View source for Guide:Javazon v1.09, by Flux, Part I

==Skills==
There is only one mandatory max skill for a Javazon, and that's Lightning Fury.  You don't have to max it, but it's 99% of your damage, so it would be foolish not to do so.  Add to it with bonus equipment if you want to kill faster. Pierce is almost as important, you want to get it to 15 points or higher as quickly as possible.


===How LF Works===
Lightning Fury (LF) is an awesome skill, and you need to know just how it works to use it best.  When you throw a javelin with Lightning Fury, the javelin does physical damage to everything it hits (this is how you leech enough to keep throwing them) and sends out a lightning bolt at every target in range (about 5-8 yards, or 1/3 of the visible screen).  The range is the radius away from what the javelin just hit, not from where you are standing.  The bolts don't come from your Amazon, they come out from where the Lighting Fury javelin struck, so if there is a monster on top of you, and a pack across the screen, hitting the one by you with LF won't send out bolts at the others.

The key to massive killing with LF is to hit targets that are near many other targets.  Every thing near where the LF hits will have a lightning bolt fired at it, which is why this skill is so awesome for the Cow level, since there are such massive crowds. These lightning bolts pierce anything other than walls or solid objects, so if there are four monsters in line, and you hit the first one, three lightning bolts will be sent out, one for each monster that was close enough to the impact point of the LF.  If the monsters are in a row, all three will pass through the first monster, then the second, then the third.  The lightning bolts travel about a full screen in distance.

Pierce makes this work even better, since everything the thrown LF javelin hits will trigger another burst of bolts at all valid targets in the radius.  So if you throw into a pack of 20, the first monster hit will count for physical damage of your javelin, lightning damage of the LF, and send 19 bolts towards the other monsters.  If the throw pierces and hits a second monster, you'll get more physical damage, and 19 more bolts, one at every other monster in the radius. The same goes if Pierce lets you hit a 3rd, and a 4th, etc.  So every time you Pierce a target and hit a second one, it doubles your initial damage.  If you pierce 5 things, getting six hits, you'll do much more than 6x the damage of a single hit, since every hit sends out the full amount of bolts, and most of the bolts will hit multiple targets.


[[Image:java-lf.jpg|center|<center>Piercing LF in action.  Holy Freeze boss is far left.</center>]]


You can see this demonstrated in this picture. Note how there are three distinct rings of lightning to the right, going to the right (past the chilled Valk).  The thrown javelin (from the chilled Javazon to the lower left) hit one monster to the left of the pack, and sent out the bolts that are now furthest to the right.  The same LF hit another cow, and sent out another burst of bolts, that are now 2nd farthest ring to the right.  The third target it hit send out the last ring of bursts.

Really big packs and throws that Pierce 5 or 6 times create a lovely series of these sorts of lightning burst rings, that generally move too fast to see, or see well with the computer lag most systems get from them.

You want to always try to throw so you'll hit at least two monsters in a row, and more if possible.  This should keep your mana up from leeching, in addition to dealing out massive lightning damage.

Hitting a wall will also send out a burst of lightning bolts at every target in range, so if you have a bunch of monsters with a wall beside them, move around so that you are throwing through several monsters, and into the wall.  You'll get a full burst of bolts from where the javelin hits the wall, if the monsters are near enough the wall.

[[Image:java-LF-bounce.jpg|thumb|right|LF Piercing and bouncing on Eldritch]]This is the best technique to kill bosses with LF also.  Try to get them near a wall, rock, tree, anything you can't throw through, and throw at them so the Pierce will take the LF into the solid object, which will then shoot a bolt back at the boss.  In the shot here the Javazon is top left, throwing through Eldritch.  LF pierces, hits the rock lower right, and sends a bolt back, which hits Eldritch and keeps going off the top left.  With the bolts sent out doing 239-278 at Slvl 20, it's a substantial time saver, though it's still faster to switch to bow for dealing with single targets.

