(As promised, @Anuiran, here's the guide for you guys!)

My interest in a meteor build started back in the days when I first started playing Diablo 2. The sorceress was the first class I ever played and I remember looking through the strategy guide for the game, looking through the stats of skills she uses to figure out what kind of sorceress I wanted to make. When I came across meteor I knew I wanted to go with that spell. A spell that does that much damage has to be good, right? Well it ended up not working that well then. I know now there's Meteorb builds, but meteor is more of a supplementary skill and not it's own main focus.

Fast forward to Diablo 3, I started playing during the beta and the first character I tried out was the wizard. I saw that you could use Meteor later on and I immediately decided that that's what my wizard was going to do. I didn't care what it took, I was going to make it work.

After toying around with different skills and using the build for a good amount of time, here's the main pros and cons of it that I've learned:
Pros:
- You do a lot of damage. A lot.
- Great on lower monster power levels
- Well, it just looks cool.

Cons:
- Costs a lot of gold
- Not too great at single target fighting
- You're a lot more vulnerable compared to standard ET/WW CM wizards.
- I imagine it wouldn't be good at ubers (haven't tried it).

The build:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#PgYXhO!gZX!bcZZcc

With the casting cost of Meteor so big (50 arcane power) my mindset going into the build was to reduce the cost with skills and equipment enough to make the casting cost not that big of a deal. Sort of like with a standard ET/WW CM build and how you don't really care about your arcane power if you're build well enough, I wanted to transfer that to meteor.

Skills
Meteor: The meat and potatoes of the build. Wouldn't be a meteor build if there wasn't meteor! Meteor is actually a nice skill because each of the runes can be used. I've tried them all out and like Meteor Shower the best. It has the lowest proc rate ate 0.05, but because it such a range of effect, it seems you can reset your cooldowns faster than other skills.
Slow Time: I use the last rune, Stretch Time, for faster attack speed. Faster attack speed means faster casting of Meteor.
Frost Nova: Freezing things always makes meteoring easy to use. Without it enemies will move around too much making it harder to kill things. Cold Snap makes it so you can freeze things more often.
Diamond Skin: Prism. This is the reason why you feel more vulnerable. You're giving up damage absorption to make your spells cheaper.
Explosive Blast: Chain Reaction. This is the skill I'm not too sure on. You do more damage and when it crits your CM will activate, but I feel like there might be something better to put in it's place.
Energy Armor: Prismatic Armor. Still an all around good skill, and when you give up the damage absorbtion of Diamond Skin, you need as much defense to cover that loss.

Passives
Critical Mass: The build wouldn't work without it!
Blur: More defense. Always a good thing! Especially when you'll be close by enemies to freeze them.
Astral Presence: This isn't necessary, but more arcane power is a good thing, and the two arcane power regen a second is what makes it even better. Faster regen means you can cast more meteors. Instead of this you can use Evocation or even Cold Blooded.

Necessary Stats:
Critical hit chance. As high as you can get, but at least 40%. I've gotten mine to 50% and still don't feel like it's enough to make it a seamless, amazing build.
Attack speed. Again, as high as you can get, but at least 2.00. You don't want to be spending a ton of time casting your spells.
Resistances: Get around 500 all resists.
Arcane Power on Crit: Try to get max. If you can't, get at least 25 or so.
That's pretty much it. Everything else like crit damage is just an added bonus and should be how you improve your DPS.

You'll know this build is working right when it feels like the ET/WW CM build does. Although you are more prone to dying, so it's never going to feel exactly because that's just how it's going to be when using Prism for Diamond Skin. But if it goes well enough, you should kill things fast enough that it doesn't really matter.

If any of you guys have any questions, let me know. I'm sure I've forgotten something haha.

Thanks for the guide!

question!
with the low proc rate of meteor, how do you reset the cooldown of DS/FN? are you trying to supplement this by using EB?

Well like I said about meteor, Meteor Shower has a really low proc rate but because i has such a big range where it can damage enemies, that'll be what will do the most cool down resetting. The more enemies it hits, the more chances you have to proc crits and reset cool downs. Explosive Blast definitely helps too.

It's also why I said 50% crit chance doesn't seem like enough to make it as smooth as ET/WW because there's some downtime between meteors dropping. Although when I'm fighting a huge mob of enemies, like in Keep Depths two or any rare pack, I can almost have constant meteors dropping down.

Edit: Oh, and reflect damage really sucks against this build. But then again it pretty much sucks for everybody haha.

@NightCrawler9 I remember using Meteor/Star Pact a long time ago as this was the original CM build. Good guide!

i was really looking forward to this in 105 with my burning ax of sankis... i thought it would be pretty buff, but then the nerf took all the wind out of my sail

50% CC is pretty tough i think... esp with my limited budget... maybe in a future patch, they'll change the proc rate to something less ridiculous

OH! I forgot to mention; Anybody that want to try out this build should get a source that reduces the cost of Meteor by five. I'm partial to Tal Rasha's orbs, but Chantodo's would be better if you can get one with APoC (AKA you're rich).

And yeah, Star Pact is probably the second best rune. The only thing that sucks about it is the circle it makes is smaller than the other runs so you have to be more precise with your attacks.

Edit: I also really want to get a Skullgrasp, SoJ, and/or Mara's with cost reduction.

I have been occasionally rocking around my own Meteor Build. I also have the SoJ and Skull Grasp combo with a source to pull down the AP enough that if I used Star Pact it is close to Free Cast.

