Diablo III- Skills Article CXXXXII: The Wizard, Force Skills- Meteor

Meteor (60 Arcane Power): Two seconds after you trigger the skill, a fiery meteor will smash into the ground at the target location, dealing 200% weapon damage as Fire damage to all enemies in its area (radius roughly 4 yards).  The area hit remains on fire for 3 seconds, and deals 20% weapon damage as Fire damage to all enemies within it each second.

Meteor is an old favorite skill of the Wizard and Sorceress from Diablo and Diablo II, and being such an iconic spell, it only makes sense that it would return- the only more predictable returning spell being, naturally, Blizzard.  Meteor can be a bit difficult to use without movement-restricting effects- its area of effect isn’t large (though it’s not tiny) and the delay on the arrival of the damage can be fatal if you’re not prepared.  On the other hand, the delay is slow enough that it’s not too hard to predict where the enemy is going to be.  The damage is very nice, though it’s hard to afford the cost for multiple Meteors.  This skill is best used against bosses unless you have battlefield control available (yours or your party members’) to keep enemies corralled in a small area.  Despite the poor damage typing, the amount of damage is so high you’re not likely to mind.

Molten Impact (60 Arcane Power): Two seconds after you trigger the skill, a fiery meteor will smash into the ground at the target location, dealing 260% weapon damage as Fire damage to all enemies in its area (radius roughly 4 yards).  The area hit remains on fire for 3 seconds, and deals 26% weapon damage as Fire damage to all enemies within it each second.

Just in case Meteor wasn’t dealing enough damage yet, Molten Impact is your first rune.  Not much to say but ‘and then I do it even harder’.

Star Pact (35 Arcane Power): Two seconds after you trigger the skill, a fiery meteor will smash into the ground at the target location, dealing 200% weapon damage as Arcane damage to all enemies in its area (radius roughly 4 yards).  The area hit remains on fire for 3 seconds, and deals 20% weapon damage as Arcane damage to all enemies within it each second.

Star Pact is an amazing rune for Meteor- not only does it fix the damage typing (not that it needs it all too badly) to something less frequently resisted, it cuts the cost of Meteor almost perfectly in half.  Star Pact is much easier to keep up a barrage of, making it far more usable against non-boss enemies.  On top of that, it’s -extremely- sparkly and shiny, which is very fun to watch.

Meteor Shower (60 Arcane Power): Two seconds after you trigger the skill, a cluster of seven fiery meteors will smash into the ground randomly near the target location (a 12-yard radius area), dealing 80% weapon damage as Fire damage each to all enemies in their areas (radius roughly 2 yards).

Meteor Shower is a conversion of Meteor that is not only slightly more effective against large bosses (Hi, Azmodan!) than the original skill, but is also vastly more viable against clusters of enemies.  The cost is a little prohibitive, but the damage is freqently enough to all but wipe out even large clusters of Fallen, who have some resistance against Fire, and leave them easy pickings for your Primary skill or an alternative area skill.  Just don’t waste it against single person-sized targets.

Comet (60 Arcane Power): Two seconds after you trigger the skill, a fiery meteor will smash into the ground at the target location, dealing 240% weapon damage as Cold damage to all enemies in its area (radius roughly 4 yards).  The area hit remains on fire for 3 seconds, and deals 24% weapon damage as Cold damage to all enemies within it each second.  Any creature damaged by either effect has its movement Slowed by 60% for 3 seconds.

Once you’ve trained your aiming with Meteor, Comet gives you an amazing resource for obstructing single targets (and small clusters) while dealing even more damage to them.  Visually very pretty (the area of effect is encircled by tall ice stalagmites), Comet is an excellent boss-staggering spell as well as useful in small chokepoints that you will find here and there.  As with the original Meteor, try not to rely on it against common mobs- only thickly clustered groups of enemies and individual powerful foes.

Liquefy (60 Arcane Power): Two seconds after you trigger the skill, a fiery meteor will smash into the ground at the target location, dealing 200% weapon damage as Fire damage to all enemies in its area (radius roughly 4 yards).  The area hit remains on fire for 3 seconds, and deals 20% weapon damage as Fire damage to all enemies within it each second.  If you score a critical hit with the initial meteor strike, the area hit remains on fire for 8 seconds and deals 20% weapon damage as Fire damage to all enemies within it each second.

Although it’s a little unreliable for most, Liquefy is an amazing rune for critical-happy Wizards, since an 8-second duration on the area damage is more than enough to call down regular Liquefy strikes and either keep a specific location on fire for a large period of time- or alternately, to set a lot of areas on fire.  Since it’s reliant on critical hits, though, this form of Meteor is best used by those who can target and time it really well to hit clusters of enemies- it’s just not as good against bosses.  This is actually a bit of a weakness on the part of the rune, since Meteor forms other than Meteor Shower generally aren’t as good as other alternative skills against groups of enemies to begin with.