View source for Guide:Meteorb Sorc v1.10, by Sasja

===Why Meteor, Fire Ball and Fire Mastery?===
As already stated, Frozen Orb will not put a huge strain on your mana pool, so a lowish energy with 1 point in Warmth will be sufficient. This same setup is what should be used for a Meteor Sorceress. Meteor is also timered - there is a 1.2 second interval after you cast one Meteor before you can cast the next. That means quite low mana use so low energy and Warmth are in order. Though Meteor is not short ranged, it has the annoying delay between casting and impact which sometimes lets monsters reach you and get a few hits in before they're toast, making block and high vitality very important. The lightning attacks (Lightning, Nova, Chain Lightning), are non-timered and relatively mana hungry (need more Warmth and energy), long ranged and hit/stun instantly (making high vitality and block less important), so they don't fit the profile of Frozen Orb as well as Meteor.

Meteor also has a very high damage (more than 11000 impact damage once Meteor, Fire Mastery and Fire Ball are maxed), enough even for large multiplayer games in Hell. Fire Ball adds 5% to this per skill level, which is additionally increased by Fire Mastery (if you have Fire Mastery at skill level 20, each point in Fire Ball will actually add 13% to Meteor's damage).

Fire Ball is really the last but not least attraction of Meteor: you get a very useful non-timered attack for free. Having a non-timered attack which you can cast in the dead interval between your timered attacks makes for the highest damage output. Fire Ball, though untimered, has low enough casting cost to be usable with the low energy build we're looking at. Meteor and Fire Mastery in turn increase Fire Ball's damage (with 620% when both Meteor and Fire Mastery are maxed), so this combination really gets the most out of the synergies. Any level you may attain beyond 90 will add a point to Fire Bolt, increasing the damage of both Fire Ball and Meteor.

Some people wonder why it's not more advantageous to max Fire Bolt and be satisfied with one point in Fire Mastery as Fire Bolt gives almost the same bonus to Meteor as Fire Mastery (7% versus 5%) and double the bonus to Fire Ball (7% versus 14%). The reason is that Fire Mastery's 7% is added after the synergy bonus, whereas Fire Bolt's bonus only works on the base damage - a huge difference for the Meteorb who already has one maxed synergy for both Meteor and Fire Ball. Take an example with a Fire Ball of average base damage 250. The Meteorb's maxed Meteor adds 20 * 14% = 280% to that giving a total damage of
* 250 * (1 + 2.8) = 950

One more point in Fire Bolt means 14% extra synergy:
* 250 * (1 + 2.94) = 985

But put that point in Fire Mastery instead and she gets a 7% bonus to her whole damage:
* 950 * 1.07 = 1016.5

(Ignore for the moment that the first point in Fire Mastery gives a 30% bonus - the principle should be clear).

However, at high levels Fire Bolt gains on Fire Mastery, especially for Fire Ball. If you feel that you end up using Fire Ball more than Meteor, you may save some points from Fire Mastery and put them in Fire Bolt instead. This is even more notable with a lot of +skills, as they will not help your synergies but will add to your Mastery.

As a rule of thumb, if you play untwinked or mostly have low level items, you'll probably use Meteor as much as if not more than Fire Ball and not have that many +skills - so use the suggested skill point distribution. If you're twinking and will end up with more than +10 skills and feel more comfortable with Fire Ball, think about putting up to 5 points in Fire Bolt instead of Fire Mastery. If you're planning an mf-career for your Meteorb (see end game notes), bear in mind that she will have fewer +skills in full mf gear. Never take less than 10 points in Fire Mastery, as that will hurt your Meteor a lot and not be that much better for your Fire Ball. Check the skill calculator to finetune the optimal skill point distribution, bearing in mind that it doesn't count the after burning of Meteor which is enhanced by Fire Mastery but not by Fire Ball/Bolt.