Wall of Fire isn't useless.

[richieelias27]

I run DDO on my laptop and it's over 3 years old now... No problems with Ice Storm for me, though I am sad that it isnt DX11 capable. The sound spam for multiple Ice Storms is highly annoying though... So Wall of Fire does have that going for it.

[Silent-Death]

Oddly, I've also NEVER had any lag experiences with Ice Storm. But, I've also never had any lag.

[testing1234]

well my lvl20 water sorc dont carry wof anymore, since it does not do double undead damage i cant think of anyplace id want to use it.

[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

[bigolbear]

due to recent changes in AI, i have found my self instinctively using firewall as a hearding mechanic.

The ai change was so darn subtle (and doesnt apply to stupid undead it seems) but i realy approve. Maybe it wasnt a change but now firewall doesnt kill in 1 or 2 hits the mobs simply have time to run out of it.

I still use firewall, on both my tukaw(fire savant) and on my pure wizy. Its still a great damage spell against undead, and now i can use it for positioning and blocking.

I like the change (nerf as its called) and with the viability of other AOE DOTS firewalls place as the be all and end all spell to many has been corrected while maintaining a valid use for what is only a lvl 4 spell.

I do think incendry cloud needs some love still tho - either up the damage back to what fire wall used to do or up the duration back to what it was.

For me the main plus to firewall is the fact that it does not cause LAG, and it can be targeted at things behind or to the side of you - the amount of times i see targeting errors on icestorm, and acid rain is rather annoying in comparison.

[Zildoran]

I do lag slightly from stacked ice storms, and I play on a fairly good laptop (i5 processor 4 gigs memory). Only problem is there is the integrated graphics with no space to upgrade it with a graphics card even if I did want to. Assuming I'm still playing DDO in 2 years from now (very likely) I'll have a desktop and won't have graphics lag problems.

[sweez]

Web + firewall still destroys everything pre-Vale. In vale just use banishment/wail, after vale just use instakills if solo and instakills and maybe web and/or hold if grouping

[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.

[donfilibuster]

Post u9 firewall is like hold monster in the sense that it is very useful if you can use it in the right moments.
It no longer let you to go call for a pizza while the party herd all the mobs in the dungeon to it.
But throw them in corridors and doors and watch them burn, you can shield block or kite on it as much as before.
Likewise monsters held for six seconds are still dead monsters if the melees are paying attention to the fight beside autoattacking.

Then again you need be fully boosted in the fire line and items, a non-buffed spell of any element would not do any good.
The thing is firewall and fireball are spell level III and IV, whereas ice storm, niac and cone is IV and V, ball of elec, eladar surge and chain lightning are V and VI.
A new fire wizard that doesn't know better would feel weaker and would see all the sorcs chain zapping the kill count.
Yet once you know what you are doing fire is still usable through those mid levels until you can get to VII for delayed blast fireball.
Naturally resetting your enhancements is not evil, just switch elements and back as you see fit.

[HelvanderSeries6]

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.

Agreed that it is not useless but i admit i dont use it much on my lvl20 sorc anymore. Since firewall caps at cl15 i have switched to incendiary cloud. My current technique is solidfog/inc cloud and my dmg/crits are higher than my pre update firewall. On the next TR, firewall will be use as usual and the fact that it is unextended and capped just takes some getting used to but certainly not useless.

[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

[Isolani]

So the mobs are extinguishing the fw a lot. The hell hounds, shamans causing ice stroms... etc. Now its use is much less situational than before.
So the nerf is actually more than the damage numbers, because of change in AI.

This is what bothers me more than the damage nerf. WoF damage is still good enough to kill things, but since the devs decided to give a ridiculous number of mobs the ability to blow it out, it's not even worth using in a lot of quests. I just ended up using a lot more Fireballs through the early/mid levels instead of WoF when I leveled up a sorcerer TR recently. WoF still dominates in a few places though as the OP mentioned, Delera's, Necro 2, etc.

By later levels, WoF gets kinda weak. I did stealer of souls solo on normal and WoF was barely scratching lich Sor'jek compared to old WoF. It used to tear him up.

I've tried Ice Storm as a substitute...I just don't like that spell, the sound annoys me.

[soulaeon]

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.

That's where the premise of the original post is useless. There's the assumption that either this spell is really useful, or there is an alternative persistent spell that does the same job that it would have. The poster could have at least explained why Wall of Fire is so great at the very least.
Personally, I found there are not any "alternative" persistent AOE spells that do what the old firewall did-- since they raised sorcerer damage exponentially, and introduced the low cost savant spells, I found almost no need for any persistent AOE. Ice Storm (which I use) is about the same damage as the current Wall of Fire, but neither are particularly useful at all, not when we can simply kill or disable outright.

As for where the door swings, the burden of proof is always on the person making the claim.

[richieelias27]

That's where the premise of the original post is useless. There's the assumption that either this spell is really useful, or there is an alternative persistent spell that does the same job that it would have. The poster could have at least explained why Wall of Fire is so great at the very least.
Personally, I found there are not any "alternative" persistent AOE spells that do what the old firewall did-- since they raised sorcerer damage exponentially, and introduced the low cost savant spells, I found almost no need for any persistent AOE. Ice Storm (which I use) is about the same damage as the current Wall of Fire, but neither are particularly useful at all, not when we can simply kill or disable outright.

As for where the door swings, the burden of proof is always on the person making the claim.

Well, the door swinging both ways was in reference to your comment about adding to forum clutter but then not adding anything constructive in your post either. However, you then rectified that with the above post, so I'll give a +1 to you.

I'd still disagree on Wall of Fire though. Yes it is no longer uber dps, but it is still tied with the other persistant AOE's for superior mana to damage ratio. Now, granted your sorcerer may or may not need to conserve mana, but the option is there and that is the important part. It performs well in its advertised role or mana efficient area DPS, and I'm quite happy with it. And for that reason, to me, it is not *useless*.

[Oracle_Gil]

I've tried Ice Storm as a substitute...I just don't like that spell, the sound annoys me.

positives
the ice storm has a bludgeon component causing damage too. So it will even damage the ice monsters.
No reflex save unlike fw as of now.

negatives
there is lag before damage starts.
Against mobs with FoM this spell again looses its main power - its ability to slow.

[Faent]

Firewall is fantastic for leveling. I spec Acid/Fire up to Vale. Raise Red Dungeon Alert, drop a Web, Acid Rain, and Firewall and watch everything die instantly. Your Acid Rain will insta-kill all the fast mobs, and your Firewall will be burning in the web to catch all the rest of the slow mobs that are following you. Just move on and do it again.

[donfilibuster]

Firewall is fantastic for leveling. I spec Acid/Fire up to Vale. Raise Red Dungeon Alert, drop a Web, Acid Rain, and Firewall and watch everything die instantly. Your Acid Rain will insta-kill all the fast mobs, and your Firewall will be burning in the web to catch all the rest of the slow mobs that are following you. Just move on and do it again.

If my wizard could wear T-Shirts it'd say

Firewall Is
Fantastic

And also a hat with 'Wizzard' sewn in big letters.