Lightning java zon

Do not consider the following text as a "normal" Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction guide. I'm not going to say, “Thou shalt equip a Stormshield, Titans Revenge and an Enigma armor or thou willth be smiteth by The Holy Gods of Diablo!”. Instead of giving a clear-cut item setup, I’ll try to make a discussion about most of the viable uniques/runewords/crafted items there is. And as a result, end up with a guide that’s capable of playing untwinked from level 1 to level 99. For the same reason the discussion of stat-points will be one of the smaller parts of this “guide”. I will give this advice however: "Enough for your items, high block and rest to vit."

One of the strongest features of this kind of char is she's very item independent, she could waltz through Chaos Sanctuary with a cracked javelin if need be.

I hope this will spawn some attention to this great subclass, lets show them Paladins, Necromancers and Sorcerers that the Amazon is still the queen of killing the spawns of hell!

LF: Lightning Fury
CS: Charged Strike
LS: Lightning Strike

LI: Lightning Immune
PI: Physical Immune

AR: Attack Rating
MS: Multiple Shot
LE: Lightning Enhanced

IAS: Increased Attack Speed
FPA: Frames per Attack
APS: Attacks per Second

CBF: Can't Be Frozen
FHR: Faster Hit Recovery
FBR: Faster Block Rate
FRW: Faster Run/Walk
ICB: Increased Chance of Block
MF: Magic Find

Rating System:
The King!: *****
Very Good: ****
Good: ***
"Average": **
Useless: *
Javelin Skills:
This tree will be where we'll spend most of our time allocating skill-points. I've split it up into two discussions, #1-Lightning Skills, #2-Physical Skills, I'll jump right over the Poison Skills since I have little to no experience using these, if anyone could help me out here I'd greatly appreciate it. Enough senseless rambling, unto the skills!

Lightning:
Ah, the source of all our powers - after all we are the Lightning Amazon. This is both our strength and our weakness, while specializing yourself heavily in one elemental you will lose killing speed when encountering LI monsters, while there are methods to slay these foul fiends it is something you should consider. Would I really want to sacrifice flexibility for pure power? If the answer is yes, then read on, if no I suggest going the route of a Poison/Lightning Fury Javazon.

Power Strike:
At first one could be tempted by this skill, it does list some incredible lightning damage. Do not blind yourself, this skill pales in comparison with the later skills. My suggestion, spend one point as a pre-requirement. One could argue it’s worthwhile for starting out; I personally do not have troubles using it until I reach Charged Strike.
Rating: *

Lightning Bolt:
This is an excellent early skill; converting 100% of your physical damage into lightning elemental is very nice against early encounters with demons of the physical immune species. However, it as its low level cousin (Power Strike) pales in comparison with a certain cow frying skill (read: Lightning Fury). But as Power Strike, boosting this a tad might help out the starting procedure; again, I will advice against doing so.
Rating: **

Charged Strike:
Now we are talking, this skill will be your bread and butter when it comes to killing "big" monsters and smaller packs (Hard to explain, but usually around 5 are a good choice for CS). By "big" monsters I mean monsters which are larger than your average size fiend, good examples would be Venom Lords and Act Bosses, their size allows your strike to hit the monster multiple times with the charged bolts which results in a crispy carcass (multiple bolts will hit the same target resulting in massive damage). Until you've tried killing Diablo with this skill and two synergies you haven't seen the build's true power.
NOTE: This skill will probably be your left click if you decide to go the more balanced Lightning route.
Rating: *****

Lightning Strike:
Another excellent skill, Lightning Strike is very effective at bringing down larger packs - in fact in the later acts/difficulties more important than LF. As with CS you'll have to use it against the "right pack", basically any big pack would do. As an additional bonus the skill looks awful when executed on a large group.
NOTE: This skill might be affected by the NextDelay bug. The chain lightning from LS jumps between monsters and if a monster is hit twice within 4 frames then it the last LS will not deal any damage.
Rating: ****

Lightning Fury:
An old friend of many I suspect. We all remember the 1.09 days of slaughtering cows upon cows with this little gem. To all the lovers of it out there, do not moan over this lost friend for it shines again! LF really adds the last piece to the Lightning Puzzle; it gives you great ranged power which most sorceresses would envy you.
Rating: *****

Physical Skills:

Jab:
An excellent early physical skill, this is my skill of choice when dealing with the LIs you will encounter, even if you go all the way of the Lightning Amazon you'd need to get this skill as a pre-req, luckily it's a one-point wonder.
Rating: ****
Javelin "normal" speedtab
fps [20] [10] [0] [-10]

