I can only speak from my experience. Hit based Javelin was decently strong when it first came out. It used to convert all added damage to lightning damage with the Divine Throws node. I played it with a dagger and shield with all the flat dmg from rings/amulets + the helmet/chest mods. I believe there were also versions using Mourningfrost and stacking dex. Build was fun, very nice clear but poor single target making bossing a chore. Then came 0.9 update:
0.9.0 also brought flat dmg on gloves+relic+belt (and lost some on rings) but in the end, hit based Javelin was at its worst. Clearing trash mobs was still okay but single target was pretty much unplayable. The Siege barrage node tripled your javelins solving the single target issue but now clear was pretty bad(also big mana problems).
I gave up on hit based and switched over to Electrify using the Tu’rani bident unique, Electrify variant could use the Siege barrage node and still achieve good clear through proccing smite. Amarathy also has a build video for something like this and I think Maxroll also has a similar one-hand axe+shield electrify build.