This skill is a prerequisite for Blaze, Firewall, and Meteor. For most characters, this is the only reason to invest in this skill. Like Firebolt, however, Inferno is useful at low clvls in Normal Act 1, to help get you through until stronger skills become available. So if you need the skill as a prereq, go ahead and use it while you can benefit from it.

One thing to understand is that Inferno is NOT an area of effect skill. In fact, it's a piercing missile attack. It is similar, in this way, to the Lightning skill. You cast it, and anything in the direct path will take damage. The fire is not stopped or absorbed by a target. It pierces, or continues onward, to the full extent of its range. Inferno is not a continuous stream of fire; rather, it is a series of flame bursts launched one per frame, and damage is calculated separately from each unit. If you press the attack button and immediately let go, you will see that something between five and seven frames worth of flames will be fired. If you press and hold your attack button, the frames will be fired without interruption. This gives the illusion of a continuous attack, but it is actually a series of attacks. The main thing different about Inferno from other ranged attacks is that there is no delay between shots, no renewal of the firing animation. Once you start firing, you may keep firing unless you take a hit or run out of mana, or if a creature you had targetted directly was slain.

There is a down side to the rapid-fire, though. There is a delay before you can start firing. The game has to run all the way through the attack animation before the flames start to spew. What's more, you cannot benefit here from fast-cast items. Combine these two things and you've got the main problem with this skill: you have to expose yourself to close range to use Inferno, but if you take a hit, the attack is interrupted and you must go through the attack animation again to start applying more damage. That can take too long, as it gives time for you to be hit again, interrupted again. This is a serious handicap in later difficulties. If you can't kill the enemy before they reach you, you are going to be in some trouble.

Ironically, when playing solo, Inferno may be best used not against aggressive melee opponents, but against ranged attackers and slower opponents. If you are using it as a situational skill, it can at times shine very brightly. The range at maximum slvls can even extend far enough to reach across the lava in the River of Flame, for example. The downside of Inferno even when used situationally is the commitment required of your character. You must stand still, which is bad enough, but it also means your attention is concentrated on a single foe or line of foes, during which you cannot attack anything else. Contrast this to Blaze and Firewall, which persist (at high levels for quite a long time) after casting, allowing you to target other monsters, maneuver, even flee while damage is still being dealt. Contrast it with Meteor and especially Hydra, which allow you to strike things outside your direct line of sight.

Inferno becomes more viable in multiplayer, however, in a coop setting, where you have other characters or their minions to tank for you. Operating as a mobile human flamethrower in this scenerio can work against all but a few opponents. Cold spells can help out Inferno. Inferno and Blaze is an effective combo that requires no points "wasted" in prereqs, and some Firewall can be added for situational use.

Another problem with Inferno is mana consumption. It may look like an efficient skill in this regard, but in practice it turns out to be much more mana hungry for the damage dealt, compared to just about all of the rest of the tree. Why? Because there's no persistant damage. When you stop firing, the damage stops. So in terms of mana management and strategic planning, it is vital to think of Inferno along the same lines as Fireball and to a lesser degree, Meteor. You will have to spend mana for every kill, for every bit of damage.

Specializing in Inferno or even increasing it to moderate skill levels, is clearly an underpowered path compared to others you might choose. That said, it is viable nevertheless. Inferno users can rely on help from Cold, from Blaze, from Teleport, or from coop partners, and get the job done. Stalwarts can make do on inferno alone, if they specialize in it and back it with fire mastery, but this takes skill and patience.

There is a quirk to using Inferno. At some angles, damage will be halved. There are two streams to the flames, and you will have trouble hitting smaller targets with both streams. I have not pinpointed which angles these might be, or even if they are consistent. I have not figured out whether this has to do with being in the full center of the flames or not, or what. I only know that it happens, and that in many cases, if you are not getting full damage, it may be to your benefit to stop firing and change angles, in hopes of placing your target in the line of fire of both streams.

Inferno requires special awareness when encountering any of the Leaper demons. Leapers get stunned and knocked back whenever they take a melee or projectile hit. This applies to Inferno in a special way, in that each frame is counted as a hit. So if you are out in the open, your inferno will push leapers back without hardly hurting them at all. This is not good. In fact, it can be disastrous! By contrast, inferno can also pin them against a wall or terrain feature, rendering them hopelessly stunlocked and at your mercy. This is harder to do than it sounds, though, because you can't move and shoot at the same time, and it doesn't take them long to recover from an inferno hit. To make matters worse, leapers in Acts 3 and 4 are highly fire resistant.

Even if you opt for Inferno at slvl 1 only (prereq) it will still have some applications even after you've gained access to Fireball. There are some opponents, mainly bosses, against which slvl 1 Inferno can put more points on target in a shorter time than slvl 1 Fireball. Firewall, however, renders this obsolete. One you have Firewall (if you get it) you can forget Inferno entirely unless you've specialized in it.

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