Fireballs

The power of the gods in the hands of a plumber.

Genkai: Hm... I think I've seen this technique before...
Botan: You mean like Shorin might have stolen that technique from some psychic?
Genkai: No that's not it. I'm just saying he's throwing fireballs. It's a very cliché anime technique.

— Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged

A common power for pyro-elementalists, wizards, psychics, dragons, and even martial artists. Fire, in spite of its fearsome appeal, is not known for being tangible or portable. Rolling it into a ball gives it the semblance of a physical structure, and lets you throw it, bounce it and dodge it at will, which are quite desirable traits in Video Games and tabletop games.

Most often, fireballs are formed with and thrown from the user's hands. Less often, they're used as part of a Breath Weapon — although it's much more common for fire-based breath weapons to take the form of a simple stream of fire, it's also not uncommon for certain creatures to be able to spit out discrete fireballs.

In video games, traps and emitters that shoot out balls of fire sometimes appear as a stage hazard, especially in games with platforming sections. Some fireballs can also emerge from a Lava Pit before falling back into lava.

Fireballs have a tendency to move in an unusual fashion — possibly by hovering or drifting at slow speeds, or by bouncing along the ground. What happens when a fireball impacts is, similarly, entirely up in the air. Maybe Stuff Blows Up, leaving a sphere of annihilation. Other times, it just puffs out like a harmless burst of wind. Only sometimes does it actually set things on fire.

Not to be confused with Fireball, Great Balls of Fire! or Outrun the Fireball. A Sub-Trope of Energy Ball and Playing with Fire. In cases where the fireball is a living thing in its own right, see Elemental Embodiment and Evil Living Flames.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Black Clover: Magna's Flame Magic centers around throwing small fireballs like baseballs to explode on enemies. After his training for the Royal Knights Exam, he can use the Gargantuan Exploding Fireball spell, creating a fireball much larger than his usual baseball-sized ones that's also more destructive.
• Digimon:
  • Digimon Adventure: Agumon can shoot fireballs from his mouth. His Champion form Greymon also has this move. His mega form WarGreymon can create a massive ball of heat.
  • Digimon Adventure 02: Flamedramon's "Fire Rocket" attack has him launch three fire balls from his claw.
  • Digimon Tamers: Guilmon's "Pyro Sphere" should be this given it's name but it's really more of a beam or wave of fire. Impmon's "Bada Boom" attack is a more straight forward example.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Muhummad Avdol's Stand does this with a twist; the fireballs (called Crossfire Hurricane) take the form of flaming ankhs. The Fighting Game even makes Avdol into a Shotoclone.

• Lyrical Nanoha: Globes of fire are Agito's most common attacks, whether in the form of multiple small ones or one huge fireball.
• Naruto: In the earlier episodes, Sasuke attacks with giant fireballs. He later makes another version that isn't only solid, but is capable of plowing through a stone wall. His older brother Itachi's version of the same attack looks like a miniature sun.

• Sailor Moon: Sailor Mars' Fire Soul attack is a fireball.
• Slayers: "Fireball" is Lina's main offensive spell, who is prone to fireball into oblivion anyone and anything who is annoying her.
• Smile PreCure!: Cure Sunny's signature attack is Sunny Fire, which consists of her spiking a fireball over her head in a volleyball-like fashion.

Asian Animation

• BoBoiBoy: BoBoiBoy Fire possesses the ability of making these due to being a fire elemental. He may make dozens of them to levitate and then rain down on opponents, or summon one 10 times his size to do the job instead. Normally, he uses regular sized fireballs in combat to throw at enemies, with the likelihood of exploding or at least setting things on fire.
• Happy Heroes: Huo Haha is seen shooting fireballs out of his Magic Wand on a couple of occasions to attack the Supermen.

