Poison Javelin Amazon Guide

Plague Javelin* is your primary Damage Skill. It has a short cooldown and leaves a trail of Poison Damage behind its travel path. When the Javelin stops traveling, it releases a larger cloud of Poison AoE damage. DOTs prevent a monster from healing until the effect expires.

lightningfury* is your secondary Damage Skill. Each Javelin splits into tons of additional Lightning projectiles that target all other monsters on screen, which then split even further to multiply your damage output.

Jab* is a back-up Skill that deals melee Physical Damage with 3 attacks in rapid succession. This can be used to apply Crushing Blow to tanky Boss monsters.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)

enchant*: increases the target's Attack Rating by a large amount and adds a small amount of Fire Damage. This buff last for over 11 minutes when cast from demonlimb. This AR is pivotal to maximize your Chance to Hit and allow your Javelin to Pierce through and spread the Poison cloud further.

Impale* is a slow attack skill that uses a lot of durability, but Always Hits and is Uninterruptible. This Skill Slows monsters by a percent. It's also used to apply certain effects like Open Wounds or Crushing Blow for niche scenarios.

Slow Missiles* slows ranged attacks in a large radius and grants Physical Damage Reduction when cast.

Critical Strike* grants a chance to double Physical Damage on Attack Skills. Though this build does not rely on this damage type, it boosts your average Jab damage.

Penetrate* gives you additional Attack Rating as a passive bonus.

Pierce* is a very important Skill for this build. It allows your Projectiles (Arrows/Javelins) to pass through your enemies and hit the ones behind as well. You can Pierce up to 5 targets.

Dodge*, Avoid*, and Evade* passively grant you a chance to dodge enemy attacks in the situations mentioned in the Skill. A dodged attack is negated completely.

Decoy* spawns a duplicate of yourself on the area you target, drawing the enemy's attention to it.

Valkyrie* also can be used like a Decoy but she acts similar to a Mercenary as it follows you and attacks monsters.

* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)
* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)
* Skills that do NOT utilize either FCR or IAS

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

Gear/Base Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.
1) Wizardspike is great for your Weapon-Swap, allowing you to get around faster with Teleport.

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to immunities or bad layouts. These areas are strong without a Sunder Charm.

Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter Variant.

Act 1

Act 4

Act 5

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Act 5 Barbarian

NOTE: While most Mercenaries want to have the highest Defense value possible, this actually reduces the chance of proc'ing lowerresist. Our mercenary needs to get hit in the first place to have a chance to proc. Do NOT upgrade base armors and AVOID Ethereal versions. This also makes this mercenary cheaper and easier to outfit!

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• Use Plague Javelin in dense areas with lots of monsters. With enough Attack Rating you can launch your Javelin directly into oncoming monster groups. Keep an eye on the trajectory of the cloud and as you run by. Make sure to kite monsters through your cloud as you travel to maximize the amount of time Poison Damage is being applied.
• If you notice your Javelin stopping at the first monster, your Attack Rating may not be high enough yet. When this happens, lead your throw slightly to the side of the monster pack and then move so that they have to run through the expanding cloud to reach you. You dont even need to hit a monster with the Javelin itself to apply the maximum Poison Damage!
• When traveling far distances to a farming spot, or when faced with an impassable obstacle, use teleport from Enigma to drastically increase your farming efficiency.
• Use Valkyrie and Decoy to take the heat off of you, tanking any high-danger monsters and boss packs.
• Cast Slow Missiles to slow ranged attacks and reduce the target's Physical Damage.
• While this is a ranged build and we don't prioritize having a lot of Life, you are quite tanky thanks to Block Chance and Dodge Chance. Don't be afraid to dodge and weave through monster packs if that would be the most efficient route.

Immunities

• Use lightningfury, jab and your Mercenary to deal with Poison Immunes.
• Use a Wand of Lower Resistance to reduce enemy's Poison Resistance and increase your damage.
• Rotting Fissure breaks ALL Poison Immune monsters and brings them to 95% Resistance. Pair this with as much -% Enemy Poison Resistance as possible.

Late-Game

• When using the Death's Web or budget friendly -xx% Enemy Poison Resistance, the only prebuffing you do is to cast enchant from Demon Limb.
• When using BC/BO setup, swap to Call to Arms Crystal Sword and cast Battle Command then Valkyrie if desired. Recast Battle Command followed by Battle Orders. Switch back to your main setup.
• Use your Mercenary as an enticing piñata, making enemies group up and hit him. This gives the best chance to proc Lower Resist to help increase your Poison and Lightning Damage.
• [MIN-MAX Tech] - Immediately after you cast Plague Javelin swap to death'sweb to reduce monster's Poison Resistance and increase your Poison Damage as much as possible. After 1-2 seconds swap back to your primary swap, then rinse and repeat.

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

Increased Attack Speed speeds up your attack animations. Weapon bases have different IAS breakpoints. Values for recommended weapon options provided below. Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Titan's Revenge Ceremonial Javelin

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for at least the 86% FHR Breakpoint.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary concern is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.

This build is Hardcore viable. If you are unaccustomed to this playstyle, we recommend trying this build on Softcore to gain experience on how to successfully pilot it.

Stat Point Changes

• We put enough into Strength to wear gear, as well as enough Stat Points into Dexterity to maintain 75% Chance to Block with Stormshield. Everything else goes into Vitality.

Item Changes

• Be sure to keep your Resistances over capped with up to 135% additional Resistance against Conviction and Lower Resist.
• Stormshield
• Crown of Ages
• Sandstorm Trek
• Rare Ring
• Shimmering Small Charm of Vita