Guide to Optimizing The Sorceress Fireball Damage

Context and Problem

Much has been written about the optimization of a sorceress damage for either Blizzard (pure cold), Fireball (pure fire) or hybrid like Orb/Fireball or Blizzard/Fireball. Here are examples of well-documented and useful such guides:

.. JayPee's Unified Strategy and Guides http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=49337226&f=87
.. Bryce's Blizzard Sorceress Guide http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=2038869
.. Rising's Pvp Fireball Sorceress Guide http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=3548336
.. feanur's Ultimate Pvm Fireball-orb Sorc Guide http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=48901509&f=87

Assigning the ideal skill levels to optimize the Fireball damage for a hybrid cold/Fireball sorceress is tricky due to its synergies.

Fireball receives some bonus synergy from Fire Mastery, Meteor and Fire Bolt. The problem with a hybrid cold/Fireball sorceress is that there are not enough skill points available to max out both the Fireball (and its synergies) and a cold damage (and its synergies). To optimize the Fireball damage for a hybrid cold/Fireball sorceress, it is not as simple as "max out Fireball, Fire Mastery, Meteor and Fire Bolt". One needs to be judicious with the assignment of the skill points in order to optimize the Fireball damage.


Purpose

The Fireball damages and the impact of its synergies have been compiled and they are summarized here.

The following table summarizes these numbers. (Consider higher % numbers as better increase to Fireball damage.)



Example As to How To Use This Table

A Sorceress Fireball damage of 1413-1586 has the skill level allocation:

.. Fireball 23 (including gear bonus skills, but it's maxed out in this example)
.. Fire Mastery 15 (including gear bonus skills)
.. Meteor 10 (without gear bonus skills)
.. Firebolt 1 (without gear bonus skills)

Where to assign the next skill point for this sorceress? Choices are:

.. Fire Mastery from 15 to 16 increases the Fireball damage by 3.07% to 1456-1635.
.. The total of Meteor plus Fire Bolt from 11 to 12 increases the Fireball damage by 5.51% to 1490-1674.

Assigning the next skill point to Meteor (or Fire Bolt) is a better choice than Fire Mastery in this example as it leads to higher Fireball damage.


Calculation of Approximate Fireball Damage

FireballDamage = FireballBaseDamage x ( 1.23 + ( 0.07 x FireMasterySkills ) )
x ( 1 + ( 0.14 x ( MeteorSkillsBase + FireboltSkillsBase ) ) )
FireballBaseDamage is taken from the table above. The skill level number includes the gear-granted bonus skills such as ammy, tarn helm, soj, etc.

FireMasterySkills is read directly from the sorceress Tree Skills. It should includes the gear-granted bonus skills. If Fire Mastery skill level is zero for some reason, then the segment ( 1.23 + ( 0.07 x FireMasterySkills ) ) should be replaced by the value 1.00 only.

MeteorSkillsBase and FireboltSkillsBase are the base levels without gears. The sorceress gears may have to be removed to get these base skill numbers.


Recommended Strategy

Here is a recommended skills assignment strategy to optimizing the Fireball damage when the number of available skill points is limited.

.. Assign skill points to the following levels: Fire Bolt = 1 , Fireball = 20 , Meteor = 11 , Fire Mastery = 1 , and prerequisites at 1.
.. Then assign the next points by alternating Fire Mastery, Meteor, Fire Mastery, Meteor, etc. When Meteor skills are maxed out, assign to Fire Bolt instead and keep alternating with Fire Mastery.


Miscellaneous comments

The Fireball damages are given as integer numbers, even though the game internal numbers may have decimal figures. As a result, the calculations detailed above give only approximate figures, not exact numbers.

The Fireball base damage does not change uniformly with skill levels. For example, there is great benefit in assigning the Fireball skill level #9 where it spikes vs the skill level #8. It is unclear why that is.

Fireball:another very OP skill with a lot of damach, splash and range, but sucessfully countered by Blizzard with Dwarf Stars and Hotspurs

I believe the OP should have mentioned that this guide is not for 6-buffing BM players. For you, the rules don't apply. Keep gloating in your self-proclaimed glory

Nice topic, very understandable !