Comic Books

• Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things: Fireball spells are Courtney's main method of offense.
• Fire Power involves a hidden Shaolin sect that has the secret art of manipulating surrounding energy. The height of this martial art is the ability to throw a fireball, something that hasn't been done since the founder melted a hole in a stone pillar.
• Marvel Universe:
  • Fantastic Four: While Johnny Storm mostly uses his power to shoot streams of flame, he sometimes tosses fireballs instead.
  • X-Men: When fighting, Sunfire is prone to alternate fireballs with streams of flame.
• Street Fighter (Malibu Comics): Projectile energy blasts like Hadouken and Sagat's Tiger Shot are made of fire here, instead of nondescript energy like in the games.
• Superman:
  • Superman Family: In #168, Supergirl fights "Lemon-Lips" Romero, a wannabe sorcerer who, among other things, can summon and hurl around man-sized fireballs.
  • Two for the Death of One: One of the spells used by Syrene to delay Lord Satanis while she carries out her scheme are giant, red fireballs which leave a trail of orange blazes in their wake.
  • Superman vs. Shazam!: During the final battle, Karmang hurls balls of golden fire at Supergirl and Mary Marvel. Kara is taken out, but Mary manages to grab them and fling them back.
  • Supergirl (1984): When she sees Supergirl and her friend are climbing their way out of the Phantom Zone, Selena casts a spell called "Thessalian Fireballs", causing orbs of fire to rain on them.
• Tintin: In "The Seven Crystal Balls", a ball of lightning crashes through the chimney during a storm inside the household and spins around across the room, causing grief damage to certain characters' clothers and even causing Professor Calculus to spin around too while sitting in his chair. Then the lightning ball crashes into a Inca mummy behind glass, causing it to explode without a trace.

Film

• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: In the extended cut, Saruman throws one of these at the heroes when he is trapped in Orthanc.
• Mortal Kombat: The Movie: ending of the final showdown has Liu Kang hurling a five-inch-wide fireball in order to blast Shang Tsung into the Spikes of Doom.
• The Wizard of Oz: Shortly after Dorothy and the Scarecrow meet up with the Tin Woodsman, the Wicked Witch of the West appears to taunt them and, before leaving, summons up a fireball in her hand and tosses it at the Scarecrow's feet. This sets a blazing fire in the grass where the fireball hit, causing the highly flammable Scarecrow to understandably panic.

Literature

• Discworld: Despite the entire purpose of wizardry being to not use magic, the Dean has an enormous enthusiasm for throwing fireballs at things, and Ridcully has been known to do so as well. Pratchett stated fireballs are one of the few acts of magic he'll let wizards get away with these days.
• The Dresden Files:
  • Harry Dresden uses these on occasion, although mostly for intimidation. In combat he uses focused rays of heat. He also complains, during a roleplaying session, that the fireball in the game didn't behave realistically, as its area of destruction was a perfect sphere and didn't take convection into account.
  • Wizards in general tend to prefer fire when it comes to offensive magic. What kind of fire they use is up to personal preference — heat rays, fireballs, and small mortars are all mentioned.
• The Magicians: One of the first battle spells our heroes learn is fireball.
• The Quest of the Unaligned: Laeshana summons a fireball for use as a light source when the party is trapped in a cave. Later, the villain throws fireballs at Alaric.
• Rivers of London: Peter has been taught this (a combination of lux [light] with some other spells and an adjective that lets it be thrown) , but prefers to use a simple impello (pushing) spell in combat — he'd rather knock an opponent off their feet to be arrested than incinerate them. Despite this, and Nightingale's admonitions about unnecessary experimentation, he's been trying to create a homing version, but has thus far only produced a lux that buzzes around erratically.
• Septimus Heap uses ThunderFlashes as fireball-like weapons, for example during the crashing and sinking of the Dragon Boat.
• The Sword of Truth: Wizard's Fire is an enormous sphere of liquid fire, almost napalm-like.
• The Wheel of Time: Fireballs are a basic form of attack used preferentially against Shadowspawn. Most Aes Sedai and Wise Ones can throw them, having different techniques for doing so. The Asha'man, on the other hand, are trained specifically for combat, and use far more effective measures, like an expanding wall of flame and molten earth. The Dragon Reborn even teaches some of them how to make exploding fireballs that act almost like grenades.

