Maelstrom or Meteor Shower?

Coming up on the Forgotten with their groups of casters in the desert, I've been wondering which skill would be nice to use on them, both for caster interrupting and damage potential. I've been using Maelstrom so far and that seems pretty effective, but I read that Meteor Shower does pretty well.
Maelstrom seems more cost efficient than Meteor S with 4sec cast and 30 recharge as opposed to 5sec 60 recharge for Meteor S.
Do they have the same area of effect?
Which one would do more damage in 10 secs? Maelstrom deals dmg every sec and interrupts when it hits right? I know I can't get off any spells at all while I'm in one (E/W) ...

I often use it just for it's interrupting ability. Keep those Hydras from casting Meteor FTW!

Depends on if you use water magic or fire magic, really. Also, note that Meteor Shower does NOT hit with every meteor, it's usually like 3 meteors in the time frame, while Malestrom will do damage every second that it goes off, and each damage shot will inturrupt casting spells - they wont even be able to use flare or ice spear. But I wouldnt dip into fire magic purely for Meteor Shower, nor would I do the same for water magic and Maelstrom - I'm a hydromancer, so Maelstrom is the easy choice for me, but just watch the exhaustion on it, it's brutal.

I use a combination of of cripple/arterial slash/meteor shower and deal roughly between 90-110 depending the armor class of the mobs in question. My sword does the rest

Thanks guys!

Btw, does anyone know if the area of effect for these two spells is the same?

Hmm, that is a really good question actually. I've spend a lot of time killing ice imps, and although I haven't used water magic that often I sort of think meteor shower has a greater range. Believe me, I've spent a lot of time nuking as well. Fire is definitely the heavy damage dealing element, but I think it lacks when it comes to interrupting. Or any other nasty things that some of the other elements do. However as it was said above, not all meteors hit.. but I believe with maelstorm as long as you're in range it hits you.

I hate maelstorm. I think water magic is incredibly underestimated. Once I am bored with my earth magic I think I'll mess around with water

personally i think maelstrom has a bigger range.

Maelstrom's range is bigger than a lot of people think, and this lack of knowledge is one of the few things that makes it worth carrying in PVP - that and the 250 damage it does to the stationary NPCs, of course. I've seen all manner of casters move out of what they think the range of Maelstrom is, and have some big spell popped.

Water magic is exceedingly effective, because while it doesnt have the raw damage of air, most of it's attacks are AoE to some point, and allmost EVERYTHING slows the target's at least for a little bit. It's brutal in GvG/PvP - there is no escape from an angry hydromancer with enough energy to cast any of his slow spells.

Hmm... there seems to be a bit of nonconsensus (word?) that perhaps merits some kind of experiment...
Let's see,
three tanks in a line
and a monk nearby to make sure they don't die when I Maelstrom/Meteor Shower the one in the middle...
Anyone up for it?

Quote "that and the 250 damage it does to the stationary NPCs, of course."
Stationary NPCs? You've been storming the villagers???