About mechanics

General Discussion
1

Hi everyone. I’m new in game and started Javazon. Now i’m trying to understand mechanics.
Which from this modificators valuable, which not?
-Increased Attack Speed
-Fast Cast Rate
-Mana/life leech
-Hit recovery

AFAIN, life/mana leech works only with physical damage. If i use lighting skills, leech is useless? Then why every javazon guide in internet advice me to get items with leech?

IAS, as i understand - musthave, more IAS=more damage

What about fast cast rate? It’s just for faster animation? Or it/s somehow increase javazon damage?

Hit recovery? How much needed? Which breakpoint should be my target?

Need your advice. And what else is important? What i’m missing? infinity on merc- i/m trying but no good runes drop yet, seems to me it will take ages to get this damn ber

2

-Increased Attack Speed
This is valuable as your abilities are all attacks. Use a calculator to see where the breakpoints are. This will be one of your greatest damage increases, but also a huge mana sink. Insight merc is recommended.

-Fast Cast Rate
Irrelevant except for CtA prebuff or teleport. In any case, amazons have awful cast rate breakpoints, so you can never achieve something meaningful here. I’d disregard it completely.

-Mana/life leech
Only works with the physical portion of your attack, as you already noted. You actually deliver a physical attack/throw to the targeted monster. Your lightning skill then procs, regardless of whether you actually hit. The life/mana leech is calculated based on the physical damage dealt, so you need to land the hit to recover. Note that Lightning Bolt will convert physical damage to lightning, rendering it less effective for leeching than your other abilities. Also note that your initial attack, if it is a throw, can pierce targets and hit multiple times. This not only makes Lighting Fury amazing, but provides additional leech.

-Hit recovery
Great to have. You will go into hit recovery animation whenever you receive damage amounting to more than 1/12 of your life. You cannot do anything until the animation is finished. Amazons have good FHR tables. You start from 11 frames and drop it to 8 with just 20 FHR. 20/32/52 for 8/7/6 frames are reasonable breakpoints to hit probably without much investment. The full table is something like
-0—6–13–20–32–52–86 fhr
11-10—9—8—7—6—5 frames

Infinity is great, but I consider it a luxury. There are 2 Bers you need to find - mind that :slight_smile: 1 pt in jab with some crushing blow and an adequate mercenary does well against immunes. You can also just skip most of them. There are wands with Lower resist charges, if you use such stuff. I find it tedious, plus amazons are slow casters. Still, you use such wands, use the cube to repair charges.

I can’t think of much more. You don’t need AR, have no chance of getting respectable defense… High block is a good thing to have if you plan on using CS more than Fury. The dexterity investment pays off. Amazons also have great blocking tables. She has the slowest blocking animation with a swinging weapon, but javelins are thrusting, and there she shines. Her blocking speed is on par with a paladin (without holy shield).

0–13–32–86 block rate
5—4—3—2 frames

Oh, and don’t forget that pierce works wonders with Lightning Fury. You should have enough of it with all +Skills, but if you don’t, Razortail might just be better than Thundergod’s Vigor, at least until you equip your godly items.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

2 Likes
3

Aslo question about Laying of Hands. It has 20 IAS and +350% damage to demons. Does it increase damage of my CS and LF or it works only with weapon damage?

4

Weapon damage only.

Edit: you can shop for nice gloves at Anya’s. Use the red portal to refresh her items. Look for a pair of Lancer’s Something of Alacrity (3 J&S skills + 20 IAS). Not as easy as shopping for Echoing javelins, but still feasible. While you’re at it, you can look for 3 trap claws with IAS (up to 40!!) in her weapons tab. A pair of those with the right staffmods will make you a rich man.

5

Example
I have 50 IAS (20 from weapon,10 from helmet,20 from gloves)
my CS damage 1-3000. with IAS +50% i have 3.12 attacks per second, so my dps=3-9360

I have 0 IAS but have +4 to skils
my CS damage 1-4500, with 0 IAS i have 2.27 attacks per second, so my dps=2-10215

so +4 to skills better then +50 IAS? Am i right?