I believe that Fireball and FireMastery Table's should be continued to higher levels - it's not so hard to reach Level 40+ with Fire skillers.

Just 2 issues :

Every piece of gear with +%fire damages should be added to FireMastery level for this calculation.
ex : if Eschuta+RbF = provides +21% fire damages, you should add 3 to your FireMastery before looking at those Tables.
Of course things will be harder with +25% fire damages (+25/7 FireMastery) but you can simply look at both +3 and +4 FireMastery to have a precise idea.

Meteor, used only as a Fireball synergy, requires 3 pre-skill. Hence, the synergy Table can also be read as :





Here are Base FireBall damages according to Final Fireball level :



source : AB

As we can see, formulaes change at sLvl9, sLvl17, sLvl23 and 29.

This post was edited by feanur on May 3 2011 05:48am

You point is well taken. In fact, no where did I specify my numbers are specific to Classic Diablo II, not Expansion. That explains why the table stops at level 32 for both Fireball and Fire Mastery. Things are much simpler on the Classic world


This is an ahah moment for me where I learn something.. AB's calculations are much simpler and elegant than my pages of numbers and averages I've been gathering using Stats Resets

I'll do some reasearch and update my piece in light of the Expansion world. thx for your comments

That's not crystal to me just yet.. U'll need to fill me in on what u mean.

To see for myself, I checked it out:

I acquired an Eschuta +3 skills / +20% Fire skill damage. Then I brought an exp sorc to lvl 72 so she can use the staff. I obtained the results u mentioned, precisely as u mentioned

Here are my numbers:

without gear: Fire Bolt base lvl = 20 , Meteor base lvl = 14 , Fireball lvl = 20 , Fire Mastery lvl = 20 , Fireball dmg = 3022-3431
----> This Fire dmg is in line with my equation. So far so good.

using the Eschuta staff: Fire Bolt base lvl = 20 , Meteor base lvl = 14 , Fireball lvl = 23 , Fire Mastery lvl = 23 , Fireball dmg = 4272-4797
----> This Fire dmg is off from my equation by the factor u mentioned. So if I add the value (20 / 7 = 2.85) to the Fire Mastery as u said, my equation works out perfectly.

Why should I use a ratio of 1/7?

Thx again for ur input!

Actually, any +%fire damage is simply added to the bonus that FireMastery provides.

Your equation could be :

Dmge = FireBallBaseDamage x ( 1.23 + ( 0.07 x FireMasterySkills ) + %FireBonus / 100 ) x ( 1 + ( 0.14 x ( MeteorSkillsBase + FireboltSkillsBase ) ) )

Or you can include the %FireBonus into your FireMasterySkills :

Dmge = FireBallBaseDamage x ( 1.23 + ( 0.07 x NewFireMasterySkills ) ) x ( 1 + ( 0.14 x ( MeteorSkillsBase + FireboltSkillsBase ) ) )

with NewFireMasterySkills = FireMasterySkills + %FireBonus / 7

Very clear I will add this bit with the Expansion Set component of my Guide. Thx!!

Guide to Optimizing The Fireball Damage – Hybrid Sorceress
Updated to Incorporate The Expansion Set

Context and Problem

Much has been written about the optimization of a sorceress damage for either Blizzard (pure cold), Fireball (pure fire) or hybrid like Orb/Fireball or Blizzard/Fireball. Here are examples of well-documented and useful such guides:

.. JayPee's Unified Strategy and Guides http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=49337226&f=87
.. Bryce's Blizzard Sorceress Guide http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=2038869
.. Rising's Pvp Fireball Sorceress Guide http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=3548336
.. feanur's Ultimate Pvm Fireball-orb Sorc Guide http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=48901509&f=87

Assigning the right skills to optimize the Fireball damage for a hybrid cold/Fireball sorceress is tricky due to its synergies.

