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.