How does the physical javelin attack of lightning fury work?

I am trying to better understand

Lightning Fury.

Lightning Fury does both physical and lightning damage. The lightning part always goes off on impact and sends out

Bolts. However, there appears to be some confusion about how the physical part works. I have seen two different views on it.

View 1: The physical

Javelin attack has a chance to miss and if it misses it does no physical damage and does not

Pierce the target (even with 100 percent

Pierce because you need to hit to

Pierce).

This appears to be the prevailing view online. However, it may be incorrect based on some digging I did.

View 2: The physical

Javelin attack always hits but can be blocked. If a projectile hits but is blocked it still pierces. This means lighting Fury will always

Pierce with 100 percent

Pierce chance. It also means you will always leach from monsters that cannot block (depending on physical immunity and drain effectiveness). See https://www.theamazonbasin.com/wiki/ind ... tning_Fury and the source contained there.

Anyone know which view is correct?

I don't know the answer to your question, but based on this one, plus your last one, is it safe to assume you are experiencing mana issues with your javazon? If you are, leech will never solve mana issues for this build. They are just too mana hungry and they leech too little. There are other cheaper ways to get mana than Phoenix. Wisdom provides +5 MAEK plus 33%

Pierce (freeing up your

Belt slot).

Silkweave also gives +5 MAEK plus increases max mana by 10%.

Lidless Wall provides +3-5 MAEK and 10% to max mana. Lastly giving your merc an Insight will also greatly help.

But if HRs are not an issue Phoenix plus Merc Infinity is the way to go.

However, please ignore this if my assumption is way off base and you are not experiencing mana issues and you are just curious of the mechanics of the attack.

Thanks Knappogue. I would say I am most interested in the mechanics of the ability.

Lightning Fury is one of the most iconic abilities in the game and I find it interesting that almost no one seems to know how it actually works. I am trying to gain a better understanding of it.

Incidentally, in case anyone knows, another thing I realized about

Lightning Fury is that when I hit a solitary monster with it there would appear to be two

Bolts coming out of it. I found out this was because

Lightning Fury will actually send out a bolt at the monster it makes impact with and not just the monsters around it. Therefore, if you hit a solitary monster you will get a bolt sent at it in addition to the original bolt that pierces through it, so two

Bolts coming out of it.

So, another question I have is does

Lightning Fury do double lightning damage to the impacted target. Damage from the initial impact (since the

Javelin is imbued with lighting) and then damage from the bolt sent at the impacted target? If it sends

Bolts out to the nearby monsters will it

Pierce through the initial impacted target doing even more damage to them? Why does the bolt sent at the impacted target seem to go in a random direction, what determines the direction? There are so many weird things with this ability!

This thread may help
forums/lightning-fury-mana-leach-with-o ... 91713.html

----

Lightning Fury,

Lightning Strike and

Charged Strike, work like an "on attack trigger"

We you use them you do a "regular" attack/throw that may miss (or be blocked), independently of the attack hit or not, the skill effect will trigger (in the case of

Lightning Fury - the "

Bolts explosion").

If your attack hit it will do your normal attack damage to the main target (and only to him): physical + any elemental damage from equipment/skills
(and will do life/mana leach and any other "on hit trigger" effect that you have)

Pierce will only happen if the attack hit too (and then there will be another hit test against the next monster in the path and another "on attack" trigger even if it misses)

OBS: I use

Silkweave with my

Lightning Fury Amazon to deal with the mana

Thanks Fred, I am just not entirely convinced it works that way for

Lightning Fury.

If you scroll down a bit and look at the picture on this page https://www.theamazonbasin.com/wiki/ind ... tning_Fury, he throws a

Lightning Fury at three monsters in a line. It clearly does physical damage to the first and third but not the second. This would not be possible if the physical part of

Lightning Fury could miss (you cannot

Pierce if you miss). However, it is explained if it can be blocked but always hits.

However, this is a very old source and maybe the mechanics changed at some point.

Actually I made a confusion with the bow skills (that have a hit check and the effect happen even if the attack miss)

According to
https://maxroll.gg/d2/resources/hit-chance-mechanics | Skills without Hit Check

There are Skills which do not calculate Chance to Hit. These Skills do not have a Hit Check, and always hit their target. If the Skill is a Missile attack, the projectile successfully hits if it collides with a target.

