Details on LF Wall Bouncing?

[LiftedUp]

Hey all.

Over the course of the past few days, I've been Baal running a ton with my lvl 95 LF/CS javazon. What has become evident is that when I throw my lightning fury off the pillars in the throne room, they will always bounce off, hit the monsters of the current wave AND, most importantly, deal more damage than they would (or so it seems) if I had merely thrown into the monsters themselves. What I'm wondering, specifically, is how much bonus damage is added to an LF jav that's wall-bounced? Is there any way to find out how much my bolts are actually dealing?

Thanks much.

[Hrus]

They deal the same damage like the initial LF. That's why LF + pierce is so strong combination.

[LiftedUp]

Thanks for the reply. To clarify for my own sake: wall bouncing lightning fury deals the same amount of damage (i.e., the damage of the first javelin) to every monster hit by a bolt? And so, wall bouncing can actually be used as a substitute for pierce insofar as it does essentially the same thing?

[Hrus]

To be clear. You hit a target with LF (LF autohits), physical damage of the javelin + elemental damage from gear is applied and LF bolts are released. If there are lot of monsters on the screen, you will get a lot of bolts damaging all they came through. Now the pierce check is done and if it is successful, the initial javelin continue to travel. If it hit the wall now, the LF bolts will be released now with the same power, but the initial javelin is lost and doesn't rebound anywhere.
Also usually the density of bolts released on the monster greatly damage that monster and any close monsters, while the LF bolts from wall are usually far from monsters, so they deal less damage overall, because they usually hit only the monsters targeted by single bolts.

[NASE]

My strategy guide - the one shipped with the combo box - claims that the initial javelin does less damage the bolts. Note sure if this was true or even still is true.



If we look at the position of the monster relative to the pillar and the centre of the group. You see that when draw a line - without curves - that each line will cut through more monsters when you origin from pillar then when you origin from the centre of the group. Using math, the arc needed to 'hit' each monster will be 360° for the centre of the group and lets say 90° for the pillar. Now if we assume the same number of bolts released - which is depending the number of monsters - we can prove that the density of bolts will be greater for the pillar situation.

Now, I assume that the number of bolts is depending on the number of monsters on screen. And normally, all monster should be in the same screen as seen from the pillar.


Note however that this doesn't include pierce. If you pierce once in comparison to no pierces when you hit the pillar. I'm note sure which will do more damage. With 5 pierces, I can't believe that the pillar will do more damage.
However, if you really want to get the most damage, you want to pierce 5 time and make the last hit be on the pillar - thus abusing the smaller arc as seen from the pillar.

[droid]

I think this is sounding a lot more complicated than it really is....

LF bolts each do the listed damage in the character screen. The javelin always does the listed damage as well to each monster that your javelin itself passes through.

Each time your jav itself pierces and hits another monster (or wall), it triggers another wave of bolts.

When bolts are released, multiple bolts can hit and damage a single enemy, depending on their angle. If two bolts are released traveling in close to the same direction, they'll both do full damage to every monster they pass through in that direction.

When your jav hits a monster, the bolts all tend to radiate out in every direction since other monsters are all around it. When your jav hits a wall, all the bolts tend to travel in a similar direction since the monsters all lie mostly in that one direction. Consequently, your chances for multiple bolts damaging a single monster may be higher.

[LiftedUp]

Droid and Nase, thanks for your comments. Let me add, however, and this goes specifically to Nase's comment about positioning, it seems best in Baal's throne room to stand off to the right and fairly close to the staircase. This way, when you throw a javelin, it not only goes directly into the crowd, but if pierce is activated, has a chance to break through the crowd and hit the far left pillar with a chance to bounce bolts backwards into the crowd once more.

One more note about bouncing as well: I've sort of always assumed that the angle I throw the javelin from will influence the way it deflects off the pillar, but this simply hasn't been the case. The Arreat Summit vaguely alludes to this, too, in its description of Lightning Fury:

Lightning Fury will release a set number of lightning bolts towards each of the surrounding monsters when a monster is hit with this spell.


The LF bolts seek, to a certain extent anyway...even if, as in the case of some wall bouncing, a monster is not hit in the first place. Maybe that's not huge news, but I've been pleasantly surprised.