Absolutely not, Meteor without Vilatra is basically a death-sentence for meteor. It’s the BiS item for Meteor and offers everything which is extremely powerful for it. Lightning conversion, massive %inc which has a ridiculous scaling with Meteor, Mana and shock duration which ensures follow-up meteors will do massive damage still even if you run out of mana shortly.
The most important bit is the lightning conversion though as the skill tree of meteor has a scaling option more powerful then anything else in the game solely for that one.
Absolutely agreed!
That’s why some items in this build are definitely a kinda must-have.
So to come to it as I’ve talked in-depth about Meteor builds 2-3 times now here’s the summary @Erasculio :
Skills:
Meteor has a synergy build based on Fireball, that’s heavily recommended as you can trigger multiple casts of meteor with a single fireball cast. That’s the highest recommended thing to do right away. This way you can avoid using Elemental Nova. Both in conjunction fare… rather poorly.
Meteor itself: Skill into ‘Stardust’, that’s 100% MORE damage since you do lightning damage, you don’t need Vilatra if you don’t use this node, why convert to Lightning otherwise? If you use the Fireball trigger as well then cast-speed reduced through ‘Infernal Descent’ also has no meaning, hence those 2 nodes provides 150% MORE damage which is utterly massive. 9 Points needed there, so here how to get em:
Removing Apocalyptic Impact (3)
3 removed from ‘Crushing Force’
Removing ‘Mana Falls’ and ‘Distant Craters’. (together 3)
That makes all 9 points and provides you with more then double your current damage output right away.
Obviously this means something has to go. I would recommend re-speccing into Fireball as mentioned, also Teleport. Teleport is basically a mandatory skill, solely using Evade is getting you killed. Having access to a movement skill and not using it is a extreme handicap.
That means Black Hole and Elemental Nova go, Instead putting Fireball and Teleport inside.
It looks initially like it wouldn’t be as survivable but it’s TON more so, especially with the follow up:
Passives:
Damage wise one important thing to use is ‘Rift Bolt’, since you’re not using a low-life build currently that’s a extremely powerful method of scaling extra damage, each layer of multiplication is massive in itself when used in conjunction. Base damage, more damage, inc damage, crit and pen should if possible be used as much as possible together. Multiplication is stronger then addition after all.
6 Points needed there.
‘Arcane Insight’ is plainly spoken a useless skill for the investment. Even at 100 Int it’s only 500 threshold… that’s ridiculously low. Other means work a lot better.
Frees up 8 points.
The 5 points in ‘Elemental Ascendance’ can be better used in ‘Elemental Affinity’ on the Spellblade tree, 5% more ele res. The stun isn’t all that powerful, if you use a trigger for Meteor you free up a ton of usable space for skills and can use a unspecced ‘Snap Freeze’ even, which is a more reliable and direct ‘Oh shit!’ button.
‘Sphere of Protection’ is basically one of the strongest defensive skills with any elemental skill used. Heavily recommended.
8 points needed.
‘Essence of Celerity’ can be really helpful since it provides mobility, since your trigger would be Fireball with high cast speed that means you’re also going to have full stacks of ‘Arcane Momentum’ nearly all the time. Provided the points in momentum are kept low.
So a total of 8 Points for the synergy there.
So, that’s obviously a lot of points needed, so something has to go. Plainly spoken ‘Afterglow’ (8 points) is a really minimal reward for the investment, even at doubled value it just kinda… sucks.
‘Warder’ (5 Points) is a really awful passive no matter what, even as a Elemental Nova main skill it’s only 22,5 Ward/Second at most, with perfect precision in usage.
All of that provide a surplus of 5 free passive points again. Which hence can be used rather freely. ‘Ceraunomancer’, ‘Elemental Ascendance’ (which you already have so potentially keeping them in) or ‘Chronomancy’ are the 3 prime candidates, whichever is most needed. Mind you with ‘Sphere of Protection’ shocking enemies means taking less damage.
So over to gear, there’s a lot here to say:
Chestpiece is definitely not powerful for you. You’re not a main Elemental Nova mage, hence it’s a waste. Better options include either low-life focus with ‘Exsanguinous’ (you need to remove the recommended lightning pen from the tree then and focus on stacking Health to the mana on top) or ‘Wall of Nothing’ because it has basically everything you need. No damage taken, ward generation, ward Threshold and a potential Synergy for Endurance towards ward to increase the baseline amount you have in a stable manner.
Amulet: Use the DoT reduction base of possible. Also the set-Affix is useless, that focuses on Elemental Nova. Yes it provides a point in Meteor but that’s really not worth ‘wasting’ 2 Affix slots in total (The lightning one is good). Instead Lightning pen, Lightning damage, Health, Mana, res… whichever is most needed.
Belt: Use another Sealed affix if you don’t go for life-stacking, really bad one. Cleansing is great, Mana Regen is extremely powerful for you offensively and defensively as well as potentially the experimental Mana regen on potion use one since you’re stacking potion slots with that belt anyway and it synergizes well.
Relic: Twisted Heart is massively stronger. Extra ward and the + skill on it. Also extra strong without the low-life version of your build.
Gloves: Either ‘Liath’s Machination’ for the synergy of Fireball into Meteor, or trying to get ‘Ravenous Void’ with at least 1 LP for Experimental armor to DoT or a if you go with low-life then Ward for Missing life.
Rings: Late-game either Red Ring, second best option high LP ‘Julra’s Stardial’ directly followed for a well rolled ‘Swaddling of the Erased’.
The non-unique option is simply Int, Lightning damage, Mana regen, Invoker set for flat spell, Health, res, Ward per Second, Crit avoidance potentially. Whichever routes you go.
Idols:
The 4 slot is not really good, looks great! But doesn’t do as much as 4 small idols instead.
For the 3 slots the optimal combo is actually Mana and Mana/Armour combo, using 4 of those is massive for your build. Enchantments are optimally: either melee/spell damag flat or armor/reduced crit. Ward-second/threshold is also good.
The 2 slot idols can go.
The 2x2 Idol as well.
Blessings:
The one for Mana can be exchanged with Lightning Shred if all other gear is up to par, until the Mana is the best choice.
If you can get into crit reduction rather then avoidance then moving the Blessing for that over to all res saves up a TON of Affix space overall.
Same with Phys res, should you get the space then %Armor is a great choice there later on.
If you go with ‘Wall of Nothing’ then changing Frailty on hit to Endurance is a fantastic choice for some extra EHP, Frailty works great though.
That should be everything coming to mind right away.