User blog:Brainwasher5/Javazon notes

I've never tried to play along with guides so I'm figuring out what's good for Javazons by myself. I'll leave notes down here and edit as an organic way of gathering my thoughts.

Javazons are great because they can rely completely on skills if they needed to. With enough investment in the required skills it's quite possible to do Hell Baal runs with even the crappiest gear bought from a vendor. That being said, Javazons still benefit greatly from equipment, and go from pretty great to god-tier with the right gear.

Stats:

Strength: If you pick your armor and weapons right, you won't need very much here. The highest I can think of is 156 for a monarch, and then you can subtract a whole bunch of points after you get +strength equipment.

Dex: Upped Titan's Revenge is 151 dex (non-upped 109); considering how amazing they are this is good goal to set.

Vit: Everything else.

Energy: None.

Skills:

Charged Strike (20, max first). Main attack, crowd control and focusing strong monsters down. Lightning Fury (20, max second). Secondary attack, better crowd control. Pierce (9 soft points, third). 9 soft points, with Razortail, grants 100% pierce. Even without razortail, past level 9 is when the diminishing returns really kick in, and 69% base pierce isn't bad. Poison Javelin/Plague Javelin/Critical Strike/Penetrate: Pre-reqs. Power Strike/Lightning Bolt/Lightning Strike: max after, synergies.

Dodge/Evade/Avoid/Valkyrie are optional, making her tankier but also slightly less powerful.

Gear
Will list best equipment first, followed by some good but cheaper options, followed by interesting options. Generally what you want is +skills, resistances, mana, life, IAS, FR/W. Resistances are less essential than for, say, a barbarian since you will be doing a lot of your damage from a good distance, but you'll still be going for the throat sometimes. Lightning resist is most important; poison least. Crushing Blow and Deadly Strike are often overlooked in this class, but they're certainly useful for those rare instances where you stumble upon lightning immunes. The most important in terms of lightning damage output is the rare but coveted -enemy lightning resist mod, which is only available on a few items.

Aim for 52% IAS. It's the second highest break point for lightning fury and 50% is the second highest for charged strike. The NEXT breakpoint's at like 90% IAS, and that's frankly silly unless you're playing with a pally using Fanaticism. An easy (albeit expensive) way to get around this is to give an act 1 merc the Faith rune word, though you're missing on the good auras Act II ones could potentially give.

52% IAS is deceptively hard to reach without weakening the build. Gloves can give at most +20%, and while there are armor pieces and helmets that give impressive IAS, they tend to not do much else in other departments compared to their competition. Jewel of Fervor gives +15% IAS, which is probably the most valuable use of a socket outside of a Rainbow Faucet. Cat's Eye and Highlord's Wrath give 20% each. Highlord's Wrath is the more useful of the two for a javazon.

Probably the best compromise of speed and power for 52% IAS would be a +20 IAS pair of gloves, Highlord's Wrath, and Thunderstroke, or Titan's Revenge and a Jewel of Fervor.

Helm

 * Griffon's Eye: The increase to lightning skill damage is what you want. For the absolute best, socket with perfect lightning facet. Both items are rare as hell though. Ladder only.


 * Harlequin Crest.


 * Crown of Ages: socket, skills, resistances. Amazing.


 * Andariel's Visage: +2 skills, +20% IAS, high poison resists. The loss of fire resist is painful though. Also, your character will look hideous.


 * Valkyrie Wing: +2 skills (potentially), FR/W, +mana per kill will help you stay in fights longer if you find yourself constantly dry.
 * A rare/magical circlet with +2/3 skills, IAS, and more...circlets can potentially be amazing for anything.


 * Rockstopper: Amazing defensive boosts. Upgrade it for even better.


 * M'avina's True Sight: 30% IAS.


 * Lore (Ort+Sol): easy to make, good modifiers.


 * Tarnhelm: dirt cheap and common as hell with practically no requirements, but with a nice +1 skill and magic find. A great starter helm.

I'm missing a few...as long as they have one of the traits I listed at the top they can be good.

Chest Armor

 * Chains of Honor.


 * Enigma.


