Charged Bolt

Creates multiple, randomly directed bolts of electrical energy.

Charged Bolt is the Sorceress's level 1 Lightning skill, with no prerequisite, and the root of the tree: it unlocks Lightning. It fires a fan of small lightning bolts that wander outward from the Sorceress, each hitting one target. The numbers that decide it are the count of bolts, 22 at level 20 and never more than 24, and the damage of each, 13–15 at level 20 before synergies.

The numbers

The bolt count is calc1, min(24, ln12): Param1 is 3 (the table's "# of Bolt Missiles created baseline") and Param2 adds 1 a level, capped at 24, which is reached at level 22. The count reads lvl, so +skills add bolts up to the cap.

The damage per bolt comes from the EMin/EMax columns, halved by HitShift 7. The minimum starts at 2 and grows +0.5 a level to level 8, +0.5 to 16, +1 to 22, +1.5 to 28 and +2 a level past that; the maximum starts at 4 and grows by the same steps, so the range is always 2 wide: 6–8 at level 10, 13–15 at level 20, 28–30 at level 30.

Mana is 3 at level 1 and 0.5 more a level (mana 24, lvlmana 4, manashift 5): 12.5 at level 20.

How it works

Each bolt is a missile (srvmissile "chargedbolt"); the Basin's page says they are size 1 and destroyed on collision, so one bolt hits one target, but several bolts can hit the same target. That is the whole skill: the damage the tooltip prints is per bolt, and what a target takes is that damage times the bolts that reach it. The bolts disperse as they travel, so the Basin's page calls the skill most effective at close range, and notes the cursor's position does not steer the fan, only the direction you cast in does. It is lightning damage, reduced by the target's lightning resistance, see Dealing Elemental Damage and Resistances and Immunities; as a spell it needs no attack rating.

The Basin's page measured where to stand once the count is at 24: a size 2 target is hit by all 24 bolts from the best positions, and teleporting onto a selected size 2 target puts you in one of them; a size 1 target takes at most 16 of 24 (8 if you teleport onto it) and a size 3 target at most 21 (16 if you teleport onto it).

Every charged bolt that hits a target with Chilling Armor triggers a Chilling Armor bolt back; the Basin's page raises it for the Pandemonium Event's Izual and Baal.

Synergies and +skills

• Lightning: +6% lightning damage per level (skills.txt Param8 = 6; the calc reads skill('Lightning'.blvl), hard points only).
• Charged Bolt in turn feeds Lightning (+8% a hard point) and Chain Lightning (Chain Lightning).
• The damage and the bolt count both read lvl, so +skills raise both, up to the 24-bolt cap.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else, see Player versus Player; each bolt is such a hit. The Basin's page gives no other rule for Charged Bolt against players.

Build notes

• Bolts stop growing at level 22; past that, points and +skills only raise the damage per bolt, and the +1.5 and +2 brackets are where that damage is.
• Hard points in Charged Bolt are +8% each to Lightning, which is the reason a Lightning Sorceress keeps putting points into it after the bolts are capped.
• The 2-wide damage range makes the bolt count the only variable that matters at the target: standing on a size 2 monster at level 22 or more is the difference between 8 and 24 hits.