Live Action TV

• Angel: Wesley's attempt to launch one in the series finale is intercepted by the target, an old warlock with one foot in the grave, who simply sucks the fireball into his own palm and lets it dissipate.
  "I mean, really. I crap better magic than this."
• Charmed (1998): If demons aren't using fireballs, they're chucking Energy Balls.
• Crusade: Galen sometimes makes fireballs. In fact, he does it twice in one episode. First, to get Eilerson's attention (nothing like a fist-sized fireball two inches from your face to get you to shut up for a second). When Eilerson stops talking, Galen opens his coat, and has the fireball fly in. It's left to the interpretation whether it was an illusion or not. The second time is when he, angry at the telepathic alien, generates a fireball and prepares to throw it, before Gideon intervenes, claiming that Galen is not a murderer. Anyone who has read The Passing of the Techno Mages trilogy knows better.
• Game of Thrones: In contrast to their book counterparts, whose magic is more subtle, the Children of the Forest in the show can apparently throw fireballs in the form of small fiery beads that whizz toward their targets and explode on impact into a ball of flame.
• Hercules: The Legendary Journeys: Hera killed Hercules' family with balls of fire from the sky, and he called them "fireballs" at least once.
• Once Upon a Time: This offensive spell has become so exploited by Regina and most witches and warlocks that it's frustrating considering that with magic they can do a lot of other incredible and spectacular things, even if Zelena was the only one who changed a bit 'from the second part of the fifth season onwards, with green fireballs that incinerate instantly as soon as they come into contact with the target.

Music

• Used, metaphorically, by Deep Purple in Fireball. The eponymous LP cover shows the band members inside a moving fireball.
  Racin' like a fireball, dancin' like a ghost...

Pinball

• Plants vs. Zombies Pinball: The Torchwood Pea turns pinballs into these.
• Tales of the Arabian Nights: The evil genie throws these (in the form of pinballs) at the player.
• The Wizard of Oz: The Wicked Witch attacks with these in Fireball Mode.

Professional Wrestling

• An old trick not seen much in shows later than 1998, the original Sheik, Jerry Lawler and Jim Cornette all did it. The closest thing to a famous post WCW example would be Kane, though even then he did it rarely after the demise of the company. It is more popular in some regions than others, such as El Mega Triple Campeon de AAA throwing fireballs around Mexico and the Caribbean but not making much mark in the continental USA, where his use of them in Wrestling Society X killed the promotion's tv deal when it upset MTV executives. The effects of a fireball range from burn marks to temporary blindness to instant blazes. They are considered a cheat during matches but can be used for "heroic" actions in other circumstances, such as when a baby face is cornered by multiple enemies or protecting a charge. The reason why fireballs fell out of favor in North America is due to a notorious botch in the match between Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior at the 1998 Halloween Havoc PPV. The match was supposed to end with Hogan throwing a fireball into Warrior's face, but Hogan took forever to get the trick ready, leading to several awkward moments as he fumbled around trying to light the flash paper. Then when he finally succeeded, the flash paper burnt up too quickly and the fireball went off in Hogan's face, singeing his eyebrows and beard. Overnight, the trick's credibility was completely dead.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: Fireball is perhaps the definitive sorcerer/wizard spell, having been carried over into all editions of the game. The spell shoots a "glowing, pea-sized bead" that explodes upon impact into a gigantic sphere of flame (the actual "fireball"), doing nasty damage over a twenty-foot radius, making it one of the first ranged AoE damage spells that magic users can cast, and a reliable workhorse for casters of all levels thanks to its respectable damage scaling. There's also Flaming Sphere, a 10' wide ball of fire that rolled around on the ground at the caster's will. And then there's Delayed Blast Fireball and Meteor Swarm. Non-core improvements include things like Fallion's Fabulous Fireball (runs a programmed path), Teleport Fireball or Symkalr's Forest (does not affect plant matter) / Friendly (e.g. don't burn elves) / Unfriendly (e.g. burn only orcs) / Deathbane (undead-only, but bypassing usual fire protections) Fireball spells that all cause the same damage as a basic fireball, but snuffs any fires they created.

• GURPS: An effective spell in GURPS: Magic that will set many things on fire. It gives access to the more powerful Explosive Fireball spell.
• Magic: The Gathering has Fireball as a iconic red direct damage card. It has been reprinted in some form in most sets and was part of one of Magic's earliest Game-Breaker combos — the Cast from Hit Points based Channel Fireball Deck.
• Midgard has a version that can explode for fairly significant damage for a game that normally goes out of its way to try to avert the "magic as fantasy artillery" trope... with the slight drawbacks being that the fireball manifests right next to the caster, floats through the air at a very sedate pace (about one foot per second), and can go off prematurely if its creator's concentration is disrupted before it has reached its intended position.
• Shadowrun: This is a popular way of turning flammable nearby objects into flaming and exploding nearby objects. Early versions of the game have it as a normal spell; later ones split elemental magic off into its own subset of magic.
• Warhammer has a fireball spell. It's the signature spell in the Lore of Fire, and consequently shows up in any army list that can field fire wizards. It's a fairly direct projectile spell, shot like a missile from the wizard to their target.

