Well, if the build in the video is supposed to be the endgame Meteor build, then I’m not surprised people think Meteor is bad.
Lot of silly remarks too, for example he mentions casting “one Meteor every 3 minutes in a bossfight”.
Maybe he meant to say “Every 3 seconds?” Since Meteor has a passive to refund upto 48% of its cost over 3 seconds.
Ive been playing a sorcerer myself. Decided to go fire, fell in love with elemnova. Now im basicly doing “both”. I seldom cast meteor by itself and instead reserve that for the Armaggeddon node in Black Hole.
I should mention, The recasting-cluster in the bottom right of Frost claw can also trigger Gift of Winter. So with the 2nd and 3rd cast, plus the reverse-cast. you have 5 chances per cast, to trigger Gift of Winter. Though you’ll need to convert it to lightning/fire cus you will absolutely want mana Spark of Celerity with extra casts.
EDIT:
I looked at some numbers and in regards with Frost claw, and at best you will gain something like +0.57 mana per cast on average from -6 cost and +60% efficiency. At best it minimizes its own cost and will do practically nothing to give you increased mana regen.
Not all builds are endgame viable. In fact most are not.
I mean I guess it depends on what you consider to be endgame, right?
Maybe it’s better I say… Not all builds are created equal. Some are extremely strong and some are extremely weak. And there’s everything in between. As it should be.
From personal experience, it was along time ago sure, but I had a high level Fire Meteor Sorc with extremely good gear (I’ve been playing this for years so my bank is full of great gear), and I’d rate that build as “weak” for “endgame”. So much so I deleted the char to make room for something else (we were limited to 20 online chars pre-1.0).
Not sure that helps, but it’s my experience with that build.
Personally I also play a sorcerer leaning into fire, Specced into fireball early and then later meteor. At present I only use Meteor in junction with Black Hole’s Armaggeddon for bosses.
Otherwise ive specced into Elemental Nova primarily.
The best bet as far as I know is to build around spell crit and then use Harbinger of Stars to autocast meteors.
Other than that, the best way to build around meteort that ive seen is going Lightning sorcerer and building into Critical strikes, since lightning spells benefit Double from Crackling Precision. There is also the Vilatria Set That lets you turn meteor into lightning.
(This seems like the best way to build around Meteor right now)
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I’ve been trying every possible combination of skills and passsives to make a viable meteor build and I think I’m in the best spot so far. Made my fireball become a machine gun and I’m using meteor only for bosses or rare enemies. But now my meteor costs 197 mana, two casts and I’m in -90 mana. I die too often bc I’m oom to use teleport or flame ward. And even in this best spot I am right now, can’t even go past 150 corruption bc my damage seems underwhelming. I think my build will only works when I get my 2 LP uniques. Even playing CoF, I couldn’t drop 2 LP uniques for my build. But I got a lot of 2 LP for my Acid Flask Falconeer, so I just started playing it instead.
Well, I really do not want to play Lightning Meteors. I really like fire as an element. And I’m investing in crit, my Meteors have 100% crit chance, my fireballs have a least 60% and they fires really fast. I’m playing with a wand and a catalyst using the Runemaster’s crit multiplier passive. Only now I’ve capped all my resists, including avoid critical strikes. But even not dying, I just cannot deal enough damage to the high corruption bosses and bc the fight becomes so long, I just die for making mistakes.
About Frost Claw…
I looked at some numbers
I’m afraid your math is incorrect, plus Claw builds usually run idols with additional Mana Efficiency. But videos are better than words, so here’s some guy I found on youtube who isn’t a Meteor build, but uses Meteors with Frost Claw.
Honestly just adding uniques with covert to cold or lightning would be a good start (the greens can do lightning but we need it on uniques or the skill tree itself). The major issue with the skill tree itself is that the fall speed casting speed has a +mana cost. This hurts scaling later. Additionally, there is only fire pen on the passives, and should have elemental pen for meteors. Also there is a “faster spawn speed” option on the right side of the tree but its really unclear what it does do to saying “does not impact meteor spawn rates”.
I would not advocate for to much more than that. My meteors are doing good damage rates they just drop off, which tells me the problem is probably more likely pen/cast speed options and since cast speed is an option but makes it impractical i’d be willing to bet thats where the issues are.
