I am a bit surprised that the "dragonblood orb" variant spell is seen as more powerful than the base chromatic orb. The design intention and my own perception is that it is somewhat weaker than chromatic orb due to being unable to choose the element at will.

Generally speaking, when you cast Chromatic Orb, you're going to be casting as your element, since that's what you're getting the subclass bonus for. Sure, you can swap out the damage type if you're against fiends, tieflings, or some dragons, but if you're getting more spells, chances are you'll end up with stronger off-element spells than Chromatic Orb to cast.

As well, overcoming resistance is pretty potent - the only other spell I know of that that does that is in the Elemental Evil Companion, and its 4th level. There's also the feat, which, while lame in damage boosts, gives ignoring resistance as well. There's nothing that can break immunity, and I suspect that's intentional at the moment - I don't know if I'd want that broken. If it was, I certainly think that a level 1 spell is not the place for it.

While thematically I like having this flavor to encourage less scholarly sorceror options, as well as helping enable mono damage type spell selections, I do not weigh the upsides of dragonblood orb as heavily as I do the downsides mechanically. So my personal perception is that they are close but chromatic orb is more effective strictly speaking.

Sorcerers are scholarly?

Putting aside my doubts about that, I'd also like to point out that there's no way to know what monsters are resistant/immune to some elemental magics. There's nothing in the Arcane, Religion, Nature, etc skills that suggest it, so its up to the DM how much they would know at any time as it is.

I also would imagine most of this would be fairly common knowledge or pretty obvious. Fiends (and thus tieflings), various fire-aligned elementals, and certain dragon/dragonborn bloodlines. Contstructs made of metal, maybe? I don't remember, and currently too lazy to check. I don't think there are there others that are fire resistant/immune, but rule of thumb - if it breathes, known to live in, or is made of fire, then chances are its resistant or immune.

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