Theater

• The Phantom of the Opera: During one of the confrontations between Raoul and the Phantom, the Phantom shoots fireballs out of his staff at Raoul.

Theme Parks

• Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts: Voldemort attempts to torture the riders with a skull-shaped fireball, but is thwarted by the main characters.

Video Games

• Afterimage:
  • The first tome that you receive, Book of Pyro, allows Renee to learn the "Fireball" spell which launches a fireball projectile forward.
  • Some Pyro-aligned enemies can also launch fireballs in differing ways; Pyromasters can create fireballs that split into three, while Lava Scorchlings can spit fireballs that gradually increase in size as they bounce.
• Albion has them in the form of spells, as well as parts of dungeon traps and puzzles. When seeing them, the resident scientist is left wondering what holds them together and speculates that the planet is intentionally trolling psysicits.
• Avernum: This is present as a Mage spell that does prodigious splash damage.
• Black Sigil: Aurora has spells that are along the line of Fireballs, More Fireballs, and Really Big Fireballs.
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night: Miriam can absorb abilities from the demons she faces. Among them are Flame Cannon and 8-bit Fireball which hurl a salvo of fireballs.
• Borderlands 2 has Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon's Keep, where one of the special grenade mods is called Fireball. As expected, instead of a grenade, your character fires a flaming ball that explodes on contact an enemy or terrain. Unfortunately, it's also a Painfully Slow Projectile. Lead the Target!
• Bujingai: The Gouenken spell starts with a relatively small ball and ends up with a miniature sun in level 3.
• Castlevania: Dracula uses fireballs as his main attack in most games and besides ol' Drac — there are the bone pillar enemies, fishmen in some versions and etc that will spit fireballs at you. In some games, you can get variants of this ability.
• Cave Story features a fireball gun. The fireballs, of course, bounce along the ground.
• Chrono Cross has the Fireball element, the tier 1 Red attack. A ball of flame appears, and launches three fireballs before launching itself. The tier 2 Magma Bomb works similarly.
• Dark Castle has always featured fireballs. In the 3rd game, Merlin will give you the fireball spell, cue the flaming death of mooks.
• In Diablo, fireballs are used in many different varieties by many different characters and monsters, up to and including Diablo himself. The manual explains that fire is the easiest element to conjure magically, because it's essentially molecular chaos. Simply flood the environment with magic and fire is the usual result. Forming that into a cohesive ball and projecting it is apparently the next easiest trick.
• Doom: Imps love throwing fireballs at you. Cacodemons spit them at you. Hell Knights and Barons of Hell hurl green fireballs that hurt a lot more.
• Doom II: Mancubi and Revenants shoot fireballs at you that act a lot like rockets — and the Revenant's have the ability to home in on you like a heatseeker.
• Dragon Age: Origins has a fireball spell. It can also be used to set stuff (that is, the Grease spell) on fire. Fireball itself is a bread-and-butter spell for any mage. Wide area of effect, deals good damage on impact, then deals damage over time and has a knockdown effect? Hells yes we want it. The only drawback is you have to use two other spell slots for the lackluster Flame Blast and Flaming Weapon spells to get it.
• Dragon's Crown, both the Wizard and Sorceress have abilities that let them shoot fireballs. If the Elf has learned Elemental Lore and is standing near a source of fire (such as a torch in hand), she can shoot fireballs as well.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • Fire-based magic is a staple of the Destruction school of magic throughout the series. The most basic form of a ranged fire spell is a simple fireball. More powerful versions exist, giving the fireball greater damage and/or a larger Area of Effect explosion.
  • In Morrowind, a simple Fireball spell (with a small AOE) is available for purchase in the First Town. Much more powerful versions can be acquired (or created) later.
  • Oblivion gives you Fireball as a starting spell.
  • Skyrim promotes Fireball to a Adept level spell and adds a glorious explosion upon impact. There is a lower level, non-exploding "Firebolt" variant that behaves similarly to Oblivion's fireball.
• Elements Of War is set 20 Minutes in the Future, where humanity has the technology to manipulate weather. One such futuristic unit is the F1-BL Fireball, a helicopter that can shoot fireballs at ground enemies.

