Old Amazon Skills

Javelin & Spear

All the skills in this tree work with javelins, either throwing them or using them for melee. When using spears, only the melee skills will work, since spears can not be thrown. All of the elemental type attacks in this tree are lightning or poison, there are no fire or cold attacks in this tree.

Javelins: There are many types of javelins to be found or purchased in Diablo II, but none are ever magical, unique, rare, or Set items. Just low quality, normal, and superior. In the expansion throwing weapons are much improved, and there are magical and rare javelins, as well as one (as of v1.09) unique Amazon javelin, Titan's Revenge. Javelins can be used for melee, but they are intended to be thrown, and will almost always do higher damage as a projectile. In addition there are various skills that only work with thrown javelins. The melee spear skills work with javelins or spears.

Javelins aren't a bad melee weapon; they have a quick attack rate when used with Jab, and most have a range of 2, better than a lot of one-handed melee weapons. You should use a shield with your javelin, check the various Amazon strategy guides for equipent appraisals.

Spears: All spears are two-handed, meaning you can never use a shield with one. Though spears have a slow attack speed for most characters, Amazons aren't too bad with them, especially with Jab and Fend adding to your attack rate. Spearazons are much less popular (and powerful, as of v1.09) than Bowazons or Javazons, but can be very strong through Nightmare, and are still viable and fun to play in Hell. One annoying aspect of spears, including the Amazon class-specific types, is their generally low durability, so get used to needing repairs pretty regularly.

Bear in mind that her passive skills in the aptly-named 'Passive & Magic' tree will further benefit the chosen skills in this tree.

As of v1.09, the fastest way to kill a single target for a Javazon or Spearazon is to have a big damage bow and switch weapons, using Guided Arrow with Piercing for the kill (a Buriza is probably the best option, with Piercing built in and huge damage). This is especially useful for killing dangerous targets, such as Might bosses, or bosses with Lightning, or especially MSLE bosses, as well as Physical Immune targets, which Spearazons have problems with. The bow-switch technique is frowned upon by purists though, and also requires you to waste a few points in bow prereqs, and of course requires you to have a good bow to switch to.

Damage bonuses are something to consider with javelins, or the Amazon class-specific spears. These weapon types add bonus damage from both dexterity and strength, usually .75% damage per point of each stat. Most other melee weapons are 1% damage per point of strength, with no damage bonus from dex at all. This means that you can add the same amount of bonus damage by adding to your Spearazons strength or dexterity, but it takes 4 points of dex/str to equal the bonus damage you'll get with a normal spear, such as a Pike or Lance. Dexterity is more useful to add than strength, generally speaking, since it increases your Attack Rating, Defense, and blocking, while strength just boosts damage (and helps you meet item requirements).

Level references are the character level your Amazon must be before she may place a point in that skill.

Prerequisites - Before you may place a point in a skill, you must have at least one skill point in all prerequisite skills, and have reached the required character level. The numbers in parenthesis are character levels, not the number of points you have to add to that skill.

Jab

Prerequisites:

• None

Casting Delay:

• None

Synergy Bonuses:

• None

Description:

"Rapid attacks with a thrusting weapon". Delivering three rapid stabs to a single target, this early level skill is an effective melee attack. It can only be used with spears or javelins, not with swords or hammers or any other type of weapon. This was by far the best Spearazon skill in D2C, giving a very fast attack with any type of weapon. In D2X this skill is less powerful, since the weapon speed is now factored in.

The attack always has three hits, though the graphic may look like just two. This has been tested and confirmed in PvP and PvM.

Jab has been nerfed several times by Blizzard during game development. Pre-release it started with a bonus to damage, and increased 5% per point, and even had a flat 2 mana cost. Then during D2C it had no weapon speed check, so was always very fast. It's still considered overpowered by some players, so future changes aren't out of the question.