Fireball receives some bonus synergy from Fire Mastery, Meteor and Fire Bolt. The problem with a hybrid cold/Fireball sorceress is that there are not enough skill points available to max out both the Fireball (and its synergies) and a cold damage (and its synergies). To optimize the Fireball damage for a hybrid cold/Fireball sorceress, it is not as simple as "max out Fireball, Fire Mastery, Meteor and Fire Bolt". One needs to be judicious with the assignment of the skill points in order to optimize the Fireball damage.


Purpose

To summarize the Fireball damages and the impact of its synergies.

The following table summarizes the calculated damage and synergies. (Consider higher % numbers as better increase to Fireball damage.)


Example Showing How To Use This Table

A Sorceress with Fireball damage of 1413-1586 has the skill level assignment:

.. Fireball 23 (including gear bonus skills, but it's maxed out in this example)
.. Fire Mastery 15 (including gear bonus skills).
.. Meteor 10 (without gear bonus skills)
.. Firebolt 1 (without gear bonus skills)

Where to assign the next skill point for this sorceress? Choices are:

.. Adding a point to Fire Mastery from 15 to 16 increases the Fireball damage by 3.07% to 1456-1635.
.. Adding a point to the total of Meteor plus Fire Bolt from 11 to 12 increases the Fireball damage by 5.51% to 1490-1674.

Assigning the next skill point to Meteor (or Fire Bolt) is a better choice than Fire Mastery in this example as it leads to higher Fireball damage.


Calculation of Approximate Fireball Damage

FireballDamage =
FireballBaseDamage x
( 1.23 + ( 0.07 x FireMasterySkills ) + ( %ToFireSkillDamage/100 ) ) x
( 1 + ( 0.14 x ( MeteorSkillsBase + FireboltSkillsBase ) ) )

FireballBaseDamage is taken from the table above. The skill level number includes the gear-granted bonus skills such as ammy, tarn helm, soj, etc. For the Expansion Set, there are numerous other gears that provide bonus skills such as Call-To-Arms (CTA), Eschuta staff, etc, where these skills should be included here as well if used. An alternative to using the table, the Fireball damage may be calculated as follows (as suggested by feanur@d2jsp who referenced the source as AB) where slvl is the Fireball Skill level:

Code

   Level                   1-8              9-16           17-22            23-28              >28
   Min Fire Damage   (6.5*slvl)-0.5  (11.5*slvl)-40.5  (14*slvl)-80.5  (16.5*slvl)-135.5  (19*slvl)-205.5
   Max Fire Damage   (7.5*slvl)+6.5  (12.5*slvl)-33.5  (15*slvl)-73.5  (17.5*slvl)-128.5  (20*slvl)-198.5

FireMasterySkills is read directly from the sorceress Tree Skills. It should includes the gear-granted bonus skills. If the Fire Mastery Skill level is zero for some reason, the segment ( 1.23 + ( 0.07 x FireMasterySkills ) ) should be replaced by the value 1.00 .

%ToFireSkillDamage is specific to some gears of the Expansion Set such as the Rainbow Facet Jewel, the Eschuta staff, etc. Use the sum of these gear-granted bonuses.

MeteorSkillsBase and FireboltSkillsBase are the base levels without gears. The sorceress gear may have to be removed to get these base skill numbers.


Recommended Strategy

Here is a recommended assignment strategy to optimizing the Fireball damage when the number of available skill points is limited.

.. Assign skill points to the following levels: Fire Bolt = 1 , Fireball = 20 , Meteor = 11 , Fire Mastery = 1 , and prerequisites at 1.
.. Then assign the next points by alternating Fire Mastery, Meteor, Fire Mastery, Meteor, etc. When Meteor skills are maxed out, assign to Fire Bolt instead and keep alternating with Fire Mastery until the allocated number of skill points is exhausted.


Miscellaneous comment

.. The Fireball base damage does not change uniformly with skill levels. For example, there is great benefit in assigning the Fireball skill level 9 where it spikes vs the skill level 8.
.. Although the Fireball damage is given as integer numbers, decimal figures may be used internally to the game. As a result, the calculations detailed above give only approximate figures, not final numbers.

Thanks to JayPee@d2jsp and feanur@d2jsp for great suggestions!
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