Lightning Bolt

Magically converts your javelin into a bolt of lightning.

Lightning Bolt is a level 12 Amazon throw (Javelin and Spear tree, requires Poison Javelin; it unlocks Charged Strike and Plague Javelin). The thrown javelin becomes a bolt of lightning: the weapon's physical damage is converted to lightning in full and a lightning charge is added on top. The numbers that decide it are the charge, 1–380 at level 20 before synergies, and the conversion, 100% of 75% weapon damage.

The numbers

• Lightning Damage has a minimum fixed at 1 (EMin 1, every EMinLev column 0). The maximum is EMax 40 at level 1 and grows in the brackets of the EMaxLev columns: +12 a level to level 8, +18 to 16, +28 to 22, +48 to 28, +88 past that: 88 at level 5, 160 at 10, 250 at 15, 380 at 20, 580 at 25, 900 at 30. The Basin's page writes the same brackets.
• Weapon damage is a constant 75% (SrcDam 96, the tooltip's 96 × 100 ÷ 128), and the tooltip's conversion line is a constant 100%: all of that physical damage becomes lightning. Both columns are dropped above because they never change.
• Mana is 6 at level 1 (mana 24 with manashift 6) and rises 0.25 a level (lvlmana 1): 10.75 at level 20. The Basin's page writes it as 5.75 + 0.25 × slvl.
• Each throw spends one javelin (decquant 1), and the row allows javelins only (itypea1 jave). There is no ToHit column: the bolt has no attack-rating bonus and needs none.

The damage line reads lvl; the synergy reads blvl.

How it works

The throw launches the lightningjavelin missile, which the Basin's page describes as a long-range single-target attack that always hits and cannot be blocked. The whole hit is lightning: 75% of the weapon's physical damage is converted (the Critical Strike page lists Lightning Bolt among the conversions that its doubling reaches first), and the skill's own 1–380 is added, all of it against the target's Lightning Resist under Dealing Elemental Damage.

By the Basin's page, the conversion carries most of the weapon's modifiers but not all. Not applied: magic, fire, cold and poison damage on the weapon and their lengths, life stolen and mana stolen per hit, chance to cast on attack, and Prevent Monster Heal. A Lightning Bolt never leeches.

The same page says Lightning Skill Damage from items multiplies the skill's own damage only: neither the converted weapon damage nor Lightning Damage added by items is raised by it. The synergies raise the maximum only; the minimum stays at 1.

The Basin's page lists +3 to Lightning Bolt on the Thunderstroke matriarchal javelin.

Synergies and +skills

Four synergy lines, each +3% lightning damage per level: Power Strike, Charged Strike, Lightning Strike and Lightning Fury (EDmgSymPerCalc, Param8 3, all read as hard points). Lightning Bolt's own hard points feed the same four skills in turn, at their rates. +skills from items raise the maximum, not the synergy terms.

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; the bolt still cannot miss or be blocked, and the whole of it then meets the other player's lightning resistance. The Basin's page says nothing more about this skill against players.

Build notes

• Level 20: 1–380 lightning plus 75% weapon damage as lightning, every throw lands, 10.75 mana and one javelin.
• The four synergies are worth 12% a level combined, against the bracket's 48–88 a level past 20; the hard points a lightning Amazon already holds in Charged Strike and Lightning Fury are the bulk of its damage.
• A bolt that cannot miss or be blocked needs no attack rating; what it needs is lightning getting through resistance, and nothing on the weapon but physical damage and lightning damage counts.
• The conversion means no leech on this skill; the javelin stack is the only thing it spends besides mana.