• Eye of the Beholder has a basic fireball spell, alongside traps that launch a fireball at their victim.
• Faria: Fireballs are stationary, invincible hazards that appear completely at random in some tower rooms.
• Gemstone Warrior: If you want to scratch your enemies, shoot them with your crossbow. If you want them dead, use a fireball on them. To balance this, your supply of fireballs is very limited and finding them in the underworld is rare.
• Giana Sisters DS: Punk Giana can shoot red fireballs at enemies.
• Golden Sun:
  • In one lighthouse in The Lost Age, there are several traps that consist of an obstacle-ridden hallway you need to navigate while a statue periodicaly hurls ginormous fireballs at you that cause damage and send you back to the beginning of the hallway.
  • There are several Psynergy that use fireballs: "Fire" and its upgrades, "Fireball" and "Inferno"; "Juggle" and its upgrades, "Heat Juggle" and "Fiery Juggle"; and "Raging Heat" and its upgrades, "Fiery Abyss" and "Dire Inferno."
  • Fireball is a field Psynergy in Dark Dawn. And yes, you are expected to use it, a lot. Even as Matthew (thanks for the Mars Djinn loan, Garet!).

• Joe & Mac: Players can throw fireballs to incinerate enemies.
• Kirby: Kirby can turn himself into a living fireball, or spit regular fireballs from his mouth, when he gets the right ability.
• League of Legends:
  • Annie's Disintegrate has her hurl a ball of fire at an enemy, damaging them and refunding the ability's mana cost and cooldown if it kills the target. It's a very simple and powerful ability that introduces new players to the basics of mage combat. She can also use it to stun people if her passive is built up.
  • Brand's Sear looks as basic as a fireball can get, dealing damage to the first enemy in its path. It's also Brand's only form of hard crowd-control, locking an enemy in place if he's already ignited them with other abilities.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In the early games, fireballs are common projectiles often sent Linkwards by Zo(l/r)as (who spit them from their mouths), statues, burning eyeballs and such. A spell in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link lets you toss them around with your sword, which is the only way to damage certain enemies.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Fire rods shoot a spherical mass of fire that then bounces around in a straight line, setting fire to anything flammable. This ball will explode if it hits a living being, or simply fizzle out after a while if it doesn't. The upgraded variant, the Meteor Rod, shoots out three fireballs at once.
• Magic Carpet: This is the first spell your apprentice magician has. It lacks power but it doesn't use much mana.
• Magic Sword: The second-to-last weapon the heroes can pick up is the Flame Sword, which can shoot powerful fireballs.
• Marvel Puzzle Quest: The Human Torch (Johnny Storm)'s Fireball ability consists of him creating a mass of flame in his hand and throwing it at his target.
  Johnny hurls a fistful of flame, torching the opponent.
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order: When you have Phoenix, Crystal and the Human Torch, you can expect some epic-sized fireballs to be hurled.

• Master of Magic: All Magician units in the game have a free fireball spell to use once in combat, a Wizard who has Chaos Magic as part of their spell books can also learn fireball as an uncommon spell.
• Metroid has violas and multiviolas, which are fireball creatures.
• Mortal Kombat: Pretty much any character with pyrokinetic powers can do this along with other versatile uses of fire. Examples are Scorpion, Liu Kang, Shang Tsung, Tanya and Kai^note Bonus points for summoning them from the sky and the ground..
• Neverwinter Nights: Fireballs are a useful combat spell and a good way to "lockpick" for the impatient.
• The Of Pen and Paper series has "Fireball" as a spell that Mages can use, as seen in Knights of Pen and Paper and Knights of Pen and Paper 2.
• Path of Exile: Fireball is an early game spell that does what you'd expect: it's a projectile deals fire damage and explodes in a small radius on impact. Other flavors of flaming balls include Rolling Magma, which fires a bouncing fireball, Blazing Salvo, which sends multiple fireballs in unpredictable arcs, and Volatile Dead, which summons homing fireballs from corpses.
• Perfect World: The Mage class gets two: one when they first start, which looks suspiciously like a playing card that's been set on fire, and a more beefy one later.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokémon Black and White introduces the move Searing Shot, the signature move of Victini, which shoots a bolt of fire and deals considerable damage.
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield introduces the powerful move Pyro Ball, Cinderace's signature move. Unlike how most incarnations of the trope shoot the fireball from one's hands, Cinderace uses its feet to heat a pebble that serves as the projectile's core, and then kicks it like a soccer ball.
• Purple has a power-up that lets you throw destructive fireballs that can melt frost blocks.

