Why does fire damage get so much preferential treatment in PoE?

Fire damage gets its own keystone (Avatar of Fire), its own ascendancy (Chieftain), the most skills and uniques, seems to get the most balance attention (including in 3.3 with ignite changes), etc.

What's with the fire favoritism in this game? And I've played since the first open beta and yes it's always seemed to get preferential treatment.

Edit: 1) To clarify - this post was NEVER about which elements were the most powerful/dominant, but simply which ones have had the most mechanical support and hence build diversity and options. It's about the richness and/or depth and complexity of the mechanic and its supporting infrastructure.

2) I've heard good arguments elsewhere about conversions, so I've removed that from the post.

3) For other examples, consider that cold damage still doesn't even have its own channeling skill yet, while fire has multiple. Minion instability causes minions to explode into fire damage (and yes, I know necromancer gets the option for chaos minions, but that still leaves the other damages out and is anyway only available to her). Fire also now has its own dedicated proliferation gem for some reason. There's also two fire totem skills and none for any other element. Or consider what one of the the most popular chestpieces for lightning users has been recently - Inpulsa's. Then consider that fire has had by far the most ways to do the same thing pretty much since its inception. And so on...

Seems equal treatment when they shuffle skills all together the question is how often do you cry?

3.3 be like

Blame spork totems. They were one of the first OP builds and GGG has hated us ever since.

Well... If not those things u mention... There would be no reason to play fire.


Ignite is bad :/

has cold ever been as powerful as the most powerful fire and lightning peaks?

Glacial. cascade.

Frost. blades.

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pr13st wrote:

Glacial. cascade.

Frost. blades.

What does that mean? It doesn't even deal with what the post is about. I've added some additional details to make things clearer. Hope that helps.

Fire has been given more importance in PoE in the past than cold or lightning. But of late cold has been very strong with Freezing Pulse (especially totems) and it's ability to stop damage for a few seconds by freezing mob packs is huge for survivability. As indicated in the upcoming patch 3.3 Glacial Cascade will be getting a nerf so that is indicative of just how powerful GC totem cold damage is right now. Even lightning has been buffed such that even the normally sucky Arc skill is great with a 4 totem Hierophant build. I made an Arc Totem Hierophant after watching Mathil's Arc video build guide and it is working very well (into red maps up to 12 with no problems with only a 5 link).

Edit: Maybe since the main Island of NZ is over a very active calderas and has active volcanoes that GGG has fire on their minds more often than cold or lightning.

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Exile009 wrote:

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pr13st wrote:

Glacial. cascade.

Frost. blades.

What does that mean? It doesn't even deal with what the post is about. I've added some additional details to make things clearer. Hope that helps.

he was probably replying to the post immediately above him