Fireballs

[Mindfire]

SPOILERS AHOY about the Wheel of Time

Spoiler: wheel of time

One thing that bugged me about the Last Battle in A Memory of Light is that the Aes Sedai would use all these big, showy, inefficient methods of killing Trollocs. Waves of Fire, mounds of Earth, stuff like that. I'm sitting there thinking, why not just one simple sharp weave of Air, and just swing it back and forth, slicing everything to ribbons? It could be tiny and require very little power.

In fact one of the funniest things in the book is when Androl shows up at Cairhien and opens up gateways into Dragonmount. For him, opening a gateway is incredibly easy, and Dragonmount is full of boiling magma, so basically he incinerates most of an army of Trollocs just by opening a giant gateway. Way more effective. In the real world, people who had the One Power at their disposal would quickly find much more efficient ways to use it than the Aes Sedai ever did.

Maybe the Aes Sedai's inefficiency is intentionally part of their character?

 

[Mindfire]

And I've always enjoyed the Creative Wizard Duels where both sides seem to be struggling to be more indirect in their attacks. That is, if it's because both are very good at spotting and countering any "Why don't you just zap him?" moves.

As a small aside, the reason most Jedi and Sith don't just instantly force choke/blast each other into oblivion is that a skilled force user can instantly counter such an obvious attack. Thus they must resort to lightsaber combat until one of them spots a convenient opening to use their powers. Or manages to stab the other in the face, whichever comes first.

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

I don't do the ball thing, personally - I prefer blasts or jets. Frankly, I'm not sure why everyone decided fire magic should come as balls.

Spoiler: Somewhat dirty joke

Gross men who love fire

 

[Spacebar]

You could realistically emphasize how hot a ball of fire actually is. For example, in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the actor Rick Dalton uses a flame thrower for a role and complains about how hot it is to the prop guy, who responds, "It's a flamethrower." Fire is hot. A ball of fire close to your face is very very hot. How does your wizard deal with this problem?

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

Here's a good description of a fireball:
Wob snarled at Alavax and spun his index fingers in semicircles, pencil-thin lines of flame tracing the air. Unpronounceable hisses came from his hairy lips, fangs dripping with amber blood. As Alavax slowly realized what was happening, a small glob of orange, shining energy appeared in between the space of Wob’s two fingers as he brought them to a position of facing each other. The lines of flame filled the growing orb, heat tingling on Wob’s skin as his fingers drew closer together. The orb flew out of Wob’s black, burnt fingers and leaped at Alavax’s chest, leaving a short trail of flame. The fire hit Alavax in his steel plated mail, melting it into golden wax. The fire spread across Alavax’s body as a scream escaped his dying lips. He collapsed to the ground, dead.
Wob's Fireball

 

[Queshire]

EX-PLOSION! =0

Ahem, anyways, one form of magic I want to use somwhere requires a "source" for magic. A basic fireball might have you draw on your body heat for fire, your breath for air and mix those two together for a boom. A more advanced battlemage might bring along a shit ton of bullets to draw fire from the gunpowder or pull it from a car's engine. A dedicated fire witch might weave the essence of fire into their own soul. At the small cost of having hair that flows like fire and ash constantly falling from her black witch's dress she'd get tremendous fire power.

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

EX-PLOSION! =0

Ahem, anyways, one form of magic I want to use somwhere requires a "source" for magic. A basic fireball might have you draw on your body heat for fire, your breath for air and mix those two together for a boom. A more advanced battlemage might bring along a shit ton of bullets to draw fire from the gunpowder or pull it from a car's engine. A dedicated fire witch might weave the essence of fire into their own soul. At the small cost of having hair that flows like fire and ash constantly falling from her black witch's dress she'd get tremendous fire power.

Very good idea, Quesh! I hadn't thought of that!