On another note i will also add that the standard for “focus” and “ascendence” should not be to root, it should be to grant a buff that does the intended effect. for example after you activate the skill you get x mana regen etc on focus. The root effect makes these abilities not only impractical for their risk-reward but also very annoying. the standard should be a buff, and the exception (an skill upgrade with more power) should apply root.
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I played a black hole meteor sorc before 1.0. Used lightning strike as my main skill, kept the black hole for bosses. It didn’t do well. I struggled with mana, had to run around and wait for mana to regen to cast it again. It is not an effective build at all.
Here you go.
https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/oRP8ZXRQ
- Passive 30 Mana Regen/s. Makes sure you can always cast Frost Claw and Fire Ward.
- Frost Claw converted to Fire. Spam skill. Replenishes Mana. Gives lots of Ward on its own + even more Ward from Runemaster passive tree.
- Focus is our Traversal skill. It’s a Teleport, but costs zero mana. After teleporting you stay still for 1s to get that big burst of mana if you need it. Also gives some Ward.
- Meteor max Craterborn for Claw, max Mana Efficiency - costs 88/cast. Rest is Damage. Also gives Ward thanks to Sorcerer passive tree.
- Fire Ward specced for DR% and extra DPS. Linked setup has three charges.
Exalted gear with CoC Meteor belt as the only Legendary since everyone seems to like it 
To me, it appears that combining teleport’s mana refund node with Meteor’s refund node, allows you to cast Meteor for free, AND additionally regain 48% of the total cost over 3 seconds.
Just to preface this, I was looking specifically into Frost Claw’s viability as a mana-generation source in place of Mana strike. And whether Gift of Winter on Frost claw is actually capable of increasing your mana generation more than Mana Strike.
Though you were right that the math was incorrect.
I looked at it more extensively and it appears That, at 5 recasts, you get an average of 21.6 mana per cast. My mistake was looking at only “At least 1 proc” Instead of extensively looking at all scenarios. Once I looked at “Exactly N procs” per cast, And then multiplied that by the amount of N * 12 (the exact mana gained) Then multiplied it by the chance for that outcome.
All of this can be simplified to MaxProcs * ManaGained * ProcChance. so 5 * 12 * 0.36 = 21.6
For me personally, I play purely through Harbinger. So I’ll get as much attack speed as I can, use ranged Mana Strike, have it proc Frost Claw, and then use those 2 to infinitely cast meteors. Once you get to high levels of crit, it’s pretty much infinitely sustainable. The higher mana you get, the more meteor spam you can sustain. It’s a good time. I ended up having to convert to a pure Lightning meteor just because there wasn’t enough support there, fire wise, to keep that element going.
You can also do some funny stuff with the Lightning blast dagger and the Spark Charge catalyst if you try to play Fire version.
To me, it appears that combining teleport’s mana refund node with Meteor’s refund node, allows you to cast Meteor for free, AND additionally regain 48% of the total cost over 3 seconds.
Correct. That’s why I said that his isn’t a Meteor build.
All of this can be simplified to MaxProcs * ManaGained * ProcChance. so 5 * 12 * 0.36 = 21.6
Now add Casts per Second and you’ll get average Mana per Second, ie. a value you can compare to other mana generation sources.
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Yeah my thoughts are the same as AYZ, I’d go ranged mana strike / harbinger with a crit build. Some of the basic bones of what I’m thinking are here:
The idea that Mana Strike is “ruined” by the ranged option is kinda silly to me - with it set up the way it is there, you get back 9 mana on a non-crit, 15 mana on a crit. And you have it auto targeting at range, so you’re just spamming this thing and having huge mana regen on top of your normal mana regen and Meteor giving you back 15 mana a second as well.
So you’re getting off a Meteor like once a second, and if your mana pool is high enough, it’s for Huge auto-crit damage. You don’t have the whole scatter effect which both keeps the mana cost reasonable since you want to use this as often as possible and have it actually hit the target (and helps keep you in range for auto-crits), and of course there’s plenty of sources of penetration, resistance shredding, and bonuses to fire damage and spell damage available.
I won’t be trying a meteor build myself for quite a while yet, I’m not even in end-game, so I have no idea how well something like this would work in practice or what would actually be good supporting skills beyond the crucial combo of meteor and mana strike. Might be you still need Focus to top off because you cast too frequently off your many crits, and may be that it still feels underwhelming. But I’m just saying, you’re complaining of an issue you’ve built for yourself with your skill setup, while rejecting the solutions the game is providing for that issue. It’s not surprising to me that when doing so your results are not ideal.