Jab use is easy early on, where you just target a monster and dice it up. With a decent spear a Spearazon can easily go through much of Normal with just this skill. Later in the game you'll probably want to use Fend more often, but Jab is still useful for hitting a single target repeatedly, especially if it's in a crowd of monsters. You might want to run in and kill a shaman quickly, to stop him resurrecting his warriors.

This is a mandatory skill for any Spearazon, as a pre-req for Impale and Fend at the very least. Whether you plan on putting a load of points into it or not is up to you; it's a good killer of single targets, though Fend does more damage and can be used on single targets effectively, with a little trick (see Fend for more details).

Power Strike

Prerequisites:

• Jab

Casting Delay:

• None

Synergy Bonuses:

• Lightning Bolt: +10% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Charged Strike: +10% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Lightning Strike: +10% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Lightning Fury: +10% Lightning Damage Per Level

Description:

"Adds lightning damage to javelin and spear weapon attacks". Another melee-only attack skill, Power Strike adds a bit to your Attack Rating, and some lightning damage on top of your normal spear attack damage.

Power Strike's mana cost and Attack Rating increases are identical to Jab, but it is a very slow attack, and the overall effectiveness is far less than Jab. Points in Power Strike add just to your Attack Rating and the added lightning damage, there isn't any benefit to the base spear or javelin damage. This is not a skill you want to sink a lot of points into, since the lightning damage is tiny even at Slvl 20.

Poison Javelin

Prerequisites:

• None

Casting Delay:

• None

Synergy Bonuses:

• Plague Javelin: +12% Poison Damage Per Level

Description:

"Throws a javelin enhanced by poison, which leaves a trail of poison clouds". Great looking animation for this one; it leaves a green trail of expanding poison clouds behind. The javelin will poison anything it strikes, as will the vapor trail poison anything that walks through it. The poison damage isn't very high, but it is effective early in the game, when monsters have low hit points and no poison resistance.

Poison Javelin is best aimed in front of a pack of approaching monsters, rather than at them, since you want them to walk through the vapor trail to poison the largest possible number of them at once. It can of course be aimed at monsters as well, and it's good there to kill things that won't walk into the trail, such as Fallen Shaman.

This is an "always hits" skill, and will always hit the target if you aim it correctly, regardless of your AR.

Poison Javelin is replaced by the higher damage Plague Javelin, so just one point in this one is advised.

Impale

Prerequisites:

• Jab

Casting Delay:

• None

Synergy Bonuses:

• None

Description:

"Increases attack damage but degrades the weapon". This skill adds substantial damage and accuracy to the Amazon's melee spear attack, but there is a much increased chance that your weapon will lose durability. The Impale attack is slow and accompanied with a cute little grunt.

This skill can be useful against Lightning Enchanted monsters, since you do big damage, and land fewer hits than Jab and therefore take fewer Charged Bolts in return, but it has no other benefits. More than one point in Impale doesn't make much sense, since the damage bonus is 300% with just one point, and additional points only add 5% each. Weapons lose durability about 10% of the time ordinarily, so 25% at Slvl 20 Impale isn't that much worse. An indestructible spear would be very good with this skill, though the attack rate is still so slow that it's best used in special situations. If you can land 3 Fend hits in the time of 1 Impale, and Fend is doing +250% damage, it's obviously a far better option.

Lightning Bolt

Prerequisites:

• Poison Javelin

Casting Delay:

• None

Synergy Bonuses:

• Power Strike: +3% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Charged Strike: +3% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Lightning Strike: +3% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Lightning Fury: +3% Lightning Damage Per Level

Description:

"Changes a thrown javelin into lightning". A nifty graphic and sound effect accompany this skill, which turns a normal javelin into a sizzling bolt of lightning.

The baby brother of Lightning Fury, this skill looks nifty and can be useful early on, but is in every way improved upon by Lightning Fury at Clvl 30.

This is an "always hits" skill, and will always hit the target if you aim it correctly, regardless of your AR.

