Storm or Fire?

A reader of this blog (Michael, Mr. Cheats and Crackers) asked me this question:

. . . This has been something I've been pondering for a while, and advice just hasn't been good enough. So, as a last resort, I have come to you. :P I kinda hate myth, (no offense, all you myth lovers) and I'm not sure about this choice. I already have a death on his way, so let's not talk about him, but this is about making a wizard that I will take all the way. I mean, I'm talking about grandmaster. So, I'm deciding on which to take first. Eventually I will do this to them both. But, should I do a fire guy, or storm? I like storm because of the low pip power, and it really gets me with tempest, stormzilla, etc. But then again, fire kinda nags at me.

Tell me your opinion on this.

Thanks again!

My opinion, go with your gut. You know what you really want to do. Do it!

Now, with that out, let's look at this a bit closer.

NOTE: Now, I fully expect to have people debate everything I've written here. I've never played a fire wizard, but I've played side by side with a lot of them.

Minion: Both Storm and Fire get a minion. Storm's minion is meant to taunt and take the focus off of you, and you get it at a low level. From what I understand, Fire's minion does low level damage spells, and you get it at a higher level (storm gets their minion ten levels earlier than fire). I've yet to see a fire wizard actually use their minion. /shrug. I've never "soloed" with my storm wizard, so I don't know how well the minion actually is . . . I never break it out because I've always duo'd my storm wizard with characters that can heal him.

(Score: Fire 1, Storm 1)

Damage: Both storm and Fire have wicked AoE spells . . . both of their level 48 spells are merciless AoE spells (Fire Dragon and Storm Lord). Note that Storm Lord has a stun attached to it, but we will discuss that later. Storm has tempest, the most versatile aoe in the game: use it for low damage, use it for high damage (and I mean HUGE DAMAGE) but either way it takes ALL YOUR PIPS. Fire has Meteor Strike . . . it does stable damage and you get it fairly early in the game (level 22 for Meteor Strike vs. level 28 for Tempest). Storm is the best single target nuker, meaning one shot. Fire is the best over time damage dealer, meaning damage over three rounds. Never count out a Wild Bolt spell with an accuracy modifier applied to it for a treasure card . . . that's a 2 pip nuke spell with a low accuracy can take out most mobs in the game. BOOM! Accuracy treasure cards are HUGE to the wild bolt storm wizards.

(Score: Fire 2, Storm 2)

Stunning: If you like to stun, you're not going to be doing it with storm until you're level 48, and you have to get 7 pips to do it. If you like to stun, go with fire. Fire has this 2-pip spell called Choke. It's pretty much the most awesome spell for stunning out there. Right now it has everyone who does pvp in groups calling foul because they can't get past it. Fire wizards just chain stun in the arena until their team destroys the other. It's brutal . . . you can't do anything as an opponent. The only thing you can do to counteract it is try to debuff accuracy, but how can you when you're stunned? Because fire does amazing damage over time, you can cast a huge DoT with immolate/scald/link and then stun your opponent for the next two rounds until it dies. DOWN SIDE TO STUNNING: it's a huge taunt. and if you fail to kill what it is you're fighting after chain stunning, you now have angry things coming after you and they now have high pip counts (stunning doesn't stop things from gaining pips). They are going to unleash holy heck on you with the highest damage spell they have if you didn't kill them during the stun.

(Score: Fire 3, Storm 2)

Health: Fire has better health than storm and fire actually has one healing spell called link. It doesn't heal much (think worse than a pixie), but it does heal some.

(Score: Fire 4, Storm 2)

Play style: Storm is in your face massive damage type of play (all or nothing) where Fire is more elegant. What seems to make Fire more elegant to play? Two spells: Smoke Screen and Choke in combination with DoT spells. Sure, storm has two utility spells (Disarm and Cleanse Charm), but they aren't as game changing or play style changing as Smoke Screen and Choke. That makes storm play like death metal and fire play like a 4-string quartet if you play that way. Don't get me wrong though . . . you can play Fire like a blazing-guns nuker, and a lot of people do. I just don't think I would. I think I'd try to play with the DoT spells more, but that's just me.

(Score: Fire 5, Storm 3)

Coolness: Well, you're going to be watching these animations over and over. Do you like the awesomeness of a helephant rising up and blasting your opponent, or do you like the awesomeness of King Triton decending into a tank of water to cast lightning on your opponent. Do you want to see waves bashing your opponents against rocks or do you want to see flaming rocks dropping like guided missiles out of the sky? Do you like yellow, orange, and red or do you like blue and purple? You'll be seeing a lot of those colors. To me, the reds, yellows, and orange colors are a bit harsh on my eyes.

(Score: Fire 5, Storm 4)

Fun: When a wild bolt is successful, you're whooping and hollering as a storm wizard. When a tempest makes scaling Big Ben quick and easy work, you're smiling from ear to ear as a storm wizard. On the other hand, when you fizzle four times in a row, you're bashing your head against the monitor. Like I said at the beginning, I've never played a fire wizard. I can't tell you if it's fun or not, but the stuns and smokescreens and the DoTs sure look fun from a distance. I like the look of helephant. I'm not a fan of the looks of the fire dragon, but I sure do like the damage it does. /shrug

(Score: Fire 6, Storm 5)

Summary: Both are awesome for different reasons. Fire probably gets the edge when I'm looking at it this morning. Why? For one, I've never played one. For two, I don't mind if a battle takes extra rounds to complete and I think stunning and accuracy debuffing looks fun. BUT MAN DO I LIKE HAVING A STORM WIZARD AS A NUKER WHEN I TWO-BOX! I can't tell you how awesome Kyle is to have for putting out some damage. I'm torn, but I think for me personally, fire gets the edge this morning.

So, that's my take as of 6:49 am on 2 May 2009. Debate away!

Happy Dueling!