-

Guided Arrow
-

Lightning Bolt
-

Lightning Fury
-

Smite
- If a Serpent Magus or

Reanimated Horde uses

Charge

The following Skills apply their Skill effect without succeeding at a Hit Check. The Weapon damage does not apply, but the Skill damage does.

-

Exploding Arrow
-

Freezing Arrow
-

Immolation Arrow
-

Plague Javelin
-

Poison Javelin
-

Conversion

So

Lightning Fury always hit (and

Lightning Strike and

Charged Strike are "on hit triggers") my bad

But the main point remains, only the main targets (the initial one - and the next main target after each

Pierce) receive your attack damage (and so only them can be mana/life leeched).
The

Bolts from the explosion only deal the lightning damage from

Lightning Fury.

https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/sj01061l#5 | Calculations

Lightning Fury – Level 43

- Missile Damage: 1177–9335
Physical Damage: 1145–2231
Cold Damage: 28–83
Lightning Damage: 4–7021

- Bolt Damage: 2–6961
Lightning Damage: 2–6961

OBS: Lightning Damage of the Missile Damage is a little higher because it includes lightning damage from equipment (

Highlord's Wrath)

More two things from https://www.purediablo.com/strategy/dia ... cing-guide
(I didn't know...)

- Block does not prevent

Pierce

Blocking may also occur which will prevent a monster from taking any damage or be affected by a modifier but the

Pierce can still occur and normally damage and apply the modifiers to the following monsters.

- If the attack misses (not a issue for

Lightning Fury) but the

Pierce roll was successful, the project continues traveling but without dealing any damage

You may have noticed sometimes that your Projectile keeps traveling but doesn’t deal any damage. This happens when a hit is not successful but the

Pierce is. As already said,

Pierce will only work when you hit the target so in that scenario the animation of

Pierce will happen but basically it’s only a graphical effect that carries no damage.

Those are great resources Fred, thanks!

Based on those, and my own readings, this is how I understand

Lightning Fury works. If anyone thinks this is wrong please let me know.

When you throw

Lightning Fury and it makes impact with a target it always hits. However, that hit can be blocked. I am not sure if this blocks the physical damage and the added lightning damage of the

Javelin or just the physical damage. Even if the hit is blocked, on impact it will send

Bolts out to all targets within ten yards (up to the maximum number of

Bolts for the skill level) including the target it impacted with. These

Bolts cannot be blocked and will

Pierce through all targets and some may pass through the initial impacted target. Even if the hit is blocked, it will have a chance to

Pierce because blocking does not stop

Pierce. If the

Javelin pierces through and impacts another target the same thing happens. It can

Pierce up to 4 targets.

I am still not entirely sure where the

Bolts originate from. The front of the target, the middle of the target or the point of impact on the target. It is really hard to see in game.

- The block (when triggered) prevent all damage from the attack. So in this case will prevent all "Missile Damage" to the main target.
https://maxroll.gg/d2/resources/block-mechanics

A successful block negates the damage from the incoming attack.

- The

Bolts do only Lightning damage (so they are a "Missile with no Physical Damage component"), because of that:
-- They cannot be blocked.
https://maxroll.gg/d2/resources/block-mechanics
-- Your "

Pierce %" attribute do not affect them.
https://www.purediablo.com/strategy/dia ... cing-guide

- On the other hand, you can see that the

Bolts

Pierce, so, I assume that they work like Sorceress's Lightning skill (natural 100%

Pierce, may

Pierce infinite times)
(find no link explicitly saying that... but you can see the

Bolts visually always

Pierce - easy to see against small packs)

- The bolt explosion release

Bolts from the "main target impact point", and release a bolt for each close monster (up to the Skill level limit), this do include the main target itself (didn't kown that... but tested)
(find no link explicitly saying that... but when you attack small mobs, you can count the number of

Bolts released and see that there is one bolt for the main target - in special against sole monster)
So I assume, that the main target will be hit by a bolt from his own explosion