Elemental spell are boring and need an overhaul.

Spells in general are very boring - especially Elemental spells.

For having such great sound and visuals in the game, the current lineup of spells doesn't utilize them whatsoever - they all feel weak, hollow, and unimpactful. The only actually impressive spell is Comet, which nobody actually uses, just attaches to "Cast on ___."

The Warrior and Monk skill gems feel more like "magic" than the Sorceress's abilities do. Earthquake, Sunder, Volcanic Fissure, Wave of Frost, Storm Wave, etc. are all more visually and audibly impressive than any of the actual "spells" we have access to.

Ice Nova looks good, but it's kind of bad. Not sure what to do here besides make it do more damage or have it apply a useful debuff - maybe move Orb of Winter's critical weakness over to it and make Orb of Winter an actual damage spell?.

Spark looks boring, but it's functionally good as an entry-level lightning spell.

Frost Bomb looks ok, but it's basically useless. Honestly, merge it with Cold Snap's effect and throw Cold Snap in the garbage. Make Frost Bomb deal a ton of damage to frozen targets.

Flame Wall is bland and unoriginal. If we had more useful projectile spells, it would be much better.

Orb of Storms is ok, again, it would feel better if we had more useful spells to combine it with.

Frost Bolt is slow and boring, both visually and functionally. Why do we launch of barrage of ice spears with the staff ability and then our skill gem is a cold fart bubble? Give us a big Glacial Spike or something that represents "ice magic" better. The Bow/Crossbow/Quarterstaff ice-themed skill gems represent ice magic better than our actual ice spells do.

Ember Fusillade is clunky to use and not very impactful. Honestly, I hate this ability; it should launch the projectiles vertically (like Artillery Ballista or Siege Cascade) and rain down randomly around you. That would be a lot more functional and interesting.

Arc is ok, I guess? It doesn't sound or "feel" very strong in usage. Bug zappers convey more electrical oomph than this spell. Should be louder audibly and larger visually.

Incinerate is bland and unoriginal, but ok I guess. It should deal additional damage the closer the target is or something, having a "sweet spot" where the fire burns most intensely.

Solar Orb is bland, unoriginal, and borderline useless. It deals no damage, and enemies just move out of the way before it does anything. Why not make it "Solar Vortex" where it pulls enemies to the center or slows them or something (like the Fire boss from Act 3), so we can 'combo' our spells better, or maybe have it apply targeting for my Ember Artillery idea, where your artillery will focus on the orb.

Cold Snap has no unique visual, sound, or anything. You don't even know you're using a spell. It's awful - even if it's powerful. Just dumpster this ability honestly and merge its effect with Frost Bomb. Replace it with a fire spell or something because fire is underrepresented.

Flammability/Hypothermia/Conductivity are boring but get the job(s) done. There are very few, if any, support gem options for elemental curses, maybe something can be added here, like the curse applying the corresponding elemental ailment or something.

Frost Wall is boring and unoriginal, but looks pretty good, and unfortunately is one of the best abilities in the entire kit.

Lightning Warp is boring and impractical. Not sure what to do here. Maybe we need more spells that have an upside of being close to your target, so Lightning Warp can act as our gap-closer.

Mana Tempest is boring and not very useful. We have no options for multi-elemental spells, maybe it should help casters who use multiple elements. Perhaps you activate it, then it tracks your next three spell casts, and causes an elemental storm around you, based on the elements of the spells you cast. Perhaps it gains damage based on the amount of different elements used, etc.

Fireball doesn't feel impactful whatsoever. It creates a massive visual that does virtually nothing. The Fireball in Diablo 2 is 20+ years old and feels like a fireball; it sounds and feels like what a fireball is supposed to do - launch a big ball of fire that explodes. Just make Fireball a big ball of fire that explodes, it's that simple - fire casters need some actual primary abilities.

Firestorm looks good, but it's pretty bad. The ignite functionally doesn't make any sense. Make the effect not consume the ignite.

Ball Lightning is boring, visually & audibly unimpressive, and unoriginal. Make it larger, louder, and electrocute enemies who come into contact with the ball itself or something.

Comet is great! Except casting it yourself is basically unplayable. We need some kind of upside for casting slow spells ourselves.Maybe Comet could be a "slam" so we can use it alongside things like Volcanic Fissure or Shield Wall for actually interesting combos.

Temporal Chains is boring but functional.

Flameblast is kind of cool, I guess? Maybe it should have knockback or something?

Eye of Winter is boring and unoriginal. Again, Frozen Orb from Diablo 2 20+ years ago had better visuals, audio, and functionality. It should be capable of actually doing damage, not just a debuffing skill. The elemental ground effect will never be useful in its current state because it just doesn't do any damage to begin with, so what's the point of having it do zero damage of another element as well?

Lightning Conduit is pretty cool, but not very useful. I like the idea of having a big thunderstorm ability, but consuming shock is bad unless we can immediately reapply it. The debuff is too useful to consume for this 'upside' which isn't as useful as the debuff itself. Make it strike multiple times against shocked enemies instead.

