Depends a bit on enemy size and motion. Lightning can hit twice per cast, but is less likely to do so if enemies are small and moving towards you. Since it has 4 frame nextdelay and lasthit, it can still shotgun when overlapping 2+ targets for 5+ frames.
I've never been clear on exactly how that works but I think lightning only checks the collision of the spawner as it moves in a line, as a 30 velocity 25 duration 0 accel size 2 missile. In which case it moves 6 yards in 5 frames, so I was never sure how its able to strike twice on size 2 units since they only have end to end 3 tiles along diagonal for 2 yards, so it should be only 4 yards for the maximum-minimum travel distance of a size 2 missile to clear from the tip of a size 2 unit along its diagonal axis.
Maybe somethings off with my numbers because lightning very clearly can hit twice per cast anyway, maybe its checking the collision along the whole long trail of submissiles (12 duration and immobile size 1)

If lightning hits once, its about 18k at 12 fpa. If its hitting twice its 36k. Meanwhile nova builds hit about 5k at 8 fpa.

But again we'll still have warlocks on ladder with blood boil that hits 12.9k at 10 fpa in a slightly larger radius than nova and that's on top of their 48k tainted fireballs lmao

Really interesting about the missile velocities & multiple hits per cast calculations, will have to test it out.

The nova damage you listed comes with much more -res than the lightning so it's not apples to apples. For a 200 fcr apples to apples comparison using eschuta, it's 1-44k for lightning and 5.3k-6.7k for nova, so avg 22k/11fpa lightning vs 6k/7fpa nova. But nova builds can max tstorm for ~9k/30fpa without sacrificing survivability (1 pt es is enough if charms have nice life in fact), whereas light sorcs only get like 2k/39fps tstorm. Assuming single target and only one hit per cast, lightning does 77% more damage per second, all else equal. You can pump the nova damage a little further though by maxing warmth instead of tstorm, 1 pt tstorm, 1 pt firewall, 1 pt fire mastery, for a 5k/25fpa firewall. Keeping 2 stacks of firewall up on bosses with 50% lr 50% fr while having tstorm active, lightning is only 52% more DPS than nova then.

This post was edited by celloboy126 on Apr 20 2026 12:14pm

I took bremm sparkfist as target. Highest dps I can reach with nova and perfect gear against him is 18.25k at 105fcr bp, with lightning assuming you hit only once, it is 38k at 117 fcr bp:
https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/tz4lph0r

That's more than 100% and you hit from a safe distance. Also, eschuta is a noob trap. Against non light immunes, the difference is way higher.


Baal is the perfect target for this and I can confirm the 2x hit. I'm afraid the small mobile heralds are gonna be a pain to hit 2x but chain lightning should take care of this. Usually, a herald is accompanied by underlings.

This post was edited by babun1024 on Apr 20 2026 12:54pm

The fact it apparently can work on immobile size 2 targets doesn't make sense to me so I'm figuring I'm misunderstanding the mechanics, but baal with size 3 has the full 6 yards transit distance but it should virtually never be able to hit baal twice, because it has to overlap 2 targets at the same time due to lastcollide being enabled. Maybe festering tentacles but 95% of the time they'd die in 1 hit and baal clone will virtually never rub up in melee range and is also size 3 even if he did

deep fried ass builds

>warlock build "do I really need to max resists if I have 43% all dr and 32% extra life and multiple demons to tank and regen about 300 hp/s?"
>sorc build "i will teleport between their bullets"

KFC ahh builds

For more damage you should use a build that isn’t nova

200 fcr eschuta nova does 6k average damage every 7 frames, has -50 light pierce + conviction

105 fcr self-wield infi nova does 5k average damage every 8 frames, has -100 light pierce + conviction

For monsters with light res up to 85%, infi build does 31k DPS

For monsters with light res up to 35%, eschuta build does 43k DPS, and for monsters with light res up to 90%, eschuta build does at least 31k DPS.

For light immunes, infi build does 19k DPS and eschuta build does 15.4k.

In summary: eschuta beats self infi for non immunes by anywhere from 0-40%, and only loses by 19% against immunes.

200 fcr eschuta build has 3 more +sorc skills, which helps with ES, static, warmth, tstorm, frozen armor, and fire wall for optional hybridization. It has more resists, which means getting away with a lower level ES. With 1 pt ES, max warmth, and charms with decent life, your mana pool is still depleted before life, and the lower mana regen than self infi build is countered by the lower level ES easing the damage done to mana. This analysis doesn't even factor in the time saved by a 7 frame teleport over 8 frames.

The more pierce gear that gets introduced, the better 200 fcr eschuta fares against self-wielding infinity. If the crafted pierce charms get introduced, eschuta will blow it out of the water.

This post was edited by celloboy126 on Apr 20 2026 02:27pm

Yes, the calculations change when optimizing each build independently vs forcing them to wear the same 200 fcr gear for an apples to apples comparison. No one has claimed that lightning beats nova for single targets. In fact, charged bolt beats lightning, and hydra + fireball beats charged bolt, for single targets. Nova is lauded for its effectiveness on crowds, not for single target DPS.

Speaking of noob traps, your maxroll build needs a 3 light amulet and another skiller for max DPS calculations, and please read my penultimate reply re: eschuta vs self infi.

This post was edited by celloboy126 on Apr 20 2026 02:45pm