I want to say, I’m really enjoying Javelin and smite having a “holy” lightning build path. It’s really cool and thematic and I’m all about it right now. I do wish there was more support directly for this playstyle in the paladin tree/other abilities. So far there’s a bit of Lightning dmg/pen and crit damage in the paladin passive tree, and no other support specific to lightning damage.
Thoughts on additional ways/places to support this style in the tree.
Holy Aura:
I could see this getting a node which converts some of the fire bonuses to lightning bonuses perhaps off of the throwing bonus nodes. Maybe add some shock chance as an alternate choice to Electrify conversion, Shock is a good ailment.
Sigils of Hope:
I’d like to see something that also potentially converts some of these bonuses to lightning as well. Also I’d like to see something that interacts with smite, maybe not even direct casted smite, but proc based smite even. Maybe something like if you cast smite in any way, the sigils pulse some kind of lightning damage or lightning barrier for an additional type of defense especially since Javelin wants to use 2h spears currently and there’s so much defensive support for shields currently.
Coming from the above…
1h spear/Javelins:
I’d really enjoy seeing 1h spear/javalin class weapons, the paladin tree is very focused around Shields and having a shield, Most of their defense is built around it, and they get a not insignificant amount of adaptive spell power for having shields. So it would be nice if there was a 1h spear you could use with shields.
Alternative to the Above: More support in the paladin skill tree for 2h spears, Ward generation would be rough since getting Ward decay rate down would want entirely different stats, and ward while it could thematically work as a holy barrier might be tricky to generate. I’d like to see more spear support in the base paladin skill tree.
Anyways I’m really enjoying the Smite/javelin holy lightning archetype etc, but I feel like it could use just a bit more support.
I’ll echo pretty much when you’ve said here. I had quite a bit of fun getting through the story but after finishing Lagon’s timeline on normal I decided to shelf the character for now until more support through skill/passive synergies and itemization springs up for it. Holy Aura and Sigils are definitely primed for some lightning conversion, as well as some additional passives for scaling wouldn’t hurt. Also maybe another Idol affix of some measure to get use out of instead of just the general throwing ones we have.
And instead of making a new post I’ll just share my additional thoughts here too:
I built up electrify through Javelin and Smite procs, while it didn’t do too awful, it definitely wouldn’t have been able to handle empowered monoliths in any decent measure. Until there’s more electrify effect available to scale up the solid amount of electrify chance we can get, it will still do ~66% damage (rough estimate) of what my bleed paladin builds can do with way less blessing/itemization investment. I imagine a hit/crit version would fair better overall than trying to scale electrify right now.
I feel that Siege Barrage’s initial connection in the tree should be through Mighty Delivery instead of Burning Strength, as even on hit builds could use Siege Barrage and have no use for ignite at all. Increasing the cost to two from Mighty Delivery to maintain the point investment to keep it even would be fair I think.
Also, Siege Barrage and Spiked Bombardment’s increased mana cost might need some lowering compared to it’s peers. To do 3 hits with one throw for each skill, we have Hammer Throw’s low initial mana cost and the low additional increased costs from Iron Spiral and Catapultx2 to hit 11 cost compared to Javelin’s initial cost and adding Siege Barrage to end up at 21, quite the difference. There’s also less risk and more reward from Hammer Throw in this instance as Iron Spiral covers a larger area and allows the player to stick and move, and Siege Barrage only hits in a tight area and both gain a relative delay each but this lack of area (or the ability to scale it) causes Siege Barrage to be pretty lackluster in comparison.
With non-exalted throwing cost rings (-6) and all cost reduction nodes taken (Hammer Throw -6 and Javelin -9) we have Hammer Throw at -1 and Javelin 6. Now 6 isn’t expensive by any stretch, but I’m speaking from the context of attempting to stack up DoTs. With 90% increased throwing speed and 16 mana regen you’ll still tank your mana in about 5 secs(especially if you use Holy Aura once or twice) where Hammer Throw will able to keep throwing and throwing. I might as well acknowledge that Shurikens would also be 1/1 as Hammer throw to achieve 3x single target hits per throw and cost.
Then there’s Divine Fury’s additional costs to achieve what chaining Hammer throw does, but those nodes include other costs just not mana ones. Problems with mana generation as the skills through Time and Faith don’t synergize well with throwing attacks as well now with the overall attack/cast speed nerfs Paladin suffered. I could go on with other examples.
I’ll just say again that I’m viewing that from a DoT stacking build context and not a hit/crit one and concede that maybe the higher costs for these nodes is due to the Polearm +damage effectiveness (which is a great idea) scaling and this is to keep that build under control. Just my initial thoughts and musings.
I’m trying for a Hit/crit build as I was extremely Whelmed with the electrify dot stacking concept given the mana cost problem I foresaw. You figure as well currently you can stack up electrify with each hit of javelin having a 40% max chance to proc a smite, which also can hit a decent area and stack a fair number of electrifies especially if you get forking javs which proc multiple smites, you’re looking at a considerably mana cost based on # of procs.
Also while I do love the scaling from polearms, it seems pretty tough to actually get a decent chunk of crit onto Jav beyond the node to the lower left. It’d be nice if you could get at least some of the base crit of the weapon, or some sort of weapon scaling. Currently I’m finding % lightning % inc crit chance All stats (or str/Dex or Attune depending on which you want to scale more) and chance to ignite (which gets converted to electrocute) being the 4 far and away clear winners. No obv Crit multi might replace crit chance at some point on weapons/gear once enough crit chance is reached but for now anyways it seems like there is little reason to grab other offensive stats.
