In an attempt to gather enough information that I can suggest a more coherent party, I've been screwing around with Solo Mode and the Act 5 command and experimenting with different skills. Arctic Blast came up today, and I can't tell if there's something I'm missing or not.

According to the skill tables available at Blue Myriddn's site, Arctic Blast throws 562-1140 per second at level 20 and has two synergies with +30% per point each. With a full 60 points, it can inflict almost 14k damage per second for 8 mana each second, and it chills.

By contrast, the equivalent Inferno, with 60 points invested, inflicts a max of almost 7500 damage at 10 mana per second. Meteor, which I kind of expected to be the hammer of god, maxes out at 2184 impact damage and a max of 470 damage per second. Cranking Inferno up to Arctic Blast's level looks to require about 13 ranks in Fire Mastery. 20 points in Fire Mastery will only give Meteor about 4200 max impact damage and 1000 more fire damage per second - nowhere near what Arctic Blast is capable of. Sorceress cold spells don't seem to be anywhere near the damage level necessary to compete - despite Blizzard's massive size, its 2000 damage per second (with two maxed synergies) doesn't seem to match Arctic Blast's.

Now, I do not have a sorceress myself, and I can't factor in the effects of really impressive gear - but I also don't have access to that sort of gear to play with, so it's a moot point for my calculations, anyways. Is Arctic Blast just better, or what?

You are overlooking the stacking effects of Sorceress skills. ABlast and Inferno are both weak in that their damage is only applied to a monster once.

Meteor's flame damage stays around for 0.5 seconds per level of the Meteor, so the impact of a lvl 30 meteor might look nice, but the 15 seconds of flame damage is way higher. Every second you can launch another Meteor to increase the flame damage yet again. It gets pretty impressive. Blaze stacks far higher, and should be able of reaching the damage-cap every frame. Here's a thread discussing some end-game Meteor damage as high as 400k dps.

Blizzard doesn't stack nearly as well, but it does stack about 2-3 times I think, so you can essentially double or triple its listed damage when the target is standing in the area of effect.

The Druid can not stack any of his cold spells (Arguably Tornado stacks if the Druid is under the effects of SlowMissle). Fissure and Volcano stack just as well as Blizzard, but for much less damage (no Mastery).

Summary:
If the target is still, then the stacking effects of the Sorc can be awsome. If the target is running around, and he's running along your column of ABlast, then the druid's damage will be better.

There's more to the builds than just damage though, but that's a different topic.

Hrm. Thanks. I doubt I'd ever have checked that thread.

What about poison damage? I see that people are requesting that Poison Strike be nerfed, but it looks like it's doing about 1/6 what Arctic Blast does.

With PoisonStrike, it's important to consider that Necromancer's have LowerResistance to break immunities, and some pretty strong summons to act as tanks.

The damage of PStrike won't be as fast as other skills, but it's far easier to play with. If you poison a creature, then it will be taking your damage until the poison wears off. During that time the necro can be dodging attacks, casting tank-summons, overriding LResistance with Decrep or Amp (after application, the poison damage won't change with monster resistances), organizing his belt, etc. I think the only class with an easier time is the Poizon, but she can't cast LowerResistance with as much ease and she has fewer poison-buff-gear options.

The discussion about nerfing PStrike is based on the ease of applying it, the fact that necros can break immunities more easily, and the fact that poison buffs are pretty plentiful (some take the place of a sorc's Mastery, while others drastically lower enemy resistance once their immunity is broken). The discussion isn't really about a comparison of the damage numbers.

I actually tried to hide behind the golems the last time I played Hell Unleashed. Even with their rather high HP, the boss damage multiplier always seemed to vaporize them instantly, particularly when the radial attacks came in. But, then, I was also trying to split points between Golem Mastery and bone attacks, so I might just not have been focusing enough.

I really have the feeling I'm missing something terribly critical - PureRage, in the thread you linked, claims 40k per meteor, but it looks like stacking 10 Meteors with level 20 in that skill, Firebolt and Fireball, and Fire Mastery would only net about 10000 burn damage and 4200 impact damage a second, which is about as much as you'd get from Arctic Blast with 60 points invested. If the sort of "average equipment" he was using nets that kind of damage increase, wouldn't it elevate Arctic Blast to apocalyptic levels?

It's just kind of weird - no other skill seems to inflict the level of damage Arctic Blast does without extremely significant gear involved. Since we don't have access to extremely significant gear, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to suggest any elemental specialist other than the druid to the remainder of my party.

A meteor sorc won't be needing any gear that you won't find soon enough to do good dmg. Same thing with a charged bolt sorceress, she will do extremely well throughout the game. Just try to find/buy a +3 charged bolt staff early on and make a thunder in it. Voilá, +9 cb and you will cruise through thrash. Just make sure you use lightning or telekinesi against things that counter (bosses).

Artic blast and inferno is both bugged and won't do the listed dmg (I believe this is still true?). And you can only hit one monster at a time with it.
Fire ball and meteor has a radius of effect and charged bolt/chain lightning/static/nova all has potential of hitting alot of enemies at the same time.

The bug with Inferno and ABlast is that they're supposed to do 1/3 of the listed damage. My Blazer uses it quite a bit, so I'm pretty confident that the bug exists. Even at 1/3, it's 30k dps, which is fine. It is not the case that Inferno/ABlast are single-target skills, anything caught in their column will take damage, but I agree that it's pretty hard to get more than 1-3 things lined up just right, and even then they won't stay lined up for long. It's the same problem Elemental Zons have with realizing their damage potential.

Fafnir, when considering skills in HU, you should at least consider them to acheive lvl 32, since +12 skills is pretty trivial (gamble a +3 ammy, roll a +3 hat, select one of several +3 or better weapons, get a +1 rings, etc). It might be the case that for the invenstment of 60 points, ABlast does better single-target damage than stacking 10 meteors, but the strength of Meteor (or Blaze) grows in a cubic exponential, vs the linear growth of ABlast. Meteor (and Blaze) is cubic because every +Skill from items improves each of : FlameDuration, FlameDamage, and FMastery. ABlast will only improve in it's damage, since there's no duraction or mastery buff (the synergies are already maxed, so +Skills won't help).

If your party really just needs an elemental character, then the Druid isn't the one to use. If they also need a buff from one of the Druid's pets, then a sorc isn't the one to use (her only significant party-buff is the ARating bonus from Enchant).

For gear, a Meteor sorc shouldn't have too much trouble finding a Vex and making "Flickering Flame". My Blazer uses one, and I think it's really great for it's level (59). You might have trouble finding a +2-3 Meteor staff though. If you haven't found one by lvl 65, you might just want to grab any staff, since you'll likely find/trade for another Vex before you reach Hell difficulty.

Lastly, it's a very small consideration, but another problem with ABlast/Inferno is that when your character is affected by SlowMissles, the range of those skills is reduced by 66%. At least for the Druid, his Tornado spell becomes much stronger under the influence of SMissles, since each Tornado starts inflicting about three times more hits.

Ow. If it does 1/3 its listed damage, that brings it right in line with the other skills. This is good information to know.

Well, thanks for your time. This helps quite a bit.