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It's a shame that the abilities on staves are so bad because honestly, they're more interesting than the actual skill gems we have access to.

Why isn't Lightning Bolt (staff ability) an Elemental Skill? It's simple but feels really good to use. Hell, just make Spark the staff skill instead so people stop abusing it so much without having to dumpster the entire ability with nerfs. Maybe they'll actually use it (unlike the current staff abilities).

I feel like we've lost the plot with a lot of these spells.

I thought the idea of skill gems was to have them baseline fairly simple in usage, then we customize them and make them more complex via support gems?

This game needed more development time.

Never seen someone so wrong about every single flame skill.

Solar orb does no damage ? lmfao

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Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

Never seen someone so wrong about every single flame skill.

Solar orb does no damage ? lmfao

Correct. It does no damage. It does literally nothing.

Maybe you're crushing act 2 normal with it, but it's currently seeing next to zero play in endgame. It's slow, easily avoided, and pretty much only viable against enemies who aren't moving, which is virtually none of them.

How am I wrong about Firewall? The projectile effect is rarely every utilized because we have so few decent projectiles.

How am I wrong about Incinerate? There's very few ways to make this ability viable; I'm literally suggesting adding more functionality to it lol...

How am I wrong about Fireball? It pretty much blows. It does not capture what a fireball is supposed to be. Nothing about "Fireball" says make extra projectiles in a nova. Pretty sure fireball entails, big ball of fire that deals a ton of damage and explodes, which the current version doesn't do.

How am I wrong about Flameblast? I didn't criticize it.

How am I wrong about Fire Storm? It's functionally useless, nobody uses it, for good reason. Consuming ignite causes less damage than the ignite itself if the ignite is applied via Firewall or Incinerate and requires the target to stand in the firestorm. Which they don't.

"

SplashKing#6352 wrote:

"

Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

Never seen someone so wrong about every single flame skill.

Solar orb does no damage ? lmfao

Correct. It does no damage. It does literally nothing.

Maybe you're crushing act 2 normal with it, but it's currently seeing next to zero play in endgame. It's slow, easily avoided, and pretty much only viable against enemies who aren't moving, which is virtually none of them.

Because you havent built for it. Or fire damage at all from your post.


"Easily avoided" tells me you have no idea how to use it.


You play around the orb, I cant believe I have to tell you this, but you dont place an orb down and then call it a day hoping it does something.

"

Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

"

SplashKing#6352 wrote:

"

Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

Never seen someone so wrong about every single flame skill.

Solar orb does no damage ? lmfao

Correct. It does no damage. It does literally nothing.

Maybe you're crushing act 2 normal with it, but it's currently seeing next to zero play in endgame. It's slow, easily avoided, and pretty much only viable against enemies who aren't moving, which is virtually none of them.

Because you havent built for it. Or fire damage at all from your post.


"Easily avoided" tells me you have no idea how to use it.


You play around the orb, I cant believe I have to tell you this, but you dont place an orb down and then call it a day hoping it does something.

Ok, tell me about your glorious Solar Orb build. What supports are you running to really pump that Solar Orb damage? Tell me about this great Solar Orb build!

:)

If anyone is posting a build its gonna be you and why you think none of these things do damage.

I can guarentee you I already know what the issue is. Your gear/Build.

And your playstyle:
As you think placing an orb down and going afk is why something is easily avoided.

Like just look at the rest of this post "a sweet spot for incinerate"

There already is one, its where it ignites the ground.

Do you use these skills?


Ember Fussilade, an insane single target skill that you can even prep on bosses. "not very impactful"

Like what?

And then you want to turn in into a self targeted firestorm.



Again, if anyone needs to post a build its you at this point.

I have a 87 Incinerate Pathfinder. It's ok, obviously there's the burning ground - the issue is that enemies don't stand in it. It's at a set range, so it's only effective at enemies that don't move or enemies briefly walking through it.

The spell is literally only useful because of the 50% movement speed while using skills passive of the Pathfinder. You will die instantly without it against any remotely challenging content.

Now, tell me this endgame viable Solar Orb build. Go on, let's hear it.

This isn't about my build. This isn't even primarily about numbers. It's about the theme, art, impact, and feeling of the spells. It's like you didn't even read anything.

"These spells are visually boring."
hurr durrrr your build sucks!

Like what are you even talking about?

I agree with you that the spell options are very limited.

However your complaints have flaws. It's like you didn't even bother to try to use skill interactions.

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Ice Nova looks good, but it's kind of bad.

Explain why! You didn't even talk about how ice nova combos with frost bolt.

"

Ember Fusillade is clunky to use and not very impactful.

What are you smoking? It's the best fire spell. It's very impactful. You just weave it between your other spells and don't bother aiming it. It auto aims for you.

"

Frost Bolt is slow and boring,

Looks boring? Yeah. Slow? Intentional. You need to combo skills on those balls.



You keep going on like this.