 * Treachery: This armor has no business being this good considering how cheap its runes are. The Fade gives you a massive bonus to resist and damage reduction when activated and the massive +45 IAS is unmatched. Unfortunately nothing else it gives is that remarkable. The Lem rune is semi-rare but you can still get it after grinding the Countess for a few dozen runs, unlike the Guls and Ums and Ists out there which can have you farming for so long you sink into an existential crisis. Even if you don't want to wear this permanently the fat +60 resist and +15 phys damage reduction for five minutes you get from activating fade is certainly nothing to sneeze at; keep one in your stash and you save yourself considerable pain.


 * Duress: Cheaper than Enigma or Chains of Honor, but with decent modifiers nonetheless.


 * Peace: cheap, +2 skills. Don't bother waiting for a perfect armor to create this with. The other skills are good too: an extra tank in the form of a Valk is certainly better than not having a tank, and slow missiles can at most save your life and at least provide a good laugh.

Shield

 * Jeweler's Monarch of Deflecting filled with lightning facets is the absolute best possible, but good luck getting that without sinking a decade's worth of play time into the game.


 * Stormshield: 35% damage reduction, some other good ones. Can be socketed for more. Stormshield's +35 phys reduction stacks nicely with Treachery's to give you the maximum possible of 50%.


 * Spirit: Everyone's favorite, easily created. Best shield to go with a CtA.


 * Sigon's Guard: I keep finding these things. The +1 to skills and the low level requirement make it a nice starter, even if it slows you down.

Weapon

 * Titan's Revenge: plus to skills, FR/W, replenishes quantity, +strength and dex (sparing more points to vit). You can upgrade it to have a bit more physical damage oomph but the dex requirements will be raised considerably.


 * Thunderstroke: this objectively has the potential to do more damage than Titan's, also with 15% IAS which Titan's Revenge doesn't have. However it doesn't replenish quantity and lacks some of the stats that makes Titan's Revenge so attractive.


 * A +6 to Javelin/Spear, IAS matriarchal javelin. There's no reason to assume these can't exist but I've never seen one.


 * Any amazon javelin with +javelin skills is good until you can find something better. Leech and IAS are particularly useful.


 * (Offhand): Call to Arms, for Battle Command and Orders. Any weapon will do since you'll probably not be using it for actual fighting.

Gloves
Prioritize IAS here.


 * Conceivably you can craft gloves with crushing blow, +javelin skills, leech, +str/dex and/or IAS. I actually have quite a good pair with these exact modifiers, but I was very, very lucky. Regardless crushing blow is a guarantee which will speed up killing lightning immunes quite a bit. Just save nef runes, rubies, and jewels as a matter of habit and cube any sharkskin gloves you find; you never know if you might get lucky. The best level to cube blood gloves, by the way, is about 72-76...or so I've heard.


 * Lancer's gloves of alacrity: +3 jav skills, 20% IAS.


 * Lava Gout: 20% IAS, fire damage will help a lot when dealing with phys/lightning immunes.


 * Laying of Hands: IAS, resists, demon damage.

Belts

 * Razortail: This allows you to bring pierce up to very high levels, since it stacks with your skill. At ridiculously high levels of Pierce you're hitting near 90% pierce anyway (85% with 25 pierce), so if you have a very large amount of +skill items this belt may be made somewhat redundant. It all depends on how badly you want 100% pierce.


 * Thundergod's Vigor: lightning damage. An extremely powerful but rare choice with a bunch of other highly helpful modifiers. Contends with Razortail for the best belt for a Javazon. The more +skill items you have, the less useful Razortail becomes relative to this belt.


 * Arachnid Mesh: the only belt with +1 skills.


 * Verdungo's Hearty Cord: a massive bonus to life, damage reduction, one of the best belts in terms of defense too. Javazons are pretty squishy for an in-your-face class so this belt is pretty damn useful.


 * Goldwrap: 10% IAS, magic find.

Boots

 * Gore Rider: the boost to run walk's not the best in class but it's certainly not bad. The bonuses to crushing blow (particularly if using crafted gloves) deadly strike and open wounds make the amazon's physical damage much more potent, especially when used with Jab. With an attack speed this fast you're bound to activate something.