16/8 0
15/8 2
14/7 7 0
13/7 14 3
12/6 24 11 0
11/6 39 23 10 0
10/6 58 39 23 10
10/5 65 40 25 15
9/5 89 63 42 26
8/5 142 102 72 50
8/4 170 120 90 60
7/4 270 187 133 95
- Amazon Attack Speed Tables

Impale:
Some might argue this skill has it uses, personaly I hate it. While it can work it need the entire char to be pretty much build for it. And the entire ideas about destroying your equipment for damage seems rather weak, you’d want those gold coins spend on repairing for gambling/shopping.
Rating: *

Fend:
Fend, while being a decent skill it got one problem, to really make it better than Jab you have to dedicate a lot more points into it. Fend simply can't compete with Jab skill-point economic-vise.
NOTE: Bugged, if you are hit during a fend-cycle the remaining attacks will miss. Quite dangerous – as you will be standing in the middle of combat.
Rating: ***

Suggestions:
Below I've listed my three amazons, one pure lightning, one with FA and one with Guided Arrow. Overall I believe the pure lightning to be the strongest, with a good enough javelin and jab you really don't need another element. It's alot more expensive tho.

Pure Lightning Amazon
Max Charged Strike
Max Lightning Strike
Max Lightning Fury
This will give you great melee both against big and lesser packs (CS and LS) while still having the option of going ranged against great mobs (LF) -- You wouldn't need ranged against single monsters, CS should allow you kill even the strongest mob very fast. A one-point wonder to remember is Jab, this will be your main attack against LI's, and I’ve chosen not to raise it. I've never had the urge for it, this is a personal choice.

Balanced Lightning Amazon
Max Charged Strike
Max Lightning Strike
Level 1 Guided Arrow or going all the way to get Freezing Arrow
This will give you very strong lightning attacks, not as strong as that of a pure lightning build obviously, but enough to handle most monsters with relative ease. LI monsters are handled from range with a high damage bow, Valkyrie and your mercenary. It’s worth mentioning that going the FA route will add a lot of safety to your Valkyrie and mercenary when they fight the foul beats.


End Game Damage:
Skill Level=20

Pure Lightning Amazon
LF 21 Bolts 1-823
LS 21 Hits 1-1286
CS 7 Bolts 1-1674

Balanced Lightning Amazon
LF 21 Bolts 1-707
CS 7 Bolts 3-1030
Passive/Magic Skills:
Survival. This Skilltree will make you live through the carnage. This is not a skill tree to be ignored; ignoring this will most likely result in pulling out a lot of hair and deciding to restart the char.

Passive:
What's really better than boosts you don't have to spend time activating? This is here we will talk about the passives in the survival skill tree.

Dodge:
Will help you survive in the heat of battle. Really longer your lifespan if wielding a shield too, a very powerful skill for the people that wants to live.
Rating: ****

Avoid:
Dodging missile attacks is strong, but against archers you'll most of the time rush against them and thus negating the bonus from Avoid, it's a decent skill, but there are better.
Rating: **

Evade:
Ever dreamt about being Neo and dodging bullets like there's no tomorrow? Well this skill will help you do exactly that. A very strong choice as ranged monsters really is a force to reckon with now. This does what Avoid wanted to do and more.
Rating: ****

Critical Strike:
Doubling your physical damage is good, don't get me wrong, but most of your damage will be from Lightning anyway. Some might argue that it'll help you against LIs, true, but from my testing it isn't needed. It's a very good point to spend on level 2 however, as it will most likely be combined with Jab as of level 3.
Rating: **
Rating: **** -- If focusing more on Physical damage.

Penetrate:
Getting higher AR is almost always good; however you really do not need it. CS, LS and LF are all auto-hits. Even if you went with PS instead of one of the others you wouldn't need it as PS gives quite a boost to AR on its own. It's a useful one-point wonder however, as it helps you when jabbing.
Rating: **

Pierce:
We all remember how much 1.09 Javazons (Lightning Fury + Pierce) just slaughtered cows. This skill can either be great or a waste, it boils down to your play style. If you find yourself using Lightning Fury often, definitely spend some points here.
Rating: ***** or *

Magic:
Ever wanted to be a necro, and placing powerful curses on your enemies? Ever wanted to be a wild druid, summoning the wilder beasts to do your bidding? This is the skills for you then!

Valkyrie:
This is probably one of the strongest skills in the game now. The Valkyrie has been improved so much since 1.09 it now receives the same bonuses from Dodge, Avoid and Evade as you do, which results in a very tough tank. Raising the level of this will improve its equipment and at level 17 she will be equipped with a War Pike. Strong choice!

