Hand of Justice is a runic word found on weapons. Like some runic words, Hand of Justice has a very specific construction mind: Paladins who want to make use of the Level 16 Holy Fire Aura on it.
Requirements:
Any weapon with 4 sockets
Runes (in order): South + Cham + Amn + Lo
The statistics:
Required level: 67
100% chance to cast level 36 Blaze when you level up
100% chance to cast Level 48 Meteor when killed
Level 16 Holy Fire Aura when equipped
+ 33% increased attack speed
+ 280-330% Enhanced Damage
Ignore target defense
7% of life stolen per hit
-20% resistance to enemy fire
20% death blow
Hitting target target blinds
Freeze the target +3
100% chance to cast level 36 Blaze when you level up
100% chance to cast Level 48 Meteor when killed
Blaze and Meteor are fire skills from the sorceress’s fire spell skill tree. While both are very useful skills, the conditional set of mods means you won’t see them very often. For Blaze, since you can only equip Hand of Justice at level 67, and each successive level takes progressively longer to reach, you will probably see it 32 times if you (1) have it turned on at all levels and (2) actually reach the level. 99, which can take forever + 1 year. As for the activation of meteorites, most Diablo 2 players are not very interested in dying.
These mods, especially the last one, would suggest that it would be more useful on a mercenary, who tends to die often anyway … however, most players wouldn’t want to waste such an expensive runic word on a mercenary.
Level 16 Holy Fire Aura when equipped
This is Hand of Justice’s strongest selling point.
Holy Fire is a skill in the paladin’s offensive aura skill tree. Deals fire damage to anyone who steps within the radius of the Aura, and also adds a healthy amount of fire damage to your character’s attack.
Constructions attempting to make full use of Holy Fire, would choose the Hand of Justice Runaword (Level 16 Holy Fire Aura) on their weapons, they would use the Dragon Runed Sword (Level 14 Holy Fire Aura) on their armor body and they would use Dragon Scales, an exclusive shield only for paladins (+ 15% to the damage of the fire skill). In this case, Hand of Justice and Dragon’s Holy Fire levels stack, giving a total of Level 30 Holy Fire plus + 15% Dragonscale damage.