On hit, it has a 100% chance to do Recursive Stab, which then has a 50% to cast itself again. But it's only 3. By the time you actually get a Bushdagger, almost every enemy has at least a few .
What it really should do is grant the player a until next hit piercing damage buff, and recursively act the same etc. so that the recursiveness isn't neutered by a 3/- enemy.
A similar issue exists with Arcane Capacitor (although the capacitor's situation is somewhat mitigated by the fact that it deals multiple different types of damage and re-exasperated by the fact that each individual hit can be as little as one point apiece if the character has low Magic Power [relatively likely for Warlocks as they are melee characters and thus more likely to be wearing heavy armor than other wizards], as opposed to the Recursive Stab's 3 points apiece) What might be optimal is if each iteration were combined into a single hit.
That would take a lot of time to code, seeing as it would require many, many sub-spells for one ability even when compared to how many sub-spells it already uses (which is quite a lot). But if you know someone who would be willing to waste time doing that, I'm for that change.
Yeah, keep on saying that Essence. But I know it is not a bug but rather a feature. I created a skill tree that has more code than the entirety of the "spellDB.xml" file in the base game, and I wouldn't want to try making the change Bohandas proposed, that is how much code it would take to make it work properly unless we went for very inelegant solutions.
No, seriously. That thing does such huge amounts of single-point damage packets on turns 4 and 5 that the fact that 1-2 points of resistance can negate significant percentages of that damage is a balancing point. If it dealt single hits, it would have to be toned down significantly.
I know, Essence. And I know changing it would be a pain even if it is possible to make changes account for the decrease in effectiveness of resistances.
I know you get it, Kazeto. I was explaining for the benefit of anyone who thought I was just shrugging Bohandas off.
Oh, sorry. I probably should just get some sleep since I obviously am having problems with understanding some things, then.