Slvl 1 : Full plate mail and Spear (mod1 = 6)
Slvl 2 : adds Heavy gloves (mod1 = 4)
Slvl 4 : adds Heavy Boots (mod1 = 4)
Slvl 5 : adds Heavy Belt (mod1 = 4)
Slvl 7 : upgrades Full Plate Mail to Chaos Armor (mod1 = 6)
Slvl 8 : upgrades Spear to Lance (mod1 = 6)
Slvl 10: upgrades Heavy Gloves to War Gauntlets (mod1 = 4)
Slvl 11: upgrades Heavy Boots to War Boots (mod1 = 4)
Slvl 12: upgrades Heavy Belt to War Belt (mod1 = 4)
Slvl 13: adds Amulet (mod1 = 4)
Slvl 14: adds Circlet (mod1 = 4)
Slvl 16: replaces Chaos Armor with Sacred Armor (mod1 = 6)
Slvl 17: replaces Lance with War Pike (mod1 = 6)
Slvl 19: upgrades War Gauntlets to Crusader Gauntlets (mod1 = 6)
Slvl 21: upgrades War Boots to Mirrored Boots (mod1 = 6)
Slvl 23: upgrades War Belt to Colussus Girdle (mod1 = 6)
Slvl 25: changes mod1 for amulet from 4 to 6
Slvl 27: upgrades Circlet to Tiara (mod1 = 6)

(Mod1 = 4) Is a Magic item
(Mod1 = 6) is a Rare item.

Lvl17 seems to be optimal, Damage Wise.
- Ctrl+Alt+Delete

Rating: *****

Decoy:
A very good spell however is passed by Valkyrie. A strong feature of the Decoy is "decoy-scouting", cast it in front of you (at the edge of the screen) to check the area for foes. Combined with Valkyrie and you have to tools to fool your enemies and only take minimal damage. A very strong “one-point wonder”!
Rating: ***

Slow Missile:
Probably one of the most underrated skills in the game. This spell gives you so much for just a singe point, against MS enhanced monsters you chill down their shoots to a laughable pace, MS+LE enchanted monster's bolts are easily dodged. Using this against the inferno spraying monsters will greatly decrease their damage as the flames won’t travel as long. And in general renders archers pretty much useless. Excellent one-point skill!
Rating: *****

Inner Sight:
I might hear from this but simply put this skill is garbage. I haven't ever had to use this skill. Sadly it's a pre-req. Grr.
Rating: *

Suggestions:
Giving advices on points to spend here is hard, as it's mainly based upon experience and play style. I suggest getting a decent level Valkyrie and getting your Dodge and Evade to 50s (but don't forget about Avoid, it still has its uses). Remember to count in +skills from items, points saved will result in stronger lightning attacks.
The more points spend here, the stronger a tank you'll get in the form of the Valkyrie. If you are ignoring this skill tree you are missing out one of the most potent tanks in the game - the Valkyrie. Believe me when I say that she'll most likely save your life many times during the course of the game.

Part II: Stats and Items

Stats:
Strength:
The simple answer is, "Enough for your equipment.” your end-game goal should be enough to wear Matriarchal Javelins (107). But you should take into consideration that using a spear on switch would require a greater strength, which means either more points spend here or fix it with your equipment.

Dexterity:
Again, aim for enough for Matriarchal Javelins (151), luckily this also boosts your chance to block.

Vitality:
This is where you should spend as many points as possible. Surviving is essential to keep up the fast leveling pace once you hit hell. High vitality helps that.

Energy:
Should be kept at base, leech and potions should be your way to replenish the blue ball.

Items:
Having a Javelin/Shield and a big damage spear on switch has been the combination I've had the most success with, the Javelin/Shield setup would allow you to take on even the greatest mob when combined with your defensive skills.
Just for kicks I tried stripping my Lightning Amazon and just using items bought from vendors to see her in action in Chaos Sanctuary, while her killing speed was slowed she could hold her own.

Weapons:
Of course it'd be easy to just talk about the "perfect" setup, but since this guide is more or less targeted at Ladder-play I'll try to make my suggestions more realistic for that. I'll try to write a perfect setup though, just for the non-ladder players.

Javelins:
That sharp little pointy stick, you will be using next to your shield. With skills setup as I suggested earlier you're going to tear through every non-LI like a knife through butter, even act bosses (Charged Strike) will drop faster than cows in 1.09 to a Javazon. Now the question remains, which weapon would be the best choice?