 * War Traveler: MF.


 * Sandstorm Trek: Vit. I personally think this is overrated. With enough charms of vita and resistances the javazon becomes a very tough tank in her own right.


 * Sander's Riprap:Their near non-existent requirements, together with +40% FR/W, make them very handy in the early game and maybe later.


 * Waterwalk: another common early pair, with a nice boost to life, speed, stamina.

There a bunch of set boots which are all excellent, but very rare. Natalya's and Aldur's come to mind.

Rings

 * Stone of Jordan


 * Raven Frost: Cannot be Frozen can be invaluable. The rest of the modifiers are nice, too, for such a mana hungry class.


 * Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band: a physical variant of SoJ. Good if you can't find SoJ/already have cannot be frozen.


 * Anything with plus to life or mana, leech (for jabbing), and resistances can be nice.

Amulets
The very best amulets differ wildly in their abilities. Tailor these to what you are lacking.


 * Highlord's Wrath: Depending on the rest of your gear, this may be the best for you. IAS and increased chance of deadly strike are what stands out. People call this nooby but I like the extra power against lightning immunes, and the bigger plus skills other ammies have are nice, but not mandatory if you've been lucky (or rich) enough to get the better stuff earlier on the list.


 * Mara's Kaleidoscope: As simple as it is useful: big stat boosts, +2 all skills, +all resistances. Great for any class, frankly.


 * The Cat's Eye: FR/W, IAS, defense, and a nice big bonus to dex.


 * Rare, crafted or magical amulet with +amazon skills, hp/mana, and/or resists. These have the potential to be extremely good.


 * The Eye of Etlich (Diablo II): +1 to all skills, low requirements.

Helms

 * General consensus is that Andy's Visage is the best merc helm. However, my merc's top cause of death even without it are those stupid hydras from those council members. It's a good enough helm socketed with fire resistance, perhaps.
 * Rockstopper: as mentioned above, great defensive properties, and your merc's primary reasons are to be a distraction and give a useful aura, so...
 * Guillame's Face: crushing blow.

Body Armor

 * Treachery: some guy had done a detailed calculation and came to the conclusion that Treachery is better than Fortitude, so there.
 * Fortitude: If you somehow for the runes for this but NOT Treachery, certainly not bad.
 * Skullder's Ire: for the greedy little piggies out there. Let your merc land the killing blow for the MF to kick in.

Weapon

 * Infinity: hard as holy hell to make, but grants CONVICTION, which makes the game go from easy mode to stupid easy mode.
 * Insight: A very cheap, very useful polearm which gives you meditation, pretty much ending all your mana problems. Don't be afraid to make this on a cheap, early polearm.

Thoughts
The Javazon starts off struggling in the mana department, like most classes. Picking up every mana potion and filling your belt is a good way to go. For an easy early game, start dumping points into Power Strike as soon as you get it, before switching to Charged Strike at level 18. At level 30, put a point into Lightning Fury before going back to Charged Strike. After beating Baal, respec so that from now on you divide points evenly between charged and lightning before maxing out charge, then lightning. Then dump points into the synergies.

Charged Strike deals obscene amounts of damage, while Lightning Fury deals a lower amount of damage but spread through the entire screen. A single late-game lightning fury javelin can clear entire screens faster than anything else in the game. A twinked javazon may well be the strongest early game build, easily one shotting practically every monster even on players 8. Twinked or not, javazons really hit their stride after getting lightning fury, easily polishing off entire rooms in a couple of seconds and racking up experience quickly. Unfortunately, due to their reliance on a single type of damage, Hell proves a big problem with the introduction of lightning immune creatures.

A javazon with all the right gear--particularly with the Infinity Act II merc--can solo player 8 hell with minimal difficulty. With poor gear, she can still manage Hell, but would do well to just avoid packs of lightning immune monsters. She's great for killing Baal and Meph, though Diablo can be annoying with his lightning immunes. Above all the javazon contends with the Hammerdin for fastest cow running.