It actually does more damage if you can target different units. one hit from a fire ball will drop an archers health to a little above 50% Its also more reliable and easy to use than the air's shitty targeting system.

Fire start is strong, more unit control gives well... some freedom in being able to approach/return.

It also gives the pressure while you store up for trees.

Quote from IHATETHISNAME

The nerfs to scorplings are inconsequential. Trees are still OP.

yes their good (trees) but for 9 pop are they worth that much?..... i think like 7 which is about the same as giant so.... yeah personally i just feel thats "equal"

The population doesn't really matter at all. It's a 500/100 unit.

I recently saw many people using fire units very often. I kinda like them (lol, when they are running thy look so cute ^_^)
Its a pity they have so small range...and cost so much...

The damage in burn more than makes up for it. It just takes 2 well timed hits.

They can be out-kited pretty easily though

Quote from IHATETHISNAME

They can be out-kited pretty easily though

Not as easily as I thought. As long as you have good movement control, just bait the approaches and then turn into them. Running along the map edges work well too. Yeah, they can be kited, but with enough earths you can get that approach anyway. And then you can just charrog if they have swords.

dodging is also harder than i thought it would be. fire balls have a rather large hitbox that can hit archers even when they are nowhere near them.

EDIT: just faced off against a fire start on gates. His fire micro wasnt the best but id say my micro was pretty good. (Honed from hours of playing archers vs chaos, the gameplay is pretty similar :P) It probably would have been much harder if he had gotten earth support. at the end i just stopped playing the game of chicken and rushed him with my sword and archer, which he wasnt prepared for. However, something like this wouldnt be feasible on a short map, where he could easily get to my miners and i would be forced to confront.
www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay5331652&version=2.02

Actually im pretty sure it was knight, but if it was khan, then yay for me.