What's the point of Fireball?

[Hogfather]

 

Aside from the different save, why even stick it in a Grimoire over Nox? 

 

I miss the old Fireball. You know, the spell that everyone panicked when Fizban mentioned using it.

Edited March 31, 2015 by Hogfather

[Blave]

Well, it's faster. Fast spells cast almost instantly so you can blow up a group of enemies before they close in without danger to your party.

 

I don't think that's enough to make it worth using over Noxious Burst, but at least it's something.

[gkathellar]

Even Sawyer was talking about how it should probably be a level 2 spell at one point.

[aeonsim]

It also targets reflex so depending on the enemy it may work better and secondly there are lots of debuffs for Dex but less for fort so can often stack better for more crits/hits.

[LastSoloer]

Its faster to cast... Normally faster spells do less damage.

[Althernai]

It's Fast and it targets Reflex. The fact that it is usually less useful than other spells of the same level is not unique to this spell: there are many, many other Wizard spells which suffer from this. Quite a few of them are almost completely useless whereas Fireball is at least tolerably useful.