• Ragnarok Online provides it as one of the most basic parts of the Mage's arsenal and is one of their only options for causing splash damage. It's quickly outclassed, and is thus learned mostly for the sake of gaining access to better spells.
• Sacrifice: If the protagonist Eldred has chosen Pyro to be his first time patron god, then your basic projectile spell will be a fireball. It's damage is mediocre but does have a blast radius when it hits.
• Secret of Mana: One of the first powers gained by the fire spirit Salamander is this. The fireballs get larger at higher levels.
• Shantae
  • Shantae (2002) has Fire Balls that work like improved pike balls, revolving around Shantae at a faster rate to protect her from enemies.
  • Shantae: Risky's Revenge has more typical Fire Balls that Shantae launches in front of her from her hands and continuously burn their targets until they die. The game also has the Spit Fire, an upgraded version of the attack that launches three fireballs Spread Shot style. Besides serving as the only long-range attacks in Shantae's arsenal, they're also used to burn away the occasional overgrown plant-life that blocks her path.
• Spell Swap is a game about magicians fighting with spells, and feature several variations of fireball spells.
• Square Enix: In multiple games, the fire/fira/firaga spells are represented by fireballs, although most games they are more of summoning flames at the target destination. Other spells may or may not count as well, again on a game by game basis.
  • Crisis Core: The Fire/Fira/Firaga spells shoots medium-sized fireballs.
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy:
    • Cloud's Fire/Fira/Firaga spells shoot fireballs, rather than being the pillar of flame the spells he uses in Final Fantasy VII.
    • Terra's Fire attack has her launch a fireball, which, interestingly, homes while clinging to the ground.^note In the prequel, this attack can link to an explosive Firaga HP attack if it connects Kefka's fire-based attacks also take the form of Roboteching fireballs, and the Onion Knight's Firaga attack has him launch a fireball in an arc that explodes for HP damage upon connection (3 at once if he's in his Sage Super Mode).
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Final Fantasy VI: Fire, and Fira are summoning flames at the feet of the target, but Firaga summons a condensed ball of fire that crashes into the target and explodes.
    • Final Fantasy XIV has Fire spells form one half of the Black Mage's main offensive repetoire, the other half being Blizzard spells. Their playstyle revolves around switching between Astra Fire and Umbral Ice stances: Astral Fire increases Fire spells' attack power and MP cost, while Umbral Ice trades off attack power for MP regeneration. Red Mages also have a fireball in the form of the Verfire spell.
  • Kingdom Hearts: In most games, Fire/Fira/Firaga are homing fireballs. There's also Mega Flare, a large fireball that nukes everything in sight when it explodes, and Firaga Burst, a gigantic fireball that shoots over a dozen smaller ones at nearby targets. In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, the fire spells are, in order of Fire to Firaga, a homing fireball, a non-homing fireball, and an exploding napalm ball.
  • Vagrant Story: Ashley Riot can learn to cast fireballs if he finds an Incendie grimoire. Outside of being fire element, the fireball in this game isn't any different than any other normal attack spell.
• Star Ocean has this as a basic fire spell. At higher levels, it can split into three separate fireballs, dealing greater damage.
• Street Fighter:
  • While the Hadouken is informally called a fireball, it really isn't; it's just a regular ball of ki. However, Ryu and Akuma can imbue their ki with fire with the Shakunetsu Hadouken (Scorching Hadouken).
  • A more direct example is seen in Dhaslim's "Yoga Fire" where he spits a fireball that can engulf his opponent.
  • In the Malibu Street Fighter comic, the base Hadouken and Sagat's Tiger Shot were fireballs.
• Super Mario Bros.: Fireballs are a very common combat power, present both as a powerup and as enemy attacks. In general, fireballs bounce off of floors and walls like rubber balls, and will keep bouncing around until they hit a player or enemy.
  • One of Mario's oldest and most common powerups, Fire Mario, is activated by touching a fire flower, which allows him to shoot an endless stream of fireballs from his hands. These are chiefly useful for clearing out large amounts of enemies from a distance, and can also take out foes (such as Spinies and Piranha Plants) that the usual Goomba Stomp can't handle. However, a few foes — such as Buzzy Beetles — are fireproof and can't be taken out this way. The New Super Mario Bros. series also introduces an inversion in the form of Ice Mario, who shoots iceballs instead.