Since I've been switching between Archon for leveling I haven't fully committed to what gear I need to get to sustain the build, but my skill suggestions is that rather than Energy Armor to use Storm Armor: Power of the Storm rune for more reduced AP and the bonus lightning bolts that rain down dealing 100% weapon damage is good for those one or two stray enemies that get away. Dealing with Reflect Damage mobs seems to be dependant on your weapon and Force Weapon. I think if you used Force Weapon Blood Magic and had a 3.00 Life steal weapon you should have no problem with Reflect Damage mobs.

My friend recently picked up a Mara's which had reduced AP for Meteor and let me try it out... A full tank of AP let's me pull around 9 meteor showers before depletion. I haven't got much AP on crit nor am I using a proper Wizard Hat or Wand suitable for this build, and the problem with using Mara's or SoJ and Skull Grasp is that you've either got to be rich to get crit chance on them, or they are unavailable. So this build can become extremely expensive and can make or break it.

I think I will give Slow Time a try after reading this... though rocking this build in MP0 most things die on the first cast.

If anyone has a Wiz Hat or Wand that can help me improve my build I would be interested. Needs APoC, Max AP (The more Max AP the more you can shower down from a full tank).

Oh yeah, I had been trying out the Energy Armor rune. I didn't know how much 3 arcane power would change things but it seems to help quite a bit.

Every little bit of reduced AP and AP regen helps this build push out more DPS.

With that said, Tal Rasha's set bonus with an extra 2AP regen builds up if you stack all the other Regen skills. It's pretty cheap to get 4 Pieces of Tals if you're willing to settle for fail rolls or unpopular stats. I think I got 3 pieces for around 100k-200k each... The chest piece and amulet how ever is a different story.

Also I think it was already pointed out Attack Speed helps a lot, if you're not depleting your your AP tank before it regenerates then you haven't got enough attack speed and that equals to damage you're not dealing. Kind of makes me want a Lacuni... :/

Question: Do meteors proc LOH and if so, is it at a reduced rate or the same as twisters?

It does and at a reduced rate. Life Steal is probably more desired as the amount of damage you're dealing gets pretty high.

Just curious but is max AP regen limited to 16? The build is extremely fun with the Empowered Shrine. :)

Yeah, life on hit does work with Meteor but not that well. It cant hurt any to have a bunch, but as @Shihiko said, with the amount of damage you do life steal would probably work better.

I have no idea if it's limited to 16. That'd be weird if it did haha.

Sorry, I meant max we can achieve through skills and items. I think it's 16 right? 10 base, arcanot 2, astral presence 2 and TalRasha set bonus. If there is more ways that I am unaware of it would be pretty cool.

Only relying on APoC makes the build really expensive and with proc rates reduced its pretty depressing to think about. :/

Energy Armor/Energy Tap increases AP by 20
Additionally, all the signature spells have a rune that adds AP for every enemy hit by it. Often I use spectral blade between WW casts to recharge life. Something similar could possibly work for AP if you guys need it.

Posted by Shihiko at 11/10/2012 08:33 AM

I have been occasionally rocking around my own Meteor Build. I also have the SoJ and Skull Grasp combo with a source to pull down the AP enough that if I used Star Pact it is close to Free Cast.

Since I've been switching between Archon for leveling I haven't fully committed to what gear I need to get to sustain the build, but my skill suggestions is that rather than Energy Armor to use Storm Armor: Power of the Storm rune for more reduced AP and the bonus lightning bolts that rain down dealing 100% weapon damage is good for those one or two stray enemies that get away. Dealing with Reflect Damage mobs seems to be dependant on your weapon and Force Weapon. I think if you used Force Weapon Blood Magic and had a 3.00 Life steal weapon you should have no problem with Reflect Damage mobs.

My friend recently picked up a Mara's which had reduced AP for Meteor and let me try it out... A full tank of AP let's me pull around 9 meteor showers before depletion. I haven't got much AP on crit nor am I using a proper Wizard Hat or Wand suitable for this build, and the problem with using Mara's or SoJ and Skull Grasp is that you've either got to be rich to get crit chance on them, or they are unavailable. So this build can become extremely expensive and can make or break it.

I think I will give Slow Time a try after reading this... though rocking this build in MP0 most things die on the first cast.

If anyone has a Wiz Hat or Wand that can help me improve my build I would be interested. Needs APoC, Max AP (The more Max AP the more you can shower down from a full tank).

i've got a storm crow that you can use, add me?

Picked up a Meteor Mara's with Crit Chance to improve the CM procing for Slow Time and APoC. Was a bit more expensive than I expected it to be worth.

In battle with enough mobs, meteor is now infinite cast... with single mob targets Star Pact is infinite cast... Still in search of a good Wand with Life Steal, APoC, Max AP (I think this is optional now) and Socket/Crit Damage.

It seems a 2H with higher life steal allows you to survive an RD elite pack.

Posted by shniggies at 11/12/2012 02:32 PM

i've got a storm crow that you can use, add me?

I'll give it a shot. :)

Great build, I'll have to give it a shot. I've ran a similar build with blades instead of explosive blast. So much fun watching fire rain from the sky and a nice break from WW.

On a side note I found this meteor build on the D3 forums the other day and gave it a shot too:
Emporer's Raining Meteor Build
I added a bunch of APoC gear and dropped almost all my Att speed, the gear was super cheap at ~500k total. The reason for dropping the attach speed is since meteor ticks aren't based on speed it frees up space for more crit chance and damage cheaply. For white packs I never ran out of AP and when I did with elites a bit of kiting did the trick. The only downside was that with all the huge crits fighting any reflect damage mob is instant death if you don't have diamond shield up.

@argento good points about ias, i'll look into building this as well

That's a fun build. It just seems like you will die a lot more.

Thanks for the meteor build guide. I expect that would be a great explosive! Just like what happened to the meteor damage in Russia raining fiery meteorites over a big, populated area.