Fireball vs. Meteor

[LionheartOmnislash]

Alright, I'm making a Cold/Fire MF Sorc here...I might've made a pure Cold one, but I hate dealing with those cold immune buggers. Maybe I'll save that for later. Anyways, I'm started D2 after a long hiatus and decided to do something I haven't done before.

The main question is: which path should I go on the fire branch?
Based on what I've spent on skills so far, and what I plan to do mostly, I've come up with 2 scenarios on these skills:

1) Concentrate on Meteor

Mana cost: 26.5
Cast Delay: 1.2 Seconds
Range: 4 Yards
Fire damage: 2012 - 2146 (ø2079.5)
Fire damage per second: 514 - 562(ø 538)
Fire lenght: 12.6 Seconds
[Synergy] Fire Bolt: +5% Fire damage (5% / Lvl)
[Synergy] Fire Ball: +15% Fire damage (5% / Lvl)
[Synergy] Inferno: +3% Fire damage per second (3% / Lvl)

I've already put in 3 pts to fireball, so that has to be like that. This is assuming lvl 10 Fire Mastery and lvl 20 Meteor.

2) Fireball

Mana cost: 14.5
Fire damage: 840 - 954 (ø897)
[Synergy] Fire Bolt: +224% Fire damage (14% / Lvl)
[Synergy] Meteor: +0% Fire damage (14% / Lvl)

Lvl 20 Fireball, Lvl 16 Firebolt, Lvl 1 FM (synergies give better bonus =D)
Advantages to this is that I have extra points from not having to invest in inferno, blaze, and firewall. No delay for fireball. Less range. I don't know what fireball's range is, it didnt say on the calc thing that I used. I'm not even sure if the calculator is even updated enough to reflect this correctly, now that I think of it.



While I'm on the topic of this mf sorc...which is better glacial spike for splash dmg and freezing or ice blast for more dmg but less range?

This is assuming I'm using blizzard as main cold skill.

Thanks for taking your time to help me ^^

[McCain123]

Blizzard with Glacial Spike works fine, as the Spike freezes the Monsters and Blizzard rains them to death. An unsynergized Fireball will not do enough damage to be viable, so in your case I would prefer Meteor. Maybe you should check out Fire Wall as well, as it has no Synergies.

I guess some other will do i anyway, so I can do it as well. I would take a look on the Meteorb Build in the Sorc Libraries on the Top. ;)

[sorceressgod]

well if it's a pure mf sorc, then i suggest getting a act 2 merc(maybe level 88 at least) with good gear to tank a bit in sticky situations while u meteor them.

it would help if ur pure fire sorc and mfing meph, andy and pindle :).

[darzog]

If you want to use Blizzard, I would recommend going with Fireball just because it gives you a primary area/timered spell and a primary spam spell.

But for dual-tree you might read up on the Meteorb sorc. It is a very nice option for an MF sorc.

Personally, once I had accumulated some wealth (back when I played) I went for the pure cold Blizz sorc. With a good A2 merc (holy freeze) I was able to do any boss/area in the game. I could even rush people through the CI snakes in A2. CI bosses were also very easy. Just recognize that for a merc to stand toe-to-toe with Hell bosses isn't cheap and you need to get them some good gear (Fort, Infinity/Doom/etc). It's been awhile so I can't remember the exact gear I ended up using but even without uber gear the merc can keep everyone busy while you wail on them.

If you are starting from scratch or don't have any good gear, Meteorb is the best best in my opinion.

_____________________
Darzog

[LionheartOmnislash]

Yeah I went with Meteorb before...good stuff
wanted to try something different...but if i do go meteorb route, then i only need ice bolt for synergies =D

i still have that option, or I could do it for my 2nd sorc.

And yeah, I do plan on getting an act 2 merc. Hopefully, I can equip it well enough to keep it from dying -.-;;

[darzog]

If you go Meteorb you shouldn't put any points (other than 1 point required) into ice bolt. The damage added isn't that great, especially since you could put the point into FM and get a boost to fireball and meteor.

_____________________
Darzog

[AnimeCraze]

I think I have said this before, but here I go again.

The final damage is calculated as:
base damage * (1 + synergy bonus) * (1 + mastery bonus)

Therefore, it is not always just sink everything into firebolt if you are using fireball, and not always just sink everything into mastery if you are using meteor. +skills, as well as the number of points spent would affect this. This is particularly true when you are working on your second synergy. I suggest using a skill calculator for this.

[LionheartOmnislash]

id assume somewhere split would be a choice...

i might actualli just go fireball AND meteor or something like that since they give synergies to each other.

i looked at that blizzard/fireball build...and its certain, though I might vary it a little bit.

EDIT:

anyways, what I've decided to do is:
(i havent found a calculator that helps for optimizing with cold mastery)

10 Glacial Spike
20 Blizzard
10 Cold Mastery
20 Fireball
15 Meteor
6 Fire Mastery

+ Prerequisites, One-pt wonders, all that other necessary stuff, AND the pts I've already wasted because I was stupid -.-;; (like 2 or 3 by now...)

Leaves me with 13 pts to spend after.

Again, I need to find a way to calculate what's best for splitting CM and glacial spike or even possibly other synergies for blizzard.

Maybe I should spend more time into seeing if I can optimize my fire branch even more using fire bolt...but I'm really just too lazy.

[sasja]

Do both :) (http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=254070)