When looking for a CS javelin you should look for speed and when looking for a weapon for LS and to some degree LF look for damage too: to help leeching. Both by suffix and by item speed. The faster the better. Hitting fast will allow you to fill the screen with beautiful white lightning and drop every single monster on screen in a matter of seconds, now it's only to pick off the survivors with jab or CS.

#1 Bloodfist: 10 IAS, minimum damage, 40 Life and 40 FHR great choice. Easy to find compared to the bonuses.

Souldrainer: Dual leech and chance to cast weaken, excellent choice, hard to find however.

Crafted Gloves: IAS, LL/ML these can be great. These are an excellent choice with the right mods on them.

Belts:
String of Ears: PDR, LL and decent defense good choice.

Nosferatu's Coil: Slow target by 10%, +2 mana per kill, 5-7 life leech, 15 strength, 10% IAS, you can not look for much else. A very strong choice.

Immortal's King Belt: Great strength bonus, fire and lightning resist.

Thundergod's Vigor: An excellent belt, boosts your skills, gives great protection against attacks of the lightning kind. The belt adds a great chunk of strength and vitality (LIFE).

M'avina's Belt: ML and FRW go great partial set bonus if you happen to have other pieces.

Wilhelm's Pride: Dual Leech, some cold resist and nothing else.

Trang'Oul's Belt: Great life and mana boost. Most important stat is the CBF.

Razortail: Offers 33% bonus to piercing attack along with 15 dexterity and 10 max damage, a very good choice if you want to go down the more LF slinging path.

Boots:
Sander's Riprap: Great FRW, +dexterity and strength. An excellent pair of boots, another bonus is it is rather easy to find.

Natalya's Soul: Great FRW and adds 15% to cold and lightning. Strong choice.

Aldur's Boots: 40 FRW, Stamina boost and great life boost. Excellent choice.

Gorerider: A great pair of boots if you want to lower your weakness against LIs, their offer of Crushing Blow will help quite a bit when jabbing/fending. Decent choice.

War Traveler: Great strength and dexterity bonus, which means more points to spend on vitality (more life), more damage added to weapon which means easier time against LIs and more leech. To top it off it got quite a bonus to MF! Strong pair of boots.

Crafted Blood Boots (Magic Light Plate/Battle/Mirrored Boots + Eth Rune + Perfect Ruby + Jewel): Can be the strongest choice due to the fixed mods: 10-20 Life, 1-3% Life Leech, 5-10 life regeneration. A great choice with the right mods.
Jewelry:
You can get pretty much everything out of your amulet, important stats to look for are +skills, ML, LL, stats and resists. If you don't have CBF on any of your other item slots, you should definitely try to get a Ravenfrost (remember you can get the bonus from other items), believe me - being frozen and decrepified really is a pain.

Amulets:
The Cat's Eye: Great dexterity, FRW and IAS. Great amulet.

Crescent Moon: This amulet is great due to the high ML, if you happen to find one of these you wont need another source of ML. It's rare to find a dual leech amulet. Strong choice.

Mara's Kaleidoscope: Stat bonus, +skills and huge resists.

Saracen's Chance: Great resists, stat bonus and chance to cast Iron Maiden, a very good amulet.

Safety Amulet (Amulet + Thul Rune + Perfect Emerald + Jewel): ICB makes this recipe huge. Potential the best amulet you can get.

Rings:
Cathan's Seal: Great early level ring featuring Life Leech at a very low requirement.

Manald Heal: If you haven't found ML any other places.

Ravenfrost: Great choice. Lowers Cold Damage dealt to you, CBF, AR boost and dexterity. Great ring.

Bul-Kathos: +Skills, life and LL, doesn't get much better.

Blood Ring (Ring + Sol Rune + Perfect Ruby + Jewel): Great fixed mods: Life, str and LL.

Carrion Wind: High LL, defense, resists and fireworks (chance to cast twister on strike), a very good ring.
Summary:
In general you should aim for max resists, around 5 or so ML, then focus on skills and LL. You can easily do without having a high ML, by drinking plenty of blue potions. Another option would be using Tir runes; this option is very viable in the earlier stages of the game. Once you reach hell you should be able to fuel your skills simply from ML, remember to have a few potions ready however as the monsters with mana drain pretty much equals mana burn in 1.10.

Just in case I'll say this again. Do not ignore your resists, they are more important than ever.