The targets don't need to be on the screen to die, or send out bolts.  Thrown javelins (including LF throws) will travel a bit off the visible screen.  No matter where they are when they hit a target, they send out their full array of bolts at any nearby targets, whether you can see them or not. You can easily kill things that are completely off the screen with LF, by hitting a target just at the edge of the screen, and that impact sending bolts from it into others that are further out of your sight. The bolts that are sent out travel quite a distance too, more than a visible screen, so it's not uncommon to throw a Jav, then run up after it and find dozens of dead monsters as much as two screens from where you were standing.  Sometimes they are so far away you almost wonder if there's some other player in the area, even if you are the only one in the game.

===Skill Planning===
Consider your long term skill needs, and factor in your equipment, so you don't waste skill points by over loading them.  For example, if you want 10 points in Dodge, and know your long term equipment will include Titans (+2), SoJ (+1), and Harlequin's (+2), then plan on putting 5 points into Dodge, and the +5 from your equipment will get you to your 10 point goal.  You can always add more to a skill later, but there's no way to get a skill point back, so allow for more +equipment if you think it's likely you'll add it.

Long term a Javazon will have at least +2 spears, and +2 to all (from Titans), giving +4 spears.  Most Javazons will have +2 or 3 to all from other gear, (Amulet, Armor, Helm) and you can easily add much more +spears with charms, gloves, Thundergod's Vigor belt, etc.  Maxed LF with Titans only would be Slvl 24 LF, and that's plenty to kill hell cows very quickly.  You'll be a bit faster with say Slvl 35 LF, if you load up on skill stuff, but I much prefer to load up on Magic Find/Gold Find gear, and profit while I play, rather than just gain exp slightly faster.

Here are the skills I recommend, grouped by tree. More on when to add to what in the character development section.

===[[Amazon Javelin and Spear Skills|Spear and Javelin Skills Tab]]===
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'''Mandatory Skills'''
* ''Poison Javelin:'' 1 point, pre-req.
* ''Lightning Bolt:'' 1 point, pre-req.
* ''Plague Javelin:'' 1 point, pre-req.  This one can be effective to kill with once you have 10+ points in it, but not in a big game, and not past normal difficulty, so it's not recommended.
* ''Lightning Fury:'' 20 points.  This is your killer, max it as soon as possible.  More points from bonus gear will increase your killing rate.

'''Optional Skills'''
* ''Jab:'' 1 point.   You can go fine without any points here, but it can be useful early on, and it can help with leech later, though switching to your bow is almost always better and faster.
* ''Impale:'' Pre-req for Fend.
* ''Fend:'' Your best melee spear skill, but not at all recommended for a Javazon.  Some Javazons go with a big spear for their boss killing weapon, but this is slower than a good bow, and much more dangerous, going toe to toe. 
* ''Power Strike:'' Not for a Javazon.
* ''Charged Strike:'' Not for a Javazon.
* ''Lightning Strike:'' Not for a Javazon.

===[[Amazon Bow and Crossbow Skills|Bow and Crossbow Skills Tab]]===
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Nothing is really mandatory here, but Guided Arrow is by far your best option for a weapon switch skill to kill bosses.  LF is viable for killing bosses, but it's very mana and javelin expensive, and slow.  And it becomes almost impossible if the boss is LE, with the big lightning resistance that comes with that, or PI, so you can't leech and only hurt it with lightning.  LEPI bosses aren't uncommon in hell, and those would be almost impossible to kill with LF, while LIPI bosses are totally invulnerable to your LF attack.

If you have a bow/xbow with good elemental and physical damage, you can kill such bosses much faster than you can with LF, won't use up all of your javelins and mana doing it, and are safer than you would be compared to using a spear.  Especially since you are so often using this on LE bosses, which hurt to melee.  Higher levels in Guided Arrow (15+) lower the mana cost to the point that you can use Guided to kill PIs in big games and hardly need to drink any potions at all to keep up the mana cost.

It's highly recommended that you have a bow with elemental as well as physical damage, so you can use it on PI bosses, which are quite common in hell. [[Kuko]] or [[Buriza]] are good for this, or you can socket another Unique bow, if you aren't lucky enough to find a rare one with decent damage and elemental as well.

