Vouch! It does!

It doesn't take away 1 jav per attack but it degrades just like a zerker axe would. Basically, your java count is your durability

Melee'ing with throwing weapons will use up your 'quantity'
All throwing weapons in D2 have a hidden durability associated with them. When the durability reaches 0, one quantity is removed and the durability is set to max.
This durability is lost at 1/3 the odds per attack compared to regular melee weapons

For example, maiden javelins have 6 durability. Thats equivalent to an 18 durability melee sword. When that sword would break, the javelins lose 1 quantity.
Hence you could melee with ethereal non-replenish javelins for an extremely long time, but they would eventually break

A winged harpoon for example, has 18 durability & 80 stack size. If you found an ethereal rare harpoon, who had 200 stack size due to the "Dense" prefix, but wasn't self-replenish, it would have
18 * 200 * 3 = the same duration as a 10800 durability melee weapon.

This post was edited by deathwinger on Aug 16 2009 05:01pm

this

Yes it does. they "break" so it will lower the number that you ahve.

well I know exactly how it works