This post doesn't have much point other than to simply register my amazement at how effective the fireball spell has become in Icewind Dale II. I've played Baldur's Gate I and II and never found a lot of use for it, but now I can just cast it in the middle of a group (even if my party is there) and FOOM, tons of damage to my enemies, possible spell interruption AND killing some specific creatures. Has it always been this good and I just missed out, or did it get improved greatly in Icewind Dale II?
(By the way, hello all, I'm new here.)

it is powerful the fire ball its a great spell .
welcome to the place lot nice people here .

Well, Fireball was very powerfull in BG2 just as well, as long as you used it properly. If you load up 3 fireballs in a sequencer, and cast it into a enemy group first thing of battle, you will deal a mighty blow.

Should I tell you of my BG2, 4 Mages with 2 Fighter/Mage party who all specialised in Fireballs? ;)

Fireball has always been that good. The main difference in IWD2 is that there are more fights in open areas where fireballs and other AoE spells are easy to use. Most of BG2 was in buildings or otherwise narrow areas and it was not necessarily easy to drop fireballs on the bad guys without crisping your own troops.

Yeah, since I don't have a killsword right now, I've having to slug it out with spells too.

I've noticed how really awesome the fireball is as well. I think it does as much damage as a firestorm.

Which is crazy. Through IwD1 and Bg1/2, fireballs killed trolls for me. Or just served as some piddly little thing to throw out at the start of a battle to do .00000001% more damage.

I just took out an extra-ordinary amount of trolls in a particular cave section with a single fireball. It was doing upwards of like 60 damage, as far as I could see the scrolling. And firestorm helped knock them down the rest of the way. Then another fireball to finish the job.

There's a huge number of trolls in this game, I've noticed. And those troll "shamen" really suck too. I'm not sure exactly how I've been killing them; it's either the dispel, lower resistance, or flame strike, but I've not pinned it down yet.

I usually have my rogue sneak into the area to scout out the best place to center the fireball, then move him out of the way when the blast comes in.

Another fun move is to place one of those exploding skulls next to enemy spellcasters...That does a fair bit of damage when you have a low level party. Make sure you put it very close to your enemy though...If they don't move, it'll just hang there until it is tripped. Not a big deal, unless you want to rest after a fight. The floating skull will keep the game in combat mode...making it impossible to rest in that area.

I was a little uspet to find out that this spell and certain other spells my bard won't be able to get. And I don't have a sorcerer or a wizard in the party. I guess we'll just have to use potions of explosions and whatnot.

summon a monster or animate a dead and send him 1st. every monster will attack him, then you cast a fireball and watch the fun begin

You gotta love Fodder!!!!!

Wait till you get delayed blast fireball

The best tactic I've used so far goes like this
one cast three or four delayed blast fireballs where noone will trigger them
two cast a summon spell
three cast haste on the summoned monster
four hide a rogue and move him forward so that you can move the summon and the opponents can see him
five when the opponents start swarming around the summon move it towards the delayed blast fireballs and have it trigger the trap
six watch the whole room go empty in mere seconde

Hehehehe and watch the rogue Improved Evasion his way to safety, nice trap btw. Impressive pyrotechnics, though I have just found that acid storm does a flat 1d6/level of caster...(max 15d6). Funny how empty a room is after my 15th level (ecl of 17) drow wizard dumps 2 acids storms in the room. One fireball is all that is needed for cleanup.

Dan

..it has became a powerful spell didnt it :D

..another spell which i think really improved is tha cloud kill spell...theres this area in chapter two where summoned yuan ti's and some lizardmen all got killed instantly i mean all just fell and died not to mention damaging trolls in the area..

..i think theyll fix this with the patch hehehehe

Cloudkill always instantly killed creatures below a certain level. That's been true since the first printing of the 1st edition PHB 20+ years ago. I don't think that "bug" will be fixed any time soon.