Lightning Bolt is useful only as a pre-requisite for the more powerful skills lower in the tree. Converts 100% Physical Damage To Elemental Damage

Charged Strike

Prerequisites:

• Jab
• Power Strike
• Poison Javelin
• Lightning Bolt

Casting Delay:

• None

Synergy Bonuses:

• Power Strike: +10% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Lightning Bolt: +10% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Lightning Strike: +10% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Lightning Fury: +10% Lightning Damage Per Level

Description:

"Enchants thrusting weapon with charged bolts". This skill imbues a spear or javelin melee attack with added lightning damage, as well as emitting Charged Bolts through the target, where they will scatter off and perhaps damage other nearby monsters.

A step up from Power Strike, this skill adds more lightning damage, but has no bonus to Attack Rating, and a steeper mana cost. It looks cool and can be sort of fun, but it's not really useful other than as a prerequisite skill. It is limited by the fact that you never emit more than three Charged Bolts, no matter how many points you have in the skill.

This is an "always hits" skill, and will always hit the target if you aim it correctly, regardless of your AR.

Plague Javelin

Prerequisites:

• Poison Javelin
• Lightning Bolt

Casting Delay:

• 4 seconds

Synergy Bonuses:

• Poison Javelin: +10% Poison Damage Per Level

Description:

"Enchants javelin with poison explosions". A more powerful version of Poison Javelin, Plague looks identical in flight, but upon impact it bursts into a poison nova that has a larger radius with every added skill point.

This skill is impressive, and can be very useful for crowd control, as you can nail dozens of monsters with one shot. The thrown javelin deals your normal javelin damage, including the physical, and adds the poison damage on top of that. Your poison damage from charms and equipment is added to monsters you actually hit with the javelin (might be several of them, with Pierce) but not to the actual poison cloud, which is what hits most monsters.

This skill is most useful with large packs of monsters, where you want to have all of them dropping hit points at the same time. One point here can be useful to prevent huge packs from healing over time, though with the 3 second duration, you'd have to keep hitting them with it regularly.

This is an "always hits" skill, and will always hit the target if you aim it correctly, regardless of your AR.

This skill isn't really enough damage to be used successfully as your main attack past Nightmare, especially not in a big game, unless you really crank up the skill points. Players have reported success in smaller Hell games with lvl 30 or 35 Plague Javelin. Most Javazons will use one point as a prereq only, on the way up to Lightning Fury.

Fend

Prerequisites:

• Jab
• Impale

Casting Delay:

• None

Synergy Bonuses:

• None

Description:

"Attack all adjacent targets" {up to 12}. The Amazon can use this skill to strike at multiple targets much faster than she could stab each target individually with her normal Attack. There is also a bonus to Attack Rating and Damage.

This skill was much improved in D2X, where it deals bigger damage, hits faster if you have IAS equipment, and has the main hitting bug fixed. In D2C Fend was very hard to use due to a bug that if the first poke missed, all the others would. It's still iffy to use in D2X, often letting you target a monster that's not actually in range when you are desynched from the realm server, and causing a bad case of the whiffs. Experts advise that you target a monster you are sure is in range each time, and click every attack, rather than just holding down the button. Putting it on your left click, rather than the right click can be helpful, and it's not a good idea to use it while holding Shift.

Fend doesn't have a fixed maximum number of hits, unlike Zeal, and if you have 20 monsters swarming you, all in range to stab at, that's how many stabs you'll do. The first and last stab seem to always go at whichever monster you have targeted, so point out a big one.

One useful trick is to remember that Fend works like Strafe; you get an extra poke for your minions that are nearby. So keep your Valk and Merc handy, and cast a Decoy as well and you'll get four pokes at single targets, making this more effective than Jab for boss-killing.

This is the best skill for most Spearazons, and should be maxed out.

