[Hunting] Scatter Shots

[ASYLUM101]

Just a quick question to make sure - Scatter Shot is actually a "spell" that is cast each you hit, right? It doesn't transfer any effects like poison, confuse, burn and elemental damage? It only can be buffed by +%piercing damage,am I correct?

That's right. +% piercing, strength and dexterity I believe.

[Kir4]

+% piercing only. Neither strenght nor dex influence any flat damage on spells.

[Violos]

Yes.
While I use the term "spell" only to differentiate from weapon attacks. Correctly, there are skills that include the weapon and all additions, and those which only inflict their own effects.

Scatter shot is one of the latter. It adds pierce damage, and creates projectiles on impact. By default, those carry the effects that come with their skill only.
The skill itself is added to Marksmanship, which includes the arrow. (I'm still figuring out how that dependency works.)



BTT:

It would be possible to make the projectiles carry weapon damage and effects. That way, we would even have strength/dex scaling.

But without a way to limit their damage consistently, that would be way too powerful. It would require -like many cases- some kind of total damage multiplier that is independent from anything else.... and so far I haven't found one.

All I can do is include additive % modifiers. That worked decently with traps, because their possible boni are limited, and they don't get stat boosts. But on a player, even -90% damage has only a small effect in the face of the +2XX% he can accumulate later on.

On the other hand, players who don't know how easily this is counteracted will get a heart attack.