Wall of Fire isn't useless.

[Silent-Death]

During gameplay, players and a handful of forumers are saying that Wall of Fire (or Firewall) is useless due to the nerfs. IT'S NOT. It may not be as good as before, but it is most definitely not useless. Just pointing that out.

[Razzputin]

actually in some ways it's better, you dont have to turn off extend from time to time to reduce the cost of WoF's that you dont need the extra time on so you save on sp's...at least for those of us who do not wish to be constantly fiddling with extend/max/empower between every fight

[pHo3nix]

actually in some ways it's better, you dont have to turn off extend from time to time to reduce the cost of WoF's that you dont need the extra time on so you save on sp's...at least for those of us who do not wish to be constantly fiddling with extend/max/empower between every fight

It's not useless, but it's just a shadow of its former self

[ImFour20]

actually in some ways it's better, you dont have to turn off extend from time to time to reduce the cost of WoF's that you dont need the extra time on so you save on sp's...at least for those of us who do not wish to be constantly fiddling with extend/max/empower between every fight

this is what i enjoy about the changes. but i still prefer ice storm

[Shade]

Since the change, WoF is actaully far stronger then ever before at low-mid lvls. Since it actaully got a damage boost, duration boost and cost deduction (if you usually play with extend on, as most do)

It starts to become useless at endgame, since they capped it at lvl15, capped the duration and and fire immune/resistant monsters tends to be extremely plentiful there, while they reduced the overall resistances to most non-fire types, especially acid.

Aside from perhaps if you run lots abbot, i dont even see the point of having it loaded at lvl20. as even for abbot you can replace it with decent alternates like acid rain.

[insaneuou]

During gameplay, players and a handful of forumers are saying that Wall of Fire (or Firewall) is useless due to the nerfs. IT'S NOT. It may not be as good as before, but it is most definitely not useless. Just pointing that out.

i do think the same. The main problem is most of the stuff in this game(quests, spells, etc) gets nerfed over time.. Fwall is one of the most widely used effective spell for arcane. Everyone knows now fwall doesnt suck very very bad but most fear it will be nerfed and nerfed and nerfed again over time Hence lets say fwall sucks for now and /rant abt it

[xtchizobr]

i do think the same. The main problem is most of the stuff in this game(quests, spells, etc) gets nerfed over time.. Fwall is one of the most widely used effective spell for arcane. Everyone knows now fwall doesnt suck very very bad but most fear it will be nerfed and nerfed and nerfed again over time Hence lets say fwall sucks for now and /rant abt it

Wall of Fire used to be outrageously overpowered. and by "outrageous" i mean "Turbine was the laughing stock of game designers everywhere" because of how overpowered it was. literally no other nuke was worth casting unless your target was very resistant to fire.

now it's more akin to Cloudkill in its situational use which is where it should have been.

i'll just throw this in to thumb my nose at Sorcs: Wizzies don't care what spells are the flavor du jour, they just switch as needed! ;D

[richieelias27]

Of course firewall isnt worthless. What you are hearing from other players is the standard "sky is falling" rhetoric. Fact is Wall of Fire is just as useful as Ice Storm and Acid Rain in appropriate content. The problem is that Wall of Fire used to be the *only* option for mana efficient caster DPS and now it shares that space with 2 other spells.

I still prefer Ice Storm as my standard catch-all aoe DoT though.
1. Outside of mantles, nothing is immune to the untyped portion of Ice Storm.
2. If anyone in your group chose Ice Storm, you cannot use Wall of Fire. (They should do something about this)

[Diyon]

I agree, its most definitely not worthless. On the other hand I still run into lots of people that think its mandatory, and when running on my sorc get told to "put up a wall of fire there." Which is ridiculous now, there are a number of other good options, and sometimes the job can get done better with nonpersistant effects (where as wall of fire used to do better in said situations).

[Chai]

Its those exagerated claims that I find hilarious when it comes to nerf time, or nerf requests in general.

Something nerfed is "useless"

Something that they feel should be nerfed makes everything else "useless"

No on both accounts.

I just facerolled elite deleras and elite necro 2 on a level 8 sorc using one firewall per room for most of the content. The toon isnt even a fire savant, which is what I likely should have done for this content, then changed up later. I took air savant so the firewalls arent as strong as they could be, but they are not weak either.

[Darkrok]

The problem now with Wall of Fire isn't the spell itself. It's the alternatives outside of WoF.

Fire and Ice both have a lance spell (level 2 and 3 respectively).
Both have an aoe spell (level 4 for both)
Once you reach spell level 7 they both have 20 level cap aoe's (level 6 ice/7 fire)
Fire does have a nice cloud at spell level 8 not replicated by cold (incendiary cloud) but the damage on that one is secondary to the cloud effects since it's only 4d6.

But Ice has the new DoT (Niac's Biting Cold). Fire has no answer to that. Burning Blood is nice, and actually quicker damage than Niac's (avg 23.5 / tick base for Niac's versus 30 / tick avg - 15 fire and 15 acid - on burning blood at level 20) but there are some things that make Burning Blood just not stack up. First - it only works on targets that have 'blood'. That really hurts its usefulness. Second, Niac's has the wonderful stacking portion that on longer fights makes it far more powerful. Cast just as often as burning blood (every 12 seconds) you end up taking the average to 47 base and then 70.5 base.