'''Recommended Bow Skills'''

* ''Magic Arrow:'' 1 point, pre-req. 
* ''Cold Arrow:'' 1 point, pre-req. 
* ''Multishot Arrow:'' 1 point, pre-req.  A hybrid 'zon might want multiple points here, but that's only faster against LI monsters anyway.
* ''Fire Arrow:'' 1 point, optional. Use this if you need the elemental damage to kill PIs, but only if you have a big damage bow, such as a Buriza. Fire Arrow is much improved in D2X, and your best way to kill PIs with most bows.  In an undocumented change this skill now converts your full bow damage to fire.  So if you have a 350 damage Buriza, you'll be doing around 350 per shot fire damage + the cold damage on the bow and any charms you have.  This beats the double cold damage you get with piercing Buriza (almost always hits two times in v1.09), and gives you a way to kill CIPIs with Buriza.
* ''Guided Arrow:'' 15+ points. Your best weapon switch/boss-killing skill, max it if you like, but 10-15 is enough for the damage.  More points are nice for the lower mana cost, so you can use this to kill PI monsters with an elemental damage bow and not drink up all of your purple potions in the process.<br><br>Guided Arrow does require some technique to use effectively.  In short, you want to take advantage of the Piercing (100% with many Unique bows/xbows) by making sure anything you shoot as has room behind it for your Arrow to pierce and hit again.  So never shoot right at something that's against a wall.  Instead shoot to the side of it, so the arrow will go to there, make a right turn and hit the monster from the side, so it's got room to pierce and hit again.  By the same token, when shooting at several monsters in a group you generally want to aim to the side so your arrow will turn and hit one of them directly, Piercing it and returning, rather than hitting one of the others and vanishing.

'''Not Recommended Bow Skills'''

* ''Ice Arrow:'' Not for a Javazon.
* ''Freezing Arrow:'' Not for a Javazon. (Can be useful to keep a merc alive, or in emergencies, but it's more of a Hybridazon skill.)  At high levels (when you tend to have more points than you know what to do with) you might want to put a point here (costs several for the pre-reqs also) to have it for special situations.
* ''Explosive Arrow:'' Not for a Javazon.
* ''Immolation Arrow:'' Not for a Javazon.
* ''Strafe:'' Not for a Javazon.


===[[Amazon Passive and Magic Skills|Passive and Magic Skill Tab]]===
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These are your support skills, and where the majority of your points will go long term. Bonus skill points (gloves, amulet, charms) to this tree are very useful. It's a good idea to plan how many points you want in a given skill, and look at how much of a bonus you get from your equipment.  More points in these never hurts, but the benefits for almost all drop way off with diminishing returns at higher levels.

* ''Critical Strike:'' 1+ points.  I like to put 10 or more here, and it's much faster Clvl 1-30 with 4 or 5 here, and once you get your other more important skills filled you can add to this at higher levels. More damage on your thrown LF helps with leech, and more damage on Guided helps to kill bosses. If you have plenty of leech and/or big damage weapons you can do less and save points for other skills.
* ''Inner Sight:'' 1 point, pre-req.
* ''Slow Missile:'' 1 point, pre-req.  I use Slow a lot, on every LE cow and especially when MSLE is a possibility, such as when clearing Baal's Minions (Slow them as they first spawn then run back to attack).  You want multiple points here for the duration increase, 3-5 or more is great, but you should get enough from your +skill equipment to just spend one skill point.
* ''Dodge:'' 5+ points, pre-req.  I like to get to 50%, which is Slvl 12. Often you'll have a huge mob of cows around your Valk, and one or two coming from the side, towards you.  If you can just keep throwing and ignore the ones from the side when they reach you, it speeds things up a lot.  Dodging their attacks doesn't slow your throwing at all, while blocking slows it a bit.  Having low % in both would mean you'd have to run, slowing down your killing.
* ''Avoid:'' 1+, pre-req. The least important of these three skills, you don't take a lot of missile fire with a Javazon, and that's what Valk and Decoy are for anyway.  I like to get to 6 or more just in case, which is easy with +skill equipment.
* ''Evade:'' 5+ points, pre-req. Very helpful to run through and around cows as you herd.  50% here is great, which is Slvl 12, a long term goal.
* ''Penetrate:'' 1 point, pre-req.  LF and Guided both always hit, so AR isn't important.  A Hybridazon who wanted to use MS at times would need many more, since they need AR.
* ''Pierce:'' 15+.  Maxing Pierce isn't a bad idea, but you want to at least get 75%, which is Slvl 12.  See the table below, which suggests you should max Pierce out.  I've played Hell Cows with 15 Pierce and with 25 Pierce, and didn't notice much difference, honestly, so perhaps the numbers lie, a bit.
* ''Decoy:'' 1 point, pre-req.  Decoy you should use a lot on the cows. It's very useful in herding them, to get them to move somewhere to be more in the line of your LF fire. You can also use Decoy as your tank on smaller mobs, or in hit and run tactics.  Some player use this almost exclusively, rather than Valk, but I find that slower, since a Decoy can't last long with a big mob around.
* ''Valkyrie:'' 15+.  I use Valk for my main tank for Cows, as well as boss runs, so I like her to be very strong.   Going with just one point is viable in big games, but gives little margin for error, and will require a lot of recasting if you are going to do Act Five SuperUnique, or Meph, runs.