Or i miss something with IAS? Maybe some modifiators that proc better with better IAS?
and i should sacrifice a little dps but will get some profit with procs, whatever it can be (idk maybe life leech, amplify damage proc from mara’s amulet and all other procs what i have on my gear when they proc on striking…?)

by the way, about “chance to cast -something- on STRIKING”
which kind of attack works with it? Does every pierced bolt give a chance proc on STRIKING?

Also, War Traveler or Gore rider?

6

You are not missing anything.

DPS = Damage * attacks per second.

TLDR; faster is better
The main differences between faster and slower attacks with the same final DPS are that:

  • things may happen that may interrupt you. In your example, 2.27 attacks = 11 frames per attack = 0.44 sec while 3.12 = 8 frames = 0.32 sec, meaning that if something should trigger your hit recovery, DAE (Dodge/Avoid/Evasion), or blocking animation, it has a bigger window to do so when you attack slower. Advantage to faster attacks.

  • as you mentioned, things that happen on attack/striking will proc more consistently. If you throw a projectile and it pierces through another monster, treat the situation as if you’re simply attacking the other monster without anything standing between you. The same hit/proc checks will be performed. CS/LF projectiles should be treated as spells - they cannot trigger effects and do not carry “on attack” mods like added elemental damage, etc. So yes, if you have CtC, faster attacks have a great advantage. Note that there is an important difference between “on attack” and “on striking”. The first requires you to perform the attack animation while the second one requires you to actually land the hit, making it dependent on hit chance.

  • there is a slight mana tradeoff. A Lvl 16 CS costs 7.7 mana while Lvl 20 costs 8.7. Now your fast attack will cost 7.7 x 3.12 = 24.024 mana per second while the slower one - 2.27 x 8.7 = 19.749. You can live with that. If you’re hitting fast with CS, you will need to drink a blue potion every now and then anyway, even with Insight mercenary. Throwing LF is slower, so you will probably throw a javelin or two at most, then reposition to get away from enemy projectiles that are flying towards you, throw another couple, etc.

Beware of act3. The Flayer Jungle is your worst nightmare. There are tons of small mobs there, lightning immune and shooting at you with tiny darts. You will spend most of your time in DAE/block and not doing (low, jab) damage. Such occasions are the reason why some people don’t go for 1pt DAE. They build their characters to withstand some more damage and remove this source of interruption. Another thing you might do if you find yourself being interrupted too often by small amounts of damage, is to swap your shield with one that doesn’t block as well, like Spirit. It’s crucial that these are indeed small portions of damage, so that letting them hit you doesn’t trigger hit recovery.

About the boots: TLDR: Gore Rider

  • War Traveler adds 15-25 damage, meaning that you add it to your weapon damage before calculations are made with it. It’s only relevant for Jab and the normal hit/throw your CS/LF performs, so it does not get multiplied by a lot (you don’t have good enhanced damage sources - Jab’s bonus is low, you have some stats, and that’s it).
  • Gore Rider gives you OW/DS/CB chances, which is better in your case. Only DS depends on your weapon damage. OW is like physical poison which depends on your clvl (functions as PMH - prevent monster heal), DS is another source of crit, but if both DS and CS (your critical strike passive) proc, you only get a x2 multiplier on your damage, not x4. Hence, crit chance = DS + CS - DS x CS = CS + DS x (1 - CS), so that the DS on Gore Rider is a bit less effective on an Amazon compared to classes wihtout built-in crits, but it’s still great. CB reduces a portion of the enemy’s current life, much like static field. Look it up on Arreat Summit: classic . battle . net/diablo2exp/items/magic . shtml It’s a very important mechanic. Basically, deals tons of damage, scales with players in game, gets reduced by physical damage reduction, and doesn’t add leech.

Edit: I’m under the assumption that you’re going to Jab Lightning immunes. CB makes your Jab potent and makes IAS even more important as you need it to apply CB reliably.

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