Once Niac's becomes available I just can't see a wizard focusing on fire. I had fire all the way to that point on my pale master then switched to cold - I'm having a far easier time soloing things. The flexibility of both Niac's (works on things without blood) and ice storm (bludgeoning works on darned near everything) were enough to have me go full cold instead of full fire and keep 1 point each for force and fire just on the off-chance I end up needing to through some disintegrates or wall of fires.

[ulticleo]

... snip
Once Niac's becomes available I just can't see a wizard focusing on fire. I had fire all the way to that point on my pale master then switched to cold - I'm having a far easier time soloing things. The flexibility of both Niac's (works on things without blood) and ice storm (bludgeoning works on darned near everything) were enough to have me go full cold instead of full fire and keep 1 point each for force and fire just on the off-chance I end up needing to through some disintegrates or wall of fires.

I am TRing my pale master, and have to respectfully disagree. I thought the same as you, and respecced my wiz to cold and lightning at lvl 9, and regretted it almost immediately.

at lvl 9-11 (I am currently 11), very, very few fights require single target DOTs provided by the lvl 5 spells. I am still fighting tons of undead (shadow crypt farming, anyone?) where WoF is, despite the nerf, far superior to ice storm, especially since some undead are immune to cold. Also, even when farming von3/5 (well, 5 has all those undead engineers too) I found WoF to be better. there is some delay between casting IS and the first tick (around 6 sec, I found) which gives the mobs time to beat on you a few more times. True, WoF has the reflex save, but not many mobs make it against a wiz tr... I do find that shield blocking in the wall gets them to die a bit faster than bunny hopping, though, and my equipment needs to be repaired often

I plan to keep fire specced, with some ice and force (10 free MM, disintegrate, and I kinda like force/chain missle as well) through necro 3 (yes, I run it), wiz king, and necro 4. I expect to drop fire and WoF when I hit the vale, but not sooner.

you may disagree, but that's fine. each one finds what works for them.

EDIT: yes, I know WoF doesn't do double damage to undead, but 4d6+(7 to 15) is still more than 4d6

[Billybobml]

It's not useless. Very useful scroll farming wiz king. Although never really used in raids it is superior to Ice Storm in the FREAKING HUGE LAG it does not impose on my party.

[danotmano1998]

Ice Storm in the FREAKING HUGE LAG

I've found this to be true ONLY when using a sub-par graphics card. My laptop stutters and freaks out when this spell is cast. My desktop has seen about 6 of them at one time. (Yeah, I tested it just to see.). There is NO lag. It's purely a graphics performance issue.

There are 3 ways to fix this.
1. Buy a real graphics card. (You can get them around 200$ for a nice one.)
2. Turn down your graphics settings. Test. Repeat until it's acceptable.
3. Tell the mage you're having issues with that spell and to please keep it to a minimum.

Of course, #3 only works partially as other AOE spells will tend to do some of the same graphics intensive effects, and you can't control what the monsters are casting. (Acid Fog, Sleet Storm, etc..)


Yes, firewall has it's use still. Even on a water savant I use it from time to time. It's the only fire spell I have in my book.

[Truga]

Buy a real graphics card. (You can get them around 200$ for a nice one.)

$200? More like $20.

Seriously though, a card that will run ddo smoothly costs like 50 bucks these days..

Also I had more stuttering with firewall than icestorm so...

[soulaeon]

Could you at least ellaborate instead of making more forum clutter?
I can think of only two places where Wall of Fire is not useless: Tower of Despair, and Delera's Tomb.

[richieelias27]

Could you at least ellaborate instead of making more forum clutter?
I can think of only two places where Wall of Fire is not useless: Tower of Despair, and Delera's Tomb.

Uh, lets see... everywhere where the majority of the quest content is not immune to fire. I think if you revisit quests in the game you will find that the list is comprised of far more than ToD and Deleras. Or perhaps you can elaborate a bit and explain why WoF does not perform just as well as Ice Storm or Acid Rain? What do you feel is the major factor in *your* belief that WoF is "useless"?

The door swings both ways.

[goodspeed]

$200? More like $20.

Seriously though, a card that will run ddo smoothly costs like 50 bucks these days..

Also I had more stuttering with firewall than icestorm so...

lol thats why people are lagging out in ice storm.

I could pick up a graphics card to 10 bucks. It's gonna be a piece of &*%, but it'll install. On the other hand for about 150 you can get a real nice one that's been replaced by the newer years models with the right about in streams and pipes and all that other **** to round it out.

(I usually look to make sure that **** thing don't turn into a yetti 3 months down the road.

[stille_nacht]

$200? More like $20.

Seriously though, a card that will run ddo smoothly costs like 50 bucks these days..

Also I had more stuttering with firewall than icestorm so...

pshh, cards that can run ddo smoothly on high come built into any modern laptop that costs more than 350 bucks

[Zirun]

You mean I can't use the same spell for almost the entire game and succeed?

Whatever will I do?!?!

Funny thing is, before the nerf into "uselessness", I hated using Wall of Fire, because it was necessary. But then I couldn't play arcanes, because casting it was necessary. Now that it's not necessary, I love using it. But only because if I want to kill that caster from afar, I have an option other than setting the ground at its feet and the air around it on fire and waiting.

People will cry about their toys being broken even if their toys aren't broken. It's what they do. It's all some people know how to do.