Fireball

Fireball is a level 5 Conjurations/Fire Magic spell which launches an exploding gout of fire at the targeted tile, dealing undodgeable fire damage to everything caught in the ensuing 3×3 explosion. This explosion can hit monsters outside your line of sight.

Strategy

Fireball is a good midgame attack spell. While it does less damage than Starburst, Fireball always hits, can be fired an an angle, and has a lower spell level (thus, a lower MP cost). Since this spell ignores EV, it is great against annoying, hard-to-hit foes, like spriggans or killer bees.

If you learn the quirks of monster movement, you can potentially hit 8 monsters at a time with a single fireball. If your defenses are up to scratch, you may even want to take a hit or two to maximize your damage output, or to avoid running out of MP midfight.

Tips & Tricks

• Fireball's explosion can hit from a tile outside line of sight. While Fireball can't reach past the usual sight radius (even with Vehumet support), it can be used to hit targets around corners, or through fog.
• Firing it at an opponent in melee range can be dangerous. Try to aim at a tile behind the foe you're engaged with, or the fireball will hit you.

When fighting a single foe, aiming at a tile diagonal and behind the opponent will prevent you from being hit. See below for a diagram.

.........  .........
...###...  ....###..
...#*#...  ....#*#..
...##Y...  ....Y##..
....@....  ....@....
.........  .........

* = tile to aim at

Monster Version

The monster version functions similarly to the player version.

History

• Prior to 0.20, Delayed Fireball was a spell based on Fireball. It could be learned for only two spell levels if you had already learned regular Fireball. The spell had the same mechanics as regular Fireball, but could be stored for later use.