  • Several enemies also shoot fireballs. Fire Bros. throw them in lieu of the hammer and boomerangs favored by their kin, while most foes with Breath Weapons, such as Venus Fire Traps and Bowser himself, spit fireballs instead of the more common stream of flame.
  • Fireball creatures known as Podoboos are also known to hang out in lava pits, and some of their cousins just float around in mid-air.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Mario and Luigi can shoot fireballs from their hands. Mario's bounce along the floor after being thrown, whereas Luigi's go in a straight line (defying gravity) and are green.
  • The Curry powerup allows you to spit a constant tri-directional stream of fireballs at your enemies.
• Tales Series: Fireball is a staple spell that depending on the game, fires one or, like in Tales of Symphonia a multitude of small burning missiles that deal damage when they hit; the number sometimes increasing with repeated usage. There's also Burn Strike, a bigger Death from Above variant, and Flare Bomb, an explosive seeking variant.
• Team Fortress 2: In keeping with its goofy and nonsensical tone, especially around the holidays, the game has the Helltower magic spells for Scream Fortress 2013. One of the most common ones is the fireball spell, which allows any player to fire a team-colored flaming blast that behaves much like a rocket. The Meteor Shower spell is somewhat similar, but instead of simply damaging or igniting a target, it transforms into an Area of Effect Herd-Hitting Attack that rains actual explosive fireballs in the immediate area.
• Total War: Warhammer: Fireball, one of the basic spells of the Lore of Fire, sends a long, trailing mass of fire flying from the caster to their selected target. It's primarily intended to snipe out enemy characters and will home in on its target if they try to avoid it, although it can't turn tight corners and can be dodged.
• Touhou: This is a fairly common bullet type, and one that's gone through a few variations. First Embodiment of Scarlet Devil had ugly spiked ball looking things. Then Imperishable Night introduced an oddly liquid looking substitute that had an unclear hitbox and was a pain to dodge. Then Mountain of Faith introduced spheres with animated auras, of which warm-colored versions work well for fire.
• Trine: Unfortunately all the fireballs come from the enemy, your wizard character Amadeus the Magnificent never did get the hang of the fireball spell despite going through 4 games.
• Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll: Areus can hurl medium-ranged fireballs as a skill from the Rune Fighter class.
• Warcraft:
  • Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos: A fireball is a standard mage projectile. There's also a spell that hurls a fireball to stun a target.
  • World of Warcraft: Mages can shoot fireballs, as well as Pyroblasts, fireball's larger slower cousin. Warlocks also get Incinerate (an unusual-looking fireball with a snakelike movement pattern), Soul Fire, and Chaos Bolt. There are a great number of other fire spells, but most of them don't use an Energy Ball form.
• Warhammer: Dark Omen: Even before you get your first wizard your warband has someone capable of shooting fireballs. The commander Morgan Bernhardt is the proud owner of Grudgebringer, a magical dwarven relic sword that's also been enchanted to cast the fireball spell. That said, fireball is just the starting spell for Bright magic and does little more than what a crossbow bolt would.
• Warlords has the players trying to break down each other's forts with fireballs — put into play by a flying dragon — which can be bounced off the players' shields and even caught on them, but will blast bricks out of a wall.
  There be warlords of brawn and might
  Defending their crowns of gold;
  Beware the power of The Black Knight,
  A power-hungry foe!
  The dragons spit their fireballs:
  Warlords! Hold up your shields!
  'Tis time to protect your castle walls
  Until The Black Knight yields.
• The World Ends with You: The Flame Core Psych acts as this, with the added bonus of being a Pinball Projectile that can bounce off of the screen and enemies for additional damage.
• Zeus: Master of Olympus:
  • Every single monster has a ranged attack that consists of either a fireball, a fireball with a different color, or an arrow (that looks like a fireball).
  • The cheat code "Fireballs from Heaven" delivers, well, fireballs from heaven onto the selected tile(s). It can be used to instantly kill invading armies, ships, monsters, even gods... but its single most useful application is converting rocks and earthquake cracks to rubble, which can then be cleared away to become normal land. It can be used on cooled lava, but that still can't be cleared away, only traversed by immigrants.

