Lightning Strike

Lightning Strike is a melee attack, but one that has the secondary effect of launching projectiles which deal damage based on your weapon damage.

Skill Functions

When the melee attack is made, three lightning projectiles will shoot out in a ~85 degree arc, traveling in a straight line untill they strike an enemy. Unmodified projectiles will do 70% of full weapon damage, of which 50% of physical damage is converted to lightning damage (the bolts benefit from added damage, e.g. as from aura's), against any target struck. Linking a or support gem will multiplicatively reduce the damage of each projectile and spread further projectiles out within the 85 degree arc.

Cannot Miss: This applies only to the projectiles launched after you initiated the strike. Swinging in enemies' general direction will result in projectiles with a hit/miss chance equal to that of the skill itself. Projectiles that miss will be dissipated without doing damage.

Damage conversion: Like all converted damage, the lightning portion of Lightning Strike's damage will be modified by both lightning damage and physical damage increases. Furthermore, the damage done by the lightning bolts is considered projectile damage (instead of melee), therefore any Strength bonus does not apply.

It is important to note that despite the confusing wording of this skill, the projectile portion of this attack in no way scales off the melee portion of the attack - in essence, the Lightning Strike skill does two completely separate things simultaneously, a melee attack (which deals 120% of the base damage, and of which 50% of the physical damage is converted to lightning damage), and a ranged attack (which shoots 3 projectiles, which deal 1.2 * 0.7 = 84% of the base damage of the attack each, and of which 50% of the physical damage is converted to lightning damage).

This means that increasing the melee portion of the hit through melee-exclusive means such as will not actually increase the projectile damage; the projectile damage is not "converted melee damage", a common misconception. Do not be deceived by the tooltip DPS of this skill which will change if you apply a melee-exclusive modifier; the tooltip DPS only shows the DPS of the melee portion of the attack and things that modify that, but not the projectile part of the attack.

That said, passive points that grant Increased damage with one-handed melee weapons for example will in fact affect the projectile attack as well if one is using a one-handed weapon, since it is still an attack that is dealt with a melee weapon (though the damage you're dealing is not actually melee damage). However, Increased melee damage with one-handed weapons would only apply to the melee portion of the attack, as it increases melee damage.

Any flat elemental damage gains from gear, auras, weapons or any other source will apply to both the projectile and the melee portion of the attack.

Skill Interactions

Dual Wielding: Dual wielding attacks with Lightning Strike will alternate the weapon being swung.

Life on Hit: The stated amount of life on hit will be restored for the initial hit and for each projectile that strikes an enemy.

Piercing Projectiles: Lightning Strike projectiles which pierce an enemy and strike another will do the usual projectile damage to all enemies struck.

Point Blank: Projectiles are affected by Point Blank even though the melee attack is not.

The modifier x% of Physical Damage added as from things like Hatred and Added Fire Damage is based on physical damage before conversions. So it will be based on the full base damage, not just the 50% physical part. This applies to both - melee damage and projectile damage.

Gem level progression

Template:GemLevelTable |- ! 1 | 10 || 29 || 11 || class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A || 9,569 |- ! 2 | 13 || 35 || 11 || 3% || 18,908 |- ! 3 | 16 || 41 || 11 || 6% || 33,871 |- ! 4 | 19 || 48 || 11 || 9% || 56,446 |- ! 5 | 22 || 54 || 11 || 12% || 89,302 |- ! 6 | 25 || 60 || 11 || 15% || 135,415 |- ! 7 | 28 || 67 || 11 || 18% || 283,759 |- ! 8 | 32 || 75 || 11 || 21% || 453,996 |- ! 9 | 36 || 83 || 11 || 24% || 703,128 |- ! 10 | 40 || 92 || 12 || 27% || 1,061,223 |- ! 11 | 44 || 100 || 12 || 30% || 1,570,760 |- ! 12 | 47 || 106 || 12 || 33% || 2,286,879 |- ! 13 | 50 || 113 || 12 || 36% || 3,289,072 |- ! 14 | 53 || 119 || 12 || 39% || 3,351,223 |- ! 15 | 56 || 125 || 12 || 42% || 9,935,033 |- ! 16 | 59 || 132 || 13 || 45% || 21,343,930 |- ! 17 | 62 || 138 || 13 || 48% || 50,689,250 |- ! 18 | 64 || 142 || 13 || 51% || 90,043,412 |- ! 19 | 66 || 146 || 13 || 54% || 147,026,187 |- ! 20 | 68 || 151 || 13 || 57% || class="table-na" style="text-align: center; " | N/A |}

Version history

Version	Changes
0.10.0	Fixed a problem with evasion related to Lightning Strike.
0.9.12h	Fixed a bug where Lightning Strike's projectiles would always miss when you use it for the first time in a while.
0.9.12b	Fixed a crash with Lightning Strike that would occur with specific two-handed mauls.
0.9.11	The damage penalty on its projectiles is now 30% rather than 20%.
0.9.10b	Fixed a bug where Lightning Strike's melee attack would always hit. Lightning Strike's projectiles now always hit if the melee attack hits, otherwise they perform an accuracy roll.
0.9.10	Fixed a client crash that could occur when using Lightning Strike while standing on a patch of fire.
0.9.9	Reduced damage penalty on projectiles from -50% to -20%.
0.9.6e	Fixed a client freeze that could occur if a nearby party member was using Lightning Strike.
0.9.6c	Fixed a bug where Lightning Strike's damage was displayed wrong.
0.9.6	Lightning Strike has been added to the game