Piercing Fireball question

Hi,

Hasn't anyone tried a Crit GMP Piercing Fireball?

Regular setup: Fireball - GMP - FC - FirePen - Conc Effect.
This setup is pretty mediocre, to say the least, in terms of AoE. It has good DPS (due to Conc) for Single Target, but the AoE is pitiful.

We are faced with situation when monster swarm you in waves. The standard fireball setup explodes on the first row. Due to low cast speed and projectile speed, when using Fireball you are ALWAYS shotguning at point blank range. IMO this is not fun at all...

I like the idea of fireball, but not shutguning packs that always surround you.

So my idea is to give up on the whole idea of AoE and Conc Effect, build up a lot of crit and/or RF get 100% pierce chance on Fireball.

Would this be viable? The AoE is much better than Conc effect version, but is the DPS enough?
Has anyone tried it before?

Well it should deal the same amount of damage to all the mobs it passes through.
It just doesn't deal AoE damage (which anyway is only 8 radius).

Since it will not deal AoE, will it be able to shutgun?
Is the shutgun mechanic related to AoE damage?

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nebunelux wrote:

It just doesn't deal AoE damage (which anyway is only 8 radius).

I ran a Fireball witch recently that had a lot of increased AOE. She got Fireball's radius up to 15. The explosions were still small enough that I left tons of stragglers, so my clear speed was terrible. In comparison, my Ice Nova builds can have the same amount of AOE boost (radius 56), half the damage, and about three times the clear speed.

I think ignoring Fireball's AOE is fine. It's small enough regardless of what you do that it won't really boost your clear speed. All you're losing is Conc Effect, which is obviously a big loss, but you make up for that in clear speed by hitting almost everything in front of you whenever you cast Fireball.

I'd say run Conc Effect if you're an ignite build. Run 100% Pierce if you're not an ignite build.

I find Fireball - GMP - CE - FPen - Echo to be effective both vs. packs (you can mow down two packs at with one cast) and vs. single target due to double shotgun.

Note that I am a dragonballer though, so YMMV.

The point I am trying to make is that CE Fireball is like a melee skill.
Mobs swamp you and you are shooting shutguning GMP Fireball at melee range, so AoE capabilities are basically non existent. Clear speed is bad. This is the reason almost nobody uses fireball atm.
I want a Fireball build that is ranged like it should be. Mobs shouldn't be able to reach me.
CE is truly a big loss, but I hope that I can make up for it through other means. Specifically crit.
For single target I could use FB-GMP/LMP-Conc-FC.

I made a CI Crit Fireball character a while back and it was pretty bad. CI in melee range is a no go for me. It was like a manmode InfernalBlow Marauder, playstyle wise.

I love the skill, but it's pretty difficult to make it work effectively.

Hmmm, got me thinking. If you use pierce, CE won't work? I mean, technically it won't do AoE damage, but it does boost spell damage, not only that of explosions? :-X

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Perq wrote:

Hmmm, got me thinking. If you use pierce, CE won't work? I mean, technically it won't do AoE damage, but it does boost spell damage, not only that of explosions? :-X

Nope. If you pierce, chain, fork, Conc Effect doesn't work at all. Since it doesn't do/have any AoE, Conc Effect can't apply. It's like removing the AoE tag from the skill. It would be to OP otherwise.

Think about it this way: trade damage for AoE and clear speed.

Edit:
A true fireball build looks like this: 1339 Fireball Shotgun/CI Sorc v1.0.0

And here is a video of the build in (melee) action: clicky

IMO that's the maximum you can get out of fireball. But as you can see the character is always in melee range. That's why I am suggesting piercing fireball. Since the build was made (v1.0.0) fireball has been buffed a lot.

Here is the build I have in mind: clicky. It has too many points, but this just a draft.