Lightning Strike mechanics and support gems

Hi all,

I am building a dagger phy which that utilizes Lightning Strike.
I was wondering what support gems are good for this skill?
Also I was wondering if it is considered a spell or a hit, a melee or a range?
Do I need faster cast or faster attack for it?

If I hold shift and spam lightnings do they always hit?

GG

It's both a melee and a spell. It's a spell when you don't directly hit it with melee and the sparks goes off on the ground. It always hits when it's melee and it doesn't always hit when the spark goes off, and a random hit chance will be applied to it.
As for attack speed, I think you'll need faster attack, not cast speed. Though I'm not 100% sure, so equip the gem and look at the skill pop-up menu to see if it says cast or attack speed.

Its melee based. You need faster attacks. And likely mana leech.

Will also for sure need weapon elemental damage, and lesser multiple projectiles works as well if you have all the other things in place to make it work.

You can increase damage on the skill by getting a higher damage weapon, or a weapon with added elemental damage, and gear with the same stat.

It is no longer 100% chance to hit, so some accuracy is helpful. You can buff the damage of the skill with weapon elemental damage passives, elemental damage passives, lightning weapon damage passive, as well as physical damage increases if your weapon has high physical damage, as well as projectile damage increases to a degree.

Usually its the most powerful with multiple ele damage auras going, and an extremely fast weapon with lots of ele damage gear.

On my Mara (early Act1 Ruthless) I have a 4redslot chest with my Lightning Strike and Item Quantity, Life on Hit, and Inc. Ele Damage support gems. Any normal enemies in Cruel die in 1-2 hits (either the initial or the lightning); in Ruthless it hasn't yet taken more than 3 and that's rare. For rare/boss packs it's the same, I just run around wailing on whatever I can reach until all the normals are dead, then heavystrikespam the boss. I like it.

Piercing is good with it too, and try to get a quality lightning strike for innate piercing on the projectiles so you get piercing everywhereeeeeeeee

Thanks for the replies! I am actually using this char to get the rare gems that I need for more enhanced builds.

GG

It's not a spell, it is an attack. A spell cannot miss, an attack can, you'll notice the melee strike can miss and assuming the melee strike misses, the projectiles can miss as well. If it were a spell, the projectiles couldn't miss (assuming they hit the target).

I'm using Lightning Strike with weapon elemental dmg / lesser multiple / faster attacks / critical multiplier and if you can get a 6L i recommend pierce so you should be able to get almost 100% chance to pierce with a 20%quality LS gem. for the lower level play i suggest in case of a 4 linked item LS / weapon elemental / increased physical melee dmg / added fire damage.

watch out for elemental reflect auras in later difficulties. sometimes it's suicide when you hit with lesser on a group of reflect mobs. :)

I am tryig to build a pure phy dagger witch, I hope reflect ele auras won't be an issue. Currently I have difficulties with the right sockets and the respectful colors ... I am using alc and chaos orbs to craft my items - so far so good :)