Webcomics

• El Goonish Shive: Elliot and Justin fight a fire summon that spits fireballs. These fireballs are more like grenades than anything else though and have more explosive punch than heat.
• Friendship is Dragons: Twilight is annoyed with the Poison Joke, and deals with it by fireballing it — although after taking it outside of her highly flammable home.
  Twilight: I can't believe I brought one home! I cast Fireball on the blue flower I have before it does anything else.
  GM: Um, what? Are you sure you want to do that inside your tree?
  Twilight: Oh! Sorry. You're right. I don't know what came over me. I should go outside, construct a proper fire pit, and THEN FIREBALL!!
• Irregular Webcomic!:
  • Death by Insanely Overpowered Fireballs specializes in reaping the souls of people who die this way.
  • Kyros the wizard from the Fantasy theme uses fireballs and the throwing and exploding thereof as the go-to solution to whatever problem he may be dealing with at any given moment.
• The Order of the Stick: Vaarsuvius casts Fireball quite often. During the Battle of Azure City, Xykon casts its big brother Meteor Swarm at Roy, leading to Roy's death.
• Rusty and Co.: Prestige can throw them. Eventually. She'll save it for a suitable time.
• Yokoka's Quest: Mao's primary use of magic in combat is to throw fireballs. He also tries to scare Yin away with a fireball as a child.

Web Original

• Whateley Universe: Mage Fey has cast these, although only at opponents it wouldn't kill or disfigure. The crazed pyrokinetic Fireball didn't have any such qualms.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Fire-benders can produce these, among other fire-manipulation tricks. They're usually emitted through the hands and feet during punches and kicks.

Real Life

• One Bullet Away: Nate Fick (of Generation Kill fame) is standing around with his convoy in an Iraqi town, when what he describes as flaming pumpkins come flying over the adjacent river, barely missing him and smashing into the street and buildings around them. After a few moments he realizes the Marines are being targeted by antiaircraft fire.
• Ball lightning is one of the least understood meteorological phenomena known to man. Essentially a ball of light that occurs during a thunder and or lightning storm, these little (or huge) buggers have been known about since antiquity. By the late twentieth century most of the scientific community had deemed ball lightning a myth, however the proliferation of color photography soon would prove the existence of phenomena and by the early 2000s with the advent and wide use of the internet and digital photography its existence was positively confirmed. Nobody knows exactly what the stuff is though, other than a ball of light with electric properties. They are semi-rare as whole: only a quarter of Americans surveyed have claimed to see it (must only claim to when prompted, as they don't initially report the sightings for fear of being deemed crazy or a liar). Its reported characteristics vary wildly-some times it can pass though people without harming them, at other times they discharge massive amounts of electricity, even up to a normal lightning strike. Ball lightning can sometimes move erratically and swiftly but often seems to move slowly and lazily. These balls of light often seem to also be attracted to wires, electrical appliances, and metal. There are many theories as to what exactly ball lightning is, however ball lightning's rarity and unpredictably will likely mean that this phenomena will likely remain unexplained for several more years.
• In Earth's gravity, the oxygen used by fire rises as it heats up, giving flames the pointed shape we're used to seeing. In low gravity, the gasses have nowhere to rise and form a spherical flame instead.
• In WW1, a still inconclusively explained phenomenon of German anti-aircraft fire was described as flaming onions by Allied airmen who witnessed it. It was described as resembling a string of blazing fireballs coming up which appeared to be loosely connected to each other and followed the same path. The most plausible explanation is that this was an early form of incendiary shell, magazine-fired by the same weapon in quick sucession, that ignited a long way short of its target^note 1917 - 1918 saw a marked deterioration in quality of German munitions and defective shells of all sorts became more commonplace: or else broke up in the air into a succession of seperate blazing fragments in the manner of a "Roman candle" firework.

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