Dream Setup:
Helmet - Griffon's Eye
Amulet - Mara's Kaleidoscope
BodyAr - Chains of Honor
Gloves - Laying of Hands
FeetAr - Aldur's Boots
Finger - Ravenfrost
Finger - Rare Dual Leech Ring
WaistA - Thundergod's Vigor / Razortail
Weapon - Ethereal Upgraded Titan's Revenge
Shield - Sanctuary / Stormshield
Switch:
Weapon - Ethereal BOTD War Pike / Call To Arms
Part III: Socketing and Mercenary

Socketing:
Socketing your equipment is a great way to improve on weak spots such as Damage, Resists and Stats. Act VI, Quest I rewards you a socket in any piece of equipment (except Javelins), even uniques. Something important to remember once socketing your equipment is whether or not a cheaper alternative exists, an example would be finding a 15% resist all jewel, which in itself is a rather rare treasure, now remember socketing an Um in your Armor/Helmet would give the same boost and a bigger in your shield, but what to remember is you can't get resists on your weapon in any other way than Jewels. Always remember your other options when considering what to socket in your equipment.

Perfect Ruby:
A cheap way to improve upon your life, if your resists and attack speed are up it, this is an excellent socket.

Tir Runes:
One of my favorite sockets, while leech in hell is quite harsh now, having a Tir or two will greatly help your mana flow. Having a few will easily take you through normal and nightmare.

One Element Resist Runes (Tal, Ral, Ort, Thul):
If you desperately need Lightning resist socketing an Ort into your armor will greatly increase your resist. These runes are a little narrow but their impact on a certain element makes up for it.

Perfect Diamond:
19 Resist All when placed in a shield, an awesome feature to use on a 3-socket shield early on the game. Very good gem. Will greatly increase your chance of survival in the early game.

Um:
15% Resist All in Armor/Helm and 22% in shield, while better than Perfect Diamond in shield it's a lot rarer, more often than not you're going to place this in your helmet/armor, as you will most likely have access to Perfect Diamonds which can be socketed in your shield, and your shield only for the resist bonus.

Rainbow Facets:

Version I
Required Level: 49
100% Chance To Cast Level 41 Nova When You Level-Up
Adds 1-74 Lightning Damage
+3-5% To Lightning Skill Damage (varies)
-(3-5)% To Enemy Lightning Resistance (varies)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)

Version II
Required Level: 49
100% Chance To Cast Level 47 Chain Lightning When You Die
Adds 1-74 Lightning Damage
+3-5% To Lightning Skill Damage (varies)
-(3-5)% To Enemy Lightning Resistance (varies)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)
- The Arreat Summit

These two jewels both add quite a punch to your attack force, having one or two of these would greatly improve your attack speed. Personally I'd use the Version II of the jewel, seeing as when dying I really wouldn't mind if it's clear at my corpse rather than getting a bonus Nova when leveling.


Mercenary:

Act I - The Rogues:
A great helper in Act I normal, but she's made obsolete when you hit Act II and gain access to the Town Guards. I usually rush to the Bloodraven quest to gain my rogue as fast as possible. Try to find a 3 socket bow and add all the chipped topaz you can, the rogue will then easily hold her own in 8-players Act I.


Act II - The Town Guards:
There's really only two choices here, Defiance or Holy Freeze. While the Might Mercenary will help your leech he wont do much else. Holy Freeze and Defiance will help you survive.
It now boils down to playstyle.

Holy Freeze:
Slows everything down, enables your mercenary and Valkyrie to live longer. By slowing down the monsters your Valkyrie will be able to abuse her insane life regen and be pretty near immortal.

Defiance:
Makes it harder for monsters to hit, enables your mercenary and Valkyrie to live longer. The Defiance mercenaries will require a little bit of your items, mainly bigger defense (if you want it to compare with Holy Freeze).

Act III - The Iron Wolves:
Out of the mages I've only found the cold mage to be a viable mercenary, he is great for normal difficulty but will but severely handicapped once nightmare is made.

Act IV - The Barbarians:
Great tanks, but are obsolete when compared to Town Guards. A defiance Town Guard will be able to stand much longer in a crowd than a barbarian before going down. That's not to say they're bad, Town Guards are just better.


I'll leave it to people to draw their own conclusions, after all the mercenary should follow your playstyle.

One thing to remember for the rich players, if you can make the "Doom" runeword you could have a mercenary with both Holy Freeze and Defiance or your aura of choice, if not Defiance I'd suggest Thorns (Quite the laugh with Valkyrie and Decoy) or Might
This Guide is from http://www.strategy.diabloii.net

tried making one but i suck ass at making zons...

i havent made a zon yet... just too buzy with fucking school lol

same here but i do have some time to make em..