. Otherwise it resembles the peasant railgun.
Or the feared kobold conga line.

Having multiple creatures drag the same creature over and over again during the same 6 second period is exploiting the rules. Same goes for many creatures occupying the same space over and over again.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

For large numbers of enemies, I hate tracking individual HP totals for mooks. I have a HP threshold (2-3x party level). Any damage above the threshold kills the target, any damage below bloodies it. Any damage to a bloodied mook kills it, any healing/THP unbloodies it. It makes AE users feel good, and and speeds things along. I can confirm I have now actually seen Burning Hands cast outside of fighting a swarm in 3E.