Hi. I’m on my second sorcerer. My first one died in HC, and I have to admit that I was not impressed with Brimstone in the firestrike tree. The shards appeared to give no single target damage, and the vectors are so random, that they had no meaningful impact as a pseudo AOE.
Before, I maxed demo specifically for that talent, but I’m not planning to do that this time around.
Does anyone else share my experience, or am I totally wrong?
you should have missed that thread 
but it’s definitively better for a Pyro than a Sorc because of Chaos (although Clairvoyant convert some chaos to aether… and there’s FoR… but still, it’s more a Pyro skill)
I agree with you for a low attack speed, but once you reach a proper number and have a few dual-wielding procs (Volley for example), you will see your target literally surrounded by shards and it becomes very powerful.
I am using Fire Strike (lvl12) and Brimstone(lvl 19) and it is working nicely. My build is chaos-based. Damage is very good in Ultimate
Sure pyros synergize with brimstone better, but the functionality of the skill is still the same. Sure, the shards look cool, but they’re rarely hitting anything in the videos he posted.
Brimstone gives a huge amount of flat fire and chaos damage on hit that cannot be neglected in my opinion. I went 50/50 in demo just for Brimstone, and that was on a melee build so the fragments wouldn’t even contribute to my choice. Brimstone is one of the larger damage spikes in the tree IMO.
Yea you are right. It does add single target damage, and that by itself is worth it.
You’re totally wrong, brimstone is a kick-ass upgrade and it has a very significant impact.
And don’t forget that Brimstone scales like hell after its 12/12 rank.
When you play with brimstone as your main damage output, you must reach at least rank 20/12.
And 22/12 is just insanely amazing
Brimstone is one of the three highest flat damage attack bonuses in the game, others being Static strike (conveniently placed on the same tree) and Dual blades. If you make a Fire strike build, you need as many skill bonuses to Brimstone as you can manage (Shadowflame mantle is a must), they are more than worth it if you can reach 21/12 or 22/12. Ditto Static strike.