Yeah I had forgotten that the spear implicits specify melee critical chance and not just for attacks. So the +8 from Beast Ender and passives/affixes are all we got and as you’ve pointed out we forego the crit prefixes on our polearm if we stack the +dmg effect conversion. Maybe the polearm rework will help it shine with a generic +attack crit implicit instead of melee ones.
So, The Lightning Jav Enabling Node “Divine Throws” Mentions that it converts Bleed chance and effects related to bleed from all sources now effect electrify. Wouldn’t this mean you could basically swap Jav into your Bleed build and it would just work with electrify? So Penance and Redemption should affect electrify (based on how I’m interpreting this gramatically, which may be flawed)?
Edit:
Also, I’m currently doing the left side of the tree with the forking projectiles, as it feels like the old school Lightning Javazon from D2, but I’m thinking that if I actually had t7 throwing rings it might be fun to spec into the Javelin Rain, I think I’d have 6 mana cost javelins, which would rain down good old lightningey death and feel very Zeus Thunderbolt spam between the javelins and the smites. Though I do like the straight line VS the Rain in terms of mechanical usefulness (I don’t miss if the enemy runs at me, they just run into the javelin faster) as opposed to the rain where enemies can simply run out of the rain if they bumrush me. Thoughts?
That node says that “effects related to bleed/ignite now depend on electrify”, therefore if a node gives you a damage buff against bleeding/ignited mobs (such as Smite’s Conflagration node) would give you a damage buff against electrified mobs. Unfortunately there don’t appear to be any such nodes in Javelin. I don’t believe it’s a global modifier for other passives/gear that affect bleed/ignite such as Penance/Redemption.
IMO, the text should be tweaked to "effects that depend on bleed/ignite now depend on electify).
Bleed chance from all sources converts yeah. So all our bleed chance becomes electrify chance.
Effects related to bleed depend on electrify. Yeah this is the unclear bit. I don’t think say Bleed effect would scale. But I do feel like Penance/redemption should work at least with how it’s written. The bleed chance should 100% work, I could see the bleed damage in Redemption not working but the inc damage in the node is based on being effected with a bleed, (which should be converted to Self electrify?)
So basically when you get hit you have a chance to be bled (or electrified), then you can get increased damage.
Anyways I’m not sure if it currently works since I’m not there yet, but as it is written it should work. (not the bleed damage but the chance and the dependent effect)
I’m ~95% certain that ailment conversion nodes only apply to the skill rather than other passives/skills (such as the self-bleed from Pennance & all of Redemption).
Though Here’s a thing. I made 2 spears for Lightning Jav, one I put shock chance on because I wanted shock. The other I put ignite chance on. So I had some non-skill based ignite chance, I never once saw the ignite effect pop up.
Yeah… I wasn’t expecting it to. I was expecting it to do anything off of javalin and how it interacts with javelins. Basically take Ignite/bleed in and put electrify out. I dunno I guess it would depend on where the order of operations is. Does the skill go last and convert everything, or does the skill go in the middle and have some effects apply afterwards?
Skill conversions happen first, then gear then passives (or possibly passives then gear, can’t remember & not sure if there’s anything where that distinction matters).
I tried Siege Barrage for single target spam and like I said previously it… works but not as good as other single target conversion for like Hammer Throw/Shurikens/Fireball etc etc. It’s not only the mana cost but also as you said against faster moving bosses/rares they’ll just move out of the landing zone to ‘bum-rush’ you, as Siege Barrage adds a delay to it landing on it’s mark. It’s great for bosses/rares that barely move and I imagine if you can (some how) further mitigate the increased mana cost from Spiked Bombardment to hit 5 times per throw, I don’t think it would be too bad, but again that mana cost will be really steep.
It looks cool, love the synergy and idea behind it, and while there’s room to grow/improve here it’s just as it stands now I can’t justify playing it. There are other throwing builds that fair a great deal better at the moment given the other adjustments and fixes from the patch coughvoid hammer throwcough.
Wait do you pay the Javelin mana cost 5 times with spiked bombardment? That’s kinda insane… I’m just gunna stick with my chaining lightning bolts. Also Swirly hammer smite is pretty strong.
Nah it’s +60% per throw I mean. So, base Javelin cost of 9, plus an additional 12 from Siege Barrage, then Spiked Bombardment is increasing that cost +30% per point to +60%. Without any mana reduction investment the cost is either 33 or 34 per throw, which is painful. Right now I have 6 cost with Javelin and with one point in Spiked it increased to 8, so going 2/2 the cost will be 10-11 per throw, depending if there’s any rounding.
Yeah I was thinking with dual t7 ring mods, and the -9 from the tree final cost is 6 if I’m figuring it in properly. I’m currently sitting at 2 cost with crap tier rings, using the forking javelins which I think is pretty nice, especially since when I get better rings I can get them to be free since I only plan to put 2 points into that node, and want to get some More damage elsewhere in the tree.
So your gear is giving your ignites, then your skill tree is converting them to Electrify. If you had a passive or idol/unique/etc which then converted Electrify to something else (say, Time Rot) your Javelin would be applying Time Rot.
That’s a super weird order of operations… Gear>Skill>Gear again… like wut? How are you supposed to get that straight and have any idea what things are sposed to do?