A note on Pierce.  Since each one calculates several times, the diminishing returns aren't as steep as they would appear.  You might only be adding 1 or 2% to your odds to Pierce the first monster, but you have the same chance on each additional target, and Piercing 3 or 4x per LF is how you really cut down the big mobs.

{|bordercolorlight="#00001C" bordercolordark="#000000" border="1" cellspacing="1" width="100%"
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">Target</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">Slvl 10</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">Slvl 12</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">Slvl 14</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">Slvl 16</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">Slvl 18</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">Slvl 20</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">Slvl 25</font>
|-
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">1</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">71%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">75%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">79%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">82%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">83%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">85%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">90%</font>
|-
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">2</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">50%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">56%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">62%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">67%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">69%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">75%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">81%</font>
|-
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">3</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">36%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">42%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">49%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">55%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">57%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">61%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">73%</font>
|-
|align="center"|<font color="#fed801" size="2" face="Verdana">4</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">25%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">32%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">39%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">45%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">47%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">52%</font>
|align="center"|<font color="#d6d6d6" size="2" face="Verdana">65%</font>
|}

For example, at Slvl 10 you have a 71% chance to pierce the first target, and then a 71% to pierce the second one, if the first is successful.  This works out to 71% of 71%, which is 50%, then 36% for the next one, etc.  This cumulative effect is what makes Slvl 20 so much better than Slvl 10.  The first target is only 14% more likely to be Pierced, but the 4th target is more than double the odds.

Pierce is also the key to doing big damage with Guided Arrow, so you want as much as possible in it if you don't have a bow that has 100% Piercing as a property. (Kuko and Buriza both have that.)



''This section added after the guide was initially posted, in response to some reader comments.''

===Hybridazons===
There were a number of emails and forum posts asking what's a Hybridazon, and what's the difference between my recommended Javazon build and one, since I recommend using both Javelin and bow.

A true Hybrid uses bow and javelin almost equally, and just using Guided Arrow since it's the best way to kill most bosses doesn't make you a hybrid.  Hybrids generally have 8 or 10 points in Multishot, to go with their maxed LF and Pierce.  The benefit of this is being able to use MS to kill LI mobs quickly, or more quickly than you could with just Guided Arrow.  This enables you to play/level in more areas than a Javazon with LF, and it's a more effective PvP character.

The drawbacks are much higher skill requirements.  You'll need to find about 7 more points to put into MS (depending on your +skill equipment), which will probably make your Guided lower and you slower to kill bosses.  You also need much higher AR.  A LF/Guided Javazon doesn't actually need any AR, so just put one point in Penetrate.  If you are going to use MS, especially for PvP, you'll want a lot in Penetrate, probably maxing it out.  That's 19 more skill points, which you'll have to siphon off of other skills, likely your other passives.  Take a lot out of Valkyrie, and a few off of Dodge/Avoid/Evade to put there.

Is this worth doing?  Not really, in terms of level up speed and finding items, but if you want some variety, or to PvP better, go for it.  The only real PvM benefit is using MS on mobs, and the only time that's faster than LF is if the mob is LI, and the only area worth leveling in that has that is the Halls of Pain.  Meanwhile you'll be slower on bosses, have much lower defensive skills and a weaker Valk, and probably play a lot more in low-exp areas, compared to the Hell Cows.