Wall of Fire useless?

[Philomorph]

I was pretty excited to get the Wall of Fire spell, and the graphics look great! However, as a spell it pretty much sucks. It takes forever to cast, but is combat only, so you have to draw enemies to you first and while you're casting they have plenty of time to get all up in your group.

 

Then you can cast this awesome flaming wall but to hit the mobs you have to cast it right in front of your tanks' faces. That wouldn't be a problem if the dummies weren't perfectly happy to walk right into your flames to beat on the enemies once they shift around a bit.

 

Can we please get some party AI that doesn't walk into known hazards like fire and revealed traps? Seems really basic. 

[Koth]

Yes, I hear you on the AI issues. But to call the spell useless is a little excessive. It's at it's best on a choke point aka door way... just get your positioning correct, cast the wall of fire in the door way. Micro your tank on mob death. And watch as the flames consume the non-believers... For the night is dark, and full of terrors.

[Guest]

I watched 5 lurkers fry themselves to death while my party just stood around because the WoF kept rolling Interrupt and pushing them back. Hardly useless.

[Matuse]

I find Wall of Fire to be extremely good. Combine it with a chokepoint and it melts stuff.

 

It's especially nice against ogres and their caster variants.

[Anthile]

I found out an interesting method to exploit it even more. Get the Scion of Flame talent (I have it for my paladin), or any other means of acquiring fire DR, equip the boots that grant Consecrated Ground when critically hit and the frequent ticks of the wall will trigger the boots soon enough. I haven't found a real use for it yet but it it's an option.

In my opinion, the damage of the spell is too low to be a real asset. I tried it often enough now but it never seemed to be worth the effort.

[Heijoushin]

I have to agree with you, considering the level that you get it at, it isn't particularly amazing. I suppose if you've got them choked in a doorway then it could be useful, but in a wide open area, enemies just run through it for a tiny amount of damage.

[Anthile]

Actually, I just tried out Wall of Force as well and has similar issues. It can't punch through any sort of DR. I ended up with critical hits doing 0.7(!) damage on some enemies (but causing hobbling for almost a minute). That's just not enough when you have an AoE prone on the same spell tier. These spells need to be adjusted so they can actually hurt anyone. Otherwise they just become progressively worse.

[KDubya]

Actually, I just tried out Wall of Force as well and has similar issues. It can't punch through any sort of DR. I ended up with critical hits doing 0.7(!) damage on some enemies (but causing hobbling for almost a minute). That's just not enough when you have an AoE prone on the same spell tier. These spells need to be adjusted so they can actually hurt anyone. Otherwise they just become progressively worse.

 

 

If you have a rogue in the party the enemy will be hobbled for the rest of it's life 60 seconds of backstabs would be nice.

[Heijoushin]

 

Actually, I just tried out Wall of Force as well and has similar issues. It can't punch through any sort of DR. I ended up with critical hits doing 0.7(!) damage on some enemies (but causing hobbling for almost a minute). That's just not enough when you have an AoE prone on the same spell tier. These spells need to be adjusted so they can actually hurt anyone. Otherwise they just become progressively worse.

 

 

If you have a rogue in the party the enemy will be hobbled for the rest of it's life 60 seconds of backstabs would be nice.

 

 

Sure, but you're already getting paralysing spells on level 2, which is much better than hobbling.

 

I love wizards, but as others have said, their spell progression is really strange...

 

 

[Haplok]

Well, not only their. Only the Clergymen feels about right in the spell progression. Still the seals are kinda strong.

 

Cipher has some spikes (Charm at level 1, paralysis at level 2), but overall not too bad... till you reach level 5 spells and its GG. Although Mind Lance at spell level 4 is pretty nuts as well (frequently crits for 100+ damage on multiple enemies).

 

Many low level Wizard and Druid spells feel way too powerfull. Fan of Flames doing 50+ damage in a huge cone at level 1? Sunbeam and Talon Strike are damn powerfull as well (and the former blinds). Maybe that's to keep them attractive troughout the game, also when they become 4/encounter, but if you start so high, just how ridiculous can it get? Burning Hands did a fraction of that damage at a fraction of its range. Sleep only affected enemies up to 5 HD. Magic Missile did a maximum of 5 d4+1 damage (single target, 13,5 damage on average at level 9, with maximum Missile count).

 

If theprogression wasn't so wonky and spells didn't become so powerfull almost right off the bat, spells like Wall of Fire or Wall of Force would be actually perfectly balanced. Sadly it's the other spells that need balancing, not these two.

As it is, casters start really strong and by the time you reach spell level 5, the spell effects get just crazy. 

Edited April 14, 2015 by Haplok

[Ceranai]

I killed the adra dragon solo on trial of iron and most of the damage came from fire scrolls so I gotta say my opinion of them is quite high