Lightning Strike

Adds lightning damage to javelin and spear class weapons and releases chain lightning upon impact.

Lightning Strike is a level 30 Amazon attack (Javelin and Spear tree, requires Charged Strike; it unlocks nothing). One javelin or spear thrust carries a lightning charge and, on impact, releases a chain of lightning that arcs from enemy to enemy, each link carrying the same charge. The numbers that decide it are the charge, 1–295 at level 20 before synergies, and the chain, 21 hits at level 20.

The numbers

• Lightning Damage has a minimum fixed at 1 (EMin 1, every EMinLev column 0). The maximum is EMax 25 at level 1 and grows in the brackets of the EMaxLev columns: +10 a level to level 8, +15 to 16, +20 to 22, +25 to 28, +30 past that: 65 at level 5, 125 at 10, 200 at 15, 295 at 20, 410 at 25, 545 at 30. The Basin's page writes the same brackets.
• Hits are calc2, ln34: Param3 is the baseline of 2 and Param4 adds 1 a level, so 2 at level 1, 6 at 5, 11 at 10, 21 at 20, 31 at 30. The Basin's page writes it as 1 + slvl.
• Mana is a flat 9 (mana 9, lvlmana 0); the column is dropped above because it never changes.
• The jump radius is Param1 20 (calc1 "range of bolt missiles", aurarangecalc), which the Basin's page gives as 13 1/3 yards. The row has no ToHit column, so the thrust has no attack-rating bonus; the Basin's page gives the weapon damage as 100%, and nothing is converted (calc4 0). The row allows the spear item type (itypea1 spea), javelins and spears.

The damage and hits lines read lvl; the synergy reads blvl.

How it works

Lightning Strike is a melee attack with one Chance to Hit roll for the thrust; by the Basin's page the weapon damage is applied only by a successful attack, while the chains (the row's lightningstrike missiles) cannot be blocked. The thrust deals the weapon's physical damage under Dealing Physical Damage plus the lightning charge, and each link of the chain deals the same charge again, all of it against Lightning Resist under Dealing Elemental Damage.

The chain needs company: by the Basin's page, lightning only chains if another target stands within 13 1/3 yards, and otherwise it travels harmlessly off-screen. It can return to a target it has already hit only once the next-hit delay, 4 frames by the same page, has expired; the displayed chain does not always show which targets were hit.

The Basin's page adds that the skill level is applied on the attack while Lightning Skill Damage is applied to each link as it is created, and that the synergies raise the maximum only; the minimum stays at 1.

The Basin's page lists +3 to Lightning Strike on the Thundergod's Vigor war belt and the skill as a charged suffix on spears and gloves.

Synergies and +skills

Three synergy lines, each +11% lightning damage per level: Power Strike, Lightning Bolt and Charged Strike (EDmgSymPerCalc, Param8 11, all read as hard points). The Basin's page records a fourth, Lightning Fury, at 8% each in the 1.10–1.13 game; the current row names only three. Lightning Strike's own hard points feed Power Strike, Lightning Bolt, Charged Strike and Lightning Fury in turn. +skills from items raise the maximum and the hit count, 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 thrust and each link are separate hits, each cut on its own and each then meeting the other player's lightning resistance. The Basin's page says nothing more about this skill against players.

Build notes

• Level 20: 1–295 lightning on the thrust and on each of up to 21 links, full weapon damage on the thrust, 9 mana.
• The synergies are worth 33% a level combined against the bracket's 25–30 a level, and its own points feed four skills back: Charged Strike's and Power Strike's hard points are where the damage comes from.
• The hit count grows one a level with no cap, so +skills past 20 buy a link each; the links need targets within 13 1/3 yards of each other to be spent.
• The thrust needs attack rating and the skill gives none: Penetrate and the weapon's own bonus carry it.