Quote Originally Posted by Legendary_Agent View Post
so what exact damage are they trying to put on the "proper" version of ice storm?

cause if its the same damage as its written on it (2-12 cold 3-18) it is VERY useless for high level casters as firewall gives 2-12+20(20 represents your level).
once again, it is *not* useless because it deals bludgeoning damage, which means it bypasses all DR and all elemental resistances. it will work on crateos, it will work on shroud portals, it will work on golems, it will work on anything. 3d6 sounds weak to you? funny, my sorcerer crits his scorching rays with each ray (4d6 base) dishing out around 300 damage. 75% of that means 225 damage. per tick. with the other portion of the ice storm dealing about 150 on a crit. on a regular hit, my scorching ray deals about 90 damage. 75% of that is about 65-70, 50% of that is about 45... and again, this is per crit. and the simple fact that some portion of that is unresistible unless you have a mantle of invulnerability makes it *very* worthwhile. sure, it's not dishing out indescribably large amounts of damage. but it's going to have plenty of places where it's more worthwhile than wall of fire, simply because wall of fire will deal zero damage and this will at least do something. in fact, simply *because* it deals such nice damage for it's level, i expect people will be leaving wall of fire until *after* they've learned ice storm.