Lightning Strike

Prerequisites:

• Jab
• Power Strike
• Poison Javelin
• Lightning Bolt
• Charged Strike

Casting Delay:

• None

Synergy Bonuses:

• Power Strike: +8% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Lightning Bolt: +8% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Charged Strike: +8% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Lightning Fury: +8% Lightning Damage Per Level

Description:

"Enchants thrusting weapons with chain lightning". The most powerful of the Amazon's lightning enhanced melee attacks, Lightning Strike emits bolts of Chain Lightning from the targeted monster towards all nearby monsters. Like the Sorceress' Chain Lightning, these bolts will bounce from monster to monster, potentially hitting each demon with many individual bolts.

Note that this is not a melee version of Lightning Fury (unfortunately). The Chain Lightning is much less effective then the blizzard of lightning bolts a Javazon gets with Lightning Fury, and players who have tested this are sure the actual damage dealt is much lower than the skill lists.. A relatively disappointing skill, all told.

This is an "always hits" skill, and will always hit the target with the Lightning bonus attack, if you aim it correctly, regardless of your AR. Your actual physical spear attack does check AR though.

If you are going to try an elemental Spearazon, this will be your main skill, so you'll probably want to max it, though even with 20+ points it's not very effective.

Lightning Fury

Prerequisites:

• Poison Javelin
• Lightning Bolt
• Plague Javelin

Casting Delay:

• None

Synergy Bonuses:

• Power Strike: +1% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Lightning Bolt: +1% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Charged Strike: +1% Lightning Damage Per Level
• Lightning Strike: +1% Lightning Damage Per Level

Description:

"A lightning bolt that splits on impact". Formerly called 'Zeus Bolt', this skill imbues a thrown javelin with a powerful thunderbolt attack, and adds lightning damage to the normal javelin damage. The real damage boost is from the streams of Lightning that are emitted towards every monster in range.

The thrown javelin hits a target, and shoots out a lightning bolt (not Chain Lightning) towards every monster in range. The number of bolts increase with more points in the skill, but it only shoots one at each target; you don't shoot 10 at one target if you only have two monsters on the screen and Slvl 9 in the skill. The real key is that with Pierce you can hit multiple targets with each throw, and each hit will send more lightning bolts out. A good throw that has say 20 monsters in a pack, and hits 4 of them, would send out nearly 80 bolts, with each bolt dealing around 250 damage at Slvl 20. That's 20,000 damage with one throw!

Pierce is very useful with LF for the following reason. The percentages listed are the chances of Pierce working on a given target. The first target is the % listed on the skill info in the game. The second target is the % chance of Pierce working two times in a row: (.71 x .71 = .5041 at Slvl 10).

Target	Slvl 10	Slvl 12	Slvl 14	Slvl 16	Slvl 18	Slvl 20	Slvl 25
1st	71%	75%	79%	82%	83%	85%	90%
2nd	50%	56%	62%	67%	69%	75%	81%
3rd	36%	42%	49%	55%	57%	61%	73%
4th	25%	32%	39%	45%	47%	52%	65%
5th	18%	24%	31%	37%	39%	44%	59%

As you can see your odds for hitting the first target increase a little, but the odds of getting 3 or 4 or 5 hits increase much more with higher levels in Pierce, making them very worth it if you're doing huge mob areas, such as the Secret Cow Level.

The javelin will emit bolts when it hits a wall also, so this works well if the target is near a wall, since if Pierce activates there will be target damage, and then bolts coming back from the wall as well. If you have a stubborn single target, maneuver the boss so that he's right next to a wall, column, rock, tree, cottage, etc. Anything that you can throw through the monster into the wall, for the Piercing bonus.

Lightning Fury is one the very best skills in the game for any character, especially when used on mobs. You want to try and gather up as many monsters in the same area as possible, and this has given rise to the popular cow level tactic of "herding". It can be used in many other areas of the game as well, and is the key to success with Lightning Fury.

This is an "always hits" skill, and will always hit the target if you aim it correctly, regardless of your AR.

This skill is it for a Javazon; most will want to max it out for the fastest killing speed possible. If you are using other skills as well, you might just put 10 or so points into this, which is enough to be quite effective, and will save you points for other skills.